Robert's US Government Info Blog June 2006 Archive

In testimony before Congress, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) called on social networking Websites, like MySpace and Facebook to do more to ensure the safety of their younger visitors and ... Read More

In a 5-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court today severely limited the government’s power in holding military trials for suspected terrorists currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. U.S. Politics Guide Kathy ... Read More

Offering no further details, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson announced today that the laptop computer containing personal information of some 26.5 million veterans and military personnel stolen on May 3 ... Read More

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced its approval of the drug Exelon as the first medication shown to be effective for the treatment of mild to moderate dementia ... Read More

President Bush has issued the following statement on the U.S. Senate’s failure on Tuesday to approve a proposed constitutional amendment that would have granted Congress the authority to pass laws ... Read More

President Bush on June 26, issued an Executive Order calling for the creation of a nationwide Emergency Alert System (EAS), intended to “alert and warn the American people in situations ... Read More

By a single vote, the U.S. Senate today rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have granted Congress the power to pass laws banning acts of "physical desecration of the ... Read More

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday issued a final rule banning the use of nursing women in research involving the effects of pesticides on human beings. EPA says the ... Read More

In hopes of helping millions more low- and moderate-income American families become homeowners, U.S. Sen. Jim Talent (R-Missouri) has introduced the Expanding American Homeownership Act. If approved, the Act would ... Read More

How the U.S. Government addresses global warming, if at all, may be determined by the Supreme Court, which decided on Monday to rule on whether the government must regulate the ... Read More

In a 5-4 decision that saw new Justice Samuel Alito breaking the tie, the U.S. Supreme Court today upheld a Kansas death penalty sentencing law. Under the state law, juries ... Read More

Just in time for the 4th of July, the U.S. Senate is scheduled to once again debate and probably narrowly defeat a proposed constitutional amendment granting Congress the power to ... Read More

In response to a controversial Supreme Court decision, President Bush on Friday signed an executive order declaring that the federal government can seize privately owned property only for purposes benefiting ... Read More

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously yesterday that workers retaliated against by their employer for complaining about acts of discrimination can sue, even if they were not fired or denied ... Read More

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has announced it will provide one year of free credit monitoring to persons whose personal information may have been stolen in the recent theft ... Read More

The First Ladies National Historic Site, near Canton, Ohio, is costing taxpayers nearly $1,000 per visitor, while providing careers for the family of one U.S. Congressman, according to the Public ... Read More

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers not to use Triaminic Vapor Patch marketed by Novartis Consumer Health due to “serious adverse events” to children who accidentally ingest ... Read More

A public employee watchdog group is criticizing a decision by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to build the new Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii on a site ... Read More

On June 16, 2006, the California Reclamation Board met in a secret session. Nothing unusual there, except that the Board met to discuss defending itself against allegations that it had ... Read More

We're still at least a couple of millennia from warp-speed trips to the stars, bit for the first time in almost a year, NASA will launch a space shuttle mission ... Read More

Easy passage by the Senate last week of a $94.5 billion "emergency" supplemental budget, on top of previous approvals of $900 billion of "regular" spending and $50 billion in "supplemental" ... Read More

US Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) failed for the sixth straight year yesterday in his campaign to get Congress to turn down its automatic 2 percent annual pay increase. In a ... Read More

President Bush today signed a proclamation creating the 140,000 square mile Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, a string of 10 islands and atolls stretching over 1,400 miles and home ... Read More

In a 5-4 decision, the US Supreme Court ruled today that evidence collected in homes during unconstitutionally initiated police searches can still be used in court. The case in question involved ... Read More

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has told Congress that the video game industry must make a greater effort in complying with and improving its currently self-regulated policies on the marketing ... Read More

Fraud and program abuse allowed by FEMA during the beleaguered agency's response to Hurricane Katrina costs taxpayers over $1.4 billion, according to a General Accounting Office (GAO) report released yesterday. According ... Read More

In spite of the warnings, many innocent people still fall for the “Make big money at home, just by stuffing envelopes” scam. Case in point – the Federal Trade Commission ... Read More

A first-ever federal report reveals that in every state, women volunteer for community service at a higher rate than men, and women with children and women who work have the ... Read More

A federal judge in Sacramento, CA has dismissed atheist Michael Newdow's lawsuit claiming that the words “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins violated his First Amendment rights. As reported in ... Read More

Although still lacking a director for the storm-prone Southeast Region, FEMA says it is ready to respond to the effects of Tropical Storm Alberto, now dumping heavy rains the western ... Read More

She may not be in Kansas anymore, Todo, but legendary actress and singer Judy Garland looks quite at home on a new U.S. postage stamp that goes on sale today ... Read More

In testimony to Congress, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson suggested that the personal information on 26.5 million veterans and as many as 50,000 active duty military personnel may have been ... Read More

American teens are drinking and using drugs less, while buckling their seat belts and remaining virgins more, according to the latest edition of the government report measuring risky behavior by ... Read More

You might find this hard to believe, but the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) actually has an Office of Taxpayer Burden Reduction, and they want to know what you think the ... Read More

The FDA has approved Gardasil as the first vaccine created to prevent cervical cancer and other diseases resulting from three strains of the papillomavirus (HPV) virus. FDA approved Gardasil for ... Read More

President Bush this morning cheered the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man Osama bin Laden called "the prince of al Qaeda in Iraq.” Zarqawi was reported to have been ... Read More

Through an Executive Order, President Bush yesterday established the Task Force on New Americans, a cabinet-level body directed “to help legal immigrants embrace the common core of American civic culture, ... Read More

As it did in 2004, the U.S. Senate today rejected a motion that would have allowed further consideration of a proposed constitutional amendment effectively banning gay marriage by declaring legal ... Read More

In 1999 the federal government accused then Los Alamos Labs nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee of being a spy for China. Lee proved the charges false and sued the government ... Read More

The Veterans Administration (VA) has disclosed that a duplicate computer database stolen from a VA employee’s home last month, then believed to contain personal information on up to 26.5 million ... Read More

Holy Smoke! Bullwinkle must surely be pleased to hear that his pal Rocky's cousin, the West Virginia northern flying squirrel, no longer faces extinction and will be removed from the ... Read More

This week, the U.S. Senate might debate and vote on a proposed constitutional amendment that would effectively ban gay marriage by declaring legal marriages in the United States to be ... Read More

U.S. high schools students continue to lag behind their international counterparts in areas of mathematics and science, according to the 2006 Condition of Education report just released by the Department ... Read More

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has accepted responsibility for the failure of the New Orleans levee system during Hurricane Katrina. In a massive 6,000 page report, the Corps of ... Read More

The United States and Vietnam yesterday signed a bilateral market access agreement, hailed by U.S. Trade Representative Karan Bhatia as a move creating “significant new opportunities for U.S. producers and ... Read More

When House and Senate conference committees sit down to hammer out differences between their respective versions of a bill, compromise is a precious and mandatory commodity. When it comes to ... Read More