Trump said he would send the National Guard to Toronto and impose 50% tariffs on all Los Angeles products. AllGov reporter Sidney Finster suggested that perhaps Trump had confused the two cities. Because Toronto is in Canada, not the United States, Trump can’t send the National Guard there. And because Los Angeles is in the United States, Trump can’t impose tariffs on a U.S. city. Trump defended his position by saying, “I’m always right.”   read more

According to the researchers, “marijuana legalization may lead to a reduction in alcohol use due to individuals substituting marijuana for alcohol. Given the relationship between alcohol and violent crime, it may turn out that substituting marijuana for alcohol leads to minor reductions in violent crimes that can be detected at the state level.”   read more

Citing the principle of “diversity jurisdiction,”—that when a civil case involves residents of different states, the case can be heard by a federal court—the bank had the case removed to federal court, where it was dismissed. McKeown noted “One might think that 150 years after Congress established national banks in 1863, the question of their citizenship for purposes of diversity jurisdiction would be well established. Not so."   read more

By the end of 2010, Massad was acting assistant secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability, which gave him supervision over TARP. He was confirmed as assistant secretary on June 30, 2011. In that post, he started to wind down the program, selling assets the federal government had taken in exchange for funding banks and other financial institutions during the 2008 crisis. Despite its unpopularity with many Americans, the program made money for taxpayers under Massad’s stewardship.   read more

Grandy Lake applied for a permit to clear a 15-acre tract near the plateau’s edge. The proposal was rejected at first, but then DNR approved it after Grandy Lake agreed to harvest half as many trees as it originally intended. But the cutting, which concluded in 2005, wound up bordering the slope that collapsed, and even ventured into a “restricted” zone where no trees were to be removed because of the risk of groundwater eroding the slope. The following year, a large landslide occurred.   read more

The three meat companies filed a $1.2 billion suit in 2012 against ABC, claiming the network, including anchor Diane Sawyer, ran a “disinformation campaign” against the additive. According to the suit, “There is not a more offensive way of describing a food product than to call it ‘slime,’ which is a noxious, repulsive, and filthy fluid not safe for human consumption.”   read more

The Pittsburgh-area student tested four fonts, Garamond, Times New Roman, Century Gothic and Comic Sans to see which used the least amount of ink in printing various letters. Garamond came up the winner. Based on the General Services Administration’s (GSA) estimated cost of ink, which is $467 million annually, Mirchandani found the federal government could save nearly 30% of its ink costs, or $136 million a year, if it used Garamond exclusively.   read more

On January 6, 2014, longtime Congressman Mel Watt was sworn in as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the supervisory agency created in its current form in 2008 in response to the bursting of the housing bubble and subsequent financial crisis and Great Recession. He was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 1, 2013.   read more

In May 2005, Davis was named chief of the troubled East Palo Alto Police Department. Davis is known as an expert on racial profiling by police, and has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in 2001 and 2012, on the subject. While in East Palo Alto, he helped implement a parole-reentry program. The program had a significant effect on return-to-custody rates, seeing them fall from 60% to 20%.   read more

House Bill 2, adopted last year during a special legislative session, requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic where they work. Abortion rights advocates denounced the legislation, claiming the requirement was unnecessary and actually a veiled attempt to limit access to abortions. Since the law went into effect, 13 of the state’s 37 medical facilities offering abortion services have gone out of business.   read more

In just the past two years, more than three dozen prosecutions around the country have involved the referencing or admitting of rap lyrics as evidence. District attorneys and police argue that the lyrics can amount to a confession of murder. But the strategy also can be used to sway a judge or jury into just thinking the defendant is guilty.   read more

As for the death ray, prosecutors described it in their motion as a “weaponized, mobilized and remotely controlled radiation-emitting device designed to kill or seriously injure unsuspecting human targets.” Prosecutors insist the weapon was not a pipe dream, and that Crawford was powering it up last summer when agents stormed a garage in the village of Galway, north of Albany.   read more

After Obama’s inauguration, Johnson was named general counsel for the Department of Defense. One of his major achievements in that position was the co-authorship of a report on why the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy should be overturned. Congress took its recommendations to heart and now gays may serve openly in the armed forces. Johnson was also a defender of the military’s increased use of drones, writing memos providing legal cover for their use.   read more

In 2004, Yellen was made president of the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco. She was one of the first to herald the coming financial crisis in 2007, urging tightening of rules for making home loans. She later acknowledged, however, that the San Francisco Fed didn’t do all it could have to ameliorate the crash, particularly in respect to Countrywide Financial’s toxic loan portfolio. Yellen left San Francisco in 2010, when Obama nominated her to be vice chair of the Fed.   read more

The FDA has decided to get into the counterterrorism game by proposing new rules to prevent the poisoning of the nation’s food supply. Food manufacturers would be required to secure products from “intentional adulteration.” Many food suppliers don’t use basic security such as surveillance cameras, locking up warehouses, and conducting background checks on temporary workers. So introducing a contaminant -- salmonella, botulism, mercury -- into the food chain would not be difficult.   read more

Georgia’s new gun legislation would allow residents to carry firearms through much of society: schools, churches, restaurants, airports and even bars. The NRA called it “the most comprehensive pro-gun” bill in recent state history. Organizations opposing it include the state’s police chiefs and restaurant associations, several churches, and TSA. One poll showed 70% of Georgians oppose it. The bill’s passage demonstrates how successful the gun lobby has been in pushing its agenda.   read more

Opponents of fracking have won a partial victory before Wyoming’s highest court in the fight over disclosing what chemicals are used by drillers. The ruling may set an important precedent in future cases involving disclosure of fracking chemicals. Critics have tried for four years to reveal fracking ingredients, ever since the state became the first in the nation to adopt a rule requiring such disclosure. That rule came about as a result of water contamination found near well sites.   read more