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POGO Launches Inspector General Vacancy Tracker: "Where Are All the Watchdogs?"
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 10:41:04 AM
The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) launched a new web page today that tracks how long vacancies have been left open across the federal Inspector General (IG) system.
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NARAL Pro-Choice America Calls on Congress to Back Off Attacks on Insurance Coverage of Birth Control
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 10:38:51 AM
NARAL Pro-Choice America today launched a multifaceted nationwide mobilization campaign to galvanize public support for the Obama administration's policy ensuring insurance coverage of contraception for millions of Americans.
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FFRF challenges religious shrine in Flathead National Forest
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 10:36:47 AM
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a state/church watchdog and the nation's largest association of atheists and agnostics, has filed suit in U.S. District Court in Montana, challenging the Forest Service's decision to renew a special permit to maintain a Jesus shrine on federal property in the Rockies. The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a state/church watchdog and the nation's largest association of atheists and agnostics, has filed suit in U.S. District Court in Montana, challenging the Forest Service's decision to renew a special permit to maintain a Jesus shrine on federal property in the Rockies.
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400,000 people, 573 scientists and more than 60 members of Congress urge Obama to say no to Arctic drilling
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 9:49:48 AM
Hundreds of thousands of Americans, more than 60 members of Congress and 573 research scientists are among the groundswell of voices that has been building over recent months – speaking out to demand that the Obama administration make decisions based on science and not politics, and not allow drilling in America's Arctic Ocean when there's no viable method to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic's extreme conditions and limited information about the Arctic's fragile marine environment.
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Major Mainstream Religious Leaders Support White House on Contraceptive
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 9:48:16 AM
Today, twenty-three major mainstream religious leaders released a statement supporting the January 20, 2012 announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services that contraceptive services must be covered by most insurance policies without deductibles or co-pays, and that only purely sectarian organizations are exempt from this requirement.
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U.S. Teen Pregnancy Rate At Lowest Level in Nearly 40 Years
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 7:16:35 AM
Teen pregnancies have declined dramatically in the United States since their peak in the early 1990s, as have the births and abortions that result; in 2008, teen pregnancies reached their lowest level in nearly 40 years, according to "U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions, 2008: National Trends by Age, Race and Ethnicity," by Kathryn Kost and Stanley Henshaw of the Guttmacher Institute. In 2008, the teen pregnancy rate was 67.8 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15–19, which means that about 7% of U.S. teens became pregnant that year. This rate represents a 42% decline from the peak in 1990 (116.9 per 1,000). Similarly, the birthrate declined 35% between 1991 and 2008, from 61.8 to 40.2 births per 1,000 teens; the abortion rate declined 59% from its 1988 peak of 43.5 abortions per 1,000 teens to its 2008 level of 17.8 per 1,000.
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WildEarth Guardians Files Suit to End Trapping in Lobo Country
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 6:51:04 AM
WildEarth Guardians filed a lawsuit today against the State of New Mexico for killing and injuring wolves listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. The state permits trapping in the Mexican gray wolf recovery area, but the Act prohibits trapping of protected species. Yet, cruel, indiscriminate traps set in the Mexican gray wolf recovery area have harmed over a dozen wolves.
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New Evidence That Chevron Used U.S. Professors to Defraud Ecuador Court In $18 Billion Environmental Lawsuit
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 6:34:02 AM
Chevron is refusing to deny that it defrauded Ecuador's courts by altering a key document to induce U.S. academic "experts" -- including a prominent professor at Rice University in Houston -- to endorse fake testing methods to hide the presence of massive quantities of cancer-causing toxins at the company's former well sites in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest.
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Study: Homegrown Muslim-American terrorism minuscule threat to public safety
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 6:18:30 AM
A new study released today (Feb. 8) by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security documents that concerns of counterterrorism officials about a potential wave of homegrown violent extremism have not materialized over the past two years. The study, "Muslim-American Terrorism in the Decade Since 9/11," reports that 20 Muslim-Americans committed or were arrested for terrorist crimes in 2011, down from 26 in 2010 and 49 in 2009.
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Final EPA toxics rule will lead to modest short term job growth, new EPI study finds
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 6:16:23 AM
A new study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) finds that the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) finalized national standards on mercury, arsenic and other toxic air pollution from power plants will have a slightly positive impact on job growth, generating roughly 117,000 jobs by 2015. While the "toxics rule" would primarily benefit the economy through large improvements to health and quality-of-life, it has been opposed by those claiming it would hamper job growth; today's study finds that the claim that the rule will harm the job market is not true.
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Scott Walker and the Secret "John Doe" Investigation Explained (Updated)
Full story: Mother Jones
U.S. Planning to Slash Iraq Embassy Staff by Half
Full story: NY Times
In Afghan War, Officer Becomes a Whistle-Blower
Full story: NY Times
Capitol Assets: Some legislators send millions to groups connected to their relatives
Full story: Washington Post
FBI sees rising threat from 'sovereign citizen' movement
Full story: Yahoo
The making of gay marriage's top foe
Full story: Salon
Patent Troll Claims Ownership of Interactive Web - And Might Win
Full story: Wired
Fearful of Agenda 21, an alleged U.N. plot, activists derail land-use planning
Full story: High Country News
Majority of Catholics Think Employers Should Be Required to Provide Health Care Plans that Cover Birth Control at No Cost
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 1:37:23 PM
Amid the controversy over the Obama Administration's mandate that employers provide health insurance covering contraception and birth control at no cost to employees, a new national survey finds that nearly six-in-ten (58%) Catholic Americans generally support this requirement. A majority (55%) of all Americans also support the requirement.
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Lower dollar would reinvigorate manufacturing in the United States and create millions of jobs
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 11:19:05 AM
A new report released today by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) demonstrates that a reduction of the value of the dollar would not only correct the large trade deficit in the United States, but would also lead to a boom in the manufacturing sector, potentially creating millions of jobs.
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Federal Appeals Court Agrees: California's Proposition 8 Is Unconstitutional
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 10:28:32 AM
The Human Rights Campaign – the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization – today praised the historic decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirming the August 2010 conclusion of U.S. Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Perry v. Brown) that the amendment to the California Constitution barring marriage for same-sex couples, adopted in November 2008 as Proposition 8, violates the U.S. Constitution. In a 2-1 decision authored by Judge Reinhardt, the court agreed that Proposition 8's only purpose in denying gay and lesbian Californians the freedom to marry was anti-gay animus, something the Constitution does not permit.
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CDC: Nine in 10 U.S. adults get too much sodium every day
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 9:00:24 AM
Nearly all Americans consume much more sodium than they should, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of the sodium comes from common restaurant or grocery store items.
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A Rationale for Postal Cuts in Doubt
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 8:37:33 AM
At a time when the U.S. Postal Service is considering deep cuts in services and jobs, an internal watchdog told Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday that a big funding cushion already has been built into the mail service's retirement and health benefit funds. Billions of dollars owed to the funds have been cited by Postal Service managers as a main reason that it must cut 220,000 jobs and close 3,700 post offices and 252 mail processing plants - half of all the current sorting centers.
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Union of Concerned Scientists Gives Monsanto an 'F' in Sustainable Agriculture
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 8:25:14 AM
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) today published a new web feature documenting how agribusiness giant Monsanto Company is failing to deliver on its promise to make the U.S. agriculture system more sustainable.
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American Atheists: Catholic, Other Religious Groups Skew Truth Over New Contraception Coverage
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 8:05:04 AM
New regulations announced by Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius that require insurance coverage of birth control and other contraceptive services for employees of religious institutions are drawing a firestorm of opposition. American Atheists has pointed out that critics, including former Gov. Mitt Romney and the Catholic League, are playing fast and loose with the truth.
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We can't wait: Administration announces new steps to fight Alzheimer's disease
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 7:45:57 AM
The Obama Administration today announced new efforts to fight Alzheimer's disease, including immediately making an additional $50 million available for cutting-edge Alzheimer's research. In addition, the administration announced that its Fiscal Year 2013 budget will boost funding for Alzheimer's research by $80 million. Today's announcement also includes an additional $26 million in caregiver support, provider education, public awareness and improvements in data infrastructure.
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More environmental rules needed for shale gas, says Stanford geophysicist
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 7:34:33 AM
In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama praised the potential of the country's tremendous supply of natural gas buried in shale. He echoed the recommendations for safe extraction made by an advisory panel that included Stanford University geophysicist Mark Zoback. The panel made 20 recommendations for regulatory reform, some of which go well beyond what the president mentioned in his address.
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Consumer Reports: Mini-Meds and Other Junk Insurance Plans Still in Business as Consumers Wait for Health Reform to Kick In
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 6:49:15 AM
Brand name insurance companies are selling health coverage as skimpy as a hospital gown. The leading example of so called "junk health plans," cited in a new report in the March issue of Consumer Reports, are mini-meds, which the magazine describes as "legal but inadequate." Other misleading products include fixed benefit indemnity plans and medical discount cards.
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Federal Executive Order Requiring Contractors to Prohibit LGBT Discrimination Would Protect Millions of Workers
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 5:34:11 AM
A federal executive order that requires contractors to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity would protect up to 16.5 million more workers than are already protected by state or private anti-discrimination policies, according to a new study, The Impact of Extending Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Non-Discrimination Requirements to Federal Contractors, published by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
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Grand Canyon National Park to Eliminate Sale of Water in Disposable Containers
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 5:18:32 AM
Grand Canyon National Park will eliminate the in-park sale of water packaged in individual disposable containers within 30 days under a plan approved today by National Park Service (NPS) Intermountain Regional (IMR) Director John Wessels. Free water stations are available throughout the park to allow visitors to fill reusable water bottles.
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