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Category: Law/Crime

Biden has ‘done more damage to the foundations of international law than Trump did’

Biden has ‘done more damage to the foundations of international law than Trump did’

The New York Times reports: No foreign policy issue has been more divisive for Mr. Biden than his support for Israel throughout its war in Gaza. Emma Ashford [a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan research group] said the administration’s hypocrisy was exposed by “the split-screen much of the world sees on Gaza and Ukraine — with an administration who says one conflict is an unacceptable war crime, and the other self-defense.” The Israeli military, supplied with American…

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Net neutrality rules struck down by appeals court

Net neutrality rules struck down by appeals court

The New York Times reports: A federal appeals court struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s landmark net neutrality rules on Thursday, ending a nearly two-decade effort to regulate broadband internet providers as utilities. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, said the F.C.C. lacked the authority to reinstate rules that prevented broadband providers from slowing or blocking access to internet content. In its opinion, a three-judge panel pointed to a Supreme Court decision in June, known…

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The little-known federal agency that’s primed to crack down on dissent

The little-known federal agency that’s primed to crack down on dissent

Spencer Reynolds writes: President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to implement a slate of controversial policies in his second term, including military strikes on Mexican drug cartels, restrictions on abortion pills, a new “Muslim ban,” immigration raids, and mass deportations. Any one of these moves is likely to bring tens of thousands of protesters onto the streets. Trump has made it clear he will meet opposition with force. A major player in that crackdown will be the Federal Protective Service, a little-known but powerful law-enforcement…

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John Roberts absurdly suggests the Supreme Court has no ‘political bias’

John Roberts absurdly suggests the Supreme Court has no ‘political bias’

Rolling Stone reports: In his first term as president, Donald Trump built a conservative 6-3 supermajority on the Supreme Court. Ever since, the nation’s highest court has repeatedly issued increasingly extreme, far-right decisions on topics of abortion, race, the environment, corruption, and much more. The Supreme Court has eliminated federal protections for abortion rights; limited the federal government’s ability to regulate carbon emissions, protect Americans’ drinking water, and limit ozone pollution; gutted federal agencies’ ability to implement regulations generally; opened…

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How Trump went from backing a TikTok ban to backing off

How Trump went from backing a TikTok ban to backing off

The New York Times reports: Four years ago, President Donald J. Trump denounced TikTok, the Chinese-owned video sharing app, as a threat to America’s national security. This week, as Mr. Trump prepares to retake the White House, he called it a “unique medium for freedom of expression.” The comment was part of a brief he filed to the Supreme Court on Friday, asking the justices to pause a ban on TikTok set to take effect next month so that he…

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Colorado man accused of attacking TV reporter while yelling: ‘This is Trump’s America now’

Colorado man accused of attacking TV reporter while yelling: ‘This is Trump’s America now’

The Associated Press reports: A Colorado man is facing possible bias-motivated charges for allegedly attacking a television news reporter after demanding to know whether he was a citizen, saying “This is Trump’s America now,” according to court documents. Patrick Thomas Egan, 39, was arrested Dec. 18 in Grand Junction, Colorado, after police say he followed KKCO/KJCT reporter Ja’Ronn Alex’s vehicle for around 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the Delta area. Alex told police that he believed he had been followed…

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How to buy a piece of a lawsuit and impoverish a country

How to buy a piece of a lawsuit and impoverish a country

Inside Climate News reports: When a foreign mining company sued Greenland in 2022, the government’s lead lawyer thought he was prepared. Paw Fruerlund had handled similar cases before, and he believed the law and facts were on his side. When he arrived at one of the first hearings, however, Fruerlund stared across the table at 12 corporate lawyers from two firms representing his opponent, an Australian company called Greenland Minerals. There were so many, they spilled across two rows of…

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Trump’s choice of Gaetz to be AG revealed their mutual contempt for the law and women

Trump’s choice of Gaetz to be AG revealed their mutual contempt for the law and women

David Firestone writes: There is so much repellently sleazy behavior documented in the House Ethics Committee report about Matt Gaetz that a reader has to stop every few pages to look away and focus on what still seems astounding: This is the man that Donald Trump wanted to be the attorney general of the United States, the highest-ranking law enforcement official in the land, the leader of the Department of Justice. Trump wanted to give that position to a man…

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Push to ban highly profitable TV drug ads will face strong resistance

Push to ban highly profitable TV drug ads will face strong resistance

The New York Times reports: Since the late 1990s, drug companies have spent tens of billions of dollars on television ads, drumming up demand for their products with cheerful jingles and scenes of dancing patients. Now, some people up for top jobs in the incoming Trump administration are attacking such ads, setting up a clash with a powerful industry that has long had the courts on its side. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for health secretary,…

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Trump signals plans to use all levers of power against the media

Trump signals plans to use all levers of power against the media

The Washington Post reports: For many years, Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to sue the press but often didn’t follow through. When he did, he almost always lost. But Trump’s recent settlement with ABC News and a cascade of lawsuits and other complaints against media entities from him and his allies signal a ramped-up campaign from the president-elect. Together, the action has spurred concerns that his efforts could drastically undermine the institutions tasked with reporting on his coming administration, which Trump…

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Trump and allies are waging campaign against media to stifle dissent, experts warn

Trump and allies are waging campaign against media to stifle dissent, experts warn

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump and his allies have started to wage a campaign against media organisations in the US that are critical of the president-elect by launching lawsuits that media experts warn are designed to stifle dissent and potentially put them out of business. The tactic appears to be to aggressively pursue legal action against news organisations – which Trump has long dubbed “enemies of the people” – by asking for often hefty sums in damages. The cases are…

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Journalist arrests surge in 2024 amid Israel-Gaza war protests

Journalist arrests surge in 2024 amid Israel-Gaza war protests

U.S. Press Freedom Tracker reports: While revelers and protesters alike gathered near New York City’s Times Square on Dec. 31, 2023, a freelance reporter rang in the new year from a holding cell 10 blocks away. Roni Jacobson was attempting to cover a pro-Palestinian demonstration for the New York Daily News when she said she bumped into a rookie officer and was quickly arrested. She was released after nearly 24 hours in custody when the charges against her for obstruction…

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Human Rights Watch: Israel is guilty of extermination and acts of genocide in Gaza

Human Rights Watch: Israel is guilty of extermination and acts of genocide in Gaza

Middle East Eye reports: Israel is guilty of the crime of extermination and acts of genocide in Gaza, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has concluded in a new report published on Thursday. The US-based human rights organisation found that Israel has inflicted conditions of life in Gaza calculated to destroy the enclave’s Palestinian population. This amounts to extermination, which is a crime against humanity, and acts of genocide. Coming two weeks after fellow rights group Amnesty International similarly concluded that Israel…

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Understanding Elon Musk’s conflicts of interest

Understanding Elon Musk’s conflicts of interest

  Upon his reelection, President-elect Donald Trump tapped Tesla (TSLA) CEO and vocal supporter Elon Musk to co-lead a proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) alongside Vivek Ramaswamy. The agency would aid in cutting down the government’s excess spending and overregulation. Could there be a conflict of interest in giving an industry titan such as Musk this much authority? Columbia Law School professor Richard Briffault explains the expectations from the public and lawmakers if this DOGE is formalized as an…

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How billionaires have sidestepped a tax aimed at the rich

How billionaires have sidestepped a tax aimed at the rich

By Paul Kiel This story was originally published by ProPublica Fourteen years ago, Congress set out to remedy a basic unfairness in the tax code. The tax that funds Medicare, because it’s aimed mainly at wages, hits even the poorest American workers. But the wealthy could easily avoid paying their share. So lawmakers created a new type of Medicare tax to capture the kinds of income the rich often enjoy: interest, dividends and capital gains from investments. A host of…

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Elon Musk’s failure to follow federal security rules prompts questions about what he is trying to hide

Elon Musk’s failure to follow federal security rules prompts questions about what he is trying to hide

The New York Times reports: Elon Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX, have repeatedly failed to comply with federal reporting protocols aimed at protecting state secrets, including by not providing some details of his meetings with foreign leaders, according to people with knowledge of the company and internal documents. Concerns about the reporting practices — and particularly about Mr. Musk, who is SpaceX’s chief executive — have triggered at least three federal reviews, eight people with knowledge of the efforts…

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