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

In order to reach his ruling, Bates had to ignore the actual legislative history of the provision, including Congressional hearings and pro-disclosure statements on the floor of Congress by its sponsors. The oil companies were represented by Eugene Scalia, son of Justice Antonin Scalia.   read more

“Defendant Officer David Cawthorn outlined the defendants’ plan in his official report: ‘It was determined to…attempt to contact Mitchell. If Mitchell answered the door he would be asked to leave. If he refused to leave he would be arrested for Obstructing a Police Officer. If Mitchell refused to answer the door, force entry would be made and Mitchell would be arrested.’”   read more

The complaint charges that, as part of the force-feeding procedure, the government is forcibly dosing detainees with a drug that can cause serious neurological disorders, including tardive dyskinesia, which are involuntary movements similar to those in Parkinson’s disease. The drug, metoclopramide, popularly known as Reglan, is supposed to speed up digestion and reduce nausea caused by force-feeding. According to the FDA, Reglan can also cause depression, suicidal thoughts and suicide.   read more

The three-year pilot program is believed to be the first in the nation to put full-time yoga instructors in each of a district’s schools and has an opt-out option for parents who don’t want their children to participate in the 30-minute, twice-weekly classes.   read more

The Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program was implemented following the 2001 Anthrax attacks that killed five people, including two postal workers. It involves computers used by the USPS that photograph the exterior of all paper mail processed in the U.S. Last year, the Postal Service handled about 160 billion pieces of mail.   read more

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) obtained a report produced by CPB in 2010 that shows the agency has considered equipping its Predators with “non-lethal weapons designed to immobilize” targets of interest. Given the date of the report, it is possible that the weaponization has already taken place. It is unclear at this time what kind of weaponization CPB has in mind for the drones.   read more

Although the intended course of the ballistic missile was known, the interceptor missile missed its target and both had to be destroyed by remote control. The military has conducted sixteen tests of this ground-based midcourse defense system, which has passed only eight times and suffered three straight failures since its last success in December 2008.   read more

Taco Bell, Walgreens and Walmart are among the dozens of well-known companies that now use the prepaid cards for their workers. In some cases, employees no longer have the option of being paid by check or direct deposit. But using the cards usually means paying a fee, such as 50 cents for a balance inquiry, $1.75 for each cash withdrawal, or $2.25 for using an out-of-network A.T.M, or $2.95 for a paper statement, or $7 for not using the cards over a period of time.   read more

The Obama administration seems to be in a rush to deport a Russian immigrant who may have witnessed the FBI shooting of her Chechen roommate who was interviewed in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings. Tatiana Gruzdeva, 19, from Russia, was arrested on May 16 for overstaying her visa. She had been living with Ibragim Todashev, whom the FBI questioned about his connection with Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev. During the questioning, an FBI agent shot and killed Todashev.   read more

Americans are confronted with hospital costs for delivering a child that can range from $30,000 to $50,000, according to a new report commissioned by three health care groups. In European countries, like France, the Netherlands and Switzerland, the cost tops out at $4,000 (assuming the mother does not require a Cesarean section). In others, like Ireland, there is no cost at public hospitals. No other country comes close to spending so much on its next generation of citizens.   read more

David Sirota argued that the editorial demonstrated the “Post’s higher-ups are apparently so ideologically committed to subservience and to the national security state that they felt the need to take the extraordinary step of publicly reprimanding their own source and their own newsroom for the alleged crime of committing journalism.”   read more

The prison, which can house up to 1,700 inmates, saw four prisoners killed by other inmates in a seven-week period between December 19, 2012, and February 5, 2013. That prompted state officials to finally do something about the problem, by spending $1 million on an emergency contract to replace the locks. In September 2012 an audit determined that 184 out of 442 locks at Hays failed.   read more

Lopez, who serenaded Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov with a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” appeared at the event that was hosted by the China National Petroleum Corporation, which is trying to improve its involvement with Turkmenistan’s natural gas industry, Turkmenistan being China’s largest foreign supplier of natural gas.   read more

From 2002-2004, Haslach oversaw the multi-billion-dollar reconstruction program intended to fix some of the damage caused by war. Haslach then served two straight stints as an ambassador, first as ambassador to Laos from 2004 to 2007, and then as ambassador to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, headquartered in Singapore, from 2007 to 2009.   read more

Montana has become the first state in the U.S. to require that police obtain a search warrant before using a person’s cellphone records to track their whereabouts. Federal legislation—the Geolocational Privacy & Surveillance Act (pdf)—was recently introduced in Congress, but neither the House nor the Senate has taken it seriously so far.   read more

The U.S. Forest Service now spends nearly half of its yearly budget on wildfire protection, the report says, and more than 10% of the entire budget of the Department of the Interior. Federal fire protection expenses have gone up in part because of the more severe fire seasons. But it is also a result of allowing developers to build homes in and near forests and other wildlands that are at risk from wildfires.   read more