“A ProPublica/Washington Post analysis of Facebook posts, internal company documents and interviews, provides the clearest evidence yet that the social media giant played a critical role in spreading lies that fomented the violence of Jan. 6… Facebook groups swelled with at least 650,000 posts attacking the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory between Election Day and… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Congress
Researchers Find Election Falsehoods Surged on Podcasts Before Capitol Riots
The New York Times: “A new study analyzed nearly 1,500 episodes, showing the extent to which podcasts pushed misinformation about voter fraud….Researchers at the Brookings Institution reviewed transcripts of nearly 1,500 episodes from 20 of the most popular political podcasts. Among episodes released between the election and the Jan. 6 riot, about half contained election… Continue Reading
Hundreds of crimes, little punishment: Inside the sentences since the Capitol attack
Politico: “This is a living database that will be updated weekly with new sentencing information, analysis and data throughout 2022. More than 150 people have pleaded guilty to storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, but relatively few defendants have received prison time for their role in the insurrection. A POLITICO analysis of every sentence to… Continue Reading
States are redrawing every congressional district in the U.S. Here is where we stand.
Politico: “What is redistricting, and why does it matter? Every 10 years, each state redraws its political lines. These processes take months to unfold in state capitals all around the country — and their results mold the balance of power in Congress for a decade. Our analysis uses local voting tallies and Census data to… Continue Reading
New Series of CRS Reports on Constitutional Analysis
LSB10675| The Modes of Constitutional Analysis: An Introduction (Part 1) Brandon J. Murrill Dec 29, 2021: “This Legal Sidebar Post is the first in a nine-part series that discusses certain “methods” or “modes” of analysis that the Supreme Court has employed to determine the meaning of a provision within the Constitution. (For additional background on… Continue Reading
1 in 3 Americans say violence against government can be justified, citing fears of political schism, pandemic
“The Post-UMD poll, coming a year after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, marks the largest share of Americans to hold that view since the question was first asked more than two decades ago. The findings represent the largest share to feel that way since the question has been asked in various polls in… Continue Reading
Dave Barry’s 2021 Year in Review
Washington Post – Vaccines, variants and supply chain woes: A look back at the past 12 months….our point is not that 2021 was massively better than 2020. Our point is that at least it was different. A variant, so to speak. And like any year, it had both highs and lows. No, we take that… Continue Reading
House panel asks Supreme Court to say by mid-January whether it’s taking Trump’s January 6 records case
CNN – “Former President Donald Trump appealed to the Supreme Court on Thursday to block the release of documents from his White House to the House committee investigating the January 6 riot at the Capitol, escalating his effort to keep about 700 pages of records secret. Hours after Trump’s request was filed, the House committee… Continue Reading
The World’s Most Profitable Traffic Jam
“Welcome to BIG, a newsletter about the politics of monopoly. If you’d like to sign up, you can do so here. Or just read on…Today’s issue is on an unusual type of story – it’s about how politics can work to fix a major social problem. Ten days ago, the House of Representatives passed a bill… Continue Reading
Select Subcommittee Releases Further Evidence of Trump Officials’ Pursuit of ‘Herd Immunity’ Strategy, Interference in Public Health
Select Committee on the Coronavirus: More Effective More Efficient More Equitable. Overseeing an Improving &Ongoing Pandemic Response – “The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis was established by the U.S. House of Representatives on April 23, 2020. Modeled after the Truman Committee that saved lives and taxpayer dollars by preventing waste, fraud, and abuse during… Continue Reading
21 photos that defined 2021 on Capitol Hill
As captured by CQ Roll Call’s photojournalists on the ground – “As the clock struck midnight on Jan. 1, 2021, the world celebrated that 2020 was over and that things would finally get back to normal. 2021 proved much more challenging than most expected. From the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to the rise… Continue Reading
Visions of a Volatile World
The New York Times – “The year 2021 opened with the promise of vaccines, and the belief that we would all return to “normal” after the tumultuous year of the pandemic. But the year instead took off with an insurrection in the U.S. Capitol, and saw a summer of carefree gatherings derailed by a fast-spreading… Continue Reading
