The majority of voters did not vote for Donald Trump for president; the majority of voters did not vote for Republican candidates for the Senate; and fewer than 51% of voters cast their ballots for Republican candidates for the House of Representatives. The Republican Party now controls the White House, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, no matter how that came to be. I believe it is worth bearing in mind that a majority of U.S. citizens did not support the Republican winners.   read more

In 1975, according to a report by the American Academy of Diplomacy, 60% of State Department personnel with the rank of assistant secretary or higher were career Foreign Service personnel with only 37% of them political appointees. In 2014, the percentages were nearly reversed: only 30% of senior leadership at State were active Foreign Service officers while 51% were political appointees.   read more

Auto companies, with the assistance of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, restrict car owners and others from tinkering with or even examining the code that performs many functions in modern vehicles. They’ve come up with excuses ranging from nanny state nagging (you can’t repair your car because you might not do it right) to the ridiculous (you might use a vehicle’s entertainment system to illegally pirate music).   read more

When three white University of Iowa students were arrested after being caught with loot stolen from seven homes in the Marion, Iowa, area, The Gazette in Cedar Rapids ran the suspects’ freshman yearbook photos, which showed them looking clean-cut in suits with matching gold ties. When four black men were arrested on the same day for a burglary and assault they committed in a home Coralville, The Gazette ran police mug shots.   read more

The biggest travel spender in the House from 2010 to 2014 was Democrat Madeleine Bordallo, a non–voting delegate who represents Guam. She spent $1,061,780. Bordallo’s office explained the high expenses were a result of the cost of flying the delegate and staffers back and forth from Guam. However, Sunlight Foundation reporting showed that Bordallo and her staff were not taking advantage of more favorable airfares negotiated by the government.   read more

The State Department has been doing business with 30 contractors who use policies that discourage whistleblowing by employees, according to a government audit. The report said 13 contractors required workers to tell their superiors about being contacted by a government auditor or investigator. Five contractors use non-disparagement agreements that demand current and former employees avoid saying anything negative about the company or its officers or employees.   read more

Linda Thomas was moved from her office to a converted cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago after she reported mismanagement and financial waste in June 2014. The “office” had no phone, computer or other equipment necessary for her work and she was forced to climb staircases through inmate areas to reach her desk.   read more

A group protesting a proposed purchase of environmentally sensitive Everglades land from U.S. Sugar Corporation was found to be actors from a nearby theater group. The “protesters” were asked via Facebook to show up last Thursday at South Florida Water Management District headquarters in West Palm Beach. The actors were offered $75 (but “NO BREAKFAST”), according to the posting.   read more

In July 2012 Delawie returned to Washington as deputy assistant secretary for European security, technology and implementation verification in the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, where he still serves as he awaits Senate confirmation to the Kosovo post. There he’s responsible for the Offices of Euro-Atlantic Security Affairs; Verification, Planning, and Outreach; and the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center.   read more

The 4-second recording contains information related to negotiations between the U.S. government and South Vietnam connected to the war. The NSA claims the brief recording, if released, “would reveal information that would impair U.S. cryptologic systems or activities.” Historians say the snippet probably refers to former President Johnson's threat to expose an illegal effort by the Nixon presidential campaign to sabotage the Paris peace negotiations on ending the war in Vietnam.   read more

The worms have been shown to sniff out stomach, colorectal, colon, esophageal, pancreas, bile duct, prostate, breast and lung cancers and correctly diagnose it 96% of the time, which researchers say is better than a blood test. “In existing tests, people must have different examinations according to the type of cancer they have,” study author Takaaki Hirotsu said. “Our odor-based test detected all nine types of cancer we tested.”   read more

Correctional officer Robert Johnson was the target of an unsuccessful murder-for-hire by a prison inmate. Johnson and his wife, who witnessed the shooting, sued nine telecommunications providers, including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, claiming they should be held partly responsible for allowing the calls that arranged for the shooting. But the court said that would mean the cell phone providers would have had to stop the calls and, in doing so, violate federal law.   read more

The Oregon House and Senate are considering similar bills that would prohibit giving antibiotics to healthy animals and force factory farms to report how they’re using the drugs. Such operations around the country give low doses of antibiotics to animals who are not sick. Rather they are used to promote growth and to combat diseases they might contract from being held in tight quarters filled with excrement.   read more

Brandon joined ATF in 1989 in the Detroit field division and continued to spend much of his career in Detroit. Brandon was brought before a House committee hearing in February 2014 to testify about botched storefront sting operations performed by ATF. He admitted that putting a gun-buying shop to serve as bait for drug and gun traffickers across the street from a middle school in Portland, Oregon, was “a mistake.”   read more

The agency’s environmental impact statement warned drilling could have serious negative effects on the region, with a 75% risk of a large oil spill in an area where it would be virtually impossible to clean up. And yet, Interior officials decided to allow the drilling to go ahead. “Our Arctic ocean is flat out the worst place on Earth to drill for oil,” said Niel Lawrence. “The world’s last pristine sea, it is both too fragile to survive a spill and too harsh and remote for effective cleanup.”   read more

Questions of legality surface since nonprofits like Right to Rise are supposed to operate independent of a candidate’s campaign. It will be able to collect unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations without disclosing their identities. “This is going to be an avenue for dark money," said Public Citizen's Craig Holman. And what kind of impact it will have on fundraising during the 2016 race? "Others are going to copy it in short order,” predicted FEC attorney Ken Gross.   read more

Angie’s List, a popular website that crowd-sources ratings for services, has halted its expansion in Indianapolis. The impact: $40 million and 1,000 jobs. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, one of the largest labor unions in the country, has decided not to hold its women’s conference planned for October in Indianapolis. The impact: $500,000. The NCAA, which oversees major college sports, said it might reconsider hosting events in Indiana in response to the law.   read more