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

President Obama nominated career diplomat William E. Todd as the next ambassador to Cambodia on December 1, 2011, and the Senate is expected to act on the nomination in the coming months.   Born circa 1962, Todd earned a B.S. at Longwood College...   read more

Despite a growing consensus that speculators are behind recent price increases, the government’s almost year-old oil speculation task force has done little more than talk about the problem. From the beginning of January to the end of February, the...   read more

Admitting the issue deserved his attention much sooner, White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske told Congress this week that prescription drug abuse is “a national crisis” that must be addressed.   Kerlikowske, the director of the Office of Nation...   read more

If not getting enough attention in your life is a problem, there’s one surefire way to get the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to notice you: Use any of its proscribed watch words on social media sites.   According to a DHS document, the a...   read more

Did the CIA plan that located Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last May endanger the lives of foreign aid workers and Pakistani children? The answer is yes, according to InterAction, a coalition of American non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which ...   read more

In a rare demonstration of judicial independence from the national security state, a federal judge last Wednesday ordered the federal government to release a document it says is classified. The case is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit file...   read more

Diesel exhaust is hazardous to your health…but the diesel industry does not want you to know that. That is the basic message underlying two papers just published in the prestigious Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The papers are based on ...   read more

If you’ve been making out like a bandit playing Farmville or Second Life or any other online game that awards prizes in the form of virtual currency, the IRS may want to talk to you.   Although the idea of taxing virtual currency may seem to mak...   read more

Two of the top three tax avoiders in California are actually the same person. In 2007, despite cries of privacy invasion, the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB), in charge of income tax, and the Board of Equalization (BOE), in charge of sales an...   read more

The nation of Iraq, which said goodbye to the last American combat troops only last December, has sent an ambassador to the United States who is a former academic who studied in the West. Dr. Jabir Habib Jabir was appointed ambassador in August 20...   read more

The West African nation of Niger has sent a former government journalist who earned his graduate degrees in the U.S. to serve as its ambassador to Washington. Maman Sambo Sidikou presented his credentials to the President Barack Obama on January 1...   read more

Coming off a big 2011, hackers are off to another strong start so far this year. Last year, either political hackers or cybercriminals went after entertainment companies (Sony), encryption designers and even the Central Intelligence Agency, to nam...   read more

Coming only days after a protest outside a major telecommunications company, Republican lawmakers in Georgia have introduced a bill that would subject non-violent demonstrators involved in a labor dispute to heavy fines and felony convictions.   ...   read more

The North Atlantic island-nation of Iceland, which is the only NATO country with no standing army, has sent Guðmundur Árni Stefánsson to be its ambassador to the United States. Stefánsson is a longtime Social Democratic politician who became a dip...   read more

Federal authorities launched a two-pronged attack crime in Detroit, holding press conferences to announce crackdowns on both violence and corruption.   On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, surrounded symbolically by city, state and feder...   read more

The West African nation of Mali’s latest ambassador to the United States is a seasoned diplomat whose career has been focused more on relations with other African nations than with the U.S. Keita presented his credentials to President Barack Obama...   read more