Poli Alert Politics & Civics

A Washington, D.C. man who joined the Proud Boys in the weeks after the 2020 election and heeded the group’s call to go to the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6 was sentenced Monday to 55 months in prison for obstructing the joint session of Congress. Federal prosecutors said Joshua …

Sara Luterman, The 19th The Biden administration recently announced approximately $25 million in grants to expand a Medicaid program that has allowed more than 90,000 disabled people and seniors to move out of institutional settings like nursing homes and back into their communities. Money Follows the Person is a demonstration …

Alex Rozier and Bobby Harrison, Mississippi Today The drinking water system in Jackson — Mississippi’s largest city and home to more than 160,000 residents — is failing, state officials announced on Monday. Thousands of Jackson residents already have no or little water pressure, and officials cannot say when adequate, reliable …

The White House announced Monday that President Joe Biden will address the nation from Philadelphia’s Independence Hall later this week. A White House official said Thursday’s address in Philadelphia would focus on “the continued battle for the soul of the nation” and show how the president sees the central argument of his …

Jennifer Shutt, Georgia Recorder Voters in at least three states will determine at the polls in November what abortion access looks like for their neighbors, colleagues, friends and family — becoming some of the first Americans to deliver their own verdicts on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe …

Stanley Dunlap, Georgia Recorder A Fulton County judge has ordered Gov. Brian Kemp to testify in a special grand jury investigation into former President Donald Trump and associates’ attempts to interfere in the 2020 election. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled Monday that Kemp will appear before the …

Jennifer Shutt, Ohio Capital Journal A federal district judge has granted the Texas attorney general’s request to temporarily block guidance from the federal government that says federal law protects health care providers who perform abortions to save the life or health of pregnant patients in emergency situations. Judge James Wesley …

Postal union officials are sounding the alarm about the potentially damaging impacts of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s effort to consolidate post offices across the U.S. as part of his widely condemned 10-year plan to reshape the public mail agency. Government Executive reported Friday that “more than 200 post offices and …

A right-wing dark money group controlled by Leonard Leo—a legal activist who has played an outsized role in packing the U.S. Supreme Court with conservative ideologues—was the beneficiary of a massive, possibly unprecedented donation of $1.6 billion from a shadowy electronics mogul with ties to the Koch network. The enormous …

Kira Lerner, Pennsylvania Capital-Star Republican candidates who claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump have been nominated for governor in four critical swing states, raising concerns that if elected they could try to sway election results in 2024 and beyond. In Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, Republican …

Anne Toomey McKenna, University of Richmond Data privacy in the U.S. is, in many ways, a legal void. While there are limited protections for health and financial data, the cradle of the world’s largest tech companies, like Apple, Amazon, Google, and Meta (Facebook), lacks any comprehensive federal data privacy law. …

Nadra Nittle, The 19th President Joe Biden announced a highly anticipated plan Wednesday to offer student loan relief to more than 40 million people, a move supporters hope will have life-changing ramifications for borrowers, particularly women, who hold two-thirds of student loan debt, and women of color, whose loan debt is …

Jennifer Shutt, New Jersey Monitor A federal court released a partially redacted affidavit Friday detailing some of the reasons the Federal Bureau of Investigation provided to a judge in order to get a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s private residence in Mar-a-Lago. The request to search the property …

Jennifer Shutt, Missouri Independent The White House held a virtual meeting Thursday with more than 1,000 college and university officials to help them prepare for a school year when monkeypox cases are expected to crop up on campus. The Biden administration’s monkeypox and COVID-19 response teams as well as representatives …

Jared Strong, Iowa Capital Dispatch August 24, 2022 The U.S. Department of Agriculture will distribute up to $550 million to expand certain farmers’ access to land, money and markets and to create educational opportunities for the students of higher-education institutions that cater to racial and ethnic minorities. “The idea here …