Top Stories
Mississippi to Vote Tuesday on Calling Fertilized Eggs Humans
Pro and con sides of the abortion debate will be watching Mississippi closely on Tuesday to see if a controversial and far-reaching initiative will be adopted by voters.
The constitutional amendment would make Mississippi the first state to de... read more
Disgust with Big Banks Turns into Boon for Credit Unions
That $5-a-month debit card fee was a great idea by Bank of America…for credit unions.
From the date BofA announced the controversial idea until this week, credit unions across the U.S. gained 650,000 new customers. To put this number in perspe... read more
GSK Breaks Record with $3 Billion Penalty for Illegal Drug Marketing
A pharmaceutical giant has broken yet another record for legal settlements stemming from claims of illegally marketing drugs and defrauding federal healthcare programs.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) said this week that it would pay $3 billion to resol... read more
10 Most Popular Unanswered Petitions to the White House
Since creating the We the People website in September, the White House has posted more than 130 petitions from Americans urging changes in government policy. Initially, officials promised to respond to petitions that received more than 5,000 signa... read more
30 Major Companies Paid No Federal Taxes Last 3 Years
According to the U.S. tax code, corporations pay a 35% tax rate on their earnings. But at least 30 of them paid zero federal income over the last three years, while hundreds of other companies paid half the official corporate rate.
The finding... read more
Why is U.S. Using X-Ray Security Scanners Europe Rejects as Unsafe?
In the late 1990s, experts insisted it was highly unlikely the U.S. would rely on new x-ray body scanners at airports and other security checkpoints. But the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, reversed that thinking and today there are hundr... read more
U.S. Halts Payments to UNESCO over Palestine Vote
Following on its warning from last week, the United States has withdrawn its funding from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) after it voted to admit Palestine as a member.
The U.S., which is responsib... read more
Less than One Quarter of One Percent of Layoffs Due to Government Regulation
Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates insist government regulations are holding the economy back and therefore must be reduced in number. But the latest government figures don’t bear this out.
During first half of this year, of more... read more
10 Most Popular AllGov Stories—October 2011
Three of October’s top ten AllGov stories dealt with defense contracting abuses, and three more with controversial laws passed in Southern states.
1. Homeland Security Testing “Pre-Crime” Detection Technology
2. Wartime Contracting Panel Se... read more
Obama Justice Dept. Battles against Freedom of Information Act
The Obama administration wants to make it tougher for Americans to obtain government records by offering agencies more opportunities to deny Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
The Department of Justice has proposed 15 rule changes to ... read more
Civil Liberties Groups Add to Lawsuits against Justice Dept. over Secret FBI Patriot Act Power
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union have filed suit against the Department of Justice in order to learn more about a controversial interpretation of a section of the Patriot Act.
Both civil liberties group... read more
Judge Orders Release of Memo that Justifies Forced State and Local Participation in Obama Deportation Program
A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to release a memo justifying the Obama administration’s forcing state and local law enforcement to participate in the controversial program known as Secure Commu... read more
Rich Americans Lengthened Lead over Others…and That was before Recession
Affirming what other reports from academics have said, the past three decades witnessed the rich greatly expand their earnings and share of the nation’s income, while the middle-class and poor enjoyed far smaller gains.
The non-partisan Congre... read more
New Rule Would Allow Government to Say Existing Records Don’t Exist
The Obama administration wants to make it more difficult for the public to determine if secret documents exist by allowing agencies to lie about them.
Under a new rule crafted by the Department of Justice, the Freedom of Information Act would ... read more
Bank of America Dumps Trillions of Dollars of Risk onto Taxpayers
In an ominous sign for the economy, Bank of America, in an attempt to protect itself from its toxic assets, recently moved $75 trillion (with a “t”) in derivatives from its non-federally-protected Merrill Lynch securities unit to a subsidiary i... read more
147 Companies Control 40% of World’s Wealth
Protestors around the world who have been saying that 1% of the population controls far too much power will be gratified to learn that social scientists in Switzerland have compiled data that supports this contention.
A group of complex system... read more