According to aides who were present when Trump discussed the issue, but who choose to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, Trump said he was sick of Vance and wanted to fire him. “I wanted him to be my attack dog,” said Trump, “but he appears foolish on television. He dropped the college football trophy. He met with Pope Francis and the next day the pope died. Vance is toxic, and I don’t want him to come near me. He just doesn’t look as good on television as I thought he would.”   read more

Christoph Oschwald, co-director of the data center Mount10, told AFP that people used to ask why they should pay for data storage when Google, Apple and other tech firms offer it at no cost. But since the revelations about NSA’s access to user data within those services, no one asks any longer. Demand for his company’s services has been “fantastic,” having “tripled within a very short time.”   read more

Privateer has invested in growers, processors or distributors in Canada, but is waiting for the opportunity to do the same in the United States, where two states so far—Colorado and Washington—have decriminalized recreational marijuana use. Moen’s job—managing director of compliance and senior counsel of Privateer—will be to use his law enforcement knowledge and legal skills (he’s also a lawyer) to help guide Privateer’s investments and make sure they don’t break the law.   read more

Since 2005, the 20 top intelligence companies have contributed $3.7 million to members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, according to Maplight, a government watchdog organization. This might help to explain why these two committees have stalled legislation by other members of Congress to reform NSA surveillance programs.   read more

"I’ll be proposing some self-restraint on the N.S.A., and you know, to initiate some reforms that can give people more confidence,” Obama said last week on the MSNBC program “Hardball.” However, the key phrase in Obama’s statement—“self-restraint”—implies that he has no intention of regulating the NSA and that the spy agency will still be free to do whatever it wants.   read more

What it lacks in size it makes up for in terms of criminal authority authorized by Congress. Unlike regulators, SIGTARP can issue search warrants, seize property and even make arrests. But those targeted by SIGTARP have run community banks, not the national institutions that dominate Wall Street.   read more

Hersh says the government’s own intelligence reports showed one rebel group, the al-Nusra Front, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, had the knowledge and capability to make sarin. “When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad,” Hersh wrote.   read more

In addition to authorizing the hunting of drones, the ordinance puts a bounty on recovered parts—$25 for a fuselage or wing, $100 for an entire aircraft that bears federal government markings. The FAA has warned that attacking drones is illegal, and “could result in criminal or civil liability, just as would firing at a manned airplane,” according to a prepared statement.   read more

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) increased the maximum contractor compensation that may be charged to government contracts by 24.8%, from $763,029 per employee per year to $952,308 per employee per year—even though government contractors are less efficient than government employees, who have to make do with a 1% raise after a three-year freeze on basic pay rates.   read more

Investigators also determined that 363 children died in mass killings—defined as those involving at least four victims in a single incident—comprising nearly one-third of all victims. Their average age was 8 years old and about three-quarters of them were killed by someone they knew: more than a third by a blood parent and about four in ten by stepparents, parents’ lovers or other family members.   read more

Some states, like Nevada and New Mexico, decided to withdraw their recognition of Utah’s permit because it does not require live-fire training. “Residents of other states should be aware that people who have a Utah concealed-weapon permit may not have actually fired a weapon,” GVPCU chairwoman Dee Rowland told the Times. “I think that would be quite shocking to members of the public.”   read more

“This isn’t the NSA asking for information,” Senator Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts) told The Washington Post. “It’s your neighborhood police department requesting your mobile phone data.” Markey found that information provided to police includes other records as well, like GPS location data, website addresses and search terms entered into cellphone browsers.   read more

The U.S. government believes the law will strengthen Japan, thereby countering the military rise of China, according to the Associated Press. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, “We welcome progress on strengthening policies, practices and procedures related to the protection of classified information.” It will ultimately make Japan a “more effective alliance partner,” U.S. chargé d’affaires Kurt Tong said in a recent speech.   read more

Bank tellers—whose median income is $24,100 ($11.59 per hour)—collect $105 million in food stamps, $250 million via the earned income tax credit and $534 million from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to the report. Meanwhile, median chief executive pay at American banks averages about $552,000, according to SNL Financial.   read more

Although the IRS has processes to prevent such fraud, TIGTA identified 767,071 e-filed 2011 individual tax returns with refunds possibly based on falsely reported income and withholding. Of the 285,670 EINs used on these tax returns, 277,624 were stolen EINs used on 752,656 tax returns with refunds totaling more than $2.2 billion, while 8,046 were falsely obtained EINs used on 14,415 tax returns with refunds of more than $50 million.   read more

After Bruce Simmons died on August 16, 2012, his wife, Gigi Simmons, had to borrow money to cover funeral costs because his life insurance benefits had not yet arrived, according to the lawsuit. When a funeral director contacted Bristol-Myers Squibb on her behalf, he was told “that there was a $6,000,000 policy on Mr. Simmons’ life.”   read more

The research showed that federal drug offenders convicted at trial in 2012 received sentences that averaged 16 years—triple the average of five years and four months for those who accepted a plea bargain. As a result of options facing them, 97% of defendants in these cases pleaded guilty. Consequently, federal drug trials are almost becoming a thing of the past.   read more