An eight-year campaign to slash the agency’s budget has left it understaffed, hamstrung and operating with archaic equipment. The result: billions less to fund the government. That’s good news for corporations and the wealthy.
Five Findings From the Army’s Artillery Factory Fiasco — ProPublica
ProPublica revealed how a rushed effort to arm Ukraine with artillery shells wasted half a billion dollars in taxpayer funding. Here are the biggest takeaways from that reporting.
Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica
Since 2013, the IRS has released data culled from over 1.8 million nonprofit tax filings. Use this database to find organizations and see details like their executive compensation, revenue and expenses, as well as download tax filings going back as far as 2001.
Forget the FBI cache; the Podesta emails show how America is run | Thomas Frank
WikiLeaks’ dump of messages to and from Clinton’s campaign chief offer an unprecedented view into the workings of the elite, and how it looks after itself
FBI Eyed Susan Collins Over Defense Contractor’s Donations — ProPublica
After the FBI caught a defense contractor’s CEO making illegal campaign contributions, it sought to launch a sweeping political bribery probe involving Collins and others. Then the second Trump administration dismantled the unit handling the inquiry.
The Oligarchs' Coup Against the Free Press Is Happening Now
The American information space is not merely changing; it is undergoing a hostile takeover. It is a deliberate, coordinated campaign by a new class of oligarchs out of Silicon Valley that includes Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, and Mark Zuckerberg acting in concert with a Trump-led authoritarian political project.
Spending deal comes with a bonus: Blocking political control of grants
Congress pauses the OMB's attempt to rewrite how research is funded.
Last-Mile Optimism
Reducing Waste. Eliminating Fraud. Promoting Civic Responsibility. At least that’s what the city bureaucrats said.
Yeah, We're Going to Have to Tax the Middle Class
CNN.com - Congress approves $15 billion airline bailout - September 22, 2001
In the wake of last week's terrorist attacks involving hijacked airplanes, Congress Friday passed a measure for a $15 billion financial aid package to help the crippled airline industry and set up a government compensation fund for victims to help deter lawsuits.
That’s Not the Warsh of It: The End(ish) of Forward Guidance and the Rise(?) of Treasury Monetary Policy
This is a free piece of Notes on the Crises. Take out a paid subscription to support our work here. Publisher Note: I’ve been off for two weeks because of a family medical emergency. Everything is fine now, but as you are likely aware, medical emergencies take up an
The Cost of Deportations Calculator
The Trump administration is taking billions of _your_ taxpayer dollars to pay for mass deportations. The Cost of Deportations Calculator shows what could this money be used for instead.
Sharing the Algorithm: The Tax Solution to Generative AI
This article argues that tax policy offers a core tool for mitigating the sweeping public policy challenges of generative Artificial Intelligence ("AI"
Billionaires Gone Wild
Understanding the oligarchs’ power grab and the dire threat to American democracy
"The end result of all of this is that we grew from 2k users to almost 150k, added a ton of heavy new functionality, and still managed to optimize and cut down costs from $.15 per active user per month to just $.03 or so." - @snarfed.org breaks down all the work he's done to optimize Bridgy Fed 1/
Bridging on a budget
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