“In exclusively obtained information from Harlan Crow as a result of Durbin and the Senate Judiciary Committee Majority’s Supreme Court ethics investigation and subpoena authorization, Durbin releases details of gifted private travel to Justice Thomas that Thomas has failed to disclose. WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary… Continue Reading
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Category Archives: Congress
Book bans in political context: Evidence from US schools
Book bans in political context: Evidence from US schools. PNAS Nexus, Volume 3, Issue 6, June 2024, pgae197, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae197 “In the 2021–2022 school year, more books were banned in US school districts than in any previous year. Book banning and other forms of information censorship have serious implications for democratic processes, and censorship has become… Continue Reading
Tracking AI-enabled Misinformation
“From unreliable AI-generated news outlets operating with little to no human oversight, to fabricated images produced by AI image generators, the rollout of generative artificial intelligence tools has been a boon to content farms and misinformation purveyors alike. This AI Tracking Center is intended to highlight the ways that generative AI has been deployed to… Continue Reading
Legal Definitions: A Research Guide for Congressional Staff
CRS – Legal Definitions: A Research Guide for Congressional Staff Updated June 6, 2024; ‘This report is designed to introduce congressional staff to examples of legal and nonlegal sources, including statutes, legislation, and dictionaries, for researching legal definitions. It includes governmental sources, such as the United States Code (U.S. Code), the Code of Federal Regulations… Continue Reading
Operation Overload
Aleksandra Atanasova (Reset.Tech), Amaury Lesplingart (CheckFirst), Francesco Poldi (CheckFirst), Guillaume Kuster (CheckFirst) Published in June 2024 under the CC BY-SA licence. “This report exposes a large-scale, cross-country, multi-platform disinformation campaign designed to spread pro-Russian propaganda in the West, with clear indicators of foreign interference and information manipulation (FIMI). The narratives promoted by the actors are… Continue Reading
Political Machines: Understanding the Role of AI in the U.S. 2024 Elections and Beyond
Martin, Z., Jackson, D., Trauthig, I., and Woolley, S. (May, 2024). Political machines: Understanding the role of generative AI in the U.S. 2024 elections and beyond. Center for Media Engagement. Propagandists are pragmatists and innovators.1 Political marketing is a game in which the cutting edge can be the margin between victory and defeat. Generative Artificial… Continue Reading
Dozens of House Democrats urge Alito to recuse himself from Jan. 6 cases
The Hill via MSN: “A group of House Democrats on Tuesday called on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from all future cases related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol or the 2020 presidential election. In a letter addressed to the conservative justice, 45 Democrats pointed to recent New York Times… Continue Reading
How to Detect and Guard Against Deceptive AI-Generated Election Information
Brennan Center – “Time-tested fact-checking practices will help limit the effectiveness and spread of misleading election information. Generative artificial intelligence is already being deployed to mislead and deceive voters in the 2024 election, making it imperative that voters take steps to identify inauthentic images, audio, video, and other content designed to deceptively influence their political… Continue Reading
The Federal Reserve Banks’ New Transparency and Accountability Policy
Via LLRX – The Federal Reserve Banks’ New Transparency and Accountability Policy – Michael Ravnitzky is an attorney and former journalist who has more than 25 years of experience in using the Freedom of Information Act and state public records laws. On December 21, 2023, the Federal Reserve Banks each announced the adoption of a uniform… Continue Reading
Scenes From a MAGA Meltdown
ProPublica: “…Across the country, the Republican Party’s rank-and-file have turned on the GOP establishment. In Michigan, this schism broke the party — and maybe democracy itself…What divides the Republican Party of 2024 is not any one policy or ideology. It is not whether to support Donald Trump. The most important fault line in the party… Continue Reading
PolitiFact launches Spanish-language website to serve more than 40 million U.S. Spanish-speakers
“Poynter’s PolitiFact, the Pulitzer-Prize winning fact-checking newsroom, is pleased to announce the launch of a new Spanish-language experience, PolitiFact en Español, to help more than 40 million Spanish-speakers in the U.S. sort out the truth in politics. A new Spanish-language website and a related social media presence are the culmination of an effort that began… Continue Reading
How Congress would decide the presidency if there’s an Electoral College tie
The Hill: “A tie in the Electoral College in November is a very real possibility — and it could even end with a new President Trump and a new Vice President Harris sharing power. The odds are unprecedented in modern history, but the setup of the country’s electoral system and the fact that a nail-biter… Continue Reading
