sinski @aosinski@qoto.org

Trump has pledged to fire Gary Gensler, the head of the SEC, on his first day in office.

Andreessen Horowitz and other crypto industry players are about to see their investment in the Trump campaign pay off big time.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-06/sec-crypto-enforcement-slated-for-major-rollback-under-trump?embedded-checkout=true

Ever since Citizens United, outside spending on elections by groups like super PACs has skyrocketed.

The biggest individual donor to outside spending groups in 2024 was Timothy Mellon — heir to the Mellon banking fortune.

This is how dynastic wealth corrupts our politics.

I can't argue with that.

Like a lot of people I'm really concerned about what the incoming regime is going to do, so here's one small way I'm trying to help: https://jacobian.org/2024/nov/11/digital-security-checkup/

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) averaged 422 ppm in October 2024

10 years ago October averaged about 396 ppm

Preliminary data: https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

“The reason most public transportation is seen as ‘losing’ money is precisely because it charges for trips. If you don't charge fares, suddenly it can't ‘lose’ money. It just costs money, the same as the roads.”

This random comment has given me my new favourite argument for removing fares from public transit.

BREAKING NEWS

PA judge rules that Elon Musk CAN CONTINUE his $1M/day giveaway, denies emergency injunction sought by Philly DA Larry Krasner. Full opinion with reasoning to come. (via Teddy Schleifer) (Deleted and reposted to change "dismisses lawsuit" to "denies emergency injunction"—apologies!)

👉 Keep an eye on this page: the new UNEP Gap Report will be released later today. It describes the huge gap between where we need to be for climate stabilisation and where we actually are (not close).

Last year's report was entitled "Broken Record". Because #climate extremes broke records and the message we climate scientists send out year after year also sounds like a broken record: time is running out - and we have to finally start being honest to ourselves.

https://www.unep.org/emissions-gap-report-2024

I still think the absolute funniest tax policy was what Ireland did. They basically became a tax haven for foreign corporations to attract all the rich multinational tech companies and generate a ton of tax revenue in the process. The EU wasn't happy about it, so they sued Ireland and won. The outcome of the lawsuit was that Ireland had to charge back taxes + interest to the companies it gave tax breaks to, making the country even more money in the process. Probably the most "don't hate the player hate the game" economic policy I've seen in a while.

Today is the 50th anniversary of women gaining the right to have mortgages, business loans and credit cards in their own names.

I am 47 years old. My mom did not have access to her own credit card without her husband or father's approval. People like to think that this stuff happened in the ancient past. It didn't. People you know were directly affected by anti-women systemic oppression.

The only thing Jeff Bezos‘ editorial in the Washington Post convinced me is that we need a steep wealth tax and that the existence of billionaires is a public policy failure.

@AngryBlackLady IIRC @404mediaco contacted all of the period apps, and only one of them said they wouldn't provide client periods information to the police if asked.

I know l've mentioned this before, but during my trial i was found not guilty on the use of mace charge after I was able to prove I deployed my mace against the proud boys in self defense and defense of property, and that I was assaulted first. When I was first assaulted by PBs, I was filming a flag burning and it was entirely unprovoked. I did however get found guilty on felony riot just for being there, despite all the evidence showing why I was there and what I was doing. The prosecutor still painted
me to be the ring leader of antifa and "leading chargers" that day against PBs. The trial itself was absolute hell. The time leading up to it was hell. They sent me to jail where I spent two weeks in maximum security and I now am on 2.5 years of probation.

Earlier this week, local Proud Boy Berry Johnson plead guilty to his charges stemming from that same day before his trial was set to begin. Although during my trial the prosecutor argued that the definition of someone "participating" in a riot included just simply speaking to people who may have different intentions, Berry did not receive this charge. By that definition, anyone present would have been a "participant." The fact that a few dozen publicly identified proud boys who were there and brutally assaulting people who received no charges aside, Berry Johnson was only charged with a misdemeanor. Not only was he acting violently throughout the day and instigating violence, but the situation he caught charges on he assaulted an older gentleman and pulled a knife on him along with tearing up his banner.

Mind you after I had my lawyer tell them I would *only* possibly entertain noncooperative plea deals, in the three years of dealing with this case before it went to trial I was only ever offered one plea deal- which was to plead guilty to all my chargers and do a month in jail lol.

Fully fascist state, full stop, masks off. They’re saying the quiet part out loud. I’m not surprised by this, but going through it is beyond dystopian.

"Harvard Libraries suspended roughly 25 faculty members from entering Widener Library for two weeks after they conducted a silent 'study-in' protest in the library’s main reading room last week, an extraordinary disciplinary action taken by the University against its own faculty."
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/10/25/faculty-members-suspended-harvard-library/