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

He joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and in 1984 began serving tours in Mexico and in Costa Rica. In 2007, Shedd was named director of national intelligence deputy for policy, plans, and requirements. According to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Shedd “played critical roles in almost every ODNI initiative from 2005 until his departure in 2010.” Shedd was named deputy director of DIA in 2010.   read more

Crime has fallen in every state but one: West Virginia. There, despite a 195% increase in the imprisonment rate, the crime rate climbed by 6% between 1994 and 2012, according to research from Pew. Statistics would show that an increase in imprisonment wasn’t predictive at all of a state’s relative decline in crime rate.   read more

Fipronil, which is used to kill ants and cockroaches, and diclorvos, applied to kill insects attacking fruit and vegetable crops and used in “no-pest strips” were the primary reason that 90% of urban streams were in violation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) aquatic-life standard from 2002 to 2011. In the preceding decade, the corresponding percentage of polluted urban streams was 53%.   read more

A former Memphis police officer has been charged in a rape that occurred in 2000. Bridges Randle, who has been living in Atlanta under an assumed name, was arrested after a kit that had gone untested for 14 years was finally put into the national database. The Department of Justice estimates that nationwide there are about 100,000 untested rape kits, as well as evidence that has not yet been sent to labs for analysis.   read more

On April 1, 2014, Wendy M. Masiello of the U.S. Air Force was named director of the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), which handles procurement of everything from uniforms to jet aircraft for the U.S. military. DCMA has more than 12.000 employees and manages more than 330,000 active contracts. With the title came a promotion to lieutenant general.   read more

Burch joined the Secret Service in 1980 and served 27 years there. In October 2007, Burch joined the State Department as its assistant inspector general for investigations. He established Middle East offices in Amman, Jordan and Cairo, Egypt as well as a presence in Baghdad, Iraq, to cope with the influx of Americans in that region.   read more

The Saudi dictatorship has long been criticized by human rights groups for everything from lack of free elections to its medieval approach to justice. Last month alone, the country executed 22 people, including eight by beheading. Their crimes were for drug trafficking, adultery, apostasy and “sorcery,” according to The Washington Post. Seeking the Saudis’ help in this cause is especially ironic since the United States was moved to action after ISIS beheaded two U.S. journalists.   read more

Newly released court records show Yahoo agreed to comply with demands from the National Security Agency (NSA) to provide copies of customers’ emails and other online communications. Its actions, however, were prompted by the threat of being fined $250,000 a day if the company did not play ball with the NSA’s PRISM program that sought to mine information from Internet providers.   read more

Milton-Edwards testified during the civil case, which was brought by the families of 300 victims of suicide attacks in the West Bank, that she found no evidence while researching her book of Hamas being involved in regional charities. But prosecutors discovered that she couldn’t read Arabic. After being asked to read the printed text on a Hamas-sponsored image, Milton-Edwards admitted she could not.   read more

After a stint as deputy director general for Multilateral Affairs, in 2008 Bowoleksono was assigned his first ambassadorial post in Kenya, with responsibility for Seychelles, Mauritius and Uganda, in addition to the United Nations Environment Program and the U.N. High Commission for Refugees. He returned home in 2010 to serve as secretary general in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.   read more

Alves was the spokesman for RENTIL, the National Resistance of Students of Timor-Leste, during that group’s 12-day sit-in at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta in 1994, which coincided with a visit from President Bill Clinton. Alves and 28 other protestors were granted political asylum in Portugal.   read more

According to a Washington Post-ABC poll, nearly half of all Americans “strongly” disapprove of GOP members in Congress, and their total negative rating is 72%. So how is it Republicans are sitting pretty for November? For starters—according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll—only 25% of Americans think it would be a “bad thing” for the GOP to take over the Senate.   read more

More than half of that $13 billion in spending, says Black, went to just eight companies: Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, Boeing, Harris Corporation, Jacobs Engineering Group, MA Federal, Raytheon and ITT Corporation. “Among the most expensive individual transactions,” wrote Black, “[were] radio communications from Harris Corporation; translation support in classified locations from Shee Atika LLC; procurement of drones equipment from Aerovironment Inc.”   read more

The new dress code mandates that workers don a collared blue or white shirt and black or khaki pants. There’s the Walmart vest, too, which the company provides. But everything else must be paid for out of employees’ pockets. Many workers have expressed frustration and outrage over the new policy, given that full-time personnel make on average only $27,000 a year. The retail giant also employs a significant number of part-time help, who make even less money.   read more

Scientists determined that the United States saves about $6.8 billion a year in healthcare costs by having trees in cities. In 2010 alone, the country avoided 850 deaths and 670,000 cases of acute respiratory symptoms, the researchers led by forester Dave Nowak found, thanks to 17 tons of air pollution being removed from the atmosphere by trees.   read more

The suit claims that the Diebold voting machines have “incurable deficiencies…including an inability to secure it from even amateur level taint by fraudulent programming.” It also points out that the Diebold system that was employed in the contested election is used nowhere in the United States except for two counties in Tennessee, one of which is Shelby.   read more