The final version of my "Corruption and the Supreme Court" has been published in the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, and is available for download here: ssrn.com/abstract=497...

Gen X: The Only Generation of American Women to Live With Rights My name is Jess and I was a high school Literature teacher for 16 years until I decided to run as a Democrat in a rural, red district in Missouri. I bring you news and politics from Missouri and beyon...

I will turn 50 this September. I was born in 1975, and I represent the only generation of American women born with full rights that have been lost in the same lifetime.

open.substack.com/pub/jesspipe...

“You Feel Like You’re Being Cheated”: Oil Companies Unfairly Take Millions, North Dakota Mineral Owners Say Oil companies are holding back a large portion of revenue payments to the people they lease drilling rights from, often with little explanation. But the industry has an outsize influence in the…

NEW: Oil companies are holding back a large portion of revenue payments to the people they lease drilling rights from, often with little explanation.

But the industry has an outsize influence in the state, and public officials have refused to take action.

With @northdakotamonitor.com

"WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 1, 2025) – The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today that it will begin an orderly wind-down of its operations"

cpb.org/pressroom/Co...

= FINANCIAL TIMES 'Net zero' emissions standard paused as Shell quits Energy group experts left after draft guidance on global warming plans 'did not reflect the industry view' Shell said the industry standard should provide companies with 'sufficient flexibility' to become net zero by 2050 © Peter Boer/Bloomberg

Shell and other fossil-fuel companies have abandoned the Science Based Targets initiative—a six-year-long attempt to define a global, corporate “net zero” emissions strategy—after being told that such a standard would require them to stop developing new oil and gas fields. 😶

U.S. to Curtail Practice of Declaring Foreign Elections Free and Fair The order says the U.S. will only comment if “there is a clear and compelling U.S. foreign policy interest to do so.”

Exclusive: The State Department is placing strict limits on its public assessments of foreign elections, according to an internal State Department directive, a sharp shift.

America Has Never Seen Corruption Like This Trump’s Qatari jet was just the beginning.

America has never seen corruption like this. Not the scope, nor the scale, nor the speed.

My latest for @theatlantic.com, on this high-water mark of American kleptocracy:

www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

The Local Journalist Index is live: A first-of-its-kind report from @muckrack.com and Rebuild Local News reveals a more widespread, severe shortage of local journalists across the U.S. than previously understood.

Read the report: localjournalistindex.com

How to Dismantle a Democracy, Legally The unitary executive theory is a masterclass in autocratic legalism.

Thanks for all the engagement on this. If you want to go beyond the data and into the stakes for democracy, I just wrote an article on the topic:
open.substack.com/pub/data4dem...

What's up with Justice Jackson? She started making her mark and speaking out early, and some of her dissents are so pointed Kagan and Sotomayor don’t even join them. The far right is out for her, and even Republican justices are getting snarky.

So what's up? Here’s my take 🧵

1. Trump's megabill will slash nutrition assistance for poor families, cause 17 million people to lose their health insurance, and add over $3 trillion to the deficit -- all to finance tax cuts for the rich.

IN THIS THREAD, I WILL LIST THE COMPANIES THAT PUBLICLY SUPPORTED THIS BILL.

The GOP Wants to Give Big Oil a Handout It Doesn’t Need Lawmakers are proposing giveaways to fossil-fuel producers that would cost the US $17.9 billion over a decade.

The Big Beautiful Bill is known for taking from millions to give to the rich, but don't overlook one of its acts of charity: Giving $18 billion more to Big Oil, which already gets $7 trillion a year in subsidies

🎁 link to my column for @opinion.bloomberg.com

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

US state department told to terminate nearly all its overseas pro-democracy programs Exclusive: All but two of the programs awarded under the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor would be cut, affecting nearly $1.3bn in grants

This would be the death blow to the Bureau of Democracy, Rights and Labor at State www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Created after the Watergate scandal, the US Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section has fought political corruption for nearly half a century. Five months into President Donald Trump's second term, it has been stripped of power reut.rs/43HTPGA

Oil giant Equinor funds game that promotes fossil fuels to children An online game used in UK schools portrays oil, gas and coal as part of a green transition.

A company looking to develop an oil field in the North Sea has funded a computer game aimed at UK school children as young as 7, promoting the idea that fossil fuels are part of a future energy mix

Big Oil Wins in Trump-GOP Megabill The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is chock full of items from the oil and gas industry's wish list.

NEW: After pouring millions into GOP super PACs, the fossil fuel industry is cashing in with the One Big Beautiful Bill, a sweeping budget reconciliation package loaded with giveaways for oil and gas companies. readsludge.com/2025/06/05/b...

The IRS Tax Filing Software TurboTax Is Trying to Kill Just Got Open Sourced Direct File has been open sourced, and its creators have left government to continue working on the "future of tax filing."

The IRS Tax Filing Software TurboTax Is Trying to Kill Just Got Open Sourced

🔗 www.404media.co/directfile-o...

Reputation laundering, fossil fuel style

Trump's crypto dinner cost over $1 million per seat, on average In total, the 220 winners of the contest to attend the dinner spent $394 million on Trump’s official cryptocurrency.

New: The crypto folks who bought the President's memecoin in order to attend his elite dinner tomorrow spent over $1 million each on average, and nearly $400 million in total. Per @molly.wiki, nearly 3/4 appear to be foreign nationals who'd be legally barred from donating cash to candidate Trump.

F.B.I. Dismantles Elite Public Corruption Squad

F.B.I. Dismantles Elite Public Corruption Squad

Trump’s Odd New Tariff Musings Show How Badly He’s Screwing His Voters As a perfect storm of Trump policies is set to hit rural America, a veteran Democratic organizer reflects on whether his party can capitalize to peel off some of Trump’s lockstep rural support.

"Trump won over 90% of news deserts across the country. These are communities that don’t have a local source of news...that’s where Trump is really succeeding."

On the pod, a rural Dem organizer is illuminating on how Trump's rural support thrives in info vacuums:
newrepublic.com/article/1949...

Two former Wells Fargo executives were fined $8.5M by the Biden administration for covering up the bank's infamous fake account scandal.

Trump just slashed those fines to a paltry $150,000 after Wells Fargo gave $1M to his inauguration.

See how this works?

Politically Connected Firms Benefit From Trump Tariff Exemptions Amid Secrecy, Confusion This article was originally published at ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom....

Politically Connected Firms Benefit From Trump Tariff Exemptions Amid Secrecy, Confusion talkingpointsmemo.com/news/politic...

Entirely predictable that Trump's AG would do this. Not just predictable but predicted. Congress should have codified these protections when it had a chance. knightcolumbia.org/blog/the-jus...

It Is Happening Here Trump is following the playbook of autocrats around the world — and it could change America forever.

Trump is copying the autocrats' playbook from Viktor Orban to end democracy in America. He's using autocratic legalism (or really autocratic illegalism) to turn the constitution and the law against themselves. Now's the time to stop this:
www.huffpost.com/entry/donald...

Another Anti-Corruption Pillar Crumbles Not enforcing the Corporate Transparency Act makes life harder for U.S. businesses—and easier for drug traffickers.

Not only is Trump’s change in policy undermining the U.S. fight against money laundering, but it is also undermining the administration’s own executive orders, Jodi Vittori writes.

I really enjoyed writing this piece - but hats off to the @foreignaffairs.com editorial team for their genius sub-heading: The Art of the Steal...!

“The key point is this: Without this abuse of power, Trump could not be unleashing such havoc. In short, Trump’s lawlessness and his economic destruction are the same story: The former doesn’t just enable the latter; the two are inextricably entangled with each other.”

Revealed: Trump’s fossil-fuel donors to profit from data-center boom and green rollbacks Energy Transfer, a top backer of US president, has received requests to power even more energy-guzzling data centers

Its not complicated: How fossil fuel firms donated loads of money to Trump and are now reaping the benefits... by me and @ninalakhani.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This is very astute, and why rebalancing the powers between the branches is needed to get out of the longer crisis this moment is a part of