Americans trust in govt at an all time low? Why?

1. A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent was arrested Friday for conspiring to smuggle illegal aliens into the country. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers arrested David Alexander Díaz-Torres in Orlando, Fla., according to the Justice Department.
2. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) wants to require health care providers to include “social and behavioral” data in Electronic Health Records (EHR) and to link patient’s records to public health departments, it was announced last week.
3. A bill that would allow non-physicians to perform abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy is awaiting signature by Gov. Jerry Brown of California by Sep. 30. 
4. 'I will not even go to strip clubs anymore!' promises Minneapolis mayoral candidate in bizarre campaign video
5. Social Security overpays $1.3 billion in benefits: GAO
6. According to the Atlantic, Time managing editor Rick Stengel’s decision to join the Obama administration is just the latest example of a new trend among mainstream media journalists who are making it official by joining the Obama administration. Stengel, who is joining the State Department, is just one of 15 (or 19) who have given up a career in journalism to join Obama’s crusade to fundamentally transform America: A wave of reporters went to work for President Obama early in the administration, a time when many media organizations were going through layoffs and Obama’s approval rating was sky-high.
7.  An amendment is moving through the Senate Judiciary Committee that would essentially allow the government to determine who is a journalist for purposes of legal protection of sources.
8. Attorney General Eric Holder and IRS officials advised black ministers on how to engage in political activity during the 2012 election without violating their tax-exempt status. Holder, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, and Peter Lorenzetti, a senior official in the scandal-plagued agency’s exempt organizations division, participated in a May 2012 training session for black ministers from the Conference of National Black Churches at the U.S. Capitol hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Holder spoke at the event.
9. From Thomas Joscelyn’s testimony before Congress in the last 2 weeks - SYRIA - Al Qaeda and its extremist allies have grown much stronger since late 2011. Al Qaeda does not control the entire rebellion, which is made up of a complex set of actors and alliances. However, al Qaeda and its allies dominate a large portion of northern Syria and play a key role in the fighting throughout the rest of the country. These same al Qaeda-affiliated forces have fought alongside Free Syrian Army brigades. There is no clear geographic dividing line between the most extreme fighters and other rebels. For example, al Qaeda’s affiliates played a key role in the fighting in Latakia, an Assad stronghold on the coast, in early August. And within the past week we saw al Qaedaaffiliated fighters lead an attack in Malula, a Christian village not far from Damascus. These are just two examples chosen from many. Al Qaeda has made the fight for Syria a strategic priority.
   POLITICO:
   Less than half of Americans trust the government to handle problems, a all-time low, according to a new poll.
   Just 49 percent of Americans said they had a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the federal government to handle international problems, according to a Gallup poll released Friday. The previous low was 51 percent in 2007.
   The public’s trust is even lower when it comes to domestic issues. Just 42 percent of Americans answered with a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the government to handle issues at home, one point below the previous low from 2011.Democrats have far more confidence in the government than Republicans: 78 percent of Dems trust the government on international issues compared to just 35 percent of Republicans. Democrats don’t have nearly as much faith when it comes to domestic issues, though, with 58 percent saying they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence compared to 25 percent of Republicans.
   
   Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/government-trust-poll-96773.html#ixzz2es6lw1Pb