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

Most of the decrease is likely due to global warming, itself the consequence of pollution and the cutting down of forests, according to scientists. NASA’s researchers attribute this year’s unusually large loss to Arctic ice not to warm weather this year, but to increased temperatures in previous years that broke down thicker ice cover.   read more

Congress has adopted more than 330 laws that grant the use of administrative subpoena power to dozens of federal offices. This has resulted in agencies issuing hundreds of thousands of these subpoenas every year, without having to officially report just how many of them are being served.   read more

Some banned items came as no surprise: guns, knives, explosives. But so were baseballs, fresh whole fruit, bottled water, flashlights and disposable coffee cups. Footballs, however, are fair game to be tossed around on the convention floor.   read more

Andrea, a former entertainment lawyer, then met physician Todd Katzman, whom she agreed to marry. The two registered for gifts at Bloomingdale’s and participated in a ceremony in Palm Springs on May 2, 2009, after which Andrea told her children she considered herself married to Katzman. She and Katzman even signed a Jewish marriage contract known as a ketubah.   read more

The $66.3 billion in 2011 represented more than 77% of all international arms sales, which totaled $85.3 billion. Russia was the second leading dealer in military goods, selling only $4.8 billion. The enormous U.S. haul was driven largely by deals with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.   read more

This statistical fact would be just another example of income inequality in America were it not for the fact that U.S. taxpayers are paying for defense contracts, and the CEOs’ salaries are factored into the tab for the contracts which, in some cases, are awarded without competition.   read more

Last year, immigrant entrepreneurs founded 28% of all new U.S. businesses, even though immigrants only make up 12.9% of the population. The study also found that new business growth among immigrants increased by more than 50% between 1996 and 2011. In contrast, the business-formation rate for the native-born declined by 10% during the same period.   read more

Using clinical data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the experts found that 12% of young adults had abused prescription opiates. Of this group, 57% had previously abused alcohol and 56% cigarettes. Only 34% had abused marijuana.   read more

U.S immigration courts weren’t designed to handle children. Unlike criminal or family courts, immigration courts provide no legal representation for those who can’t afford a lawyer. This can mean children, some as young as six, have to go before a judge to speak on their own behalf without having any idea what is happening to them.   read more

Real median household income has actually fallen by 4.8% since the recession’s end. Even more surprisingly, they found that the decline since June 2009 was larger than the 2.6 percent decline that occurred during the recession. Adding them together, Green and Coder conclude that average household income has fallen 7.2% since December 2007. According to Green, “almost every group is worse off now than it was three years ago.   read more

Pennsylvania Senior Deputy Attorney General Patrick Cawley admitted under oath that the state was unaware of any case of in-person voter fraud having ever been committed in Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania’s Republican House Majority Leader Mike Turzai said that the voter ID law would help deliver the state for Mitt Romney in November.   read more

The lawsuit targets President Obama’s June 2012 decision to grant “deferred status” to some undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, which would delay immigration enforcement action against them for at least two years, as well as a June 2011 memo by ICE Director John Morton ordering immigration officials to focus scarce resources on dangerous illegal immigrants, such as those with criminal records for violent crimes.   read more

In 2010, the FWS diverted the stream, causing water to no longer flow through the church’s property and interfering “with its exercise of baptisms and religious prayer and meditation,” according to the church’s lawsuit.   read more

Three hundred and eighteen workers at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were arrested and 260 convicted of various crimes in 2011. The charges ranged from smuggling drugs to obtaining child pornography to committing bribery and threats with a deadly weapon. According to a report by the inspector general of DHS, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had the largest percentage of DHS workers who broke the law.   read more

Much of what organized religion does has little to do with charity and more to do with institutional self-preservation and even political activity. In 2008, for example, giving to the Mormon Church spiked while it was playing a crucial role in passing a California ballot measure banning gay marriage.   read more

Section 1502 requires companies to examine their supply chains to determine and disclose if their products contain minerals from the DRC or surrounding countries. SEC officials estimate that section 1502 would cost companies $3 billion to $4 billion initially to comply and another $206 million to $609 million annually for compliance.   read more