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

Both the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation have publicly opposed New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ban on large sodas. Critics say the NAACP’s decision may have been influenced by the large donations it has received from Coca-Cola. For example, the Coca-Cola Foundation last month awarded $100,000 to the NAACP’s Project HELP initiative. And the Hispanic Federation recently lost its president, Lillian Rodriguez Lopez, to Coca-Cola after she accepted a position with the soft drink giant.   read more

A total of 20 now serve in the U.S. Senate (an all-time high), while the House also reached a new high mark with 17.9% female representation. Despite this success, there are still six states that have yet to elect a woman to the House of Representatives: Iowa, Mississippi, Delaware, Alaska, North Dakota and Vermont. Internationally, the United States still ranks in only 77th place in terms of the percentage of women in its national legislature.   read more

While Marsh was in Washington on Monday, Senate Republicans adopted a new redistricting plan that, among other things, would create a new seat that includes part of Marsh’s district. The GOP managed to get their plan approved on a 20-19 vote. Had Marsh, a Democrat, been in attendance, the plan likely would have failed on a tie vote.   read more

Brune explained that the organization has always been committed to “lawful means” to achieve its goals, including lobbying, litigation and grassroots organizing. “Now, for the first time in our history, we are prepared to go further,” he added, without specifically saying what the Sierra Club plans to do. He has said that it will deal with the exploitation of tar sands and its relationship to climate change.   read more

“Obama has thrown disclosures to Congress into question by claiming these new rights for whistleblowers ‘threaten to interfere with my constitutional duty to supervise the executive branch,’” Canterbury wrote. “This is especially disturbing given that Obama has long supported whistleblowers and has previously kept every promise to strengthen protections for them.”   read more

A “dream team” of engineers were responsible for developing the software (Narwhal) behind Obama’s campaign website and databases. With the election over, these tech wizards want to share their achievement with the coding community so other developers can study it and make it even better. But Democratic politicos would prefer to sit on the technology. If Republicans want to duplicate the Obama campaign’s success, let them figure it out for themselves, they argue.   read more

Northside Independent School District in San Antonio began its Student Locator Project that called for all students to carry badges embedded with radio frequency identification (RFID). District officials claimed the devices would help them monitor troublesome students. One 15-year-old student, Andrea Hernandez, objected to wearing her badge for religious reasons. She was then removed from her magnet school, Jay High School, for not complying with the school’s policy.   read more

A new Bloomberg poll of 921 subscribers to Bloomberg Professional service revealed that 47% of global investors surveyed said they are reducing their investments in the U.S. as a direct result of “repeated confrontations between the U.S. Congress and President Obama.” More than a third of respondents said the nation’s fiscal problems pose the biggest threat to the world economy, while 29% chose Europe’s sovereign debt crisis and 15% named China’s slowing economy.   read more

Among the school districts with questionable content were those of Lubbock, Amarillo, Ector County (Odessa) and Longview. Lubbock used a textbook that included fake quotes from Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and Herbert Hoover. The district has agreed to suspend use of the book. In Amarillo Students are urged to learn about “fulfilled prophecy” and to create a “Messianic prophecy list.” They are also taught that Jesus is superior to “Jewish leaders…and their priests.”   read more

Oxfam recommends that the rich donate all of their earnings from 2012, which totaled about $240 billion. The report also suggested that world leaders take action to reduce the widening gap between rich and poor, with a goal of bringing inequality back down to at least 1990 levels. Oxfam proposed that closing tax havens and taxing capital gains at normal rates would raise at least $189 billion a year.   read more

During the 2010-2011 school year, there were 1,065,794 homeless students in preschools and K-12 schools, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. This marked the first time in history that public schools reported more than one million homeless children and youth.   read more

The CIA will be exempted from the rules for at least a year. Agency leaders objected to being bound by the playbook, citing the pressing need to continue bombing Taliban and al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan before the U.S. withdraws from neighboring Afghanistan, where the drones are based. Critics of the government assassination program view the playbook as indicative of the institutionalization of the U.S. killing policy.   read more

two products with specific functions for surveillance, filtering and censorship―ProxySG and PacketShaper―were in widespread use. ProxySG was detected in Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, while PacketShaper was in Afghanistan, Bahrain, China, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela.   read more

Some observers said the email was intended to strengthen McConnell’s support among conservatives. The Senate minority leader faces reelection next year, and the McConnell camp may be worried about heading off a potential primary challenge. McConnell was blasted by those on the right for helping resolve the fiscal cliff drama, with some calling the deal “the McConnell tax hike.”   read more

Obama met with the White House press corps 79 times over four years. His predecessor, George W. Bush, held 89 press conferences. Bill Clinton had 133, and George H.W. Bush 142. Reagan held only 27 press conferences during his first term. When meeting with reporters, Obama demonstrated a preference for fielding questions from certain news outlets over others. ABC led the way with 29 chances to query the president, followed closely by CBS (28), the Associated Press (27) and NBC (26).   read more

The provision buys Amgen another two years of selling the drug without federal caps. That’s great news for the company’s bottom-line, but bad news for Medicare, which will pay an extra $500 million for the drug. The delay will go a good way towards making up for Amgen’s most recent criminal activity. On December 19, Amgen—as a corporate entity—pleaded guilty to illegal marketing of its anti-anemia drug, Aranesp, and agreed to pay penalties totaling $762 million.   read more