President Donald Trump gleefully announced that, under his direction, U.S. military troops had swooped down on the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento and kidnapped California Governor Gavin Newsom. “We’re charging Newscum with fraud.” When a reporter asked for specifics about the fraud charges, Trump pointed to Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi, clearly taken by surprise, said, “We’re looking into it and will let you know the details as soon as we’ve created them.”   read more

In an attempt to show California voters he’s committed to cutting government waste, Governor Jerry Brown announced this week a plan to eliminate more than 700 bureaucratic reports.   Brown did not say how much money would be saved by cutting the...   read more

On Wednesday, the Obama administration dramatically scaled back its oversight of financial institutions that deal in the $700 trillion derivatives market.   Following the passage of the Dodd-Frank reform law, the Securities and Exchange Commissi...   read more

Florida’s much-publicized law requiring welfare recipients to undergo drug testing has not saved the state money. In fact, it has turned out to be just the opposite.   During four months of testing last year, 2.6% of the welfare applicants faile...   read more

In what has been described as a corporate milestone, shareholders of Citigroup rejected the new compensation package, valued at $15 million, for CEO Vikram S. Pandit.   The decision marked the first time stockowners voted against a multi-million...   read more

The Obama administration is resisting an effort to compensate victims of American medical experiments in Guatemala during the 1940s and 1950s.   For at least eight years, the U.S. Public Health Service conducted numerous experiments on Guatemala...   read more

Billionaire Harold Simmons has gained permission from Texas environmental regulators to receive low-level nuclear waste at his remote dumping ground near the New Mexico border.   The first shipments to Simmons’ Waste Control Specialists facility...   read more

Senate Republicans this week blocked the passage of President Barack Obama’s plan for raising taxes on the wealthy, even though polls show a majority of GOP respondents support such legislation.   The “Paying a Fair Share Act” (aka the Buffett R...   read more

President Barack Obama has assured environmentalists that his administration is serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But a new rule crafted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contains a loophole big enough to drive a dum...   read more

Housing advocates have filed complaints against two national banks for allegedly allowing foreclosed homes in black and Latino neighborhoods to fall into disrepair, while at the same time taking better care of bank-owned houses in predominantly wh...   read more

Labor leaders are outraged over a California worker-safety agency’s decision to fine Chevron only $350 for an accident that resulted in an employee being sucked underground and boiled to death.   Construction supervisor Robert David “Dave” Taylo...   read more

Three scientific journals have published articles over the past two years warning of the rise in retractions and misconduct by researchers who have fudged results.   The latest publication to do so was Infection and Immunity, which revealed it h...   read more

As many as four million Americans could wind up without health care benefits if a new federal rule is implemented as interpreted by the Treasury Department, warned consumer advocates, doctors and Democratic lawmakers.   Under the healthcare refo...   read more

President Barack Obama is not accepting contributions from registered lobbyists, but that doesn’t mean he’s not accepting lobbyists in the Oval Office.   A review of White House visitor logs by The New York Times found that many lobbyists have p...   read more

Simplifying income tax returns may be good for individual Americans, but bad for software companies that do business with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).   Until now, 14 software makers have sold tax preparation programs to the IRS for the a...   read more

The Department of Veterans Affairs is so behind in processing claims and benefits that the waiting list for decisions has doubled since President Barack Obama took office.   Currently, about 870,000 veterans are waiting for the VA to approve or ...   read more

Almost a third of all election-eligible transgender Americans living in states with strict voter-ID laws could be denied the right to cast ballots this November.   Jody L. Herman, a Peter J. Cooper Public Policy Fellow at The Williams Institute ...   read more