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

One of the counties hardest hit by the housing debacle that helped crash the U.S. economy has been quietly considering a plan to use its eminent domain powers to seize underwater mortgages to fight foreclosures.   Banks are not happy with the ...   read more

Random drug testing of government employees, this time by the U.S. Forest Service, was struck down again recently by a federal appeals court, which called the agency’s policy of drug testing all employees of the Job Corps Civilian Conservation C...   read more

Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company last week accidentally became the first American insurance company to publicly state that it will not cover damage caused by the controversial gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” ...   read more

Like other Internet service providers, Verizon is fighting to derail the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) rules for network neutrality. But Verizon has set itself apart from other ISPs with its legal arguments for why the FCC’s Open Int...   read more

The cargo ship Ana Cecilia, carrying humanitarian goods directly from the United States to Cuba, arrived in Havana Bay on Friday, the first direct shipment since President John Kennedy imposed a U.S. embargo on Cuba in February 1962. He did so a...   read more

The state of Georgia, which in 1988 became the first state to prohibit executions of mentally disabled convicts, is set this week to execute a death row inmate who has been declared mentally disabled by a state court. Warren Hill, already in pri...   read more

Even if you listened closely you wouldn’t have heard the sound of decaying tubes carrying radioactive steam through the now-shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station between San Diego and Los Angeles.   And you would have to look ver...   read more

Federal safety experts recommended during the Nixon administration that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issue a rule protecting workers from extreme heat. Forty years later, OSHA still has not done so, even after hundred...   read more

The U.S. Department of Justice is taking Texas to court for allowing an agricultural office to pay women significantly less money than their male counterparts.   Three former female employees of the now-defunct Texas Department of Rural Affair...   read more

The Southeast Asian nation of Malaysia has sent a career diplomat to serve as its next ambassador to the United States, replacing a political appointee, Datuk Seri Dr. Jamaluddin Jarjis, who served in Washington for two-and-a-half years. (“Datuk...   read more

A government program that allows businesses to implement “voluntary protection” for its workers has resulted in missed inspections, numerous industrial accidents and at least 80 deaths.   The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA...   read more

The “Death Master File” is once again causing troubles for the Social Security Administration (SSA).   A database listing Americans who have died since the 1960s, the Death Master File is used by the SSA and other federal agencies to determine...   read more

Reports produced by Congress’ think tank would become available to the public under bipartisan legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.   The Public Access to Congressional Research Service Reports Resolution of 2012 (H. Re...   read more

While nothing in its policy guidelines say it’s supposed to be this way, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has distributed the vast majority of its nonprofit security grants to Jewish organizations.   During one three-year period (2007...   read more

Mayor Chris Doherty of Scranton, Pennsylvania (population: 76,000), is not a popular man with public employee unions, not after slashing the salaries of 398 police, firefighters and other city workers down to minimum wage ($7.25/hr) starting with ...   read more

An often overlooked, but nonetheless important aspect of the foreclosure crisis has involved property tax lien foreclosures.   When a property owner falls behind on mortgage payments, local governments can impose a tax lien that, if not paid...   read more