Politics

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Under their agreements, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis turned over more than 1,400 pages of documents, emails and text messages, along with photos and video, offering a detailed account of the scheme’s origins in Wisconsin. The communications show how they, with coordination from Trump campaign officials, replicated the strategy in six other states including Georgia, where Chesebro has already pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the 2020 election.

On New Year’s Eve 2021, the federal government launched the Affordable Connectivity Program, which has helped over 20 million American households afford internet access with monthly subsidies of $30 (or up to $75 on some tribal lands). But funding for the program is set to run out in April unless Congress acts by Friday—depriving many of those homes of vital resources, especially access to online telehealth.

Bill SB 1596 passed Oregon's House by a 42 to 13 margin. Gov. Tina Kotek has five days to sign the bill into law

Like bills passed in New York, California, and Minnesota, Oregon's bill requires companies to offer the same parts, tools, and documentation to individual and independent repair shops that are already offered to authorized repair technicians.

Unlike other states' bills, however, Oregon's bill doesn't demand a set number of years after device manufacture for such repair implements to be produced. That suggests companies could effectively close their repair channels entirely rather than comply with the new requirements. California's bill mandated seven years of availability.

Earlier today, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to vacate a stay issued by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that overruled an injunction granted by a lower court last Thursday that had temporarily struck down the law.

"Absent this Court's intervention, SB4 will go into effect at 12:01 a.m. on March 10, 2024, profoundly altering the status quo that has existed between the United States and the States in the context of immigration for almost 150 years," Justice Department lawyers said in the filing.

Last week, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas shocked the legal community when the news broke that one of his new law clerks will be Crystal Clanton—who became notorious in 2015 for apparently sending texts that said, “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story.” For most young lawyers, sending such a text would indeed have been the “end of story.” Instead, Clanton is on the cusp of clinching one of the most coveted prizes in the American legal system. In the past several years, as Clanton has risen through the ranks of conservative legal circles, the story of her alleged racist outburst has been curiously transformed into a tale of victimhood. The new narrative is that Clanton was somehow framed by an unnamed enemy who—for motives that remain unclear—fabricated the racist texts to defame her.

In its most ambitious move to date, the agency is developing rules to bar medical debt from consumer credit reports, a sweeping change that could make it easier for Americans burdened by medical debt to rent a home, buy a car, even get a job. Those rules are expected to be unveiled later this year.

The government has not publicly said what information Rocha might have divulged to Cuba or how he could have influenced U.S. policy. Rocha held high-level security clearances, giving him access to top secret information, according to the indictment.

Rocha had at least three meetings with an undercover FBI agent, whom the retired diplomat believed to be a representative of Cuba's spy agency. He referred to the U.S. as "the enemy" and said "what we have done" was "enormous" and "more than a grand slam," according to the criminal complaint.

In recent weeks, Russian state media and online accounts tied to the Kremlin have spread and amplified misleading and incendiary content about U.S. immigration and border security. The campaign seems crafted to stoke outrage and polarization before the 2024 election for the White House, and experts who study Russian disinformation say Americans can expect more to come as Putin looks to weaken support for Ukraine and cut off a vital supply of aid.

A federal judge in Texas on Thursday blocked the Republican-led state's new law giving officials broad powers to arrest, prosecute and order the removal of people who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. District Judge David Ezra in Austin agreed with Democratic President Joe Biden's administration that the law known as SB4 interferes with the federal government's powers under the U.S. Constitution to enforce U.S. immigration laws and the ability of migrants to apply for asylum and other humanitarian aid.

The stop-gap bill was part of a broader bipartisan agreement between all four leaders in the House and Senate. The deal also included an agreement on six of the twelve annual spending bills. Leaders committed to voting on those bills by Friday, March 8. The stop-gap under consideration today give them until March 22 to finish work on the remaining six bills.

For instance, Turning Point Action has used the app since at least 2022—when Superfeed’s Arizona business license was revoked—but has never reported any payments to the company on its Federal Election Commission filings. The group’s tax returns to date don’t show any Superfeed expenses, either, though their 2022 return lists payouts of $107,000 and above to three other communications consultants. According to an Associated Press report last October, Turning Point uses the app to manage voter outreach efforts—a project that boasts a $108 million budget.

Five states—Massachusetts, Colorado, Washington, New York, and Vermont—passed laws last year that protect telehealth providers who help people elsewhere in the country get abortions, according to Upadhyay. California enacted its shield law last month. As the New York Times reported last week, while these laws have not yet faced legal challenges, many expect them to. But in the meantime, they’re serving as the key to abortion access for people across the country: The Times reports that Aid Access, one of three main organizations providing telehealth abortions, serves about 7,000 patients a month, about 90 percent of whom are in states with abortion bans or severe restrictions. Advocates say telehealth abortion can also be particularly significant for low-income people and those in rural areas who may otherwise have difficulty accessing abortion clinics.

The justices agreed Wednesday to decide whether Trump enjoys "total immunity" from prosecution. The timing of that decision likely means a trial over Trump's role in Jan. 6 won't begin — much less end — before the election.

• There's nothing Trump wants more in this case than a delay. If he wins in November and hasn't been tried before Inauguration Day, there's a good chance he never will be.
• "This could well be game over," election law expert Rick Hasen wrote.

The Supreme Court is currently weighing Trump's challenge to his Colorado disqualification. The justices in Washington appeared skeptical of the decision during oral arguments in the case, expressing concerns about states taking sweeping actions that could affect the national election.

To be sure, she still has plenty of time and opportunity to cause mischief. Indeed, on the ever-important timing point, a scheduling conference Friday may signal her latest thoughts about when the case will actually see trial. She previously set a May 20 date, but there’s reason to think that could get pushed back — the bigger question may be how far, and how that scheduling interacts with the federal election interference case. And that prosecution is tied up while we await word from the Supreme Court on what it’s doing with Trump’s quest to keep that one paused.

“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” McConnell said in prepared remarks obtained by the AP. “So I stand before you today … to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”

McConnell said he plans to serve out the remainder of his term as a senator, which ends in January 2027.

Ernest Herrera, of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said: Lawyers for the intervenors are “trying every way they can to delay the Latino plaintiffs from having a map in which they can elect or have the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.”

A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed Indiana’s ban on gender-affirming care to go into effect, removing a temporary injunction a judge issued last year.

The ruling was handed down by a panel of justices on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. It marked the latest decision in a legal challenge the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed against the ban, enacted last spring amid a national push by GOP-led legislatures to curb LGBTQ+ rights.

"After carefully considering the pressure and attacks by the Washington Establishment Machine, my family and I have decided that there is no mission more important than continuing this race and standing strong for the patriots I committed to fight for," Majewski said in a defiant statement on Wednesday.

The US Supreme Court will soon decide whether to lift a ban on bump stocks, the gun attachments that let rifles fire hundreds of bullets per minute.

The Trump administration banned the stocks by classifying them as machine guns after they were used in the deadliest mass shooting in US history.

Under the 1986 National Firearms Act, owning a machine gun is illegal.

The court will hear arguments on Wednesday in the case and is expected to issue a decision in June.

Driving the news: "Boeing must commit to real and profound improvements," FAA administrator Michael Whitaker said in a press release Wednesday laying out the timeline for Boeing to establish and submit an action plan.

• The FAA is currently conducting an audit of Boeing's production and manufacturing quality systems, which is expected to be complete in the "coming weeks," per the release.

• Boeing's action plan is expected to incorporate both the findings of the audit and the results of a recent review of Boeing's practices. That review raised concerns about how the company manages safety.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/12518378

Biden signs executive order to stop Russia and China from buying Americans’ personal data | The bulk sale of geolocation, genomic, financial and health data will be off-limits to “countries of conc...::President Joe Biden has signed an executive order that aims to limit the mass-sale of Americans’ personal data to “countries of concern,” including Russia and China.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ top aides stopped the release of public records about his taxpayer-funded plane travel and retaliated against state police employees who disagreed with the decision, according to two former officials in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

In a sworn statement entered in court last week, former department Chief of Staff Shane Desguin alleges DeSantis officials stopped the release of about 600 records that would have revealed who traveled with the governor on the state plane and where it went.

The department denied the release citing a new state law shielding the governor’s travel records, according to court records.

But Desguin, who was involved in crafting the legislation, said the governor’s office misinterpreted the law, which was intended to shield records that jeopardized the safety of the governor or his family.