Trump said he would send the National Guard to Toronto and impose 50% tariffs on all Los Angeles products. AllGov reporter Sidney Finster suggested that perhaps Trump had confused the two cities. Because Toronto is in Canada, not the United States, Trump can’t send the National Guard there. And because Los Angeles is in the United States, Trump can’t impose tariffs on a U.S. city. Trump defended his position by saying, “I’m always right.”   read more

FSA member Assam Murad said: “There’s no way we would fight ISIS after the U.S. military campaign against them.” An alliance is reportedly being formed between ISIS and four groups that were at war earlier this year. About a thousand al-Nusra Front fighters joined ISIS in just one week. Civilians are beginning to welcome ISIS as well for the group’s social measures and its tough-on-crime Sharia law.   read more

In May, President Obama said American troops in Afghanistan would cease their “combat mission” by January 1. Now, come January 1, U.S. soldiers will engage in “combat operations,” marking the 14th consecutive year of fighting. So much for the war ending. The only real difference will be the size of U.S. forces. Instead of tens of thousands of soldiers, the U.S. will station only 9,800 to fight al-Qaeda and Taliban militants. Ground forces, manned aircraft and drones may be put to use.   read more

Elonis v. U.S. stems from the conviction of Anthony Elonis, who served several years in prison for posting messages to his wife on Facebook that she took as threats. In one, he indicated his desire to shoot her despite a court order to stay away. A court brief said people “have experienced real-life terror caused by...public posts to Facebook and other social media sites." Elonis claimed he was merely venting and performing “therapeutic efforts to address traumatic events” in his life.   read more

Goldman has donated $1.1 million to current subcommittee members since 1989 — $911,000 of which went to Democrats. More than half of that total went to one individual, Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York). In fact, OpenSecrets.org added, “Schumer has received more from Goldman over the course of his career than any other current member of the Senate — and more from Goldman than from any other organization.”   read more

In what amounts to a trust-us-we-really-know-what’s-best argument, the Department of Justice filed a brief in federal court recently that seeks to explain—in a non-explainable way—why it wants the case against UANI tossed. All officials have been willing to say is the case could expose government secrets. They won’t say what kind of secrets they are, or which agency might be involved in the matter. Legal observers have called the administration’s legal position “extraordinary and unprecedented."   read more

From suicide bombings to political protests, volleyball has been at the center of recent high-profile incidents in countries known for Islamic extremists. In Iran, a group of women were arrested in June for staging a protest outside a men’s game. The women sought access to the event in defiance of local custom that allows only male spectators. One of those arrested was British-Iranian Ghoncheh Ghavami, who was freed on bail over the weekend after spending five months imprisoned for the protest.   read more

The case, King v. Burwell, is challenging the provision in the Affordable Care Act that allows the federal government to provide financial assistance to people who buy insurance through the 37 state insurance exchanges operated by the federal government. If the plaintiffs are successful, the court’s decision could eliminate these subsidies, which currently help 13 million people afford their coverage.   read more

Late Friday, as many were heading out for the holiday week, the GOP-dominated House Intelligence Committee quietly announced what several other investigations had found: There was no wrongdoing by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the U.S. military or other high government officials in the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the deaths of four Americans.   read more

“Illegal immigrants in considerable numbers have become productive members of our society and are a basic part of our work force. Those who have established equities in the United States should be recognized and accorded legal status.” President Ronald Reagan July 30, 1981   read more

The Waldorf-Astoria, built in 1931, is the permanent home of the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and hosts presidents and other top officials when they’re in New York. Now that it’s being sold by Hilton Worldwide Holdings for $1.95 billion to China’s Anbang Insurance Group, which reportedly has ties to the Communist party, U.S. officials fear the new owners could use their new property to gain intelligence information from their guests.   read more

Bush, the former governor of Florida, has four businesses registered to the same address in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables that don’t appear to have conducted any business anywhere, according to an investigation by ThinkProgress. Bush also has a consulting firm, Jeb Bush & Associates, registered to that address.   read more

As part of broader immigration reforms, the Obama administration announced Thursday that the Secure Communities program, which mandated that local law enforcement submit biometric information on those suspected of being undocumented immigrants to the federal government, is going away. In its place will be the Priority Enforcement Program, which specifies that those held must be likely deportable or have a removal order in effect against them.   read more

Another milestone has been reached in the ongoing war against suspected terrorists in the Middle East and elsewhere—the United States has launched 500 attacks, or “targeted killings” in governmentspeak. The “targeted killings” aren’t as well targeted as they might be; 473 civilians are among the 3,674 who have died in the attacks.   read more

An investigation by USA Today found that 55% of suspects in these kinds of cases were black and more than a third were Hispanic. The total is more even than the percentages of black and Hispanic people caught up in the criminal justice system, much less the population in general.   read more

She was sent back to St. Petersburg in 2008, this time as consul general. In 2010, Gwaltney was assigned to Moscow as deputy chief of mission. She eventually served as chargé d'affaires, ad interim. As such, she was in charge of the embassy after Ambassador Mike McFaul left, and she handled much of the U.S. response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine, events she had warned of earlier.   read more

In 1992, Pettit got to put her knowledge of the Soviet Union to first-hand use when she was named a political officer in the embassy in Moscow. Her husband was also there, as were their two children, when a constitutional crisis swept the country. The Pettits and other embassy personnel and their families were forced to remain in an underground shelter for two days during the unrest.   read more