Remember when Al Gore and the Clinton Administration made everyone happy by "reinventing government" back in the '90s, on the principle that government functions would be more efficient if a third-party private intermediary were taking profits on them, because the invisible hand of the free market will always produce optimal results? The New York Times has an update on the operations of USIS, the company born in 1996 with the privatization of the Office of Personnel Management's investigative operations.

Wednesday afternoon, the FBI released a video of Aaron Alexis as he prowled through the Washington Navy Yard, armed with a shotgun. The FBI also released a timeline of the events leading up to the shooting.

Aaron Alexis carved “Better off this way” and “My ELF weapon” onto his shotgun before the Washington Navy Yard shooting. The Washington Post notes ELF often stands for “extremely low frequency,” which could be Alexis referencing the military's conspiracy theory-magnet HAARP or his belief in "microwave machines."

The mother of Aaron Alexis, the man suspected of killing 12 people and wounding eight others in Monday's Navy Yard shooting, gave a statement to the press today condemning her deceased son's alleged actions and saying she is "so, so very sorry."

Two days after Aaron Alexis shot and killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard, investigators are still struggling to find a motive as a more complete, and disturbing, profile of Alexis's mental health problems has emerged, including a report that he believed men were following him with a "microwave machine" to disrupt his sleep.

Two days before he allegedly shot 12 people to death at the Washington Navy Yard, Aaron Alexis purchased a shotgun and ammunition at the Sharpshooters Small Arms Range in Lorton, Virginia. Alexis also used the store’s rifle range for practice. The store ran a federal background check on Alexis, which was approved.

Despite the best marketing efforts of the gun industry, law enforcement officials now say that Aaron Alexis did not use an AR-15 in yesterday's massacre at the Washington Navy Yard. All 12 of the murders were committed with the shotgun Alexis had bought despite his history of gun violence, or with the handguns he apparently took from victims who were unable to stop his armed killing spree with their own handguns.

More details have emerged about the troubled life of Aaron Alexis, the man who allegedly shot 12 people to death Monday morning at the Washington Navy Yard. In addition to his discharge from the Navy and multiple arrests, Alexis reportedly had a long history of mental illness.

The Seattle Police Department just released a set of documents better describing Aaron Alexis' "malicious mischief" arrest mentioned in the post below. "Mischief" sounds like what you did on Halloween in high school. What Aaron Alexis was arrested for in 2004 is quite a bit different: