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Monthly archive

October 2017

US Military Now Classifying Key Data About Afghan Army Strength

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An oversight office charged with keeping tabs on reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan reported this week that the Pentagon is withholding from the public critical information about the US mission in the war-torn country. In a quarterly report released on Monday, The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said that certain data about the Afghan army and police was, for the first time, shielded from public view. “The newly classified or restricted data include important measures of Afghan National Defense and Security Force (ANDSF) performance…

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Appellate Circuit pick, a one-time advocate of electroshock punishment, to soon receive Senate confirmation vote

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The Senate will soon consider an appellate court nominee who once praised electric shock punishment as a law professor. Stephanos Bibas–picked by President Trump to preside over the Third Circuit–wrote a paper in 2009, claiming that mild electrocution would be an acceptable alternative to imprisonment. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is planning on holding a confirmation vote on Bibas later this week. Bibas is among four federal appellate circuit judges set to be considered in the next few days by the upper chamber. Sen.…

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Trump’s Transgender Troop Ban Halted in Court

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A federal judge ruled that President Trump’s executive order barring military service by openly transgender individuals likely violates the constitution. The order came down on Monday from a District Court in Washington. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly blocked implementation of the President’s directive, which was first issued via a series of tweets in July. Plaintiffs against the administration included transgender individuals currently serving in the military who argued their career, family, and in some cases, medical care were put in jeopardy by the ban. They had argued…

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Mueller Trump-Russia Probe Leads to Guilty Plea, as Manafort Proclaims Innocence

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Someone who served as a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign has pleaded guilty to deceiving investigators probing alleged Russian interference in last year’s election. George Papadopoulos admitted to having made “material false statements and material omissions” during a January interview with FBI agents. The confession, which was revealed on Monday, was the first guilty plea to come out of special prosecutor Bob Mueller’s probe into allegations of Russian meddling and Trump campaign collusion. Papadopoulous’ plea also came on the same day…

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F.C.C. Dem Calls for Investigation into Agency ties with Sinclair

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A Democratic member of the Federal Communications Commission called for an investigation into the agency’s ties with a broadcasting giant. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the agency appears to be heavily influenced by Sinclair Broadcast Group, claiming: “all of our media policy decisions seem to be custom built for this one company.” “If you look at the series of media policy decisions that has been made by this commission, they all seem to serve Sinclair Broadcasting’s business plans,” Rosenworcel said on Wednesday. She cited a number…

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Insurance Lobbyists Broke News about A.I.G. Deregulation Before Trump Administration

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Late last month, without much fanfare, financial regulators voted to relax rules on AIG, the insurance giant synonymous with last decade’s global financial meltdown. The process was done in such hushed tones, according to Democratic Senators, that the decision was first revealed not by the inter-agency body that made it–the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC)–but by an industry trade association. “The timing…indicates that insurance industry representatives and others individuals learned of the decision to de-designate AIG before it was announced publicly,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)…

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Climate Change Poised to Kill People, Break Industries, and Budgets, GAO Warns

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The US government has incurred hundreds of billions of dollars in costs associated with climate change, and damages will increase significantly in the future, according to a new watchdog report. In a study published Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) attempted to measure, for the first time, the economic and budgeting consequences of rising temperatures and extreme weather phenomenon. It found staggering cost increases over the next century in several economic sectors, including healthcare, which could take a half trillion-dollar hit due to more heat-related…

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Treasury Department Slimes Obama Era Holdout Agency

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A hallmark of the Obama administration has been blasted by the Treasury Department—for issuing regulations that guarantee Americans’ right to sue misbehaving Wall Street firms. Treasury on Monday released a report criticizing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for its forced arbitration rule. The paper accused the CFPB of cherry-picking research during its rule-making process, and of effectively seeking to line the pockets of class action lawyers—despite readily admitting that 69 percent of such sums go to plaintiffs. In July, the CFPB finalized its rule, preventing…

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Kelly Defends Trump Phone Call, But Offers Few Details About Deadly Niger Ambush

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Botched condolences from President Trump to a Gold Star widow prompted White House Chief of Staff John Kelly on Thursday to give reporters a play-by-play of the administration’s outreach to grieving military families. Left out of Kelly’s account, however, was the cause of that grieving: an explanation for why a dozen US Army Green Berets were in Niger, when an ambush left four of them dead. “The fact of the matter is,” Kelly told the press, “young men and women that were our uniforms are deployed around…

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More than 1,800 Civilians Killed in Operations to Kick ISIS out of its Capital

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US-backed forces’ caused more than a thousand fatal casualties while expelling the Islamic State (ISIS) from Raqqa, according to monitoring groups. Since operations started in June–on the Syrian capital of the self-proclaimed caliphate–at least 1,352 civilians were killed by coalition air-strikes, according to the London-based non-profit Airwars.org. Citing research from the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the group also said that ISIS militants were responsible for 311 civilian deaths, while US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces were deemed responsible for 191 civilian fatalities. “ISIS put civilians in…

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A.G. Sessions Non-Compliant in First Oversight Hearing

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The Attorney General rebuffed several Senators’ questions on Wednesday, relying on a contrived theory of executive privilege to remain silent on issues ranging from the firing of James Comey to the pardoning of disgraced Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The hearing also revealed that the Senate Judiciary Committee is growing increasingly impatient with the DOJ’s lack of responsiveness to inquiries. Even before he fielded questions, Attorney General Jeff Sessions informed the committee that he would not be revealing the details of any conversations he may have had…

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