Dysfunctional GOP Senate Flustered by a Rule Trial Lawyers Love
RealClearInvestigations
Senate Democrats have twice failed to make class-action litigation the preferred path for resolving consumer disputes - a move pushed by their allies, trial lawyers. So now it's on the verge of becoming law through regulation. And Senate Republicans do not appear able to stop it -- a further sign of their remarkable dysfunction.
The Fake Americans Russia Created to Influence the Election
New York Times
The Russian information attack on the election amounted to much more than the hacking of Democratic emails, or a fire hose of stories dubious and false, an investigation finds. Far less splashy, and more subversive, was Russia's experimentation on Facebook and Twitter, using fake personas and other tactics. The social media giants did not prevent them, and their dirty open secret, critics say, was the need to protect a crucial data point: "monthly active user."
Innocent Men Can Go Free If They Plead Guilty
ProPublica, Atlantic
A case in Baltimore — in which two men were convicted of the same murder but cleared by DNA 20 years later — illustrates a common tactic prosecutors use to preserve convictions: offer a so-called Alford plea. In other words, go free now if you plead guilty. One man accepted the deal. The other refused and paid a high cost for his vindication: 16 months more languishing in jail awaiting a new trial. At which point the state dropped the case. Get a Private Jet and You Too Can Avoid Flight Taxes
Bloomberg
It's not always thrilling when a quarterback like Tom Brady takes to the air. CEOs or NFL teams flying on private jets pay far less in taxes than airline passengers, sometimes just 2 percent of what someone jammed into a commercial sardine can would pay flying the same route. You, the typical airline passenger, are subsidizing some of the world's largest corporations and wealthiest people. Unsolved: A Toddler's Death, a Tangled Trail
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Two-year-old Michelle Manders disappeared in the middle of the night in 1981. She was found on a riverbank in Wisconsin, but her death remains an unsolved case. One with many twists and turns: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel devotes an eight-part investigative series to it, with an accompanying podcast. A Million-Dollar Robot to Gather Data on High School Kids
Washington Free Beacon
The National Science Foundation is spending over $1 million to build a "social robot" that will gather mental health information on high school students. The grant for the project states that it supports "a timely interdisciplinary project that will research, develop, and deploy a user-friendly social robot that gathers teen mental health data in a public high school setting." $100K in Tennessee Forfeiture Funds Spent on Catering
Reason
The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security improperly spent more than $100,000 in asset forfeiture funds on catering and banquet tickets over the last two years, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's inspector general. Similar misappropriations of forfeiture money happen around the country. Your Jeans Are Ruining the Earth
Vice
Americans throw away 13 million tons of clothing each year, and the environmental impact of blue jeans is disproportionately large, even though we keep them longer. It can take up to 2,000 gallons of water to make one pair -- enough to fill 20 bathtubs. Plus another 1,000 gallons just to grow the cotton used in the jeans. Not to mention washing them to make them look fashionably beat-up. | 
