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

Journalists in Louisiana who publish the identity of individuals who possess or have applied for concealed handgun permits can now be fined or thrown in jail. Republican Governor Bobby Jindal signed legislation last week that outlaws the publishing of “any information regarding the identity of any person who applied for or received a concealed handgun permit.”   read more

A new report by the inspector general (I.G.) of the Department of Health and Human Services identified more than 417,000 prescriptions in 2009 alone written by people who aren’t allowed under the law to do so, like massage therapists, athletic trainers, interpreters and others. The cost of the unauthorized prescriptions was $31.6 million, according to the study.   read more

The FBI reported that the city’s violent crime last year dropped 3.6%, while data compiled by the police revealed a 9.3% jump. Similarly, aggravated assaults reportedly declined 4%, according to the FBI, while Denver police said they went up 11% from 2011 to last year. While it’s not unusual for there to be minor differences between local police crime statistics and those held in the federal data base, observers found the Denver discrepancies to be glaring and highly unusual.   read more

Until Congress does redo the criteria, the Republican Party has its dream situation, one in which states can enact whatever voting procedures they want to limit minority voting without serious threat of reprisal from the federal government. This means that Republicans have absolutely no motivation to cooperate in rewriting the criteria for oversight.   read more

The plaintiff claimed she was subjected to discrimination by a supervisor—whom she defined as someone who controlled her work schedule and performance evaluations. But the supervisor in question did not possess the power to hire, fire and promote workers—and on that basis, the pro-corporate wing of the Supreme Court rejected (pdf) the plaintiff’s argument because the superior was really a coworker in their view.   read more

George’s audit stated the IRS wrongly used “Be On the Look Out” (BOLO) memos to single out tea party groups. But he failed to mention that at least seven BOLO memos included the word “progressive.” The IRS also keyed on terms like “Occupy” and “medical marijuana,” as well as advocacy of President Obama’s health care law.   read more

Boeing billed the Pentagon for $13.7 million more than it should have, according to the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), including $2,286 for an aluminum bearing sleeve that really only costs $10 apiece. The Pentagon purchased 573 of the sleeves to be used on landing-gear doors, resulting in an overcharge of $1.3 million just for that particular device.   read more

A lot of the time, Carney says he can’t answer the media’s question on an issue. Since taking the job in early 2011, the former Time reporter had conducted 444 briefings through June 18. During that span Carney used some variation of "I don’t have the answer” a total of 1,905 times, according to Yahoo! News.   read more

EPA officials said they will not finalize a 2011 draft study that found contaminants in the groundwater of Pavillion, Wyoming, were consistent with chemicals used in fracking. They also said they will not ask outside experts to review the EPA’s research. Instead, the agency will turn the matter over to the state of Wyoming, which intends to work with Encana, the company that conducted the fracking, to finish the study.   read more

In the first 52 months of Obama as president, the government issued a total of 1,229 rules. Bush’s administration produced more rules during the same period of time (1,469), as did the Clinton administration (2,136). Agencies under Obama have issued more “economically significant rules” than earlier administrations did: 259 versus 206 under Bush and 215 under Clinton.   read more

On July 26, 2012, Skype vice president Mark Gillett assured users that, “It has been suggested that Skype made changes in its architecture at the behest of Microsoft in order to provide law enforcement with greater access to our users’ communications. False.” It would appear that Gillett chose his words with unusual care, because the greater access actually took place before the sale to Microsoft.   read more

Other countries, including China, the United Kingdom, Colombia, the Philippines and Germany, have banned the chemical compound. Even the U.S. Department of Transportation considers ammonium nitrate a “hazardous material.” But the EPA, under pressure from the fertilizer industry, has refused to list it as extremely hazardous.   read more

The wages of disabled workers are based on how long it takes them to complete a task in comparison to abled workers. Goodwill’s CEO, John Gibbon, who is blind, has defended this practice, explaining to NBC that “It's typically not about their livelihood. It's about their fulfillment. It's about being a part of something.”   read more

In an under-reported but potentially historic decision last week, a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-3 to reject the retailers’ argument, ruling that large corporations may force contractors—and potentially consumers and employees—to waive their constitutional right to a jury trial in favor of private arbitration decided by a firm of the corporation’s choice.   read more

Sen. Dianne Feinstein , chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, stated that the FAA had helped thwart “a plot to bomb a downtown Chicago bar” that fall. If that is true, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure would require the government to share the results of the surveillance that led investigators to Daoud, yet prosecutors refuse even to confirm or deny the substance of Feinstein’s comments.   read more

ECM is not only part of the market for school insurance in Kansas, it’s a leader, insuring about 90% of Kansas’s 286 school districts. That EMC fears unsustainable liability so much amounts to a non-ideological, dollars-and-cents way of saying that EMC believes concealed carry at schools will lead to tragic shootings and deaths—and that EMC does not want to pay out on them.   read more