Just 27 billionaires have spent $90 million to buy GOP congress

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Confronting Reality in Cyberspace: Foreign Policy for a Fragmented Internet
The era of the global internet is over, and the early advantages the United States and its allies held in cyberspace have largely disappeared. China and Russia in particular are working to export their authoritarian models of the internet around the world. The CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force proposes a new foreign policy for cyberspace founded on three pillars: building an internet coalition, employing pressure on adversaries and establishing pragmatic cyber norms, and getting the U.S. cyber house in order.

TikTok is “unacceptable security risk” and should be removed from app stores, says FCC
Brendan Carr, the commissioner of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), called on the CEOs of Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores. In a letter dated June 24, 2022, Carr told Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai that “TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data harvesting being combined with Beijing’s apparently unchecked access to that sensitive data.”
Carr also said: But it is also clear that TikTok’s pattern of conduct and misrepresentations regarding the unfettered access that persons in Beijing have sensitive US user data … puts it out of compliance with the policies that both of your companies require every app to adhere to as a condition of remaining available on your app stores.

Instagram and TikTok are wreaking havoc on our finances and happiness, new survey finds
64% of social media users who made an impulse purchase from an advertisement regretted at least one purchase. And those purchases “can often harm our finances more than benefit our lives in the way we thought they would from social media,” says Foster. And social media isn’t just breaking the bank, it’s also breaking consumers’ spirits, the survey finds. Nearly a third of users are more likely to feel negative about their financial situation than any other aspect of their lives. Comparison is at least partly to blame: 47% of Gen Z and 46% of millenials report feeling negatively about their own financial situation because of another person’s social media post, as did 31% of Gen X and 22% of baby boomers. “Younger generations have grown up with social media, or they’ve watched social media grow and evolve with them,” says Foster, so it is easier to understand why they are more heavily impacted by others’ content. The youngest generations are impacted as well. More than 64% of parents with minor children who log on to social media believe content online has contributed to their kids having unrealistic expectations about money.

People in Republican Counties Have Higher Death Rates Than Those in Democratic Counties
In a study published in June in The BMJ, Warraich and his colleagues showed that over the two decades prior to the pandemic, there was a growing gap in mortality rates for residents of Republican and Democratic counties across the U.S. In 2001, the study’s starting point, the risk of death among red and blue counties (as defined by the results of presidential elections) was similar. Overall, the U.S. mortality rate has decreased in the nearly two decades since then (albeit not as much as in most other high-income countries). But the improvement for those living in Republican counties by 2019 was half that of those in Democratic counties—11 percent lower versus 22 percent lower.

We’re Not Prepared for What MAGA Brownshirts Will Do in 2024
There is a historical parallel between the red MAGA hat-wearing extremists who commit wanton acts of political violence in the service of an authoritarian thug, and the brownshirt militias of Nazi Germany. (Before you send an angry email falsely accusing me of saying “all Trump voters are Nazis,” read the previous sentence again.) They’re wearing different costumes and shouting different slogans, but like the storm troopers of the past, groups like the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and dozens more are weaponized militias willing to use violence to cement authoritarian rule.

Secret Service likely broke the law by deleting texts – CREW
“It is extremely troubling to think that the Secret Service would destroy key evidence in any investigation, let alone one that is central to getting answers and accountability for the unprecedented attack on our democracy that occurred on January 6, 2021,” said CREW Chief Counsel Donald Sherman. “The Justice Department must investigate immediately.”

GTFOH: Petition To Impeach Clarence Thomas’ Messy Ass Reaches 1.2 Million Signatures
The petition states:
“It now says the court is “effectively taking away the right to privacy and bodily autonomy that’s been considered legal precedent for the past 50 years. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—who sided with the majority on overturning Roe—made it clear what’s next: to overturn high court rulings that establish gay rights and contraception rights.”

Just 27 billionaires have spent $90 million to buy GOP congress
A few dozen billionaires are spending tens of millions of dollars on the 2022 midterm elections—mostly to support Republican candidates, including many who have parroted the dangerous lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen—in a bid to ensure that Congress is full of lawmakers willing “to make their wealthy benefactors even richer,” according to a fresh analysis.
Titled Billionaires Buying Elections, the report from Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) details how “billionaires are increasingly using their personal fortunes and the profits of connected corporations to drown out regular voters’ voices and elect hand-picked candidates who further rig the nation’s economy—especially the tax system.”
A pair of super PACs tasked with securing Republican majorities in the House and Senate—the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) and the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF)—raised a combined $188.3 million through the first 16 months of the 2022 campaign cycle, according to ATF. Nearly half—$89.4 million, or 48%—came from just 27 billionaires. A whopping 86% of the GOP’s billionaire money came from “Wall Street tycoons” who are arguably the biggest beneficiaries of glaring loopholes in the tax code.
The Democratic counterparts of those two super PACs—the House Majority PAC and the Senate Majority PAC—raised a combined $154 million over the same time period. A smaller share—$25.8 million, or 17%—came from 19 billionaires. A majority of billionaire contributions to Democratic candidates also came from the finance and investment sector (35%), but other industries were also well-represented, including cryptocurrency (26%), and tech (18%).

Manchin Directed Millions to Wetlands Near Vacation Condo
Sen. Joe Manchin and His Wife Directed Millions to the Wildlife Area Surrounding Vacation Condo
While upending climate legislation, Manchin directed over $15 million in federal funding to protected wetlands where the couple owns property.

House Democrats tout bill to add four seats to Supreme Court
“The nightmare scenario of GOP court-packing is already upon us,” said Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.). “That’s how they got this far-right 6-3 majority in the first place.”

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Democrats plan sweeping net neutrality bill as FCC majority stalls
Democratic lawmakers’ inability to secure a majority at the Federal Communications Commission has stymied plans for the agency to restore Obama-era net neutrality rules.
Amid the impasse, lawmakers are renewing efforts to take the issue into their own hands with a sweeping new bill, according to a copy obtained by The Technology 202.
Led by Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the Net Neutrality and Broadband Justice Act would reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service and open companies like AT&T and Verizon up to stricter oversight by the FCC.
While the two-page bill is seemingly simple in scope, it would have massive implications in addition to reinstating net neutrality, the rules that bar internet service providers from blocking or throttling content. It would shift how aggressively the FCC can regulate issues like internet pricing, consumer privacy and competition in the broadband market.

Microsoft tires of waiting on FCC, creates its own broadband mapping tool

Biden Can Fix Higher Ed ‘Mess’ With Student-Debt Cancellation: Warren

Light pollution is disrupting the seasonal rhythms of plants and trees