President Donald Trump gleefully announced that, under his direction, U.S. military troops had swooped down on the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento and kidnapped California Governor Gavin Newsom. “We’re charging Newscum with fraud.” When a reporter asked for specifics about the fraud charges, Trump pointed to Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi, clearly taken by surprise, said, “We’re looking into it and will let you know the details as soon as we’ve created them.”   read more

Americans who don’t purchase insurance will be penalized. A family of two adults with two or more children, for example, would pay $285 or 1% of the family’s income over the $20,300 filing threshold, whichever is greater. If a person is due a refund from the Internal Revenue Service, the government can deduct the penalty from the money owed. Otherwise, there isn’t any legal mechanism to punish people for not paying.   read more

The four largest banks—JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo—today are 30% larger than five years ago. that the five largest banks “now hold more than half of the total banking assets in the country. One study earlier this year showed that the Too Big to Fail status is giving the 10 biggest U.S. banks an annual taxpayer subsidy of $83 billion.”   read more

Afghanistan’s government suspects that members of an elite U.S. Army unit were involved in the mysterious disappearance and deaths of 17 civilians. The Afghans vanished from Wardak province after being detained by U.S. Green Berets between October 2012 and February 2013. Bodies of 10 of the men were eventually discovered in shallow graves outside the U.S. base that housed Operational Detachment-Alpha, or A Team.   read more

Farmers dedicated more acreage to opium production: about 209,000 hectares this year versus 154,000 hectares in 2012 and 193,000 in the peak year of 2007. Two more provinces began producing opium (Balkh and Faryab), bringing the total in Afghanistan to 19 provinces—out of 34, which means more than 50% are now supporting the illicit drug trade. Almost half of the production takes place in Helmand Province.   read more

Under the Affordable Care Act (pdf), the federal government is supposed to “promptly and without undue delay” transfer the applications of those going through HealthCare.gov that meet the requirements for Medicaid eligibility to states. But the Obama administration has failed to carry out this important provision of the law. Unlike regular insurance coverage accessed through the website, which can begin on January 1, those eligible for Medicaid can be covered immediately.   read more

An example from the movies analyzed in the study was the “Die Hard” film series. The 1990 adventure “Die Hard 2” was rated R, but a later sequel, 2007’s “Live Free or Die Hard,” was rated PG-13 in spite of having more gun violence.   read more

The spying uncovered that Saudi Arabia was secretly producing more oil than it claimed, which undercut the organization’s goal of inflating oil prices. The NSA learned that the Saudis were releasing inaccurate totals about the country’s oil production, which confirmed suspicions by officials in the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department and the Department of Energy.   read more

The most recent bystander shooting occurred in September, when two officers near Times Square fired at a man they mistakenly believed had a gun. The man was not wounded, but two female bystanders were, one of whom is now preparing to file a lawsuit. The lawsuits that are filed by innocent bystanders as a result of officer shootings are referred to by New York City as “no-pay cases,” an indication of how black-and-white city lawyers view these incidents.   read more

Under current law, asylum seekers are prohibited from working legally for up to 180 days after filing their applications. However, the report shows that the wait is often much longer, sometimes lasting years, because the government can “stop the clock” if it determines an applicant has done something to delay proceedings. HRW says it is unclear “what stops and restarts the clock”— a practice that impacted more than 260,000 asylum seekers in 2011 alone, or 92% of all pending cases.   read more

With the website’s many hardware and software problems preventing people from signing up for insurance, the administration has called on insurers for technical help. But consumers may find themselves going directly to an insurance company’s website for information—and companies would not be required to tell visitors about other plans available through competitors.   read more

The bill would wipe out Section 716 (pdf) of Dodd-Frank that requires banks to use a non-bank entity for trading commodity, energy and other swaps. In other words, if the legislation becomes law, financial institutions could return to conducting high-risk trading with funds that are backed by the FDIC (i.e. the taxpayer).   read more

six states—Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and West Virginia—have refused to comply, despite the fact that the president has the power to call National Guard units into federal service and that the federal government pays for nearly all Guard funding. Nevertheless, the states say the units are state agencies that must abide by state laws.   read more

The case is really all about money. The law was inspired by the city of Portland, which back in 2004 gave public employees the option of buying their prescriptions from licensed pharmacies outside the U.S. The move wound up saving workers hundreds and even thousands of dollars by not buying their medications through U.S. drug stores.   read more

With American troops planning to pull out next year, the interpreters say insurgents intend to kill them and their families for supporting the U.S. occupation. But the State Department has repeatedly rejected the visa applications of these men, saying there is no serious threat against them. The interpreters beg to differ.   read more

One provision in the bill, Section 1613, “would prohibit any federal agency subject to FOIA from disclosing information of any kind that concerns ‘an agricultural operation, farming or conservation practices or the land itself.’ Under this provision, not even statistical data integral to studies of impacts on public health and other effects of farmland operations would be available.”   read more

Wilson stepped down as a U.S. representative from New Mexico on January 3, 2009. She then set up a lucrative one-woman consulting firm (Heather Wilson and Company, LLC) the very next day, collecting thousands of dollars from a federally-run research laboratory for services that were never really explained.   read more