U.S. Special Operations Command has asked for money to support troops’ physical health--via exercise and dietary advice--to help those suffering from depression and suicidal tendencies. But members of Congress argue the funding request of $23 million should go toward more mental health programs to help Special Ops warriors, like Navy SEALs and Army Rangers, who are killing themselves at a rate that exceeds that of those in the regular armed forces.   read more

Senator Harry Reid has crusaded lately against the Koch brothers, claiming their right-wing priorities represent a threat to ordinary Americans. The amendment proposal would reverse the Citizens United and McCutcheon rulings that erased limits on corporate contributions. “The Court has repeatedly used the First Amendment – not to protect the voices of all Americans, but as an instrument to amplify the voices of billionaires and corporations,” said Senator Patrick Leahy.   read more

Those who should use Truvada, according to the CDC, include homosexual males who have unprotected sex; heterosexuals with high-risk partners, and anyone who regularly has sex with an HIV-positive person. “This is wonderful,” said Damon Jacobs, who is HIV negative and has been on Truvada for three years. “When an institution like the CDC makes a statement, it makes a profound difference to the doctors who are ambivalent.”   read more

Legalized marijuana has a lot of people in the marketing world conceiving of ways to make a buck off a fast-growing industry. There are companies offering machinery that can transition the growing of marijuana plants into a mechanized state of mass production. Big corporations know the importance of branding, and some businesses may soon set up pot subsidiaries. “I wouldn’t doubt in five years we’re going to see a Super Bowl commercial...featuring marijuana,” said Greg Wagner.   read more

Coburn has for the second time blocked a bill that would have provided federal funding for bulletproof vests for local police officers. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) had put forward a proposal to reauthorize the Bulletproof Vest Grant Partnership Program. Since 1999, the program has provided more than 1.1 million vests at a cost of $375 million. Coburn’s problem with the legislation is that he doesn’t believe the federal government should fund local police.   read more

The political action committee for the Georgia-based company since 1979 has contributed 99% of its political checks to Republicans, according to David Willis at The New York Times. That’s a higher percentage than Koch Industries (88%) or Halliburton (90%). The second most Republican company is Illinois Tool Works (ITW), a century-old Fortune 200 manufacturing company.   read more

The first three months of 2014 were banner ones for lobbyists representing drug manufacturers, chemical companies and other big-business interests. These industries significantly ramped up their spending on lobbying in Washington, DC. The biggest of the big spenders was Dow Chemical, which poured $5.15 million into its influence-seeking strategies. That total “is far and away the most the company has spent in a quarter over the past five years,” OpenSecrets.org reported.   read more

Many of the nation’s leading think tanks, both on the right and the left, have been reluctant to disclose their major donors, raising questions about whether their research is being swayed by special interests. Transparify, a small nonprofit, examined many of the top think tanks to see which ones reveal the names of their key contributors. "If you are concealing the sources of funding that is relevant, as people don’t know how your research may be motivated,” said Hans Gutbrod.   read more

In return for CWE’s and other oil industry contributions, the NRA threw its support behind a controversial Republican bill, the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act. The legislation was intended to expand natural resource extraction (oil, gas, logging and mining) on protected federal lands. The CAP report says more than 200 wildlife managers and scientists opposed the bill, as did representatives from eight sportsmen’s groups in Colorado.   read more

The predicted $470 million shortfall will have to be made up by taking money from conservation, recreation and other programs. The report said that in the past 30 years, the fire seasons have increased from 60 to 80 days annually and the areas burned have more than doubled to more than 7 million acres each year. Firefighting has also gotten more expensive because there are more people living closer to forests.   read more

BioWatch is a national system that is supposed to guard against an attack with biological agents. The Generation 3 version was supposed to operate autonomously, save money and guard against a large-scale outdoor biological attack. But in 2013, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revised its thinking on such attacks, saying they were more likely to be on a smaller, yet still deadly, scale.   read more

Nearly 60% of the campaign ads aired this year by independent expenditure groups have been funded by secret donors, according to an independent analysis of campaign spending. Of group-sponsored commercials related to Senate races, 59% were paid for with “dark money”—the term used for funds spent by groups that aren’t required to disclose the identities of their contributors. The rate was nearly the same for ads for House races: 57%.   read more

the large majority of campaign contributions (64%) over the past year were provided by 0.16% of all American adults (or 1 out of 600). This conclusion was based on campaign checks of $200 or more given to federal candidates, PACs, and party committees. When the contribution level of $2,600 or more was used instead of $200 (the federal limit for each individual per election is $2,600), the overall adult percentage financing races got even tinier: .02%--one out of 5,000 adult Americans.   read more

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) says that of the $4 billion allotted by the State Department from 2002 to 2013, 69.3% went to DynCorp. In terms of actual dollars, DynCorp took in $2.8 billion. Giving so much to one company might not have been a good idea, given DynCorp’s record. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) notes the contractor’s “colorful history” includes instances of labor smuggling, overpayments, and botched construction.   read more

The class action lawsuit filed by the city targets the New York and Chicago stock exchanges, NASDAQ and many of the most powerful banks and investment firms in the country: Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, and Charles Schwab, among others. The alleged fraud involving sophisticated high-frequency trading (HFT) firms resulted in the diversion of “billions of dollars annually from buyers and sellers of securities to themselves.”   read more

College students with private loans whose co-signer, often a parent or grandparent, dies or declares bankruptcy are often being forced to repay the entire remaining balance immediately. Individuals caught in this situation include those in good standing who have kept up on their loan repayments, leaving federal regulators puzzled about why lenders are putting these people at risk of defaulting.   read more