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

Steven Alan Levin sued his eye surgeon after an operation at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Guam to remove a cataract in his right eye left him with diminished eyesight, discomfort and other problems. Levin claimed he twice withdrew his consent to the operation based on his concerns over the equipment. But the Navy surgeon proceeded anyway, resulting in the plaintiff developing severe corneal edema.   read more

After reviewing their files as part of a billion-dollar settlement with the federal government, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo each uncovered about 200 military members whose homes were wrongfully taken away in 2009 and 2010. A fourth bank, Citigroup, had at least 100 such foreclosures. The foreclosures violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, which requires financial institutions to obtain court orders before foreclosing on active-duty members.   read more

Joseph Torsella, deputy U.S. ambassador to the UN for management and reform, asked the budget committee if “negotiating rooms should in future be an inebriation-free zone." One diplomat, requesting anonymity, told Agence France-Presse that it wasn’t just his fellow diplomats who caused problems. “On one occasion the note-taker who was meant to be recording the talks was so intoxicated he had to be replaced.”   read more

A new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that 62% of respondents believe the Republican Party is out of touch with the rest of the country. Furthermore, 36% of Republicans feel the same way about their party. The survey also revealed that a majority of Americans (56%) think the GOP is not open to change, and 52% say the party is too extreme.   read more

As of the third quarter of 2012, corporate profits as a percentage of national income rose to 14.2%, representing the largest share at any time since 1950, according to The New York Times. However the percentage of corporate income that went to employees, 61.7%, is close to the lowest it’s been since 1966. The boom in corporate profits has not been accompanied by an increase in jobs in the United States and overall personal income has only risen 1.4% per year over the same period.   read more

If successful, this new system could raise “some thorny legal and social questions about privacy,” wrote Robert Beckhusen at Wired. One example cited by Lease involves “respecting the privacy rights of multiple people involved,” and how to gain permission of everyone talking before capturing and storing a conversation. In the hands of spy agencies, this is not expected to be an issue.   read more

Other suggested savings include limiting military bands ($2 billion), delaying the rebuilding of Abrams tanks that the Army doesn’t want ($3 billion), reducing the number of deployed nuclear weapons ($28 billion), withdrawing 40,000 troops from Europe ($32 billion) and downsizing military headquarters ($40 billion).   read more

By then the cost of the purchase had risen by $72 million, and the first planes won’t be delivered until at least April 2015 instead of the original target date of April 2014. The problem with that is that the U.S. is scheduled to withdraw most military personnel from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. That means there might not be any American trainers in the country to show the Afghans how to fly the Super Tucanos.   read more

Orcutt wrote: “If I am not mistaken, a cyclists [sic] has an increased heart rate and respiration. That means that the act of riding a bike results in greater emissions of carbon dioxide from the rider. Since CO2 is deemed to be a greenhouse gas and a pollutant, bicyclists are actually polluting when they ride.”   read more

Counting Detroit, more than half of Michigan’s African-American citizens have lost their right to urban self-governance, their cities being run instead by nearly omnipotent managers appointed by the state’s Governor, Rick Snyder, a member of the overwhelmingly white Republican Party. Voters last November voted to repeal Public Act 4, but Republican legislators used a lame duck session in December to ram through a nearly identical bill (Public Act 436) to replace Public Act 4.   read more

The change, issued late last month by the White House, could impact thousands of workers and result in making government less transparent and free from corruption, critics charged. The presidential order was issued on January 25, the day after a federal appeals court panel set aside a 2012 court decision, in the case of Berry v. Conyers, giving the government broad authority to remove employees from “sensitive” jobs without appeal.   read more

Cellulosic biomass, which is ethanol made from switchgrass, wood chips, and other fibrous, non-edible plants, has lagged far behind the goals set by Congress, largely because the cost of production has turned out to be much higher than projected in 2007. In fact, in 2012 the U.S. biofuel industry produced only 20,069 gallons of cellulosic ethanol, compared to the 500 million gallon goal set by EISA.   read more

The National Center for Law & Policy (NCLP) sued in San Diego Superior Court to suspend the yoga program already instituted in half the district’s schools. They claim it promotes Hinduism and teaches religious doctrine in place of state-required physical education. Russell Case of Jois Foundation said, “We’re good Christians that just like to do yoga because it helps us to be better people.”   read more

As a federal judge, he has presided over several high-profile cases, including the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of Vice President Dick Cheney aide Scooter Libby, the perjury trial of pitcher Roger Clemens, and a number of habeas corpus petitions filed by prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.   read more

The National Congress of American Indians replied to these remarks by pointing out that the attorney general may certify a tribal court’s eligibility to prosecute non-Indians only “after…concluding that the criminal justice system of the requesting tribe has adequate safeguards in place to protect defendants’ rights.” In addition, the Indian Civil Rights Act guarantees the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights to all those under the jurisdiction of tribal governments.   read more

There is ample evidence that U.S. horsemeat is not a healthful meat to eat. In the U.S., horses are not raised for slaughter, so horsemeat is made predominantly from former race horses and work horses, which are routinely treated with medications harmful to humans, including the anti-inflammatory phenylbutazone, a known carcinogen that has been found in horsemeat, despite an FDA ban on its administration to any horse sent to slaughter for human consumption.   read more