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Documentos do processo de falência da FTX mostram como a empresa de criptomoedas despejou dinheiro em consultores, think tanks e grupos de lobby.

The post Gigante cripto FTX operou esquema de tráfico de influência, revelam documentos appeared first on The Intercept.

How much of Shell’s record US $40 billion profit was due to the Ukraine war and freezing Russia out of the market? If you apply the “excess deaths” methodology we became familiar with during covid, comparing profit against a running average of the previous five years, we get a figure of about $25 billion “excess […]

The post Profiteering from Death appeared first on Craig Murray.

They’re getting in — against Trump The Washington Post reports: The network of donors and activist groups led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch will oppose Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, mounting a direct challenge to the former president’s campaign to win back the White House. “The best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter,” Emily Seidel, chief executive of the network’s flagship group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), wrote in a memo released publicly on Sunday. The three-page missive repeatedly suggests that AFP is taking on the responsibility of stopping Trump, with Seidel writing: “Lots of people are frustrated. But very few people are in a position to do something about it. AFP is. Now is the time to rise to the occasion.” I think this actually works in Trump’s favor for two reasons. First, it allows him to run against the “establishment elite” (which he is actually at the center of) and pretend he’s the outsider. His followers are dim so they’ll buy it.

Greg Sargent makes the point that while GOP Governors are trying to turn their states into antediluvian hellscapes, Democratic Governors in the big blue states are moving forward: Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, is fond of describing his state as the place “where woke goes to die.” If so, perhaps Democratic governors can do more to advertise their states as places where Florida-style school crackdowns go to die. Some Democratic governors — not just in coastal states but also in Midwestern ones — are beginning to test this idea. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has seized on DeSantis’s latest culture-warring — Florida’s decision to ban an Advanced Placement course in African American studies — to articulate a contrasting vision for what topics should be permitted in classrooms. This week, Pritzker singled out DeSantis as an “extremist,” after the College Board introduced a revised AP course in Black studies in response to DeSantis’s attacks.

Joe Conason with a reminder of just who wrote it: Down at Mar-a-Lago and anywhere else that former President Donald Trump is still venerated, he and his entourage are excited about a publication that has never before drawn his attention. The Columbia Journalism Review has just published a four-part, 24,000-word essay that purports to debunk the Trump-Russia “narrative” — and seeks to blame rising public disdain for the press, among other ills, on The New York Times and The Washington Post for their coverage of that scandal. Its author is Jeff Gerth, a reporter who worked at the Times for three decades. His former colleagues are said to be seething with fury at him. They have ample reason, not out of feelings of personal betrayal, but because Gerth has betrayed basic journalistic standards. Unfortunately, this is not the first time. Very few people will persevere through Gerth’s prose (which the late press critic Alexander Cockburn once compared to “bicycling through wet sand.”).

Now it’s Chris Christie’s turn in the barrel: Christie says “shut up Donnie!” In case you are wondering why this is suddenly happening, Christie was on ABC this morning: He also said “Biden didn’t win, Trump lost” which I’m sure made Trump’s head spin around on his shoulders like Linda Blair in “The Exorcist. “ Some people never grow up. These two certainly didn’t.

Koch network has had enough Trumpism “Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security,” former President Donald Trump said in a video statement in January. Is it possible that that statement (plus a few insults) are connected to the Koch funds working against Trump in 2024? Washington Post: The network of donors and activist groups led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch will oppose Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, mounting a direct challenge to the former president’s campaign to win back the White House. “The best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter,” Emily Seidel, chief executive of the network’s flagship group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), wrote in a memo released publicly on Sunday. The three-page missive repeatedly suggests that AFP is taking on the responsibility of stopping Trump, with Seidel writing: “Lots of people are frustrated. But very few people are in a position to do something about it. AFP is.

In an age of vitriol, public service is an act of courage A Feb. 3 piece at Politico just caught my eye. I missed this news: Wednesday night, New Jersey councilwoman Eunice K. Dwumfour was found in her car with multiple gunshot wounds, according to authorities. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Dwumfour, a Republican, was only 30 years old. She was still a newcomer, serving her first term on the Sayreville Borough Council after being elected in November 2021. Her former campaign manager Karen Bailey Bebert told the New York Times that Dwumfour was an “inspirational woman” who was excited to get into politics at a young age. We know about recent shootings at the homes of politicians in Albuquerque, the attack on former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband that was meant for her, the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and the man with a loaded gun arrested outside the home of Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). The threats and vitriol are that much worse for women in politics than men, especially if they are black (Dwumfour).

Our long national nightmare is over Oops: They have no idea how utterly daft they sound, do they? Reality: Kicker: (Is she running????)

Social Security and Medicare cuts are back on the menu Whatever “populist” impulse Donald Trump brought into the party didn’t take among hardcore conservatives: Former Vice President Mike Pence, a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, said Thursday that he wants to “reform” Social Security and institute private savings accounts for recipients. “There are modest reforms in entitlements that can be done without disadvantaging anybody at the point of the need,” Pence told an audience at the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors summit in Washington, D.C. “I think the day could come when we could replace the New Deal with a better deal. Literally give younger Americans the ability to take a portion of their Social Security withholdings and put that into a private savings account.” Video of the event was obtained by the Democratic tracking group American Bridge 21st Century. The comments mark one of the first policy proposals from Pence as the field for the Republican nomination is fast taking shape.