We celebrate the alliance of the Internet with the awareness that for too many years people elected to publicly-funded positions have promoted policies that do not serve the public interest. We challenge those who believe they can continue to violate the public trust to stop and listen to the buzz of millions of people visiting websites, emailing each other, blogging and chatting online about what is going on behind closed doors. We promise to hold you responsible for your actions.
We call this process "e-accountability".
Government Lies, Corruption and Mismanagement | Posted 1/27/2012 at 5:44 PM
Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said, “Carlos Montoya was responsible for certifying that day care centers throughout the city complied with fire safety standards, but instead, he allegedly solicited bribes to look the other way, potentially compromising the safety of the children who attended these centers.”
Current Events | Posted 1/26/2012 at 11:12 AM
When does a broken heart become a diagnosis? In a bitter skirmish over the definition of depression, a new report contends that a proposed change to the diagnosis would characterize grieving as a disorder and greatly increase the number of people treated for it.
Government Lies, Corruption and Mismanagement | Posted 1/26/2012 at 11:06 AM
ONLY 21 states require students to attend high school until they graduate or turn 18. The proposal President Obama announced on Tuesday night in his State of the Union address — to make such attendance compulsory in every state — is a step in the right direction, but it would not go far enough to reduce a dropout rate that imposes a heavy cost on the entire economy, not just on those who fail to obtain a diploma.
Judicial Corruption | Posted 1/26/2012 at 12:06 AM
Montana’s Supreme Court has issued a stunning rebuke to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 that infamously decreed corporations had constitutional rights to directly spend money on ‘independent expenditures’ in campaigns. The Montana Court vigorously upheld the state’s right to regulate how corporations can raise and spend money after a secretive Colorado corporation, Western Tradition Partnership, and a Montana sportsman’s group and local businessman sued to overturn a 1912 state law banning direct corporate spending on electoral campaigns.
Stories and Grievances: Special Education | Posted 1/25/2012 at 6:58 PM
On January 24, the Civil Rights Division participated as amicus curiae in support of the student-appellant in K.M. v. Tustin Unified School District, No. 11-56259 (9th Cir.). The Civil Rights Division argues that the IDEA and the ADA have different statutory elements and purposes. Pursuant to regulations implementing Title II, a public entity must provide communication to a person with a disability that is equal to that afforded persons without a disability. In contrast, under the IDEA, a school district must develop and implement an individual education program that addresses a child with a disability’s unique needs and provides a meaningful education benefit.
Government Lies, Corruption and Mismanagement | Posted 1/24/2012 at 4:53 PM
Government Lies, Corruption and Mismanagement | Posted 1/24/2012 at 4:32 PM
Over the years a lot of suspicion has built up across the country about Washington and its population of opportunistic transients coming to see themselves as a special kind of person, somehow above average working Americans who don't labor down in that monument-strewn former swamp.....We now know that federal employees across the nation owe fully $1 billion in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.
Government Lies, Corruption and Mismanagement | Posted 1/24/2012 at 12:22 PM
This is a dispute over the valuation of two properties acquired by the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) through eminent domain for the expansion of the Sunnyside Rail yard as part of the East Side Access Project connecting the Long Island Rail Road directly to the Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. The properties are known as 38-38 43rd Street, Sunnyside (Queens Block 183, Lot 185) ("Lot 185") and 38-40 43rd Street, Sunnyside (Queens Block 183, Lot 189) ("Lot 189"). The properties are situated adjacent to one another on 43rd Street.
Success Stories: Positive Outcomes | Posted 1/24/2012 at 9:05 AM
Growing up, Khrys Vaughan always believed that she had inherited her looks and mannerisms from her father, and that her appreciation for tradition and old-fashioned gentility stemmed from her parents’ Southern roots. But those facets of her self-image crumbled when she was told, at age 42, that she had been adopted. She began searching for her origins, only to find out that her adoption records had been sealed, a common practice in the 1960s. Then Mrs. Vaughan stumbled across an ad from a DNA testing company offering to help people who had been adopted find clues to their ancestry and connections to blood relatives.
Government Lies, Corruption and Mismanagement | Posted 1/24/2012 at 8:51 AM
Pozen, the acting assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, has informed the attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., that she will leave by the end of April, the Justice Department announced late Monday. The leading candidate to replace Ms. Pozen is William J. Baer, head of the antitrust group at the law firm Arnold & Porter and a former director of the Federal Trade Commission’s competition bureau, said two people with direct knowledge of the matter who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.