According to aides who were present when Trump discussed the issue, but who choose to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, Trump said he was sick of Vance and wanted to fire him. “I wanted him to be my attack dog,” said Trump, “but he appears foolish on television. He dropped the college football trophy. He met with Pope Francis and the next day the pope died. Vance is toxic, and I don’t want him to come near me. He just doesn’t look as good on television as I thought he would.”   read more

A recent Pew Research study shows that, unlike older generations, Americans aged 18-29 are just as likely to get their news from the Internet as from television. In general, 70% of Americans consider television a major news source and 40% cite the...   read more

As the governments of the United States and Iran inch closer to direct talks, an unusual bump in the road may have been hit. In the middle of the crisis surrounding the holding of American hostages, the Carter administration broke diplomatic relat...   read more

The Obama administration surprised federal appeals judges in San Francisco by arguing that a lawsuit by one current and four former detainees should be dismissed because it would reveal state secrets. The case involves Guantánamo prisoner Binyam M...   read more

According to recent Congressional filings, Pentagon contractors, their lobbyists and lobbying groups spent more than $340,000 in 2008 on parties and other events to honor Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Among those paying for events honoring Ga...   read more

There has been so much discussion of what the Senate is cutting from the House version of the economic stimulus plan that it is easy to overlook the fact that the Senate version also adds new expenditures. Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughsh...   read more

Monday, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont proposed the creation of a “truth and reconciliation commission” to investigate Bush administration policies such as its use of waterboarding and warrantless wire-tapping and the improper firing ...   read more

Mark Nicholas of PoliticalBase.com compared the transcripts of President Obama’s first presidential press conference on Monday with the first one that former President George W. Bush conducted back on February 22, 2001.   Nicholas copied the tra...   read more

The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a $35 million contract to KBR for work at Camp Adder in south-central Iraq despite the fact that KBR is under criminal investigation in the death by electrocution of at least two American soldiers. The work ...   read more

As members of Congress continue to wrangle about what to cut from the soon-to-be-enacted stimulus bill, some details have emerged as to what has already been eliminated. Among the expenditures considered not stimulating enough to be funded: $16 b...   read more

Each year American taxpayers spend more than $100 million for reports written by the 700-strong staff of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which provides reports on topics requested by members of Congress. These reports are not secret, but...   read more

On October 20, 2008, then-Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, in explaining how the bailout of banks and others would work, told Americans that “This is an investment, not an expenditure, and there is no reason to expect this program will cos...   read more

“Revolving door” describes the common phenomenon of government officials being in charge of regulating companies for which they worked, and then, after they leave office, going to work for the same companies they were just regulating. Citizens for...   read more

The dangers of global warming have received a great deal of attention, but the alarming trend does have certain potential advantages. One example is taking place in the Arctic, where the rapid melting of polar ice has introduced the possibility th...   read more

Writing in The New York Times, Stephen Farrell and Alissa A. Rubin report the case of Luca Marchio, who showed up in Baghdad and Falluja as Iraq’s first Western tourist since the U.S. invasion in 2003. A 33-year-old from Como, Italy, Marchio obtai...   read more

The struggling companies whose unrestricted business practices have contributed to the country's economic crisis are getting an impressive return on at least one of their investments.   The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has found th...   read more

Abdul Qadeer Khan, known as the “Father of the Islamic Bomb,” has been freed from house arrest in Pakistan after five years. Khan became notorious for having shared nuclear technology with the dictatorships of North Korea, Iran and Libya.   Khan...   read more