Let me say that first that Martin Shkreli makes me sick. He started making me sick when he revealed himself as a master of pharmaceutical IP piracy and again as recently as this week when he bizarrely invited Taylor Swift to fellate him (who talks this way?) for the opportunity to listen to a one of a kind Wu-Tang Clan album he bought for two million dollars. I first smiled and then laughed when I heard he got arrested by the Feds for securities fraud. But I will say this: having watched this stuff for a few decades, the best way to get yourself arrested by the feds for various financial crimes is to become extremely unpopular and widely vilified. I don’t mean, Shkreli didn’t do it. I suspect he did. And I’m sure he deserves it since he seems to be such a conscienceless, awful person. But this is a thing with federal prosecutors.
I wanted to follow up on the news that Sheldon Adelson purchased the biggest newspaper in Nevada, the Las Vegas Review-Journal. We can never know quite what to expect when a ultra-wealthy person purchases a newspaper. Will they use it as their own political mouthpiece or will they take a more disinterested approach focused on stewardship? When it comes to Sheldon Adelson, we don’t have to guess.
Adelson plays in two countries: Israel and the United States. He is actually a much more dominant figure in Israeli politics than American politics, notwithstanding the fact that he’s an American citizen and is also an extremely powerful figure here in the US.
Newspapers are a big, big part of his game. And he’s not subtle.
As you know, we’re in the midst of a big four part series on the rise of wealth inequality in the United States. I wanted to let you know about part three in our series. Our first two installments were essentially historical and in the second piece focused on the politics of inequality. Part three takes a different, critical approach. Jared Bernstein, one of my favorite economists and former chief economic advisor to Vice President Biden, gives us a deep but accessible look at the actual numbers. What do we know? What do the numbers tell us about inequality? What don’t we know? And as best as economics can tell us, what factors seem to be driving this trend? It’s a great piece and I really recommend it to you. If you don’t have time for it now in the middle of the work day, bookmark it to read this evening. If you care about this issue, you should read this piece. Because you can’t think critically about how to solve a problem until you understand the basics of what the problem is. Here’s the piece, TPM’s Deep, Deep Dive into the Economics of Inequality.
When I first saw the news the some anonymous buyer had purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the largest paper in the state, it occurred to me that we might be seeing the next big step in the oligarchification of public life in America. To be clear, rich people have been buying newspapers for a mix of vanity and political influence for generations. There’s absolutely nothing new about it, though in the past there was usually a deeper rootedness in the communities in question. The Chandler family and The Los Angeles Times is a good example of that history. But you always knew who they were.
Now we know that Sheldon Adelson is the purchaser of the Review-Journal, and given his demonstrated willingness to buy power and influence on a massive scale, one can only imagine what a joke the paper will soon become. But here’s where things connect up, where this connects up to other strains of the oligarchification of America.
This > “An upstate New York man who admitted building a remote control for a mobile X-ray device intended to kill Muslims has been sentenced to eight years in prison.”
The budget package being voted on today by the House looks an awful lot like the ones cobbled together by then-Speaker John Boehner, a mix of provisions that incense the Freedom Caucus types and require concessions to Democrats (further inflaming the right wing of the conference) to win enough of their votes to get the thing over the hump. So how are Freedom Caucus members reacting this time? TPM’s Lauren Fox talks to some of them — and what you take away is that while Paul Ryan has bought some time he hasn’t really resolved the deeper structural issues.
Got questions? I’ve got answers. I’m answering reader questions in this thread in The Hive (sub req).
Wilmington, Delaware church collapses in massive fire. Second fire to hit the same church this month. A local TV news drone caught the moment of the collapse on video.
After letting him squirm for a day, the Republican led Senate intel committee lets Ted Cruz out of the ‘leaking classified information’ penalty box.