President Donald Trump invited the Dodgers to the White House. Many of their fans feared that the team, by accepting, would humiliate themselves and betray the team’s large Latino, Asian and African-American fan base. Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter, along with co-owner Magic Johnson, have proposed a solution. Trump has promised that if he can keep the championship trophy, the Commissioner’s Trophy, he will end all seizures and deportations of immigrants.   read more

Justice lawyers obtained a record amount--$5.69 billion--in deals negotiated with the likes of Bank of America (BofA), Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and other violators this past year. Never before had the Justice Department exceeded $5 billion in cases under the False Claims Act. Since Obama took office in January 2009, the agency has produced $22.75 billion in settlements under the act. BofA and J&J accounted for half of the monies collected for fraud and false claims cases during FY 2014.   read more

With so much riding on the success of the new health law, the Obama administration felt it necessary to inflate the number of Americans who had signed up for health insurance. They tried pulling off this statistical sleight of hand by combining the number of people who had purchased dental coverage on the exchanges with those buying health insurance. Somehow, the officials didn’t think anyone would notice…despite the fact they had previously reported the dental and medical totals separately.   read more

Tom Colicchio, José Andrés, Art Smith and Sam Talbot are among the 700 chefs supporting a congressional bill mandating GMO labeling. The petition they signed states: “As chefs, we know that choosing the right ingredients is an absolutely critical part of cooking. But when it comes to whether our ingredients contain genetically modified organisms, we're in the dark. It’s time for Congress to move us forward, not backward, when it comes to our right to know what’s in our food.”   read more

Tom Atchison makes those living at his homeless facility work concession stands at various sporting events. The homeless also perform construction, landscaping, telemarketing, moving, painting, and grant-writing for Atchison. No salaries are provided for the jobs they perform. They receive only food and shelter. All of the money earned at the concession stands goes to Atchison's operation.   read more

The buyer determined after driving the truck about 3,000 miles that the vehicle was defective, and returned it to Paccar, demanding a refund. Paccar went so far as refunding the purchase price of $135,847 plus interest. But it refused to refund the $53 title fee. So the customer sued Paccar in court, and wound up winning a $369,196 judgment, plus a $157,697 attorneys’ fees award. Paccar is now on the hook for half a million dollars all because it wouldn’t cough up $53.   read more

Only 17.8% of U.S. adults smoked last year, the CDC found. That’s the lowest rate since the government began keeping track of the behavior in 1965. The actual number of smokers in 2013 was 42.1 million. Despite fewer people smoking, the habit continues to be the leading cause of premature death in the country. Smoking kills 480,000 Americans each year and results in $289 billion in annual health costs and lost productivity.   read more

“In many respects, Applicant’s life in the U.S. parallels my own. He and I were brought to this great nation as young children by our hardworking immigrant parents," wrote Chief Justice Labarga. "[But while my parents were] defectors from a tyrannical communist regime [and] thus...received with open arms...[Applicant] is perceived to be a defector from poverty, is viewed negatively because his family sought an opportunity for economic prosperity."   read more

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS), which was already hamstrung by Congress’ mandate that it prefund future retirees’ health benefits and prohibition from closing some post offices, might soon have another roadblock in its way. This time, it would come from legislative inaction. The Senate is dragging its feet on confirming members of the USPS Board of Governors, which could mean that the agency will be unable to make any major decisions.   read more

The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported only 27 law enforcement officers were killed by criminals last year. That figure is far smaller than any since before 1968. The 2012 number was 49. Except for 2011, when 72 were killed, the number has hovered between 41 and 58 since 2004 and had been trending down for many years. The high in recent decades was 134 police feloniously killed in 1973.   read more

The USDA spent taxpayer dollars on a study that says, “findings show that Americans purchase fast food as a means of saving time.” Seriously. Other discoveries made by researchers include: “Fast food purchasers have different eating patterns than others,” and “They are more likely to engage in eating while at work and while driving.”   read more

He said the nation needed to keep its police forces from turning into military units. But in the end President Obama is unwilling to slow down or stop the transfer of military gear to law enforcement agencies. Instead, he just wants to tweak the programs that help militarize the nation's police. “It is possible to constrain these programs with oversight, but it doesn’t seem like many people are really wanting to do it,” said Cato's Trevor Burris.   read more

At first aid groups weren’t targeted by insurgents. But that’s changed in part because of “increased use by the American government and other foreign donors of private aid contractors...which blurred the lines" between independent and government aid groups. Life for independent aid workers in Afghanistan started getting worse after the Afghan military and U.S. Special Forces began showing up at their health clinics, which raised suspicions among residents over the workers’ impartiality.   read more

Court findings showed that “potentially thousands of Georgians had their sentences illegally extended, and several of the named plaintiffs had been improperly hauled off to jail and/or subjected to electronic monitoring for alleged probation violations six years after their probation had ended for minor offenses like possession of marijuana and no proof of insurance.” Alabama Judge Hub Harrington described the practice as a “judicially sanctioned extortion racket.”   read more

Senator-Elect Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), who attacked Obama for his “lawless actions,” as a member of the House sponsored a bill to help a Sudanese woman, Meriam Yahya Ibrahim, and her two children, after Ibrahim was sentenced to death for apostasy after converting to Christianity. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-California), having characterized Obama’s action as “a naked power grab,” filed a bill to assist the Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, who helped the U.S. in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.   read more

The movie, "The Interview," stars Seth Rogan and James Franco as television reporters recruited by the CIA to kill Kim Jong-un. With a storyline like that, it may prove to be quite a Christmas gift from Sony to the North Korean leader, as it feeds right into the government’s propaganda machine aimed at its involuntarily captive domestic audience. But that doesn’t mean Kim was pleased to be mocked. When word of the movie first surfaced, North Korean officials “reacted furiously” to it.   read more

The UN panel found problems with American rules of interrogation, police shootings of unarmed African-Americans and the use of solitary confinement in prisons. It criticized the Obama administration for not fully investigating the use of torture by the CIA during the George W. Bush presidency and cited the holdup of the Senate report into CIA torture and detention of detainees. The continued use of Guantanamo Bay to imprison foreign residents without trial was also discussed in the report.   read more