Vox: “..About half of American adults report difficulties affording health care costs, according to KFF polling conducted in 2022, and about 41 percent carry some form of medical debt. A 2021 Census Bureau analysis found that about 14 million people owed more than $1,000 in medical debt, while 3 million Americans owed more than $10,000.… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Legal Research
No, 150-Year-Olds Aren’t Collecting Social Security Benefits
Wired: “Elon Musk has repeatedly claimed that his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project had uncovered massive government fraud when it alleged that 150-year-olds were claiming Social Security benefits. But Musk has provided no evidence to back up his claims, and experts quickly pointed out that this is very likely just a quirk of… Continue Reading
Database and dashboard – activities, groups and businesses supporting democracy through action
The Team at Horizons Project is keeping up a database about movement activity focusing on the range of activity against various pillars. The Pillars — principled collective action & loving defiance. Subject matter tools, links and resources authored by: government workers; business; faith based initiatives; professional associations; unions. Includes Tactics Used, Links and Further Details.… Continue Reading
Assessing Common PINs
Assessing Common PINs – “ABC News analyzed 29 million leaked four-digit PINs from Have I Been Pwned? (a database of exposed credentials from data breaches) and visualized the data using a grid where each square represents a unique PIN. The brightness of each square indicates the popularity of the code—brighter squares show more commonly used… Continue Reading
OPINION: A librarian’s summary of, and response to, the Clarivate announcement
Siobhan Haimé, Birkbeck, University of London (with thanks to Tristan Smith for copyediting assistance) (See also the news item here) In a rather seismic announcement, Clarivate has announced the phase-out of perpetual access purchases for print, eBooks and digital collections by the end of 2025. Described as a supposedly transformative “subscription-based strategy”, this approach is… Continue Reading
How an obscure advisory board lets utilities steal $50b/year from ratepayers
Pluralistic: “Two figures to ponder. First: if your local power company is privately owned, you’ve seen energy rate hikes at 49% above inflation over the last three years. Second: if your local power company is publicly owned, you’ve seen energy rates go up at 44% below inflation over the same period. Power is that much-theorized… Continue Reading
LinkedIn is a weird, workaholic wasteland and a total gold mine for Microsoft
Sherwood: “LinkedIn may not be the first platform you think of when you think about our modern obsession with social media. But the site’s strange mix of job postings, constant spam, professional advice you didn’t ask for, humble and not-so-humble bragging, as well as the occasional actually useful bit of professional connection or networking has… Continue Reading
Financial Times – America has turned on its friends
Editorial Board – Financial Times [unpaywalled]: “Winston Churchill is credited with saying that America does the right thing after exhausting the alternatives. Donald Trump has turned that aphorism on its head. In the past 10 days, he has all but incinerated 80 years of postwar American leadership. Those who thought America was a friend or… Continue Reading
Researcher Captures Contents of ‘DEI.gov’ Before It Was Hidden Behind a Password
404 Media [unpaywalled] “A German researcher captured the contents of the White House’s “DEI.gov” during a brief period when it was not password protected. The capture shows that the site contains a list of vague, alleged government-funded tasks and their costs, without sources or context, like “$1.3 million to Arab and Jewish photographers,” “$1.5 million… Continue Reading
Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy
EXECUTIVE ORDER February 19, 2025. By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose. It is the policy of my Administration to dramatically reduce the size of the Federal Government, while increasing its accountability to the American… Continue Reading
America’s Last Best Thing
Frederick Joseph, On Trump’s National Park Layoffs and the Erosion of America’s Public Land: “…The national parks, they tell us, were created to preserve America’s most beautiful places. This is the story, the myth of preservation, the thing Ken Burns made into poetry. But what they do not tell you—at least, not loudly—is that these… Continue Reading
Trump expected to take control of USPS, fire postal board, officials say
Washington Post [unpaywalled]: “This is something that does not belong to the president or the White House. It belongs to the American people. That goes for everything else they’re trying to steal too.” The move threatens to upend trillions of dollars in e-commerce business and the 250-year-old Postal Service. President Donald Trump is preparing to… Continue Reading
