The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
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Afgan detainee deaths concealed by US Special Forces
Kevin Sack and Craig Pyes, special to The Los Angeles Times, report on misconduct by U.S. Special Forces in Afganistan. On two separate occasions, the Special Forces team concealed the death of Afgan detainees. “What distinguishes these two fatalities from scores of other questionable deaths in U.S. custody is that they were successfully concealed
Read MoreNY companies exploit loophole for massive tax breaks
Michelle Breidenbach of The (Syracuse, NY) Post-Standard shows how hundreds of New York companies pulled accounting gimmicks and exploited a loophole in the state law to collect millions of dollars in tax breaks. The companies created new corporations and passed themselves off as new on paper, thus becoming eligible for tax breaks intended for businesses…
Read MoreLA County Board of Supervisors – and their staff – handsomely compensated
Troy Anderson of the LA Daily News reports on the Los Angeles County “Fab Five” – the five members of the county Board of Supervisiors. “With salaries and benefits that can reach $185,232 a year, each of the five members of the county Board of Supervisors also controls a $3.2 million annual operating budget and…
Read MorePrison conditions deplorable for mentally ill
Michele Gillen of Miami’s CBS4 exposes the inhumane conditions of mentally-ill accused criminals being held in the Miami-Dade pre-trial detention center. The conditions are “morally incomprehensible” – multiple inmates share cells intended for a single prisoner; people sleep on floors covered in urine and feces; inmates are allowed out of their cells for only 30…
Read MoreRecords reveal extensive White House access to some of Abramoff’s cronies
Sharon Theimer of the Associated Press reports that recently released Secret Service visitor logs reveal extensive “inside access” to presidential aides by Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, both of whom are linked to Jack Abramoff. The records indicate at least 115 appointments since 2001, some lasting upwards of 12 hours. The release of the records…
Read MoreCorporation skirts contribution limits
Mike McIntire of The New York Times analyzed state campaign finance data to show that “one of the world's largest insurance companies has skirted [state] limits in giving almost 20 times that amount to some of New York's most prominent politicians.” New York law limits corporate contributions to $5,000 annually. AIG avoided these limits by…
Read MoreLong Island migration trends
Katie Thomas, Tom McGinty and Andrew Strickler of Newsday used IRS migration data to show that "Long Islanders ... are leaving the region in growing numbers, and while traditional destinations such as Palm Beach, Fla., and Fort Lauderdale are still popular, many are bypassing those locations for fast-growing areas such as North Carolina and Tampa,…
Read More“Capitol Crime”
Chitra Ragavan, Chief Legal Correspondent for U.S.News & World Report, has written “Capitol Crime,” a detailed piece about MZM, a defense contractor implicated in the Rep. “Duke” Cunningham briberies. “Based on a review of hundreds of pages of court documents, private internal MZM records, and detailed interviews with a dozen key officials, shows how [Mitchell]…
Read MoreNY business incentive program wasted millions
Mike McAndrew of The Post-Standard used Empire Zone records obtained through Freedom of Information Law requests to show that New York’s program to attract new business spent $84 million in recent years on out-of-state power companies with old and dirty facilities and little or no job growth. For instance, taxpayers paid $22 million to NRG…
Read MoreCDC bonuses favor management, not scientists
Alison Young of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution analyzed awards recieved by the employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to show that the most frequent large cash awards and performance bonuses are recieved not by scientists, but mostly budget analysts, accountants, computer experts and other administrative managers. “The 72 CDC employees who received…
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