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

The Department of Defense’s 1033 program—which funnels all kinds of military surplus goods to police—has a provision that clearly says that any participating law enforcement agency must use its equipment within one year of receiving it. If they don’t, they have to give it up.   read more

Several companies have developed systems that tap into cell providers’ databases and use that information to match a mobile phone signal to the tower it’s accessing. These systems are being marketed internationally, and spy agencies and others in just about any country can track a subject’s movements anywhere in the world.   read more

Researchers tested the Rapiscan recently and found it was possible to carry firearms, explosives and other weapons through the scanners without detection, Greenberg wrote. These included “a disturbing list of other possible tricks, such as using Teflon tape to conceal weapons against someone’s spine, installing malware on the scanner’s console that spoofed scans, or simply molding plastic explosives around a person’s body."   read more

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Railroad Retirement Board are not providing full benefits to same-sex couples. The VA says Title 38 of the U.S. Code requires that benefits decisions be based on a person’s state of residence, and if that state forbids gay marriage, then the employee is out of luck.   read more

One nation that does a lot of beheadings is on the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. Lately, in fact, Saudi Arabia can’t seem to get enough beheadings. Its government has executed at least 19 people using this method since August 4, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). Of the 19, eight were found guilty of non-violent offenses; seven for drug smuggling and one for committing sorcery. The Saudi government is scheduled to keep a spot on the Human Rights Council for two more years.   read more

Beginning in the mid-1970s, large corporations began organizing into well-funded lobbying groups like the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. These groups, which had leaned Republican, realized that it would be more effective to influence members of Congress from both parties.   read more

LRAD Corporation makes long-range acoustic devices that produce high-decibel noises that can chase away pirates on the high seas or disrupt protestors. Lenco builds and sells the Bearcat armored truck, which is a version of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle used in Afghanistan and Iraq to protect troops from mines and IEDs, none of which have ever been deployed in St. Louis County.   read more

The new rule allows such corporations the same out as previously given to non-profit organizations with similar objections. They file a form with the insurer or write a letter stating their objections to the Department of Health and Human Services, and the company’s insurance carrier is required to provide contraception coverage without cost to the employer.   read more

The Ricketts family, whose net worth is more than $1 billion, owns the Cubs, the most profitable team in baseball. Not profitable enough for the Ricketts, apparently. The family doesn’t want to pay for healthcare for all its employees, so they cut the hours of stadium personnel, including grounds crew, according to Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times. On the day of the rainout, upper management had sent home 10 members of the grounds crew without consulting the on-field supervisors.   read more

India’s former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is immune from an allegation that he supported an alleged genocide of Sikhs during his 10-year rule, a U.S. judge ruled this week. But U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in the District of Columbia said that Singh, who resigned in May, did not have "head-of-state immunity" from allegations concerning his time as India's finance minister in the 1990s.   read more

For many groups of workers, the drop is significantly worse. Restaurant cooks, for instance, have experienced an 8.3% fall. For food preparation workers, it’s been 6.3%; for personal care aides, 6.3%; and for maids and housekeepers, 5.8%. The wage decline is bad news for the economy, considering that 41% of the job growth in the country since last year has been in low-wage industries.   read more

Forty-two percent of those leaving the island are doing so for job-related reasons, according to the survey, while 38% are moving for family reasons. Despite the recovery from the Great Recession, unemployment in Puerto Rico is still high. In June, the unemployment rate there was 13.1%, compared to 6.2% in the United States overall.   read more

A 12-year veteran has decided she’d rather leave the Navy than cut her hair or wear a wig as demanded by a new supervisor. Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Jessica Sims was by all accounts an exemplary sailor. She had been an instructor at Navy medical schools for the last several years and had kept her hair in natural locks with a bun for most of that time, as did other African-American female sailors at her duty stations.   read more

McMillan began a long career at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) in the San Francisco Bay area. She started as an associate planner and was named a senior planner in 1988. In 1993, McMillan became manager of finance and was elevated to become manager for finance and external affairs in 1999. After concentration on managing funding, she was named deputy executive director for policy in 2001, a role she held until moving to Washington.   read more

His positions at NIST have included chief of the Analytical Chemistry Division, director of the Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory, associate director of laboratory programs and director of the Material Measurement Laboratory. May’s specialty is analytical chemistry research. He helped establish the pollution baseline for Prince William Sound before the opening of the Alaska Pipeline and has also worked on protocols for environmental sample collection for trace organic analysis.   read more

In Northern Iraq, where the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has threatened Kurdish hopes of autonomy, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has joined the American-backed effort against the Muslim militants. The State Department has listed the PKK as a terrorist operation since 1997.   read more