Steve Neavling

The Washington Times has sued Homeland Security after federal agents seized a reporter’s notes, the Associated Press reports.

The suit accuses federal agents of illegally seizing the materials during a search warrant over a gun and potato launcher allegedly possessed by the reporter’s husband.

Now the newspaper wants the notes back and said they were not covered by a search warrant.

Steve Neavling

What does it mean to be alive? Who are we? What is our purpose?

Those weren’t the question the FBI was interested in answering while agents spied on French philosophers John-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.

Instead, the FBI was concerned about their politics and whether they were a danger to the U.S., the Melville House reports.

Camus raised suspicions because he was a member of the French Communist party. Sartre was involved in Cuban politics and protested the Vietnam war.

Dallas Morning News

Fifty years is a relative blip on the grand timeline, barely a rounding error between your genesis point and the end of life as we know it. Yet in human terms, 50 years is longer than many life spans, past and present.

In Dallas terms, 50 years is five decades of exploration, examination and grinding introspection about what happened, and why, on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza.

John F. Kennedy’s slaying was a seminal event in our city’s history, encapsulating too much that came before and influencing much that would follow, and here we are. We have considered it, studied it, reflected and grieved.

It’s tempting to acquiesce after all these years, to step away from the pain and sadness and horror of a president’s murder on our streets, and say, finally: “Enough. We are past that now.”

That many of us have obsessed about this single moment for so long says something. Dallas today bears little resemblance to 1963 Dallas. Divisions and demarcations, fading away by the decade, were stark. Today’s politics may have troubling elements, but they are a shallow dive compared with the dangerous extremism then.

To read more click here.

Steve Neavling

A 12-year Secret Service agent who resigned in 2011 to run for a Senate seat in Maryland has written a book about his career.

Dan Bongino’s “Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from it All” hit the bookshelves Tuesday, offering a look at the staffers, acolytes, lobbyists and bureaucrats who were surrounded with policy decisions.

Those people, he said, existed inside a “bubble” and lacked honor and integrity, according to a press release for the book.

Bongino also writes about the “Fast & Furious” scandal, the Boston Marathon bombing and terrorist attacks in Benghazi.

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• Illegal Gambling Ring Busted in San Jose in Multi-Agency Sting
• FBI Cracks Down on Pizza Delivery Crimes in Undercover Sting
• Big Challenges Ahead for Next Chief of Troubled ATF

Steve Neavling

Attorneys for notorious mobster James “Whitey” Bulger plan to appeal his murder and racketeering conviction less than a week after he was sentenced to two life terms in prison, Reuters reports.

The brief filing in U.S. District Court in Boston does not list specific objections.

But Reuters suggests Bulger’s attorneys may be arguing they were wrongly denied the right to argue that Bulger was granted immunity by the FBI.

Steve Neavling

If Wednesday was any indication, President Obama’s choice for Department of Homeland Security may have a remarkably smooth nomination process.

The Los Angeles Times reports that a Senate committee swiftly supported the appointment of Jeh Johnson, who gained fans among Republicans while the Pentagon’s chief counsel.

The committee support means Johnson must now gain full Senate approval.

The job won’t be easy if Johnson gets it. The agency has long been accused of mismanagement and waste.

photo: jfk libary-facebook

As the U.S. remembers the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination Friday, there is no shortage of conspiracy theories.

Depending on whom you ask, JFK was killed by the CIA, the mafia, Cuban exile groups, the FBI, southern segregationists or the Soviet Union.

The way author and attorney Craig Zirbel sees it, there are only two explanations for President John F. Kennedy’s assassination – either he was killed by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, with no motive, or there’s a more complex theory, the Arizona Republic reports.

The Scottsdale attorney has written two books on JFK’s death: “The Texas Connection” in 1991 and “The Final Chapter on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy” in 2010.

He believes Lyndon B. Johnson was behind the assassination 50 years ago Friday.

Steve Neavling

A veteran ATF agent and his wife are dead following a shooting at a home in Chantilly, Va., CBS-DC reports.

Killed were 46-year-old Paul Parisi and his wife, 47-year-old Jannine Parisi, who were found in their home after a report of gunshots just after 5 a.m.

Police have not yet divulged details but said the shooting was domestic-related.

Not injured were two teenage girls inside the home.

According to CBSDC, Paul Parisi worked with ATF since 1993 and was most recently a special agent assigned to the Washington Field Division in the arson and explosives division.

His wife taught physical education at a middle school, CBSDC reported.