Author: nick

[ad_1] The American Prospect had an excellent piece yesterday describing how taxpayers could end up being on the hook for bailing out bad loans to the AI industry even with no new actions by Congress or state legislatures. The mechanism is that life insurance companies have issued hundreds of billions of dollars of private loans to AI-related companies. (We can only speculate on the amount since many of the loans are issued by privately held companies, which don’t have to make detailed disclosures of holdings.) If these companies are unable to repay the loans, then one or more insurers could…

[ad_1] From Jane Bambauer’s and my brief in Patterson v. Meta Platforms, Inc., pending now before New York’s highest court (for more on the case, see the lower court opinions)—many thanks to our excellent local counsel Vivek Tata, Molly O’Keefe, and Alastair Pearson (Elsberg, Baker & Maruri PLLC) for all their help with the brief: [* * *] Plaintiffs-Appellants are suing Defendants-Respondents because Defendants-Respondents hosted and displayed to users what appears to be constitutionally protected third-party speech. Such a theory of liability is inconsistent with the First Amendment, as many cases rejecting negligence liability based on the communicative impact of…

[ad_1] It’s not often that one finds a movie about federal regulation, much less a high-concept rom-com set in a quasi-dystopian alternate present that no one quite realizes is dystopian. But that’s what One Night Only is. The movie is set in present-day New York, three years after the passage of a federal regulation, simply known as “the mandate,” that banned all sex outside of marriage—except for, you guessed it, one night only. During this one night, singles are free to have sex without the threat of legal crackdown; the rest of the time, they are monitored via implants that…

[ad_1] We are living in complex times in which U.S. imperialism is manifesting itself in an extremely aggressive manner, with greater violence and disregard for international law and the sovereignty of peoples, but with a desperation that translates into increasingly irrational decisions that openly threaten not only world peace but the future of all humanity. What we are witnessing is nothing less than the continuation of a process that began with the very founding of the United States, a process that took shape in the confrontation between two diametrically opposed models: the Monroe Doctrine and the Bolivarian Doctrine. Simón Bolívar,…

[ad_1] Political leanings: Democratic 2024 spending: $82 million, combined Democracy PAC and Democracy PAC II are liberal super PACs created by billionaire George Soros to fund political organizations that help elect Democrats. Michael Vachon, who has been an adviser, spokesperson and chief of staff for Soros, is the treasurer of Democracy PAC, which was created in January 2019, and Democracy PAC II, which was formed in July 2021. As super PACs, both can accept unlimited donations. Since it launched, Democracy PAC has been solely funded by Soros or companies or organizations he created. As of June 30, the super PAC had received more than $102 million…

[ad_1] President Donald Trump’s least favorite energy source was dealt another blow on Thursday when German energy company RWE announced that it was backing out of three early-stage offshore wind projects in New York, Louisiana, and California.  In exchange for giving up the lease rights, RWE will receive a $1.2 billion reimbursement—about what the company paid for the three leases—from the federal government. The company plans to “invest about the same amount” in natural gas projects, reports The New York Times.  The administration has touted the deal as a win for energy pragmatism. In a statement, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum…

[ad_1] Wall Street is again using insurance guarantees to turn difficult-to-rate credit exposure into highly rated securities. Assholes who wear Vineyard Vines all summer on Wall Street have once again put those Wharton PhD’s to good use by again “discovering” that assets so toxic and illiquid they make drinking cement taste like Fiji water apparently become safe when you rearrange them, rename them, and place an insurance company between the losses and the people buying them. Sound familiar? Explaining CDOs in the movie “The Big Short” According to Bloomberg, UBS and other firms have been exploring structures that package stakes in…

[ad_1] A North Carolina man has filed a claim seeking damages from the federal government, alleging he was arrested last year by immigration officers despite having valid REAL IDs, then dumped on the side of the road once the officers confirmed he was a U.S. citizen. Viral cell phone video taken on November 18, 2025, by Fernando Vazquez Orea, an 18-year-old landscaper, showed Border Patrol agents uncuffing Vasquez in a wooded area. One of the officers throws Vasquez’s ID and other papers out of an SUV, onto the ground, before driving off. @elnando7x They got me at CHAPEL HILL RD…

[ad_1] US Huey Helicopter in Laos. Photo: Captain Billie D Tedford, USAF. At 7:30 a.m., on March 16, 1968, Task Force Barker descended on the small hamlet of My Lai in the Quang Nai province of South Vietnam. Two squads cordoned off the village and one, led by Lieutenant William Calley, moved in and, accompanied by US Army Intelligence officers, began to slaughter all the inhabitants. Over the next eight hours, US soldiers methodically killed 504 men, women and children. As the late Ron Ridenhour, who first exposed the massacre, said years later, “Above My Lai were helicopters filled with…

[ad_1] Political leanings: Conservative 2024 total spending: $91.3 million Restoration of America PAC, previously known as Restoration PAC, was founded in January 2015 as a super PAC.  According to its website, Restoration of America is an “umbrella name for a family of conservative organizations” that will “defend our nation by electing like-minded leaders and by creating organizations and campaigns that promote fully transparent elections, economic freedom, limited government, military superiority, secure borders, rule of law, and the sanctity of life.” Besides the super PAC, the collective includes two 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, Restoration of America and Voter Reference Foundation, and a…