The feds are doing just fine with the tools they have, thanks. So far, 42 defendants have been charged in federal court “related to crimes committed at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C, on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Several had their initial appearances in court yesterday, January 14. […]
Off-duty police officers from around the country are turning up in photos and video footage from the January 6 Capitol riot. Two cops from Rocky Mount, Virginia, have even been arrested and indicted on federal charges, after being “photographed in the Capitol building making an obscene gesture in front of the John Stark statue.” Those […]
Trump admin gets its way on abortion pills. U.S. women seeking first-trimester, non-surgical abortions must once again undergo an unnecessary—and, in pandemic times, risky—visit to the doctor, clinic, or hospital. The Supreme Court has sided with the Trump administration in a fight over whether abortion drugs may be prescribed remotely and shipped via mail. Like […]
Encrypted apps are seeing a surge in downloads, with Signal installs reaching a record high for the company. “Signal saw approximately 7.5 million installs globally through the Apple App Store and Google Play store between Jan. 6 and Jan. 10,” notes CNBC. “That’s 43 times the number from the previous week. It is [the] highest […]
Amazon pulls plug on Parler. The relatively new social media platform Parler has—for now, at least—vanished, after Amazon canceled its web hosting contract with the company effective Sunday night. Google also banned Parler, on Friday, with Apple following suit on Saturday. The companies cite posts making threats against Mike Pence, organizing last week’s events in […]
Trump’s Section 230 plans thwarted again (thank goodness). It looks like Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai never quite found the time to “propose regulations to clarify” the meaning of Section 230, as he was instructed to do by President Donald Trump in a summer executive order. Pai told Protocol and C-SPAN that with […]
Republican losses in Georgia look clear. Tuesday’s runoff elections in Georgia appear to have handed Democrats control of the Senate, with Democrat Raphael Warnock beating incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler—though, taking a page from President Donald Trump’s election loss playbook, she isn’t conceding—and Democrat Jon Ossoff on his way to beating incumbent Republican Sen. David […]
With fresh faces in the White House and Congress, many Trump-era political agendas will soon be discarded. But the desire to use antitrust law against popular tech companies isn’t likely to go anywhere. In recent months, Republicans and Democrats have both been itching to flex their regulatory muscle against the likes of Google, Facebook, Apple, […]
President Donald Trump is making fools of congressional Republicans who continue to back him. Days after a dozen senators said they would reject the 2020 presidential election results over allegedly sincere concerns about fraud, Trump is all but openly asking people to commit fraud to throw the election to him. Insisting—against all evidence—that he actually […]
2020 is finally drawing to a close, thank goodness. Will 2021 be markedly better? A few weeks ago, that seemed like a pretty safe bet. In the midst of what seemed to be eternally rising COVID-19 case counts, we got news of not one but several successful vaccines. And then—poof!—they were being loaded in trucks […]
