For example…
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AI bubble burst risks the global economy
Note how he distinguishes “financial markets” from “the real economy.”
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Planned Amazon data center could become the biggest polluter in the US
from TechCrunch:
As part of a planned data center in Pecos County, Texas, Amazon is investing in an on-site power plant that could become the largest source of climate pollution in the United States, according to The New York Times.
The NYT says the plant would burn natural gas and is permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide per year — more than any other power plant in the U.S.
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14.9 million excess deaths associated with COVID-19
New estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that the full death toll associated directly or indirectly with the COVID-19 pandemic (described as “excess mortality”) between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021 was approximately 14.9 million (range 13.3 million to 16.6 million).
…
Excess mortality includes deaths associated with COVID-19 directly (due to the disease) or indirectly (due to the pandemic’s impact on health systems and society). Deaths linked indirectly to COVID-19 are attributable to other health conditions for which people were unable to access prevention and treatment because health systems were overburdened by the pandemic. The estimated number of excess deaths can be influenced also by deaths averted during the pandemic due to lower risks of certain events, like motor- vehicle accidents or occupational injuries.
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“Functional unemployment” rate nears 25%
This includes persons who are involuntarily working part time and those who earn poverty level wages.
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Trump has raked in $15.5 million from oil and gas stocks during his war in Iran
According to the report, Trump’s wealth has increased by as much as $15.5 million since January thanks to his investments in oil and gas stocks, which have surged since the president unlawfully attacked Iran without congressional approval earlier this year.
more at Common Dreams: https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-fossil-fuel-stocks
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What EV haters continue to get wrong
Comment sections and electric vehicle forums are packed with recurring critiques. But many of them stem from outdated information. In the last decade, EVs have gotten far more reliable, the price of batteries has fallen, and charging infrastructure has become more abundant. Also, most automakers have settled on a single charging standard (NACS), and — thanks to significant fluctuations in oil prices — total cost of ownership for EVs has continued to fall, with used EVs proving especially cost-effective.
Read More: https://www.slashgear.com/2238085/what-electric-vehicle-haters-skeptics-get-wrong/
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Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year
“Healthcare costs have been rising faster than inflation, and a staggering share of that spending is consumed by administrative middlemen, soaring drug prices, and emergency care for conditions that should have been treated earlier and for less,” said senior author Alison Galvani, the Burnett and Stender Families Professor of Epidemiology at YSPH and the director of the Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis. “Medicare for All strips out those sources of waste while providing everyone with healthcare, saving over a trillion dollars and 114,000 lives every year.”
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Economists Blame $40 Trillion Debt Milestone on Two Things: GOP Ineptitude and Tax Cuts for the Rich
But economists and policy analysts say Republican policy decisions—from massive tax cuts for the rich to disastrous wars of choice in the Middle East—are primarily responsible for the explosion of the national debt over the past quarter-century. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly promised to eliminate the national debt, has so far overseen an $11.6 trillion debt surge across his two White House terms.
More here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/economists-trump-40-trillion-debt
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AI is helping the rich get richer
News from the Washington Post:
AI stocks have skyrocketed. Because the top 20 percent of earners own 90 percent of the stock market wealth, a booming market expands the inequality gap.
comment from Crooked Media.
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The jobs that data centers create are mainly just for their construction
Once built, the jobs leave.
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DOGE was a scam
Elon Musk promised to cut $1 trillion of federal spending.
He’s cut 0.5% of that.
Meanwhile, he’s secured an extra $8 billion in new contracts for Starlink, government-funded landing pads for SpaceX rockets, and access to all of the government’s data.
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Where the waste is
We found the waste Elon Musk and DOGE won’t cut: it’s defense contractors. The Department of Defense funnels $450 billion of taxpayer dollars a year to private military contractors. But Musk is too focused on cutting DEI initiatives (0.01% of the size of the defense budget) to tackle the real waste and fraud.
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Trans athletes have no advantage over women
The researchers argued that there was no evidence “to justify blanket bans” on trans women taking part in women’s sport.
The team looked at the strength, fitness and body composition of transgender people taking cross-sex hormones compared with women and men not taking drugs.
Trans bans are just attempts to distract you from right-wing failures.
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Trump promised cheaper prices but everyone is getting screwed
Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda is only helping oil and gas companies
President Donald Trump promised to “cut your energy prices in half” within his first year in office using his “energy dominance” agenda. Instead, energy dominance has produced record profits for oil companies and higher gas prices for everyone else.
Eight of the world’s largest oil companies made a combined $93 billion in profit in the second quarter of 2026, nearly double what those companies made last year
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Cognitive dissonance helps explain why Trump supporters remain loyal
This seems like a tested and proven hypothesis but it’s been re-investigated for our modern moment.
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Democrats have always been better for the economy
all the way back to Franklin D. Roosevelt, monthly job growth has averaged 176,000 under Democratic presidents, and 59,000 under Republican ones. Trump’s average over both terms, because of the job loss during the pandemic, is actually in the red, minus 7,000. In his current term, Trump averages 44,000 a month. Joe Biden, you wonder? He averaged 336,000.
But will Americans see the truth about the GOP?
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Mitch McConnell Is Getting More Paid Time Off Than Women Who Give Birth
The Kentucky Republican, who has not been seen publicly since mid-June and was discharged from rehabilitation in early August to continue recovering at home, has remained on the federal payroll throughout his medical absence. Congress has no official paid sick leave policy, and members can continue receiving their salary indefinitely while on a medical leave. At the same time, millions of American women who give birth each year do not have access to any guaranteed paid maternity leave.
The United States remains the only wealthy nation without a federal paid parental leave guarantee for most workers. While FMLA provides eligible workers with up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave, the law does not require it to be paid leave. It also excludes many workers employed at smaller businesses and those who have not met minimum employment requirements.
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Trump’s history of disparaging military service
Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’
Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.
“A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them,’” Kelly said of Trump. “A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family — for all Gold Star families — on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”
And there was more confirmation:
(A senior Defense Department official with firsthand knowledge of events and a senior U.S. Marine Corps officer who was told about Trump’s comments confirmed some of the remarks to The Associated Press, including the 2018 cemetery comments.)
Trump on John McCain: ‘I like people who weren’t captured’
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized Sen. John McCain’s military record at a conservative forum Saturday, saying the party’s 2008 nominee and former prisoner of war was a “war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Trump awards a civilian while disparaging military service:
“That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor,” Trump said Thursday. “But [the] civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.”
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Multiple USS Abraham Lincoln sailors have tried to go overboard
The Navy is preparing the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group to relieve Lincoln, Cao told families at the San Diego meeting. Officials have not provided a timeline, however, citing operational security.