Trump’s wealth now directly linked to AI and data centers using more power and driving up our bills. “The deal underscores a bet on the energy demands from AI and data centers and the technologies that could prevail. TAE's backers include tech giant Google, Goldman Sachs, and oil major Chevron.”

"a cast of Trump’s lesser-known political appointees and DOGE operatives cut programs in ways that guaranteed widespread harm and death in some of the world’s most desperate situations...In some cases...by clicking through a spreadsheet or ignoring requests." www.propublica.org/article/usai...

The President has gotten very comfortable admitting that his policies are dictated by the powerful companies that stand to benefit.

NEW: Last year we found the acceptable level of exposure to formaldehyde set by the EPA left people at risk for cancer. Now the Trump administration has roughly doubled it www.propublica.org/article/epa-...

We're hiring a research intern! If you're interested in monitoring corporate influence on and within the federal government, oversight of state and federal disaster response infrastructure, ethics, and accountability in government, apply by January 9, 2026. Learn more:

The impact of the destruction of USAID is so wide-ranging. We got a field report from one of the poorest states in India, where foreign aid funded "TB champions" who educate and assist tuberculosis patients. Without their help, advocates expect a 36% increase in cases & 68% rise in deaths from TB.

Wrote about the need to loudly assert what we decide has value as "the onslaught of generative AI, which seeks to replace human capabilities—thought, connection, problem-solving, creativity—drives home that corporations have no intrinsic commitment to upholding the value of human life and labor."

In today's newsletter, part of a joint series with @cplusc.bsky.social on what a just digital transition during an era of accelerating climate crises could look like, @hannahstoryb.bsky.social critiques Trump's abundance agenda for fossil fuel-powered AI and points to an alternative roadmap.

"The rise of artificial intelligence presents an urgent opportunity to articulate new boundaries that safeguard people’s agency and wellbeing," @hannahstoryb.bsky.social writes for Watchdog Weekly. "What would the priorities of a government that acted decisively to meet people’s needs look like?"

The AI industry already has influence in the Trump White House, but they want even more power over the halls of Congress. To accomplish this, Marc Andreessen has decided to rerun the crypto model that was so successful in 2024, with near total impunity for the AI industry as the goal

I've been working for a while on this investigation into the deadly labor that built the US nuclear weapons/energy sector. The federal government built the uranium mining industry disproportionately on Navajo lands where men are 28.6X more likely to develop cancer.

Another unconscionable move from the Trump administration to cause thousands of premature deaths in order to line polluters' pockets. We are keeping track of the administration's relentless sacrifices of environmental and human health to benefit toxic industry. Each week the list grows longer.

The healthcare crisis is here and working people are struggling. In my story today @prospect.org I covered just a few of the crushing scenarios people are facing. @ddayen.bsky.social and I are going to talk about it at 12:30 ET on his Weekly Roundup. I'd love if you joined us.

Iceland Climate Minister Johannsson: "It is a direct threat to our national resilience and security. (This) is the first time a specific climate-related phenomenon has been formally brought before the National Security Council as a potential existential threat." www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

subscribe to watchdog weekly! and tell your friends!

We've been writing our newsletter through 3 administrations, 2 general elections, and an ongoing crisis of elite accountability. Now we're giving it a new name: Watchdog Weekly. Subscribe for weekly, paywall-free missives shedding light on the overt and covert ways that money influences politics.

@ddayen.bsky.social on the "perverse and irrational" private credit deals financing the AI boom, w "huge mismatches between the life cycle of the assets being funded and the amount of time it will take to pay them off." prospect.org/2025/11/19/a...

In all of Klein's abundance commentary he never mentions that the second Trump term has taken a hatchet to the entirety of federal consumer/market protection, regulatory autonomy, and corporate oversight under the pretense of efficiency, which will cause mass dysfunction and suffering

@profhilaryallen.bsky.social on this @ourfinancialsecurity.org panel is offering one of the most comprehensive and decisive takedowns of the gen AI hype I've heard. (The recording will end up on the AFREF YouTube channel.) www.youtube.com/@Americansfo...

Eight Senator Dems caved on the shutdown. They should have been using Congressional Oversight to increase their leverage instead.

Oil companies are counting on those Supreme Court justices who have ties to the oil industry to rescue them from the dozens of lawsuits they face after decades of lying about the dangers of their products. From @hannahstoryb.bsky.social: trib.al/HELy98q

It is nuts that recusal policies for the Supreme Court are so weak and self-determined that justices with oil industry holdings & even familial oil industry ties could participate in cases involving the oil industry. Our friends at @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social explain: prospect.org/2025/11/07/e...

REPORT: Supreme Court justices have close financial ties to oil, even as they decide if cases against oil companies for their climate lies can proceed: 💰Justice Alito has stock in ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66, and up to $100,000 in a fund heavily invested in ExxonMobil; 🧵1/3

New: I took a closer look at the Supreme Court justices’ financial and familial ties to the oil industry for @prospect.org as Exxon and Suncor are once again asking the Court to shut down state climate liability cases. I found more than I was expecting.

Exxon is — again — asking the Supreme Court to help the oil giant escape trials over its climate lies. Several justices have "past or present financial or familial ties to the oil industry that could raise questions about their impartiality," @hannahstoryb.bsky.social reports in @prospect.org.

NEW in @prospect.org from @hannahstoryb.bsky.social: as Exxon once again seeks the help of the Supreme Court to avoid being held accountable for decades of climate deception, Alito isn't the only justice whose oily ties and inconsistent recusals raise serious ethics questions.

Excited to be embarking on this joint series with the brilliant folks over at @cplusc.bsky.social to lay bare the stakes of letting Big Tech and Big Oil dictate the speed and direction and change. Read Winston and Sarah on the fight ahead, and the imaginative work of reclaiming our economic future.

Mamdani says in his victory speech, “we will hire thousands of teachers.” This, and not the proprietary chatbot classroom, is the future of education.

Earlier this year, @riogranderift.bsky.social , @hannahstoryb.bsky.social and I had a lively convo with funders about the abundance agenda. Last week, we got together with @weact4ej.bsky.social and Alvaro Sanchez to talk abundance and enviro justice. Watch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0h2...

NEW 📰: Building a more effective government that moves beyond the status quo requires honest reflection. Drawing on interviews with more than 45 former senior Biden officials, our latest report offers 161 practical recommendations for better governance. https://bit.ly/4312Zid

NEW: Private insurers like Neptune are cashing in on the shutdown and pushing to privatize the National Flood Insurance Program. Our @kennystancil.bsky.social explains how for-profit insurers could leave communities in the lurch amid the mounting climate crisis.

Trump has destroyed the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom named after himself. He’s paying for it with $250 million in corporate bribes. From Ryan Cooper: trib.al/g9Gdf58

The Trump administration blamed offshore wind for killing whales, then canceled funding for research that could’ve helped protect them.

Our @hannahstoryb.bsky.social examines how the Trump administration has embedded AI chatbots in its operations, both as feeble replacements for fired workers and as increasingly empowered decision-makers involved in everything from personnel decisions to war games to surveillance.

@elienyc.bsky.social in @thenation.com: "American democracy cannot survive the Supreme Court’s attacks on the Voting Rights Act, because American democracy did not really exist before the Voting Rights Act. White rule existed. And that is what this court wants to return us to with this case."

The Trump administration's unjustifiable cuts have lethal consequences.

Corporate America’s mouthpieces claim the few limits on corporate influence we helped win during the Biden admin drove Big Business to board Trump’s tyrannical train. If so, how can Big Business ever be trustworthy participants in a democracy? Our @jeffhauser.bsky.social in the @wsj.com:

Please enjoy this executive at one of America's biggest gas companies openly admitting that expanding supply leads to increased demand for fossil fuels He is not wrong: frantic expansion of fossil fuel supply worsens climate change. Tax it, cut subsidies, wind it down www.ft.com/content/5ba8...

Trump's decision to approve the Ambler mining road cutting across Alaska wilderness and critical habitat is not only an environmental disaster, it created a $70 million windfall for one of his biggest donors. @juddlegum.bsky.social @popular.info 1/

While the FAA is, by its own admission, overworked, understaffed, and working with outdated technology, its also opening the door for drones and uncertified eVTOLs to flood our airspaces. Who asked for this? From our @kjboyle.bsky.social

"The White House is offering 'concierge, white glove service' to oil, coal and other fossil fuel companies that are seeking to gain fast approval for their projects...while simultaneously slowing down or blocking solar and wind projects." www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

On the Colorado River, there is no more water. That's the warning from a coalition of environmental groups urging for action and transparency regarding the river's future. My latest: insideclimatenews.org/news/0610202...

I haven't dived into the underlying report, but this article is jaw-dropping. Data centers are apparently not *one of* PJM's demand-side problems. They are *the* problem.

In a new report out today our @toni-v-aguilar.bsky.social and @publiccitizen.bsky.social's @alanzibel.bsky.social uncovered 100+ people with ties to polluting industries who are occupying high level offices throughout the Trump administration.

From @allisonstanger.bsky.social: "today’s AI firms seek to leverage technical prowess to assume public functions by default, implicitly assuming that the reallocation of power will serve human flourishing...democratic societies risk permanent subordination to unelected digital sovereigns."

The Bulletin is excited to announce The AI Power Trip, a year-long project examining how the people and organizations developing AI applications are gaining control of the world's governance, information ecosystems, energy resources, military-industrial complex, and more. #AIPowerTrip

BREAKING: The Trump admin has installed 100+ fossil fuel insiders and corporate lobbyists to roles across federal agencies. These staffers are enacting a dirty energy agenda and destroying our public lands. Our new report with Revolving Door Project breaks it all down ⬇️