Trump said, “We need people to be afraid. Right now many Americans are surprised when protestors are killed, but they’ll get used to it.” Trump did add one suggestion: “Try not to kill white people. That gets too much attention. Stick to protestors of other colors.”   read more

Before Brinsley killed NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wen Jian Liu and committed suicide, he shot his former girlfriend, Shaneka Thompson. He reportedly entered Thompson’s Baltimore apartment, shot her in the stomach and then left for New York City. Thompson cried out for help, according to The Nation. “I can’t die like this. Please, please help me,” she said while knocking on a neighbor’s door. She is expected to survive her attack.   read more

In January 2013, Murthy co-authored a letter (pdf) from Doctors for America to members of Congress urging action to institute gun-safety measures in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings. When his nomination for surgeon general was announced on November 13 of that year, the NRA and its allies swung into action. The organization declared that it would “score” the vote for Murthy’s confirmation and take action against those senators who supported him.   read more

Taub went to work in the office of McHugh, who was made chairman of the Postal Services Subcommittee. Taub became its staff director for three years beginning in 1998, making him the spokesman for the efforts that culminated in 2006 in the creation of the commission he now chairs. Taub was appointed to the Postal Regulatory Commission in October 2011 and was became its vice chairman on January 1, 2013.   read more

Although the Iraq war has been over for a few years now, it still was the more costly of the two conflicts. Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn consumed $815 billion, or 51% of the total. As for Operation Enduring Freedom, which is still ongoing, the cost of American involvement in Afghanistan is now up to $686 billion. The human cost of the two wars for Americans has been: 4,491 deaths and 32,244 wounded in Iraq; and 2,356 deaths and 20,060 wounded in Afghanistan.   read more

The new appropriations bill approved by lawmakers and President Barack Obama slashed another $60 million from EPA’s budget. The spending reduction was crafted by Republicans, who loathe the EPA’s regulatory interference in business operations. But Obama was willing to go along with the cut, too. That shouldn’t come as a surprise since EPA has endured five consecutive years of shrinking budgets while Obama has been in office. Funding for the EPA has dropped more than 20% since 2010.   read more

Tyler was committed briefly in the 1980s following his divorce. A recent psychiatric evaluation found that he now has no sign of mental illness. He has since remarried and not suffered from depression. With these facts in mind, Judge Danny Boggs wrote: “The government’s interest in keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill is not sufficiently related to depriving the mentally healthy, who had a distant episode of commitment, of their constitutional rights.”   read more

“Our sport was born on frozen ponds and relies on winter weather,” said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. “Everyone who loves our game will benefit by taking an active role in preserving the environment and the roots of the game.” The announcement was “the most important environmental initiative ever made by a sports league,” said Green Sports Alliance president Allen Hershkowitz.   read more

The appellate court found the law to be “ideological in intent.” The statute also constituted a violation of free-speech rights, according to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan. “Transforming the physician into the mouthpiece of the state undermines the trust that is necessary for facilitating healthy doctor-patient relationships and, through them, successful treatment outcomes,” Wilkinson wrote in the opinion.   read more

From human rights organizations to the editorial boards of leading national newspapers, there have been numerous calls for the Obama administration to prosecute former officials in the CIA and the administration of George W. Bush for allowing and carrying out last decade’s controversial torture program against detainees. To many, nothing short of a war-crimes tribunal will suffice for the sake of bringing justice—and closure—to one of the ugliest episodes in modern U.S. political history.   read more

The false testimony came from Sandra McElroy, who claimed to have seen Brown charge Wilson before the shooting. However, McElroy’s story was found to have many holes in it when questioned prior to her grand jury testimony. She also as a history of mental illness and making racist remarks. Nonetheless, McCulloch called her twice to testify before the grand jury. He has said she “clearly wasn’t present” at the shooting scene and "recounted her story right out of the newspaper.”   read more

To protest the persecution of Navalny, who has demonstrated against Putin and led anti-corruption investigations against Russian officials, demonstrators created a Facebook page to spread the word about a demonstration. But Russian authorities demanded that Facebook block the page, and the company complied with the order. The Russian government claimed the demonstration represented an illegal and unauthorized event that would “infringe the public order."   read more

“Rather than being innocuous and gentler alternatives to typical horror or drama films, children’s animated films are, in fact, hotbeds of murder and mayhem,” and “rife with death and destruction," said the head researchers." On-screen deaths can be particularly traumatic for children as they directly expose them to loss of life. Death, often gruesome and sensationalized, is featured prominently in North American films,” noted the study.   read more

A letter on Jim Hood’s AG stationary that slammed Google for aiding piracy reportedly was copies from text from MPAA lawyers. Hood held a press conference last week, accusing Google of theft of secrets from the Sony leaks. “I want to talk about a story that’s been pushed out by a large corporation called Google. I mean, they pushed this story out. They rifled through the emails that were stolen from Sony. And, you know, I equate it to rifling through someone’s stolen property,” he said.   read more

Thursday the Federal Reserve granted financial institutions extra time to divest themselves of private equity and hedge fund investment they’d been required to sell as part of the Volcker Rule, which prohibits banks from investing their own capital. The postponement is seen as the work of Fed general counsel Scott Alvarez, a holdover from Alan Greenspan’s tenure as Fed chair who has been trying to water down Dodd-Frank since it was passed.   read more

The attorneys general for Nebraska and Oklahoma want Colorado’s marijuana legalization program stopped in order to stem the flow of pot into counties that border the state. A challenge to Colorado’s law on this basis could set an interesting precedent. If the suit is successful, could states with tougher gun laws sue neighboring states with relaxed firearm regulation because they allow guns to flow into their state?   read more

A panel appointed by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan to assess blame for the CIA’s intrusion into Senate Intelligence Committee computers has—no surprise—found that those who broke into the computers shouldn’t be punished. Those investigated by the CIA panel claimed they’d been given the go-ahead to break into the Senate computers by Brennan himself.   read more