Texas Attorney General examines Brooks Co. forfeiture fund after audit finds hundreds of thousands of dollars for cars, dinners, wares from Cavender’s Boot City

By   /  January 23, 2012  /  Accountability, Ethics, News  /  No Comments

By Mark Lisheron | Texas Watchdog
AUSTIN — Security on the Texas border has created yet another insidious problem: an acute shortage of public accountants to keep track of the largess from all the illegal trafficking.
An audit of $562,000 of criminal asset forfeiture fund spending by former Brooks County Sheriff Balde Lozano has been turned over to the [...]

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Neb AG wants debates for U.S. Senate seat, but won’t commit to a number

By   /  January 23, 2012  /  News  /  No Comments

By Deena Winter | Nebraska Watchdog
LINCOLN — Attorney General Jon Bruning said today he’s anxious to hold debates with the other Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate, but thinks it’s too early to say how many should be held.
“I’m anxious to do debates,” he said during a press conference Monday after formally filing paperwork with the Secretary [...]

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Oregon lawmakers to hear bill to prevent Penn State-like abuse cover-up

By   /  January 23, 2012  /  News  /  No Comments

By Sarah Ross | Oregon Capital News
SALEM – Oregon lawmakers introduced a new bill Wednesday intended to respond to thechild abuse uncovered at Penn State University late last year.
The bill, introduced by Corvallis Democratic Representative Sara Gelser, would “sweep up” college employees into the current statute requiring mandatory reporting of child abuse.
Not only would the change in the current [...]

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New Social Divide Slams CA, Budget

By   /  January 23, 2012  /  News  /  No Comments

By Wayne Lusvardi | CalWatchdog
SACRAMENTO — The recent capsizing of the Carnival Cruise Lines ship Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy is symbolic of both Italy’s and California’s inability to continue to fund welfare states.  A lack of “social capital,” not income or taxes, is tearing at the social superstructure of California from within.
The Costa [...]

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Former Texas state Rep. Sergio Muñoz Sr.’s health care business raided

By   /  January 23, 2012  /  News  /  No Comments

By Mark Lisheron | Texas Watchdog
AUSTIN — Medicare or Medicaid fraud may be at the center of a raid by the FBI, federal health agents and Texas Attorney General’s investigators on one of the Rio Grand Valley health care businesses run by former state Rep. Sergio Muñoz Sr.
Munoz, who served in the Legislature from 1993 [...]

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