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

Journalists and researchers who have long relied on foreign news posted on an open Central Intelligence Agency-fed website will lose access at the end of this year. The CIA’s Open Source Center has decided to halt its information feed to the publicly accessible World News Connection (WNC) as of December 31, ending 50 years of this service.   read more

Kurt A. Carr took Matthew Cardoza’s iPhone in December 2010 while he was making a call outside a hospital in Martinez, where he worked. Cardoza fought with Carr to get it back and, after getting punched a few times, managed to wrest it away. But did Carr really break the law, which defines theft as depriving someone of their property with the intention of permanently keeping it from them?   read more

There are a lot of things out there that Americans will choose over Congress. These include: • Hemorrhoids (which poll 22% over Congress) • Potholes (+11% above Congress) • Dog shit (+7%) • Zombies (+6%) • Toenail fungus (+3%) • Cockroaches (+2%)   read more

With about half of the workforce at the Food and Drug Administration on furlough, 91% of seafood imported into the United States is not being inspected, according to media reports. Nearly 50% of fruits and 20% of vegetables imported and consumed in the U.S. also aren’t undergoing inspection.   read more

Early in 2013, Edwin Meese III, former attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, gathered together a group of conservative activists in the capital to plot strategy for stopping Obama’s health care law from going into effect in October. The meeting produced a “blueprint to defunding Obamacare” that Meese and leaders of nearly 40 conservative groups pledged to implement.   read more

The U.S. Supreme Court this week refused to consider a lower-court ruling that struck down Virginia’s anti-sodomy law, first passed in 1960, much to the dismay of state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, who is running for governor. Cuccinelli has defended the state’s “crimes against nature” law, which bans oral and anal sex, claiming it is necessary to prosecute child predators.   read more

The law, authored by U.S. Representative Frank Wolf (R-Virginia), chair of the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA, restricts foreign nationals from NASA facilities in an effort to counter espionage. The conference at the center of the controversy will focus on NASA’s Kepler space telescope program, which searches the universe for other planetary systems.   read more

Pawasarat said the state started locking up African-Americans in droves last decade, when Wisconsin’s Three Strikes law went into effect. That caused a tripling of the prison population, and resulted in about half of the black men in their 30s or early 40s in Milwaukee County spending time in the state’s correctional facilities, he said. “And two-thirds of the men come from the six poorest zip codes in Milwaukee,” Pawasarat added.   read more

Washington scored a hit when it captured an al-Qaeda mastermind accused of being responsible for the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa. But the administration also struck out when it sent the prize of U.S. Special Forces into Somalia to capture another wanted terror leader, and came away empty-handed.   read more

America’s ascendance as an energy king has been several years in the making, as U.S. companies’ embrace of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) to tap into shale-rock formations has opened up new supplies of oil and natural gas.   read more

Issa, a conservative leader of House Republicans, supports the shutdown, a fact that did not escape Judge Jackson. “While the vast majority of litigants who now must endure a delay in the progress of their matters do so due to circumstances beyond their control, that cannot be said of the House of Representatives, which has played a role in the shutdown that prompted the stay motion.”   read more

Bataillon rejected the girl’s request to waive the parental consent requirement, saying she would have to ask her foster parents for permission. The judge’s ruling seemed to conflict with state law that says the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services is considered the guardian of wards. The judge also ruled that the girl did not demonstrate sufficient maturity to make the decision to seek an abortion.   read more

According to the complaint, Tanvir landed on the no-fly list after refusing an FBI request to work as an informant in his predominantly Muslim community. When Tanvir contacted the bureau, FBI agents offered to take him off the list in exchange for information.   read more

The case of McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission will focus on the cap that one person may contribute during a two-year election cycle to federal candidates, political parties and committees. the two political parties will likely court about a thousand super-rich donors who gave at least $134,300 0f their own money in 2012, which will give these individuals “a unique ability to set and limit the party agendas.” Two-thirds of these donors are Republicans.   read more

“Under Section 215 [of the Patriot Act], NSA is not receiving cell site location data and has no current plans to do so.” Alexander limited his answer to NSA’s present conduct under Section 215, much to the dissatisfaction of Sen. Wyden. Note what he left out of his answer: Is NSA collecting location data under any other section of the Patriot Act or under an unknown or secret source of authority? How about other agencies? Have they collected such data in the past?   read more

Alexander admitted that only 13 of the 54 cases were connected to the United States. He also told the committee that only one or two suspected plots were identified as a result of bulk phone record collection.   read more