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 United States poured more than $50 billion into reconstructing Iraq after blowing a lot of it up during the war. But the mess that the U.S. created transcended buildings and infrastructure that were demolished—it also made a mess of accounting for how the money was spent, and as a result wound up losing at least $8 billion.   read more

Pharmaceutical and technology companies were most likely to take advantage of U.S. laws that help them avoid taxes on earnings overseas by creating foreign subsidiaries and then shifting patents and marketing rights to these subsidiaries. Prime examples were Pfizer, Merck and Johnson & Johnson, and Microsoft, IBM, Cisco and Apple.   read more

In 2009, the number of ex-soldiers waiting more than a year for their VA care totaled 11,000. By December 2012, the list had ballooned to 245,000 veterans, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting. Those filing for the first time who live in major urban centers can wait more than 600 days before they receive help. In New York City, the delay can be 642 days, and in Los Angeles 619.   read more

In the statement filed in a Maryland federal court, the Justice Department said all individuals—not just credentialed photojournalists—have a First Amendment right to record law enforcement officers performing their duties. The department added that Americans are protected under the Fourth and 14th Amendment from having their recordings seized without a warrant or due process.   read more

34% of U.S. households possessed guns, according to a new national survey. But only 4.4% of Americans (13.7 million) went hunting, based on data collected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Much more often, Americans buy guns for self-defense, although two-thirds of gun-related deaths were suicides.   read more

Manchin was recently dubbed the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, according to National Journal. OpenSecrets.org went even further in assessing Manchin’s political standing, claiming the first-term senator is the only member of Congress who enjoys higher ratings from Republicans than from those in his own party.   read more

Until now, the government has relied on the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), a joint resolution passed by Congress three days after 9/11, which served as the legal basis for hunting down Osama bin Laden and other leaders of al-Qaeda. But the AUMF limited military action against terrorists to anyone connected to the 9/11 attacks.   read more

Gen. Franklin—who is not a judge and did not attend Wilkerson’s trial—has the power to overturn the verdict because he is Wilkerson’s commander. Under the military’s bizarre system of law, Franklin is not required to explain his decision, which is final—it cannot be reviewed or overturned, not even by the secretary of defense or the president.   read more

The court, which decides appeals arising from nine Western states, ruled that border agents must have at least a “reasonable suspicion” of criminal wrongdoing in order to seize electronic devices and perform forensic examinations of them—the first court to apply any restriction to the so-called “border exception” to the Fourth Amendment.   read more

The 14 near misses at 16 reactors detailed by the report that took place in 2012 include an electrical failure that compromised the cooling system and required a manual reactor shutdown at the River Bend Station near St. Francisville, Louisiana (10 mile radius pop.: 41,244); a cooling water leak at the Palisades plant near South Haven, Michigan (pop.: 34,103); and equipment failures at the Byron plant near Rockford, Illinois (pop.: 36,110).   read more

Many people might find it weird that Venezuelans embalmed Hugo Chávez and put him on public display. However Americans have not been immune from preserving the bodies of the deceased. Here are eight examples: two criminals, a hobo, a baseball player, two horses, an elephant and a gorilla.   read more

The Copyright Office had previously exempted cell phones from the rule, but determined that the wide availability of unlocked phones meant an exemption was no longer warranted. Because the Library of Congress is not an Executive Branch agency, but instead is part of Congress, the President lacks the power to order a change in policy. Consumers fought back, however, angry that wireless carriers were given all the power over unlocking cell phones, even those purchased at full price.   read more

As Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) said in response to HSBC’s fine for laundering drug cartel money, “If you’re caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you go to jail. If you’re caught repeatedly, you can go to jail for life….If you launder nearly a billion dollars in drug money, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night.”   read more

Just the second Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice to be convicted in almost three centuries, Justice Melvin was found guilty of six counts of corruption—including theft of services, criminal conspiracy, and misappropriation of state property—on February 21 for using government employees to work on her 2003 and 2009 campaigns for Supreme Court justice, which is an elected position in Pennsylvania.   read more

Following news last week of underground storage tanks leaking toxic waste, the contractor hired to clean said tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Site has admitted to committing fraud. The company, CH2M Hill Hanford Group Inc. (CHG), admitted that its workers padded their time cards, with the company’s blessing, for years from 1999-2008, thus defrauding the government.   read more

While at Washington Mutual, Jewell joined the board of outdoor products retailer REI, the nation’s largest consumer cooperative, in 1996. In 2000, the board hired her to be REI’s chief operating officer, and in 2005 she succeeded Dennis Madsen as chief executive officer. Jewell has promoted green policies at REI, which uses energy-efficient building materials, buys renewable energy, and offsets the carbon emissions from store-sponsored travel-adventure packages.   read more