Rumors are spreading that the U.S. Supreme Court will vote 5-4 to rule that a U.S. president cannot be prosecuted for anything he does while he is president. Some Democrats are suggesting that Joe Biden bring a gun to his first debate with Donald Trump. If he shoots Trump, he would be immune, but if Trump shoots Biden he would be prosecuted because he is not a sitting president.   read more

The ruling was particularly important because it upheld the government’s use of emails gathered without a warrant under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. The law permits the government, on domestic soil, to collect phone calls and emails of noncitizens abroad, even when they are communicating with an American. The government gathered the emails via the PRISM program, which collects messages in the accounts of targeted foreigners from webmail providers.   read more

U.S. Rep.Cummings said he'd "fight any effort to roll back civil service protections." He worries that whistle blowers could lose their legal right to be immune from retaliation. Evan Osborne said these protections date to the 1800s when federal employees couldn't be fired on the whim of new administrations coming to power. "The idea of civil servant protections has a long history in the country," Osborne said.   read more

Racial bias in the New York state prison system is a fact of life. It is also measurable. A review by The New York Times of tens of thousands of disciplinary cases against inmates in 2015, hundreds of pages of internal reports and three years of parole decisions found that racial disparities were embedded in the prison system. Blacks and Latinos were disciplined at higher rates than whites and were sent to solitary confinement more frequently and for longer durations.   read more

Six days before the election, Flynn posted on Twitter a fake news story that claimed N.Y. police had found evidence linking Clinton and her staff to pedophilia, money laundering, perjury and other felonies. “U decide,” Flynn wrote in the message, though it appeared there was little doubt what he thought. Flynn's views on social media, including messages viewed as Islamophobia and spreading fake news, had already prompted questions about his fitness to be Trump’s national security adviser.   read more

Donald Trump's move to pack his administration with military brass has prompted worry about an increased militarization of American policy. Former Defense Dept adviser Singh said the law requiring a gap between military service and leading the Pentagon is "to preserve civilian control of the military, a cornerstone of American democracy." VoteVets' Soltz said, "We should never lose sight of the balance in civilian and military roles that has served our nation well for centuries."   read more

“The fake news is the good news,” the 18-year-old said. “A fake news article is way more opened than any other.” He ripped much of his material off a right-wing news site that produces a steady drumbeat of pro-Donald Trump pieces. With 685,000+ page views a week, his monthly revenue is in the four figures, a considerable sum in a country where the average monthly pay is $383. He sees it all as a money-making scheme and preparation for his career after high school--in marketing and politics.   read more

President-elect Donald Trump supports completion of the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline in the Midwest, based on policy and not the billionaire businessman's investments in a partnership building the $3.8 billion pipeline, according to an aide's memo. Trump's most recent federal disclosure forms show he owned a small amount of stock in Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline builder, and at least $100,000 in Phillips 66, an energy company that owns one-quarter of the pipeline.   read more

Despite losing a milestone abortion case at the U.S. Supreme Court this summer, Texas threw down another stumbling block last week. It will require facilities that provide abortions to pay for the cremation or burial of fetal remains, rather than dispose of them as biological medical waste. It is the latest attempt by abortion opponents to make it more burdensome for women to get abortions — by creating rules and laws that make it more difficult for providers to stay in business.   read more

Supporters of the bipartisan bill say it is needed to ensure freedom of speech in a growing online economy. It was written in response to businesses that have made customers sign non-disparagement clauses and then sued if a bad review showed up. In one case, a Dallas couple was sued by a pet-sitting company for up to $1 million after giving the company a one-star review on Yelp and complaining that their fish had been overfed. The case was dismissed this past summer.   read more

Some panel members objected to the report's overall findings, including that the government "should, or inevitably must" continue to rely on private jails. The recommendation comes months after the Justice Dept said it will phase them out. Critics argue that the jails are unsafe for people who face not criminal charges, but rather civil immigration violations and deportation proceedings. Under Donald Trump's deportation plans, immigration detention space is likely to continue to be needed.   read more

There is no question that the Emoluments Clause applies to the president. Unless Trump sells or gives his business to his children before taking office the Emoluments Clause would almost certainly be violated. Even if he does sell or give it away, any retained residual interest would still give him a stake in its fortunes, again violating the Constitution. The full extent of Trump's business ties remains unknown, as he has refused to disclose them, or to make public his tax returns.   read more

More people died of opioid overdose deaths in Ohio during 2014 than any other state, providing further proof that Ohio is the epicenter of an opioid epidemic ravaging the nation. And it appears doubtful Ohio will relinquish the grim standing soon. "We still have not peaked yet," said ADAMHS's Jones-Kelley. "That's the scariest part." Fentanyl -- and more recently carfentanil -- are extraordinarily potent synthetic opiates that officials blame for the ever-rising number of deaths.   read more

When Donald Trump named his Treasury secretary, Teena Colebrook felt her heart sink. She had voted for Trump believing he'd knock the rich elites from their perch in Washington. And she knew Trump's pick for Treasury — Steven Mnuchin — all too well. His bank, OneWest, had foreclosed on her home in the aftermath of the Great Recession. "I just wish that I had not voted," said Colebrook. "They all promise you the world at the end of a stick and take it away once they get in."   read more

In 2000, Jaeger moved to the aviation IT company Atraxis Management Services in Zurich as a vice president but moved to Swiss International Air Lines the next year as vice president for aeropolitical affairs. There, he worked on the dissolution of Swissair and the formation of Swiss International as a subsidiary of Germany’s Lufthansa. Jaeger left Swiss in 2005 to become a member of the board of the European Free Trade Association.   read more

“The last time we had a national government that was as hostile to the protection of minority voting rights as we may have with this president was probably near the end of the first Reconstruction” after the Civil War, said prof Karlan. Several potentially decisive rulings on voting appear bound for a Supreme Court whose balance is in Trump’s hands. Voting issues will fall to a Justice Dept whose likely attorney general, Jeff Sessions, is viewed with deep suspicion by civil rights advocates.   read more

Some who track racists in America say Trump’s effect has been unmistakable. A range of white supremacist and so-called Alt-Right websites have seen surges in traffic across the last year. And many sites, among them Red Ice, which has advanced the idea that “the United States of America was built by white people for white people” and American Renaissance, which derides African Americans and Latinos as low-IQ losers, have seen their traffic more than double over the past year.   read more