Good news: Russia has freed the two remaining imprisoned members of Pussy Riot, whose famous "Punk Prayer" performed in an Orthodox church got them in trouble. Now, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova don't actually seem happy about it: the Russian government granted them amnesty, which is certainly a way of the government saying it didn't do anything wrong. But I suspect they'll do more good works as free people than as prisoners. And Russia ain't fooling anyone.
FCC withdraws proposal to loosen media consolidation rules, meaning the FCC's attempt to let big telecoms own both a newspaper and a radio station in the same market has, for the moment, failed. The withdrawal may be mere paperwork -- Congress mandates that the FCC reviews media consolidation rules every four years, and the last time the FCC did that was 2010, meaning they're going to start over again early next year. Still, I never complain about a little breathing room.
Former Republican Senator Larry Pressler apparently will jump into the 2014 South Dakota Senate race as an independent. Spy magazine declared Mr. Pressler one of America's 10 dumbest Congressmen in 1988, but if Mr. Pressler is really going to make raising taxes on the rich a major platform plank, then I like him a lot better. But unless former Gov. Rounds somehow loses the Republican nomination to a lunatic, I doubt Mr. Pressler will pull too many votes from the right -- he endorsed Barack Obama for President not-once-but-twice, after all.
Utah couple sues online retailer after said retailer issued a $3,500 fine for failing to remove a negative review of their site. Read the whole thing; this couple did the right thing (i.e., they didn't remove the negative review) and went through hell over it. I always figured some corporation would decide a negative online review wasn't constitutionally-protected free speech but a threat to their livelihood, but I really wish I'd been wrong about that. And some right-winger, somewhere, stands ready to tell us this is a "frivolous lawsuit."
Iowa Republican Secretary of State has spent nearly $150,000 on a so-far 18-month investigation into voter fraud, and guess what? He's managed only five convictions. Three of those five involved felons whose voting rights hadn't been restored, and if I were King of Iowa they'd have never lost their voting rights to begin with, so I don't even count those. Though Secretary Schultz (there's another name we'll probably never hear again, though I expect his paymasters will care for him) cautions against drawing such broad conclusions with six months left in the investigation, he'll only net an additional 1.66667 convictions at the rate he's going. Some epidemic!
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