calitude.bsky.social

“Former Gov. Jerry Brown left office eight years ago with a big surplus and an ominous message in his last state budget: “What’s out there is darkness, uncertainty, decline and recession, so ‘Good luck, baby.’”  Via Cal Matters

We are at war: “The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war. But we're doing this not for now.” -Trump

The grift of it all: S.E.C. drops a case against a crypto partner of Trump family. Justin Sun, Chinese-born billionaire accused of market manipulation, for $10 million. After Trump’s re-election, Sun bought $75 million worth of a cryptocurrency associated with a Trump family business. Via - NYT

Let them eat cake: RE Iran Gasoline prices will “drop very rapidly when this is over, and if they rise, they rise,” Trump told Reuters yesterday. He added: “This is far more important than having gasoline prices go up a little bit.”

$134 million to deploy the National Guard to LA. $45 million for Trump’s birthday bash parade. Waste, fraud, and abuse anyone?

DOGE DEVOURS DOLLARS ProPublica found, more than $39 million has been earmarked to DOGE in the Trump administration’s first month. For perspective, in recent years Congress had allocated around $50 million a year for the IT modernization initiative that DOGE supplanted, budget records show.

WHY DID TRUMP WIN? The average reading level of most American adults is estimated to be around a 7th to 8th-grade level. 54% of U.S. adults aged 16-74 read below a 6th-grade level. About 12% of American adults can read complex written materials.

I mean, what we’re seeing is what you’d expect if China and Russia had somehow managed to install people who wanted to sabotage America’s international position at the highest levels of the U.S. government. -Paul Krugman

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has recovered more than $17 billion for consumers from fraudulent or predatory practices since it began in 2011.

Tesla sales drop since Elon Musk did a Nazi Salute, Great job Spain, you can do much better UK! Spain -75.4% France -63.4% Sweden -46.0% Netherlands -42.5% Denmark -40.9% Norway -40.2% Portugal -31.0% UK -18.2%

Tesla electric vehicles have the highest fatal accident rate among all car brands in America. The average fatal crash rate is 2.8 per billion vehicle miles driven; Tesla has a rate of 5.6 per billion miles driven.

MUSK DOGE PAY: Nearly $7 million has been “apportioned” over the past week to cover the agency’s expenses, while the administration tries to freeze big chunks of government funding as part of DOGE’s mandate to root out programs deemed wasteful or out of step with the president’s priorities.

US airlines had gone 16 years without fatal crashes. Then MAGA fired the FAA chief, gutted the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, and threatened air traffic controllers with layoffs. Now there have been two fatal crashes.

The top six states that receive grants under the department of USAID —Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Nevada—all voted for Trump in 2024.

What you really need to know: Tesla paid no federal tax at all in 2024

The U.S. alone has lost more than 40 million laying hens to bird flu in 2024 -Emily Metz, CEO of the American Egg Board

MAGA governing isn’t just about the deep state, revenge porn, and eliminating jobs, it’s also about laziness. “F* it, release ’em all” - Trump, RE pardoning of the January 6 criminals.

The patriot billionaires. After Trump announced he would withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreemt, billionaire Michael Bloomberg announced his foundation will cover the financial contribution the U.S. will not & will provide the reporting requirements for climate change emissions.

Trump is gifted HALF A BILLION DOLLARS via his inauguration fund, the MAGA Inc. super PAC, a political nonprofit called Securing American Greatness, the RNC and Trump's presidential library fund.

Australian Fire Fighters speaking truth to the lies being spread in LA australianfirefightersclimatealliance.org/2025/01/11/l...

The Pacific Palisades fire started on the Temescal Canyon Ridge. Within 12 minutes 200 acres had burned because of severe winds. No amount of brush clearance or water was going to stop this fire.

@theguardian.com

One individual spent $250 million on Trumps campaign. Musk’s estimated worth is 400 billion +.

Trump says he will nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services; more than 18,000 physicians have signed a letter warning that he is “unqualified” and “actively dangerous” to the health of Americans.

Harris certifies electoral college. Meanwhile… Speaker Mike Johnson led attempt to overturn 2020 election results: lied about fraud; recruited colleagues to join a lawsuit challenging the election results from GA, MI, PA, GA; post Jan 6 riot, challenged the counting of certified votes from AA, PA.

To date, 16 million jobs have been created under the Biden-Harris Administration. In addition, the U.S. economy remains strong with an increase in real GDP and a rise in wages and consumer spending. Unemployment is down to 4.1% for the lowest average unemployment in 50 years. Via commerce.gov

Anne Telnaes quits Wapo because they refused to publish this:

3 years & $3.1 billion later, Texas Gov Abbott may be right that migrants and smugglers aren't breaching the wall. They don't have to, because they can walk around them. Wall segments have cost. $17-41 million per mile. Abbott has requested another $2.9 billion for the wall. Per @texastribune.org

From wapo Via @carlquintanilla.bsky.social

For the first time in 20 years, no House committees will be chaired by women.

CEO’s Bend the Knee Trump is hosting at least 15 business leaders at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday for a fundraiser for his allied super political-action committee, Make America Great Again Inc., a person helping to organize the event said. Tickets cost $1 million, according to an invitation.

Open AI donated $1 M to Trump inaugural fund. "President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement to Axios.

RE costliness of CA fires - the state committed to controlled burning of 1 M acres per year, but land managers burned only 96k acres in 2022. Per analysis, economically optimal = burning 3.9M acres or 4% of the state yearly. Cost = $10B per year producing annual statewide benefits north of $20B.

WELKER TO TRUMP on promise to end inflation while raising tariffs on US big 3 trade part Economists of all stripes say that ultimately consumers pay the price of tariffs. TRUMP: I don’t believe that. WELKER: Can you guarantee American families won’t pay more? TRUMP: I can’t guarantee anything.

Ken Paxton sues NY doctor accused of prescribing abortion pills to Texas woman. Paxton wants to fine dr $100k per TX law. Basically: TX to TX women, you can’t get abortion pills via the mail. Soon: TX to TX women, you can’t go out of TX to get an abortion www.texastribune.org/2024/12/13/t...

Meta and Amazon are each donating $1 million to President-elect Trump's inauguration fund.

The public believes that foreign aid is around 25% of federal spending. The true number is actually less than 1% Per @pkrugman.bsky.social

$1,600 per Swiftie Per WSJ survey - that is $ spent each Swiftie. The Eras Tour spread across 2 years, 5 continents & 149 shows. Approx 10 million tickets were sold, generating around $2 billion in revenue, based on WSJ calculations. History making tour - highest grossing of all time.

More than 200 million Americans are covered by private health insurance. But data from state & fed regulators shows insurers reject about 1 in 7 claims. One study found that Americans file formal appeals on only 0.1% of claims denied by insurers under the ACA Via @propublica.org