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

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq said U.S. and coalition strikes have killed 6,000 ISIS fighters. “That no civilians could be among that figure strikes observers and even military officials as all but impossible,” wrote Yousef. Particularly with 2,300 strikes delivering 8,200 missiles. “Not only does it reinforce the view that the lives of ordinary Iraqis and Syrians...do not matter, it flies in the face of the military’s own recommendations," wrote Gregory and Edney-Browne.   read more

SIGAR found serious mechanical problems with the costly incinerators. One operating base received them from the contractor two years late and requiring $1 million in repairs. The inspectors also found the incinerators too expensive to use—some cost a million dollars a year to operate. So commanders decided to continue to use the burn pits to dispose of the 440 tons of waste produced each day, despite the health risks of doing so—and despite being told by Congress to stop the practice.   read more

The CIA never explained why it was funding the project. But Robock became suspicious after two CIA consultants contacted him inquiring about the possibility of another country gaining control of the weather. “They said: ‘We are working for the CIA and we’d like to know if some other country was controlling our climate, would we be able to detect it?’ I think they were also thinking in the back of their minds: ‘If we wanted to control somebody else’s climate could they detect it?’”   read more

Two bills would allow the operators of most chemical storage tanks to avoid tougher new standards that were created following the 2014 spill into the Elk River by a facility operated by Freedom Industries. In the Senate, lawmakers are reviewing a plan to eliminate drinking water protections for the Kanwaha River, into which the Elk River flows. The same measure would also get rid of the DEP’s policy of enforcing the state’s drinking water standards on all rivers and streams across the state,   read more

The remark got Rushaid arrested and subsequently tried by the state security court for “acts harmful to the country’s relations with a friendly nation.” He was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Rushaid’s attorney called the verdict the “death for freedom of expression. The government is to blame.” Another Brotherhood member said the purpose of the security court is to try “the most heinous crimes against the country, not for...[expressing] an opinion on Facebook."   read more

Among the attacks by non-Muslims mentioned in the SPLC report are the April 2012 killings of three African-Americans in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by racists Jake England and Alvin Watts; the August 2012 killing of six Sikhs by neo-Nazi skinhead Wade Michael Page in Oak Creek, Wisconsin: and the June 2014 shooting deaths of two police officers and a third man who tried to intervene by anti-government extremists Jerad and Amanda Miller in Las Vegas.   read more

The latest World Press Freedom Index shows the U.S. ranked 49th in the world, according to Reporters without Borders, which created the index. It hasn’t been this low since 2006, when it dropped to 53rd. The U.S. ranking is usually between the twenties and forties on the index.   read more

“Georgia’s ineptitude in making errors and delay in discovering them is confounding, but does not justify permitting the federal government to keep the $90 million in credits to the detriment of Georgia’s 1.89 million Medicaid recipients,” U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler wrote. Kessler explained that Georgia’s poor shouldn’t suffer because of a mistake of state employees.   read more

Tyheem Henry received 13,680 days—37.5 years—in disciplinary detention and lost 27,360 days (74 years) worth of telephone, visitation, and canteen privileges, and 69 days of “good time” for making 38 Facebook posts. The punishments are so long that the state has run out of room in its solitary confinement areas to hold all the offenders.   read more

To honor the 70th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, the government of third-generation dictator Kim Jong Un issued a collection of more than 300 new slogans. Here are some of the most noteworthy: 1. Let this socialist country resound with the Song of Big Fish Haul and be permeated with the fragrant smell of fish and other seafoods! 5. Let the wives of officers become dependable assistants to their husbands! 15. Fertilizer means rice and socialism.   read more

Oklahoma rocketed to the top of the earthquake charts in 2014, tripling the number of 3.0 shakers in California, the one-time undisputed champion of the United States. But like the steroid scandal that tarnished baseball and ruined the statistical landscape in the 1990s, many scientists are pointing to the introduction of performance-enhancing chemicals to explain the recent 40-fold-plus increase in quakes—in Oklahoma’s case, hydraulic fracturing (fracking).   read more

Brown’s sexual orientation has been known to Oregon voters for years, as she has worked her way from the state house of representatives to the state senate and was first elected as secretary of state in 2008. Her orientation appears to be a non-issue for Oregonians. In fact, the most controversial thing about Brown is actually a letter she submitted endorsing the Comcast merger with Time Warner Cable. The letter was partly written by a Comcast lobbyist.   read more

In its most recent effort to enforce the use of “authentic names” on its site, Facebook blocked the accounts of Native Americans such as Dana Lone Hill, Parmelee Kills The Enemy and Shane Creepingbear. Creepingbear’s profile was removed, ironically enough, on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, also known as Columbus Day.   read more

Young couples had to be on their toes on Saturday. Merely expressing their love in public could have led to them being married off, with right-wing Hindu groups vowing to force marriage on couples found celebrating an indecent “Western festival.” “If you are in love, you should get married,” said Ashok Sharma, vice president of Hindu Mahasabha, a conservative Hindu religious organization with branches across India.   read more

Those who spend a lot—more than $20,000—on the ceremony get divorced 60% more often than couples with cheaper weddings. And here’s good news for the grooms—the same holds true for spending on engagement rings. Men who spent between $2,000 and $4,000 on rings got divorced 30% more often than those who spent between $500 and $2,000.   read more

Pharmaceutical giant Merck is being accused falsifying data so it could sell a vaccine that wasn’t as effective as advertised and didn’t work for thousands of individuals. Merck is being sued by two virologists who say Merck knowingly faked data about the effectiveness of the vaccine and still put it on the market. Two former Merck employees said in 2010 that the company infused a blood sample with animal antibodies to make it look like the vaccine had elicited increased antibody production.   read more