I’ve noticed folks on the left who should know better tend to overlook Ro Khanna’s crypto boosterism open.substack.com/pub/howthing...
AOC Must Run For President
History is calling. Sorry!
open.substack.com
Somehow I managed to underestimate how incredibly unpopular crypto is. After just a couple years they outrank oil companies, Wall Street and data centers. The Senate is only considering a crypto gift package for campaign money. Crypto remains the corruption GOAT. www.semafor.com/article/07/3...
Exclusive: Democrats circulate anti-crypto poll ahead of vote
The poll found that voters in Democratic primaries view crypto less favorably than oil companies; Wall Street; or data centers.
semafor.com
“Some proponents suggest that prediction markets could be an alternative to insurance, especially as insurers pull out of regions at high-risk for wildfire.” www.cnn.com/2026/07/17/c...
People are making wildfire bets on prediction markets. Experts say it could lead to disaster | CNN
As the catastrophic Los Angeles wildfires raged last year, people placed bets on how how many acres the fires would consume, which locations they would reach and when they would be contained.
cnn.com
Throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, climate scientist Stephen Schneider led other scientists critiquing economists (led by Bill Nordhaus) for systematically understating the existential threat of global warming. The economists remained unmoved. stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications...
“The rating places Oracle on the bottom edge of S&P’s “investment-grade” tier; any additional downgrades will land the company’s credit rating in the “high yield” or “junk” tier.” wisconsinwatch.org/2026/07/wisc...
Oracle credit rating drops amid Wisconsin fight over data center credit rules
The downgrade comes as Oracle challenges state regulators’ decision to require companies with lower credit ratings to post millions in collateral for new data centers.
wisconsinwatch.org
New details about how a GOP megadonor prevailed upon RNC chair Joe Gruters to push more Floridians onto poorly regulated, costly surplus lines jasongarcia.substack.com/p/an-insuran...
An insurance company led by a billionaire megadonor wrote a law pushing Florida condo owners into higher-priced property insurance
Records show reps for insurance broker Ryan Specialty drafted key parts of the new law and gave lawmakers scripts to read during hearings. The company also made $750,000 in campaign contributions.
jasongarcia.substack.com
The developer building a data center in the town of Jay (which Mills used as “cover” to veto the data center moratorium) is no longer even building the data center themainemonitor.org/jay-data-cen...
Jay data center developer sought to give Mills ‘cover’ for key veto
Emails obtained show a developer solicited letters of support to give Gov. Janet Mills “cover” for her veto of a statewide data center ban.
themainemonitor.org
“The popularist case for climate hushing becomes even harder to accept in light of its neglect of popular opposition to AI data centers.” www.bostonreview.net/articles/why...
Why Climate Politics Can’t Wait
“Climate hushing” is all the rage among Democrats. That’s a big mistake.
bostonreview.net
EIA's latest short-term forecast shows 66 GW of planned new gas plant capacity between 2026 and 2030 - nearly triple what it had projected just last year. Two drivers: the Trump regime's dramatic policy shifts and Big Tech's decision to use fossil gas to power the data center boom.
E&E News: Trump and AI spark a natural gas boom
The U.S. Energy Information Administration has nearly tripled its prediction for new gas plant capacity over the next few years.
subscriber.politicopro.com
@jordanhaedtler.bsky.social on risks to the climate, consumers and the economy from a burst #AIbubble and what everyday citizens can do to help limit the damage. In short: elect good people and join local data center campaigns.
The AI debt bubble explained
A data center buildout Q+A for the Twin Ports region
open.substack.com
Trump’s endorsed pick for Kansas governor getting hit for his support for data center tax giveaways www.the-downballot.com/p/morning-di...
Morning Digest: How a GOP plan to elect judges could end abortion rights in Kansas
First, though, voters get to weigh in next month
the-downballot.com
“Remember: we’re less than three months in to organizations paying the actual costs of LLM-based services, and they’re clearly so outraged at the spiralling costs that both Anthropic and OpenAI are planning to cut the prices of an already-unprofitable service…” www.wheresyoured.at/brokenomics/
AI's Brokenomics
If you liked this piece, you should subscribe to my premium newsletter. It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5,000 to 18,000 words, in...
wheresyoured.at
“”The greater risk to ratepayers,” she added, “the more reason to have a high standard for financial security requirements.” … Meanwhile, Oracle’s share value tumbled this week amid uncertainty about its data center investments.” civicmedia.us/news/2026/06...
We Energies asks Wisconsin regulators to ease data center credit standards - Civic Media
The utility says new financial security requirements for large data centers could discourage major investments in the state. Consumer advocates say the standards protect existing customers from financ...
civicmedia.us
The morning after Berkshire deepens its bet on AI through a $10B Alpjabet stake, Risk Market News reports they are “concentrating hard, physical, climate-correlated risk on the asset side just as the premium income meant to compensare for that risk thins.” www.riskmarketnews.com/the-first-po...
The First Post-Buffett Deal Tilts Berkshire Toward Physical Risk
Risk, models and markets
riskmarketnews.com
When does the “reconciliation and healing” part that @colorado.gov called for start? www.newsfromthestates.com/article/unap...
An unapologetic Tina Peters decries ‘retribution’ after release from prison
Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters on Monday used the new freedom granted to her by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to promptly renew her baseless allegations of widespread election fraud, casting doubt o...
newsfromthestates.com
DeSantis pushing through property tax messure that will cost school districts $8.6 billion/year and devastate education in Florida www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/they-want-...
They Want to Get Rid of Your Property Taxes Because They Think You Are Morons
The Republican plan to defund everything.
hamiltonnolan.com
Landry’s first budget as governor proposed slashing funding for this program all the way down to $5. Things have changed! lailluminator.com/2026/05/27/f...
Louisiana adds money to expand its fortified roof program by 60%
Another 5,000 Louisiana homeowners will gain access to a state fund to strengthen their roofs to a standard that will withstand hurricanes and eventually bring down their insurance costs.
lailluminator.com
An underappreciated feedback effect: “That load growth is real, and it is happening in a service territory where ignition risk is already a systemic concern.” www.riskmarketnews.com/the-election...
The Election That Is Really About Who Pays for the AI Buildout's Wildfire Risk
Ebola, statistics, and what pandemic science can teach markets.
riskmarketnews.com
“Although the experts I spoke to agreed that the specific emissions in RCP8.5 look implausible, the world could still experience RCP8.5-like climate impacts.” newrepublic.com/article/2108...
Trump Twisted a Climate Debate Beyond Recognition
Researchers concluded that one future climate scenario is unlikely to happen. Right-wingers went wild.
newrepublic.com
“In 1979, he read an Environmental Protection Agency report that, almost as an aside, stated that coal emissions could warm the planet to a ‘significant and damaging’ degree….He showed the report to a colleague and told her, ‘This must be the whole banana.’” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/24/s...
Rafe Pomerance, the Paul Revere of Climate Change, Dies at 79
nytimes.com
Andy Burnham’s campaign is dedicated to “rolling back the 80s” and his launch ad asserts that “Manchesterism is the end of neoliberalism” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Andy Burnham’s Manchester has a defining spirit – and Britain could do with a lot more of it | John Harris
Call it a mix of collectivism and entrepreneurialism or just an overarching vibe, but the mayor’s philosophy could be on the way to Westminster, says Guardian columnist John Harris
theguardian.com
Yes and… prospect.org/2025/08/08/2...
The Redistricting Mess Shows How Our Election System Doesn’t Work - The American Prospect
With our winner-take-all elections, the ideal of a ‘fair’ map is impossible. Proportional representation is the only answer.
prospect.org
Jeff Hauser@jeffhauser.bsky.social · 2mo agoFilibuster Reform Is No Longer Enough open.substack.com/pub/brianbeu...
Meanwhile, today’s Fed meeting minutes on markets: “In their discussion of financial stability, several participants noted that asset valuations remained elevated and that such conditions heightened the possibility of sharp corrections should adverse developments materialize.”
Ryan Mac 🙃@rmac.bsky.social · 3mo agoSpaceX's IPO prospectus was just made public and it details Elon Musk's stake. So I did some back of the envelope math. He owns more than 51% of current shares outstanding. At SpaceX's current $1.25 trillion self-valuation, his stake is worth more than $635 billion. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/t...
The moment when Schmidt says essentially “you feel anxious and angry about AI because of pernicious, manipulative social media algorithms” is just so perfect! www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-r...
Monopoly Round-Up: The Rage of the Billionaires Is Coming
As students boo commencement speakers touting AI, and communities reject data centers, billionaires are getting nervous and angry. It's going to get worse.
thebignewsletter.com
Public Citizen: “Senators who support Warsh to chair the Fed make a gamble that he understands threats from crumbling private credit markets, a crypto bubble, hollowed out bank safety rules and enforcers, war-induced inflation, climate change threats, and more.”
The expansion of the NAIC’s data collection is a welcome development but the data needs to be made public!
Climate Cabinet Action@climatecabinet.org · 3mo ago“We literally don’t have a full and comprehensive system for monitoring insurance market data. There’s so much salience on this issue that [insurance] departments of various ideological leanings are at least finding data collection to be in their interests.” @jordanhaedtler.bsky.social
“the actual evidence is clear that AI is not liberating us as individuals but rather concentrating power in the hands of those who already have far too much control over our lives.” jacobin.com/2026/04/data...
Stop the AI Build-Out, Start the Fight
Across the country, working-class communities are rising up against Big Tech’s data center boom. A moratorium isn’t the end goal — it’s the only leverage we have to force real democratic control over ...
jacobin.com
I can see why this article ends by discouraging fatalism… prospect.org/2026/04/17/a...
American Politics Is Already Inundated With AI Deepfakes. It’s Only Getting Worse. - The American Prospect
These aren’t your 2024 deepfakes. Bad actors will go for broke using state-of-the-art AI tools to blunt voters’ confidence in elections.
prospect.org
Yellen: Kevin Warsh will struggle to establish credibility with colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee if he argues that productivity gains from artificial intelligence justifies lower interest rates. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Trump’s push to cut US rates akin to ‘banana republic’, says Yellen
Fed chair nominee Kevin Warsh will lack ‘credibility’ in arguing rates should fall, says former Treasury secretary
giftarticle.ft.com