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

Law enforcement officials and drug policy analysts told the newspaper that the figure was inflated because NDIC relied on self-reporting by police, instead of using documented criminal cases involving Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. Some local police chiefs were surprised to learn that the NDIC claimed cartels were operating in their cities. “That’s news to me,” Randy Sobel, chief of police in Middleton, New Hampshire, told the Post.   read more

Lots of retirements would reduce the size of the federal payroll, which would be a welcome cost-saver. Agencies could hire younger replacements with key skills, like cybersecurity and information technology. However, in some cases, replacing retirees who have specialized skills may not be easy to do. These people would include nuclear physicists at the Department of Energy and experienced air traffic controllers who have spent decades carefully guiding aircraft across American airspace.   read more

In an attempt to clear up this backlog, the VA instituted a “credit system” with claims workers to encourage faster processing of paperwork. More than $5.5 million in bonuses were handed out under the system, which inadvertently encouraged VA employees to process less-complex claims first. Consequently, claims from veterans with more complicated cases languished, creating more delays and problems.   read more

$2 billion is no small amount of money. But, considering that total expenditures by the federal government only went down from $3.457 trillion in 2010 to $3.455 trillion today, the reduction isn’t all that much. Another way to look at it is this: federal spending fell by only 1/20 of 1%.   read more

There are 81 public defender offices across the U.S. that handle 60% of all criminal defendants in the federal court system. These offices first were hit with a 10% budget cut earlier this year after sequestration kicked in. In the 2014 fiscal year, the offices could suffer another 23% reduction, plus another 10% cut due to additional budget trimming measures.   read more

Solzhenitsyn’s three-volume narrative about the Soviet-era forced labor camps was written between 1958 and 1968, smuggled out of the U.S.S.R., and first published in the West in 1973. The word “gulag” has been used by critics to describe Guantánamo. Solzhenitsyn’s work isn’t the only book kept from detainees. Last month, all of John Grisham’s books were banned at the prison.   read more

Under the Affordable Care Act, employers will be required to cover healthcare insurance for part-time employees working 30 hours or more a week. To get out from under this new requirement, cities and counties are trimming these workers’ hours so they have 29 or fewer hours per week. Local officials say they must take these steps because of limited resources, even though the mandate won’t go into effect for another 16 months.   read more

A surgeon left the operating room during a procedure, forcing residents to continue unsupervised until another surgeon was found. Although he was suspended for 14 days without pay, the surgeon got $11,189 in performance pay, nearly three-quarters of what he could have gotten.   read more

The IRS, according to the complaint, has flouted the intent of the statute by writing regulations that gut its social welfare requirement. Although the regulation “recognizes that electoral activity does not fall within the scope of activity promoting social welfare,” it also states that it is sufficient for an organization to operate “primarily” to promote social welfare, rather than “exclusively” so.   read more

Public health advocates, anti-tobacco activists and corporate watchdog groups are criticizing the Obama administration for capitulating to big tobacco lobbyists by gutting a proposal to ensure that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) cannot be used to undermine anti-smoking laws and regulations. The TPP is a broad trade treaty being negotiated—in secret—by the U.S. and 11 other countries.   read more

Starr was principal deputy assistant secretary and director of the diplomatic security service. He also served as the acting assistant secretary for DS from October 2007 to July 2008 following the resignation of Richard J. Griffin in the wake of controversies regarding the killing of Iraqi civilians by private contractors. After retiring from the Senior Foreign Service, Starr served as United Nations under-secretary-general for Safety and Security from May 2009 to January 2013.   read more

Over the last 50 years, the jobless rate for blacks has consistently been twice as high as the rate for whites, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In 1963 the ratio of black unemployment to white unemployment was 2.2; in 2012 it was 2.1. In 1967, the median black household earned 55% of what the median white household earned. By 2011, that gap had nudged up only to 59%.   read more

Chambers, who is black, was performing Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready,” which he had dedicated to Trayvon Martin and his family, when Andrews-Potter climbed on the stage and attacked him. The moment was captured on video and shows the 43-year-old woman being wrestled to the ground by onlookers. Chambers was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.   read more

The FBI eventually identified 1,553 pages of potentially responsive records and released 356 pages (some redacted) including training materials; notes about particular groups or elements; program assessments; electronic communications; and maps. The agency argued that the remaining 1,200 pages were exempt from disclosure because they could affect law enforcement proceedings. The ACLU disagreed and filed suit.   read more

Prosecutors withheld “significant impeachment evidence” by not disclosing that key witness Barbara Cabral—whose testimony was the only evidence directly linking Seda to the Chechen mujahedeen—had been paid $14,500 by the FBI. “The records of the FBI’s payments…would have shaded the jurors’ perceptions of Cabral's credibility,” wrote Judge M. Margaret McKeown.   read more

From 2004 to 2010, Winfree was chief litigation counsel for Freeport-McMoRan Corporation, which through its subsidiary, Phelps Dodge, is one of the world’s largest producers of copper, gold and other industrial and precious metals. He also founded the Eight Iron Golf Apparel Company to market his two patents, registered in 1995, for a “sport shirt or other garment provided with a load-distributing shoulder yoke for relieving the strain resulting from carrying a golf bag.”   read more