Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sent messages to all members of Congress terminating their positions, stating “Your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment.” All Democratic and independent members of Congress, as well as two Republicans, found themselves locked out of their offices after everything inside had been confiscated.   read more

"No worker should have to face the choice: Do I take a bathroom break, or do I get paid?" said Adam Welsh, a U.S. Dept. of Labor attorney. The department filed a lawsuit in November 2012, claiming the company violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act because employees weren't earning the minimum wage— $7.25 per hour —when the company required them to clock out for breaks.   read more

The amount of money the Kochs have to spend in the 2016 cycle is more than twice what the Republican National Committee is planning to put out. The Koch’s network operates from 107 offices nationwide with a workforce more than triple that of the RNC. The Kochs are even starting to rival the RNC’s infrastructure, with a data analytics service that some Republican candidates prefer to the GOP’s. “I don’t know of any precedent for this,” said campaign finance scholar Robert E. Mutch.   read more

Free housing. Free healthcare. Paid college tuition. Thirty days of vacation each year. The U.S. military might be the closest thing the U.S. has to a socialist utopia. All basic needs are taken care of. Families with children get more money than singles. Morale-boosting programs such as vacation lodging, golf courses and movie theaters. “The military invests time and money in service members while making the maximum effort to keep their morale high,” Scott Beauchamp wrote in The Atlantic.   read more

The wealthiest individuals and families in America spent two decades carving away at tax laws and regulations to reduce the size of their tax burden. They did this by employing lawyers, estate planners, lobbyists and anti-tax activists to develop new tax shelters or adjust tax rules that allowed them to keep more of their earnings. Much of that work was undone within a year because of changes championed by President Barack Obama.   read more

Conventional rare earth element (REE) extraction requires the grinding of huge amounts of hard rock. It is "energy intensive, disturbs large areas of pristine land, and generates large volumes of toxic tailings,” reported HSNW. Now WVU has been given nearly $1 million by the Dept. of Energy to see if REEs can be extracted from coal waste. In Pennsylvania and West Virginia alone, it is estimated [coal mining] generates about three times the current U.S. demand for total REEs.   read more

Some military officials say much of the pushback is coming from Marine Corps General John Kelly. Kelly has put up roadblocks in the way of officials from other nations who attempt to interview prisoners for possible resettlement. Former State Dept. official James Dobbins said talking over prisoner releases with the Pentagon was like “punching a pillow. [They] would come to a meeting, they would not make a counter-argument. And then nothing would happen.”   read more

Both cars and guns killed Americans at the same rate in 2014: 10.3 fatalities per 100,000 people. Firearm related deaths included homicides, suicides and accidental deaths, while motor vehicle deaths resulted from car crashes, collisions between cars, and pedestrian struck by autos. Christopher Ingraham at The Washington Post reported that auto deaths have been dropping since the 1960s, while gun deaths have erratically gone up over time.   read more

U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl said this week that the restrictions on data collecting and disseminating may be “a façade for content or viewpoint discrimination.” The laws in question created criminal and civil penalties for anyone who gathers information about or takes photographs of land or resources and turns it over to government agencies. The plaintiffs said the laws prevent them from collecting information about animal abuse on farms and ranches and about food safety.   read more

Lansing took over as Scripps’ senior vice president for television in 2001 and was in charge of the 10 television stations the company owned at the time. He moved over to Scripps Networks, which managed cable television programming, in 2004. There, he was in charge of channels such as Food Network, HGTV, the Travel Channel, and others. It was a good time for Scripps Networks; revenue tripled under Lansing’s watch to $2.1 billion in 2012.   read more

The state expects to spend upwards of $1.8 million of the BP funds on the renovation of the mansion. The diversion of money to the mansion repairs is somewhat surprising considering Bentley’s administration claimed earlier this year that it had no money to keep DMV offices open in some of Alabama’s poorer counties. The DMV offices are the primary place voters can obtain the identification required to vote under the state’s new laws.   read more

Thomas had to handle an angry town hall meeting of Foreign Service officers who objected to the G.W. Bush State Dept's plans for Iraq, including ordering people to serve at diplomatic posts. Thomas tried to quell the anger by explaining the department was not getting enough volunteers to go to the war-torn country. When one officer called an assignment to Iraq “a potential death sentence,” producing considerable applause, Thomas responded: “OK, thanks for your comment,” and ended the meeting.   read more

"The Government Accountability Office in 2010 estimated that about half of the agency’s inventory — said to be worth nearly $14 billion at the time — was just taking up space,” wrote Politico. It’s no wonder what one ex-general had to say about the Defense Logistics Agency. “How do you buy $7 billion of stuff you don’t need?” said Arnold Punaro, a retired major general in the Marine Corps Reserve. “If a company did that they’d be out of business. Even Wal-Mart.”   read more

During her term as ambassador, Stewart focused on helping to remove unexploded ordnance left over by the U.S. and other countries during the Vietnam War and broke ground on a new U.S. embassy in Vientiane. She also performed in a rap video—in Lao—for a local crowd. Stewart returned to Washington in 2013 to serve as political adviser to the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Supreme Allied Commander Transformation.   read more

1. Lawyer who Defends Corporations Accused of Creating Toxic Pollution Sues Neighbor for Smoking Inside his own House 2. 47% of Americans would have to Borrow or Sell Something to Cover an Unexpected Expense of $400 3. FBI Upgrades Animal Cruelty to Class A Felony   read more

The federal program has permitted police to keep up to 80% of assets they seize, such as TV sets, cars, cash and even houses. “Asset forfeiture has become an increasingly contentious practice in recent years. It lets police seize and keep cash and property from people who are never convicted — and in many cases, never charged — with wrongdoing,” wrote the Post. Widespread use of the practice has prompted "concern that, in some cases, police are motivated more by profits and less by justice.”   read more

The labeling requirements were eliminated through an attachment to the omnibus budget bill passed by Congress and signed by Obama earlier this month. The move was prompted by threats from the World Trade Organization, which threatened to allow Mexico and Canada to hit the U.S. with more than $1 billion in tariffs if it continued to require beef and pork labeling for foreign producers. The WTO said the labels discriminate against meat from animals raised and slaughtered outside the United States.   read more