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

The largest single contributor to Foxx’s campaign is Corinthian Colleges, based in Santa Ana, California. Corinthian is under investigation by California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who has said the company has engaged in “deceptive and false advertisements and aggressive marketing campaigns that misrepresented job placement rates and school programs.” Seventeen other states are investigating the school for various violations. The federal government is also investigating Corinthian.   read more

Starting in July 2008, he was deputy chief of mission in Ankara, Turkey, and in 2010 he was charge d’affaires for the embassy there. During his time Turkey, Silliman and his wife Catherine appeared on Turkish television, showing viewers what went into an American Thanksgiving dinner. In July 2011, moved on to Baghdad as councilor for political affairs. He was named deputy chief of mission and charge d’affaires in 2012, a post he held until his nomination as ambassador to Kuwait.   read more

Valdés had a brush with the Pinochet killing machine. He usually rode to work with colleagues Orlando Letelier, Letelier’s aide Michael Moffitt and Moffitt’s wife Ronni, but didn’t on September 21, 1976. The day before, a bomb had been planted in Letelier’s car and it went off while the three were on their way to work. Letelier and Ronni Moffitt were killed. Valdés had ridden in the car the day before the explosion while the bomb was attached.   read more

Under a settlement reached with the Labor Department, the Marlins will pay $288,290 in back wages and damages to 39 team employees, including clubhouse and office staff. Nearly two dozen clubhouse workers, who staff locker rooms before and after games, were paid $50 a day while working up to 11 hours instead of receiving minimum wage and overtime. In the case of the Giants, the team has twice negotiated deals with the federal government to resolve violations of U.S. wage laws.   read more

Even in an intractable, partisan Congress, Democrats and Republicans can find something to agree upon—that the Department of Defense needs to stop wasting money. The Pentagon’s penchant for burning through billions of dollars on bad ideas has frustrated people on both sides of the aisle, which is why Democratic and Republican lawmakers managed to find common ground on several cost-saving amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2015.   read more

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has had to maintain enough space in detention centers for 34,000 immigrants a day, as a result of legislation approved by Congress five years ago. Keeping that many beds available, regardless of the actual need, has consumed more than $2 billion a year.   read more

. In 2006, he joined the staff of Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Connecticut) as an agriculture appropriations associate. The legislation he worked on included the 2008 Farm Bill, the Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill, and the Food Safety Modernization Act Ronholm left for the executive branch in April 2011 as deputy under secretary for food safety. When Hagen left in 2013, Ronholm took over the top food safety position.   read more

In 2001, Gegeshidze cbecame a senior fellow at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS), a think tank. During his time at GFSIS, Gegeshidze wrote many scholarly papers and articles about Georgian policy, much of it about regional security and Georgia’s role as part of Europe. Gegeshidze remained at GFSIS until being sent to Washington as ambassador.   read more

Former members of the U.S. Congress and those who failed to win sit on top of nearly $100 million in campaign funds that weren’t spent by Election Day. Some campaign war chests are brimming with money. At least nine former congressional members and candidates have $1 million or more. Former U.S. senator Evan Bayh, out of office three years, still has almost $10 million in surplus campaign cash. That money sits in an investment account accruing thousands of dollars in interest each week.   read more

Never before in its history has the FBI allowed, nor ordered, its agents to document interrogations. In fact, officials explicitly told agents to not record interrogations. One reason was uncovered in an FBI memo saying defendants might be acquitted by jurors who saw the FBI's tactics. Defense attorneys and others hailed the policy reversal. “As we have seen from data regarding wrongful convictions, coercive police techniques...[can] produce false confessions,” said Jerry Cox.   read more

A license plate reader, mounted in a police car, misread one digit on Denise Green’s license plate, triggering an alert that the vehicle was stolen. Even though the wanted vehicle looked nothing like Green’s, four officers drew their weapons on Green, who was forced from her car and ordered to kneel on the pavement. The incident resulted in Green suing San Francisco, raising the question whether technology alone is enough to legally justify a search.   read more

The age of robot-driven cars is here, thanks to Google. These self-driving vehicles on California’s Bay Area roadways are ushering their human passengers to their destinations. So far, Google’s cars have a perfect law-abiding record: Not one of them has been issued a traffic citation…yet. But when that day comes, who’s going to pay the fine? Google? Or the person behind the wheel, who has no control over the car? The programmer who wrote the algorithm that made the mistake?   read more

Oklahomans are on the hook for more than $300,000 for adopting an amendment banning the use of Islamic law in state courts. Established in 2010 by lawmakers and voters, the “Save Our State Amendment” targeted Sharia law, which conservatives claimed was a threat to Oklahoma. But Muneer Awad argued the law violated the First Amendment’s prohibition on government favoring one religion over another, and he successfully sued to stop the law .   read more

Liberals and conservatives in the U.S. Senate expressed concerns about David Barron’s selection for the judgeship due to his writing at least one drone-assassination memo believed to be the basis for using drones to target and kill a U.S. citizen in 2011. Opponents threatened to derail the nomination unless Obama agreed to disclose the memos to Senators, which he did. The move apparently worked with liberal critics, as the Senate voted 52 to 43 to advance Barron’s nomination.   read more

The U.S. is reportedly experiencing an “epidemic” of pedestrians being hit and killed by automobiles. But the most startling statistics involve minorities. Death rates for blacks were 60% higher than Caucasians, while fatality rates for Hispanics were 43% higher than whites. Hispanics in S. Carolina were 189% more likely than whites to be killed as pedestrians. In Wisconsin, blacks were 145% more likely to be killed.   read more

The nation’s two largest cable companies want to merge, creating not just a new industry dominance but a giant mess of customer dissatisfaction. Comcast and Time Warner say their merger will be a blessing for subscribers. But a new survey reveals that Time Warner ranks dead last in customer satisfaction, with Comcast right behind it. "It’s hard to see how combining two negatives will be a positive for consumers," said David VanAmburg.   read more