Have I mentioned lately that media consolidation is bad and people who care about an informed electorate and democratic integrity should fight to restore federal media consolidation limits illegally destroyed by the Trump administration and FCC boss Brendan Carr? Anyway, there’s a new Alex Gibney documentary coming out about Elon Musk that takes him to […]
If you thought we were done with the trademark bullying drama resulting from gas station and convenience store chain Buc-ee’s, you were wrong. While we’re still waiting for this corporation to take up John Oliver’s request to sue him for creating parody merchandize of the Buc-ee’s brand, the company has decided to do what bullies […]
This story was originally published by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appears to have violated federal ethics law in significant ways when filing recent disclosures of his assets and liabilities, creating confusion about his net worth and holdings, a review by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found. Among […]
As the federal U.S. government has given up on consumer protection and corporate oversight, states have filled the void with various degrees of success. That’s been particularly apparent in areas like telecom, where the corruption-fueled death of federal privacy and net neutrality protections have been replicated in a handful of states like California, which passed […]
Public furor is hard to maintain. It takes a concerted effort from people who have a lot to lose. Not only do they not have anything to gain (financially or otherwise) from engaging in protests, but they face the real possibility of arrests, job losses, beatings, or actual death. On the other hand, the Trump […]
The Ultimate Guitar Lessons Bundle has 9 courses teaching you everything from reading tablature and basic fingering to more advanced skills. You can start at the very beginning and work your way through lessons on strumming, ear training, and jamming, to learning about Jazz, Blues, and Bluegrass techniques. It’s on sale for $30. Note: The […]
Being a GOP politician in the Trump era is defined by two things: publicly embarrassing yourself to show support for Trump’s most dangerous policy ideas, and lying to your constituents about what those ideas will do to them. It is an inherently pathetic situation. And yet not one of them seems capable of showing even […]
Last week comedian Jimmy Kimmel said Jimmy Kimmel Live! and ABC wouldn’t be airing an interview with Texas Democratic Senate hopeful James Talarico on broadcast because they were worried it would anger Trump’s top censorship czar, FCC boss Brendan Carr. Kimmel and ABC had cause to worry; we’ve outlined in detail how Carr has manufactured […]
As Pennsylvania continues to endure the worst of the current measles outbreaks ravaging the country, a fourth measles-associated death has now been confirmed. As of the time of this writing, the CDC’s public website tracking case counts and deaths has still not acknowledged a single one of these fatalities, reportedly at the direction of RFK […]
Larry and David Ellison are desperate to get their unpopular $111 billion merger between Paramount/CBS and Warner Brothers across the finish line. So they’ve been engaging in no shortage of dodgy behavior to try and derail the only thing left standing in their way: the 12-state antitrust lawsuit claiming that more media consolidation is anti-competitive […]
Techdirt has just written about concerns that AI development is proceeding more quickly than human oversight can monitor and control it. Since then, there has been lively debate about whether those fears are real or overblown. They mainly focus on the possible future threats from AI systems using RSI — recursive self-improvement — to drive […]
You may recall that back in July we had the ridiculous story of how ICE decided to go all gestapo on its critics, including tracking down and threatening David Streever, who had emailed then-acting ICE director Todd Lyons back in January, after federal agents killed some peaceful protestors in Minnesota. Streever’s email was pretty straightforward: […]
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Yet another data point on the whole grift/graft aspect of (particularly) the second Trump administration. While Trump was endlessly bragging about how much war he was going to wage, while simultaneously bragging about how much war he was going to end, his Israel-enabled Iran War refused to submit to his vacillating bluster. After claiming to […]
In an ideal world it’s certainly possible that the U.S. federal government could implement meaningful guardrails for AI development that protect innovation, national security, consumer privacy, public safety, and labor/creatives, while preventing market monopolization by the sector’s biggest players. But we don’t live in that ideal world. We live in a country where an historically […]
Whatever mask RFK Jr. was attempting to wear to convince the world he isn’t a pure anti-vaxxer clown is now officially off. The man who has spent his time as Secretary of HHS overseeing the worst outbreak of measles in America in decades, who just can’t stop citing fake health studies and misinterpreting others, who […]
Here’s a riddle: Why did a Goshen Police Department officer search 6,474 automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks, representing data from 82,413 cameras, on May 7, 2025? If your answer is “I don’t know,” it turns out you’re 100% correct. The officer left the letters “idk” in the search field where cops are supposed to […]
“Become ungovernable” is a phrase that has traveled around the world and morphed in meaning over time, but in the last few years has basically become an internet culture joke meme, with vaguely anarchist seasoning. But, now, in the Trump administration, it has apparently taken on a Schrodinger-esque meaning as either… a slogan for libertarian-leaning […]
The lowest common denominator administration continues to roll. It doesn’t care what’s legal or what’s proper. It just does what it wants because the shittiest people are in it and its basest of voter bases will feverishly clap their sweaty hands together in applause whenever it does whatever it wants to do. It will be […]
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