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

An Ohio Supreme Court decision last week compelled a justice to do something few public officials do when it comes to addressing the connection between campaign contributions and political favors. After the court sided with drillers in a fracking regulation case, Justice O’Neill in his dissent wrote that “the oil and gas industry has gotten its way.” Catherine Turcer said: “What I liked about Justice O’Neill’s opinion was his willingness to point out the elephant in the room."   read more

Resolution will be removing an estimated $130 billion worth of copper that’s now owned by the American people. The proposal has been around since 2005, but never got through Congress until senators McCain and Flake put it into the “must-pass” defense bill, which President Barack Obama signed in December. Members of the Apache and Yavapai tribes consider the land sacred and have started a sit-in protest on the site to stop the project.   read more

The Oakland, California, regional office of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) stuffed 13,184 benefit requests, some dating back to the 1990s, into a file cabinet where they were discovered in 2012, partially processed and then promptly lost. Two records selected during a random sampling of unprocessed informal claims found they missed out on $3,904 in benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder and hearing loss, respectively.   read more

According to the Social Security Administration, in 1983, about 11% of all income escaped being taxed by Social Security. By 2012, that number rose to about 17% of all income. The liberal Center for American Progress argues that policymakers should consider changing Social Security taxation to apply to 90% of earnings in order to put more money into the dwindling trust fund. Such a change, had it been implemented in 1983, would have added $1.1 trillion more into the trust fund by 2013   read more

A 2014 report by the Pentagon’s inspector general revealed the agency’s “hardware store”—the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA)—paid one manufacturer, Bell Helicopter, $9 million more than it should have for commercial parts. The overpayments to Bell last year averaged out to 392%.The report also found that American taxpayers aren’t finished overpaying for parts. “DLA may overpay as much as $2.6 million over the next 12 months on future orders under this contract,” the report said.   read more

Duke agreed to pay $68.2 million in fines and restitution and $34 million for community service and mitigation projects. Environmental groups praised the settlement. “It’s not just a slap on the wrist,” said Cape Fear River Watch's Kemp Burdette. “A $100 million fine is a significant one. It confirms what we’ve been saying all along. It’s good to finally have somebody say, ‘You’re right. Duke was illegally polluting waterways across North Carolina and it was criminal. It wasn’t an accident.’”   read more

JPay Inc., the largest such money-service provider, has contracts in 32 states to facilitate money transfers for prisoners from their relatives. The service has become quite lucrative for JPay, which made more than $50 million in 2013. To send money to an inmate in Oklahoma either online or by phone, a family member must pay a fee ranging from $4 to $12 per transaction. In some cases, the fee can represent as much as nearly 40% of the deposit amount.   read more

Leading the way among those physicians is Dr. Thomas Burdon, a specialist in thoracic surgery based in Palo Alto, California, who makes $402,462 a year. The next highest paid is Dr. Thomas Cacciarelli in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who makes $873 less. Government Executive reported that more than 16,900 federal employees made more than $200,000 in base salary last year. The database does not include the salaries of Department of Defense personnel   read more

The prison was reportedly rendered “uninhabitable” following the uprising, which resulted in at least three of the prison’s 10 Kevlar-covered domes being set on fire. Two officers and as many as five inmates suffered minor injuries during the melee, which began as a complaint about medical services at the prison. Many local residents have expressed concerns that the prison may never reopen, which would cost the community about 400 jobs.   read more

When conservatives have argued climate change is not a human-produced problem, they often have exalted the work of scientist “Willie” Soon. But now it has been revealed that Soon received support from Exxon Mobil and the American Petroleum Institute, often blamed for generating greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Soon did not disclose this financial backing while publishing numerous scientific papers, which would indicate he was trying to hide this obvious conflict of interest.   read more

GOP Governors Paul LePage of Maine, John Kasich of Ohio and others are considering raising so-called consumption taxes, such as those imposed on sales of cigarettes and gasoline, to generate more state revenue. At the same time, they want to slash income taxes, which would mostly benefit the wealthy. But increasing sales taxes usually hurts lower income earners more than the wealthy because the former has to spend more of their earnings on food and necessities.   read more

The newspaper examined more than a thousand police reports and found district attorneys routinely did not go after individuals accused of sex crimes. “As the Illinois data reveal, a stunningly small percentage of sexual assaults that are reported to police will eventually result in prosecution and conviction, and without meaningful data to portray that grim reality, there is no way for the public...to hold police departments and prosecutors’ offices accountable,” said EVAWI's Kim Lonsway.   read more

Judge Boasberg ordered the administration to cease detaining immigrants solely “for the purpose of deterring future immigration.” “The court specifically rejected the government’s assertion that detention was necessary to protect national security,” said professor Benson. The lawsuit was brought “on behalf of mothers and children who have fled extreme violence, death threats, rape, and persecution...and come to the United States for safety."   read more

“Judges should be free of political pressures and decide cases impartially based on the facts and the law," said Ryan Wright. "They should not have to worry that their decisions could be used against them for political gain.” Chief Judge Larry Solomon agreed and filed a lawsuit to have the law thrown out. The law is “a direct encroachment on the Kansas Supreme Court’s constitutional authority to administer the judiciary of the State,” states the lawsuit.   read more

The $5.8 billion that the IRS paid to fraud perpetrators in 2013 represented just 20% of all the phony returns it received, according to a report (pdf) by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). In other words, the agency caught and rejected about 80% of the returns sent in by identity thieves.   read more

GCHQ planted malware on Gemalto computers, which enabled the agency to steal the encryption keys the company put on SIMs sold to AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and other wireless companies around the world. Having the key makes it a snap to read all the information, whether voice or data, coming from a phone.   read more