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Max Notes
You are who you work for.
The senior senator from New York, my fucking Judas senator, Chuck Schumer once again demonstrated that he works for the people. The people who run the banks.
Schumer has always been more of a creature of Wall Street than he has the Senate. He has raised a whopping $43 million dollars in the past five years and still has over $9 million in cash on hand, with $5 million of it coming from financial institutions. (Open Secrets)
He can pass this off as doing the âhard thingâ in some paternalistic way, but the hard truth is that Schumer cares more about the markets than he does doing the right thing. The Republicans are in control of everything right now, so make them work for it. The critical nuance of the Republican spending bill is that it really doesnât cut funding, it just eliminates specificity and gives broad spending authority over to the White House. House Democrats rightly note that this essentially gives Trump an enormous discretionary slush fund.
Oh, but it does authorize an increase in military spending. Great work, DOGE.
Schumer and the other Senators who came along with him claim theyâre trying to avert a shutdown that would affect federal employees. Now he cares. All the while, Elon and his merry band of twenty-something hackers send federal employees to the unemployment line in the tens of thousands. To that, Schumer says his hands are tied.
Every decision comes with a significant amount of pain. I donât believe for a second that Schumer and Co. were concerned about this being tied around Democratsâ necks. If the Democratic Party was any good at communicating to the public, they would have used this as leverage to smoke out Republicans and hold their feet to the fire. Instead, he inflicted minimum pain on Republicans. Heâs not concerned with election outcomes and federal employees. Heâs concerned about the markets.
Other things Iâm obsessing overâŠ
The Vanguard boys are so far under TYTâs skin a surgeon couldnât remove them.
While weâre on TMR, I think I shared this in the Member newsletter. This 90 minute Jubilee episode of Sam Seder debating conservatives is deeply troubling.
-Max
This Week on the Pod
The Climate Trust.
Non-Negotiable #5.
This is the final installment of our 5 Non-Negotiables of the Left series where we detail three short-term goals to take back the country and two long-term fights that must be waged for the sake of our democracy and the planet. This fifth entry speaks to the now back-burnered but ever-present threat to life on this planet: Climate change. This is the most difficult case weâll make to you.
We expect pushback and disappointment at first but if we do our job, weâll shift you to acknowledgement and resolve. This fifth Non-Negotiable isnât for us. Itâs for someone you might know, but more than likely itâs for someone youâll never meet. We present the establishment of The Climate Trust: Social Security for the Planet.
Hereâs a snippet from the pod:
Max: We have so many answers to get to a net zero emission future. And according to the science, if it all happened tomorrow, then in 50 years we could bring the Earthâs temperature back into the current equilibrium. If we did all of it. Tomorrow. You see, carbon is cumulative and what was set in motion 50 years ago is what weâre living with today. Thatâs how this works.
I did a quick video on this one because there are nuances behind the brief surge in Dollar Generalâs share price this past week. Even though they revealed on the Q4 earnings call that revenue had increased, profits were down. And the stock surged on the news. And while discount retail competitor Walmart saw huge increases in both revenue and profit, Wall Street hammered them. Long story short (you can watch the video for the âlongâ) investors are betting that more of the middle class Walmart consumers wind up at Dollar General.
Headlines
Even the Big Guys Arenât Immune to PBMs
You may recall our deep dive into the world of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs.) Since that time, the journalist most on top of this industry is without a doubt Matt Stoller. Stoller is as good of a writer as he is a data analyst and has produced several groundbreaking articles and reports, such as uncovering price gouging at the height of the inflation crisis under Biden. In this article Stoller continues taking apart the PBM world by explaining the decline of Walgreens. (Iâll ignore his kind words for Scott Galloway.)
From the article:
âBut the real reason Walgreens, and the pharmacy business in general, is dying, is because of a failure to enforce antitrust laws against unfair business methods and illegal mergers. Elson touched on it when he mentioned lower reimbursement rates, but I donât think people appreciate the full scope of what happened to Walgreens, and to the full pharmacy business in general. This is not a case of bad management, itâs a case of desperate management.â
Trumpâs used car salesman performance on the White House lawn was, it wasâŠI donât know what to say anymore. Itâs one of those stunts that should make even the most MAGA-ey MAGA-head cringe. But itâs a really good sign. It means weâre getting to Elon.
From the article:
âBoycotts are not always an effective weapon, but in the case of Tesla, protesters may have found an important way in which the worldâs richest man can be pressured, or at least punished, over his politics. If Elon Muskâs presence harms Tesla enough, a huge portion of his own net worth will be wiped out, and with it some of his power, because Musk uses Tesla stock as collateral for loans and sells the stock in order to buy things. A collapsing Tesla stock genuinely erodes Elonâs economic power. If the stock is hurt enough, Teslaâs board will have no choice but to remove Musk as CEO in order to save the company.â
Itâs been a long and slippery road to get to a place where the government can openly disappear an American citizen for speech. As much as the right loves to portray college campuses as bastions of radical left speech, the fact is that leftist speech has been under attack in university settings for several decades. The disappearanceâthat what it wasâ of Mahmoud Khalil was the logical progression.
From the article:
âThe pushback against these egregious violations of the rights of pro-Palestinian students was weak and muted. Meanwhile these infringements on academic freedom by campus administrators and politicians have created the conditions that an administration intent on enacting a segregationist vision for the U.S. can now exploit. This not only includes the continued suppression of pro-Palestine voices, but also the attack on critical race theory and all forms of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) on our campuses, including (and particularly) on race and sexualityâ
Outside of Bernie Sanders and AOC, which progressive politiciansâfederal, state or localâhave shown the most courage standing up to Trumpâs policies?
WildEyed Bob, âRep Al Green pops up in my mind.â
KingMob,âAs far as I know Jamie Raskin has been resolute in abstaining from voting for MAGA causes (could have missed something) and he also goes to great lengths to educate people on democracy and the constitution. He has a fairly establishment vibe but I like what Iâve seen.â
Resources
Pod Love
Alan Alda is my favorite actor. I just love him. Always have. My slack avatar is Hawkeye. Now and again I check out Clear+Vivid, his podcast about communication. Itâs wonderful. Chill, relaxed, old-timey. This week is an intersection of interests, so thought I would share.
âArtificial intelligence is poised to reshape our world, in many ways for the better. But the gains come with great risks â above all that its seductive appeal lulls us into believing that AI machines know better than we do.â
âA Genocide Foretold confronts the stark realities of life under siege in Gaza and the heroic effort ordinary Palestinians are waging to resist and survive. Weaving together personal stories, historical context, and unflinching journalism, Chris Hedges provides an intimate portrait of systemic oppression, occupation, and violence.â
ââDollar General is seen by many as a bellwether of the economy. Itâs probably overhyped but their performance has some other hidden details that are worth digging into. Revenue was up in the final quarter of their fiscal year but profits were down. In this video we examine what theft, self-checkout, Walmart and Wall Street have to do with Dollar General and what it tells us about the overall health of the economy.â
ââWe Are Somebody is a capacity building organization for the working class. Our support and programming addresses immediate needs of working families while shining a spotlight on national and global disparities.â
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