The 2013 session was clearly not a productive one, not with only 56 bills becoming law. But of those measures signed by President Barack Obama, only 16 were introduced by Democrats. The other 40 pieces of enacted legislation were sponsored by Republican lawmakers.   read more

Obama promised to move metadata out of government hands and into private ones. No specifics were provided, except that Obama called on the Department of Justice to work with the NSA and devise a plan within 60 days. The NSA will still be able to access the phone records, even after their move. But, going forward, any search of the metadata will require approval by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)—unless ”a true emergency” requires the NSA to act first without a judicial okay.   read more

Environmentalists, who have been particularly nervous over the closed-door negotiations, had their fears confirmed by WikiLeaks, which obtained draft documents from TPP meetings. The leaked materials indicate the U.S. has demanded stronger environmental rules, including calls for sanctions against participating countries that pollute. But those positions are opposed by most or all of the other Pacific Rim nations working on the deal.   read more

The list of health problems caused by smoking now includes diabetes, colorectal and liver cancers, erectile dysfunction, ectopic pregnancies (those occurring outside the womb), vision loss, tuberculosis, rheumatoid arthritis, impaired immune function and cleft palates. The report concludes that “The tobacco epidemic was initiated and has been sustained by the aggressive strategies of the tobacco industry, which has deliberately misled the public on the risks of smoking cigarettes.”   read more

The State Department was criticized for not improving security at its diplomatic mission despite warnings of growing violence in the city. The CIA was faulted for not sharing information about the existence of its outpost with the U.S. military. Both offices were admonished for not working out of the same building, which often is the case at U.S. diplomatic missions in other countries.   read more

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lost a major legal battle this week when Verizon successfully challenged portions of the government’s net neutrality rules aimed at forcing Internet providers like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner to allow access to all web sites at an equal speed. The ruling means ISPs can cut deals with large companies like Netflix or Amazon to offer “express lanes” on the Internet to stream video.   read more

Each corrective ad will be prefaced by a statement that a federal court concluded that the companies “deliberately deceived the American public.” The statements will also say that smoking kills more people than homicides, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes and alcohol combined, that “secondhand smoke kills over 38,000 Americans a year,” that the industry “intentionally designed cigarettes to make them more addictive,” and that nicotine “changes the brain,” making it harder to quit.   read more

The anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List wanted to put up a billboard criticizing Democratic U.S. Representative Steven Driehaus for supporting the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare). They wanted to “shame” Driehaus for his decision, contending that a vote for Obamacare amounted to a vote for taxpayer-funded abortions. However, the ACA states abortions must be paid for through non-ACA accounts. In addition, previously passed federal law prohibits taxpayer money from funding abortions.   read more

Ma’Lik Richmond, one of two teens convicted in the August 2012 rape of a 16-year-old girl in Steubenville, Ohio, was released last week after 10 months of incarceration. Deric Lostutter, 26, is the computer hacker who blew the lid off the cover-up by focusing the attention of the online collective known as “Anonymous” on the rape case. He now faces up to ten years in prison for his role in obtaining tweets and social media posts that exposed details of the rape   read more

Area residents reported a foul, licorice-like odor in the air, which DEP and firefighters traced to a 35,000-gallon storage tank along the Elk River that had overflowed its containment area and migrated over land and through the soil into the river. The chemical that leaked, 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (sometimes called “Sextol”), is used by the coal industry to wash coal of impurities.   read more

Of 534 current members of Congress, at least 268 were millionaires, according the Center for Responsive Politics’ review of financial disclosure reports filed last year. The center also found that Democrats overall were a little wealthier than Republicans in Congress, $1.04 million versus $1 million. Both groups saw their collective net worth go up, from $990,000 for Democrats and $907,000 for Republicans in the previous year.   read more

“Despite being a member of Congress possessing security clearance, I've learned far more about government spying on me and my fellow citizens from reading media reports than I have from ‘intelligence’ briefings,” Grayson wrote in The Guardian. Grayson says that when he has asked for classified information and meetings with the NSA, the House intelligence committee has refused to provide either.   read more

Gallup says 42% of Americans identified as political independents in 2013. That’s the highest rate since the longtime survey company switched to phone interviews in 1989. The GOP’s popularity declined last year, with only 25% of respondents claiming to be Republican. Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones wrote that the last time the party’s ID was lower was 1983, when it dipped to 24% amid President Ronald Reagan’s struggle to bring the country out of recession.   read more

Funding includes $8.4 billion allocated to Project Bioshield, created in 2004, which purchases vaccines for use following an attack involving smallpox, anthrax, and other weaponized pathogens. Meanwhile, critical resources are being diverted away from public health initiatives designed to protect Americans against natural outbreaks of serious viruses. The result has been failures to fully respond to life-threatening pandemics, such as the 2009 swine flu.   read more

Sanders asked Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, whether it “has spied, or is…currently spying, on members of Congress or other American elected officials.” It would seem that if the NSA had never snooped on Capitol Hill, the agency would have simply assured Sanders that no such surveillance ever had, or is, taking place.   read more

While Medicare offered a single, uniform plan based on the sole eligibility criterion of age, the Obamacare exchanges feature thousands of insurance company plans (each with its own premiums, co-pays, etc.) and a system of premium subsidies based on verifying income, family size and immigration status. As result, Himmelstein and Woolhandler contend, Obamacare overhead costs are expected to run closer to the 13% average of private insurers than to the 2% average achieved by Medicare.   read more