Trump said, “We need people to be afraid. Right now many Americans are surprised when protestors are killed, but they’ll get used to it.” Trump did add one suggestion: “Try not to kill white people. That gets too much attention. Stick to protestors of other colors.”   read more

The group Airwars says its six-month investigation into the airstrikes found enough evidence to believe at least 57 attacks caused between 459 and 591 civilian deaths and between 48 and 80 allied military fatalities between Aug. 8, 2014 and June 30, 2015. The coalition has looked into only 10 reported incidents of non-IS deaths, admitting just two civilians have died out of more than 5,800 airstrikes that unleashed 18,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq and Syria.   read more

Gallup was named in a class-action lawsuit for violating a law that prohibits making making “any call . . . using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice.” Gallup denied having done this, but settled the suit for $12 million. The settlement may now cause Gallup and other polling firms to think twice before calling mobile phone users. Those who use mobile phones exclusively include many young people and Latinos. That group also tends to skew Democratic.   read more

In what may be a first for the agency, the FDA has issued a cybersecurity alert to hospitals using computer-controlled pumps to administer drugs to patients. Certain Hospira pumps contain vulnerabilities that could allow a hacker to adjust the dosage of a drug. With their communications modules used for updating, "you can make the pump do whatever you like,” Rios said. A hacker would need no physical access to the pump.   read more

The New York Times called this “concentration of political donors” “unprecedented in the modern era.” Most of the $388 million in contributions has funneled into super PACs, some of which have collected tens of millions of dollars from a small number of donors in just a matter of days. Republicans have been especially good at this. “Just 130 or so families and their businesses provided more than half the money raised through June by Republican candidates and their super PACs,” wrote the Times.   read more

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling doesn’t override tribal laws because the tribes are not parties to the U.S. Constitution. Tribal members Alray Nelson and Brennen Yonnie may challenge the legality of the Dine Marriage Act in the Navajo Supreme Court. “We can, yes, remove ourselves from our community and go get married like say in a city in San Francisco or in Albuquerque," said Nelson. "But that's not our community. Our songs and those prayers we were both raised with...[are] located here."   read more

If the women make it all the way through Ranger School, they will receive the coveted Ranger tab. However, they will not be permitted to serve with the 75th Ranger Regiment, which performs special operations missions. The women are part of a one-time experiment as the Army attempts to find out which combat jobs may be opened to women. The services may close off certain jobs to women, provided they show why they wouldn’t be suitable for the assignments.   read more

Labor salaries have tripled in China over the past decade, from $4.35 to $12.47 an hour. The average manufacturing wage in the U.S. is $22.32, which is still higher than in China. But when the costs of energy and materials are factored in, Chinese executives have concluded their businesses may be better off in the U.S. American states can provide tax breaks and subsidies and the companies get better prices on natural gas and cotton.   read more

Public health experts urge doctors to ask about gun ownership, in part so they may recommend safety measures if children are in the home or if there is someone mentally ill present. Doctors also ask about household chemicals and swimming pools, but those don’t have the National Rifle Association making contributions to politicians on their behalf.   read more

A report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) shows that 73% of those who die in jail haven’t been convicted of a crime. In addition, 29% of those who die are African-American, more than double their percentage of the U.S. population at large. BJS found that 31.3% of all jail deaths in 2012 were by suicide.   read more

Warafi’s lawyer, citing declarations by President Barack Obama that the Afghan war is over, tried to get him released. The government has an obligation to release all POWs at the end of a conflict. But federal Judge Royce Lamberth rejected Warafi’s argument, saying regardless of what Obama has said publicly, U.S. soldiers are still fighting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. Since the beginning of 2015, three Americans have been killed in Afghanistan.   read more

Georgia farms out the publishing of its laws to Lexis-Nexis, which writes annotations and then assigns the copyright for them back to the state. Lexis-Nexis then charges for access to the laws, something that Malamud says should be available for free to the taxpayers who paid for the laws in the first place.   read more

The Bush administration attempted to exempt the Tongass from the Roadless Rule because it claimed it would harm local economies. The vote fell almost completely along party lines of the presidents who appointed the judges. Of the six who voted to keep the forest roadless, three were appointed by Barack Obama, two by Bill Clinton and one by Jimmy Carter. The five voting to keep the Bush exemption included three appointed by Bush, one appointed by Ronald Reagan and one by Clinton.   read more

A study from the Government Accountability Office has found that hundreds of chemical plants are incorrectly reporting the “Distance of Concern” which defines how large an area may be subject to toxic effects of a chemical release. The GAO report estimated that more than 2,700 of the estimated 6,400 facilities, or 44%, misreported the Distance of Concern.   read more

The federal government sucked a total of $150 million out of seniors’ checks in 2013 to satisfy student loan debt, according to the Government Accountability Office, which also made it clear that 82% of senior still owe money for their own student loans rather than those of their children or other dependents.   read more

Prosecutions for crimes such as mail fraud, healthcare fraud and other such offenses are off almost 37% from their peak during the Clinton administration. In 1995, the number of prosecutions was about 11,000 and that number has dropped steadily since then, with the exception of a spike during the first three years of the Obama administration.   read more

The FBI has found that it can’t match salaries offered by the private sector. In addition, its strict background checks weed out those who have smoked marijuana within three years or used other drugs within 10 years. One thing the Army isn’t doing to fill its ranks is cut its standards.   read more