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

Many of the Fortune 500 companies are double dippers—meaning they’ve been awarded federal deals for both large and small businesses. Lockheed Martin is one example. Ranked 59th in the Fortune 500, Lockheed is the federal government’s largest vendor, which didn’t stop it from collecting more than $110 million in small business contracts in FYs 2012 and 2013.   read more

In April—several months after Shell’s oil rig difficulties in the Arctic—environmentalists hailed ConocoPhillips’ announcement that it had decided against drilling in the region next year, which cited uncertainties of federal regulations as the reason. But now, only five months later, the company’s drone mission into the region suggests that its decision may have been reversed.   read more

The bill would prohibit the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act (pdf), and prevent the agency from restarting a program that ended in 2011 that gathered Internet communication records. It also seeks to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to make its secretive process more transparent and accountable by creating a “constitutional advocate” position that could challenge court decisions on privacy grounds.   read more

ATF agents failed to properly account for 2.1 million cartons containing 420 million cigarettes as part of the agency’s undercover operations, according to the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (IG). The missing cartons had a retail value of $127 million. The IG’s office also reported that ATF paid an informant more than $4.9 million without requiring him to account for his expenses.   read more

The U.S. Senate is considering a change to the Free Flow of Information Act (FFIA), which protects journalists from having to reveal their confidential sources. Under the proposed amendment (pdf), a “journalist” would be more narrowly defined, and it would exclude many independent reporters and bloggers from avoiding court subpoenas.   read more

47% of all U.S. employees are in professions that are vulnerable to being taken over by robots or computers as high-tech advances continue. After examining more than 700 job listings, Frey and Osborne concluded that computers today could replace many people working in transportation, administrative support and other jobs. Given current technology, the jobs that are most vulnerable to computer takeover are ones that pay the least.   read more

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) received a $22,230 trip to Ireland, compliments of the Franklin Center for Global Policy Exchange and the Ripon Society, who sponsored a conference on TransAtlantic Capital to Capital Exchange. The congressman was accompanied by his wife, as well as ten other House members and their spouses. Sixty-three others traveled to Israel for an education seminar, which was paid for by the American-Israel Foundation.   read more

Akbar, a legal fellow with the British human rights group Reprieve and the director of the Pakistan-based Foundation for Fundamental Rights, represents more than 150 survivors of drone attacks and their family members in a lawsuit filed against Central Intelligence Agency and government officials in Pakistan. Akbar told The Guardian, “Before I started drone investigations I never had an issue with US visa. In fact, I had a US diplomatic visa for two years.”   read more

The researchers speculate that the unknown trader may have tried to alter the perception of how well Romney was doing. After examining market bets placed during the end of the campaign, Sethi and Rothschild say the trader accounted for about 30% of all the money wagered on Romney in the last two weeks before Election Day. “This was someone who was extremely sophisticated,” Sethi told The Wall Street Journal. “It was not someone who was dumb or stupid.”   read more

USIS wa spun off from OPM in July 1996, during the Bill Clinton administration. Essentially, OPM’s security and investigations unit was privatized as USIS, which retained those OPM employees as part of the company. When the private firm was launched, the government awarded it a three-year non-competitive contract. With 100 active federal contracts under its belt, USIS stands as the government’s largest private contractor handling background checks.   read more

The panel assembled to determine if the NSA has violated Americans’ civil liberties consists of five members—four of whom have previously worked for Democratic administrations. Nowhere in the White House memo is the panel instructed to investigate surveillance abuses. The panel’s report is due by December 15. On that date it is not to be made public, nor is it to be delivered to the press. Rather, it will be submitted to the White House for review.   read more

Steven Aftergood at Secrecy News said the ruling represented “a rare judicial setback for the CIA, and a reversal of the more familiar expansion of national security secrecy authority.” Harry Hammitt of Access Reports, which monitors FOIA policy, told Aftergood that the ruling “really is something pretty remarkable,” because “Judge Howell has narrowed the interpretation of the statute dramatically.”   read more

Gallup says 60% of people in the United States now believe Washington has too much power, according to a survey taken September 5-8. This total is one percentage point above the previous high recorded in September 2010. When Gallup first asked the question in September 2002, only 39% of respondents thought the federal government had too much power. At least half of the U.S. population has said the government is too powerful for eight years in a row, going back to 2005.   read more

A new study conducted by Professor Jonathan Zittrain and law student Kendra Albert—both of Harvard—says nearly half of the hyperlinks in Supreme Court decisions (49%) no longer work. What this means is that footnotes and citations become lost, making them unavailable to legal professionals. Since 1996, there have been 555 instances in which the Supreme Court justices cited materials only found on the Internet.   read more

Ten members of Congress who have benefited from government-funded farm subsidies voted last week to reduce funding for food stamps that help poor people eat. Rice farmer Doug LaMalfa led the pack. He and his wife, Jill, own one–third of DSL Lamalfa Family Partnership, which received $188,570 in direct payments in 2012 and $5,132,156 total since 1995.   read more

Article 32 hearings are used to determine if there is sufficient evidence to to initiate a court-martial. Over the course of four days, the defense attorneys asked the woman whether she wore a bra, how wide she opened her mouth during oral sex, and whether she had apologized to another midshipman with whom she had intercourse “for being a ho.”   read more