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

The day after it was unveiled, the Iraqi sculpture in honor of the man who threw his shoes at President Bush, has been taken down on the order of the provincial government. The shoe had been erected at an orphanage in Tikrit. The artist, Laith al-...   read more

The year 2008 may have been a bad one for most Americans, with layoffs and foreclosures and bank failures rippling through the economy, but for Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, there was reason for joy. Exxon posted an...   read more

Norway’s state-owned investment fund, which is worth about $300 billion and invests the nation’s surplus oil and gas revenues, announced that it is selling all of its shares in the American company, Textron, for ethical reasons. Although Textron i...   read more

It seemed like a good idea at the time: install 200 live webcams along Texas’ border with Mexico in order to stop drug smuggling and illegal immigration. Citizens, watching at home, could report any suspicious activity. Texas Governor Rick Perry a...   read more

Linda Chavez presents a simple, but radical alternative to the $819 billion Democratic stimulus package: give every man, woman and child $3,000 in credit that has to be spent within 18 months. This would cost $900 billion, “But unlike the Democrat...   read more

A sculpture of an enormous shoe has been erected in Iraq to honor the journalist who threw his shoes at ex-U.S. President George W. Bush. As he prepared to throw his shoes, Muntadar al-Zeidi, a TV journalist, shouted: “This is from the widows, the...   read more

We are so accustomed to thinking of amendments to spending bills as examples of waste and corruption, that it’s easy to forget that some rejected amendments are worth considering or are, at the very least, of interest. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Califo...   read more

65 Republicans and 3 Democrats Voted to Bailout Wall Street, But Not the Rest of America   It seems ideologically consistent for a member of the House of Representatives to vote against the $700 billion Wall Street bailout and against the $819 b...   read more

Even at six-figures, some of the members in President Obama’s Cabinet are taking a pay cut when accepting their new jobs. Tuesday, the government released financial reports presenting the assets and salaries of the new appointees, some of whom mad...   read more

Among the many overlooked corners of the U.S. government is the Popcorn Board. Created by a 1996 law and supervised by the Agricultural Marketing Service, the board consists of nine popcorn processors who each process at least 4 million pounds of ...   read more

Former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain has become the most visible symbol for all the Wall Street excesses that the financial crisis has exposed; in the words of Zachary Roth of Talking Points Memo, “not just greed, but callousness, obliviousness and...   read more

Dozens of secret documents supporting the Bush administration's “War on Terror” could see the light of day thanks to President Barack Obama’s pledge to increase transparency. The American Civil Liberties Union asked the Obama administration on Wed...   read more

Tuesday, newly confirmed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner issued new rules restricting contacts with lobbyists--and then hired one to be his top aide. Mark Patterson, a former lobbyist for Goldman Sachs, will serve as chief of staff to Geithner...   read more

If there is one thing Stuart J. Ishimaru, President Obama’s choice as acting chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, is familiar with, it is being in the middle of partisan battles involving federal offices that oversee civil righ...   read more

Created by the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act in 2006, the National Security Division of the Department of Justice is supposed to coordinate the department’s counterterrorism, counterespionage and intelligence functions. However, it has been e...   read more

Whereas most industries complain about getting taxed too much, Nevada’s brothels are actually asking to pay taxes. The 25 legal brothels in the state currently generate a $50-million-a-year industry that pays significant amounts of tax to the rura...   read more