Documents in the News

February 14, 2011
Today President Obama released the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2012 which contains the Budget Message of the President, information on the President’s priorities, budget overviews organized by agency, and summary tables.

After conducting a 10-month study of the situation , the U.S.Transportation Department released its report which cleared the electronic throttle control as a possible cause for unintended acceleration in certain Toyota models.

February 4, 2011
In the wake of the most significant financial crisis since the Great Depression, the President signed into law on May 20, 2009, the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009, creating the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The Commission was established to examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States and have published their findings in The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report.

January 15, 2010
Protecting the Forces: Lesson from Fort Hood, report of the Department of Defense Independent Review of the shootings at Fort Hood.

January 8, 2010
White House Review Summary Regarding 12/25/2009 Attempted Terrorist Attack

December 14, 2009
Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try certain detainees in federal criminal court, including those accused of conspiring to commit the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and to try other detainees by military commission, has focused attention on the procedural differences between trials in federal court and those conducted under the Military Commissions Act, as recently amended.

Many oppose this decision and argue that bringing detainees to the United States for trial poses a security threat and risks disclosing classified information, or could result in the acquittal of persons who are guilty. Others have praised the decision as recognizing the efficacy and fairness of the federal court system and have voiced confidence in the courts’ ability to protect national security while achieving justice that will be perceived as such among U.S. allies abroad.

A Congressional Research Service report called, Comparison of Rights in Military Commission Trials and Trials in Federal Criminal Court, provides a brief summary of legal issues raised by the choice of forum for trying accused terrorists and a table comparing selected military commissions rules under the Military Commissions Act, as amended, to the corresponding rules that apply in federal court.

November 13, 2009
Today, Janet Napolitano, Secretary for Homeland Security, sought to dispel any notion that the Obama administration might postpone overhauling the present immigration system until after midterm elections next November.
She stressed this in her address today to the Center for American Progress, calling for a “three-legged stool” that includes enacting tougher enforcement laws against illegal immigrants and the people who hire them, and streamlining the system for legal immigration, but also what she called a “tough and fair pathway to earned legal status.”

September 16, 2009
Sen. Max Baucus on Wednesday brought out the much-awaited Finance Committee version of an American health-system remake.
The bill would make major changes to the nation’s $2.5 trillion health care system, including requiring most people to purchase insurance coverage or pay a fine and prohibiting insurance companies from charging more to people with more serious health problems.

September 14, 2009
The President delivered a speech at Federal Hall today on Wall Street, warning financial leaders not to use the recovering economy to race back into “reckless behavior” . He declared that a bailout-weary public will not break their fall again.

Obama further demanded tighter financial regulation, and cautioned his audience not to try to block it. He spoke on the first anniversary of the collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment bank, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history and a stark reminder of the financial crisis that spread into a deep recession despite huge federal bailouts of major companies.

September 4, 2009
American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc has agreed to pay $2.3 billion, the largest health care fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice, to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products.
Pharmacia & Upjohn Company, a subsidiary of Pfizer, has agreed to plead guilty to a felony violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for misbranding products with the intent to defraud or mislead.
Officials from the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services said the world’s largest drug company promoted four drugs for use on certain ailments or at dosages that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. One of those drugs was the anti-inflammatory medication Bextra, which Pfizer pulled off the market in 2005 after it was linked to increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli told reporters that recommending drugs for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration creates a situation where “public health may be at risk.”

September 2, 2009
The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a report by Inspector General, H. David Kotz, admitting that the SEC overlooked “more than ample” evidence, including six complaints, that red-flagged the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme. The report, ‘Investigation of Failure of the SEC to Uncover Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme, stated (that) “Despite numerous credible and detailed complaints, the SEC never properly examined or investigated Madoff’s trading and never took the necessary, but basic, steps to determine if Madoff was operating a Ponzi scheme,”

Mr Kotz blamed inexperienced investigators who did not follow up numerous suspicious signs uncovered by their preliminary examinations for the embarrassing situation.

Madoff confessed last December to running the largest Ponzi scheme ever known. He was jailed for 150 years in June and is currently serving his sentence at Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina.

August 28, 2009
Beginning September 1, 2009, prerecorded commercial telemarketing calls to consumers – commonly known as robocalls – will be prohibited, unless the telemarketer has obtained permission in writing from consumers who want to receive such calls, the Federal Trade Commission announced today.
After September 1, sellers and telemarketers who transmit prerecorded messages to consumers who have not agreed in writing to accept such messages will face penalties of up to $16,000 per call. Consumers who receive prerecorded telemarketing calls but have not agreed to get them should file a complaint with the Commission, either on the donotcall.gov Web site or by calling 1-888-382-1222.

August 10, 2009
Climate change, in which man-made global warming is a major factor, will likely have dramatic and long lasting consequences with profound security implications, making it a challenge the United States must urgently take up. The security implications will be most pronounced in places where the effects of climate change are greatest, particularly affecting weak states already especially vulnerable to environmental destabilization. This is the conclusion of a recent report released by the Strategic Studies Institute, called Taking Up the Security Challenge of Climate Change.

August 7, 2009
The July unemployment figures were released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unemployment fell for the first time in 15 months, contrary to what most economic analysts had expected. They expected joblessness to grow to 9.6 percent for July(from the 9.5% in June). Instead it fell .1% to 9.4%. The good news also encouraged a rally in the value of the U.S. dollar, adding fuel to the hope that our recession may be leveling off.

July 31, 2009
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis released a report today supporting hopes that the greatest recession since the Great Depression of 1929 may be coming to an end.

According to this latest report, our economy shrank at an annual rate of 1%, in the April to June quarter, which was less than economists expected. This reduction is attributed to the recovery of the stock markets, stabilized housing markets, job losses tapering off and the rebound of corporate profits during this second quarter. Big increases in government spending at the federal, state and local levels also played a major role.

July 20, 2009
HR 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, is the 1017 page bill that President Obama is urging the Congress to pass so that universal health care may become a reality. Critics argue against it, claiming it will cost billions of dollars and perhaps ruin our already severely weakened economy.

The Congressional Budget Office(CBO) , whose mandate is to provide Congress with “objective, nonpartisan, and timely analyses to aid in economic and budgetary decisions” as well as the “information and estimates required for the Congressional budget process,” released their report on the HR 3200 and its future cost to the government. The report found that “enacting H.R. 3200 would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period”, and further stated that the 10 year cost of this health insurance program would be 1,042 billion dollars.

July 13, 2009
There have been several stories in the media over the weekend alleging that after the September 11 attacks, Congress was purposely kept in the dark about secret counterterrorism programs. In addition, it’s been reported that under direct orders from Dick Cheney, the CIA was instructed to withhold this information from Congress.

Government officials today, however, claim that the counterterrorism program in question, was only in the planning and training stages, and therefore questions whether Congress was required to be informed under the National Security Act, 50 USC 401 et seq.

The report which brought all of these facts to light is entitled,
Unclassified Report on the President’s Surveillance Program.

July 10, 2009
The Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM/WRA) has released the 8th Edition of “To Walk the Earth in Safety,” a report summarizing the accomplishments of the U.S. Humanitarian Mine Action Program, the world’s largest such operation.

In 2008, the Department of State provided $123.1 million in mine clearance and weapons destruction assistance to 35 countries. Among the report’s success stories is Cambodia, where U.S. humanitarian mine action has contributed to a 72 percent decline in explosives-related casualties, a trend which should continue in the coming years.

July 6, 2009
President Obama and Russian President Dmitry A. Medvedev, held a joint press conference in Moscow today and announced that both men were “resolved to reset U.S.-Russian relations, so that we can cooperate more effectively in areas of common interest.”

Obama and Medvedev signed a statement confirming “their commitment to strengthening their cooperation to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and stop acts of nuclear terrorism.”

July 1, 2009
Yesterday, Judge Judith Retchin of the D.C. Superior Court, ruled that a referendum on recognizing out-of-state gay marriages may not proceed.

The proposed referendum was filed with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, by Bishop Harry Jackson, the senior pastor at Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Maryland. The DCBOEE rejected the referendum concluding, ” that the Referendum does not present a proper subject of referendum because it would authorize discrimination prohibited under the Human Rights Act.”

Bishop Harry Jackson states that he and his supporters, will now try to get a voter initiative on the 2010 ballot that would define marriage in the nation’s capital as between a man and a woman.

June 17, 2009
President Obama announced today that his “administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the financial regulatory system, a transformation on a scale not seen since the reforms that followed the Great Depression,” . He further stated that the goal of this program would be to “restore markets in which we reward hard work and responsibility and innovation, not recklessness and greed; in which honest, vigorous competition is the system — in the system is prized, and those who game the system are thwarted.” .

His recommendations, outlined in Financial Regulatory Reform A New Foundation:Rebuilding Financial Supervision and Regulation, calls for the creation of a Financial Services Oversight Council, chaired by Treasury, of financial regulators to identify emerging systemic risks and improve interagency cooperation, a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to protect consumers across the financial sector from unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices, and a new National Bank Supervisor to supervise all federally chartered banks.

June 12, 2009
A tobacco bill, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, HR 1256, was passed today by the Senate, giving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco.

Almost immediately, appearing in the White House Rose Garden, Pres. Obama expressed his support for this measure stating “After a decade of opposition, all of us are finally about to achieve the victory with this bill, a bill that truly defines change in Washington,”.

June 3, 2009
Today, the White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a l report entitled “The Economic Case for Health Care Reform,” explaining in the greatest depth to date why health reform is vital for the future of the American economy.

May 15, 2009
Today, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a trial court decision, allowing the Washington Redskins football team to keep their name and tradmark.

This case began in 1992, when seven Native Americans petitioned the Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board(TTAP) to cancel the Washington Redskins registration claiming that the name was “disparaging to Native Americans.” The TTAP agreed, granted their petition.

The owner then appealed to the D.C. District Court which overturned the cancellation of the registration, finding that the TTAB lacked substantial evidence to find disparagement, and that the petition was barred by laches, a defense to an equitable action, that bars recovery by the plaintiff because of the plaintiff’s undue delay in seeking relief.

Read the DC Court of Appeals decision.

May 11, 2009
A new official antitrust policy was announced today by the Justice Department, which reverses the Bush administration report which severely weakened the government’s ability to take on monopolies. It calls for the Antitrust Division to “apply more rigorous standard With focus
on the impact of exclusionary conduct on consumers“.

“As antitrust enforcers, we can no longer sit on the sidelines,” said Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice, Christine Varney, speaking Monday at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

Ms. Varney also indicated that the Justice Department will align itself with the European Union to streamline antitrust regulation. Since there were many constraints put on the government in dealing with antitrust cases during the Bush years, many plaintiffs took their antitrust cases to European courts. This new policy should slow the movement of antitrust cases to these courts.

April 27, 2009
Mostly everyone by now has heard the news regarding the cases of swine flu that have been discovered in the U.S. I myself must have heard the word, pandemic, a dozen times this past weekend.

Yesterday, there was a press briefing at the White House with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and Dr. Richard Besser, the Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Napolitano has declared the situation a “national public health emergency” and the the Obama administration has released 12.5 million of the nation’s stockpile of 50 million courses of Tamiflu, a drug that has shown itself at least initially to be effective against the flu virus.

April 22, 2009
There has been a lot of hoopla in the past view days regarding the recent report released by the Department of Homeland Security, Rightwing Extremism:Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment..

This report, prepared by the Extremism and Radicalization Branch, Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division of the FBI, although acknowledging that they found “no specific information” with respect to current acts of violence in the planning stages by domestic rightwing extremists, it did state that “the economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.”

Many conservatives are attacking this report for targeting returning veterans in the report as possbile new recruits for these extremist organizations, noting that “After Operation Desert Shield/Storm in 1990-1991, some returning military veterans—including Timothy McVeigh—joined or associated with rightwing extremist groups.”

April 17, 2009
Detailed memos describing the brutal interrogation techniques, approved by former President Bush, for the Central Intelligence Agency to use to extract information from Al Qaeda operatives, were released by the Justice Department.

President Obama has assured the agency that none of the CIA operatives involved will be prosecuted. The President has opposed any inquiry into this situation stating, “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”

April 6, 2009
Not sure what an “asset backed security” is? Need to know what banks in your state received monies from the Fed under the “capital purchase program”? Check out the new Treasury website, Financial Stability.gov.
The Web site features a type of dictionary to help increase people’s understanding of common financial terms.

March 20, 2009
Many are outraged over the big payouts to employees of American International Group Inc.(AIG). In response to this public outcry, the House of Representatives quickly introduced and passed HR 1586, a bill that would impose a 90% surtax on bonuses granted to employees who earn more than $250,000 at companies that have received at least $5 billion from the government’s financial rescue program. The bonus tax, if signed into law, would be retroactive to Dec. 31, 2008.

March 13, 2009
The American Civil Liberties Union released a report today, entitled,”Reclaiming Patriotism:A Call to Reconsider the Patriot Act“ outlining abuses that have occurred under the USA Patriot Act.
The Patriot Act was signed into law just 45 days after the September 11 attacks and this report suggests that Congress rushed into passing this controversial legislation. It further identifies the Patriot Act provisions that require intensive oversight and modification to prevent abuse, as well as contains specific legislative recommendations for reforming the NSL(National Security Letter), , FISA(Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act),. and section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allow the FBI to demand information about innocent people who are not the targets of any investigation.

March 6, 2009
The numbers are out and the news isn’t good. Unemployment rates rose to 8.1%, the highest it has been in 25 years. Read the numbers, released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and weep.

February 27, 2009
The Office of Management and Budget released the Budget of the United States for fiscal year 2010 today calling it “A New Era of Responsibility:Renewing America’s Promise“.

February 25, 2009
The President’s address to the joint session of Congress,(as printed in the Congressional Record).

February 20, 2009
Want some light reading? Try reading the The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 , recently signed into law by President Obama. This 407 page stimulus bill carries a price tag of 787 billion dollars.

February 11, 2009
The CEOs of eight major banks, who received $125 billion in taxpayer bailout funds under TARP, are testifying today before the House Financial Services Committee regarding their role in what has been referred to by many (including Barack O’Bama) as the “worst financial crisis since the Great Depression“.
Read their prepared statements.

February 6, 2009
The Labor Department today released another grim statistic concerning the economy, specifically that the unemployment rate rose to 7.6%, the highest it’s been for more than 16 years.

January 30, 2009
Full BEA report on GDP (14 pages)
Report Highlights
(1 page)

January 23, 2009
Read the text of the Executive Order signed by President Obama
authorizing the closing of the detention facilily, Guantanamo Bay.

January 21, 2009
Full text of the Inaugural Ceremony as ordered printed in the Congressional Record, January 20, 2009.

January 14, 2009
David Ellis has been chosen to present the case against Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in his impeachment trial.
Read the final report of the special investigative committee on the governor.

January 9, 2009
For anyone with access to a radio, tv, or a computer, it is no surprise that the Labor Department today announced unemployment levels had risen again in December, bringing the unemployment rate to 7.2%, and making 2008 one of the worst years for employment in history.
The steep annual drop in jobs marked the highest yearly job-loss total since 1945, the year in which World War II ended.
This economic new release from the DOL’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, may be found at their website, under Employment Situation Summary.

January 7, 2009

Happy New Year! Glass of bug juice anyone?
When I was in summer camp, our afternoon snack consisted of cookies and a reddish drink, affectionately called “bug juice”. Little did I know that there may have been some truth to the name!!
Apparently a common way of obtaining a natural red coloring in such common food items as juices, ice cream, yogurts and candies is by crushing the dried bodies of the female cactus-eating insect, Dactylopius coccus , found in both North and South America.
The Food and Drug Administration recently issued a ruling requiring all manufacturers, using the color additive, known as carmine, or cochineal extract, to label it as such in foods and cosmetics.

December 15, 2008

Although it is not yet posted on the SIGIR(Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction) website, the New York Times has printed a draft of an unpublished federal report, Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience’
This report concludes that five years after embarking on its largest foreign reconstruction project since the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II, the United States government has neither the policies and technical capacity, nor the organizational structure in place, that would be needed to undertake a program of this magnitude.
Even more distressing, this report states that $117 billion has been spent on the reconstruction of Iraq, including some $50 billion in United States taxpayer money.

December 2, 2008
A recently released report by the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, warns that there is a good chance of a nuclear or biological attack on a major world city in the next five years.

One of the report’s authors – former Democratic Senator Bob Graham - said that the threat was growing because America’s adversaries were moving at a faster pace to get access to weapons of mass destruction.
This report further concludes that the threat from biological weapons is greatest, and also that the heightened threat is due to the rapid spread of nuclear technology in countries such as Pakistan and Iran and poor security in biotech industries worldwide.
Aptly called “World at Risk“, it states, “The commission believes that unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.”

November 26, 2008
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) today released its final report on the Sept. 11, 2001, collapse of the 47-story World Trade Center building 7 (WTC 7) in New York City.
The extensive three-year scientific and technical building and fire safety investigation found that the fires on multiple floors in WTC 7, which were uncontrolled but otherwise similar to fires experienced in other tall buildings, caused an extraordinary event. Heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down.

November 17, 2008
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has issued the 2007 American Time Use Survey. Launched in 2003, this survey measures the amount of time people spend doing various activities, such as paid work, childcare, volunteering, and socializing.
Some findings from this year’s survey -
On an average day (including weekends), 83% of women and 66% percent of men spent some time doing household activities, such as housework, cooking, lawn care, or financial and other household management.
Watching TV was the leisure activity that occupied the most time, accounting for about half
of leisure time, on average, for both men and women.
On days that they worked, 35% of employed people age 25 and over with a bachelor’s degree or higher did some work at home compared with only 6 percent of those with less than a high school diploma.

November 10, 2008
President-elect Barack O’Bama’s transition team has released a new website – change.gov, which promises to be “your source for the latest news, events and announcements so that you can follow the setting up of the Obama administration.”
Once on the site, visitors may fill out a form to share their stories about what the election meant to them, give their vision of an Obama presidency, or even apply for a job.

October 8, 2008
Are you curious about the new bailout bill? Check out the new white paper recently released entitled The Economic Bailout: An Analysis of the Economic Emergency Stabilization Act.
Not actually a government document, it is published by CCH, Commerce Clearing House, now part of Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.
It is interesting reading.

September 17, 2008
Today the Justice Department released an audit report of the ATF finding “serious deficiencies in ATF’s response to the lost, stolen or missing items” the audit uncovered.

September 10, 2008
The Department of Justice issued a report informing consumers, businesses and policy makers about issues relating to monopolization offenses under the antitrust laws. The report, “Competition and Monopoly: Single-Firm Conduct Under Section 2 of the Sherman Act,” examines whether and when specific types of single-firm conduct may or may not violate Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which makes it unlawful for a company to “monopolize, or attempt to monopolize,” trade or commerce.
The Department’s report draws extensively on a series of joint hearings, involving more than100 participants, that the Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held from June 2006 to May 2007 to explore in depth the antitrust treatment of single-firm conduct. The 213-page report also incorporates commentary found in scholarly literature and the jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts.

September 8, 2008
The latest update to the Beige Book was just released indicating what most of us already know, that the pace of economic activity has been slow.
The Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions by Federal Reserve District (aka Beige Book), is published eight times per year. Each Federal Reserve Bank gathers anecdotal information on current economic conditions in its District through reports from Bank and Branch directors and interviews with key business contacts, economists, market experts, and other sources. The Beige Book summarizes this information by District and sector. An overall summary of the twelve district reports is prepared by a designated Federal Reserve Bank on a rotating basis..

September 5, 2008
A new report recently released by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, states that localized pollution such as short-lived gases and particle pollutants which stay in the atmosphere for just days or weeks, may play a much larger role than previously thought in future climate change of the Earth. The report states specifically that localized pollution “can significantly change the regional surface temperature, and by the year 2100 short-lived gases and particles may account for as much as 40 percent of the warming over the summertime continental United States.”

The report specifies two geographic areas (Asia and North America) where specific changes would result in the greatest potential for substantial, simultaneous improvement in local air quality and reduction of global warming. It recommends that Asia switch to cleaner energy sources. Most of Asia’s pollution is caused by their practice of burning kerosene and biofuels, such as wood and animal dung. It calls for North America to cut down on car and truck emission.

September 3, 2008
The Citizen’s Against Government Waste, recently released the 2008 edition of their annual publication, the Congressional Pig Book Summary.
Check it out!

August 1, 2008
Yesterday the Department of Defense released the 2008 National Defense Strategy which outlines the national approach to the defense of this nation and its interests.
The NDS is issued periodically and the last one was published in March 2005. The strategy builds on lessons learned and insights from previous operations and strategic reviews such as the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report(QDR). The QDR, published by the DOD analyzes strategic objectives and potential military threats and is the main public document describing the United States’s military doctrine.

July 30, 2008
Today the government released The Mid-Session Review, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009.
The Mid-Session Review is an annual update of estimates for Federal receipts and outlays that reflects economic, legislative, and other changes that have occurred since the President’s Budget was released in February.
As I pointed out in an earlier blog, the Budget for 2009, originally released in February, underestimated the amount of the projected deficit by several billiion dollars.
This electronic version of the Mid-Session Review for FY 2009 on GPO Access is digitally signed and certified. The signature not only establishes GPO as the trusted information disseminator, but also provides users the assurance that the electronic PDF document has not been altered since it was disseminated by GPO.

July 28, 2008
After a little more than a year’s investigation, the Justice Department issued their findings today in a report concerning the hiring practices employed by top aides to former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.
While it is not improper to consider political or ideological affiliations in making hiring decisions for political positions, both Department policy and federal law prohibit discrimination in hiring for career positions on the basis of political affiliations.
The report concluded that former Gonzales aides, Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson violated civil service laws by using a political “litmus test” in the hiring of immigration judges and career prosecutors at the Justice Department.

July 25, 2008
A little over 50 years ago the race for space between the U.S. and Russia, officially began with Russian launch of Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite.
Just in time for the 50th anniversary of this event, the CRS (Congressional Research Service) recently issued a report, U.S. Civilian Space Policy Priorities: Reflections 50 Years after Sputnik.
The launch of Sputnik in 1957 shocked the U.S., whom most people believed was the world leader in space technology, and put Russia in the lead in the Space Race. The U.S. quickly responded by passing the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which resulted in the creation of NASA. In addition, Congress dramatically increased support for scientific research by increasing the National Science Foundation‘s appropriation to $134 million, almost $100 million higher than the year before.
The U.S. eventually won the space race by being the first nation to successfully land a man on the Moon in 1968.

July 23, 2008
Yesterday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a new Compliance Manual Section regarding workplace discrimination on the basis of religion. The Section includes a comprehensive review of the relevant provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the EEOC’s policies regarding religious discrimination, harassment and accommodation.
Religious discrimination charge filings with the EEOC nationwide have risen substantially over the past 15 years, doubling from 1,388 in Fiscal Year 1992 to a record level of 2,880 in FY 2007.

July 9th, 2008
Earlier this week,the National War Powers Commission released its final report, after 13 months of study. This bipartisan commission was impaneled in February 2007 by the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia and is co-chaired by former Secretaries of State James A. Baker, III and Warren Christopher.
The Commision report’s proposal aims to add more meaningful cooperation between the executive and judicial branches when it comes to matters of war and peace.
Specifically, the report recommends that Congress repeal the 1973 War Powers Resolution and pass a new statute, the War Powers Consultation Act of 2009, which would establish a clear process on decisions to go to war. If passed, future American presidents would be required by law to consult with congressional leaders before entering into any major armed conflict.