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

Ken Kopocis was nominated by President Barack Obama to head the EPA’s Water Office in February 2011 and has been waiting for confirmation ever since. Now, Nancy Stoner, who has been acting as chief of the Water Office since then, is leaving the EPA because the law limits how long a temporary leader can hold office…and no one will be in charge.   read more

Tefft retired as ambassador, and from the State Department, in 2013. He was named executive director of the RAND Business Leaders Forum, described by Lynnley Browning of Newsweek as “a clubby lobbying group” which considers strategic issues facing the United States, Russia and Europe. However he was called out of retirement less than a year later by President Barack Obama to serve in Moscow. Although Russia signed off on Tefft’s nomination, he’s not popular with the government there.   read more

We’re told that the Great Recession that kicked off in 2008 is finally over, but to many Americans it doesn’t seem as though they’re back where they were before the crash. They’re probably right: the net worth of average Americans is only 57% of what it was in 2007, according to a new report. By mid-2013 the average value of a single-family home was still 20% less than it had been in 2007.   read more

The Justice Department Office of the Inspector General has released a report blasting a DEA supervisor for violating the DEA’s own policy by beginning the investigation locally instead of reporting it to the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility. The actions of the supervisor, who was not named in the report, included having the two case officers responsible for Chong’s imprisonment gather evidence from his cell.   read more

With wildfire season here, California taxpayers will be glad to know that they’ve got a hard-working corps of firefighters they can call on day or night, who don’t take vacations and work cheap. Really cheap. California employs about 4,000 inmate firefighters. They’re “low-level” offenders who earn $2 a day in canteen credits, as well as two days off their sentences for each day they spend at fire camps.   read more

In 2010, Baily was named director of the Office of Southeast European Affairs, where he managed bilateral relations between the United States and Turkey, Greece and Cyprus. Baily returned to Turkey as deputy chief of mission in Ankara in 2011, where he has worked since.   read more

Pettit returned to Moscow in 2003 as consul general. Much of his time was spent working with American companies who had difficulties getting permission for their employees to travel to the United States. Pettit moved to Kyiv, Ukraine in 2007 as deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy. He returned to Washington in 2010 as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Consular Affairs, where he has served since.   read more

The concerns weren’t enough for U.S. officials to turn down Tel Aviv’s request for more military assistance, specifically 120mm tank rounds and 40mm illumination rounds for grenade launchers. Washington received the request on July 20 and three days later approved the munitions release from a special stockpile in Israel known as the War Reserve Stockpile Ammunition-Israel. The U.S. set up the little-known arsenal several years ago in case of need by U.S. or Israeli forces.   read more

Insisting the change will reduce the risk of food poisoning cases, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will let poultry companies inspect their own processing lines, instead of maintaining the current system of federal inspectors doing so. The switch will leave the industry responsible for spotting and removing diseased chickens and turkeys, as well as fecal matter from areas where birds are prepped for shipping to food producers.   read more

According to O’Connell, her supervisor, Mark Lewis, told her in 2013 not to hire Latino employees. He later came to O’Connell’s store and saw a Hispanic employee, Feliciano Romero. “Didn’t I tell you not to hire Hispanics?” Lewis allegedly said to O’Connell, who is suing Taco Bell.   read more

Colvin has been serving in the job in an acting capacity since February 14, 2013. One of her major decisions in her current job was to halt collection of decades-old Social Security overpayments from beneficiaries or their descendants. Some people found their refunds from 2013 income taxes attached to settle overpayments of which they had no knowledge and derived no benefit. In April, Colvin halted the collections.   read more

In 2007, Haney moved to Pzena Investment Management as principal and director of business development and client services. In 2013, he was made a director of the firm. Haney donated $30,800 to the Obama Victory Fund for the 2008 election and $75,800 to the group in the 2012 cycle and has given to other Democratic races as well. In December 2013, he was named a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.   read more

The nation’s most famous fast-food chain may now become infamous for being held responsible for the operations of its franchises and even liable for labor violations involving minimum-wage workers. McDonald’s found itself on the losing end of a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board, whose legal counsel rejected the company’s—not to mention the industry’s—longstanding defense that individual franchise owners are at fault for any legal or labor troubles, not the parent corporation.   read more

“Instead of firing someone, you force them out of government through criminal investigations or actual prosecutions that affect their prospects for future federal employment,” said Tom Devine. “It’s a dangerous, scary trend that’s likely to get worse. All a criminal investigation takes is one bully to give the suspect the third degree. The threat of jail [to a whistleblower] has a more chilling effect."   read more

A tanker loaded with Iraqi oil has been sitting off the coast of Texas, a floating pawn in an international game of chess, intrigue and subterfuge involving the government of Iraq, the U.S. State Department and federal court system, and the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan inside Iraq. The Kurdish tanker, carrying more than one million barrels of crude oil, has so far refused to dock, given the risk of being seized by order of a federal judge.   read more

The FBI's resumption of its investigation into tainted forensics evidence was ordered by the Office of the Inspector General, which made some alarming discoveries. Among other things, the IG discovered that three defendants had been executed and a fourth died on death row during the five years it took the FBI to reinvestigate 60 convictions that may have been tainted by improper conduct on the part of federal agents.   read more