While much criticism has been lobbed at the federal system for failing to adequately identify who is spending money to influence campaigns, 35 states have independent spending disclosure laws that are less stringent than federal election law.... Read more»
Amid withering accusations the Internal Revenue Service targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups with enhanced scrutiny, the agency faces another problem: it’s drowning in paperwork. Applications for nonprofit status had a banner year in 2012, while staffing was cut.... Read more»
There’s likely to be plenty of finger-pointing and grandstanding today as the House Homeland Security Committee does a post-mortem on law enforcement coordination before and after the Boston Marathon bombings. Post-9/11 reforms were supposed to help investigative agencies “connect the dots” in tracking terrorism leads and preventing attacks, and while most concede that progress has been made, new questions have emerged in light of contacts and database entries regarding bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.... Read more»
The West, Texas fertilizer plant that blew up on April 17, killing at least 15 people, appears to have been claiming an arcane exemption that allowed it to avoid targeted workplace inspections and safety requirements and enter a “streamlined prevention program” with environmental regulators.... Read more»
The Environmental Protection Agency announced new safeguards Friday to prevent conflicts of interest or bias from tainting its science, including efforts to assess the dangers of toxic chemicals.... Read more»
Since the United States first sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001, a signature goal of the war has been to increase the capability of Afghan national security forces. But estimates of the size of the Afghan force trained to take over this lead security role have suddenly grown fuzzy and possibly unreliable.... Read more»
The power of the gun lobby is rooted in multiple factors, among them the pure passion of many gun owners, the NRA’s ability to motivate its most fervent members to swarm their representatives, and the lobby’s ability to get out the vote. Lawmakers’ fear may not be justified, but recent votes reveal that it still exists.... Read more»
The Pentagon allowed a private firm providing food and water to U.S. troops in Afghanistan to overbill taxpayers $757 million and awarded the company no-bid contract extensions worth more than $4 billion over three years, according to the Pentagon’s chief internal watchdog and congressional investigators.... Read more»
As investigators unravel what caused a Texas fertilizer plant explosion last week that killed 14, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today that 4,693 workers died on the job in 2011, three more than in 2010.... Read more»
Like many, the Fertilizer Institute, a trade group, has extended its condolences to the people of West, Texas, where a blast at a fertilizer plant Wednesday evening killed at least a dozen and injured about 200. The Washington-based institute, however, has lobbied against legislation that would require high-risk chemical facilities – including some of its members – to consider using safer substances and processes to lower the risk of catastrophic accidents and make such facilities less inviting to terrorists.... Read more»
Murders by firearms have increased dramatically in the state of Florida since 2000, when there were 499 gun murders, according to data from Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Gun murders have since climbed 38 percent — with 691 murders committed with guns in 2011.... Read more»
Pentagon officials have been warning that budget cuts will provoke a “hollowing out” of warfighting capabilities in coming years, with tens of billions of dollars on the table under so-called “sequestration” cuts. Somehow, however, there is still enough money to pay for the construction of some new sun rooms for military housing used by senior officers in Stuttgart, Germany, a country the U.S. military has begun to flee.... Read more»
Pro-gun organization increases influence spending as congressional debate rages.... Read more»
As members of Congress raise questions, the Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general is auditing the U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s investigative process.... Read more»
The new immigration proposal now before the Senate could help thousands of American citizens whose families have been shattered or forced into exile because of deportation and tough immigration penalties Congress adopted in 1996.... Read more»
In the few days since the initial release of stories by the ICIJ and its media partners across the world, public officials have issued statements, governments have launched investigations, and politicians and journalists have been debating the implications of the records and the reporting.... Read more»1
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