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

The Department of Defense downplayed the seriousness of a June 1 attack on an American military outpost in Afghanistan, raising questions as to why officials were not forthcoming two weeks ago.   Following the assault on Forward Operating Base...   read more

Lobbyists for large defense contractors have complained that Congress is trying to make life difficult for them by limiting how large their six-figure executive salaries can be and how much government business they can hog.   In the Senate ver...   read more

Doing business as a small government contractor has distinct vulnerabilities, like getting used and tossed aside by bigger contractors.   In a survey by American Express, almost 30% of small contractors said they had been victimized by bait-an...   read more

Comedian Stephen Colbert recently made light of multi-millionaire Mitt Romney’s efforts to portray himself as being just like average Americans, zeroing in on the Republican candidate’s investment in the elitist sport of equestrian dressage.   ...   read more

While competing candidates each declared victory following the presidential election, Egypt’s military made clear just who is in charge of the country, which has been trying to transition towards democracy.   Hours after the polls closed, mark...   read more

The Roman Catholic Church in America, whose complicity in decades of sexual abuse of children by its priests and other clerics has already cost it at least $2.5 billion for legal fees, out-of-court settlements and prevention programs, is fightin...   read more

It’s often said that an election year is never a good time to ask Congress to tackle significant political issues. Between the distraction of running for reelection and the fear of doing anything controversial that might upset voters (or major c...   read more

Michigan’s Republican state legislators are apparently very sensitive folks, at least when it comes to words describing female sexual anatomy. Last week, during a debate over a proposed law that would ban all abortions after 20 weeks with no exc...   read more

The nation’s top weather forecaster is a twenty-year veteran of the National Weather Service (NWS) who has forecast the weather in such diverse climes as Alaska, Hawai’i and North Carolina. Laura K. Furgione is the National Oceanic and Atmospher...   read more

Federal prosecutors in North Carolina have been aware for nearly a year that dozens of North Carolinians currently incarcerated in federal prisons should not be there, but they have done next to nothing to help them, and in at least once case ar...   read more

Americans are overweight and getting fatter, probably because they are sugar addicts. From 1971 to 2000, obesity rates in the United States more than doubled, from 14.5% to 30.9%, and today about 68% of U.S. adults are overweight and 33.8% are o...   read more

Oregonian Gary Haugen is having trouble making up his mind whether he wants to live or die. The 49-year-old prisoner has been on death row since 2007 for fatally beating and stabbing fellow inmate David Polin in 2003, while Haugen was serving a ...   read more

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the military’s secretive, high-tech operation responsible for inventing the forerunner to the Internet (ARPAnet) and the technology behind the stealth fighter, unmanned drone aircraft, globa...   read more

Francisco Reynoso has been in a world of hurt since the death of his son. Not only has Reynoso grieved the loss of Freddy Reynoso, but he’s also suffered an onslaught of bill collectors seeking repayment of the son’s college loans.   When Freddy...   read more

Scientists conducting research into autism suffered a serious setback recently when a large number of brain tissue samples were destroyed by a freezer malfunction.   The accident occurred at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, which hou...   read more

Reporters covering the trial of a man accused of plotting to blow up George W. Bush cannot interview the alleged assassin, a federal appeals court ruled this week.   Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, a Saudi Arabian citizen who had chemical engineering ...   read more