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

In what may be the first death penalty case of its kind, an Ohio convicted killer avoided execution with only hours to spare after Governor John Kasich (R) issued a stay for the purposes of organ donation. Ronald Phillips asked that his death by lethal injection be delayed so doctors could remove one of his kidneys and transplant it into his ailing mother. He also wants to donate his heart to his sister, who suffers from heart disease.   read more

The IRS wants to eliminate a tax break that financially has benefited wealthy landowners, but also preserved historic buildings and open lands. That’s why getting rid of the tax deduction may prove difficult, what with conservationists and rich individuals teaming up to fight the change. Under a provision in the tax code, landowners can deduct millions of dollars from their tax bills if they own—and don’t alter—the historic structures they own.   read more

Members of Occupy Wall Street have shifted their activism from street protests to raising money to alleviate the medical debts of thousands of Americans. Rolling Jubilee, a creation of Occupy’s Strike Debt group, has purchased $14.7 million owed by individuals, largely as a result of medical expenses. Remarkably, the group managed to do this while spending only $400,000 of the more than $622,000 it has raised so far for the debt-relief cause.   read more

Given Republicans’ persistent efforts to downsize the federal government—and reduce the number of federal jobs in the process—one would assume that GOP areas wouldn’t have much to lose as a result of such cost-cutting measures. But it turns out the highest concentrations of federal employment actually exist across the Sunbelt of the United States, where Republicans tend to dominate political office.   read more

The procedure involves TSA officers spotting passengers who appear suspicious, and then engaging them in conversation to make a further determination as to their potential as a threat. “TSA has yet to empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of the program despite spending about $900 million on it since 2007,” Steve Lord, who directed the investigation for the GAO, told the Associated Press.   read more

A British inquiry into how the government of the United Kingdom decided to join the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 is being held up by officials in the White House and the U.S. State Department, which have refused to allow the publication of secret documents revealing conversations between former President George W. Bush and former Prime Minister Tony Blair.   read more

Winona (2010 pop.: 27,592) sees about 100 sand trucks go through town every day from silica mines in neighboring Wisconsin, and will be the first local government in the United States to address air pollution caused by the shipment of fracking sand. A single fracking well may need as much as 10,000 tons of sand during its lifetime, and about 50 new such wells are being drilled in the U.S. every day.   read more

Nominated August 1 to serve as the next ambassador to Morocco, businessman Dwight L. Bush, Sr., was a leading campaign contribution bundler for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, raising more than $500,000. Bush is the president of D. L. Bush & Associates, a Washington, DC-based financial advisory and business consulting firm.   read more

ZMTL is not the only Afghan contractor thought to be playing both sides of the war. In fact, Sopko estimates that over the past five years more than $150 million in contracts and subcontracts has gone to companies and individuals accused of assisting terrorist groups.   read more

Chin wrote, " It has given scholars the ability, for the first time, to conduct full-text searches of tens of millions of books. It preserves books, in particular out-of-print and old books that have been forgotten in the bowels of libraries, and it gives them new life. It facilitates access to books for print-disabled and remote or underserved populations."   read more

The trading of foreign currencies represents the richest of all exchanges in the financial world, what with $5 trillion in monies changing hands every day. Now the U.S. Department of Justice is going after traders at the world’s largest banks who may have conspired via instant messaging to manipulate the price of currency exchanges..   read more

Karen Clark Stanton has been executive director in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs since 2009. From 2008 to 2009, Stanton was the deputy executive director in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, rising to executive director in 2009.   read more

Matthew T. Harrington has been the director of the Office of Analysis for Africa in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department since 2012. From 2010 to 2012, Harrington served as a foreign policy advisor to the Commander of United States Army South, the army component of U.S. Southern Command.   read more

Mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenses were supposed to result in consistency within the U.S. judicial system when it came to punishing those caught using or selling illegal drugs. But the sentencing laws have not been consistently enforced, thanks to local prosecutors, some of whom have zealously punished small-time drug offenders.   read more

Officers stopped about 2.4 million individuals between 2009 and 2012, and arrested 150,000 (6%)—of whom only half were found guilty or pleaded guilty, according to a report (pdf) by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office. Two percent of those arrested – or 0.1% of all stops – led to a conviction for a violent crime, and only 2% of arrests led to a conviction for possession of a weapon.   read more

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) identified 3,281 inmates who will never leave prison, even though they did not commit murder. Among them are men and women who shoplifted, stole gasoline or tools, or tried cashing a stolen check, and as a result, wound up being sentenced to life without parole. African-Americans make up the vast majority of these individuals: 65%. In one state, Louisiana, 91% of those serving life for non-violent crimes are black.   read more