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

Of the more than 3,000 Americans surveyed, 72% said they felt stress over money at least some of the time during the previous month. Thirty-one percent of respondents admitted that money-related stress was a significant source of conflict in their relationship. Despite benefits gained from Obamacare, healthcare costs continue to be a stressor. Among lower-income Americans, 44% say paying for out-of-pocket health care costs is a very or somewhat significant source of stress.   read more

The species, which once numbered in the billions across America, is now down to about 30 million, biologists say. A big reason for the die-off is the disappearance of the milkweed plant, which farmers have destroyed in large numbers while spraying Roundup-ready crops with herbicides. The milkweed is both a food source and a home for the monarch, and without it, the butterflies are struggling to survive. Roundup, a brand of glyphosate sold by Monsanto, is particularly lethal to milkweed.   read more

Researchers studied health statistics over a 35-year period and found more flu-related deaths among seniors in counties with teams in the Super Bowl than in counties whose teams weren’t in the game. “Having a local team in the Super Bowl causes an 18% increase in influenza deaths for the population over age 65, with evidence suggesting one mechanism is increased local socialization,” said the study. They also found that things were worse when the game occurred during a flu outbreak.   read more

Secret HSBC documents revealed dealings with associates of traffickers in blood diamonds and associates of such authoritarian rulers as ex-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, former Tunisian president Ben Ali and current Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad. Some of HSBC’s clients have previously been linked to al Qaeda. A 2012 U.S. Senate report cited an alleged list of financial benefactors to the terrorist organization. That list had been referred to as the “Golden Chain” by Osama bin Laden.   read more

So far, the nationwide strike has impacted 13% of the U.S. oil refining capacity. The local Toledo union said the “strike is NOT about money, this is about addressing safety issues that have been ignored for way too long … 138 workers were killed on the job while extracting, producing, or supporting oil and gas in 2012 … the number was more than double that of 2009.” Workers in the gas and oil industry are said to be six times more likely to die on the job than other American workers.   read more

As Deputy Secretary of Defense, Carter’s duties included increasing the department’s “buying power,” according to his agency biography. That expansion featured the development of the F-35 fighter jet, said to be the most expensive weapon system in history. Its price tag: $1.5 trillion, according to RSN. The F-35 program has been plagued with problems, including the suspension of all flights of the plane after a fire broke out in one of the jets during takeoff in 2014.   read more

Samsung’s privacy policy informs consumers their smart TVs will listen to people in the same room to pick up commands or queries, then send them to a third party. “If I were the customer, I might like to know who that third party was...and whether my words were being transmitted in a secure form,” said EFF's Corynne McSherry. EFF posted the Samsung policy with a reference to George Orwell's novel 1984, which describes home TV screens that monitor people’s private conversations.   read more

The fiscal picture for state governments is looking rosier these days, thanks to state budgets having more revenues than expenditures. And the increase in state revenues is largely because state pension funds are booming in the stock market. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that total state government revenues jumped 16.3% from 2012 to 2013, when their total value rose from $1.9 trillion $2.2 trillion.   read more

Moussaoui’s claims could be refuted—or verified—if a 28-page section of the 9/11 Commission report that has been kept secret was released, but neither President George W. Bush nor President Barack Obama, has done so. Former Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida), who has seen the section, has repeatedly called for its release, stating, “The 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11, and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier.”   read more

Most of that money went to defeat citizen initiatives and it was well-spent—the corporations won 96% of the time Health insurance giant Anthem gave $13 million, all but a small amount of it to fight California’s Proposition 45, which would have required state approval to raise insurance rates. The measure lost. Monsanto spent $10.7 million in Oregon and Colorado to defeat measures that would have required genetically modified food to be labeled as such. Both initiatives were defeated.   read more

Former Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-North Carolina) decided to leave the House of Representatives last year after 18 years in office, but before he left he got a special retirement gift from a lobbyist: a nearly $50,000 trip to Australia for McIntyre and his wife Dee.   read more

The Department of Energy announced last week that it would cease support for the FutureGen project, a power plant that was supposed to trap and store underground the carbon dioxide it produced, which was initiated by the George W. Bush administration and revived under President Barack Obama. The Illinois plant was to have received about $1.1 billion in stimulus money, but “only” about $200 million was spent.   read more

Critics of fracking thought they had won a victory when Wyoming became the first state to require drillers to reveal the chemicals used in the controversial drilling process. But a significant loophole in the law allowed businesses to continue to withhold details on grounds that releasing them would expose trade secrets. After a protracted legal fight, companies will have to “substantiate their trade secrets claims with more facts and evidence.”   read more

Post, speaking at the Air Force’s annual Weapons and Tactics conference, said, “[a]nyone who is passing information to Congress about A-10 capabilities is committing treason,” according to Tony Carr at the blog John Q. Public. Post prefaced that remark by saying: “if anyone accuses me of saying this, I will deny it.”   read more

The appearance of Cerritos native Rene Enriquez was meant to be an educational experience “to learn how a transnational criminal enterprise was built, branded and marketed,” according to a statement by the LAPD. The event’s sponsor, the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), produced Enriquez on January 28 for the private meeting and PowerPoint presentation amid heavy security. Refreshments were served.   read more

Experts inside the government have worried for some time about the vulnerability posed to vital government and private installations by small hobby drones. These aircraft can be weaponized, equipping them with explosives or even automatic firearms, they say. Officials in the United States, Germany, Spain and Egypt have “foiled at least six potential terrorist attacks with drones since 2011,” according to The Wall Street Journal.   read more