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 memo reportedly addressed eight troubling episodes involving officials, including the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, suspected of routinely patronizing underage prostitutes in a public park. The incident was investigated in 2011 and Gutman was recalled to Washington, D.C. He was instructed to meet with Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy, but was then allowed to return to his post.   read more

Justice officials may have decided to discontinue the legal fight because of its potential to draw too much attention to a hotly debated topic. Organizations that have supported the drug’s unrestricted availability are continuing to pressure the government to expand the ruling to include generic versions of Plan B. The controversial pill prevents conception if it is taken within three days of having sexual intercourse.   read more

Zions received a cut of the fee received by Modern Payments for each person whose account was accessed. Between 2007 and 2009, Zions allowed about $39 million to be withdrawn from hundreds of thousands of its accounts, much of which was transferred to other bank accounts in India, Canada and the Caribbean. This enabled Zions to charge $20 million worth of insufficient funds fees to its customers who had been scammed.   read more

Apparently, the legal or national security implications of publishing the remaining slides may have dissuaded the newspapers’ editors from going all in on the major story. “If you saw all the slides you wouldn’t publish them,” the Post’s Barton Gellman posted on Twitter, adding in a second tweet: “I know a few absolutists, but most people would want to defer judgment if they didn’t know the full contents.”   read more

Presumably, the information gathered includes phone calls, emails, text messages, social network posts, credit card purchases and bank transactions, among other items of interest. Whether the Bush and Obama administrations have shared this information with “friendly” dictators is not known…yet.   read more

Ellsberg was initially charged with theft, conspiracy and violating the Espionage Act of 1917, all charges against him were eventually dropped, and he was widely regarded as a hero. Forty years later, the Obama administration and its allies have gone to great lengths to portray Manning as a traitor, and they appear to be gearing up to do the same with Snowden.   read more

Booz Allen Hamilton earns 98% of its revenue from government work, including nearly a quarter of all its revenue (or $1.3 billion) through intelligence work. Nearly half of Booz Allen’s 25,000-strong workforce has top secret security clearances—which aren’t always approved by actual government employees. Instead, the process of granting security clearances is often handled by contractors for other contractors.   read more

In July 2009 Obama told CNN that “if it appears that our conduct in some way supported violations of the laws of war, I think that we have to know about that.” When asked recently by ProPublica about the state of the investigation, the White House said it was still “looking into” the ordeal. Susannah Sirkin, director of international policy at Physicians for Human Rights, told ProPublica that the Obama administration’s effort was “half-hearted and cynical.”   read more

The Power Fire began after a crew of workers were careless with their cigarettes in a heavily wooded area with extreme hazardous fire conditions. The workers were employed by VCS Sub Inc., which PG&E had hired to trim trees and brush around a utility distribution line. The fire damaged protected habitats for the northern spotted owl, caused harmful erosion into watersheds, and destroyed artifacts in Native American historical sites, according to federal prosecutors.   read more

Crossing the border to enter or leave the U.S. can mean border agents legally searching, and even confiscating, a person’s laptop, cell phone and other electronic devices—solely on the grounds of having a “hunch” that something may be amiss. Agents with Customs and Border Protection and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement have seized Americans and others’ possession without any real suspicion of wrongdoing or possible threat.   read more

The appellate court said limiting layoffs to unionized employees violated their constitutional right of association. “[I]mportantly, defendants have not shown why the State’s fiscal health required firing only union members, rather than implementing membership-neutral layoffs,” Judge Gerard E. Lynch wrote for the court.   read more

In the case of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, it gave Vertex Pharmaceuticals $75 million to develop Kalydeco, considered a “breakthrough” drug that could reap big profits. The foundation has already enjoyed a big return on its investment, collecting royalties on sales of the drug before selling its rights to future royalties to an investment firm for twice the amount it gave Vertex.   read more

From the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachian range to the Texas panhandle, American families have found themselves with contaminated water supplies. Time and time again they have blamed the problem on hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) and won settlements from drilling companies—but only if the victims agree never to talk about the impact that fracking had on their lives.   read more

Although Comey donated more than $7,000 during the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, his money went to Obama's Republican opponents, Arizona Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney. But Comey became a political hero on the moderate Left in January 2006, when reports surfaced regarding his role two years previously in averting a constitutional crisis by forcing the George W. Bush White House to accept certain changes to its warrantless wiretapping program.   read more

Northrop Grumman hopes DHS will like its automated tracking device that was first developed to help soldiers detect roadside bombs in Afghanistan. General Atomics, which builds reconnaissance drones, is hoping to sell more of the aircraft as part of a $443 million contract. If the legislation as currently drafted becomes law, DHS will have only six months to offer up ways to achieve “effective control” and “persistent surveillance” of the entire 1,969-mile border with Mexico.   read more

Several explanations have been suggested for this decline. Many of the most important discoveries have already been made; the patients who volunteer for clinical trials have become more difficult to treat; the quality of clinical trials has improved, with studies using a greater number of patients. Others blame a weak regulatory system that allows pharmaceutical companies to make minor advances, market these new drugs aggressively and increase profits as each minor advance comes along.   read more