According to aides who were present when Trump discussed the issue, but who choose to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, Trump said he was sick of Vance and wanted to fire him. “I wanted him to be my attack dog,” said Trump, “but he appears foolish on television. He dropped the college football trophy. He met with Pope Francis and the next day the pope died. Vance is toxic, and I don’t want him to come near me. He just doesn’t look as good on television as I thought he would.”   read more

The VA healthcare system has struggled to keep up with demand from two different veterans’ populations: Afghanistan and Iraq vets who are requiring more medical and other help than their predecessors; and Vietnam veterans seeking more assistance than before, including those diagnosed with ailments related to Agent Orange.   read more

The U.S. has 7.1 million millionaires, with China a distant second at 2.4 million. Together, that’s 9.5 million out of 16.3 million millionaires on the planet. China accounts for 19% of the world’s total population and the U.S. only 4.4%. The worldwide total of millionaires went up significantly from only two years ago, when there were 13.7 million.   read more

Three years ago, Scott said: “I believe the federal government ought to do their job. You know, secure our borders. Come up with an immigration policy that Americans understand and people who want to come to this country understand. But with regard to in-state tuition for illegal immigrants I completely oppose it.” That’s not all that Scott was opposed to. Last year he vetoed a bill that would have permitted young undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses.   read more

In Scialabba v. Cuellar de Osorio (pdf), a split court ruled 5-4 that children of immigrants cannot be given special priority by the immigration system just because they “age out” (meaning they turn 21 by the time bureaucrats get around to processing their parents’ visa application).   read more

In one area of Montana the distance to get to a polling place is so far that three tribes have filed a lawsuit to have voting offices set up within closer proximity to voters. In another example, the Alaskan village of Kasigluk is separated by a river that has no bridge, and voters on one side have no more than a couple hours to vote before the ballot equipment is removed and packed onto a boat for shipment to the other side, where voting hours are also be curtailed.   read more

Thousands of federal government employees are armed with handguns and even semiautomatic and automatic weapons as part of their jobs for agencies that are not traditional law enforcement operations. These gun-toting civil servants include those performing missions that involve Social Security, delivering the mail, predicting the weather, and overseeing railroad pensions. Others authorized to carry firearms conduct audits for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.   read more

The testing revealed that the technologies were better at recognizing photos of older individuals than younger ones, “suggesting that we become steadily easier to recognize using facial recognition software, and more distinguishable from our contemporaries, as we age.” Such software is used to root out duplicates in official documents such as driver’s licenses and passports, access control, social media tagging and criminal investigations.   read more

The webpage for Janssen’s Duragesic (fentanyl) drug says that the medication “is a strong prescription pain medication for moderate to severe chronic pain that can provide long-lasting relief from persistent pain.” It makes no mention on the page about use being recommended for or restricted to cancer patients.   read more

When Colorado legalized recreational marijuana, critics of the idea warned it would lead to more crime throughout the state. But the impact has been just the opposite so far in the state’s largest city, which has seen violent crime go down. Crime data for Denver, the hub of legal pot sales in the state, shows murders, assaults, rapes, burglaries and other violent crimes declined during the first three months of the year, compared with the same period for 2013.   read more

Among this year’s new crop of legislators, 112 (or 21%) face “serious” criminal allegations, such as murder, attempted murder, rape, kidnapping and “communal disharmony,” which can include members of one religion attacking those of another. Ten face charges of homicide, and 17 with attempted homicide.   read more

Bundy’s bill stands at more than $1 million, which includes fees for late payments and trespassing on federal property, since he has not made payments to the BLM since the early 1990s. In comparison, 458 ranchers (out of 16,000) who run cattle on BLM lands collectively owe late grazing bills that total $237,000, according to agency numbers collected by Greenwire. Furthermore, less than 1% of the 16,000 ranchers are more than two months behind on their payments.   read more

Cheryl MacKenzie, who led the investigation, said another such blowout is not out of the question. “Although there have been regulatory improvements since the accident, the effective management of safety critical elements has yet to be established,” MacKenzie said. “This results in potential safety gaps in U.S. offshore operations and leaves open the possibility of another similar catastrophic accident.”   read more

The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a plan last week that would cut carbon emissions from electricity production by 30% over the next 15 years. The proposal drew howls of protest from those who said it would raise electric rates and kill jobs. However, 10 states have already cut their plant emissions by that much and there have been few economic consequences.   read more

In 2009, Julián ran again for mayor, and this time he won. At 35, he was the youngest mayor of a Top-50 U.S. city. He focused on education during his tenure, establishing a program to give college guidance to San Antonio high school students and championing a sales-tax increase to fund a pre-kindergarten school program. Castro also helped push through an ordinance banning discrimination against members of the LGBT community. He was re-elected twice, in 2011 and 2013, by huge margins.   read more

Lawyers with OSC say they stopped the VA recently from taking disciplinary actions against three VA whistleblowers. One case involved an employee who hadn’t been disciplined during 20 years of service, but was now facing a 30-day suspension without pay for reporting on the use of patient restraints in violation of VA rules and procedures.   read more

Anderson moved to New York as the Irish ambassador to the United Nations, serving until taking the Washington post. Anderson is a frequent lecturer at U.S. universities. Since becoming ambassador to the United States, Anderson has pushed for immigration reform. There are as many as 50,000 undocumented Irish in the U.S.   read more