By Sarah Smith/ProPublica

Two years ago, President Obama unveiled an initiative to give early release to potentially thousands of federal prisoners serving long sentences for low-level drug crimes.
The initiative has barely made a dent, and a resignation letter from the president’s recently departed Pardon Attorney lays out at least one reason why:
“The position in which my office has been placed, asking us to address the petitions of nearly 10,000 individuals with so few attorneys and support staff, means that the requests of thousands of petitioners seeking justice will lie unheard,” wrote Deborah Leff, who resigned in January.

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Posted on March 31, 2016

By Andrew Maynard/The Conversation

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, has been in the national headlines for months, culminating in its central role at a recent debate in the city when Democratic presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton slammed government officials for dismissing the health of residents.
Sadly, not every marginalized community can depend on a political debate to highlight its cause. But in the absence of media frenzies and heavy-hitting politicians, to whom can beleaguered citizens turn?

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Posted on March 28, 2016

By Ed Hammer

Approximately 60 miles south of Chicago is Kankakee, Illinois. Close enough to the big city some may think of it as the most southern tip of the Chicago megapolis. Closer to Central Illinois with all the visual characteristics of America’s heartland, others will think of it as rural America. Kankakee’s population of 27,000 is 1/100 of Chicago’s population and only slightly larger than the average American small town of 15,000. In 1991 Reader’s Digest called it the best town to raise a family.
Like Chicago, Kankakee has a history of political corruption. During the Prohibition Era, Chicago politics were often dictated by Al Capone, the boss of Chicago’s mob. Len Small, Kankakee’s Prohibition Era political leader and former Illinois governor, is likewise remembered for his connection to Capone, and the consequences of his actions still impact Kankakee today.

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Posted on March 24, 2016

By William Rhoads, Rebekah Martin and Siddhartha Roy/The Conversation

Our team of more than two dozen students and research scientists at Virginia Tech has spent much of the past year analyzing and publicizing unsafe drinking water in Flint, Michigan.
Our “open science” research collaboration with Flint residents revealed high levels of lead, Legionella and damage to potable water infrastructure due to a failure to implement corrosion control treatment.
Despite Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency messages that the water was safe, we fought to educate residents about severe public health risks. That work led to a declaration of a public health emergency, first by the city of Flint and later by the state of Michigan and President Barack Obama; garnered hundreds of millions of dollars in relief for Flint residents; and informed a national debate on “safe” drinking water in America.
Our work, by any measure, succeeded. But at the same time, this experience has forced us to confront broader questions.

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Posted on March 23, 2016

By Sarah Smith/ProPublica

If elected president, Donald Trump has promised to “open up” libel laws so he can sue news organizations like they’ve “never got sued before.” While the First Amendment is still intact, we compiled a list of some articles he might have his eye on.

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Posted on March 17, 2016

By Steve Rhodes

Talkin’ #TrumpRallyChi. Including: Now You’re Trump; Obama Has Been A FOIA Disaster; and Hillary (And Obama) vs. Trump.

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Posted on March 13, 2016

By Justin Elliott/ProPublica

Documents are the lifeblood of investigative journalism, but these problems aren’t of interest only to reporters. The Freedom of Information Act is supposed to deliver on the idea of a government “for and by the people,” whose documents are our documents. The ability to get information from the government is essential to holding the people in power accountable.
This summer will mark the 50th anniversary of the law, which has been essential in disclosing the torture of detainees after 9/11, decades of misdeeds by the CIA, FBI informants who were allowed to break the law and hundreds of other stories.
President Obama himself waxed poetic about FOIA on his first full day in office in 2009, issuing a statement calling it “the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government.” He promised that his would be “the most transparent administration in history.”
But Obama hasn’t delivered. In fact, FOIA has been a disaster under his watch.

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Posted on March 11, 2016

By Dick Simpson and Thomas J. Gradel

The year 2015 was a banner year for public corruption in Illinois, according to a report published Thursday by political science researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Highlights of the report include:

• the arrest and guilty plea by former Congressman Dennis Hastert;
• the indictment and conviction of Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett;
• the indictment of a Chicago policeman for the shooting murder of an unarmed teenager;
• the federal probe of the hiring practices of Cook County Court Clerk Dorothy Brown.

“No matter how you slice it, 2015 was a bad year for public corruption in our state,” said Dick Simpson, a political science professor at UIC and one of the authors of the report.
The other authors are Thomas J. Gradel, Leslie Price and Ion Nimerencu.
“We catalogued 27 convictions, 28 indictments, the launching of 11 corruption investigations, and the sentencing of 30 convicted elected officials, government employees, and private sector individuals who engaged in schemes that ripped off taxpayers’ money,” said Simpson, who is also a former Chicago alderman.

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Posted on March 11, 2016

By Suhaib Riaz, Sean Buchanan and Trish Ruebottom/The Conversation

Reforming Wall Street has become a key issue in the ongoing presidential primaries.
Bernie Sanders in particular has used his rival’s close ties to the financial industry, including speaking fees and political donations, to suggest Hillary Clinton wouldn’t rein in Wall Street. At the same time, Sanders has tried to highlight his own independence, declaring:

If I were elected president, the foxes would no longer guard the henhouse.

Clinton has tried to dispel the notion that Wall Street donations affect her judgment or independence, claiming her regulatory plan is actually tougher than Sanders’.
These exchanges underscore a crucial point: Almost a decade after the 2008 financial crisis, the reforms that many Americans have demanded remain incomplete.

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Posted on March 9, 2016

By Nate Raymond/Reuters

U.S. authorities have decided not to pursue criminal charges against any Citigroup executives or employees involved in packaging and selling mortgage-backed securities at the heart of the 2008 financial crisis, a government report shows.
The decision, which followed Citigroup’s $7 billion settlement in 2014 resolving federal and state civil claims related to mortgage bonds, was described in a November report obtained by Reuters in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Its release marked the first public acknowledgement by U.S. authorities that executives at a major bank linked to the financial crisis would face no criminal charges for their involvement in selling billions of dollars of toxic mortgage bonds.

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Posted on March 8, 2016