Imagine that China’s dictator, Xi Jinping, sends one million Chinese troops to invade the United States. Fighting breaks out all over the U.S. as U.S. troops and civilians battle against the Chinese invaders. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are killed. Meanwhile, China has taken over Florida and declared it an overseas province of China, with Chinese nationals taking over control of the Florida government.   read more

Americans are confronted with hospital costs for delivering a child that can range from $30,000 to $50,000, according to a new report commissioned by three health care groups. In European countries, like France, the Netherlands and Switzerland, the cost tops out at $4,000 (assuming the mother does not require a Cesarean section). In others, like Ireland, there is no cost at public hospitals. No other country comes close to spending so much on its next generation of citizens.   read more

David Sirota argued that the editorial demonstrated the “Post’s higher-ups are apparently so ideologically committed to subservience and to the national security state that they felt the need to take the extraordinary step of publicly reprimanding their own source and their own newsroom for the alleged crime of committing journalism.”   read more

The prison, which can house up to 1,700 inmates, saw four prisoners killed by other inmates in a seven-week period between December 19, 2012, and February 5, 2013. That prompted state officials to finally do something about the problem, by spending $1 million on an emergency contract to replace the locks. In September 2012 an audit determined that 184 out of 442 locks at Hays failed.   read more

Lopez, who serenaded Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov with a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” appeared at the event that was hosted by the China National Petroleum Corporation, which is trying to improve its involvement with Turkmenistan’s natural gas industry, Turkmenistan being China’s largest foreign supplier of natural gas.   read more

From 2002-2004, Haslach oversaw the multi-billion-dollar reconstruction program intended to fix some of the damage caused by war. Haslach then served two straight stints as an ambassador, first as ambassador to Laos from 2004 to 2007, and then as ambassador to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, headquartered in Singapore, from 2007 to 2009.   read more

Montana has become the first state in the U.S. to require that police obtain a search warrant before using a person’s cellphone records to track their whereabouts. Federal legislation—the Geolocational Privacy & Surveillance Act (pdf)—was recently introduced in Congress, but neither the House nor the Senate has taken it seriously so far.   read more

The U.S. Forest Service now spends nearly half of its yearly budget on wildfire protection, the report says, and more than 10% of the entire budget of the Department of the Interior. Federal fire protection expenses have gone up in part because of the more severe fire seasons. But it is also a result of allowing developers to build homes in and near forests and other wildlands that are at risk from wildfires.   read more

More good news arrived on July 1, when a provision of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (pdf) went into effect and provided employees of defense subcontractors with new protections against reprisals from supervisors for reporting waste or fraud. Previously, subcontractors could go to a boss and complain, but not to a government office.   read more

For $630,000, the bureau managed to increase the fan numbers for each page from about 100,000 to more than 2 million, according to a report from the inspector general. But some employees within the State Department objected to the plan, saying the agency was merely “buying fans.” Of the new people attracted to the pages, only 2% actually “liked” what they saw, or shared or commented about them.   read more

In April 1994 she was sent to Rwanda, but two days after she arrived, the plane of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down, and the Rwandan genocide broke out. Six-feet tall and black, Thomas-Greenfield was mistaken for a Tutsi. Hutu soldiers held a machine gun to her head, while she begged for her life: “I don't have anything to do with this. I'm not a Rwandan. I'm an American.” She then watched as the soldiers killed a Tutsi gardener.   read more

Larry Lewis, a principal research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses, which has close ties to the Pentagon, examined a year’s worth of classified data regarding drone attacks and civilian deaths and injuries caused by them. The study contradicts what Obama proclaimed in a May speech that “conventional airpower or missiles are far less precise than drones, and likely to cause more civilian casualties and local outrage.”   read more

Since gay marriage became legal in some states, couples whose relationships have soured have found themselves unable to legally end their union. Take Adam Cardinal for example. He got married in New Hampshire to another man, and then the couple moved to Florida. Three years into the marriage, the two decided to divorce—something they can’t do in the Sunshine State because it does not recognize their marriage.   read more

Adachi said that his reason for insisting on the U.S.-made boots, and standing by the 1933 law, is a good one. “How many American workers are unemployed because military clothing is being produced in foreign countries?" he wrote in a letter to the Air Force Times. “I did not feel comfortable ‘going to war' wearing boots made in China. This is about patriotism.   read more

Clune has been the State Department’s point man in its process of deciding whether to permit TransCanada (2012 revenues: CAN$8 billion) to build the proposed 2,000-mile long, $7 billion Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which would deliver tar sands crude oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.   read more

Six airborne radar systems made by Northrop Grumman will be purchased, at a cost of $9.3 million a piece. Helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky will benefit, too, from the legislation, through the Border Patrol buying 15 Black Hawks at $17 million each. The government even has to buy 17 UH-1N helicopters from Bell Helicopter, even though the company no longer makes that particular model.   read more

To date, the new Congress (113th) has approved only 15 pieces of legislation—that’s a little more than two bills a month. During the first six months of the previous Congress (112th), only 23 measures were adopted. Keep in mind that the 112th set the all-time record for congressional futility, approving only 220 laws in two years.   read more