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

Quietly and after many members had left for the weekend, the Senate voted Thursday night to approve a new bill, S. 716, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), that no one had read, and that was not publicly available on the Library of Congress website until after the vote. The purpose of the bill was to gut key provisions in the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act.   read more

The federal Department of Education is making big money from student loan payments. Its direct loan program yielded a $27.5 billion profit on loans made in 2011, $24 billion on loans made in 2012, and is expected to earn $33.5 billion on loans made in 2013. If a doubling of the student loan interest rate scheduled for July 1, 2013, goes into effect, the rate will go from 3.4% to 6.8%   read more

Among those who were invited to testify were representatives of the American Association of Airport Executives; the Express Association of America, which lobbies for DHL, FedEx, UPS and TNT; and Airlines for America, whose mission is to “foster a business and regulatory environment that ensures safe and secure air transportation and enables U.S. airlines to flourish.”   read more

Nineteen horses died suddenly of no apparent cause during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, according to the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB). Another 17 have similarly died in the months since. Only six such deaths occurred in 2010-2011 and four the year before that. Several trainers told The New York Times they have never lost a horse to a heart attack or under these kinds of mysterious circumstances.   read more

A 25-year veteran of federal law enforcement, Shawn A. Bray acts on behalf of the Attorney General as the official U.S. representative to Interpol. He joined USNCB Interpol in February 2010, serving as deputy director in Washington through October 2012. Bray speaks fluent Spanish and is an enthusiastic owner of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.   read more

A few years ago dark pools made up only a small percentage of all trading. But, recently, there have been days when these shadowy transactions comprised nearly 40% of all deals, up from 16% in 2008. In January, daily dark pool trading actually surpassed the New York Stock Exchange with 920 million trades to 900 million for the NYSE.   read more

The parental effort was “assisted” by Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles advocacy group whose largest benefactor is the conservative Walton Family Foundation, according to journalist Gary Cohn. Cohn says that the foundation has contributed $6.3 million since 2009. The Parent Revolution’s next largest contributor is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ($1.6 million), the Laura and John Arnold Foundation ($1.5 million) and the Wasserman Foundation ($1.5 million).   read more

The research was compiled from samples collected from countries in Asia and Europe, including the Czech Republic, Bhutan, Italy, China, Taiwan, India and Thailand. The highest levels were found in samples from Taiwan and China. Concerns over lead add to another health risk involving rice—the presence of arsenic.   read more

"Designed to be a gun, never redesigned to be something else, not so dilapidated as to be beyond repair, the gun fits the statutory definition and the judgment must therefore be…AFFIRMED.”   read more

Kmec spent the first half of the new century's first decade as the number two man at two key embassies, serving as deputy chief of mission at Slovakia's embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, from 2000 to 2002, and holding the same title at Slovakia's embassy in Washington, DC, from 2003 to 2005. Kmec was appointed to his first ambassadorship in 2007, serving as Slovakia's ambassador to Sweden from August 2007 to July 2012.   read more

Two years ago, the Independent Foreclosure Review proclaimed homeowners who suffered “financial injury” could get as much as $125,000. It now turns out only 1,135 borrowers will see this amount. This small group mostly includes members of the U.S. military who had their homes taken away from them, as well as 53 non-military homeowners who endured foreclosure even though they didn’t default on their loans.   read more

These facts run contrary to President Barack Obama’s public claims that drone attacks are carried out only against “specific senior operational leaders of al Qaida and associated forces” involved in the 9/11 attacks who are plotting new “imminent” violent attacks on Americans.   read more

ICE will have to gain permission to enter and investigate a home, and if possible, communicate with the residents in their native language. In cases involving Spanish-speaking suspects, ICE teams must include Spanish-speaking agents. The agency also must obtain consent in order to enter other parts of a home, such as a backyard.   read more

After going through the longest state trial in New Hampshire’s history, a jury took less than 90 minutes to find Exxon Mobil Corp. guilty of contaminating groundwater supplies with the gasoline additive MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether). Not only was the trial, which lasted three months, the state’s longest, but it also yielded the largest civil verdict: $236 million.   read more

When the testimony of Wilkerson and his wife were in conflict, Franklin interpreted this as proof that they had not colluded in creating a cover story. Wilkerson was convicted by an all-male jury of raping a woman while she slept in his home. He was sentenced to a year in the brig and discharged from the Air Force. Franklin used his authority to overturn the court’s decision, which allowed the accused to return to active duty.   read more

Under a new plan revealed to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), the IRS will expend 18% less effort auditing businesses with assets of $10 million or more compared with just two years ago. The agency also sees itself devoting 14% less time for specialized revenue agents to conduct corporate audits in FY 2013, compared to what was allocated in FY 2011.   read more