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

Only 37% of those eligible to vote did on November 4. That was the lowest mark since 1942, when only 34% went to the polls. In 2010, the last midterm election, 41% of eligible voters cast ballots. The low turnout 72 years ago was understandable: the nation was at war with Germany and Japan. The dearth of voters this time was an indication of how unmotivated Democrats were to go out and support their party, despite frantic efforts by the party to convince them otherwise.   read more

The “4-week moving average was 279,000 [claims],” the Labor Department announced. “This is the lowest level for this average since April 29, 2000 when it was 273,000.” Overall, the nation’s jobless rate remained at 5.8%, which is the lowest it’s been since July 2008, when the Great Recession was just beginning to swallow the economy. Although the unemployment rate has gone down considerably from a high point of nearly 10%, many Americans are still waiting for job opportunities.   read more

The total value of property seized by state and local law enforcement from 2001 to 2012 soared from $407 million to $4.3 billion. Police are advised not to bother with jewelry and computers. Rings and necklaces are reportedly too hard to dispose of. Most valuable are flat-screen TVs, cars and cash. Asset forfeitures are a way for law enforcement agencies to pad their declining budgets by confiscating cash and property from people, often minorities, under the flimsiest of pretexts.   read more

North Carolina has begun to do something no other state in the nation has attempted: Pay victims of forced sterilization. California only recently passed a law banning the practice after an investigation showed that female inmates in the state prison system continued to be sterilized. Thirty-two states participated in forced sterilizations from early in the century until 1974. People were sterilized as a way to “cleanse” society of poverty and those with defects.   read more

Perhaps they should change the name to the Inland Patrol. Courts have ruled that the Border Patrol needs stronger justification for stopping people when they’re more than 100 miles from the border. However, officers in Texas have arrested people as far as 350 miles from the border with only the racial appearance of the arrestee as justification.   read more

“No middle-class person would ever be hounded for being a day late,” Robert Swearingen told The New York Times. “But for poor people, there is a debt collector right there in the car with them.” The devices are now in about 2 million vehicles and can be operated by a lender from a smartphone. “I have disabled a car while I was shopping at Walmart,” said Lionel M. Vead Jr., head of collections at First Castle Federal Credit Union in Covington, Louisiana.   read more

Jimmy Carter announced that he would use force against Iran to ensure that the Persian Gulf didn’t fall into the “wrong” hands. Subsequent events have taken the American military force into Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011), Lebanon (1983), Kuwait (1991), Iraq (1991-2011, 2014-), Somalia (1992-1993, 2007-), Bosnia (1995), Saudi Arabia (1991, 1996), Afghanistan (1998, 2001-), Sudan (1998), Kosovo (1999), Yemen (2000, 2002-), Pakistan (2004-) and now Syria. Few of these adventures have ended well.   read more

The decline in use was greatest in thermoelectric use, where it fell by 20%. Getting the credit for that is power plant closures, less use of coal-fired plants and more efficient cooling technologies. Next was irrigation use with a 9% drop and public supply, which fell by 5%. The decline in public supply usage was a first and came despite a 4% population increase.   read more

In 2010, Lynch was again appointed to serve as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. She led the prosecution for embezzlement of former New York state senate majority leader Pedro Espada Jr. Her office filed charges in 2013 on a $45 million cyberattack on ATMs, made arrests this year in the 1978 Lufthansa heist at Kennedy Airport, dramatized in the movie Goodfellas, and is now prosecuting Rep. Michael Grimm (R-New York) for tax fraud.   read more

In the U.S. House, women hold fewer than 20% of the seats (81 out of 435). That number might improve as four outstanding races that involve women are decided. The Senate will still have the same number of female senators—20—but that number could increase to 21 if Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) survives a runoff next month. The honor of being the 100th woman in Congress goes to Rep. Alma Adams (D-North Carolina), who won a special election Tuesday and thus will take office immediately.   read more

A report by Justice’s Inspector General showed that between 2007 and 2012, about 16% of the interns hired in that office were related to employees who worked there. At least seven of the 19 temporary and permanent board members of the Board of Immigration Appeals had children working in paid student positions at the EOIR between 2005 and 2012.   read more

Hundreds of American soldiers exposed to chemical weapons during the occupation of Iraq didn’t receive proper care, the Department of Defense now admits. In fact, many were sent on their way with no treatment and told not to talk about the injuries they sustained from the exposure. The Pentagon now has established a phone number, 1-800-497-6261, for veterans to report possible exposure.   read more

Weller was named acting chief in November 2012 after Dave White stepped down. At NRCS, Weller has had a hand in overseeing the BP Oil Spill cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico, helping Western farmers and ranchers prepare for drought and even in organizing a tractor trade-in in California’s San Joaquin Valley, in which farmers could swap an old heavily polluting model for a somewhat newer, cleaner one.   read more

In 2007, he co-founded KSC&W, a lobbying firm and in 2009 he deregistered as a lobbyist and became president of K Street Research, an organization that does research for companies interested in government work but avoids some restrictions placed on lobbyists. In 2011, Mitchell returned to government as associate director of the USDA’s Office of Advocacy and Outreach, a job he held until taking over his current post.   read more

The Pentagon's inspector general essentially concluded that the department should do a better job of monitoring development of new weapons systems to avoid soaring costs. Not that there haven’t been a lot of examples of this problem. Among them is the USS San Antonio, an amphibious transport dock ship, that took three years longer than planned to build and consumed an extra $846 million along the way. The IG recommended an oversight office but the Defense Department is resistant.   read more

The Nov. 4 turnout was so Republican friendly that even Sherri Ybarra won her race. The much-maligned GOP candidate for Idaho superintendent for public instruction narrowly defeated her Democratic rival, Jana Jones. Numerous missteps plagued Ybarra’s campaign. These included plagiarsm, claiming non-existent endorsements, and failing to vote in 15 of the past 17 state elections. Her opponent, Jones, had nearly twice the experience, having served for two former superintendents.   read more