President Biden is set to meet Vladimir Putin in Geneva during the G7 Conference - this from NPR - Can Biden find common ground, or should he? - Making Human Rights Great Again - WTF with all the cyberattacks Russia? o Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that President Biden will raise the issue of recent ransomware attacks and tell Putin that "states cannot be in the business of harboring those who are engaged in these kind of attacks." - Ukraine's seven-year conflict with Russia From CNBC - Newly released emails show in the last days of the Trump administration, WH officials pressured DOJ to challenge election results - The House Oversight Committee shared more than 200 pages of documents taken from the White House and the Department of Justice - "These documents show that President Trump tried to corrupt our nation's chief law enforcement agency in a brazen attempt to overturn an election that he lost," so says, committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney. - The documents show, among other allegations, that Trump in December pressed the Justice Department to file a Supreme Court lawsuit to nullify the election, the committee said. NBC News reporting - apparently, we're all going to have to learn what Critical Race Theory is - In towns nationwide, well-connected conservative activists, and Fox News, have ramped up the tension in fights over race and equity in schools. - Critical Race Theory: According to Wikipedia (because that's the best Google can do) Critical race theory (CRT) is an academic movement of civil-rights scholars and activists in the United States who seek to critically examine the law as it intersects with issues of race and to challenge mainstream liberal approaches to racial justice. - Basically, it's the academic study of racism's pervasive impact on law, culture & society. - at least 165 local and national groups that aim to disrupt lessons on race and gender, according to an NBC News analysis of media reports and organizations' promotional materials. - While the efforts vary, they share strategies of disruption, publicity and mobilization. The groups swarm school board meetings, inundate districts with time-consuming public records requests and file lawsuits and federal complaints alleging discrimination against white students. House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is calling for an investigation after the New York Times blockbuster report, showing that DOJ officials subpoenaed Apple for his phone records - At least a dozen people including Schiff and other Intelligence Committee members had records seized during Trump's reign. - The revelation comes alongside recent disclosures that the Trump administration secretly seized the phone records of CNN, Washington Post and New York Times reporters. - Justice Department prosecutors, under then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, were looking for the sources behind leaks - According to the Times, "The zeal in the Trump administration's efforts to hunt leakers led to the extraordinary step of subpoenaing communications metadata from members of Congress - a nearly unheard-of move outside of corruption investigations," the newspaper adds. - "President Trump repeatedly and flagrantly demanded that the Department of Justice carry out his political will, and tried to use the Department as a cudgel against his political opponents and members of the media," Schiff wrote in a statement following the Times' Thursday night report. E3 happened - CNN - The 270 billion-dollar industry known as "video games" had their big confab this year - It was digital - CNN declared Xbox Game Pass as the winner of the show
