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

Of the $1.4 billion paid out, $355 million was paid to nearly two dozen companies specializing in private debt collection. Another $1.06 billion was allocated to “guarantee agencies,” nonprofit organizations or state government agencies that administer student loan. Guarantee agencies often outsource the dirty work to debt collectors as well.   read more

SIGAR asked U.S. and NATO officials about the documents and was told all records from October 2006 through February 2011 had been destroyed. The branch in charge of the shredding was the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A), which is dominated by officers of the U.S. Army. Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV served as commander of CSTC-A from 2009 to 2011. He was preceded by Maj. Gen. Richard Formica.   read more

Spending by outside groups totaled $306.2 million as of September 5, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In comparison, such groups blew $301.6 million on the entire 2008 election. Before 2010, liberal outside groups consistently outspent conservative ones, but this trend has been massively reversed. So far this year conservative groups have outspent their liberal counterparts by $240 million to barely $60 million.   read more

Before the law took effect on January 1, 2012, voters needed only to show a valid form of ID that included their signature, such as a Social Security card or a credit card. Under the new statute, voters must show an approved photo identification card at polling places. Library cards with photo IDs do not qualify, nor do student IDs with photos. The city of Memphis takes the position that presenting a library card with a photo should be sufficient to allow someone to vote.   read more

Lamberth wrote that “If the separation-of-powers means anything, it is that this country is not one ruled by executive fiat. Such blanket, unreviewable power over counsel-access by the executive does not comport with our constitutional system of government.” The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which represents several captives, was pleased by the decision. “Today’s ruling reaffirms that constitutional rights are not subject to the whim of the executive.”   read more

The IARAA would fundamentally change the way independent regulatory agencies operate in two crucial ways by (1) giving the president the power to force independent agencies to submit proposed and final rules to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for approval and (2) requiring agencies to conduct a so-called “cost-benefit analysis” of such rules.   read more

World Trade Center Properties sought an additional $8.4 billion in damages, which included the estimated cost of replacing the two towers that were destroyed, but Hellenstein capped their potential gain at $2.8 billion, the value of its lease of the property from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.   read more

Since the storm passed and the waters receded, tar balls, tar mats and oil have been found on the beaches of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, mostly in places where heavy oil deposits occurred during the spill. The oil forced officials to close a 13-mile stretch of Fourchon beach in Louisiana Tuesday, where a dead whale washed up and officials have banned commercial fishing within one mile of shore. Isaac made landfall near Fourchon August 28 as a Category 1 storm.   read more

Apparently BSEE has chosen to rely on Shell to regulate itself. Steiner added in a prepared statement for PEER: “A simple emissions test report for my car is far more rigorous than what BSEE has produced for Shell's Arctic capping stack. From this, we still don’t know that this critical piece of equipment will work if needed.”   read more

The deadlines are part of the Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA), which President Barack Obama signed into law in January 2011. FSMA includes a wide range of guidelines, including a foreign supplier verification program, increased inspection of records and improved certification of laboratories tasked with inspecting food products. According to the plaintiffs, FDA officials submitted the new regulations to OMB, where they have sat awaiting action.   read more

Without citing any security-related need or problems, the state of Alabama has decided to require visitors at prisons to undergo fingerprinting. Under the prior system, guards had only visitors’ photo ID cards to rely on for verifying someone’s identity. That meant taking more time to stop and review each driver’s license before allowing visitors into a correctional facility.   read more

One of the towns whose residents fired the first shots in the American Revolution has now become the first to shoot down single-serve plastic water bottles as a menace to the environment. Concord, Massachusetts, which is governed by its Town Meeting, voted 403-364 in April to pass a bylaw banning the sale of the bottles, which is set to go into effect January 1, 2013. It was given a final seal of legality by state Attorney General Martha Coakley last week.   read more

The Pentagon does not lack for security policies, according to the agency’s inspector general. The trouble lies with the number of such policies—43 in fact—and the lack of coordination among them. “DoD security policy is fragmented, redundant, and inconsistent,” wrote the IG in a new report. “The sheer volume of security policies that are not coordinated or integrated makes it difficult for those at the field level to ensure consistent and comprehensive policy implementation.”   read more

The case was expected to produce a sensational trial, originally scheduled to begin next month. But prosecutors decided to skip a jury trial and have Judge John Torrence decide the case in a brief court hearing that lasted little more than an hour. Finn’s conviction stemmed from the case of Reverend Shawn Ratigan, who got into trouble in 2010 after it was discovered he had photographs of young girls’ genitalia on his computer.   read more

Off the coast of Reedsport, the first commercial wave-energy device is scheduled for launch. The hope is that the cannon-shaped device will generate enough energy to light 1,000 homes while floating in the ocean. Ocean Power Technologies, the New Jersey company that built it, is also hoping the 260-ton invention will withstand winter storms and not sink. Wave-energy technology is so new that there is no set design yet for this untested renewable energy.   read more

A prostitute sentenced to a state correctional facility is costing taxpayers $18,538 a year, and those sent to lower-security state jail are costing $15,500 annually. Criminal justice reformers argue that convicted sex workers belong in community-based programs that cost considerably less, about $4,300 a year.   read more