SIGAR chief John Sopko has upset the U.S. military by reporting on million-dollar programs that failed to account for missing tax dollars. When informed of the Pentagon's anti-SIGAR campaign, he said: “It’s disappointing to see that funds appropriated by Congress are being used...to misrepresent the work of an independent inspector general. American(s)...would be better served if [they] spent less time writing misleading press releases and more time fixing the problems we’ve identified.”   read more

A record number of wrongly convicted people were set free last year in the United States, according to a new report by a group that tracks exonerations. The National Registry of Exonerations said 87 prisoners were exonerated in 2013, the highest ever totaled. About two-thirds of the 87 exonerations involved rape and/or murder convictions. Many of the overturned convictions were a result of false confessions coming to light or the discovery that no crime was actually committed.   read more

The rate that American women are having abortions has reached its lowest level since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized the procedure in the early 1970s. Fewer than 17 abortions for every 1,000 women were recorded in 2011, the most recent year for which figures are available, according a paper (pdf) published by the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. That rate was only slightly higher than the one in 1973, when abortion became legal in the U.S.   read more

More than 2,200 people have been killed by U.S. drones operating in Pakistan since 2006, according to a report obtained by the U.K.-based group The Bureau for Investigative Journalism. The document, compiled by the Pakistani government, lists the date and time of each strike, the number of people killed and injured in each attack and, in some cases, the names of the victims. The Bureau redacted many of the names to protect their identities.   read more

The EPA has agreed for the first time to regulate the disposal of coal ash, but only because environmentalists and others sued the agency to finally take action. It did not say what the new rules would contain. In 2008, a mammoth spill in Tennessee released more than a billion gallons of coal ash, damaging 300 acres of riverfront property. Following this disaster, the EPA drafted new regulations for coal ash but nothing more followed until they were taken to court.   read more

Suspicions of corruption in Afghanistan’s government have lingered for years since the U.S. invaded the country 13 years ago. But the latest report from a government watchdog characterizes the problem as being so bad that not a single Afghan agency can be trusted with American tax dollars. The report also accuses the U.S. State Department and USAID of not being open with Congress and the American people about the dire nature of U.S. financial aid to the war-torn country.   read more

Martin P. Schweitzer, a commander with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, was caught sending emails to other generals about U.S. Representative Renee Ellmers (R-North Carolina), in which he said she was “smoking hot” and jokingly talked about explicit sexual acts he wanted to perform with her. Schweitzer’s anticipated promotion to major general is now on hold pending a formal review.   read more

America’s labor force has shrunk in size to a level not seen since the Carter administration in the late 1970s. The percentage of Americans employed or seeking employment, 63.3%, is now the lowest since 1978 (63.2%), according to data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.   read more

Songwriter and activist Pete Seeger died on Monday at the age of 94. At the Obama Inaugural Concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial, 89-year-old Pete Seeger led the audience—including Barack Obama—in singing the Woody Guthrie song “This Land is Your Land,” and sang the original radical version rather than the nice, but watered-down one we learned in school.   read more

Contrary to Obama’s assertion that the Patriot Act (pdf) authorizes the program, the board concluded that the very same law makes it illegal to conduct such surveillance. The controversial program also has not helped protect the U.S., the board found. The board examined a dozen terrorism cases cited by intelligence agencies that involved information which was obtained using Section 215, and largely dismissed them as irrelevant.   read more

The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced (pdf) 8,763 allegations of sexual attacks were reported in 2011, “a statistically significant increase over the number of allegations reported in 2009 (7,855) and 2010 (8,404).” Nearly half (49%) of the 2011 allegations involved prison guards or staff. Furthermore, more than half (54%) of all reports involving guards or staff that were substantiated were committed by women.   read more

The report listed changes that included: • Expand online voter registration and early balloting • Increase the number of schools used as polling places • Locate polling places close to voters’ homes • Simplify voting for members of the military and other Americans living overseas via the Internet • Update electronic voting equipment • Share voter registration records across state lines to protect against fraud   read more

In Obsidian Finance Group v. Cox (pdf), the appellate justices overturned a lower court decision that found blogger Crystal Cox liable for her blog posts criticizing Obsidian Finance Group, a bankruptcy trustee. The panel wrote: “The protections of the First Amendment do not turn on whether the defendant was a trained journalist, formally affiliated with traditional news entities”   read more

In Harris v. Quinn, a group of homecare providers from Illinois resisting unionization are challenging existing law that allows public employee unions to force all workers at an agency to pay dues regardless of their union membership. The plaintiffs want the court to overrule a 1977 decision (Abood v. Detroit Board of Education) which established the shared financial responsibility for all public workers in a collective bargaining unit.   read more

The president claimed that prior to the attacks, Mihdhar made a phone call from San Diego to a known al-Qaeda safe-house in Yemen. But back then, the president insisted, the NSA couldn’t identify the origin of the call. Had the agency been able to do just that, it could have helped stop the attacks. But both the NSA and the Central Intelligence Agency knew Mihdhar was part of al-Qaeda, that he was in San Diego.   read more

The administration wanted the Pentagon to take over drone missions so that the CIA could refocus on intelligence gathering. President Barack Obama also felt that the change would lend more transparency to such missions by pulling them from the highly secretive intelligence agency. But lawmakers objected to the switch, fearing the Defense Department would have trouble duplicating the CIA success in killing terrorists while minimizing civilian casualties.   read more