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

Contrary to Obama’s assertion that the Patriot Act (pdf) authorizes the program, the board concluded that the very same law makes it illegal to conduct such surveillance. The controversial program also has not helped protect the U.S., the board found. The board examined a dozen terrorism cases cited by intelligence agencies that involved information which was obtained using Section 215, and largely dismissed them as irrelevant.   read more

The board noted that the NSA has clearly demonstrated it can monitor the emails, web searches and conversations of scientists and engineers. Such an approach would be far more efficient than reliance on satellite photos, which the study said would be of limited use, even though there are 200 satellites engaged in “earth observation.”   read more

Incidents of sexual abuse and harassment were committed by more than half of the prison’s staff, and more than one-third of them were found to have had sex with prisoners. There are 900 female inmates at the prison. The prison lacked any kind of system to track complaints lodged against staff, resulting in dozens of violations by individual guards, some of whom were labeled sexual predators, according to the report.   read more

Once the agency began rounding up key terrorism suspects, it needed a place to stash them and conduct brutal interrogations. The government of Poland proved a willing ally. The money was flown via diplomatic pouch from Germany to Warsaw, where two CIA operatives personally delivered it to Agencja Wywiadu, the Polish intelligence service. For $15 million, the CIA got a former training base located in Stare Kiejkuty, about three hours north of Warsaw.   read more

During training at the Lake Cormorant, Mississippi, facility, Ghane was fatally wounded when a bullet pierced his chest just above his body armor. He was standing inside a so-called shoot house that was supposed to be protected by bulletproof walls. But a naval investigation of the incident found the building was not designed or built according to established standards. The walls of the shoot house were less than half as thick as required by the Pentagon.   read more

Prisoners who denied guilt were 2.7 times more likely to decline a last meal than those who admitted guilt (29% to 8%). The meals of those who admitted guilt averaged 2,756 calories and contained 2.5 times the daily recommended servings of protein and fat. The meals of those who had not admitted guilt averaged 2,085 calories. Food most commonly requested was meat (84%), fried food (68%), desserts (66%), and soft drinks (60%).   read more

The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced (pdf) 8,763 allegations of sexual attacks were reported in 2011, “a statistically significant increase over the number of allegations reported in 2009 (7,855) and 2010 (8,404).” Nearly half (49%) of the 2011 allegations involved prison guards or staff. Furthermore, more than half (54%) of all reports involving guards or staff that were substantiated were committed by women.   read more

Leso helped write a 2002 memorandum that detailed the use, at Guantánamo, of “stress positions,” sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation, isolation and exposure to extreme cold. The memo made its way through the Pentagon bureaucracy, leading U.S. forces to apply those same abusive techniques to detainees at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.   read more

Tumaini Temu came to the United States last decade after he suffered a mental breakdown following the death of his mother in an auto accident. His condition resulted in being hospitalized and imprisoned in his native country. He claimed that medical professionals treated him with prolonged shackling (five to seven hours a day, four days a week) and beatings with leather straps and clubs. Many Tanzanians believe severe mental illness is shameful and even a sign of demonic possession.   read more

According to the lawsuit, USIS started “dumping” or “flushing” cases six years ago to boost profits. This action meant the company’s investigators never completed their reviews of security-clearance candidates, while telling the government that the work was finished. USIS earned between $95 and $2,500 for each background investigation. It also received bonuses from 2008 to 2010 totaling $11.8 million for meeting certain performance goals.   read more

The report listed changes that included: • Expand online voter registration and early balloting • Increase the number of schools used as polling places • Locate polling places close to voters’ homes • Simplify voting for members of the military and other Americans living overseas via the Internet • Update electronic voting equipment • Share voter registration records across state lines to protect against fraud   read more

When it comes to eating meals or playing with young offspring (5 and under), black fathers rated as high or higher than whites and Hispanics. In fact, in cases where the father does not live with his children, blacks were noticeably more present than whites and Hispanics. They also scored higher in other areas, like diapering and dressing their kids and reading to them daily.   read more

The online blackout lasted only about an hour. But the timing of the event coincided with a story published that same day at 4 pm (China time) by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). That story reported on dozens of political leaders and wealthy individuals who have maintained tax havens outside China, a possible indication of corruption.   read more

The FDA doesn’t apply the same standard of evidence to all drugs going through clinical trial, and instead approve medications based on criteria that vary widely from case to case. The researchers also found that the agency often approves new versions of existing heart devices without requiring a clinical trial. Federal regulators also have ignored early problems in drug trials that later resulted in significant delays in the approval of new medications, according to the studies.   read more

It was found that 38% of white men, 44% of Hispanic men and 49% of black men wind up in jail at least once by age 23. By age 18, the numbers were lower, but still startling: 30% for black men, 26% for Hispanic men and 22% for white men. The researchers also compiled statistics for women. By age 23, 20% of blacks, 18% of whites and 16% of Hispanics were arrested at least once.   read more

In Obsidian Finance Group v. Cox (pdf), the appellate justices overturned a lower court decision that found blogger Crystal Cox liable for her blog posts criticizing Obsidian Finance Group, a bankruptcy trustee. The panel wrote: “The protections of the First Amendment do not turn on whether the defendant was a trained journalist, formally affiliated with traditional news entities”   read more