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

More than 90% of sugar beets and soybeans and 88% of corn grown in the U.S. are genetically engineered, according to the organization. Sugar beets are the preferred sweetener for 55% of prepared, sweetened foods, and 79% of salad oil is made from soybean oil. EWG did not include in its estimates several foods that are commonly genetically engineered, such as canola oil, cottonseed oil, papaya, yellow squash and miscellaneous soy products.   read more

“I would even argue that if you’ve got one graduate degree and you borrowed a lot to pay for it, your second graduate degree will be free,” study coauthor Jason Delisle told Raw Story. “It gets rid of any incentive for law schools to bring down their cost.”   read more

Two years ago, the Army allocated $10.7 million to take part in a Washington conference and trade show organized by the Association of the United States Army, a Virginia-based group that brings together defense contractors and members of the military. The Army spent nearly the same total ($10.6 million) in 2011 for the same event, before finally deciding this year to limit to $1.3 million the Army’s expenditure for this year’s event, which will take place in Washington D.C. October 22-24.   read more

The ACLU says the litigation represents the first of its kind to directly make allegations against an investment bank, rather than a lender, of violating federal civil rights laws. Morgan Stanley stands accused of violating the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which prohibits unfair lending practices, and the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which bans discrimination for credit transactions, including mortgages.   read more

Defense procurement officials are supposed to resolicit bids in some cases so that more than one offer is on the table for consideration. But the IG faulted the Pentagon for not realizing “potential cost savings associated with increased competition and re-competing $390.9 million in contract modifications.”   read more

According to the Kaiser analysis, for those remaining in traditional Medicare, 53% would pay more, with the average premium increased by $720 annually. Among participants in private Medicare Advantage plans, 88% would pay higher premiums unless they switched to less expensive plans with less coverage and/or higher deductibles. The average premium hike in this group would be $1,044 more annually, according to the study.   read more

What McDonalds and Burger King do is classify food items, like the Whopper, as intellectual property and charge franchises a fee to sell them. But instead of collecting the fees in the U.S., where the Internal Revenue Service would demand taxes, the fast food operations house the fees in low-tax countries, like Switzerland. The scheme has allowed Burger King to pay the Swiss an effective tax rate of 2% to 12%, instead of a 35%-39% rate in the U.S.   read more

Environmental activistbTimothy DeChristopher, who garnered national attention for falsely bidding on oil-drilling leases during the Bush administration, has been released from prison. Jailed for two years for bidding at a December 19, 2008, Bureau of Land Management auction without any intent to pay, DeChristopher will spend the remaining six months of his term at halfway house in Salt Lake City.   read more

No “federal law exists that prevents corporations from requiring, on pain of termination, that employees attend one-sided partisan speeches, rallies, videos, or other events that advocate the election of specific candidates or parties....nothing prohibits employers from requiring employees to participate in one-sided political propaganda events."   read more

More than 80% of all ballots in Ohio are cast at polling places that handle more than one precinct. Oftentimes, poll workers will give a ballot for the wrong precinct to a voter who must cast a provisional ballot because they don’t have proper identification or other reasons. In these instances, the state threw out such ballots. In 2008, about 14,000 ballots were not counted because they were cast in the wrong precinct at the right polling place.   read more

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week reinstated at least for the time being Montana’s campaign donation limits. The law capped individual contributions to the governor’s race to $630 and contributions to a state legislative candidate to $160, although the amounts were adjusted for inflation after each election cycle. The law also limited the total amount political parties could contribute to a campaign—for example $22,600 for a gubernatorial candidate.   read more

Almost half of Wall Street revenue goes to salaries and other compensation. The average annual compensation for securities industry employees in New York has gone up 16.6% in two years to $362,950. Yet, despite firms making more money, they’re still laying people off—1,200 so far in 2012—this after shedding 20,000 positions since 2007. Bank of America alone dropped 12,624 employees over the past year.   read more

A new study of 2,047 retractions of biomedical and life-science research articles published between 1973 and May 3, 2012, says that only 21.3% of the time are retractions the product of honest errors. That means misconduct is behind three-quarters of retractions. The misconduct includes suspected fraud (43.4%), duplicate publication (14.2%) and plagiarism (9.8%).   read more

If the homeowner’s request is rejected or the homeowner objects to the amount of compensation, the homeowner is not allowed to challenge the figure. The homeowner’s only avenue for an appeal is to sue Bank of America. Given the resources available to the average foreclosed homeowner compared to the resources available to BofA, this is an unlikely avenue of appeal and one whose outcome is heavily skewed in favor of the bank.   read more

Analysts credit rising home values, declining unemployment and stock market strength for the growth in consumer confidence, which has been reflected in other measures as well. UMSRC’s index of consumer expectations six months from now rose to its highest level since July 2007, and its monthly gauge of current conditions improved by 3.4%. Last week’s Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index remained near a three-month high.   read more

The multi-billion dollar “Medicare Advantage Quality Bonus Payment Demonstration” program, which was part of President Barack Obama 2010 health care reform, was supposed to give extra money to private plans that do a good job of providing high-quality care, Instead, the bonus payments have been given to “virtually all MA plans.”   read more