Music: Jon Hassell — ‘Last Night The Moon Came’
Trump’s policies will lead to ‘deep recession’ economists warn
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes: Donald Trump’s assault on the US federal government and the world’s interlinked manufacturing system have together reached an economic tipping point. “It seems almost unavoidable that we are headed for a deep, deep recession,” said Jesse Rothstein, Berkeley professor and former chief economist at the US labour department. Once the pace of job losses crosses a critical line, the multiplier effects can snowball suddenly. Prof Rothstein said monthly non-farm payrolls – the barometer of US economic health…
Large majority of Trump voters oppose Medicaid cuts, poll finds
The Hill reports: Most President Trump voters say they oppose any cuts to Medicaid as Republican lawmakers wrestle with how to reach up to $2 trillion in budget cuts through their reconciliation bill, a poll released Monday found. The poll from Hart Research conducted for the nonprofit Families Over Billionaires, which advocates in opposition to tax cuts for the wealthy, found 71 percent of voters who backed Trump said cutting Medicaid would be unacceptable. Voters overall were even more opposed…
Musk’s business empire is built on $38 billion in government funding
The Washington Post reports: Elon Musk and his cost-cutting U.S. DOGE Service team have been on a mission to trim government largesse. Yet Musk is one of the greatest beneficiaries of the taxpayers’ coffers. Over the years, Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments, a Washington Post analysis has found, helping seed the growth that has made him the world’s richest person. The payments stretch…
Trump allies circulate mass deportation plan calling for ‘processing camps’ and private citizen ‘army’
Politico reports: A group of prominent military contractors, including former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, has pitched the Trump White House on a proposal to carry out mass deportations through a network of “processing camps” on military bases, a private fleet of 100 planes, and a “small army” of private citizens empowered to make arrests. The blueprint — laid out in a 26-page document President Donald Trump’s advisers received before the inauguration — carries an estimated price tag of $25 billion…
What happens when law enforcement bows to political pressure?
The Bulwark‘s Tim Miller discusses with Ben Wittes the ramifications of the FBI declining to take action when there is clear evidence of criminal actions:
Russia is running out of money to finance the war
Agathe Demarais writes: As U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin consider meeting in the coming weeks, it may be useful to ask why it is that Moscow now appears inclined to end the war in Ukraine. Three years into the conflict, Putin has shown the world he doesn’t care about bloodshed. And if his goal was to install a Russia-friendly government in Kyiv, he remains far from achieving it. However, there is a third, less explored hypothesis…
Israel launches major air assault on Syria’s capital
Murtaza Hussain and Ali Younes report: Over a decade of civil war and sanctions have laid waste to much of Syria, crippling its economy and sending much of its population into exile. Already struggling to recover from this carnage, Syria is now facing attacks from Israel that threaten to destabilize the country. On Tuesday night, a wave of Israeli airstrikes struck targets near Damascus and other cities in southern Syria, with initial reports indicating that at least one person was…
Music: Arve Henriksen — ‘Ascent’
How the logic of technology threatens democracy and humanity
Mike Brock writes: [H]ere is what makes AI and Musk and Thiel’s belief in the logic of technology as the basis for civilization so authoritarian. There’s no room for emotion in the cold logic of math. This technocratic vision of society, where algorithms and “rational” systems dictate human affairs, is not just misguided—it’s fundamentally anti-human. It’s a worldview that reduces the rich tapestry of human experience to a series of equations, that sees efficiency as the highest virtue and messiness…
DOGE staffers resign en masse. Nearly 40% of canceled contracts are expected to produce no savings
The Associated Press reports: More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.” “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can…
It’s impossible to overstate the level of Elon Musk’s contempt — or the extent of his ignorance
Matt Bai writes: [W]hat’s happened at USAID over the past couple of weeks is unfathomable. A $50 billion agency — funded by taxpayers, empowered by Congress and employing something like 11,000 people around the world — is now tightly controlled by a handful of 20-something software engineers who have never worked a day in government. They disregard promises from the American secretary of state while agonized policy experts stand by helplessly. In the coming weeks, courts will have to decide…
Tesla owners vent their anger at Elon Musk
London Guerrilla Ad-fare: #Tesla the #Swasticar … from 0 to 1939 in just 3 seconds #Musk pic.twitter.com/y96FiQ5g1Z — Peter Speetjens (@PeterBeirut) February 24, 2025 The Guardian reports: When Mike Schwede first sat in a Tesla Roadster 15 years ago, he felt like it was a glimpse into the future. By 2016, he was the proud owner of a Tesla, revelling in the thumbs up he would get from other drivers as he whizzed along Europe’s highways in the electric vehicle….
Musk has lost more than $100B since December as Tesla stock value sinks
NBC News reports: Elon Musk’s status as the world’s wealthiest person is in no danger of changing. But since mid-December, the tech titan’s net worth has declined by more than $100 billion, or approximately 25%, as a sell-off in shares of Tesla, his electric car maker, has accelerated in recent weeks. On Tuesday, the stock closed down another 8% to $302.80 and is off 25% year to date. The latest drawdown comes as new data showed new Tesla vehicle registrations…
$1.5 billion stolen from Bybit exchange in biggest crypto heist ever. Meanwhile, Argentina’s Milei under investigation
Mashable reports: $1.5 billion. That’s the amount of money that has just been stolen by hackers from one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges. On Friday, Ben Zhou, cofounder and CEO of the crypto exchange Bybit, shared that hackers had gained control of Bybit’s ETH (Ethereum) wallet and transferred all of its holdings to an unknown crypto wallet address. Bybit ETH multisig cold wallet just made a transfer to our warm wallet about 1 hr ago. It appears that this…
Rise of AfD highlights the divide between eastern and western Germany
The New York Times reports: Three and a half decades after reunification, a line runs through Germany where the Iron Curtain once stood. Instead of barbed wires and dogs, that line now divides Germans by measures like income and unemployment — and increasingly by the willingness to vote for extremist parties. If East Germany were still its own country, the hard-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which has been linked to neo-Nazis and is being monitored by domestic intelligence, would…