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Appeals court allows special counsel's report about Trump's election interference case to be released to public — The president-elect could still appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. — A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the Justice Department can release a report …
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Washington Post and Raw Story
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Supreme Court allows Trump's sentencing in New York hush money case — The decision means that a sentencing hearing scheduled for Friday can go ahead as planned. The president-elect had asked the high court to intervene. — WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected President …

Supreme Court refuses to delay Trump's hush money sentencing — President-elect Donald Trump turned to the Supreme Court in a last-ditch effort to stop the sentencing, citing the conservative majority's explosive immunity opinion.
Discussion:
Raw Story and The Bulwark

Appeals court allows release of Trump Jan. 6 special counsel report — The ruling can be appealed. President-elect Donald Trump says releasing the special counsel report would interfere with his White House transition — A federal appellate court has cleared the way for the Justice Department …
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USA Today, New York Times, Associated Press and American Greatness

How a Phone Call Drew Alito Into a Trump Loyalty Squabble — The phone call centered on a former law clerk of Justice Alito's. In the eyes of the Trump team, the clerk still needed to prove his loyalty to the president-elect. — Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. received a call on his cellphone Tuesday.
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Slate, Reason, Associated Press, USA Today, Fox News and Law & Crime
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Supreme Court Denies Trump's Last-Ditch Effort to Avoid Sentencing — After the court declined in a 5-to-4 decision to block Donald J. Trump's criminal sentencing, he is scheduled to face a New York judge on Friday morning. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday denied President-elect …
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Associated Press, Raw Story, Amy Howe, The Hill, Townhall, Courthouse News Service, ABC News, Reason, Washington Examiner and UPI

Divided Supreme Court denies Trump request to block sentencing in NY hush money case
John Fritze / CNN:
Donald Trump can be sentenced Friday in hush money case, Supreme Court says in 5-4 ruling
Donald Trump can be sentenced Friday in hush money case, Supreme Court says in 5-4 ruling
Ian Millhiser / Vox:
The Supreme Court hands Trump a loss in his bid for legal immunity
The Supreme Court hands Trump a loss in his bid for legal immunity
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Axios, Law & Crime, Fox News, Washington Times, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Washington Examiner and The Daily Caller
Graham Kates / CBS News:
Supreme Court won't stop Trump sentencing in “hush money” criminal case
Supreme Court won't stop Trump sentencing in “hush money” criminal case
Discussion:
HuffPost, RedState, NPR, The Gateway Pundit, New York Post and Axios

'It's Total Chaos Internally at Meta Right Now': Employees Protest Zuckerberg's Anti LGBTQ Changes — Meta employees are furious with the company's newly announced content moderation changes that will allow users to say that LGBTQ+ people have “mental illness,” according to internal conversations obtained …
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The Bulwark and New Republic, more at Techmeme »
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Leaked Meta Rules: Users Are Free to Post “Mexican Immigrants Are Trash!” or “Trans People Are Immoral” — Meta is now granting its users new freedom to post a wide array of derogatory remarks about races, nationalities, ethnic groups, sexual orientations, and gender identities, training materials obtained by The Intercept reveal.
Discussion:
Associated Press

Donald Trump Jr.'s Ridiculous Greenland Trip Just Took a Dark Turn — A MAGA visit intended to make Greenland look pro-Donald Trump appears staged from the bottom up. — The so-called tourism trip saw Donald Trump Jr., far-right political pundit Charlie Kirk, and Trump administration …
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NBC News, Townhall, The Independent and Raw Story
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Fetterman to be first sitting Democratic U.S. senator to visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago — Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has accepted an invitation from President-elect Donald Trump to meet with him at his Mar-a-Lago estate, according to multiple sources familiar with the plans.
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New Republic, Politico, Mediaite, Axios, RedState, Townhall, Washington Examiner, Blaze Media, Twitchy, Breitbart, New York Post, Raw Story, ABC News, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, The Hill, NBC News, New Jersey Online, Scripps News, HuffPost, The Gateway Pundit, IJR, The Daily Caller and The Post Millennial
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Democrats Are About to Surrender to Trump in a Hugely Damaging Way
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The Dispatch, New York Times, HuffPost, The Guardian, Roll Call, Drop Site News, RedState, American Greatness, The Hill, Reuters and Politico
Al Weaver / The Hill:
Laken Riley Act overwhelmingly clears first hurdle in Senate with help from Democrats
Laken Riley Act overwhelmingly clears first hurdle in Senate with help from Democrats

Elon Musk and Donald Trump spread disinformation as wildfires rage in the LA area … As fires rage across Los Angeles and tens of thousands flee their homes, the usual suspects have decided to blame the blazes on their political enemies. In a series of posts on Truth Social …
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FireRescue1, New York Post, Daily Mail, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Talking Points Memo, acecomments.mu.nu, Hollywood Life, Variety, The Hill, Axios and CalMatters
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Trump Blames California's Governor, and His Water Policy, for Wildfires

‘Pizzagate’ gunman killed by police in North Carolina after traffic stop, authorities say — A man who fired a gun inside a restaurant in the nation's capital after a fake online conspiracy theory called “Pizzagate” motivated him to do so nearly a decade ago was shot and killed by North Carolina police during a weekend traffic stop.
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The Daily Beast, New York Times, Salisbury Post, The Sun, UPI, New York Post, CBS News, The Gateway Pundit, Rolling Stone, Raw Story, The Hill, NBC News and Washingtonian
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Federal judge strikes down Biden Title IX rules — A federal judge in Kentucky struck down changes made to Title IX by the Biden administration Thursday, ruling that the new regulations, which had sought to expand nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ students, violate the Constitution.
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Inside Trump's Search for a Health Threat to Justify His Immigration Crackdown — President-elect Donald J. Trump's advisers have spent months trying to identify a disease that will help them build their case for closing the border. — President-elect Donald J. Trump is likely to justify …
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CNN, New York Post, The Post Millennial, Raw Story, Kevin Drum, Digby's Hullabaloo, The Hill, Breitbart and Townhall

Anita Bryant, Singer and Crusader Against Gay Rights, Dies at 84 — She has hits with songs like “Paper Roses” and served as a spokesperson for Florida orange juice before her career came crashing down. — Anita Bryant, the pop singer and Oklahoma beauty queen who gained fame by convincing America that a …
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Variety, New York Times, The Guardian, oklahoman.com, Extra, Deadline, The Hill and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Mark Zuckerberg gave Meta's Llama team the OK to train on copyrighted works, filing claims — Counsel for plaintiffs in a copyright lawsuit filed against Meta allege that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave the green light to the team behind the company's Llama AI models to use a dataset of pirated e-books and articles for training.
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The Register, Insurance Journal and Wired, more at Mediagazer »

Candy Crush, Tinder, MyFitnessPal: See the Thousands of Apps Hijacked to Spy on Your Location — This article was produced with support from WIRED. — Some of the world's most popular apps are likely being co-opted by rogue members of the advertising industry to harvest sensitive location data …
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Ars Technica and Fox News, more at Techmeme »

Elizabeth May proposes California, Oregon, Washington join Canada after Trump's 51st state threat — The basic idea of ‘Cascadia’ is to calve off B.C., Washington and Oregon to form a super-rich hyper-progressive enviro-state — Amid repeated pledges by U.S. president-elect Donald Trump to annex Canada …
Discussion:
Daily Kos

CNN's Scott Jennings Makes L.A. Fire Hell All About DEI — Scott Jennings felt the ire of Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), who took a blowtorch to him after he appeared to suggest on CNN NewsNight that the southern California wildfires are worse because there are not enough white men working …

Remembering Carter, Biden's truth deficit, and Zuckerberg's choice to raise the risk of genocide — Good evening from Washington, where I am still learning and relearning the lesson not to compose newsletters in the content management system. If you're reading this, you're subscribed to the first edition of Civic Texts in the year.

Thousands of homes destroyed or damaged in Palisades firestorm, LAFD estimates — Los Angeles fire officials said Thursday that thousands of homes appear to have been damaged or destroyed in the firestorm in Pacific Palisades, an estimate that would significantly heighten the scale of the disaster.
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Slate, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, The Daily Caller, New York Post, New York Times, Daily Caller News Foundation, Heatmap News, The Hollywood Reporter, Courthouse News Service, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Gay Pride, The Sun, Washington Examiner, The Right to be Wrong, Forbes, The Atlantic and New York Daily News

Trump's talk of retaking Panama Canal becomes a GOP bill … - Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said Tuesday she plans to introduce a bill that would rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” … - The bill authorizes the president and secretary of state to …

Black Lesbian LAFD Asst Chief Sums Up Everything Wrong With DEI in One Snark — And I made sure to tell you she was a BLACK LESBIAN right up front because she's so damn proud of it. Historic, even. — I know she would want me to. — Plus, she's got the Ivy League DEI certificate, and I don't.
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Twitchy, The Federalist, Townhall, RedState, The Post Millennial and The Gateway Pundit