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

Environmentalists contend the bill is unnecessary because border officials already are able to travel onto protected federal lands. “The Border Patrol has not asked for this authority,” said Randy Serraglio. “They have full access to public lands and are working with land managers to enhance border security efforts while minimizing impacts to those lands. For someone who purports to represent the state of Arizona, Senator McCain seems remarkably ignorant about what’s really going on here.”   read more

Pot operators find themselves paying as much as a 70% tax on their profits, compared to about 30% for “normal” businesses, because they can’t deduct things like rent, employee salaries or utility bills. One business that oversees the operation of five marijuana shops in Colorado cost owner Bruce Nassau $275,000 in taxes. Another marijuana dispensary owner, who brought in $1.7 million in revenue last year, got hit with a federal tax bill for $866,000.   read more

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the NSA’s bulk phone data program is illegal. The government has argued that Section 215 of the Patriot Act authorized the agency to gather and store for up to five years the phone call records of Americans. Judge Gerard E. Lynch wrote: “Such expansive development of government repositories of formerly private records would be an unprecedented contraction of the privacy expectations of all Americans."   read more

Agriculture accounts for 80% of California's water use. California is the sole producer (generating 99% or more) in the United States for the following: almonds, artichokes, dates, figs, raisins, kiwifruit, olives, Clingstone peaches (the kind preferred for salads or fresh snacks), pistachios, dried plums, pomegranates, sweet rice and walnuts. California also accounts for 94% of broccoli and fresh plums and it leads the nation in producing American Pima cotton, which is used in clothing.   read more

By most standards, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is doing pretty well, making a profit of $313 million in the second quarter of this fiscal year. But a congressional mandate to prefund employees’ health benefits is keeping the post office in the red. Congress in 2006 adopted the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act which forced the USPS—which does not receive money from the federal budget—to prefund its health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years.   read more

The Pentagon paid $5.4 million from 2011 to 2014 to NFL teams for various kinds of military appreciation programs. For example, the New York Jets, whose home field is actually in suburban New Jersey, received $377,000 from the Department of Defense and the New Jersey National Guard to put on military appreciation days highlighting “Hometown Heroes.”   read more

Twitter is seeking to give its users more information about the number of times it is asked to divulge information about its users. Twitter sued, claiming constitutional protections of free speech should allow it to provide actual numbers, instead of a broad range. The government is arguing that those aren’t really rules, they’re more like guidelines. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers appears to be taking the attitude that if it looks like a rule and smells like a rule, it’s a rule.   read more

Clinton has spent decades, both in her own career and as First Lady during Bill Clinton’s presidency, forging strong relationships with financial industry executives. She has maintained these ties despite recent efforts to portray herself as a populist candidate. Of the six most generous donors to her political career, four are Wall Street firms: Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. A fifth is DLA Piper, a law firm that represents big banks.   read more

A federal appeals court has ruled that law enforcement agencies may access tracking information on cell phones without a warrant. In a 9-2 vote, the court said that mobile phone users should have no expectation of privacy. “Cell users know that they must transmit signals to cell towers within range..." Judge Frank Hull wrote.   read more

How did Lockheed Martin and other huge corporations such as Boeing and General Dynamics qualify for contracts set aside for businesses of that size? At least partly due to the misconception that a small business acquired by a giant corporation may keep its status for several years. That misconception starts at the top.   read more

The United States, alone among developed nations, requires its citizens and permanent residents to file tax returns regardless of where they live or where their income is earned. Such returns became more essential last year, when the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act went into effect. That law requires foreign financial institutions to report account information for U.S. citizens and permanent residents to the U.S. government.   read more

An investigation of Ohio universities by an investigative reporting class at the University of Cincinnati found that many of their fellow students had no idea that a portion of their fees went to subsidizing college athletics. Academic spending per student dropped 24% at Cincinnati from 2005 to 2013. Meanwhile, the school is spending $86 million to renovate its football stadium.   read more

The closure of mental hospitals four decades ago was supposed to have been accompanied by increased funding for community-based care. Most of the money was never appropriated, leaving many of the mentally ill on the streets, where police deal with the symptoms of the problem without being able to provide a cure. Studies have shown that those with mental health issues can be kept out of jails if they’re monitored.   read more

The Pentagon inspector general’s office is about to release a report that some members of the armed services and civilian workers had charges made at casinos and at businesses offering escort services in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. A Pentagon official told Politico that it’s possible the department may not have paid the charges because those issued DoD credit cards pay their monthly bills and then request reimbursement.   read more

Chicago is a diverse city with a population is almost evenly divided between African-Americans (33%), whites (32%) and Latinos (29%). But Chicago’s neighborhoods are highly segregated, according to Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com. His analysis shows that while the city as a whole is diverse, the average resident is much less likely to live in a neighborhood with members of another ethnic group, with only 36% likely to do so.   read more

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) revealed heavy alcohol use within the previous month among full-time employees was most likely to occur among miners, with 17.5% having done so, followed by those in construction, accommodations and food service, arts, entertainment and recreation, and utilities industries. Health care and social assistance workers were least likely to be heavy drinkers, with only 4.4% of those workers doing so in the previous month.   read more