Trump said, “We need people to be afraid. Right now many Americans are surprised when protestors are killed, but they’ll get used to it.” Trump did add one suggestion: “Try not to kill white people. That gets too much attention. Stick to protestors of other colors.”   read more

U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl said this week that the restrictions on data collecting and disseminating may be “a façade for content or viewpoint discrimination.” The laws in question created criminal and civil penalties for anyone who gathers information about or takes photographs of land or resources and turns it over to government agencies. The plaintiffs said the laws prevent them from collecting information about animal abuse on farms and ranches and about food safety.   read more

Lansing took over as Scripps’ senior vice president for television in 2001 and was in charge of the 10 television stations the company owned at the time. He moved over to Scripps Networks, which managed cable television programming, in 2004. There, he was in charge of channels such as Food Network, HGTV, the Travel Channel, and others. It was a good time for Scripps Networks; revenue tripled under Lansing’s watch to $2.1 billion in 2012.   read more

The state expects to spend upwards of $1.8 million of the BP funds on the renovation of the mansion. The diversion of money to the mansion repairs is somewhat surprising considering Bentley’s administration claimed earlier this year that it had no money to keep DMV offices open in some of Alabama’s poorer counties. The DMV offices are the primary place voters can obtain the identification required to vote under the state’s new laws.   read more

Thomas had to handle an angry town hall meeting of Foreign Service officers who objected to the G.W. Bush State Dept's plans for Iraq, including ordering people to serve at diplomatic posts. Thomas tried to quell the anger by explaining the department was not getting enough volunteers to go to the war-torn country. When one officer called an assignment to Iraq “a potential death sentence,” producing considerable applause, Thomas responded: “OK, thanks for your comment,” and ended the meeting.   read more

"The Government Accountability Office in 2010 estimated that about half of the agency’s inventory — said to be worth nearly $14 billion at the time — was just taking up space,” wrote Politico. It’s no wonder what one ex-general had to say about the Defense Logistics Agency. “How do you buy $7 billion of stuff you don’t need?” said Arnold Punaro, a retired major general in the Marine Corps Reserve. “If a company did that they’d be out of business. Even Wal-Mart.”   read more

During her term as ambassador, Stewart focused on helping to remove unexploded ordnance left over by the U.S. and other countries during the Vietnam War and broke ground on a new U.S. embassy in Vientiane. She also performed in a rap video—in Lao—for a local crowd. Stewart returned to Washington in 2013 to serve as political adviser to the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Supreme Allied Commander Transformation.   read more

1. Lawyer who Defends Corporations Accused of Creating Toxic Pollution Sues Neighbor for Smoking Inside his own House 2. 47% of Americans would have to Borrow or Sell Something to Cover an Unexpected Expense of $400 3. FBI Upgrades Animal Cruelty to Class A Felony   read more

The federal program has permitted police to keep up to 80% of assets they seize, such as TV sets, cars, cash and even houses. “Asset forfeiture has become an increasingly contentious practice in recent years. It lets police seize and keep cash and property from people who are never convicted — and in many cases, never charged — with wrongdoing,” wrote the Post. Widespread use of the practice has prompted "concern that, in some cases, police are motivated more by profits and less by justice.”   read more

The labeling requirements were eliminated through an attachment to the omnibus budget bill passed by Congress and signed by Obama earlier this month. The move was prompted by threats from the World Trade Organization, which threatened to allow Mexico and Canada to hit the U.S. with more than $1 billion in tariffs if it continued to require beef and pork labeling for foreign producers. The WTO said the labels discriminate against meat from animals raised and slaughtered outside the United States.   read more

The report said 78,000 active-duty soldiers were clinically obese based on having a body mass index of 30 or higher. “These soldiers also are less likely to be medically ready to deploy,” wrote Army Times. About 13% of male soldiers were classified as obese, compared to 8% of women. “The obese service members in the brigade in Afghanistan were 40% more likely to experience an injury than those with a healthy weight, and slower runners were 49% more likely to be injured.”   read more

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, writing that FHWA failed to explain the rationale behind its exemption while noting the term “predominately” in a 1997 memorandum about minimal-use exemptions. “The 2012 memorandum says nary a word about why 90 percent was chosen as the threshold value to mean ‘predominately,’” Mehta wrote. “Not a single word. And defendants’ post-hoc efforts to rationalize the choice of that number ring hollow.”   read more

Some states as well as privacy experts and civil liberty groups say the law’s requirements for secure identification would amount to something like a national identification card. “The federal government has quietly gone around and clubbed states into submission,” said Minnesota senator Warren Limmer. If DHS tells TSA to begin enforcing the law, it could mean passengers from some states would not be able to use their driver’s licenses at airport security checkpoints.   read more

Forty percent of the shootings involved black male victims — “a grossly disproportionate number with African-American males making up only 6 percent of the population,” Tom Boggioni wrote in Raw Story. Caucasians made up the majority of cases where police shot and killed a person who had attacked someone or brandished a weapon. But 60% of those killed after exhibiting less threatening behavior were black or Hispanic.   read more

A new law is forcing the IRS to employ private debt collectors, which will cost the agency money and make it easier for scammers to defraud Americans. The provision means that bill collectors will be using the same tactics to collect tax debt as they do for a late credit-card payment. That concerns IRS officials, who have long warned Americans to beware of calls from scam artists claiming to be from the IRS. Such scams have cost 3,000 victims a total of $14 million this year alone.   read more

Environmentalists fought the project and when it seemed inevitable, proposed road-building alternatives that would do less damage to the environment. But the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) signaled that it was prepared to approve the Greater Mooses Tooth as the oil company wanted. “BLM in Alaska is coming perilously close to acting as a leasing agent of the ConocoPhillips company,” Clinton Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who fought the project, said according to the reporting.   read more

U.S. foreign sales increased from $26.7 billion in 2013 to $36.2 billion last year, despite increased competition for a market that hasn’t gotten much bigger. The U.S. is the biggest provider of arms in the world, controlling a bit more than 50% of the global arms export market. Russia is the next biggest supplier, with $10.2 billion, off a little from its 2013 total of $10.3 billion. Sweden, which supplies fighter planes to such countries as Brazil, was third at $5.5 billion in arms exports.   read more