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

Officials in the Department of Commerce have quietly changed the rules for companies seeking to export U.S. oil, which has been banned since 1975. The new regulations, adopted by the agency’s Bureau of Industry and Security, apply only to condensate, a form of light crude oil. Citigroup wrote that the rules could “open the floodgates to substantial increases in exports.”   read more

Although the number of immigrants picked up by U.S. Border Patrol agents has increased, the number of assaults against the officers has dropped, according to figures from the agency. There were 373 assaults of Border Patrol officers in the fiscal year ending September 30. That figure is down 20% from the previous year and is the sixth year in a row that the number of assaults has fallen. All but seven of those assaults occurred along the southwest border of the United States with Mexico.   read more

A Freedom of Information Act request was filed with DHS for documents on Operation Aurora, which was a cyberattack on Google. The department responded with 800 pages of documents. However the documents weren’t about Operation Aurora, but were instead on the Aurora Project, which in 2007 demonstrated how easy it would be to disable the nation’s electric and water supply grids.   read more

In January 2014, Githae was defeated in his bid to be elected governor of Kirinyaga County, losing in the TNA party’s primary to eventual winner Joseph Ndathi. Since taking up the Washington post, Githae has defended a controversial security law that was enacted in December, but some sections of which were suspended by Kenya’s High Court on January 2, 2015.   read more

Cars carrying U.S. diplomats investigating whether Israeli settlers on the West Bank had destroyed a Palestinian olive grove were hit with rocks by the settlers on Friday. Israeli officials acknowledged the attack on the U.S. officials. “Rocks were thrown at them by residents of Adei Ad. We are investigating. Arrests have yet to be made,” a spokeswoman said, according to Haaretz. She also said the U.S. visit was made without coordinating with Israeli authorities.   read more

Bloomberg’s annual listing of the 400 richest people in the world found that they’ve increased their wealth by $92 billion to $4.4 trillion. Others aren’t as lucky. The Global Wealth Report (pdf) put out by Credit Suisse bank shows that 3.3 billion people, more than 70% of the world’s population, have a net worth of less than $10,000 each.   read more

A century ago, American soldiers attacked nothing more than sacks tied to a string before fighting in World War I. During the Cold War, U.S. troops took aim at human-shaped targets dressed in green, but wearing a red star on their helmets to represent Soviet soldiers. Now that the Red Menace has been replaced by a Middle-Eastern one, American military training uses targets dressed in “eastern-looking clothing” and sporting dark skin.   read more

In December 2012, as Mali was about to have an election, Coulibaly was demoted to economy minister because he wouldn’t sign off on loan agreements with a Chinese bank favored by President Dioncounda Traoré. The International Monetary Fund praised Coulibaly’s stewardship, saying he was “enforcing strict spending discipline.”   read more

Despite his government position, Mutembwa might have a lower profile in his country than his wife, Priscilla, who’s the chief financial officer of Cargill Cotton Zimbabwe. The couple has two daughters, one of whom, Mutsa, attended college on a field hockey scholarship at Indiana University and went on to win a Rhodes Scholarship in 2009.   read more

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, spending by state and local governments rose 18.2% between 2007 and 2012. The increases in spending have resulted in teachers who lost jobs during the cutbacks getting some positions back, although there are still 300,000 fewer of them than before.   read more

Much to the consternation of statisticians and economists, the U.S. Census Bureau is planning to stop asking whether a person was married or divorced in the previous year. Justin Wolfers, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, characterized the proposed change as a serious impediment for experts to learn and study about the American family.   read more

Wayne County Circuit Judge Deborah A. Thomas has ordered many of those who come before her to finish school or earn a GED. She even papers the wall behind her bench with the documents to encourage the offenders, usually young men ages 19-22, get their lives on a more positive track.   read more

Dahinden was appointed to lead the Directorate of Corporate Management of the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs in 2004. Dahinden was made director of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in 2008. There he managed his country’s humanitarian aid contributions around the world. He held this position until being posted to Washington.   read more

Smith oversaw the purchase of military equipment from nations around the world, including Russian helicopters and ships from China and Germany. He also set up the Defence Industry Holding Company to create joint business ventures between the military and private investors, including those from abroad.   read more

If not for the federal government, contractor DynCorp International wouldn’t be in business. Virtually all of its revenue (96%) comes from government contracts. That includes the vast majority of the taxpayer dollars that the State Department has awarded to companies to help rebuild Afghanistan. Most of DynCorp’s contracts have been to train and equip the Afghan National Police and counternarcotics forces.   read more

The increases are a result of changes adopted in 20 states, either through legislative action by lawmakers or voter-approved initiatives that occurred in 2014 or in previous years. It’s the greatest number of states to enact such increases of any time in the history of the country, reported The Boston Globe. It will also be the first time that a majority of states will have a minimum wage that is above the federal rate of $7.25 an hour.   read more