This Breathalyzer Detects Disease
You've read here about some pretty silly taxpayer-funded government research projects, but there's nothing silly at all about this shoebox-sized device that can instantly detect disease, just by blowing into it. Read More...
Obama's Missing Inspectors Generals
The federal Inspectors General, like the one who revealed the GSA's $800,000 taxpayer-funded Las Vegas wing-ding, are essential to good government. But only if they exist, says U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California), who considers President Obama to be downright "hostile" in allowing 10 Inspectors General posts to remain vacant. Read More...
Feds Sue Arizona's Sheriff Joe
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a federal lawsuit against popular but controversial Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio, charging "Sheriff Joe" and his department with unconstitutional and unlawful discrimination against Latinos. Read More...
Rural Post Offices May be Saved
Rest easy, rural Americans. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has proposed a plan it says will allow your post offices to remain open, while saving $500 million a year at the same time. Read More...
Big Bitter Pill for Big Drug Maker
Pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories is a little less giant after pleading guilty and agreeing to pay $1.5 billion for unlawfully promoting and selling the drug Depakote for uses not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Read More...
Major Medicare Fraud Bust Announced
How bad has Medicare fraud become? Just last week, the federal Medicare Fraud Strike Force filed charges accusing 107 doctors, nurses and other medical care providers in seven cities of submitting false Medicare claims totaling $452 million, the largest amount in a single takedown in Strike Force history. Read More...
DOI-EPA Propose Oilfield Fracking Rules
The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and the EPA have proposed separate federal regulations for hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," of oil and gas wells drilled on federal or Native American tribal lands. Read More...
No Job, No Vote?
President Obama's re-election campaign directors cannot be encouraged by the release of a report showing that recent high school and college graduates who will eligible to cast their first votes in a presidential election cannot find jobs. Read More...
IRS Not Helping Us Much, GAO Reports
Maybe nobody ever promised us that doing our income taxes would be easy but when you spend 20 minutes on hold waiting to ask the IRS a tax question, and when you finally get an answer - if you get one at all - it's wrong, well as the Government Accountability Office told Congress, that needs to change. [Learn more...]
Also See: Your Advocate at the IRS
Photo: Left in the dark, a taxpayers struggles - Getty Images
Free Maps Show 130 Years of US History
One of the best -- and most fun ways -- to learn about a town's history is to look at maps showing how it has changed over time. Now, to the delight of all sorts of researchers and the just plain curious, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has now released to the public more than 161,000 digitally scanned historical maps spanning in excess of 130 years of the nation's history. Read More...