Traders are accused of using electronic chat rooms and instant messaging to drive up the price that secondary customers pay for Treasury bonds, then conspiring to drop the price banks pay the government for the bonds, increasing the spread, or profit, for the banks. This also ends up costing taxpayers more to borrow money.   read more

Home health care workers had been exempt from such protections since 1974, when it was found that they mostly provide “companionship” and as such were exempted from wage and hour laws. President Barack Obama’s Labor Department proposed to change this in 2013, but was blocked by a trial-court judge who ruled the department didn’t have the authority to make the change.   read more

The Securities and Exchange Commission went after Citigroup for making false and misleading claims about the funds and fined the corporation $180 million, or about 6% of the amount Citigroup flushed down the financial toilet via those funds. “Advisers at these Citigroup affiliates were supposed to be looking out for investors’ best interests, but falsely assured them they were making safe investments even when the funds were on the brink of disaster,” said SEC's Andrew Ceresney.   read more

Attorney James Montgomery from Chicago calls police brutality litigation a “cottage industry” where brutality claims and lawsuits are generating a billion dollars in settlements. Cities running the 10 largest police departments have paid $1.2 billion between 2010 and 2014 to plaintiffs, according to Montgomery. “In this country, that's $300 million in legal fees. So it's a great avenue to make money. And the police are feeding you new cases every day,” he told the Journal.   read more

Physicians have long prescribed drugs for “off-label” uses, but drug companies have been forbidden to market their products for those purposes. The case hinged on a 2012 New York City federal appeals court decision that found a pharmaceutical sales rep had not violated FDA rules in promoting off-label use for a narcolepsy drug, Xyrem.   read more

The Lead Inspector General for Overseas Contingency Operations’ reports are so lacking in content that Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies compares the group to Monty Python’s “Ministry of Silly Walks.” He added that the Lead IG report “reads more like a public relations exercise than anything else. It also follows a pattern within the Executive Branch of steadily reducing reporting that has any negative content…”   read more

Tamosaitis was one of the group developing a technique for turning toxic and radioactive sludge into glass, which theoretically could be buried for thousands of years. However, Tamosaitis began to believe that the process was flawed and would result in a buildup of hydrogen gas and clumps of plutonium which could start a nuclear reaction.   read more

Georgia’s DeKalb County, near Atlanta, is struggling with its reputation after a top official was convicted of corruption and a special investigation found numerous misappropriations of taxpayer money. Interim CEO Lee May hired two independent investigators to audit the county government. The investigators, Richard L. Hyde and Michael J. Bowers, concluded DeKalb’s government was “rotten to the core.”   read more

Demand for paper products has dropped by about 5% annually over the past five years and to keep it from losing more revenues, the industry is trying to maintain a paper status quo with federal agencies. So far it has not been very successful. The paper lobby, under the name Consumers for Paper Options, tried to keep the Social Security Administration from dumping paper earnings statements to 150 million Americans in favor of electronic files, which save $72 million a year.   read more

GE led the way with 60% of the market, followed by Siemens (26%) and Vestas (12%). Vestas leads the international market, followed by Siemens, GE, and Goldwind. There are several Chinese companies among the market leaders, but they primarily sell their products in their home country. The good times for wind may not last much longer, however. A federal subsidy for wind investment is scheduled to expire in 2017, and that may curb growth in this sector.   read more

A new report (pdf) from the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) says that more than 10,800 domestic violence victims could not be helped last year out of more than 78,500 victims overall who contacted programs. NNEDV said 28% of the programs were unable to provide the necessary resources because of cuts in government funding. Another 18% blamed cuts from private funding sources, and 14% reported reductions in individual donations as the cause.   read more

Defense contractors are upset that the Pentagon’s budget was only $496 billion in fiscal year 2015, down from $528.2 billion in 2011. The Center for Public Integrity reported that “an army of more than 400 lobbyists” invaded Capitol Hill to urge increased spending on military hardware. It also said total lobbying expenditures by the 53 top defense contractors was up to $58.5 million during the second quarter of this year, compared to $45.7 million during the same period in 2014.   read more

In New York state, more than 40 lawmakers were found to have collectively spent $7 million of their campaign funds on lawyers hired to deal with scandals or investigations since 2005. Former N.Y. Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver spent $1.5 million in campaign funds to pay for lawyers in his corruption case. “Campaign funds should not be used to keep someone out of jail,” said Lauren George of Common Cause. “And most donors didn’t have that in mind when they contributed.”   read more

The Marine Corps can’t account for $800 million in transactions after proclaiming last year that its books were balanced, something the Marines and other branches of the military have struggled to accomplish. The Defense Department is facing a deadline of 2017 to show Congress that all of its books are up to date and accurate. The Pentagon was originally supposed to have its accounting squared away by 1997, but the deadline has been pushed back several times   read more

The New York Times called this “concentration of political donors” “unprecedented in the modern era.” Most of the $388 million in contributions has funneled into super PACs, some of which have collected tens of millions of dollars from a small number of donors in just a matter of days. Republicans have been especially good at this. “Just 130 or so families and their businesses provided more than half the money raised through June by Republican candidates and their super PACs,” wrote the Times.   read more

The federal government sucked a total of $150 million out of seniors’ checks in 2013 to satisfy student loan debt, according to the Government Accountability Office, which also made it clear that 82% of senior still owe money for their own student loans rather than those of their children or other dependents.   read more