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

Internal Countrywide documents demonstrate that company executives bypassed existing safeguards that disqualified risky borrowers and instead pushed to generate large numbers of loans without regard to their quality. The Justice Department complaint accuses Countrywide of crossing the line into illegality by falsifying loan applications so that borrowers appeared to meet the standards set by Fannie Mae.   read more

According to the Post’s Greg Miller, the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command has set up a “targeting center” just 15 minutes from the White House, and the National Counterterrorism Center, formerly a data collection center not directly involved in operations, has been transformed into a “targeting hub.”   read more

Under new rules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, drillers must inform Washington via email two days before they extract natural gas through fracking. Industry lobbyists are attempting to eliminate the new rule, so that drillers can go back to dealing just with state governments. The problem with this development is that state regulators often lack the necessary funding to properly protect the public from the dangers associated with fracking.   read more

The monks have continued to build caskets while the case has worked its way through the courts, selling an average of 20 per month at $1,500 to $2,000 each. Made of cypress and considered biodegradable, the caskets come in two styles, traditional and monastic.   read more

Predatory debt collection has increased dramatically in recent years. The Federal Trade Commission received 13,950 complaints about debt collectors in 2000. By 2011 the number had risen to 180,928. Not all debt collection agencies will come under the CFPB’s scrutiny. Of the 4,500 companies now operating in the U.S., only those making $10 million a year (about 175 businesses) will be monitored. But these 175 companies account for 63% of all collections each year by the industry.   read more

But hidden in the terms is this caveat: Authorizing a debt transfer can result in customers losing their 25-day grace period on new balances resulting from purchases made with their Capitol One cards. This results in high interest rates being immediately applied to outstanding balances, according to the plaintiffs. Capital One also charges a fee of 2%-3% of the transferred amount.   read more

In March 2008, the EPA updated the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ozone to 0.075 parts per million. States then had until March 12, 2011, to submit their revised implementation strategies and the EPA then had six months to issue findings of “failure to submit.” Judge Gonzalez Rogers gave the EPA until January 4, 2012 to submit the findings it was supposed to have submitted in September.   read more

Fulton County is 44.5% black and 40.9% white, while DeKalb is 54.4% black and 30.1% white, according to the 2010 Census. Sandy Springs is 78% white and 12% black; Milton is 72.4% white and 9% black; Johns Creek is 59.9% white and 9.2% black; Chattahoochee Hills is 65.7% white and 27.4% black; Dunwoody is 64.1% white and 12.6% black; and Brookhaven is 47.7% white and 10.9% black. All are also wealthier than the counties at large.   read more

Florida received a sizeable sum of money ($300 million) as part of a national settlement with five large banks to resolve allegations of wrongful foreclosures and other mortgage servicing abuses. But six months later, the Sunshine State is sitting on this money, due to a disagreement between state Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi and the GOP-controlled legislature. Bondi wants to make the funds available to homeowners, while lawmakers insist it go into the state budget   read more

A crackdown on drug legalization would follow other efforts by the Obama administration to shutdown medical marijuana dispensaries operating within state law in California and elsewhere. If Mitt Romney wins the presidential election, he would probably take the same position as Obama, having stated that marijuana is a “gateway drug” and that he would fight legalization “tooth and nail.”   read more

The Energy Department’s inspector general (IG) found that of the $361 million allocated on travel over the past six years, contractors spent 85% of the funds. This averaged out to a little more than $50 million annually. Energy officials were criticized by the IG for not doing more to control contractors’ travel, which involved more than 90,000 international trips during the six years reviewed.   read more

His attorneys insist that Ferguson is not competent because he believes he is the Prince of God and that he will ascend to the right hand of God and his body will return to Earth after his execution so that he can save the United States from a communist plot. Bradford County Eighth Judicial Circuit Judge David Glant agreed that Ferguson’s delusions were “genuine.” But Glant also decided the delusions were not “significantly different than beliefs other Christians may hold.”   read more

Anders Hemdal traveled to Spain and Morocco with other members of his Spanish Club, during which he had consensual sex with his girlfriend in a hotel room in Casablanca. The act was caught on cellphone video by a third student who shared the images with others, which prompted Hemdal and his parents to contact school officials for help. Instead of getting help, Hemdal was suspended. School officials said his sexual activity amounted to “disorderly conduct.”   read more

Journalist Giustino Parisse, who lost his two sons and his father in the earthquake, wrote in the newspaper Il Centro that he does not “feel able to take my anger out on those men. I have shaken hands with some of them over the last few months, including during the trial, and I did not find them to be stained with blood.   read more

Since Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, the Dow Jones industrial average has gained 67.9%. Jeff Sommer of The New York Times characterized the increase as “an extremely strong performance—the fifth best for an equivalent period among all American presidents since 1900.” The Dow recently concluded 81 straight days without a 1%+ decline. The streak was the longest since the 94-day one that occurred during the Bush administration, from July through November 2006.   read more

Two of the biggest manufacturers of handguns, Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Smith & Wesson, are enjoying substantial jumps in sales. Purchases of Ruger-made weapons have gone up 86% since Obama became president, while Smith & Wesson’s sales have climbed nearly 44%. Overall, gun sales are up 18% nationwide.   read more