Daily Links: 10/04/17 – Trump’s personal lawyer scuttled fraud case against Ivanka & Don Jr. after large donation

Ivanka Trump (l) & Donald Trump Jr.

Got me some computer-related fiddling to do, so have a quick & dirty links dump.

• Bombshell from ProPublica: In 2012, NYC prosecutors were readying a federal fraud case against Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. Then came a hefty donation and a visit from Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz. The D.A. overruled his staff and dropped the case.
  (via @Yousefzadeh; RT: @Popehat)

• Ed Brayton explains the cold truth: The US Supreme Court is one inevitable retirement away from likely reversing Roe v Wade and axing 44 years of reproductive rights progress.

• Bell Canada, a major ISP and TV provider, is asking the Canadian government to blacklist piracy sites to stop people from “leaving the regulated [TV] system”.
  (via Privacy Online News)

• Today in stupid, from Fox News: Maybe the Las Vegas shooter just “didn’t believe in God”. Even her co-hosts look dubious.

• Today in stupid, from British Home Secretary Amber Rudd: “I don’t need to understand how encryption works” to know it’s helping baddies and that we need to stop that.

• It took the Georgia State Supreme Court to remind local law enforcement, by overturning a man’s conviction, that merely flipping someone off quietly, even in a church, is protected by the First Amendment.

• Follow-up: After declaring she’d rather go to jail than obey a court order to vaccinate her son, Michigan woman gets sentenced to seven days.
  (via @religionnews)

• Finally, the latest award for predictable “traditional family values” hypocrisy goes to … Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA). (No, he didn’t get caught with a male hooker. This time.)
  (via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.