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

Are whistleblowers—whose anonymity is often their best protection against retribution—made safer by being forced to register as whistleblowers with the U.S. government? The Obama administration is demanding they step forward and sign up under the FBI's Insider Threat program. Senator Charles Grassley criticized the effort, saying it is an idea that “should be pretty alarming to all Americans. Sometimes confidentiality is the best protection a whistleblower has.”   read more

An Arizona-based political organization funded almost entirely by the conservative Koch brothers—and that was fined for laundering political contributions—was awarded tax-exempt status by the IRS despite the agency knowing this. “Social welfare” groups are not eligible for tax exemption if they spend the majority of their money on politics. But Americans for Responsible Leadership, which had received 98% of its money from a Koch group, received that status from the IRS.   read more

The carnage of layoffs resulting from the Internet age has been quite gruesome for journalism employment, with the U.S. having lost 30% of its paid media workers. Print publications facing dwindling subscription rates laid off 17,000 reporters and editors from 2006 to 2012, according to Pew. Many commentators have lamented the loss of so many “watchdogs,” fearing the downsizing and closing of newspapers and magazines would spell the end of investigative journalism.   read more

The U.S. is experiencing “the worst rental affordability crisis” in its history, said the HUD secretary late last year. The problem is unlikely to abate anytime soon. Since the 2008 financial crisis, demand for apartments has soared as millions of homeowners lost their properties while struggling young Americans have turned to renting. Developers are constructing new apartment buildings in many cities. But often the structures going up are for high-end, luxury rentals.   read more

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether the First Amendment protects lying in political campaigns. The case centers on an Ohio law that penalizes candidates or groups that knowingly lie in campaign ads. The plaintiffs have an unlikely supporter in the ACLU, which filed a brief supporting the right-wing groups’ contention that the Ohio law violates the First Amendment rights of Americans. Fifteen other states have laws that make it a crime to lie in political campaigns.   read more

Rancher Cliven Bundy has refused since 1993 to pay the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) so his cattle could graze on public lands in Gold Butte, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas. His refusal continued even after losing two court battles in 1998 and 2013, as Bundy kept running his herd on the lands managed by BLM without paying the fees required of all ranchers.   read more

During her October 2009 trip to Russia, Clinton made no effort to hide her plans to help Boeing while meeting with the state-owned airline, Rosavia. Her persuasiveness paid dividends for Boeing, which secured a $3.7 billion contract for the planes only months later. Shortly after completing the deal, Boeing contributed $900,000 to the William J. Clinton Foundation to help rebuild schools in Haiti damaged by the 2010 earthquake.   read more

The Florida Sheriffs Association opposes the bill, and tried for weeks to amend its language. One sheriff, Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County, home of St. Petersburg, which saw riots in 1996, called the bill “crazy” and “absurd.” “To allow people to go into a riot while concealing a gun without a permit is the definition of insanity,” he told the Miami Herald.   read more

Efforts to restore a solar energy program in Maine have died at the hands of Republican Governor Paul LePage, who objected to the bill’s planned 69-cent annual tax increase on residents and business owners. The bill would have revived a solar rebate program to help establish more than 1,250 new solar panel and hot water projects in homes and businesses   read more

“The suggestion is that the intermittent fencing present in this part of the world does affect some native species, but does not necessarily restrict the movement of humans (including illegal migrants), who may negatively impact native species.” In some study areas, pumas had largely abandoned habitats divided by a border wall. But coatis, which aren’t inclined to relocate like pumas, could be more impacted by the barriers and might experience a collapse in their population.   read more

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) misled the George W. Bush Administration and Congress about its use of so-called harsh interrogation techniques, or torture, according to the findings of a still-secret report that have been leaked. The report, which was prepared by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, shows that the CIA mischaracterized the efficacy of the interrogation techniques they used and it impeded White House and Congressional oversight of the interrogation program.   read more

Coal plants that emit 100 tons of a pollutant each year are required to obtain Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permits that mandate EPA oversight, among other things. But biomass plants are allowed to produce 250 tons of a pollutant before the same permit requirement kicks in for them. “We're talking about the same pollution, the same health effects, but biomass plants get to emit two and a half times as much,” Booth said.   read more

Commissioners in Iron County, Utah, complain that there are more horses on the land than the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has planned for and that the bureau has done a poor job of managing the horses, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. County Commissioner David Miller claims there are 2,000 wild horses in the county, while wild horse advocates say the number of less than 500. The commissioners say that if the BLM doesn’t act, the county will. However, public roundups are illegal.   read more

Stevens proposes a five-word change to the Second Amendment. As he would write it, it reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.” Those five words, which would clarify the Second Amendment to bring it in line with what Stevens says is the framers’ intent, could prove to do more to protect generations to come than all the armed guards in the world.   read more

In 2007, Brothers returned to the private sector, joining defense contractor BAE Systems, working on advanced programs and technology. Brothers joined the Obama administration in 2011 as deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Research. In that role, he was responsible for policy and oversight of Department of Defense Science and Technology programs from basic research through advanced technology development.   read more

Thanks to a one-line provision slipped into the 2008 Farm Bill, a 10-year statute of limitations was removed from old debts to the government. The Social Security Administration (SSA) is taking advantage of that, garnishing tax refunds, including from children of people whom the SSA claims were overpaid benefits in the distant past. Social Security officials say that if children benefitted even indirectly from an overpayment, they’re liable for the debt.   read more