Hannah Story Brown

They Helped Plan the January 6 Rally. Now Their Events Company Is Raking in Millions in Government Contracts The Trump administration has awarded Event Strategies several contracts—including one that could be worth up to $100 million—with little competition, according to federal filings.

A J6-affiliated event company is now making bank on government contracts: www.wired.com/story/they-h...

Corporate Media Buries Story of US and Israel Killing 168 in Girls School Attack No front-page stories in NYT, WSJ, WaPo. No mention on NBC and CBS Sunday Shows. No segments on Evening News broadcasts. A death count on par with the OKC bombing is relegated to the back page.

"A death count on par with the Oklahoma City bombing is relegated to the back page."

DHS is pushing to wall off Big Bend National Park, a crown jewel of America’s natural heritage.

Yet across the 517-mile Big Bend Sector— an area larger than California—DHS apprehended just 151 migrants last month. The park itself is only a tiny slice of that vast, remote border.

‘The precedent is Flint’: How Oregon’s data center boom is supercharging a water crisis | Food and Environment Reporting Network In the spring of 2022, Jim Doherty kept having the same conversation with folks at the only grocery store in Boardman, his eastern Oregon hometown, or at the grain depot where he picked up food for…

This might fit the bill?

Paramount-Warner Would Create a Hollywood Jobs Apocalypse - The American Prospect The deal comes complete with so much debt that it would almost certainly lead to mass job loss. That could prove to be an argument against the deal in court, too.

I'm off this week and I wrote this before we got our war on this weekend.
The Paramount-Warner merger is actually a private equity takeover. The amount of leverage used in the purchase rivals the PE deals for Toys "R" Us and Nabisco. Those ended with mass layoffs, and this will too—by design.

Nearly 60 years ago, Ohio's Cuyahoga River was so polluted it caught fire, galvanizing the environmental movement that gave us the Clean Water Act and other lifesaving environmental laws. The AI industry's vision of our future hinges on a return to an era of unchecked industrial pollution.

Billions of dollars in federal disaster money has been tied up by Noem's $100k grant approval rule.

Now, Trump is releasing $5B in overdue aid, but not to CA, IL, MN, & CO—Democratic-led states w/ governors Trump has maligned.

Using disaster relief as a political weapon is unconscionable.

More ⬇️

Poison as policy...

Was startled by the scale of the visible air pollution coming out of the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant from tens of thousands of feet in the air. TVA's fleet of coal plants cause hundreds of premature deaths every year.

Glad to see @emorwee.bsky.social's coverage of Alito's majorly unethical maneuver on the oil industry's behalf.

As I explored for @prospect.org, Alito isn't the only Justice whose ties to the oil industry make a blanket recusal from these fossil fuel petitions the only ethical option.

‘The Industry Comes In and Kills the Work of Local Citizens’ States and feds aren’t doing much to affect data center growth. Residents here in one Virginia county are trying to push back — but running into some big obstacles.

Gas-powered AI data centers are creating new suburban sacrifice zones: "if diesel generators at Virginia data centers emit just 10% of what their pollution permits allow, costs from asthma and other respiratory diseases will total $50 million annually, affecting communities as far away as Florida."

Incredible threat to the integrity of the public comment process

Another example of why our highest court shouldn't have the lowest ethics standards. As our @hannahstoryb.bsky.social has covered in @prospect.org, Justice Alito's extensive oil holdings should have propelled him to sit out from considering this case. And he's not the only justice with such ties.

Doug Burgum, the Regime Toady of Our Time - The American Prospect Dashing the hopes of establishment Democrats, Trump’s interior secretary and ‘energy czar’ has adopted his boss’s excesses as his own.

We're going regime villain deep-cut today with a look at Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Guess what: he's bad, in all the ways Trump cabinet members are bad: anti-science, pro-selloff of public resources, and sycophantic to an absurd degree. From our friends at @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social.

The Antidemocratic Zealots Presiding Over Trump’s Makeover of US History The administration’s sketchily funded Freedom 250 project, which will oversee the celebration of America’s semiquincentennial, is a pageant of right-wing extremism.

Our @toni-v-aguilar.bsky.social is out in @thenation.com today looking at Trump’s latest grift machine+the slate of far-right agitators, Christian nationalists, book banners, & more he's partnering with to takeover the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. More: tinyurl.com/vjwxbyjh

Doug Burgum, the Regime Toady of Our Time - The American Prospect Dashing the hopes of establishment Democrats, Trump’s interior secretary and ‘energy czar’ has adopted his boss’s excesses as his own.

Out today: a look for @prospect.org with @toni-v-aguilar.bsky.social at Doug Burgum's catastrophic first year at the helm of America's public lands. The laundry list of Burgum's cruel and, frankly, embarrassing actions exceeds the word count of a Bluesky post, so check out the article below.

Amid all the coverage of the EPA abandoning the "endangerment finding" on greenhouse gases, I'm seeing very little mention that the Inflation Reduction Act explicitly said that GHGs were pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Why is no one mentioning this?

Minnesota still needs your attention

Absolutely delighted to write about the living legend that is Bad Bunny for @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social's Watchdog Weekly today.

DOGE Lives On Through Russell Vought Trump’s White House OMB director has quietly institutionalized the government demolition agenda set in motion by Elon Musk’s wrecking crew.

NEW: Elon Musk's DOGE team officially disbanded last year, but its reactionary mission was being carried out in parallel—and continues to be executed today—by OMB Director Russell Vought, a far quieter, but no less villainous, figure.

We explain in @prospect.org

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The Derailment That Never Ended Three years after the East Palestine disaster, everybody’s gotten paid — except the victims.

In November, I went to East Palestine, Ohio, to understand how the "historic" $600 million settlement over the 2023 derailment has so badly failed residents, but made some lawyers and shady companies very rich. www.levernews.com/the-derailme...

At Yosemite, Rangers Are Scarce and Visitors Have Gone Wild

Trump axed National Park Service staff by 25%. This is insane.

When I worked for NPS from 2015-2017 we were backlogged, understaffed & visitor services slammed. I can't imagine working on the inside now.

Not even America's best idea is spared from Trump's madness.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/u...

DOGE: From Meme to Government Erosion Machine | Revolving Door Project How DOGE's Attacks on the Civil Service Destroyed Federal Capacity and Harmed Communities ... And What Comes Next

NEW: Marking DOGE's one-year anniversary, RDP has put together a report probing the origins, the personnel, and the harmful consequences of Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

MAGA, a movement of cynical cruelty that is fueled by atomization, has accidentally created the conditions for in person communities to be formed around resisting their repression bsky.app/profile/aaro...

It's the same people who are desperate for a technical solution to what is a social and political problem. "This new tech will solve the climate crisis." Except it won't and we know what will- ending fossil fuel use, which is a social and political project, not technical one.

Big Oil declares war on climate lawsuits The American Petroleum Institute will prioritize shielding oil companies from climate liability in 2026.

A top priority for the U.S. oil lobby in 2026 will be trying to put an end to state laws and lawsuits that could make fossil fuel companies pay billions for their role in the climate crisis.

It was happening behind the scenes, but now it's officially laid out in API's new policy agenda:

Globally, no single day in 2025 was cooler than its 1991-2020 average.
climate.copernicus.eu/global-clima...

Senator Warren's speech this morning on the future of the Democratic Party is no holds barred. From Epstein's pals in the halls of power to the billionaires trying to buy the media and former Senate colleagues who sold out, Warren and took aim at those holding the party back

E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution

Scoop: The EPA will no longer estimate the lives saved by reducing air pollution when writing clean-air regulations, according to documents reviewed by @nytimes.com.
Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/c...

President Trump's embrace of AI could be a political gift to Democrats. Instead, it's exposing a major split in the party. Why it matters: As the tech industry aligns with the White House, Democrats are weighing whether to lean into a populist message aimed at protecting workers, challenging tech billionaires and pushing back on data centers — or embrace a more innovation-friendly approach. Driving the news: In a letter shared first with Axios, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is facing backlash from advocacy groups that say the leaders of a new House Democratic AI policy commission have deep ties to Big Tech. The co-chairs include Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Valerie Foushee (D-N.C.), who are set to meet with Jeffries for the first time on Thursday, a source familiar said. "Going into the 2026 midterms, Democrats can and must present a vision for AI policy that breaks with Trump's deregulatory vision," the Jan. 8 letter to Jeffries states. 11 groups signed the letter, including the Revolving Door Project, Center for Digital Democracy and the Climate and Community Institute.

NEW: Revolving Door Project and 11 other organizations sent a letter to House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries expressing concern about his selection of co-chairs with ties to Big Tech for the new House Democratic Commission on AI and the Innovation Economy.

www.axios.com/2026/01/08/d...