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 prosecution of former analyst Stephen Kim under the Espionage Act is based on charges that he orally disclosed classified defense information to someone in the media, but does not allege that he stole or gave away documents, acted with intent to harm the U.S., received money, or acted in secret. Kim is accused of giving Fox News reporter James Rosen secret information—that North Korea was planning to test a nuclear bomb.   read more

There had been speculation that Blythe Masters, one of JPMorgan’s top executives and global head of commodities, would be sanctioned for her role in the affair. But that didn’t happen, despite what the investigators originally termed her “false and misleading statements under oath.” Although Masters is considered a pioneer in the use of complex financial instruments called credit derivatives, she reportedly told investigators that she didn’t really understand how the scheme even worked.   read more

Agency veteran Kevin Shea was appointed administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in the U.S. Department of Agriculture on June 18, 2013. From 1992 to 2000 Shea was director of budget and accounting, and from 2000 to 2004 he was deputy administrator for policy and program development. Shea served as associate administrator from September 2004 to May 2012. He has been acting administrator since then.   read more

When the mistake was discovered, Chong was severely dehydrated, he had lost 15 pounds, his liver and kidneys were giving out, his sodium levels were off the charts, his muscles had atrophied and he was hallucinating. He had broken his glasses and tried using shards to carve a goodbye message to his mother on his body. He only got as far as an “S” for “sorry.” He was finally found covered in feces and taken to Sharp Hospital, where he ended up in intensive care.   read more

Of the 59 members of Congress (not including this year’s five inductees) who appeared on the list from 2004 through 2012, 37% of them eventually lost reelection, failed in a campaign for higher office, resigned in scandal, or retired.   read more

The capabilities of XKeyscore for domestic spying include the following: • Analysts can use XKS to intercept an individual’s internet activity in “real-time.” • Analysts can use XKS to read an individual’s emails, whether open or unopened. • Analysts can use XKS to monitor social media, including the content of Facebook chats or private messages, and can re-create an individual’s online activities, including search terms entered and websites viewed.   read more

The issue arose during a 2011 antitrust trial between two drug companies (SmithKline Beecham and Abbott Labs) fighting over the anti-HIV medication Norvir when a lawyer for Abbott used a peremptory strike to eliminate an apparently gay man (who said of his “partner” that “he’s retired,” and “he doesn’t have to work”) from the jury pool.   read more

A person who is arrested for a felony may have this fact in their FBI file—but if the charges were dismissed or reduced, this latter information may not be on hand with the FBI. That means a background check would reveal a job candidate was arrested for a felony, but it would not reveal to the potential employer that the person was never convicted or even went to trial. One-third of felony arrests in the U.S. are ultimately dismissed and charges are frequently reduced.   read more

Banks are using bounced checks and overdrafts to blacklist more than a million low-income individuals. The rejections can last as long as seven years, when the black marks disappear from databases used exclusively by banks. These private databases were first established 20 years ago to help banks combat fraud. Now, however, institutions like Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo use them to avoid providing accounts to risky customers.   read more

Two former Republican leaders in Florida subsequently admitted that their party’s efforts to limit voter fraud were really about preventing Democrats from getting to the polls on Election Day. Indeed, about 60% of voters discouraged by the long precinct lines in Florida would have voted Democratic, according to Ohio State University professor Theodore Allen.   read more

In a 2-1 ruling by a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel of judges, the court said police can bypass getting a search warrant and compel cell phone companies to turn over location data for a customer because the information is “clearly a business record” and therefore not protected by the Fourth Amendment, which guards against illegal searches. Presumably, anyone who purchases a cell phone automatically gives up a certain about of privacy.   read more

Clarksville decided to train several dozen of its teachers and staff to qualify as armed security rather than “tying our money up in [hiring] a guard 24/7,” according to Hopkins. The cost to the school district for Clarksville’s program is $50,000 for training and ammunition, and $1,100 per participant for the purchase of a handgun and holster. The training sessions involve role-playing scenarios, performed on the campus.   read more

The biggest mistakes were made by USDA's Risk Management Agency, which issues crop insurance. Between 2008 and 2012, the agency paid 3,434 policyholders a combined $22 million in subsidies one or two years after their death. Similar mistakes were made by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which paid out $10.6 million to 1,103 individuals one year or more after their death.   read more

Anyone can use wget to store downloaded files, and yet the government managed to convince the military court that Manning’s use of it amounted to computer fraud. Prosecutors argued that wget was not on the list of “approved” programs for use in the facility where Manning worked. They also claimed that using an unauthorized program to help store the secret documents amounted to a digital “trespass,” thus computer fraud.   read more

A city was placed on the list if 25% of its current population lives below what scientists project will be future high-tide levels. Among those taking this threat seriously is the Pentagon, which has plans in the works for relocation of its bases to avoid the expected calamity. One of those is the nation’s largest naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, whose installations on the waterfront are expected to find themselves submerged by the 2040s.   read more

Senior CIA officials, including then-CIA Director George Tenet, approved the operation even though Nasr wasn’t wanted in Egypt and wasn’t on the U.S. list of top al-Qaeda terrorists. Condoleezza Rice, then the White House national security adviser, also had misgivings about the case, especially what Italy would do if the CIA were caught, but she eventually agreed to it and recommended that President Bush approve the abduction.   read more