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prplcdclnw@diasp.eu
David

How Trump Plans to Seize the Power of the Purse From Congress

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-impoundment-appropriations-congress-budget

The second-term president likely will seek to cut off spending that lawmakers have already appropriated, setting off a constitutional struggle within the branches. If successful, he could wield the power to punish perceived foes.

#trump #usa #president #congress #spending #constitution #unconstitutional #budget #propublica #impoundment

How Trump Plans to Seize the Power of the Purse From Congress

The second-term president likely will seek to cut off spending that lawmakers have already appropriated, setting off a constitutional struggle within the branches. If successful, he could wield the power to punish perceived foes.

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prplcdclnw@diasp.eu
David

Georgia Dismissed All Members of Maternal Mortality Committee After ProPublica Obtained Internal Details of Two Deaths

https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-dismisses-maternal-mortality-committee-amber-thurman-candi-miller

In a letter, the state’s public health commissioner said the action was taken because “confidential information provided to the Maternal Mortality Review Committee was inappropriately shared with outside individuals.”

ProPublica reported in September on the deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, which the state maternal mortality review committee had determined were preventable. They were the first reported cases of women who died without access to care restricted by a state abortion ban, and they unleashed a torrent of outrage over the fatal consequences of such laws. The women’s stories became a central discussion in the presidential campaign and ballot initiatives involving abortion access in 10 states.

#propublica #georgia #maternal-mortality #abortion #medical-care #deaths #preventable-deaths #leak #whistleblower

Georgia Dismissed All Members of Maternal Mortality Committee After ProPublica Obtained Internal Details of Two Deaths

In a letter, the state’s public health commissioner said the action was taken because “confidential information provided to the Maternal Mortality Review Committee was inappropriately shared with outside individuals.”

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prplcdclnw@diasp.eu
David

Biden Asked Microsoft to “Raise the Bar on Cybersecurity.” He May Have Helped Create an Illegal Monopoly.

https://www.propublica.org/article/microsoft-white-house-offer-cybersecurity-biden-nadella

Reporting Highlights

  • Raising the Bar: President Joe Biden asked tech companies to “raise the bar on cybersecurity.” So Microsoft offered the government free upgrades and the consultants to install them.
  • Competitive Advantage: While the plan helped the government bolster cybersecurity, it also helped Microsoft tighten its grip on federal business and freeze out its competitors.
  • Money for Nothing: Legal and contracting experts say the deals never should have come to pass, as they sidestep or even possibly violate federal procurement and antitrust laws.

#monopoly #monopolies #microsoft #propublica #cybersecurity #security #safety #biden #it #antitrust #antitrust-law

Biden Asked Microsoft to “Raise the Bar on Cybersecurity.” He May Have Helped Create an Illegal Monopoly.

When the White House welcomed Microsoft’s offer of $150 million in tech services, it helped the world’s largest software provider tighten its grip on federal business and freeze out competitors.

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artsound2@diasp.eu
HU Art Sound

Exploiting Meta’s Weaknesses, Deceptive Political Ads Thrived on Facebook and Instagram in Run-Up to Election

In December, the verified Facebook page of Adam Klotz, a Fox News meteorologist, started running strange video ads.

Some featured the distinctive voice of former President Donald Trump promising “$6,400 with your name on it, no payback required” just for clicking the ad and filling out a form.

In other ads with the same offer, President Joe Biden’s well-known cadence assured viewers that “this isn’t a loan with strings attached.”

There was no free cash. The audio was generated by AI. People who clicked were taken to a form asking for their personal information, which was sold to telemarketers who could target them for legitimate offers — or scams.

Klotz’s page ran more than 300 of these ads before ProPublica contacted the weather forecaster in late August. Through a spokesperson, Klotz said that his page had been hacked and he was locked out. “I had no idea that ads were being run until you reached out.”

Klotz’s page had been co-opted by a sprawling ad account network that has operated on Facebook for years, churning out roughly 100,000 misleading election and social issues ads despite Meta’s stated commitment to crack down on harmful content, according to an investigation and analysis by ProPublica and Columbia Journalism School’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, as well as research by the Tech Transparency Project, a nonpartisan nonprofit that researches large tech platforms. The organizations combined data and shared their analyses. TTP’s report was produced independently of ProPublica and Tow’s investigation and was shared with ProPublica prior to publication.

The network, which uses the name Patriot Democracy on many of its ad accounts, is one of eight deceptive Meta advertising operations identified by ProPublica and Tow. These networks have collectively controlled more than 340 Facebook pages, as well as associated Instagram and Messenger accounts. Most were created by the advertising networks, with some pages masquerading as government entities. Others were verified pages of people with public roles, like Klotz, who had been hacked. The networks have placed more than 160,000 election and social issues ads on these pages in English and Spanish. Meta showed the ads to users nearly 900 million times across Facebook and Instagram.

The ads are only a fraction of the more than $115 billion Meta earns annually in advertising revenue. But at just over $25 million in total lifetime spend, the networks collectively rank as the 11th-largest all-time advertiser on Meta for U.S. elections or social issues ads since the company began sharing data in 2018. The company’s failure to block these scams consistently highlights how one of the world’s largest platforms struggles to protect its users from fraud and deliver on its nearly decadelong promise to prevent deceptive political ads.

Most of these networks are run by lead-generation companies, which gather and sell people’s personal information. People who clicked on some of these ads were unwittingly signed up for monthly credit card charges, among many other schemes. Some, for example, were conned by an unscrupulous insurance agent into changing their Affordable Care Act health plans. While the agent earns a commission, the people who are scammed can lose their health insurance or face unexpected tax bills because of the switch.

The ads run by the networks employ tactics that Meta has banned, including the undisclosed use of deepfake audio and video of national political figures and promoting misleading claims about government programs to bait people into sharing personal information. Thousands of ads illegally displayed copies of state and county seals and the images of governors to trick users. “The State has recently approved that Illinois residents under the age of 89 may now qualify for up to $35,000 of Funeral Expense Insurance to cover any and all end-of-life expenses!” read one deceptive ad featuring a photo of Gov. JB Pritzker and the Illinois state seal.

More than 13,000 ads deployed divisive political rhetoric or false claims to promote unofficial Trump merchandise. ...

Rest if article: https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-instagram-meta-deceptive-political-ads-election
#ProPublica #meta #facebook #political #ads

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prplcdclnw@diasp.eu
David

When Is “Recyclable” Not Really Recyclable? When the Plastics Industry Gets to Define What the Word Means.

Companies whose futures depend on plastic production are trying to persuade the federal government to allow them to put the label “recyclable” on plastic shopping bags and other items virtually guaranteed to end up in landfills and incinerators.

Someone else already posted this, but I wanted the big picture.

https://www.propublica.org/article/plastics-industry-redefine-recyclable-ftc-grocery-bags

#recycling #recycled #recycle #plastic #plastic-bags #plastic-grocery-bags #grocery-bags #propublica #recyclable

When Is “Recyclable” Not Really Recyclable? When the Plastics Industry Gets to Define What the Word Means.

Companies whose futures depend on plastic production are trying to persuade the federal government to allow them to put the label “recyclable” on plastic shopping bags and other items virtually guaranteed to end up in landfills and incinerators.

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prplcdclnw@diasp.eu
David

Ten Ways Billionaires Avoid Taxes on an Epic Scale

After a year of reporting on the tax machinations of the ultrawealthy, ProPublica spotlights the top tax-avoidance techniques that provide massive benefits to billionaires.

https://www.propublica.org/article/billionaires-tax-avoidance-techniques-irs-files

Last June, drawing on the largest trove of confidential American tax data that’s ever been obtained, ProPublica launched a series of stories documenting the key ways the ultrawealthy avoid taxes, strategies that are largely unavailable to most taxpayers. To mark the first anniversary of the launch, we decided to assemble a quick summary of the techniques — all of which can generate tax savings on a massive scale — revealed in the series.

#wealthy #billionaires #propublica #irs #leak #irs-leak #tax #taxes #tax-avoidance #ultrawealthy #multi-billionaires

Ten Ways Billionaires Avoid Taxes on an Epic Scale

After a year of reporting on the tax machinations of the ultrawealthy, ProPublica spotlights the top tax-avoidance techniques that provide massive benefits to billionaires.

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eccodrum@diasp.org
David Dewain

Building the “Big Lie”: Inside the Creation of Trump’s Stolen Election Myth
by Doug Bock Clark, Alexandra Berzon and Kirsten Berg
April 26, 5 a.m. EDT

Internal emails and interviews with key participants reveal for the first time the extent to which leading advocates of the rigged election theory touted evidence they knew to be disproven, disputed or dismissed as dubious.

#ProPublica #Frontline #journalism #2020Election #elections #politics #BigLie #voter-fraud

Building the “Big Lie”: Inside the Creation of Trump’s Stolen Election Myth

Internal emails and interviews with key participants reveal for the first time the extent to which leading advocates of the rigged election theory touted evidence they knew to be disproven, disputed or dismissed as dubious.

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