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Daily Archives: February 27, 2010

Missing White House E-Mails Still Factor in Torture Memo Investigation

Follow up to DOJ Report on Bush Administration Interrogation Memos and Related Documents, the New York Times reports: “Large batches of e-mail records from the Justice Department lawyers who worked on the 2002 legal opinions justifying the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation techniques are missing, and the Justice Department told lawmakers Friday that it would try to trace the disappearance. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who leads the panel, angrily demanded to know what had happened to the e-mail files, and he noted that the destruction of government records, including official e-mail messages, was a criminal offense. He said the records gap called into question the completeness of the department’s internal reviews of the work done by the lawyers in the Bush years. The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which spent more than four years investigating the handling of the legal opinions about interrogation policies after the Sept. 11 attacks, pushed to get access to a range of e-mail records and other internal documents from the Justice Department to aid in its investigation. But it discovered that many e-mail messages to and from John C. Yoo, who wrote the bulk of the legal opinions for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, were missing. The office disclosed the missing messages in a footnote to its final report, which was released last week.”

  • Related postings on missing White House emails during Bush administration
  • Nearly 100,000 Deaths Yearly Due to Hospital-Associated Antibiotic Resistant Infections

    New York Times: “Health authorities do not have good figures on how many infections and deaths in the United States are caused by Gram-negative bacteria. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that roughly 1.7 million hospital-associated infections, from all types of bacteria combined, cause or contribute to 99,000 deaths each year. But in… Continue Reading

    Climate change panels establishes independent committee to review IPCC Procedures

    Lead in to this headline as follows: The Nation: The Attack on Climate-Change Science New York Times Op-Ed – Al Gore: We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change. See also related news from the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change: “The IPCC has started work on the preparation of its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). We are currently… Continue Reading

    Fiscal Year 2009 Financial Report of the U.S. Government

    “The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget today released the Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 Financial Report of the United States Government (Report). The Report details the U.S. Government’s current financial position, as well as its short-term and long-term financial outlook, complementing the President’s Budget released earlier this month. This… Continue Reading

    Financial Crimes Enforcement Network; Amendment to the Bank Secrecy Act Regulations – Reports of Foreign Financial Accounts

    News release: “FinCEN [February 26, 2010] issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposing to amend the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) implementing regulations regarding the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR). The FBAR form is used to report a financial interest in, or signature or other authority over, one or more financial accounts… Continue Reading

    Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization for States, 2009 Annual Averages

    News release: “Six alternative measures of labor underutilization have long been available on a monthly basis from the Current Population Survey (CPS) for the United States as a whole. They are published in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly Employment Situation news release. The official concept of unemployment (as measured in the CPS by U-3… Continue Reading

    AARP – African American Experiences in the Economy: Recession Effects More Strongly Felt

    African American Experiences in the Economy: Recession Effects More Strongly Felt, February 2010 “This economic recession has had a devastating impact on the African American community. The survey, found that over the last 12 months, a third (33%) of African Americans 45+ had problems paying rent or mortgage, and 44% had problems paying for essential… Continue Reading