Top Stories
Obama Justice Dept. Won’t Charge Anyone over CIA Interrogation Deaths
Rahman died in November 2002 inside a freezing cell at a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan, while al-Jamadi died while in CIA custody in November 2003 at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. A military autopsy concluded that Al-Jamadi’s death was a homicide that followed an interrogation conducted by CIA officer Mark Swanner. read more
CIA Agents Shot in Mexico
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has suggested that 12 police officers arrested for alleged involvement in the shooting might have ties to criminal organizations.
The CIA agents have been flown back to the United States, leading some Mexican politicians to questions whether they will cooperate with the official investigation into the incident.
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Federal Judges Reject Texas Redistricting as Anti-Minority
Following the 2010 census, Texas received four additional congressional districts as a result of the state’s population growing by more than four million people.
Latinos accounted for 65% of the increase, blacks 13.4% and Asian-Americans 10.1%. Latino make up 38% of Texas’ population, but only 25% of registered voters.
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FDA Allows Manufacturers to Self-Regulate Safety of New Ingredients
Instead of government scientists testing new flavorings or preservatives, manufacturers’ own labs or those they contract with perform the assessments. This system has resulted in “the vast majority of new ingredients added to U.S. food” over the last 15 years never receiving a safety determination from the government,” according to the Chicago Tribune. read more
Obama Steps Up Foreign Weapons Sales, Overwhelming Other Arms Makers
The $66.3 billion in 2011 represented more than 77% of all international arms sales, which totaled $85.3 billion. Russia was the second leading dealer in military goods, selling only $4.8 billion.
The enormous U.S. haul was driven largely by deals with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.
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Immigrants Twice as Likely to Start Small Businesses as Native-Born
Last year, immigrant entrepreneurs founded 28% of all new U.S. businesses, even though immigrants only make up 12.9% of the population.
The study also found that new business growth among immigrants increased by more than 50% between 1996 and 2011. In contrast, the business-formation rate for the native-born declined by 10% during the same period.
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Average U.S. Household Has Lost 5% in Annual Income Since Economic “Recovery” Began
Real median household income has actually fallen by 4.8% since the recession’s end. Even more surprisingly, they found that the decline since June 2009 was larger than the 2.6 percent decline that occurred during the recession. Adding them together, Green and Coder conclude that average household income has fallen 7.2% since December 2007.
According to Green, “almost every group is worse off now than it was three years ago. read more
260 Homeland Security Employees Convicted of Crimes in 2011
Three hundred and eighteen workers at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were arrested and 260 convicted of various crimes in 2011. The charges ranged from smuggling drugs to obtaining child pornography to committing bribery and threats with a deadly weapon.
According to a report by the inspector general of DHS, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had the largest percentage of DHS workers who broke the law.
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Justice Dept. Opens Civil Rights Unit in Alabama for First Time
The 1963 Ku Klux Klan bombing of a black Baptist church that killed four children in Birmingham wasn’t enough to motivate the U.S. Department of Justice to opening a civil rights unit in Alabama. Nor was the ugly police violence that accompanied the famed 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.
But the strict anti-immigration law now haunting Hispanics was apparently the reason for the Justice Department establishing its first-ever civil rights unit in the Crimson Tide state.
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Obama Afghanistan Deaths Top Those of Bush
Of the second 1,000 who have died, 75% were Caucasian, 90% were enlisted personnel, and half were killed in either Kandahar or Helmand provinces, where the U.S. focused much of the surge in an effort to cripple the Taliban and other forces. Their average age was 26, according to The New York Times. read more
FBI Agrees to Share Facial Recognition Searches with All Police Departments
Police departments across the United States will soon have access to facial recognition software developed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Under the expanding pilot project, the FBI will provide its Universal Face Workstation to police for free. The program will allow local law enforcement to compare photos of suspects against a repository of nearly 13 million criminal mug shots. read more
Republican Voter ID Strategy May Backfire as Many Seniors Find Voting Harder
Although Republican State House Majority Leader Mike Turzai had boasted that the voter ID law “would allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania,” if large numbers of elderly voters are turned away because they lack ID, it could damage any Republican advantage to win the state. read more
Arizona and Nebraska Governors Deny Driver Licenses to Young Immigrants with Work Permits
The political battle between Republican governors and President Barack Obama over amnesty for illegal immigrants continued late last week when two states blocked hundreds of thousands of young people from gaining drivers licenses and other publi... read more
More than 3 Million Violent Crimes in U.S. go Unreported Every Year
A new report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) paints a picture of the more than three million violent crimes that go unreported in the United States every year. Based on survey responses for the years 2006 to 2010, the BJS report esti... read more
Good News and Bad News for Wind Energy Industry
The wind energy industry is having a banner year. So why are executives of wind-generated energy fretting so much? Because, they say, the industry’s success may get cut short by politicians in Washington.
This year, energy produced from wind... read more
10 Most Profitable U.S. Companies Paid 9% in Federal Income Taxes
The largest corporations in the U.S., consisting of oil, retail, banking and technology giants, paid an average of only 9% of their earnings in income taxes to the Internal Revenue Service last year.
According to the tax code, companies are ... read more