Trump ordered that the term Homo sapiens be changed to Hetero sapiens. In history books and on websites, the airplane from which the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima will no longer be identified as the Enola Gay, but rather the Enola Straight. Trump also ordered billionaire Mark Cuban, who supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, to change his name to Mark American. If he does not do so, he will be charged with terrorism.   read more

Rawls writes that “charter schools may be discriminating,” citing a 2012 report from the Government Accountability Office that found charter schools enrolled fewer students with disabilities, compared to those at public schools. There is also evidence that charter schools may not be achieving racial equality or helping low-income students.   read more

Duc Tan, a refugee and school teacher, was labeled a communist and an undercover Viet Cong agent by five Vietnamese-Americans in an August 7, 2003, public notice and local community news stories because they said that a Santa Claus apron found near a booth run by Tan’s organization at a community fair included gold stars resembling those used on the Vietnamese communist flag.   read more

The Association of German Breweries says fracking’s potential impact on groundwater supplies could jeopardize the country’s 497-year-old legal tradition of producing pure beer. German beer is allowed to be made only from malt, hops, yeast and water. Chancellor Angela Merkel is backing legislation in her coalition that would outlaw fracking in some areas of the country.   read more

Actually, the decision is easy to explain…from a political point of view. Republican Party leaders have taken the position that if any good comes out of Obamacare, the Democrats will get the credit, so it is better to sabotage it whenever possible. In addition, poor people rarely vote for Republicans anyway, so helping them is not an electoral priority.   read more

Treasury's projections for the second half of FY 2013 show additional receipts of $1.108 trillion vs. additional spending of $1.594 trillion, for total FY revenues of $2.712 trillion, total spending of $3.684 trillion, and a total deficit of $972.9 billion. Although Denninger does the math differently to come up with a deficit of $1.069 trillion, neither number demonstrates a substantial drop from the 2012 deficit of $1.089 trillion.   read more

federal energy statistics show Alabamans and Tennesseans pay considerably less for power than the national average—earning TVA “the ‘mother love’ of a politically conservative region,” according to former TVA Chairman S. David Freeman. That would explain why free-marketers like Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) called Obama’s proposal “one more bad idea in a budget full of bad ideas,” saying privatization could lead to higher energy costs for his constituents.   read more

On Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced for the first time that it wouldn’t prosecute a wind farm developer if a condor dies in the blades of one its turbines. But it only gets to kill one condor over the project’s expected 30-year life. In giving one free pass to Alta Windpower Development, a subsidiary of Terra-Gen Power, it set a standard for what constitutes reasonable measures to protect the birds that has alarmed their protectors.   read more

Dissatisfied with litigation work, Werfel returned to OMB in April 2002 to work as a budget examiner in the Education Branch until late 2003, as chief of the Financial Integrity and Analysis Branch from late 2003 to 2006, and as deputy controller from 2006 to July 2009. As controller of OMB, Werfel was largely responsible for establishing Recovery.gov, a federal Web site that tracked how the 2009 economic stimulus program was distributing billions of dollars to jump-start the economy.   read more

The ambitious and costly program, dubbed “Star Wars,” is now in its fourth decade, having consumed $209 billion while never being tested, even on a limited scale, in the heat of battle. Lewis and Postol expressed concerns because in each U.S. test, the trajectory, timing of the launch and the type of missile being fired were all known in advance.   read more

The benefits of decriminalization or legalization would be greater than their costs, pointing out that the “available evidence suggests that reducing penalties for possession of small quantities has little effect on the number of users but retains the benefit of reducing judicial case loads and incarceration rates.” Legalization would save money on enforcement costs, reducing rates of disease, death associated with drug use and violent crime..   read more

At the Contra Costa West County Detention Facility (WCDF) in Richmond, California, a call costs $3.25 for the initial connection, with charges up to 25 cents a minute for in-state calls and 30 cents a minute for out-of-state. Calls are often dropped, requiring a reconnection charge.   read more

Recognizing that these five crises are deeply intertwined with one another, the report sets forth “broad-brush” policy proposals to slow the destruction humanity is wreaking on the biosphere. These include reducing greenhouse gas emissions, better land management, slowing the rate of population growth and changing industrial processes to reduce toxic waste.   read more

Russel worked as director of the State Department Office of Japanese Affairs from August 2008 to January 2009. He then took a job with the Obama administration, serving as director for Japan, South Korea and North Korea at the National Security Council from January 2009 to 2011 and as special assistant to the president and senior director for Asian Affairs since then.   read more

According to Elon Musk, Tesla’s co-founder, the company had another five years to pay the government back (while the Energy Department claimed the number was actually nine years). Instead, it fully paid off the debt this month, thanks to a surge in its stock price. "Having accepted taxpayer money, I thought we had an obligation to repay it as soon as we reasonably could," Musk told The Wall Street Journal, “If economics were the only consideration, we would not have done this.”   read more

In what’s being called the “Rear Window” case, Arne Svenson used a telephoto camera to photograph his neighbors from his studio across the way, snapping pictures of the Foster family as they went about their daily lives. Svenson admits he never informed the Fosters about what he was doing.   read more

Two years later, Berashk finally was granted an interview with a U.S. consular officer After waiting nine months for a decision from the U.S. embassy, only to learn Berashk had been turned down, Din filed a lawsuit to force officials to explain why her husband was denied entry into the U.S. The only thing the State Department did was point to a broad 1,000-word provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that excludes applicants for a variety of terrorism-related reasons.   read more