Luke Goldstein

Shutdown Deal Kills Food Safety Rules After lobbyists spent big on the Trump administration and Democratic defectors, the government funding bill cut food-contamination rules and limited ultraprocessed-food research.

If you have stomach issues or diarrhea in the near future blame the senators who slipped these provisions into the funding bill to reopen the government.

www.levernews.com/shutdown-dea...

Corporations Want to Prevent Workers From Leaving Their Jobs As regulators crack down on noncompete agreements that bar workers from finding better jobs, employees across the country are increasingly bound by a new form of “stay-or-pay” contract that indebts them to their bosses.

2) Employers are trying to TRAP (Training Repayment Agreement Provision) employees by making them pay for any training they received if the employee leaves their job early. @jacobinmag.bsky.social @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social

jacobin.com/2025/08/corp...

The Lever's @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social and @freddy-brewster.bsky.social are out with a devastating piece on the ways the crypto industry is absolutely pulling the strings of pro-crypto Democrats. ‪Trump's corruption? Who cares. Financial stability? Fuck it. They want a payoff. Now.

Trump Already Disarmed The War On Drug Prices To the benefit of Big Pharma, the president’s new executive order on drug costs is missing a key price-lowering mechanism.

Ahhhhh…

www.levernews.com/trump-alread...

two of the cases ban Scott Sheffield and John Hess from joining the boards of Exxon and Chevron respectively b/c of alleged collusion. The third involves an order placed on two oil companies that colluded before their merger was approved

They Inflated Your Gas Prices — Now Trump Wants To Let Them Off The Hook Awash in industry donations, Trump is poised to exonerate fossil fuel executives accused of colluding to increase oil prices.

The FTC now has 3 cases open to lift regulatory restrictions put on oil executives for illegal coordination and colluding with OPEC.

This comes after the oil/gas industry + those very executives contributed millions to Trump PACs and petitioned for regulatory relief

The Texas-Sized Plan To Shut You Up A corporate-led attack on free speech in Texas is making odd bedfellows and tearing the state’s GOP apart.

Texas lawmakers are now trying to change their state laws to empower Elon Musk to sue you into the ground and bankrupt you and your family if you criticize him.

The group spearheading the lobbying campaign for the legislation is bankrolled by...Elon Musk.

The Mega-Donor Who Colluded With OPEC Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield was banned from ExxonMobil’s board after a merger for conspiring to keep gas prices high.

For more on the backstory, read @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social's previous reporting on Sheffield in @prospect.org.

They Inflated Your Gas Prices — Now Trump Wants To Let Them Off The Hook Awash in industry donations, Trump is poised to exonerate fossil fuel executives accused of colluding to increase oil prices.

🚨THIS JUST HAPPENED: Last year, two oil CEOs were busted for conspiring with foreign governments to raise Americans' gas prices.

Then the pair of oil CEOs funneled cash to Trump's political machine.

Now Trump's regulators are ending their punishment. www.levernews.com/they-inflate...

The Khan-led FTC showed that U.S. fossil fuel execs conspired w/ OPEC to limit global oil supply, so they could raise prices & boost profits.

Biden did not use this scandal—Trump mega-donors making your life more expensive!—to his full advantage. Dems now have a second chance.

It’s extremely understaffed and has been unwilling to use its full authority

It’s a division of the department of labor. In theory, the office is supposed to protect your retirement savings from the kind of looting this guy’s company helps facilitate

The Corporate Crusade Of Trump’s Top Retirement Cop Potential pension chief Daniel Aronowitz wants to give retirement fund managers a free pass for price-gouging workers and bungling their savings — and his company stands to profit from it.

Trump’s pick for retirement czar is an avid blogger…(if that weren’t bad enough) he specifically blogs about his disdain for pensioners who, in his view, are bullying Wall St with “frivolous” lawsuits for looting their nest eggs. He happens to run a company profiting from said looting.

Hatchet Job on CFPB Even Worse in the Details Declarations in a case reveal a haphazard hobbling of the consumer protection agency.

The CFPB continues to survive, as a second attempt to fire approx. 90% of the workers has failed. But the details of the effort is broadly applicable to DOGE's tactics, showing their contempt for and ignorance of the law, along with what it actually takes to run a federal agency.

Exposing the “Biden age coverup” is not Watergate despite how much the DC press corps wants to act like it is and pat themselves on the back

How Trump Is Helping Price Gougers Exploit His Tariffs Emboldened by the new administration’s regulatory reprieve, “price optimization” consultants are showing corporations how to weaponize import levies to fleece consumers.

NEW: a hidden class of consultants are helping companies use tariffs as a pretext to impose lasting price hikes, as they did during inflation.

These very practices were under scrutiny by the FTC before the Trump admin ended the probe, giving companies a “green light” to gouge

How Trump Is Helping Price Gougers Exploit His Tariffs Emboldened by the new administration’s regulatory reprieve, “price optimization” consultants are showing corporations how to weaponize import levies to fleece consumers.

INVESTIGATION: Trump’s administration halted a probe of surveillance pricing — now “price optimization” consultants are helping corporations weaponize Trump’s tariffs to jack up prices on consumers.

“Now is the time to take advantage,” said one consultant www.levernews.com/how-trump-is...

Politico ran a paid sponsorship yesterday by "Make America Affordable Again," run by Trump campaign top strategists Chris LaCivita and Tony Fabrizio. It has nothing to do with affordability. Their sole advocacy is for "loser pays" lawsuit reform to dissuade people from suing corporations for damages

Zuckerberg Admits Enshittification Is The Point The tech CEO just confirmed what we already know: Big Tech is deliberately worsening users’ online experience.

During yesterday's Facebook antitrust trial, evidence emerged showing Mark Zuckerberg admitting that Big Tech is deliberately worsening users' online experience. www.levernews.com/zuckerberg-a...

Trump IRS Pick Was Just Enriched By Tax Schemers New documents show Billy Long’s $130,000 personal debt was suddenly paid off by donors at firms policed by the tax agency he’d lead.

This week, Senators on the Finance Committee called for a criminal probe into a fraudulent “tribal tax credit” scheme peddled by financial advisors who Trump’s IRS pick Billy Long worked for.

Those same firms just paid off Long's outstanding debt from his failed Senate bid:

Trump IRS Pick Was Just Enriched By Tax Schemers New documents show Billy Long’s $130,000 personal debt was suddenly paid off by donors at firms policed by the tax agency he’d lead.

🚨BREAKING: Trump's IRS nominee Billy Long just had his personal debt paid off by donors whose firms have business before the tax agency he’d lead, according to documents reviewed by The Lever.

If confirmed, Long would be able to do favors for the donors. www.levernews.com/trump-irs-pi...

Howard Lutnick predicts a manufacturing ‘renaissance’ is coming | Fox News Video Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick elaborates on the Trump-led rebirth of the American economy and U.S. manufacturing on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime.’

Lutnick starts out by claiming the trade war will bring back manufacturing, but there won't be jobs - just robots

As @samseder.bsky.social @ddayen.bsky.social noted, he realized he made an error, and tried to pivot to claiming we'll need workers to repair the robots.
www.foxnews.com/video/637101...

Paging Dr. Land Baron Nonprofit hospitals are building tax-exempt real estate empires — and working to crush politicians who stand in their way.

INVESTIGATION: Hospital chains are buying up billions of dollars of real estate, milking them for income while using charity status to avoid taxes that fund schools & emergency departments. Some are now using taxpayer-subsidized fortunes to buy elections.

wow, new bombshell reporting from @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social reveals:

- in 2023, Corey O'Connor strongly supported Ed Gainey's legal challenges to UPMC's property tax exemptions.

- in 2025, O'Connor's mayoral campaign received $25k from the UPMC Board.

- he now opposes the legal challenges.

🤔

My colleague @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social & I examined how UPMC is abusing its tax-exempt status by buying up properties, not paying taxes, & influencing the Pittsburgh mayoral election. UPMC is an exemplar of a wider issue with hundreds of nonprofit hospitals abusing their generous tax breaks.

Friendly reminder: Obama taught Republicans that controlling Big Tech is key to political power. While Obama used charm, handshakes, head nods, and backroom talks — and Trump uses threats and coercion — the implied deal is the same: pledge loyalty, and your power goes unchecked.

Meta Drags Delaware To The Bottom Delaware just passed a bill to let executives off the hook across the country — and Meta helped write it.

NEWS: Democratic lawmakers worked with lawyers for Meta, Musk & other billionaires to sculpt new legislation blocking shareholders & workers from accessing corporate records when trying to hold CEOs legally accountable.

Last night, Dems passed the bill.

What this is really about is a long running battle by pork and egg producers to block cage free laws. While egg companies rake in record profits and raise prices, they're now blaming these state rules

Animal Farm: Eggflation’s Monopoly Problem Factory farms are blaming eggflation on animal welfare laws in an attempt to boost their margins and crush their competitors.

When a Dept. Sec. says something 180 degrees from reality u have to wonder who they're covering for.

Rollins' war on CA Prop 12+other cage free laws is contradicted by USDA's own data showing it has nothing to do with birdflu or high egg prices. It's the contrary: