FAA compromise bill drops key drone privacy provisions

A Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that was passed by the Senate on Wednesday has excluded key privacy provisions, including a requirement that commercial and government users of drones must disclose if they collect personally identifiable information of a person. The bill, which is a compromise short-term extension to ensure continued funding at current levels to the FAA, was passed by the Senate and goes to President Barack Obama to be signed into law, two days before the current authorization is to expire.

NY Times Suddenly Very Concerned Over People Complaining About Vote Rigging

The Editorial Board of the NY Times is in a snot over Trump's constant comments about the election being rigged, which is being aped by his most ardent supporters, and use this as a means to attack all Republicans It may be too late for the Republican Party to save itself from the rolling disaster of Donald Trump, but the party's top leaders still have the duty to speak out and help save the country from his reckless rhetoric. The most frightening example is Mr. Trump's frenzied claim that the presidential election is being "rigged" against him - a claim he has ramped up as his chances of winning the presidency have gone down.

Clinton and Lynch – Corruption, Not ‘Optics’

Attorney General Loretta Lynch tells us that her meeting with Bill Clinton aboard a private jet on the Phoenix airport tarmac was "primarily social" - you know, just two Democrats swapping stories about their grandkids and whatnot. The nation's top law enforcement official and the former president and husband of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee - who is under federal investigation - had a talk.

Publisher: ‘Mein Kampf’ proceeds to aid Holocaust survivors

By AMY ANTHONY Associated Press A Boston-based publishing company has decided to donate proceeds from Adolf Hitler's infamous manifesto "Mein Kampf" to a local organization that works with... By AMY ANTHONY Associated Press A Boston-based publishing company has decided to donate proceeds from Adolf Hitler's infamous manifesto "Mein Kampf" to a local organization that works with aging... The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in New York is marking its 75th anniversary this week with a series of events. An appeal of a financial settlement to be paid by a national dairy marketing cooperative to thousands of Northeast dairy farmers could delay the payments for at least a year.

Susan Collins Offers A “Compromise” On Watch List Gun Bans

With congressional leaders once again at a stalemate over how to respond to a mass shooting, the Senate's most moderate Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, is developing a compromise measure that would prevent some terrorism suspects from purchasing weapons, while sidestepping partisan flash points that have doomed similar legislation in the past and threaten to do so again next week. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, has already scheduled votes for Monday on four proposals - two sponsored by Republicans and two by Democrats - but all four are expected to fail in a nearly identical replay of votes last December after the attack in San Bernardino , Calif.

Obama plans to increase number of refugees admitted to U.S.: media

The Obama Administration plans to increase the number of refugees admitted to the United States by 30 percent in fiscal year 2017, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited an annual refugee report submitted to Congress. Secretary of State John Kerry presented the new target of 110,000 in the 2017 fiscal year starting Oct. 1, up from 85,000 in 2016, during a closed session to members of the House and Senate judiciary committees on Tuesday, according to the newspaper.

Social Democracy Is 100% American

My friend, the author and scholar Harvey J. Kaye , delivers this missive on BillMoyers.com for the 4th of July, reminding us that social democratic principles are, contrary to right wing rhetoric, not "leftist extremism," but at the very heart of the creation and evolution of America's political purpose. Social democracy is 100 percent American.

Barbara Boxer to lobby for desalination plant in Huntington Beach

Two prominent former California Democratic lawmakers who oversaw environmental legislation, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, have signed on to lobby for a controversial desalination plant in Huntington Beach. For nearly two decades, the plant proposed for a Pacific Coast Highway site next to an existing Huntington Beach power generating facility has faced strong opposition from community and environmental groups.

New CDC Director questioned about financial conflicts

A U.S. Senator is criticizing the director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for an apparent financial conflict of interest that the senator says may prevent the director from doing her job. Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald became director of the Atlanta-based CDC in July, and was required to sell a range of stocks she owned, including beer and soda companies, the tobacco company Philip Morris International, and a number of health care companies such as vaccine manufacturers and health-care companies.

Known for political temperance, Iowa moves sharply right

After decades as the crossroads of prairie populists and checkbook conservatives, Iowa has suddenly become solidly Republican like many of its Midwestern neighbors. It was one of four states - along with Kentucky, Missouri and New Hampshire - that flipped to complete GOP control in the November election, but Iowa's rush of new legislation has been the most intense.

U.S. personnel management hack preventable, congressional probe finds

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management did not follow rudimentary cyber security recommendations that could have mitigated or even prevented major attacks that compromised sensitive data belonging to more than 22 million people, a congressional investigation being released on Wednesday has found. Two breaches at the federal agency detected in 2014 and 2015 were made worse by lax security culture and ineffective leadership, which failed to harness available tools that could have stopped or limited the intrusions, according to the report from the Republicans on the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.

Elections

An incumbent school board member on both the Arbor Vitae-Woodruff and Minocqua, Hazelhurst and Lake Tomahawk boards of education failed to file declaration of non-candidacy or nomination papers by the state's Jan. 2 deadline so both school districts decided to extend the deadline for accepting completed nomination papers until 5 p.m. Monday, Jan. 7. Tuesday, January 8, 2013 Wisconsin set a voter turnout record in the Fall 2012 General Election, according to official results certified today by the Government Accountability Board. President Barack Obama sprinted easily to re-election Tuesday, largely by holding his firewall in the Midwest and securing the majority of late-deciding voters over the last weekend of the campaign.

Former Obama aide calls Trump a ‘psychopath’

A former top adviser to President Barack Obama on Sunday labeled Donald Trump a "psychopath", saying the Republican presidential nominee met the clinical definition of the personality disorder. With a little more than two months to go before the Nov. 8 U.S. election, the comments by David Plouffe, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama and manager of his 2008 presidential campaign, mark another escalation in a series of blows exchanged between Trump's camp and that of his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton.