Kim Davis

The rich must be incentivised; the poor must be disciplined.

The political economy of the super-elite in one headline.

The idea that President can negotiate/dictate bilateral “deals” by using the full force of the federal government to punish and humiliate his perceived enemies goes against the whole idea of the rule of law. That should be the story, rather than normalizing this authoritarian behavior.

2019 – 2024 – Repeated denials and discovery stonewalling Through years of communications with the police, the plaintiffs and the court through the investigation and later the discovery process for the lawsuit, Tesla never mentioned that it had all the data that explained how Autopilot saw the crash, which everyone was seeking, sitting on its servers for years. The facts are: Tesla had the data on its servers within minutes of the crash When the police sought the data, Tesla redirected them toward other data When the police sought Tesla’s help in extracting it from the computer, Tesla falsely claimed it was “corrupted” Tesla invented an “auto-delete” feature that didn’t exist to try explain why it couldn’t originally find the data in the computer When the plaintiffs asked for the data, Tesla said that it didn’t exist Tesla only admitted to the existence of the data once presented with forensic evidence that it was created and transfered to its servers.

This whole story is insane. Tesla apparently did everything it could to avoid providing the data it had about its Autopilot crash. This is just a snippet and there's a lot more. electrek.co/2025/08/04/t...

Judges Openly Doubt Government as Justice Dept. Misleads and Dodges Orders

There goes the "presumption of regularity" as DOJ lawyers lie to the courts and dodge their orders: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/u...

"Reciprocal" tariffs: What are they really for? This Policy Brief evaluates the evolving reasons for and application of the Trump administration’s “reciprocal” tariffs and finds them wanting.

The 'reciprocal' tariffs are more a ploy to strengthen US negotiating hand than estimates of unfair trade practices the US faces. Even if reduced to 15%, imposing tariffs on America’s poorest trading partners would do little to reduce the US trade deficit but would harm their economic development.

It's going to be really weird watching ppl get nostalgic for the hot labor market a few years ago everyone hated at the time

If you, regular person, did anything like this after a fatal car accident, you would be prosecuted for a variety of crimes, including insurance fraud.

If you then repeatedly lied to the courts about it, like Tesla did, you'd get prosecuted for that too, plus stiff monetary sanctions.

A fun reminder that a loss of 60,000 jobs in and around academia is ~50% more than all coal mining jobs in the entire country.

A massive regressive national sales tax imposed upon every American by a president with no constitutional authority to impose a national sales tax. The reason why the founders gave this power to Congress is because this would never pass any Congress- even this one.

This is Trump’s f*cked-up economy, but don’t miss this point in the jobs report—if it hadn’t been for healthcare, we would’ve actually lost jobs every single month.

Moodys Chief Economist Mark Zandi: “The (US) economy is on the precipice of recession…Consumer spending has flatlined, construction and manufacturing are contracting, and employment is set to fall. And with inflation on the rise, it is tough for the Fed to come to the rescue.”

The increasing intermittency of….nuclear power stations:

Source: Financial Times | “Heatwaves test Europe’s electricity system as air conditioning use soars” on.ft.com/4fsSclS

Stunning revisions show US added 258K fewer jobs than first reported The U.S. added 258,000 fewer jobs in May and June than the Labor Department first reported, according to federal data released Friday. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued stunning revisions…

The latest jobs report is…very bad. 

July: 73,000
June: 14,000
May: 19,000

This is the worst economic jobs report since mass layoffs during COVID.

“There is no precedent for politicians so aggressively raising money for their own entities when they do not have a campaign to use it for.”

Keep going, NYT. You’re almost there…

DR Congo-Rwanda peace deal: How Trump wants US companies to cash in The US president is spearheading an ambitious but controversial deal to end a long-running conflict.

Trump claims he "ended" the war in Congo and Rwanda. What he's really been up to is another mineral grab: www.bbc.com/news/article...

US appeals court keeps bar on Los Angeles federal immigration arrests The appeals panel ruled that the plaintiffs would likely be able to prove that federal agents had carried out arrests based on peoples' appearance, language and where they lived or worked.

In other words, ICE raids are racially profiling.

Which is why there is no paperwork.

“.. We have no interest in running a lower-margin business, particularly due to tariffs,” said the CFO. “And if this is something that’s going to be a permanent increase to our cost structure, we have to find a way to cover it.”

@nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/b...

Heads up: the Bureau of Labor Statistics also calculates the Consumer Price Index.

He's promising to protect the integrity of the data by firing statisticians who follow established methods of data collection and processing whenever those methods yield numbers that don't please the boss.

Federal government paying 154,000 people not to work The federal government is paying more than 154,000 federal employees not to work as part of the deferred resignation program.

A total of 154,000 federal employees took the deferred resignation program.
(Remember, the government is still paying these employees, so they will not show up on unemployment figures yet)
abcnews.go.com/Politics/fed...

Every Scientific Empire Comes to an End America’s run as the premier techno-superpower may be over.

Thanks everyone, it’s been fun being a scientist in the US. 👋

Nordic countries hit by ‘truly unprecedented’ heatwave | Climate crisis | The Guardian Scientists record longest streak of temperatures higher than 30C in region in records going back to 1961

"A weather station in the Norwegian part of the Arctic Circle recorded temperatures above 30C (86F) on 13 days in July." www.theguardian.com/environment/...

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...

More reporting on falling vax rates:

The new CDC statistics "provide a sobering explanation for the resurgence of childhood diseases across the United States."

"There were more than 32,000 cases of whooping cough in 2024, the highest tally in a decade."

1/2

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/h...

What to make of POTUS's attempt to fire the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)?

Let's run down what knowledgable people are saying...

CNN: "We came into this week and we said it was a pivotal week for the economy. And I gotta say -- indicator after indicator has turned out worse than expected. Core GDP really showed that the US economy slowed down during Q2. Yesterday's inflation report -- that heated up."

Firing the BLS Commissioner — the wonk in charge of the statisticians who track economic reality — is an authoritarian four alarm fire.

It will also backfire: You can't bend economic reality, but you can break the trust of markets. And biased data yields worse policy.

Personally, I would rather spend $200M on cancer research than on an effing ballroom, but maybe that’s just me. 🤬

Epstein survivor Sarah Ransome on Ghislaine Maxwell: “It makes me sick that she is claiming to be a victim. This is the same woman that grabbed my arm and forced me into a room to be raped by Jeffrey. She had this evil smirk on her face. And she enjoyed it.”

ht: @marcofoster.bsky.social

This labor market is in trouble. Healthcare are social assistance are pretty much the only sectors hiring. This is NOT healthy. **Just +73,000 job gains in July** Healthcare +55,000 Social assistance +18,000 Retail +16,000 Finance +15,000 Hospitality +5,000 State gov't +5,000 Transport/warehouse +4,000 Construction +2,000 Professional and biz services -14,000 Federal gov't -12,000 (down -84,000 since January) Manufacturing -11,000 Local gov't -3,000 Information -2,000

the just out July jobs report is not good news for the economy