Trump announced that from now on the NFL will be known as the NTL: The National Trump League. The Super Bowl will be renamed the Trump Bowl, and professional players must be called Trumpball Players. Anyone, on any level, who refuses to comply with Trump’s orders will be arrested and charged with being a threat to national security.   read more

A Southern California seller of firearms components engaged in a legal battle with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) after the agency sought the names of customers who purchased an illegal gun base. Ares Armor sold thousands of the bases, used to build the AR-15 assault weapon. The store's owner refused to comply, prompting the ATF to threaten to shut down his business. The next day ATF agents raided the store.   read more

It is estimated that nearly 25 million Americans earn less than $10.10 an hour at their jobs. Obama is urging Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to that rate, from its current $7.25, by 2016. At one time it was assumed that most earning that little were teenagers, but no more. Today, only 17% of them are under 20, compared to 28% in 2000.   read more

In 2012, the administration cited “national security” as reason to keep hidden information a record 8,496 times. That was 57% more than during the previous year and more than double during Obama’s first year in office. Even agencies whose mission is not the defense of the nation cited this reason for denying Freedom of Information Act requests. The Farm Service Agency did it six times, the Environmental Protection Agency did it twice and the National Park Service once.   read more

Attorneys general (AGs) from 24 states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories sent letters to five major retailers—Walgreens, Walmart, Rite Aid, Kroger and Safeway—requesting them to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products. The letters stated that it was a contradiction for companies to offer for sale “dangerous and devastating tobacco products” while meeting the health care needs of consumers.   read more

“For a variety of reasons, our intelligence relationships are rarely disrupted by foreign political perturbations, international or domestic,” the NSA document states. “First, we are helping our partners address critical intelligence shortfalls, just as they are assisting us. Second, in many of our foreign partners’ capitals, few senior officials outside of their defense-intelligence apparatuses are witting to any SIGINT [Signals Intelligence] connection to the U.S./NSA.”   read more

The New York Police Department (NYPD) is keeping secret its manual that instructs officials how to process freedom of information requests, claiming the materials are not covered under the state’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).   read more

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts represented a killer of eight, John Errol Ferguson, in Florida on appeal. This wasn’t seen as a problem during Roberts’ 2005 confirmation hearings. Similarly, John Adams, who later became the second president of the United States, represented British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre. He did so because of his belief that all accused deserve to be represented by counsel.   read more

The IG’s report shows the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) put mortgage fraud at the bottom of its criminal priority list—after receiving extra funding ($196 million from the 2009 to 2011) to address this problem. In some major cities, mortgage fraud wasn’t even on the FBI’s radar as any kind of a priority. Just as disturbing was the fact that Justice inflated its numbers to make it appear prosecutors were doing more than they actually were.   read more

Paul didn’t comment on the proposed law’s effect on pot legislation. On March 24, 2013, he told Fox News, “The main thing I’ve said is not to legalize them [marijuana and synthetic recreational drugs] but not to incarcerate people for extended periods of time.” Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), submitted a committee report citing President Barack Obama’s failure to enforce federal marijuana laws as an example of federal overreach.   read more

Inspectors general are expected to audit the department or agency for which they work for examples of fraud, waste, mismanagement and general incompetence. The Homeland Security inspector general post was unfilled for 1,134 days before Roth was confirmed. That’s a long time, but it wasn’t close to the current record. That’s held by the Department of Interior, which hasn’t had an IG since February 23, 2009, or 1,846 days as of this writing.   read more

Ireland has not had an American ambassador for 14 months. The fault lies squarely with President Barack Obama, who has not nominated a replacement. The White House offered no explanation for the delay. Officials in Canada also complained about the eight-month delay in their country getting a new U.S. ambassador. But Obama was not to blame for this one. Bruce Heyman's confirmation vote before the full Senate was delayed by partisan politics. He was finally confirmed on March 12.   read more

Among the more prominent violations during the period studied: The production of the “torture memos” by George W. Bush Administration-era Justice Department officials Jay Bybee and John Yoo. Bybee is now a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Yoo is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.   read more

Since John Roberts was confirmed as chief justice, cases in which the Chamber has an interest have gone the pro-business group’s way 72% of the time, according to the Constitutional Accountability Center. This compares to a 56% win rate from 1994 to 2005 when William Rehnquist, like Roberts a Republican appointee, ran the court. So far this term, the Chamber has come out ahead on seven of eight cases in which it’s involved.   read more

Con men scammed more than $1.6 billion in 2013, according to a report by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This does not include identity theft complaints. Victims lost an average of $2,294 in scams. Forty percent of fraud victims were initially contacted by telephone and 33% by email. The Consumer Sentinel Network (CSN), a database the FTC maintains for the use of law-enforcement agencies, reports that identity theft was the top crime reported, with 14% of the 2.1 million complaints.   read more

The bulk of his time,Wright said, was spent trying to cut through the bureaucracy run by Assistant Secretary for Health Howard Koh, for whom Wright worked. One example cited by Wright involved his efforts to fill the post of an ORI division director. He says he was told by Koh’s deputy, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Wanda Jones, that the position Wright wanted to fill was on a secret priority list and he was not allowed to know where that position fell on the list.   read more

In 2011, she was appointed assistant secretary of defense for Global Strategic Affairs (GSA). In that post, Creedon has overseen such policy issues as cybersecurity for the Department of Defense (DOD), nuclear weapons, missile defense and countering weapons of mass destruction. As part of her position as assistant secretary of defense, she has been co-leader of a Pentagon team reviewing recent problems with Air Force nuclear missile crews.   read more