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

1. Dredge, excavating, and loading machine operators—0.0% 2. Medical transcriptionists—0.3% 3. Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters—0.3% 4. Dental hygienists—0.5% 5. Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers—0.9%   read more

The statements revealed that the firm Romney founded got away with not paying income taxes on at least $1 billion in accumulated fees by converting them into investments that produced capital gains, which are subject to a federal tax of only 15%. Had the fees been recorded as income, Bain would have owed 35% in tax.   read more

In a similar case, on January 31, 2011, DHS seized the sports streaming sites Rojadirecta.com and Rojadirecta.org. However, on August 29 the government dropped its case against Rojadirecta and returned the domain to its Spanish owners without explanation. To date, DHS has seized about 700 domain names as part of “Operation In Our Sites.”   read more

At one point, according to Hayes’ complaint, “Barr moved the entire contents of the offices of three male employees, including name plates, computers, and telephones, to the men’s bathroom at ICE headquarters.” In addition, “Barr took an ICE blackberry device assigned to a male Special Agent in Charge and sent a Blackberry Messenger message to his female supervisor indicating that the male employee had a crush on the female supervisor and fantasized about her.”   read more

1. Drywall installers, ceiling tile installers, and tapers—59.7% 2. Graders and sorters, agricultural products—51.5% 3. Miscellaneous agricultural workers—49.5% 4. Cement masons, concrete finishers, and terrazzo workers—47.8% 5. Roofers—47.3%   read more

1. Appraisers and assessors of real estate—0.0% 2. Chiropractors—1.3% 3. Medical transcriptionists—2.1% 4. Financial analysts—2.7% 5. Artists and related workers—2.8%   read more

Recently, federal and state judges have blocked some of these laws. In most cases, the judges issuing the opinions have been those who were appointed by Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. However, this is not always the case. The most notable exemption has been the rejection of Texas’ redistricting plan, in which two of the three judges who denied the Republican redistricting were appointed by President George W. Bush.   read more

Republicans claimed it was necessary to restrict access to early voting in order to curb voter fraud and that voting on the weekend and Monday interfered with preparations for Election Day. Economus disagreed with the rationale. The Clinton-appointed judge wrote that all Ohioans have a constitutionally protected right to participate in elections on an equal basis.   read more

The judges found the new legislative and congressional boundaries violated the Voting Rights Act and weakened the political clout of minorities who were the reason why Texas grew in population and gained four more seats in Congress. Latinos accounted for 65% of the increase, blacks 13.4% and Asian-Americans 10.1%, yet Latinos did not gain any seats in the Republican redistricting plan.   read more

Democrats say damage has already been done as a result of the 48-hour provision. Over the past year, Democratic Party registration increased by only 11,365—compared to an average of 209,425 each year from 2004 to 2008. While Democrats struggled to register new voters, the number of registered Republicans went up by 128,039 from 2011 to 2012.   read more

The voter ID law, which GOP lawmakers and Governor Scott Walker adopted, was declared unconstitutional in March by Circuit Judge Richard G. Niess. A second judge, David T. Flanagan, ruled the law invalid in July following a nonjury trial. Niess was appointed by Governor Jim Doyle, a Democrat, in 2004 and then elected in 2011. Flanagan was appointed by Governor Tommy Thompson, a Republican, in 1999 and then elected in 2012.   read more

Since the economic recovery began, low-wage occupations ($7.69 to $13.83 an hour) have made up 58% of all job growth, even though these jobs represented only 21% of job losses during the downturn. What the country lost the most was middle-wage positions that paid $13.84 to $21.13 an hour. These accounted for 60% of layoffs from 2008 to 2010. So far, middle-wage jobs have made up only 22% of employment growth.   read more

The US Chamber of Commerce, like many large trade associations, is international in scope and has many foreign business members. Although the Chamber claims that money received from foreign source is segregated from domestic money, there is no way of knowing if that is true, because there’s no way to audit foreign corporate spending when it occurs through trade associations.   read more

Active since the late 1980s, the group has been involved in numerous attacks, including the July 2008 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, the December 2009 Camp Chapman attack, and the September 12, 2011, attack on the US Embassy and nearby NATO bases in Kabul. Nonetheless, the group, known as the Haqqani Network after its founder and leader, Jalalludin Haqqani, has not been officially designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government.   read more

Regular readers of AllGov may have noticed that we have updated the site. As part of this changeover, the AllGov RSS feeds have been changed. Please click on the RSS button above to keep up with the feeds. Thank you.   read more

In April, the Obama administration approved Shell’s emergency blueprint for containing an accidental blowout. The plan was designed to deal with a spill as large as 480,000 barrels of oil that, at that size, could reach the edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill dumped about 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.   read more