July 15, 2009

In a first-of-its-kind case, Chilton County, Ala., resident Jerry Alan Penton, age 37, was sentenced today to 480 months in federal prison under a new federal law that targets the use of child pornography to break down a child's defenses to illegal sexual contact - a practice commonly known as grooming. Full release.

Public Campaign Action Fund praised the appointment of former California Treasurer Phil Angelides as the chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, and urged Angelides and the other commissioners to investigate the role that campaign contributions from Wall Street and big banking interests played in precipitating the economic crisis. Angelides was appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and selected as chair of the congressionally established commission by Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Full release.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today released new data from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample -- the largest, all-payer emergency department database in the United States. The Nationwide Emergency Department Sample is designed to help public health experts, policymakers, health care administrators, researchers, journalists and others find the data they need to answer questions about care that occurs in U.S. hospital emergency departments. Full release.

Steele will outline a unifying set of core Republican principles for health care reform, spelling out what Republicans are for and what they are against while seeking to correct common myths about what President Obama claims his health care plan would do for ordinary Americans. Full release.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement today after the Senate HELP Committee passed its version of health care reform legislation: "The passage of the Affordable Health Choices Act out of the Senate HELP Committee is further evidence of great momentum in Congress for reforming health care for America's middle class. After decades of trying, this puts us one step closer to real reforms that will put patients and doctors - not insurance companies - in charge of their own health care and provide Americans and American businesses with the choice of quality, affordable, accessible health care they need and deserve. It will give Americans stability and peace of mind that they cannot be denied care or coverage for pre-existing conditions." Full release.

The Democrats' health care reform bill currently on the floor of the House of Representatives creates a new government-run health plan that will undercut the private market and force as many as 119 million people to lose their private health insurance and be forced into a Medicare-like plan, according to National Center for Policy Analysis President John C. Goodman. Full release.

Everyone asks, "who would be so reckless as to click on this junk?" but almost a third of consumers admitted to responding to a message they suspected might be spam, according to a survey released today by the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG). Also alarming, about 80 percent of users doubted their computers were at risk of ever being infected with a "bot," which is a covertly planted virus capable of sending spam or causing other damage without the owner's knowledge. Full release.

Clean Skies News, the nation's preeminent online and on-demand energy and environment network, today unveiled CleanSkies.com, an enhanced platform to better deliver breaking news from Capitol Hill to Copenhagen and beyond. Clean Skies' unique approach combines TV as the medium with the Web as the delivery method, giving audiences access to top-tier newsmakers in just one click. Full release.

Today, nine shark "attack" victims from around the nation joined advocates in pushing for the Shark Conservation Act of 2009 (S. 850/H.R. 81), which would strengthen the ban on shark finning in U.S. waters and encourage shark conservation programs around the world. Full release.

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