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 EPA has been accused by one of its investigators of operating a “rogue law enforcement agency” that has stymied independent probes of EPA personnel and activities. Assistant EPA inspector general Patrick Sullivan charges that EPA’s Office of Homeland Security, "under the heavy cloak of national security," has impeded investigations into employee misconduct, computer security and external threats.   read more

In a controversial decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has sanctioned the practice of prayer, particularly Christian ones, before local government meetings. The dissenting justices disagreed with the majority’s assertion that Greece’s town hall predominantly Christian prayers did not violate “the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share in her government."   read more

The investigation discovered that many school districts no longer pay attention to their desegregation orders, even though they are still in effect. Officials “have never read them, or erroneously believe that orders have been ended. In many cases, orders have gone unmonitored, sometimes for decades, by the federal agencies charged with enforcing them,” wrote Nikole Hannah-Jones. Some active desegregation orders were shipped back to Washington to be boxed up in the federal archives.   read more

The national debate over Obamacare just added a new talking point now that research shows the inspiration for President Obama’s healthcare law appears to have helped people live longer lives. Massachusetts’s 2006 healthcare law, signed by then-Gov. Mitt Romney, required universal coverage. In the four years since, the state’s mortality rate declined by nearly 3%, and by 4.6% for blacks, Asians and Latinos. Under Obamacare, such a drop would mean about 17,000 fewer deaths a year.   read more

Asian students are not smarter than white students, according to a new study. They just work harder. Sociologists found that Asian-American students do better in school than white classmates. The reason for this is due to having a stronger work ethic. “[They] are harder working because of cultural beliefs that emphasize the strong connection between effort and achievement,” wrote the researchers. And their parents "better cultivate qualities that enable their...academic success.”   read more

Medical marijuana is legal in the state of New Mexico, but federal border patrol agents operating in the southern part of the state have been seizing residents’ cannabis as allowed under federal law. These actions have frustrated New Mexicans authorized to carry and use marijuana products for medicinal purposes. State Rep. Bill McCamley complained that “legal card-carrying medical marijuana patients can’t carry their marijuana anywhere else in the state."   read more

The people who will decide the fate of online privacy in court cases have little or no personal point of reference when it comes to understanding how email and other electronic communications have shaped Americans’ lives. Nearly half the U.S. Supreme Court was born during the 1930s. Four are in their 60s, and the youngest is 54. Most of them already lived half or more of their lives when the Internet came into being, putting them behind the modern curve of email, texting and social media.   read more

Camp Stanley, a U.S. Army base outside San Antonio, may have doubled as a secret weapons depot for the CIA going back to the height of the Cold War. Guns and explosives were shipped from the base to foreign countries where the CIA was operating covert missions, including those aimed at the Soviet Union and al Qaeda. The cache also helped supply the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, as well as rebels in Angola, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan.   read more

White men certainly enjoy the attention of university professors more than women and minorities do, according to a new study. Researchers tested the response rate of professors when it comes to students requesting help. They crafted phony emails from fictitious doctoral students and sent them to 6,500 professors at 259 universities. Results showed professors ignored requests from women and minorities at a higher rate than requests from white males.   read more

The fatal attack two years ago on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, which congressional Republicans continue to use as an issue against President Barack Obama and other Democrats, serves as reminder of how dangerous U.S. diplomatic postings have been under presidents of both political parties. The September 11, 2012, assault that killed four in Libya, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, represented the sixth deadly attack on embassy or consulate personnel since 2000.   read more

Following in the footsteps of other large cities, Indianapolis may start charging the hosts of major public events for police protection. With public revenues at a premium, city leaders say it may be time to bill the Indianapolis 500 and other popular festivities that usually require significant security. The change could bring in $1 million in added monies for the city annually, which also hosts the Indiana Black Expo Summer Celebration and the 500 Festival.   read more

U.S. sanctions against Russia have now affected the U.S. Air Force’s need for Russian-made rocket engines. A joint venture known as United Launch Alliance (ULA) between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, two of the nation’s largest defense contractors, has long purchased Russian RD-180 engines for American Atlas V rockets, which the Air Force uses to put military satellites into orbit.   read more

In return for CWE’s and other oil industry contributions, the NRA threw its support behind a controversial Republican bill, the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act. The legislation was intended to expand natural resource extraction (oil, gas, logging and mining) on protected federal lands. The CAP report says more than 200 wildlife managers and scientists opposed the bill, as did representatives from eight sportsmen’s groups in Colorado.   read more

The predicted $470 million shortfall will have to be made up by taking money from conservation, recreation and other programs. The report said that in the past 30 years, the fire seasons have increased from 60 to 80 days annually and the areas burned have more than doubled to more than 7 million acres each year. Firefighting has also gotten more expensive because there are more people living closer to forests.   read more

BioWatch is a national system that is supposed to guard against an attack with biological agents. The Generation 3 version was supposed to operate autonomously, save money and guard against a large-scale outdoor biological attack. But in 2013, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revised its thinking on such attacks, saying they were more likely to be on a smaller, yet still deadly, scale.   read more

In 2007, Rogers won his first star, being promoted to Rear Admiral (lower half) and being named Director of Intelligence for the U.S. Pacific Command. Two years later, he was named director of intelligence for the Joint Staff, earning another star in 2010. Rogers was named commander of Fleet Cyber Command/10th Fleet in 2011. That job came with a promotion to Vice Admiral. Rogers was named Admiral when he moved to the NSA.   read more