Michael Derby

CNBC Lora Kolodny article: Tesla must pay portion of $329 million in damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says Key Points A jury in Florida determined that Tesla should be held partly liable for a fatal 2019 Autopilot crash. The company must pay a portion of $329 million in damages to victims and a survivor, including compensatory and punitive damages. Tesla had argued that the driver’s behavior was to blame for the fatal crash, while plaintiffs claimed Tesla’s Autopilot technology was flawed and deceptively marketed.

Elon tweet: "Teslas can drive themselves!"

Two days ago: Tesla has to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for deceptively marketing Autopilot in a way that falsely made people think it could drive the car by itself.

Today: Elon Musk "Teslas can drive themselves!"

“Garber, in a conversation with a faculty member, said the suggestion Harvard was open to paying $500 million is ‘false’ and claimed the figure was apparently leaked by White House officials…Garber said the University is treating academic freedom as nonnegotiable.”
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

White House backs away from IVF coverage mandate despite Trump’s campaign pledge, Washington Post reports The White House has no current plans to mandate insurance coverage for IVF, despite President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to expand access to fertility treatments, The Washington post reported on Saturday.

White House backs away from IVF coverage mandate despite Trump’s campaign pledge, Washington Post reports reut.rs/4of21YB

White House economist calls for 'fresh set of eyes at the BLS' after weak jobs report | Fox Business Video National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett discusses the latest jobs report, the firing of the labor statistics chief and the consumer impact of tariffs on 'Fox News Sunday.'

Hassett went on TV and claimed you can’t trust the economic data anymore because all the recent revisions are partisan.
A bald-faced lie.
Every serious economist still in this administration should resign. They are actively underminding the US economy by lending their credibility to this horse****

Rod Stewart Tour Features AI Video Of Ozzy Osbourne Taking Selfies With Musicians In Heaven Over the past two weeks on his One Last Time tour, Rod Stewart has been dedicating his 1988 hit “Forever Young” to Ozzy Osbourne, who died last month at 76. On the night of the Black Sabbath frontman’...

Very wrong.

Over the last few weeks political ads, largely hard right and Christian nationalist, have flooded my Instagram. Curious why.

When the cryptocurrency entrepreneur Eric Schiermeyer heard that President Trump was holding small group dinners with major donors, he saw opportunity. Mr. Schiermeyer reached out to a lobbyist with connections in Mr. Trump’s orbit, who arranged for him to attend a dinner with the president at his private Mar-a-Lago club on March 1 in exchange for donations to a pro-Trump PAC called MAGA Inc. totaling $1 million. The personal and corporate donations were among dozens of seven- and eight-figure contributions to MAGA Inc. from crypto and other interests revealed in a campaign finance filing on Thursday night that hinted at the access Mr. Trump accords those willing to pay. At the dinner, Mr. Schiermeyer, who had never given a federal political donation before, presented an idea for a cryptocurrency called “U.S.A. Token” that would be distributed to every citizen, according to interviews and a flier he distributed to attendees that sets out details of the proposal. He hoped it could be su

Cryptocurrency interests, which have benefited from the Trump administration’s dismantling of a yearslong government crackdown and from the Trump family’s financial interest in the industry, appear to have been the most generous industry, accounting for nearly $45 million in donations to MAGA Inc.An affiliate of the exchange Crypto.com gave $10 million, while the crypto services company Blockchain.com donated $5 million. The venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who are heavily invested in crypto, gave $3 million each. Ondo Finance, which has a partnership with the Trump family’s crypto company, donated $2.1 million to MAGA Inc., on top of $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

The scale of Trump's pay-for-access scheme outlined by the @nytimes.com is mindblowing. Crypto contributions resulting in business deals with the Trump family crypto businesses, oil companies buying influence and later reaping benefits from friendly policies, and a $1 million pardon.

Trump’s Efforts to Control Information Echo an Authoritarian Playbook

“Don’t like cost estimates for your tax plan? Invent your own. Don’t like a predecessor’s climate policies? Scrub government websites of underlying data. Don’t like a museum exhibit that cites your impeachments? Delete any mention of them.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/u...

Another point to the professionalism of the BLS folks now targeted by Trump for reporting the truth: I cannot think of any leaks of this data. A few accidental releases over many years, otherwise locked down.

Useful clip for teaching numeracy

Time travel

Stay weird Western Mass.

Bloodied Faces, Sobbing Children: Immigration Officers Smash Car Windows to Speed Up Arrests We’ve documented nearly 50 incidents of immigration officers shattering car windows to make arrests — a tactic experts say was rarely used before Trump took office. ICE claims its officers use a “mini...

"He can either give us a license... or we’ll smash the fucking window out and drag him out.”

That's not just any ICE officer saying that. His name is Matthew Elliston and he now oversees ICE field operations on the East Coast.

Summed up.

Trump’s Domestic Use of Military Set to Get Worse, Leaked Memo Shows A Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by TNR signals top-level discussions about a potential escalation of the Pentagon’s domestic anti-immigration role, and lays out new details.

NEWS --> An internal Homeland Security memo suggests Trump's use of military for domestic enforcement is about to get worse. It details top-level talks between Defense Department and DHS on what this should look like. Experts say it's alarming.

We obtained the memo:
newrepublic.com/article/1987...

!! Kevin Hassett (PhD, University of Pennsylvania), potential Fed chair, sought to frame the firing of the BLS commissioner as an attempt to restore “trust” at the statistics agency. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/b...

“The National Association for Business Economics (NABE) strongly condemns the removal of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer and the unfounded accusations leveled against the work of the agency…

A totally apolitical group.

files.constantcontact.com/668faa28001/...

Important thread 👇

"the drainage grates are in the shapes of American flags"

CORDER LIST: 606 U.S.) FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 2025 24-109 24-110 ORDER IN PENDING CASES LOUISIANA V. CALLAIS, PHILLIP, ET AL. ROBINSON, PRESS, ET AL. V. CALLAIS, PHILLIP, ET AL. The parties are directed to file supplemental briefs addressing the following question raised on pages 36-38 of the Brief for Appellees: Whether the State's intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution. Supplemental briefs for appellants are due on or before Wednesday, August 27, 2025. Supplemental brief for appellees is due on or before Wednesday, September 17, 2025. Reply briefs are due on or before 2 p.m., Friday, October 3, 2025. The time to file amicus curiae briefs is as provided for by this Court's Rule 37.3. Word limits and cover colors for the briefs should correspond to the provisions of this Court's Rule 33.1(g) pertaining to briefs on the merits rather than to the provision pertaining to supplemental

😬The Supreme Court will consider whether the intentional creation of a majority-minority congressional district violates the 14th or 15th Amendments.

If the answer is yes, SCOTUS will effectively declare that what remains of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. This is very, very ominous.

Trump may be on edge of blinding economic policy making, all because he got some tough jobs numbers.

The totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer, my successor as Commissioner of Labor Statistics at BLS, sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau. For a full statement opposing this move, read:

Trump’s first BLS Commissioner, Bill Beach, calls today’s firing groundless and dangerous.
www.friendsofbls.org/updates/2025...

Second US appeals court open to blocking Trump's birthright citizenship order U.S. President Donald Trump's order restricting birthright citizenship appeared on Friday to be headed toward being declared unconstitutional by a second federal appeals court, as judges expressed deep skepticism about a key piece of his hardline immigration agenda.

New: President Trump's order restricting birthright citizenship appeared on Friday to be headed toward being declared unconstitutional by a second federal appeals court, as judges on the 1st Circuit expressed skepticism about a key piece of his immigration agenda. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

Kugler resigning from Fed, opening door to Trump appointment The Federal Reserve said on Friday that Governor Adriana Kugler is resigning early from her term and will exit the central bank on Aug. 8, potentially shaking up what was already a fractious succession process for Fed leadership amid difficult relations with President Donald Trump.

Kugler resigning from Fed, opening door to Trump appointment. Via Reuters

Nothing makes sense, but I'll add this anyway...

When preliminary payrolls numbers overestimated job growth under Biden—and were later revised down—Trumpland claimed this was the BLS trying to prop up the President.

Today he interprets it as the BLS is trying to undermine him.

Screenshot replies saying “the monkey paw curl is that government data collection is significantly curtailed or otherwise damaged” “true. All the stats divisions will be gutted like Modi did in India” “like there will be a BLS after one bad jobs report”

I gotta listen to my reply guys more

Not sure what to say about the manosphere, but I sure as hell do not understand the whole sports thing.

As I understand it, if Trump swiftly appoints someone to the soon vacant Kugler gov. slot that person's term still ends next January and would have to be reconfirmed to stay, which can be complicated. Not sure what this means for a "shadow chair" play but all the same, the whole thing is odd.

Adriana D. Kugler submits resignation as a member of the Federal Reserve Board, effective August 8, 2025 The Federal Reserve Board announced on Friday that Adriana D. Kugler will step down from her position as governor of the Federal Reserve Board, effective Augus

This is a big deal folks: Fed Govenor Kugler is resigning effective Aug. 8, before her term ends. This opens Fed up for a Trump appoitment and could well bear on chair succession too. www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/p...

This is a perfect example of how an unfettered presidential removal power can undermine accountability (despite unitary executive theory claims to the contrary). How can you hold the President accountable for economic conditions if the President can keep us from knowing about those conditions?

A question I'm now asking myself: If you destroy the BLS, how hard is it to re-constitute the BLS later?