1/12: How is Greenland likely to be affected by the Trump Administration Global Warming Policy? [or-fa]
1/11: What Are the Top Ten Tax Loopholes Used by Billionaires to Legally Avoid Income Taxes? [tbr]
1/10: Now on Recommended Sites
1/3: Now on Recommended Sites
Welcome to 2026
1/2: This Year We Celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence
- How Can We Pursue Happiness?
- Will it be a Happy New Year?
- How will the One Big Beautiful Bill Affect Affordability?
- What is the K shaped economy?
- How does K shaped economy affect happiness and GDP?
- How does the letter K also represent the different tax burdens on wealth vs. earned income?
- How does the letter K also represent the different income tax burdens on wealth vs. earned income?
-- With respect to the income tax burden, the earned income tax burden rises at a proportional rate while the income tax burden falls as wealth increases since most wealth appreciation is not taxed
- Which has a greater affect on GDP - a dollar of earned income or a dollar of increased wealth?
12/27: Now on Recommended Sites
h4>12/21: Now on Recommended Sites
- BB's WSW: Sizing Up The Century (12/19)
25 Years of Markets
- BB's Weekend Law:
SCOTUS 2025 in Review & Luigi Mangione Evidence (12/20)
- NPR's OTM:
Deep Fakes, Data Centers, and AI Slop --- Are We Cooked?
(12/19)
[01:00] A chat with Maria Curi about the massive bets that Silicon Valley and the White House are making on artificial intelligence
[13:10] A talk with Stephen Witt ... about the massive infrastructure project, and potential problem, that is AI.
[28:54] Brooke speaks with Craig Silverman ... about why Big Tech embraced fakeness in 2025, and what that means for 2026 and beyond.
Further reading/watching:
- "States defiant in face of Trump's AI executive order," by Maria Curi
- "MAGA scrambles to influence Trump's AI executive order," Maria Curi
- "Inside the Data Centers That Train A.I. and Drain the Electrical Grid," by Stephen Witt
- "2025: The year tech embraced fakeness," by Craig Silverman & Alexios Mantzarlis
- PBS' FL: Rob Reiner (12/19)
He discusses his decades of political activism, his concerns about threats to American institutions, and the health and future of American democracy in an updated repeat of an 2019 interview.
- PBS' WW: Rewriting hitory & Bipartisan backlash (12/19)
- Trump rewrites history in fast and furious prime-time speech.
- The FBI's priorities under Kash Patel's leadership and backlash after Trump's comments about the murders of Rob and Michele Reiner.
- RNRH:
Trouble in Toyland 2025 / Stop Underride (12/20)
- Ralph welcomes RJ Cross from USPIRG to discuss the Trouble in Toyland 2025 report.
- Ralph speaks with truck safety activist Marianne Karth about the need for stronger truck safety regulation.
- The RNRH team has a spirited debate about spectator sports.
Further reading:
- Tell the FTC: Stop tech companies from selling kids' data
- CNN FZGPS: The new National Security Strategy (NSS) and Interviews (12/21)
Fareed's "My Take" on the Trump administration's new NSS
Interviews with:
- Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken on year one of Trump 2.0.
- Professor And Author Jessica Stern about how ISIS persists largely through its digital caliphate.
- David Miliband of the International Rescue Committee about how the drop in aid from America ... makes desperate situations much, much worse.
12/13: Now on Recommended Sites
- BB's WSW: Changing With the Times (12/12)
Hubbard on Fed Cut Fallout, Open Source AI, Nuclear Bet, Department Store Revival
- BB's Weekend Law: This Week at the Supreme Court (12/14)
- Campaign Caps & Who Gets the Dog? (12/11)
-- [2:05] Elections expert Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School, discusses the Supreme Court oral arguments over Republican efforts to get rid of federal caps on spending by political parties in coordination with candidates.
- SCOTUS Poised to Give Trump More Power (12/10)
-- [1:10] Constitutional law experts William Treanor, a professor at Georgetown Law, and Gillian Metzger, a professor at Columbia Law School, discuss the Supreme Court's oral arguments over whether the president can fire the heads of independent agencies.
- NPR's OTM:
How a Gossip Blogger (almost) Became the Poster Child for First Amendment Rights (12/12)
- PBS' FL:
Mark Hertling (12/12)
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling (Ret.) comments on the second strike on a boat in the Caribbean [that was not heading to the U.S] and the new National Security Strategy.
- PBS' WW: Peace deal & Ukraine under pressure (12/12)
- Trump returns to his default position of supporting Russia
- Trump's new national security strategy turns friends into foes
- RNRH:
Burned By Billionaires/What's Spiking Your Electric Bill? (12/13)
- Ralph ... welomes Chuck Collins, ... to discuss his agenda for reform outlined in his new book BURNED BY BILLIONAIRES: How Concentrated Wealth and Power Are Ruining Our Lives and Planet.
- Sarah Moskowitz ... joins us to tell us how to fight back against AI data centers that are spiking your electric bills
- CNN FZGPS: Transcripts Bianna CNN anchor Bianna Golodryga, filling in for Fareed. (12/14)
-Will the American president sell out Ukraine to get Russia to sign on the dotted line?
--Carl Bildt, former Swedish Prime Minister, who now co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations:
--- "It's not fair to ask him [President Zelenskyy] to give up lands that he has been shedding blood and tears and lives for three and a half years just because Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump likes it."
--- "America has backed away from quite a lot of it [financial and military support] already, regrettably, but that's a fact."
-Billionaires, bragging rights and the future of moviegoing in America.
-- Golodryga:
--- "Warner Brothers Discovery is the parent company of CNN, and you've [Joe Flint of the Wall Street Journal] reported that David Ellison's father, Larry Ellison ... had called President Trump and signaled that he'd, quote, 'make sweeping changes' to CNN if Paramount indeed won."
-Fareed's interview about Iran's historic and unprecedented drought.
12/10: On this day, the 2025 Nobel Prizes were awarded in Sweden and Norway [imr]
- Yesterday in Pennsylvania, Trump mentioned both countries favorably in a rant on immigration:
With reference to a meeting with senators he held in 2018 about immigrants, he said,
- "Our country was going to hell. And we had a meeting, and I say, 'Why is it we only take people from s---hole countries, right?' Why can't we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few? Let us have a few from Denmark. Do you mind sending us a few people? Do you mind?'"
- What do the Scandinavian countries think of the United States now that Trump is president?
- The only chance that Trump has of being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway might be for restoring democracy to Venezuela.
- That will depend on his real motive for restoring democracy.
-- If he is motivated by obtaining oil for the U.S. it might not help
-- He does not seem to be currently serious about stopping narcotics heading to the U.S.
--- Why did he give a pardon to the former President of Honduras, who is a convicted drug trafficker sentenced in the US to 45-years in prison?
--- A day after Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border ... on January 20, he pardoned Ross Ulbricht, 'the kingpin of a worldwide digital drug-trafficking enterprise.'
12/8-?: Gerrymandering Representation [er]
- What does gerrymandering representation mean?
- What is the history of garrymandering?
- What types of gerrymandering are allowed by the Voting Rights Act and SCOTUS?
- How is the Texas redistricting of House seats corrupt?
- What laws limit partisan gerrymandering in the US?
12/6: Amending the Constitution [er]
12/7: Now on Recommended Sites
- BB's WSW: Crossroads of Capitalism (12/5)
Rattner's trip to China, Nepal's Gen-Z Uprising, Capitalism 4.0, Succession Cliff
- BB's Law:
Podcasts (12/7)
Boat Strikes & Impeachment Threats (12/4)
[1:27] Joshua Kastenberg, a professor at the University of New Mexico Law School and a former judge and lawyer in the US Air Force, discusses the second strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat.
- NPR's OTM:
Covering the Pentagon, from Sy Hersh to Laura Loomer (12/5)
[01:00]: Dan Lamothe talks about the Trump administration's shifting narrative around a second strike that killed two survivors on a boat in the Caribbean
[16:58]: Micah talks with Anna Merlan, senior reporter at Mother Jones, about the cast of right wing influencers and conspiracists now staffing the Pentagon press corps.
[43:18]: Laura Poitras describes Seymour Hersh's ferocious drive to uncover government wrongdoing, and what today's press corps can learn from him.
Further reading/watching:
- "Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all," by Alex Horton and Ellen Nakashimal
- "'Signalgate' report contradicts Hegseth's claim of 'total exoneration'," by Dan Lamothe
- Meet the New Pentagon Press Corps, by Anna Merlan and Julianne McShane
- Cover-Up, directed and produced by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus
- PBS' FL:
Sam Tanenhaus (12/5)
Sam Tanenhaus discusses the life of William F. Buckley Jr. , the architect of the modern American conservative movement.
- PBS' WW: Signal fallout & Boat strikes (12/5)
- Hegseth on defense after Signalgate inspector general report
- U.S. boat strikes and war crimes questions
- RNRH:
The Problem with Plastic (12/6)
- Ralph welcomes Judith Enck ... to discuss her new book "The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It's Too Late."
- Then, Ralph reflects on the 60th anniversary of "Unsafe at Any Speed."
- CNN FZ GPS: Venezuela, Ukraine, and Afghan refugees who helped our military. (12/7)
Fareed's "My Take" on the Trump Administration's rule by the rich
- "Donald Trump's second term ... has been a full blown attack on the expert class."
- "But as the populist right trashes meritocracy, it is replacing it with something older, cruder, and more corrosive. A naked plutocracy ruled by the very rich."
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