klu9

Exactly what it says on the tin.

The Voice has some artifacts, but I had to get it out of my head and into yours.
Peter Griffin Backed by the Sky Power Band:

On May 19, 2025, federal prosecutors charged Rep. LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey Democrat, under a little-known federal statute—18 U.S. Code Section 111—for allegedly assaulting and impeding Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers during a visit to a Newark detention facility. The officers refused her entry to conduct a federally authorized oversight visit. It’s still unclear whether the claimed assault was alleged to be physical or verbal. But what’s clear is that Rep. McIver’s prosecution reveals something much larger: Under the current administration, Section 111 is being reimagined as a blunt political weapon. Not to deter violence—but to silence dissent and criminalize opponents.

Section 111 makes it a crime to “forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, or interfere with” federal officials engaged in their duties. But here’s the problem: You don’t even need to know they’re federal officials. You can be convicted for shoving someone you think is just someone yelling in your face, even just placing them in “reasonable fear of harm” without physical contact—if they turn out to be a plainclothes agent. That’s not hypothetical.

That’s precedent, courtesy of the Supreme Court over 50 years ago.
Which means this: An undercover agent embedded in a protest, a public meeting, even a constituent town hall could claim to have been “impeded,” and the federal government can treat that moment as a federal crime. Under the current administration’s appetite for authoritarianism, that’s not a loophole, it’s a feature.

Archived at https://archive.is/JvUOO

Out of five critical tech sectors, “China has the most immediate opportunity to overtake the United States in biotechnology,” the Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs said Thursday in its release of a “Critical and Emerging Technologies Index,” covering AI, biotech, semiconductors, space and quantum.

Online culture and censorship have broken the ties that once spurred protesters.

Today, June 4, marks the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre—a moment of both tragedy and hope. It was the bloody end to a nationwide democracy movement that brought together workers and students, the most promising push for political reform in the history of the People’s Republic of China. But despite the courage of many individual Chinese who fought for democracy and the solidarity of their international supporters, there has not been a comparable movement since—and it’s hard to imagine one arising anytime soon.

It wasn't paywalled on my phone, but apparently it is when viewed elsewhere.

One of the key factors mentioned in the article: the erosion of the "the middle ring" from many societies (not just China): "close-ish" but not intimate/familial face-to-face relationships (neighbours, coworkers etc.) that are key to growing a social movement with real world activity.