Author: Justin Lane

Electronic Cigarettes, e-cigarettes, are commonly understood as an alternative to conventional cigarettes. A new report from the CDC, however, indicates that the e-cigarettes are finding a wider and wider market among smokers that would be prevented from buying traditional cigarettes, namely teenagers. A published on September 6, 2013, and found that e-cigarette usage among grade school students, grades 6-12, increased dramatically and that a correlated rise in conventional cigarettes was also found. Florida performed its own studies of the products, and found results that far exceeded those found by the CDC. In 2013, according to the report, 4.3 percent of middle...

According to a new report, the rising cost of Medicare to taxpayers is 47 percent thanks to fraud, abuse, and overcharging by hospitals. New drugs and patient treatments have only been responsible for 6 percent of the rising costs. The problem is systemic but many Americans lack knowledge of how the program works, making lawmakers hesitant to propose legislation to combat the exploitation and abuse of America’s Medicare program. “In the absence of the actions of lawmakers, individuals aware of entities exploiting the government for payment of false claims have powerful tools they can use to combat the fraud...

It was bound to happen. Schools, fearful of the next outbreak of intolerable violence, began tracking students’ activities on social networks. Businesses have been doing it. It’s a standard, not-so-loudly-spoken of procedure that a future employer will do a Google and Facebook search of someone they are considering to hire. So when it escalates to a group of schools employing companies to crawl social networks and gather information from its students, it should be no surprise. Since last year Glendale schools have been piloting a program that crawls the internet and open social networks for public postings and aggregates...

2013 is almost out the door. The year, so far, may be coined the “year of the whistleblower.” Chelsea Manning will be sentenced, Edward Snowden is still on the run and the government has recovered billions of dollars thanks to whistleblowers. The government and this administration’s relationship to whistleblowers can be characterized, at best, as severely conflicted. Corporate whistleblowers and individuals coming forward to protect the government from fraud are conferred special protections and incentives under the False Claims Act. This law provides that individuals with knowledge of an entity having received payments for false claims submitted to the...

Below are Ring of Fire’s top stories from the past week. Video Rewind Department of Justice Asks Court to Grant Bush Admins Immunity for Iraq War In a series of documents filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the Obama administration’s Department of Justice effectively asked the Court to grant immunity to former President George W. Bush, former Vice-President Richard B. Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz for their actions during...