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

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) found in a review of data from 2010 that Caucasians and African-Americans have similar rates of using marijuana, but blacks are nearly four times as likely as whites to be arrested for its possession.   read more

Workers who smoke cost more to employers. Micah Berman, lead author of a study at the College of Public Health and Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, reported that the “annual excess cost to employ a smoker is $5,816” due to sick leave, lower productivity, and additional healthcare costs.   read more

The Wall Street Journal and other news organizations seeking doctor-specific information will still have to file Freedom of Information Act requests, which will then be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the Department of Health and Human Services. In 2012, the Obama administration, as part of the Affordable Care Act made some doctor-specific Medicare data available to local community groups, but not to news organizations.   read more

In 2010, there were more deaths due to gunfire, including suicides, homicides, and fatal unintentional shootings, than motor vehicle fatalities in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, District of Columbia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. In some locations, the total of gun-related deaths was at least twice that of the number of motor vehicle-related deaths. In Alaska, it was 144 vs. 71, and in DC it was 99 vs. 38.   read more

Zakaria Kandahari, identified as the chief interpreter for an American Army Special Forces A Team stationed in Wardak Province, is wanted in connection with the deaths of 17 Afghans. Afghan officials want to arrest Kandahari on murder, torture and abuse of prisoner charges, and they have accused the American military of shielding him from capture.   read more

The group plans to display a monument bench that will feature quotes from Madalyn Murray O’Hair, a renowned atheist activist, an excerpt from the Treaty of Tripoli signed by President John Adams, and quotes from founders Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.   read more

The plaintiffs from High Times Magazine, The Daily Doobie and The Hemp Connoisseur insist they “do not sell or promote obscenity,” and demand the court throw out HB 13-1317. They pointed out that alcohol is banned for Americans younger than 21, but that alcohol-related magazines are allowed to be sold openly.   read more

In court papers that surfaced last week, prosecutors accuse Manning of aiding three "enemies": al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and a "classified enemy," whose name the government wants to keep secret from the public. The "classified enemy" gambit, like the government's whole "aiding the enemy" case, arises because the government's case, as many legal scholars have argued, involves some highly questionable overreaching to turn a simple leak case into an "aiding the enemy" case.   read more

“War without reflection is mechanical slaughter,” Heyns said, claiming today’s casualties from drone warfare will pale in comparison if robots are let loose in future conflicts. For instance, will robots be able to recognize soldiers surrendering and not kill them, Heyns wondered. He also theorized that they may make it easier for nations to engage in war, and could be used by repressive governments to suppress domestic rebellion.   read more

With a price tag of $4.7 billion, the deal is the largest ever takeover of an American company by a Chinese one. Shuanghui will take the company private. However, there is another American component in the deal because one of the investors in Shuanghui is Goldman Sachs, which bought out the Chinese government’s share of the company in 2006. Goldman now owns 5% of Shuanghui. Morgan Stanley is also said to be involved in the current deal.   read more

The secretive intelligence court that normally acts as a rubber stamp for whatever spying the U.S. Government wants to do last week surprised many observers by ordering the Justice Department (DOJ) to respond to a lawsuit seeking details of unlawful Obama administration surveillance.   read more

The revolving door between big business and government is spinning again. Despite his promise during the 2008 campaign that lobbyists would take a back seat in his administration, President Barack Obama recently nominated a long-time telecommunications lobbyist—who has also donated and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for his campaigns—to serve as the next chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency that plays the principle role in regulating the telecom industry.   read more

After failing to convince Congress to lower the cap to $200,000, the White House now is calling for a ceiling of $400,000. That is the equivalent of the president’s salary, and the plan is to tie contractors’ annual earnings to that. So when the president gets a raise, contractors’ compensation cap will rise accordingly. In the meantime, federal workers are in the third year of a basic pay rate freeze, which is in addition to wage reductions brought on by budget cuts and unpaid furlough days.   read more

Former political advisers Robert Gibbs, Jim Messina and David Plouffe received five-figure checks to speak at a forum in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, which is trying to win news friends in Washington. Messina, who was Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, has started his own consulting firm that will count “Team Obama” as its primary client.   read more

The short answer—that overseas utilities are buying the wood to burn in their power plants as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—naturally raises the question of whether that is a good idea or not. As environmentalists try to block the growth of this transatlantic trade in American wood-fuel, others argue that wood-burning, like expanded use of natural gas, can be a temporary alternative to burning oil or coal until new technology allows a shift to zero or near-zero carbon emissions.   read more

Johnson became president of Progress Energy in 2005, and worked as chairman and CEO from 2007 to 2012, when the company was bought by Duke Energy. Although the Duke-Progress Energy merger agreement named Johnson CEO of the new combined company, the new corporate board, dominated by Duke Energy members, fired him less than an hour after the merger closed, allowing him to walk away with a $44 million severance payment for one hour's work. He had been paid $9.5 million by Progress in 2011.   read more