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 eavesdropping discovery has raised concerns not only among defense lawyers, but also civil libertarians who point out the government could conduct warrantless spying with the bracelets.   read more

Iceland has once again demonstrated itself to be the best place on earth for women to live, having finished first for the fifth year in a row with the world’s smallest gender gap. The United States was ranked 23rd..The five countries with the biggest gender gap were all predominately Muslim: Yemen, Pakistan, Chad, Syria and Mauritania.   read more

The documents detailed at least 65 strikes that the Pakistani government was informed about, including dozens of drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal region. Pakistan even allowed the CIA to launch its Predator drones from local airstrips for a period time during the campaign. It also participated in the selection of drone targets. Pakistani officials were provided with maps, as well as before-and-after aerial photos of targeted compounds from late 2007 to late 2011   read more

Smith has been “verbally and physically abusive to staff, and often becomes belligerent and disruptive, resulting in numerous complaints from other patients,” St. Francis claimed. She has even called the police, public health officials and others to complain if her room is not a constant 83 degrees, according to the complaint.   read more

Currently serving as director of the Office of Regional and Security Affairs for the Bureau of African Affairs at the State Department, John F. Hoover served two straight postings in Africa, as economic counselor at the embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, from 2004 to 2008, and as deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Kampala, Uganda, from 2008 to 2010.   read more

The airship could even withstand hostile fire, thanks to a blend of unique fabrics, including bullet-proof Kevlar. But the humongous, floating surveillance center became 12,000 pounds overweight (cutting its endurance capability by 75%), fell eight months behind schedule and, after only one brief test flight over New Jersey, the Army decided to cancel it.   read more

During their phone call, Obama reportedly told Merkel that the U.S. was not listening in on her phone conversations. When reporters subsequently asked White House press secretary Jay Carney if the NSA had previously monitored Merkel’s calls, he responded that he wasn’t able to answer that question.   read more

One of Joseph’s favorite targets was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “Had few policy goals and no wins” … “[California Republican lawmaker Darrell] Issa is an ass but he’s on to something here with the @HillaryClinton whitewash of accountability for Benghazi” … “@ChelseaClinton seems to be assuming all of her parents’ vices ...” And he once tweeted that the State Department “has shitty staff.”   read more

The investigation found “that in many cases, information carrying no apparent investigative value is treated no differently from information that does give rise to reasonable suspicion of criminal or terrorist activity. Basically, the chaff is treated the same as the wheat,” the report states.   read more

Robles explained that she had three children and no food at home, and was desperate to feed her family. She was looking for work, but meanwhile money had run out and her children could not be fed. Thomas checked Robles’ criminal record, which contained no serious prior arrests. Nor was she a habitual shoplifter. So the officer charged the mother with a misdemeanor, and then proceeded to buy $100 worth of groceries for Robles to take home.   read more

Numerous problems have plagued the U.S. Air Force’s nuclear missile silos, including a protective blast door twice being left open while officers were asleep. Protocol for the service’s ICBM force allows a silo operator to sleep during long shifts, but only as long as security procedures are followed, which include shuttering blast doors designed to keep intruders out of the classified facilities.   read more

Despite repeated warnings from experts, the federal government under President Barack Obama has continued to allow farmers to pump livestock with antibiotics intended for humans, which has increased health risks for Americans. A new study from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (JHCLF) blamed the lack of meaningful change in livestock-antibiotics policies on the agricultural and pharmaceutical industries, which have lobbied to block new laws and regulations from being adopted.   read more

Law enforcement must obtain a warrant before attaching GPS trackers to suspects’ vehicles, a federal appeals court ruled this week. The decision resolved a legal question left unanswered after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 (United States v. Jones - pdf) that police violated a suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights by putting a GPS device on his vehicle. The high court declined to rule at the time whether such a search was unreasonable and had required a warrant.   read more

The United States is unlikely to experience another airline hijacking like those that occurred during 9/11, according to a secret government document mistakenly made public by a federal court. The document, created by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), said terrorists are not focused on American commercial jets—an admission that could undermine the agency’s use of controversial body scanners at airport checkpoints.   read more

The federal bureaucracy is not the ever-expanding blob that conservatives warn so much about, not according to the latest employee numbers out of Washington. As of September, and before the government shutdown, federal offices employed 2,723,000 individuals—the lowest figure on record since 1966, when there were 2,721,000 employees.   read more

TSA claims that the purpose of the expanded passenger data scans is to identify low-risk passengers in order to lighten their security screening at the airport and thus make actual searches more targeted. Previously, the air travel background checks, called Secure Flight, only involved a comparison of a passenger’s name, gender and date of birth to terrorist watch list data. Now it is clearly much more.   read more