Governmental behavior

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• These Words Are Disappearing in the New Trump Administration
  By Karen Yourish, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Isaac White and Lazaro Gamio; New York Times, March 7, 2025. As President Trump seeks to purge the federal government of “woke” initiatives, agencies have flagged hundreds of words to limit or avoid, according to a compilation of government documents. (See word list)
• *Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx On The Legacy Of The U.S. Highway System
  Diane Rehm Show, May 30, 2016 rebroadcast U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has a message for Americans this week and it’s an unusual one for someone in his position. When the country’s urban freeways were constructed, they were often routed through low income, minority neighborhoods. Instead of connecting us to each other, Foxx says many of these highways were intentionally built to separate us. He says it’s a legacy the country has struggled to address and it’s one Foxx hopes to begin to repair. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx joins Diane to discuss helping isolated, poor and minority communities get access to reliable and safe transportation – and a panel of experts react to his proposals. Guests Anthony Foxx U.S. Secretary of Transportation Richard Rothstein research associate, Economic Policy Institute Sherrilyn Ifill president and director-counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Robert Puentes senior fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program, The Brookings Institution.
• A 'Forgotten History' Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America
  Fresh Air, with Terry Gross, May 3, 2017 In 1933, faced with a housing shortage, the federal government began a program explicitly designed to increase — and segregate — America's housing stock. Author Richard Rothstein says the housing programs begun under the New Deal were tantamount to a "state-sponsored system of segregation." The government's efforts were "primarily designed to provide housing to white, middle-class, lower-middle-class families," he says. African-Americans and other people of color were left out of the new suburban communities — and pushed instead into urban housing projects. Rothstein's new book, The Color of Law, examines the local, state and federal housing policies that mandated segregation.
• Abacus: The only bank charged in the financial crisis
  Kai Ryssdal and Tommy Andres, NPR MarketPlace, 5/22/2017 In 2010, the New York District Attorney's office charged Abacus Federal Savings Bank of Chinatown, New York with mortgage fraud. Abacus became the only bank prosecuted for the financial crisis. In a new documentary film, "Abacus: Small Enough to Jail," filmmaker Steve James tells the story of the Sungs, the family of a now 82-year-old Chinese immigrant named Thomas Sung who started Abacus in 1984.
• A Government ‘Scare’ They Don’t Teach In History Class (19 min)
  WUNC The State of Things, Oct. 24, 2017, Jennifer Brookland & Frank Stasio In 1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued an executive order that banned homosexuals from holding jobs in the federal government or receiving a security clearance. Host Frank Stasio speaks with Josh Howard, producer and director of the documentary film “The Lavender Scare,” Topher Payne, playwright of “Perfect Arrangement”, and two of the plays actors Benoit Sabourin and Lauren Knott.
• Dave DeWitt - The State That 'Outlawed Climate Change' Accepts Latest Sea-Level Rise Report
  The State That 'Outlawed Climate Change' Accepts Latest Sea-Level Rise Report
  By Dave DeWitt, WUNC, May 5, 2015
• Ellen Knickmeyer (AP) - Fired regulator: Brown pushed to waive oil safeguards
  Fired regulator: Brown pushed to waive oil safeguards. Ellen Knickmeyer, Associated Press, Sep. 4, 2015 "California's top oil and gas regulators repeatedly warned Gov. Jerry Brown's senior aides in 2011 that the governor's orders to override key safeguards in granting oil industry permits would violate state and federal laws protecting the state's groundwater from contamination, one of the former officials has testified. "Brown fired the regulators on Nov. 3, 2011, one day after what the fired official says was a final order from the governor to bypass safety provisions of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act in granting permits to oil companies for oilfield injection wells. Brown later boasted publicly that the dismissals led to a speed-up of oilfield permitting." [archived article courtesy of the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine]
• Fresh Air - The Supreme Court Ruling That Led To 70,000 Forced Sterilizations (37 min)
  The Supreme Court Ruling That Led To 70,000 Forced Sterilizations NPR Fresh Air, March 7, 2016 "In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court decided, by a vote of 8 to 1, to uphold a state's right to forcibly sterilize a person considered unfit to procreate. The case, known as Buck v. Bell, centered on a young woman named Carrie Buck, whom the state of Virginia had deemed to be 'feebleminded.' "Author Adam Cohen tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that Buck v. Bell was considered a victory for America's eugenics movement, an early 20th century school of thought that emphasized biological determinism and actively sought to "breed out" traits that were considered undesirable."
• Governance failure in the face of climate change
• I am an Arctic researcher. Donald Trump is deleting my citations
  Victoria Herrmann, The Guardian, 28 March 2017
  These politically motivated data deletions come at a time when the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average
• In Orwellian move, NC State Archives blocks access to death penalty photo
  February 6, 2016 "The N.C. State Archives is blocking access to all historical material related to executions "This is especially important at a time when we as a state and a nation are engaged in a vital discussion about the death penalty "By blocking access to information, the state is harming education, stifling debate and undermining free speech"
• Leaked Documents Show How China’s Army of Paid Internet Trolls Helped Censor the Coronavirus
  Raymond Zhong, Paul Mozur and Aaron Krolik, The New York Times, and Jeff Kao, ProPublica Dec. 19, 2020
  As the coronavirus spread in China, the government stage-managed what appeared on the domestic internet to make the virus look less severe and the authorities more capable, according to thousands of leaked directives and other files.
• Looting Louisiana: How the Jindal administration is helping Big Oil rip off a cash-strapped state
  "The Jindal administration in Louisiana has helped the oil and gas industry avoid paying billion of dollars in severance taxes and royalties." Includes a 13-min video. [archived article courtesy of the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine]
• NPR - High Lead Levels In Michigan Kids After City Switches Water Source
  High Lead Levels In Michigan Kids After City Switches Water Source NPR, October 5, 2015 "Doctors are finding elevated levels of lead in the children in Flint, Mich., and local tap water is the likely cause."
• NPR Morning Edition - Mass Deportation May Sound Unlikely, But It's Happened Before
  Mass Deportation May Sound Unlikely, But It's Happened Before Adrian Florido NPR Morning Edition, 9/8/2015
• NPR - Secret World War II Chemical Experiments Tested Troops By Race
  Secret World War II Chemical Experiments Tested Troops By Race Caitlin Dickerson, June 22, 2015 Part I of a two-part investigation of mustard gas testing by the U.S. military during World War II.
• NPR special series - World War II secret mustard gas testing
  9 short reports on the program and the Department of Veterans Affairs response
• NY Times: Blindsided by a ‘Devastating’ Veto, Alaska’s University System Pleads for a Lifeline
  Mike Baker, NY Times, July 7, 2019
  More than a month after Alaska lawmakers settled on a plan to cut $5 million in support for the state’s universities, Gov. Mike J. Dunleavy shocked the state last month by using a veto to cut much deeper, taking away $130 million more from the system that gave him his master’s degree.
• NY Times - EPA broke law with social media push for Water Rule, auditor finds
  Eric Linton and Michael D. Shear, NY Times, Dec 14, 2015
• Policing for Profit - The abuse of civil asset forfeiture (2nd ed)
  Dick M. Carpenter II, Ph.D., Lisa Knepper, Angela C. Erickson and Jennifer McDonald, with contributions from Wesley Hottot and Keith Diggs. Institute for Justice, 2016? Civil forfeiture laws pose some of the greatest threats to property rights in the nation today, too often making it easy and lucrative for law enforcement to take and keep property—regardless of the owner’s guilt or innocence. This updated and expanded second edition of Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture makes the case for reform, grading the civil forfeiture laws of each state and the federal government, documenting remarkable growth in forfeiture activity across the country, and highlighting a worrisome lack of transparency surrounding forfeiture activity and expenditures from forfeiture funds.
• Reveal - A welfare check
  Reveal, July 16, 2016 - updated Nov 26, 2016 Jul 16, 2016 Share Listen A welfare check i UPDATE, Nov. 26, 2016: With Republicans in full control of the federal government, there’s a good chance welfare reform will be an issue they may take on. In anticipation of that, it is worth taking another look at what’s worked and what hasn’t. An updated version of the original episode can be heard below. Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton vowed to end welfare as we know it. And he did. One of the biggest changes to come out of the 1996 welfare reform law was that that the federal government handed over control of $16.5 billion to the states, in the form of block grants, to spend as they see fit. Today, only a quarter of welfare dollars actually goes toward basic assistance – housing, transportation or essential household items. On this hour of Reveal, we take a road trip with Marketplace’s new podcast “The Uncertain Hour” and find out the surprising ways different states use this money.
• Roy woman wrongfully declared dead by federal government struggling to prove she's alive
  McKenzie Romero, Deseret News (Utah), Aug. 25, 2016 Though Murphy is alive and well, a death certificate has been connected to her, leading the Social Security Administration to believe she died in July 2014. Now, the federal government has been attempting to take back two years' worth of Social Security payments and to recoup any Medicare or Medicaid dollars put toward Murphy's treatment during that time. [archived article courtesy of the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine]
• The Land Of Lincoln Is Penniless: Is It A Warning Or An Outlier?
  1A, WAMU, 5/29/2017 Is Illinois a failed state? For anyone west of the Mississippi or east of the Wabash, that might seem like an odd question, but consider this: The Prairie State has $14.6 billion in debt, $130 billion in pension obligations, a roughly $6 billion deficit and all that debt is ranked at near-junk status. On top of that, the state has gone nearly two years without passing a budget as partisan fighting in Springfield has reduced government to relying on stopgaps and court orders to keep the lights on. Unlike cities, states can’t legally go bankrupt. So what happens if Illinois keeps avoiding its bills? And what lessons can other states learn from Illinois’ example? Host: Joshua Johnson; Guests: Liz Farmer Staff writer, Governing Magazine; @LizFarmerTweets Tony Arnold state politics reporter, WBEZ; @TonyJArnold Christopher Mooney professor of state politics, University of Illinois at Springfield Natasha Korecki Reporter Politico Illinois; @NatashaKorecki
• Thousands of Living Vets Declared Dead and Lost Benefits in Past Five Years
  Ben Kesling, Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2016 The Department of Veterans Affairs has mistakenly declared thousands of veterans to be deceased and canceled their benefits over the past five years, a new snafu to emerge at the embattled department.
• Why America’s return to $1 trillion deficits is a big problem for you
  Heather Long, Washington Post, April 9, 2018 The federal government is on track to have a $1 trillion deficit in 2020 — and to continue running yawning deficits for years to come, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted Monday.