By Steve Rhodes

“It’s always about politics in Illinois and never about reform,” Phil Kadner writes for the SouthtownStar in the day’s must-read pension commentary.
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“The vote on Tuesday came one day after the deadline for candidates to file to run for state office in next year’s primary, so legislators could know whether they faced a primary opponent,” the New York Times noted.
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Tribune Editorial: Vote Was A Test Of Courage.
I guess they don’t read the New York Times – or Kadner.

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Posted on December 4, 2013

A Primer

Here are the talking points you need – not the ones the Obamas want you to have.
1. Why Care About The NSA?

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Posted on December 3, 2013

By Paul Steiger/ProPublica

On Tuesday night, ProPublica founder and executive chairman Paul Steiger received the Burton Benjamin Memorial award from the Committee to Protect Journalists. Here are his remarks.
In recent days I thought a lot about the 16 previous recipients of the Burton Benjamin award, and re-read the words from this platform of some of them.
Their words are inspiring. Their deeds are awesome. I am humbled and deeply honored to be among them.
The first honoree, in 1997, was Ted Koppel of ABC, who for a significant time brought serious reporting to late-night TV with sustained high quality.
The most recent, last year, was Alan Rusbridger of the Guardian, who has the vision to be a leader in reinventing journalism for the digital age and the courage to challenge both his government and ours on the extent to which they spy on us.
Together, and with those in between, they inhabit an arc of profound change that I want to reflect on briefly tonight.

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Posted on November 28, 2013

By Amnesty International

A month has passed since Amnesty International released its report “Will I Be Next?” US Drone Strikes in Pakistan, but the Obama Administration still has not publicly acknowledged and investigated cases of potentially unlawful drone killings, including that of Mamana Bibi, a grandmother who was struck by a drone’s hellfire missiles and killed while collecting vegetables in her family’s fields.
Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Administration to disclose who is being killed and on what basis, and to ensure investigations into all credible reports of unlawful drone killings. It has also called on Congress to launch a full investigation and report any evidence of human rights violations to the public.

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Posted on November 27, 2013

By Kiljoong Kim

Ever since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its study on fertility in September, there has been much discussion about American birth rates by the mainstream (and not so mainstream) media.
Depending on one’s political views and preferred media outlets, the interpretation of the results and corresponding opinions vary: While CNN reported that the rate is a record low, the Huffington Post and the New York Times stressed that the rate is stabilizing.
USA Today took the news with characterisic optimism; the Washington Times and WND (formerly World Net Daily) expressed concern about a future of fewer American babies leading to fewer American workers.

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Posted on November 25, 2013

By The Sunlight Foundation

On Monday, the Sunlight Foundation filed its first ever FOIA lawsuit and sued the General Services Administration for not responding to our FOIA request for six months. But good news; on Wednesday we received the documents.
Sunlight is making available more than a decade’s worth of federal solicitation and award notices from FBO.gov on our website.
Unfortunately, the GSA refused to disclose the contact information for contracting officers from the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, citing FOIA exemption 5 U.S.C S 552(b)(6), an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

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Posted on November 22, 2013

By Jeff Larson/ProPublica

The federal institute that sets national standards for how government, private citizens and business guard the privacy of their files and communications is reviewing all of its previous recommendations.
The move comes after ProPublica, The Guardian and The New York Times disclosed that the National Security Agency had worked to secretly weaken standards to make it easier for the government to eavesdrop.

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Posted on November 21, 2013

By Cora Currier/ProPublica

Earlier this year, we detailed the Obama administration’s opposition to congressional efforts to require more oversight of aid to foreign militaries and police forces.
Security assistance – a broad category that covers about $25 billion in yearly spending on everything from sending equipment to Israel to training Afghan officers – skyrocketed in the wake of 9/11, growing by 227 percent from 2002 to 2012.
A slew of recent reports from government watchdog agencies have found a glaring lack of accountability around such security assistance.
In 2012, Congress drafted a bill that would have subjected all foreign aid, including security assistance, to stricter monitoring and transparency requirements.

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Posted on November 20, 2013

By The Sunlight Foundation

The Sunlight Foundation today filed its first ever Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Sunlight is filing suit against the General Services Administration because the GSA is six months behind on a FOIA request for federal government contract information maintained by the website FedBizOpps.gov.
“We are pursuing litigation as a way to support the work of Sunlight’s technology arm, Sunlight Labs,” says Ginger McCall, federal policy manager at the Sunlight Foundation. “The information we are requesting will give more oversight to how government contracts are bid, awarded and managed.”
This FOIA lawsuit is particularly important as the development of HealthCare.gov continues to come under scrutiny.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services originally signed a contract for “Enterprise System Development” in 2007, which eventually came to include work on the health exchange website, yet it is very difficult to find the original solicitation for the contract.

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Posted on November 18, 2013

By Charles Ornstein/ProPublica

Media reports about the Affordable Care Act have been dominated by two themes lately: The ongoing glitches with Healthcare.gov and the “rate shock” that some consumers now face after insurance companies canceled their policies.
But come January, a second rate shock may hit and could produce more bad news for Obamacare. That’s when millions of Americans who select health insurance plans on the new marketplaces may realize that their new insurance plans don’t pay the bills right away. They come with high deductibles and co-pays.
In recent weeks, many people have focused on the monthly cost of buying a health insurance plan in the insurance marketplace. What I’m talking about is different: The out-of-pocket costs they may face when they go to use that new policy.

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Posted on November 13, 2013