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

Judge Reggie B. Walton dismissed the complaint by FDA scientists who claimed the agency violated their constitutional rights by reading their emails questioning the safety of medical equipment. Walton decided the case couldn't proceed because the plaintiffs didn't first follow administrative remedies. But Walton conceded that "the plaintiffs have alleged no shortage of facts establishing that the defendants took...[prohibited] actions" against the whistleblowers.   read more

An MPR investigation found there were at least 18 incidents over three years in which BNSF Railway sent freight trains from Minneapolis with dangerous chemicals that weren’t on the train’s manifest. In some instances, the trains were hauling substances such as anhydrous ammonia, a toxic corrosive gas, while traveling through populated areas. “You’re sending fire and rescue in there...and they could literally walk into an extremely deadly situation,” a BNSF employee said.   read more

Most Americans living in the West don’t support a conservative idea that calls for transferring national parks and other federal lands to state control. Bipartisan polling found 59% of respondents disagree with the idea of states taking over public lands, fearing such a move would cause them to pay higher taxes and lose access to the lands themselves if they’re sold off to private interests.   read more

Miller went overseas again in 2000 as a regional security officer (RSO) at the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In 2003 he took on a similar post in Jakarta, Indonesia. While there, he helped investigate an August 31, 2002, terrorist ambush in Papua province that killed two U.S. schoolteachers and wounded eight other U.S. citizens, an investigation that lasted almost four years and culminated in the arrest of 12 terrorists. In 2007, Miller was sent to Baghdad as RSO   read more

Heflin returned to Washington in 2004 as deputy director in the Office of African Regional and Security Affairs and in 2006 was deputy director in the Office of West African Affairs and served as acting director for a time. He returned to Mexico in 2009 as the principal officer and consul general in the border town of Nuevo Laredo. In 2012, Heflin was brought back to Washington as managing director of the Consular Affairs Visa Office.   read more

It is no secret that big business has long been an ally of the Republican Party. A computer mistake by the Republican Governors Association made it possible for a watchdog group to access its records and expose a corporate list of big-time donors. “This is a classic example of how corporations are trying to use secret money, hidden from the American people, to buy influence, and how the governors association is selling it,” said Democracy 21's Fred Wertheimer.   read more

Law enforcement plays no role in stopping the majority of “active shootings” in America, a new federal report shows. The FBI says that 60% of the time, active shootings end before officers arrive on the scene. In 23% of the incidents studied, the shooter committed suicide before police responded and in 13% of the incidents, unarmed bystanders subdued the shooter. Return fire accounted for few of the resolutions.   read more

Home to the city of Houston, Harris County has carried out more death penalty cases than any other county in the country. Since 1976, the year capital punishment was reinstated in the U.S., 122 people convicted in Harris County have been executed. Part of the reason was that its former District Attorney, Johnny Holmes, prosecuted many cases as capital murder. In the 21 years he was in office up to 2000, his office got more than 200 death sentences.   read more

In the cases of nude model photos, some of the plaintiffs say the models “may have specifically consented to being photographed by the photographers, but not specifically to being distributed by said booksellers,” according to Sarah Jeong. “This law puts us at risk for prosecution,” said Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore. “There are books on my shelves right now that might be illegal to sell under this law.”   read more

Either the Department of Veterans Affairs has again demonstrated some shady record keeping or it has a zombie problem on its hands. According to VA records, former Marine Jordan Buisman rescheduled his medical appointment four days after he died. He died of seizure disorder, the condition for which he sought treatment 24 days before the appointment. “I’m extremely troubled to hear reports that [VA] records may have been doctored. This is an unacceptable tragedy,” said Senator Al Franken.   read more

Since Barack Obama—winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize—has become president, the U.S. military has bombed Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Iraq and now Syria, all predominately Muslim countries.   read more

It is estimated that about 300,000 American children in the 2012-2013 school year were homeless while attending school, according to a new report.   read more

The United States has finally agreed with most nations of the world that landmines need to go. But the new policy has a loophole in it the size of the Korean peninsula.   read more

The Department of Homeland Security is a wreck internally, making its job of thwarting terrorism and other threats that more difficult because of low employee morale and high turnover.   read more

Viviana Janer worked at Marriott Vacations Worldwide for 11 years as an internal auditor. But that came to an abrupt end this month after she won the Democratic primary for the Osceola County Commission’s District 2 seat. Her superiors told Janer she had a choice: keep her job, or quit the race. She chose to stay in the race.   read more

The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said recently that Khorasan represented a more direct threat than IS. Clapper for the first time named the group’s leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli, a Kuwaiti who, as a young man, worked closely with Osama bin Laden during the plotting of the 9/11 attacks.   read more