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 Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute reported last month that more than 800 of the giant sea cows died in 2013, which was the highest total on record since the institute began researching the mammals 40 years ago. A record number of manatees died from red tide (276) caused by high concentrations of algae in the ocean. Seventy-two were killed by watercraft and 36 died of cold stress.   read more

David Strickland, the top official at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), who announced last month he was resigning, has now added that he is accepting a position at Venable LLP, which counts carmakers among its many clients and represents them before the NHTSA. Strickland will work in the firm’s regulatory group after running an agency that oversees vehicle safety standards, recalls, fuel economy regulations and other vehicle regulatory issues.   read more

Of 534 current members of Congress, at least 268 were millionaires, according the Center for Responsive Politics’ review of financial disclosure reports filed last year. The center also found that Democrats overall were a little wealthier than Republicans in Congress, $1.04 million versus $1 million. Both groups saw their collective net worth go up, from $990,000 for Democrats and $907,000 for Republicans in the previous year.   read more

The auction will take place this weekend, during the Dallas Safari Club’s annual meeting, which it calls “the greatest hunters’ convention on the planet.” The highest bid—likely to be six figures—will get the permit issued by the Namibian government to hunt and shoot a Black Rhinoceros. The money will go to support conservation efforts in the southern African country to protect the endangered species, now numbering about 5,000.   read more

Researchers found that 58% of raven nests were located on transmission poles, far more than in trees (19%) or on other man-made structures (14%). “By altering the landscape with roads, facility construction, billboards, and transmission lines, and in some cases providing sources of water and food, we are subsidizing ravens,” lead author Kristy Howe said in a press release.   read more

When big campaign donors are rewarded with plum ambassadorships—a practice engaged in by presidents of both parties—they are usually sent either to a tropical paradise like the Bahamas or a wealthy ally like Belgium. Not so Robert C. Barber, an attorney who raised more than $2.9 million for President Obama’s election campaigns. He was nominated October 30 to be the next ambassador to the North Atlantic island nation of Iceland.   read more

“Despite being a member of Congress possessing security clearance, I've learned far more about government spying on me and my fellow citizens from reading media reports than I have from ‘intelligence’ briefings,” Grayson wrote in The Guardian. Grayson says that when he has asked for classified information and meetings with the NSA, the House intelligence committee has refused to provide either.   read more

The agreement between Staples and USPS allows the retailer to use its own employees. This decision didn’t come as a surprise to outsiders, considering that 78% of the Postal Service’s costs are employee-related (salaries and benefits). APWU says it will first meet with Staples store managers by January 18 to express its concerns. If a solution cannot be reached, union officials intend to proceed with the demonstrations.   read more

A key problem discussed by the IG involves medical professionals’ use of cloning, which is a copy-and-paste function that helps speed up the converting of records from paper to electronic. But this process also can be abused to allow doctors to indicate a procedure was more expensive than it actually was, resulting in overcharges to Medicare.   read more

“Among the supporters of almost any group—whether it be a band, sports team, university, political organization or religion—there will be some people who violate the law,” the plaintiffs say. “However, it is wrong to designate the entire group of supporters as a criminal gang based on the acts of a few. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened here.”   read more

The Central Jersey Courier News and Home News Tribune reviewed hundreds of citizen complaints from 2008 to 2012 claiming excessive force, bias and civil rights violations by officers in more than seven dozen police departments in Central New Jersey. It found that only 1% of complaints alleging police brutality were sustained by internal affairs units. The national average is 8%, according to a 2007 Bureau of Justice Statistics report.   read more

According to a Guantánamo “Detainee Assessment” prepared by the Department of Defense in 2005, Qumu “poses a MEDIUM to HIGH risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the U.S., its interests and allies.” He was also deemed to be “of HIGH intelligence value.” This may be the reason that the Bush administration, thinking Qumu would act as an ally, released him from Guantánamo two years later.   read more

Gallup says 42% of Americans identified as political independents in 2013. That’s the highest rate since the longtime survey company switched to phone interviews in 1989. The GOP’s popularity declined last year, with only 25% of respondents claiming to be Republican. Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones wrote that the last time the party’s ID was lower was 1983, when it dipped to 24% amid President Ronald Reagan’s struggle to bring the country out of recession.   read more

FBI agents referred 10,000 white-collar crime cases to prosecutors in 2000. By 2005, the total had plummeted to 3,500 cases. “I think they’re trying to rebrand,” Kel McClanahan, a Washington-based national security lawyer, told Foreign Policy. “So many good things happen to your agency when you tie it to national security.”   read more

For that, JPMorgan Chase received a deferred prosecution agreement from Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan. It will pay a $2.6 billion penalty. Dennis Kelleher of Better Markets said, "once again, not a single individual working for JPMorgan Chase has been held accountable. Banks do not commit crimes; bankers do."   read more

Goodwin says the three-term incumbent, who was unanimously chosen speaker of the city council on Wednesday, won the election after she put a Caribbean curse on the building in which Goodwin lives. Goodwin insisted that it was the mural painted on her apartment building that cost her the election, she claims in a lawsuit.   read more