• Editor’s note: Regarding Big Tech’s crackdown last week, Reporters Without Borders crafted an excellent observation:
• “We must impose democratic obligations on the leading digital players”
• “After overlooking the fake news and hate speech that Trump posted throughout his four years as US president, Twitter unilaterally decided on 8 January to permanently close his @realDonaldTrump account and then, a few days later, 70,000 other accounts linked to the pro-Trump QAnon movement. Facebook, Instagram and Twitch also suspended the presidential accounts for an unspecified period, while Amazon then suspended the pro-Trump social media Parler.
• “All of these decisions were taken by private-sector companies without any democratic or judicial control!
• “The laws of the public arena used to be established by parliaments and enforced by judges, but private-sector corporations are now in charge. Their norms are not defined within a democratic framework with checks and balances, they are not transparent and you cannot appeal to any court before they are carried out. The organization of the online public arena should not be left to market forces or individual interests.”
• “We must impose democratic obligations on the leading digital players”
• Click here to read the full story.
• I agree – and this is an important issue for all to be educated and a national conversation to begin!

*** SELECT REGIONAL NEWS LAST WEEKEND ***

Seattle Times: Bill giving those with felonies the right to vote is introduced in Washington Legislature

KING-5 TV: Washington opens window to indoor dining with new ‘open-air’ rules

Tacoma’s News-Tribune: ‘We’re Getting Sick, and We’re Dying’: Grocery Workers Seek Return of Hazard Pay

KING-5 TV: Seattle-based Alaska Airlines increases security on flights to DC ahead of Inauguration Day [joins Delta, American, United]

*** SELECT NATIONAL NEWS LAST WEEKEND ***

Newsweek: Senator Sasse Blasts Republicans Who ‘Wink’ at QAnon, Urges Them to Reject Conspiracy Theories [Click here for Sen. Sasse’s full op-ed In The Atlantic.]

Rep. Eric Swalwell: This is what a real hero looks like

Gizmodo: Leaked Parler Data Points to Users at Police Stations, U.S. Military Bases

MSNBC: Riot reckoning: See how GOP leaders were complicit in Trump’s scheme

WaPo: Off-duty police were part of the Capitol mob. Now police are turning in their own.

WaPo: Pushed to the edge by the Capitol riot, people are reporting their family and friends to the FBI

BBC News: Wilmington 1898: When white supremacists overthrew a US government

Truthout: We Have to Let White Supremacy Die in Order to Truly Live

CNN Business: Tim Cook: Why I kicked Parler off Apple’s App Store

Politico: Poll: We have met the enemy and it is us

*** SELECT TRUMP NEWS ***

WaPo: In Trump’s last days, a spree of environmental rollbacks – Rules affect oil and gas drilling, mining and logging, along with energy efficiency standards and restrictions on toxic chemicals

ABC News: Ahead of inauguration, government contracts reveal White House deep clean – More than $200,000 will be spent on additional cleaning services. [“After three COVID-19 breakouts within the White House in recent months”]

MSNBC: Trump spent four years destroying two brands: His own and the GOP’s

NYT: Trump Ignites a War Within the Church – After a week of Trumpist mayhem, white evangelicals wrestle with what they’ve become.

WaPo: ‘Trump said to do so’: Accounts of rioters who say the president spurred them to rush the Capitol could be pivotal testimony