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

Francis showered Misiewicz, and possibly another commander, with Japanese prostitutes, luxury hotel rooms, cash, plane tickets, and even a Lady Gaga concert being held in Thailand. This was done in trade for ship deployment data and to get aircraft carriers and other vessels steered to ports where Glenn Defense could overcharge the Navy for its services.   read more

Among the victims since early last year were a 68-year-old woman picking vegetables in a field with her grandchildren, and 18 laborers, including a 12-year-old boy, who were about to sit down together for a meal after a day’s work. Even when the drones don’t fire missiles, they are constantly hovering above, conducting round-the-clock surveillance with high-resolution cameras, according to the report.   read more

In an unusual, although not unheard of, decision, jurors in a federal civil rights lawsuit found Sheriff Lee Baca had personal responsibility for the jailhouse beating of a prisoner and assessed his penalty at $100,000. Attorneys for Tyler Willis filed the lawsuit in 2010, one year after Willis was tasered, beaten with flashlights and kicked at the Men’s Central Jail, causing a leg broken in two places, taser burns, lots of body bruises, a broken nose and multiple facial wounds   read more

The agency “successfully exploited a key mail server in the Mexican Presidencia domain to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon’s public email account,” according to an NSA document. The domain was also used by cabinet members, and contained “diplomatic, economic and leadership communications which continue to provide insight into Mexico’s political system and internal stability.” The agency described the president’s office as “a lucrative source” of information.   read more

The government shutdown produced a tremendous amount of negativity towards Washington on the part of media pundits, and while Congress’ reputation suffered considerably from the attacks, other parts of the federal government came out unscathed. In fact, many federal agencies and those working for them have positive or very positive ratings among Americans, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.   read more

Public schools are becoming underfunded dumping grounds for the nation’s poor students, and a new report says that for the first time in nearly 50 years “a majority of public school children in 17 states … were low income students” at the close of 2011 school year. Thirteen of the 17 states are in the South, and the remaining four (New Mexico, California, Oregon and Nevada) are in the West.   read more

Drone warfare by the United States and other nations has come under attack from the United Nations, with a top official questioning the legality of using unmanned aircraft to kill foreign citizens. Christof Heyns, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, said in a new report that countries have relied on “wide and permissive interpretations” of international law to justify lethal drone attacks.   read more

JPMorgan Chase has negotiated a tentative agreement with the Obama administration that would require the Wall Street giant to pay a record amount of money for helping cause the 2008 financial crisis. Under the proposed settlement, JPMorgan would pay $13 billion in fines and compensation to homeowners who were wronged as part of the bank’s questionable mortgage practices that linked subprime loans with securities.   read more

Prisons across the United States have subjected inmates to solitary confinement for years and even decades, raising the question whether this practice constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, or even torture. On any given day about 81,000 prisoners in the U.S. are confined within some sort of “restricted housing” unit inside a correctional facility, where they have virtually no human contact.   read more

Most physicians believe that, except for cases of deficiencies arising from specific medical problems or the effects of chemotherapy, Low-T is a myth made up by marketers. “There is no such disease” says Dr. Joel Finkelstein, a Harvard Medical School expert on male hormonal changes during aging. “The market for testosterone gels evolved because there is an appetite among men and because there is advertising. The problem is that no one has proved that it works and we don’t know the risks.”   read more

Some experts on bullying question the wisdom of bringing criminal charges against such young girls. “The decision to charge them almost seems to take responsibility away from the adults,” argued Nadine Connell, a professor of criminology at the University of Texas at Dallas, who thinks adolescents are too immature to grasp the consequences of bullying, and that the real blame should be placed on parents and school officials for failing to intervene more decisively.   read more

In the concessionaire case, plaintiffs argue that the services they provide, including general maintenance, emergency first aid, restrooms and clean drinking water, are essential to protecting the health and safety of campers, who were forced to recreate in undeveloped areas that lack any services.   read more

The abruptness of the decision caught even the highest ranking Saudi diplomats by surprise. Just hours before the reversal, Osama Nugali, spokesman for the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, forwarded a message on his Twitter account celebrating the kingdom’s election to the Security Council seat it had “sought for more than two years with the help of a team of the best Saudi diplomats to represent the kingdom.”   read more

It has been revealed that some of the people targeted by the elections board were still eligible to vote. Further adding to the controversy is the fact that the board’s legal adviser is state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for governor who, according to recent polls, is trailing Democrat Terry McAuliffe.   read more

The Nuclear Regulator Commission (NRC) has been accused of inconsistent oversight of the nation’s nuclear power plants, most of which are operating beyond their originally intended lifespan. Those with the most high-level violations from 2000 to 2012 were Davis-Besse (14) in Oak Harbor, Ohio; Cooper (11); Kewaunee (9); Perry (8); Palisades (8) in Covert, Michigan; and Fort Calhoun (8) in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska.   read more

Nearly two-thirds of this money (about $230 million) essentially got flushed because no one could account for how it was spent. The office in question blew another $138 million on spare parts to cover shortages—without first determining whether the parts were really needed. The U.S. expected the Afghans to keep records of its inventory, but they did a shoddy job.   read more