Burman worked for four years in private practice as an attorney handling natural resource issues before going to work in 2002 as legislative counsel for energy and water for then-Sen. Jon Kyl. At both jobs, she dealt extensively with Native American water rights issues. In 2005, Burman joined the Dept of the Interior as counselor to the assistant secretary for water and science. She then began her first stint at USBR as deputy commissioner for external and intergovernmental affairs.   read more

During the first six years of the administration of President George W. Bush, the 400 richest Americans saw their average income double to $263.3 million, thanks, in part,  to the fact that their tax rate dropped by a third to 17.2%. The biggest g...   read more

Back in 1996, President Bill Clinton signed an historic welfare reform bill that was meant to limit the length of time a person could receive welfare payments and to encourage people to get jobs instead of relying on government handouts. The bill ...   read more

Most Americans appear to want to forget about the War in Iraq, as more immediate concerns, such as the failing economy, take precedent. Even in terms of national security, the situations in Afghanistan and Pakistan seem more relevant. So it was a ...   read more

Just days before President George W. Bush left office, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued new guidelines that make it easier for drug manufacturers to market what are known as “off-label” prescription drugs. The FDA, after clinical tria...   read more

In 2005, Tommy Ray, a special agent in Polk County, Florida, made decks of playing cards with information about local unsolved crimes. He passed out the decks in the Polk County jail, hoping that prisoners would gossip and reveal clues to these co...   read more

On September 18, 1679, the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle sent a crew of six to sail his ship, Le Griffon, from Washington Island in Lake Michigan to Niagara with a load of furs and other goods. Although its fate is still ...   read more

The day after it was unveiled, the Iraqi sculpture in honor of the man who threw his shoes at President Bush, has been taken down on the order of the provincial government. The shoe had been erected at an orphanage in Tikrit. The artist, Laith al-...   read more

The year 2008 may have been a bad one for most Americans, with layoffs and foreclosures and bank failures rippling through the economy, but for Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, there was reason for joy. Exxon posted an...   read more

Norway’s state-owned investment fund, which is worth about $300 billion and invests the nation’s surplus oil and gas revenues, announced that it is selling all of its shares in the American company, Textron, for ethical reasons. Although Textron i...   read more

It seemed like a good idea at the time: install 200 live webcams along Texas’ border with Mexico in order to stop drug smuggling and illegal immigration. Citizens, watching at home, could report any suspicious activity. Texas Governor Rick Perry a...   read more

Linda Chavez presents a simple, but radical alternative to the $819 billion Democratic stimulus package: give every man, woman and child $3,000 in credit that has to be spent within 18 months. This would cost $900 billion, “But unlike the Democrat...   read more

A sculpture of an enormous shoe has been erected in Iraq to honor the journalist who threw his shoes at ex-U.S. President George W. Bush. As he prepared to throw his shoes, Muntadar al-Zeidi, a TV journalist, shouted: “This is from the widows, the...   read more

We are so accustomed to thinking of amendments to spending bills as examples of waste and corruption, that it’s easy to forget that some rejected amendments are worth considering or are, at the very least, of interest. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Califo...   read more

65 Republicans and 3 Democrats Voted to Bailout Wall Street, But Not the Rest of America   It seems ideologically consistent for a member of the House of Representatives to vote against the $700 billion Wall Street bailout and against the $819 b...   read more

Even at six-figures, some of the members in President Obama’s Cabinet are taking a pay cut when accepting their new jobs. Tuesday, the government released financial reports presenting the assets and salaries of the new appointees, some of whom mad...   read more

Among the many overlooked corners of the U.S. government is the Popcorn Board. Created by a 1996 law and supervised by the Agricultural Marketing Service, the board consists of nine popcorn processors who each process at least 4 million pounds of ...   read more