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

Chevron was forced to install monitoring equipment as a result of a 2005 settlement with EPA, but Bay Area enforcement inspectors became suspicious in August 2009 when they saw steam coming from a refinery unit that converts oil into gasoline and jet fuel. When they examined the monitoring equipment they discovered that Chevron had installed 100 feet of piping that diverted gases around the equipment and into the air.   read more

Big winners in the million-dollar political ad wars this year are local television stations, many of which have conveniently avoided delving into the murky world of campaign donors as part of their news coverage for fear of biting the hand that feeds them. The local ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC stations didn’t broadcast any stories about the 17 groups buying air time to support or attack Governor Scott Walker.   read more

In the early years of the Cold War, American officials were worried the country wouldn’t have enough uranium to meet the military and civilian demands for nuclear power. So Washington set out to invest more than $5 billion to develop and stockpile a man-made form of uranium, U-233. About 3,400 pounds of U-233 was collected, most of which now awaits burial after never being used. Scientists in the 1950s underestimated the quantities of natural uranium available.   read more

Babar Ahmad and another suspect, Syed Talha Ahsan, allegedly ran a jihadist website in London that supported terrorism. The U.S. government claims the right to prosecute them because the website, although run in London, was hosted by a company in Connecticut. They are also accused of receiving U.S. Naval plans. Imprisoned in the U.K. since August 2004, Babar Ahmad is thought to the British citizen held the longest without trial in modern times.   read more

Kantar’s figures show that since April, 91% of Obama ads have been paid for by the Obama campaign or the Democratic National Committee, with only 9% being funded by outside groups. On the Republican side, on the other hand, outside groups have paid for 55% of the pro-Romney/anti-Obama ads, while the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee have footed the bill for only 45%.   read more

Democratic leaders in some counties, including Montgomery and Allegheny, decided to authorize the issuance of poll-ready identification cards through county-run nursing homes and colleges. The move is legal because the voter ID law contains a provision allowing higher education institutions and senior-care centers to provide such cards to anyone who lives in the county, and not just to the people who attend those colleges or reside in those centers.   read more

Since 1954, the IRS has prohibited tax-exempt organizations, such as churches, from publicly supporting campaigns. The IRS enforced the law under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, however since Barack Obama became president, the IRS has stopped enforcement. Oddly, the “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” movement was created in 2008 by the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom to oppose Obama’s candidacy.   read more

15% of black students and 14% of Latino students attend “apartheid schools,” where whites make up less than 1% of enrollment. Half of black students in the Chicago metro, and one-third in New York, attend apartheid schools.   read more

John Littrell, a public defender helping defendant Sergio Santiago Syjuco, wrote that an undercover FBI agent, using the alias Richard Han, spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on prostitutes in the Philippines. Syjuco claims Littrell got the sex workers, many of whom were underage, “for himself and for defendants, and paid up to $1,600 for each group visit to a club called Area 51.   read more

From 1990 to 2008, white women without a high school diploma lost an average of five years off their life span, from 78 to 73. White men with similar education levels lost an average of three years, from 70 to 67. Experts from the University of Illinois at Chicago said several factors may have caused the decline: an increase in prescription drug overdoses; higher rates of smoking among women; rising obesity, and growing numbers of people without health insurance.   read more

According to the lawsuit, filed on behalf of four living Texans who received notices that their voter registration was subject to cancellation because they are “potentially deceased,” Andrade recently told registrars across Texas that “potentially dead” voters must provide “evidence within 30 days that they are alive…[or] they are to be purged from the voter rolls.”   read more

The 2004 law required that DNA be collected from anyone arrested on suspicion of committing a felony and from some convicted of certain misdemeanors. No charges need to be filed. No conviction needs to be obtained. Lily Haskell, one of the people challenging the law, was arrested at an anti-war demonstration. She was released without any charges being filed, but was compelled to give a DNA sample while in custody.   read more

Nearly three months after the U.S. government sued a reluctant JPMorgan Chase & Co. for documents during an investigation of allegations that it had manipulated California energy prices, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is threatening to suspend its energy trading unit from the state market. JPMorgan denied manipulating the market and said it had committed an “inadvertent factual error in papers related to discovery and promptly informed the commission of this mistake.”   read more

What Nixon lacked in affinity for nature, he made up for in practical deal-making that put him in a position to compromise with Democrats. Under his watch, the government created the Environmental Protection Agency and adopted numerous landmark pieces of legislation, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act, and the Endangered Species Act.   read more

Consistent with the Obama administration’s policy of focusing deportation policy on those with prior criminal records, in 2011 the U.S. expelled a record 188,000 immigrants with criminal records, 55% of all those returned without a removal order. The majority of these were charged with drug-related offenses, criminal traffic offenses (such as hit-and-run and driving under the influence) and immigration violations.   read more

It is true that prisoners have used dental floss to escape, although it is rare. In 1994, Robert Dale Shepard made an 18-foot rope out of floss and then used it to scale the walls of a West Virginia prison. In 2002, Scott Brimble used dental floss and toothpaste to weaken wire mesh surrounding the exercise yard at Okanogan County Jail in Washington and then pried open enough of an opening to slip through.   read more