Tuesday, July 28, 2026

These consumer brands are bankrolling the biggest ICE supporters in Congress

 US Police Now Armed With Israeli Spy Vans Simulating Mobile Phone Towers Cybernews. Note that cell phone triangulation has been found in court not to be accurate enough to be used as evidence of location. However, in combination with other data….? The lesson is that airplane mode and Faraday bags are your friends.


These consumer brands are bankrolling the biggest ICE supporters in Congress



Popular Information: “From the outset of President Trump’s second term, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has engaged in a deadly immigration crackdown that has trampled the constitutional rights of migrants and US citizens. 

During the operation, there have been 28 incidents where immigration agents shot at people, resulting in eight deaths, according to an analysis by The Trace. On July 13, an ICE officer fatally shot Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old delivery driver from Colombia authorized to work in the US. On July 7, an ICE officer shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three who worked in the US for more than three decades. 

According to federal courts, ICE agents have repeatedly violated the rights of citizens, stopping people for “looking Mexican,” conducting warrantless raids, and ignoring due process. Peaceful protestors and journalists have been targeted with chemical agents, rubber bullets, and flash grenades. Since January 2025, at least 52 people have died in ICE custody from a variety of causes, including medical neglect and homicide. While this dragnet reflects the priorities of Trump and his top advisors, it cannot persist in a vacuum. It requires broader political and economic support. 

The political support for ICE has come from Congress, which has both massively increased ICE’s funding and repeatedly failed to rein in its excesses. Popular Information identified the core of ICE’s Congressional support by cataloging members of Congress who, looking at this record, have sought to increase ICE’s power by sponsoring or co-sponsoring pending legislation. This includes bills like the “10 Years of ICE Funding Act,” sponsored by Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO), and co-sponsored by Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Bernie Moreno (R-OH), which provides $105 billion in dedicated funding for ICE through 2036. 

And the “287(g) Cooperation Act of 2026,” sponsored by Congressman Ben Cline (R-VA) and co-sponsored by 16 Republican colleagues, which conditions federal public safety funding for state and local governments on the signing of a cooperation agreement with ICE within 180 days. Overall, 40 bills — including 27 House bills and 13 Senate bills — were included in the analysis. (A complete list of those bills, and their sponsors, is available here.)

In total, Popular Information has identified 110 House members and 37 Senators who have sponsored or co-sponsored at least one of the 40 bills expanding ICE’s power during the 119th Congress. The most prolific supporter of these bills was Congressman Barry Moore (R-AL), who sponsored or co-sponsored 12. Following close behind were Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Congressman Brandon Gill (R-TX), who each sponsored or co-sponsored nine. In the Senate, Eric Schmitt (R-MO) sponsored or co-sponsored seven such bills, with Rick Scott (R-FL) sponsoring or co-sponsoring five. Popular Information then analyzed corporate PAC donations reported to the FEC during the 2026 political cycle to the campaign committees and leadership PACs of these members. The top consumer brand financially backing this group of ICE supporters is SpaceX, Elon Musk’s newly public company that runs Starlink satellite internet, xAI’s Grok chatbot, and the X social media platform. SpaceX’s corporate PAC donated $589,000 to 63 members of Congress who sponsored or co-sponsored legislation expanding ICE’s power. Other consumer brands near the top of the list include Home Depot ($536,500 to 77 members), Walmart ($308,000 to 88 members), Toyota ($262,500 to 75 members), and Google ($257,500 to 48 members).


 

Christopher Nolan completely reimagined the Trojan Horse to make the famous deception feel more believable.

KPMG directors flee as whistleblower scandal worsens

KPMG to be grilled at parliamentary inquiry on secretly stashing Lendlease files


Window dressing’: KPMG loses another director and taps ex NAB whistleblower for latest review


‘A serious matter’: KPMG agrees to withdraw from Victorian government contracts


KPMG directors flee as whistleblower scandal worsens

Updated 


KPMG’s newly installed chairman Michael Ebeid will have to find multiple new board members willing to help reform the embattled consultancy after one independent director quietly quit and another signalled her intention to resign within months.

KPMG director Patty Akopiantz quietly left the firm’s regional board last month, following former NSW premier Mike Baird’s exit in September, and fellow independent director Jane Hemstritch is expected to resign once replacements have been found.

Patty Akopiantz has quietly left the KPMG board as the firm battles an escalating crisis.GETTY IMAGES

The departures will give KPMG a chance to refresh its leadership in the wake of its whistleblower scandal, but also show the challenge it faces in attracting credentialled professionals as the saga gets worse over time.

KPMG has been in crisis since Labor Senator Deborah O’Neill revealed allegations from a whistleblower that the firm had misused confidential client information in an attempt to win work. Many of the whistleblower’s most serious claims have since been confirmed despite KPMG initially repeatedly downplaying them.

       A Tale of Two Beaches on 28 August 2026 AD




Akopiantz’s departure was not publicly announced, but documents released by parliament on Tuesday show she advised the investigating committee that she had left the embattled consultancy’s board in June.

“I would like to advise that at the end of June I resigned as a board member of KPMG’s South Asia Pacific Board and have no ongoing role with KPMG,” Akopiantz wrote. Her departure follows the exit of NSW premier Mike Baird in September last year.

Other recent departures from the board include former chief executive Andrew Yates, chairman Martin Sheppard, and a senior partner at the firm Kim Lawry. Lawry resigned from the KPMG board and partnership this month after Westpac requested that she be removed from its audit “to ensure there is no distraction”.

KPMG sources said Hemstritch, the independent board member, planned to leave the board later this year when Ebeid finds fresh recruits to preside over the embattled firm.

KPMG referred to previous remarks by Ebeid when contacted for comment. “My first priority is to restore the governance and effectiveness of the board,” Ebeid said when he was first appointed acting chairman in early July. “We will reshape the KPMG Australia Board with equal independent and partner representation.”


Before Baird and Akopiantz left, the independent directors raised concerns about KPMG’s handling of the whistleblower’sclaims. She and Hemstritch are both accomplished corporate directors, having held roles at companies such as EnergyAustralia, Axa and AMP, and Commonwealth Bank, Telstra and Lendlease respectively.

The news of Akopiantz’s departure comes just days after KPMG’s new boss John Sams sacked former chief operating officer Eileen Hoggett after she lied about accessing sensitive board documents from client Lendlease and stored copies in her work locker.

That was reported on Friday, but the documents released on Tuesday show how KPMG disclosed it to O’Neill’s parliamentary committee.

“New evidence has been identified in relation to one of the whistleblower’s allegations,” KPMG wrote in the documents. “Specifically, the allegation that client information relating to the Lendlease audit was retained in a locker at KPMG’s Sydney office by Eileen Hoggett, KPMG Australia’s former Chief Operating Officer.


“This allegation had previously been denied by Ms Hoggett. However, based on the evidence now obtained, KPMG accepts that the allegation has been substantiated.”

Sams told partners on Friday that he was beyond angry about the development. “The conduct was totally unacceptable, and it is unacceptable that it has taken so long for us to get to this point,” he said.

The Market Recap newsletter is a wrap of the day’s trading. Get it each weekday afternoon.


Colin KrugerColin Kruger is a senior business reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.
Nick BonyhadyNick Bonyhady is the business editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is a former deputy federal editor, technology editor and industrial relations reporter.Connect via Xor email.

Amazon, gig companies see spike in workers on SNAP and Medicaid, study shows

 

There were no whys in a person's life, and very few hows. In the end, in search of useful wisdom, you could only come back to the most hackneyed concepts, like kindness, forbearance, infinite self patience.
Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding


Substack adds an AI detector to help spot blogs written by no one

The Verge – no paywall: “Substack will now help users determine whether what they’re reading may have been written by AI. A new tool coming to the platform can scan posts, notes, replies, and comments to provide an estimate of how much text could be AI-generated or written with AI assistance, according to a blog post published on Tuesday. 

The tool is powered by an AI detection company called Pangram and is rolling out across the web and the iOS app, with an Android launch coming “soon.” Readers can analyze content longer than 100 words by choosing the “Scan for AI text” option from the three-dot menu in the top-right corner of a post…”


The Epstein Election: How America’s Most Notorious Sex Predator Is Shaping The Midterms

Democrats are hammering Republicans in TV ads over their initial reluctance to support releasing the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein.


Amazon, gig companies see spike in workers on SNAP and Medicaid, study shows

Federal Social Safety Net Programs: Millions of Workers, Including Many Employed by Large Employers, Continue to Rely on Medicaid and SNAPGAO-26-108703Publicly Released: July 22, 2026. Millions of American adults earn so little that they rely on federal programs to make ends meet, such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. To learn more about the working adults who used these programs in 2024, we analyzed employment data from 11 states and Census data. We found:

  • About two-thirds worked full time
  • Most worked for private sector employers
  • Workers were largely in transportation, restaurants and food prep, and retail sales jobs
  • Some employers in selected states had thousands of beneficiaries on their payrolls

According to U.S. Census Bureau data, an estimated 13.8 million adults enrolled in Medicaid and 10.6 million adults living in households that received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits worked at some point during 2024. This is out of approximately 28 million and 20 million adults ages 19–64 in these programs, respectively. 

GAO’s analysis of Census data showed that about two-thirds of these adults in each program worked full-time (35 hours or more a week). However, when compared to other wage-earning adults not participating in either program, wage-earning adult Medicaid enrollees and SNAP recipients were less likely to work full-time hours for 50 or more weeks per year.

According to GAO’s analysis of state-level data for September 2025, the employers with the most nondisabled, nonelderly Medicaid enrollees or SNAP beneficiaries varied across the 11 states that provided data. However, 46 companies (about one-third of the total companies across all 11 states) were among the top 25 employers of Medicaid enrollees or SNAP beneficiaries in at least two states. Seventeen of these 46 companies were among the 50 largest Fortune 500 companies by number of employees.

Monday, July 27, 2026

The Trump Grift Clock

 “Woe to that land that’s governed by a child.”

- William Shakespeare Richard III, Act 2, Sc.3

 


The Trump Grift Clock




 Trump Family Passed $5 Billion. Narativ’s Grift Clock Now Counts Every Second. How much money the Trumps are making from their second term – “The Trump family crossed the $5 billion line on July 10 at 11:10 PM Eastern — by the clock’s math. Nobody marked the moment. 

So Narativ built the clock that makes the next one impossible to miss: $5.1 billion lands Tuesday at exactly 5:00 PM ET The Trump Grift Clock went live today — a real-time counter in the tradition of the National Debt Clock, tracking the money the family has taken since the January 20, 2025 inauguration. 

It ticks $107.74 a second, $9.3 million a day: the documented rate at which the family converted the presidency into income in its first year — $3.4 billion annually, from crypto ventures, real estate deals, and overseas licensing, compiled from public reporting and financial disclosures. The scale has no American precedent. Mobutu Sese Seko looted an estimated $5 billion from Zaire — over thirty-two years; the family matched him in eighteen months. Ferdinand Marcos took $5–10 billion from the Philippines across two decades; at the current rate the family passes his floor early next year. 

Teapot Dome, the scandal that defined American corruption for a century, totals about $7 million in today’s dollars. The clock ticks past that every 65 seconds. The debt clock told Americans what Washington borrowed in their name. This clock tells them what one family took. It has never once ticked down.”

‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy - Intel and Trump

 

A soul isn't something a person is born with but something that must be built, by effort and error, study and love.
Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding

The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian



The rescheduled dinner was taking place in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, a smaller venue that held only about 700 people.





DOGE was supposed to be dead. Its remnants are everywhere

Washington Post – no paywall: “…DOGE has evolved from its radical cost-cutting mission, with some of its members and agenda embedded across the government, continuing to reshape the federal bureaucracy behind the scenes. “DOGE is a way of life. … It never terminates,” former DOGE staffer Katie Miller said on X on July 4, the day of its supposed expiration. 

Nearly two dozen people hired or vetted through DOGE remain in government, including an influential diaspora filtered throughout the executive branch, according to a Washington Post analysis of court records and government documents. 

This includes Gavin Kliger, chief data officer at the Pentagon, and Jeremy Lewin, a senior adviser to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Lewin, who oversaw much of the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, now directs the State Department’s foreign assistance programs…

But the upheaval unleashed by the U.S. DOGE Service has left an imprint on the federal government, with consequences still rippling through Washington. DOGE forcibly reworked the operations at agencies such as the Social Security Administration, where staff members were reorganized to make up for losses on the front lines. 

Unemployment is up in the D.C. metro area since Donald Trump returned to the White House. Federal workers remain fearful of retaliation. Two people close to DOGE, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said the design outfit, led by Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, serves as the spiritual successor to its work. 

With about 100 people and weekly meetings focused on efforts such as TrumpRx and the design of the new food pyramid, they represent an evolution of the DOGE mission, but a significant culling of its mandate…”


Skadden Said Its Trump Deal Raised No Ethical Issues. Intel’s Shareholders Disagree.

Above the Law: “There is a version of the Biglaw capitulation story where the nine firms that bent a knee to Donald Trump did some pro bono work on behalf of veterans, ate a news cycle, and moved on. That is the version the firms have been selling since jump, but the reality is quite a bit different. 

Today, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Rep. Jamie Raskin, and Sen. Adam Schiff sent a letter to Skadden executive partner Jeremy London, the third such letter, for those keeping score, asking the firm to explain how it advised Intel on handing the Commerce Department a 10 percent equity stake in the company while simultaneously doing free legal work for that same Commerce Department. The lawmakers would like an answer by August 4, but, based on Skadden’s track record… they should not hold their breath…

A refresher on how we got here, because the ledger is worth restating in full. When Trump started issuing unconstitutional executive orders designed to bring the legal profession to heel, a handful of firms — Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey — sued and are winning, repeatedly. More than twice as many bent a knee instead. Paul Weiss went first, settling six days after Trump’s executive order for $40 million in pro bono services and the elimination of its DEI programs. Skadden followedwith $100 million — preemptively, before any order existed — plus a pledge to fund at least five Skadden Fellows a year, which promptly cost the Skadden Foundation its executive directorWillkie Farr and Milbank each matched Skadden’s $100 million, also preemptively. Then Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Simpson Thacher, and A&O Shearman came in at $125 million apiece — $500 million total, with their EEOC DEI investigations conveniently evaporating in the process — and Cadwalader rounded out the group at $100 million. Kirkland, it later emerged, tried to recruit the rest of Biglaw into the deal, and it and Simpson hired a top Trump fundraiser’s lobbying shop on the way in. Grand total: $940 million in pro bono payola for whichever causes strike the president’s 

Sunday, July 26, 2026

The 20 Best Works of Nonfiction of the Decade

  "Remember, when you leave this Earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received—only what you have given: a full heart, enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice, and courage."

~ St. Francis of Assisi



The philosopher who wants schools to slow kids down Big Think


American Heart Association Reveals The Optimal Daily Cups of Coffee For Your Health Science Alert


What’s the Point of Sex, Anyway? “There is yet another kind of male, known among ichthyologists as a ‘sneaky mater.’ This type dispenses altogether with nest-building and partnering and simply darts around squirting.”


Created by Slovak craftsman Vladimir Kostelansky of VKBlades The sword gets its name from Irish mythology, where Fragarach ("The Answerer" or "The Retaliator") was the legendary weapon of King Nuada and the sea god Manannán mac Lir.

Reviving the Forgotten by VKBlades


The 20 Best Works of Nonfiction of the Decade

LitHub – “So, as is our hallowed duty as a literary and culture website—though with full awareness of the potentially fruitless and endlessly contestable nature of the task—in the coming weeks, we’ll be taking a look at the best and most important (these being not always the same) books of the decade that was. 

We will do this, of course, by means of a variety of lists. We began with the best debut novels, the best short story collections, the best poetry collections, the best memoirs of the decade, and the best essay collections of the decade. But our sixth list was a little harder—we were looking at what we (perhaps foolishly) deemed “general” nonfiction: all the nonfiction excepting memoirs and essays (these being covered in their own lists) published in English between 2010 and 2019…

The following books were finally chosen after much debate (and multiple meetings) by the Literary Hub staff. Tears were spilled, feelings were hurt, books were re-read. And as you’ll shortly see, we had a hard time choosing just ten—so we’ve also included a list of dissenting opinions, and an even longer list of also-rans…”