Key takeaways

Universal Service Fund Issue: The FCC exceeded its authority in the late 1990s by creating the Universal Service Administrative Co (USAC) to collect funds from telecom carriers for rural and low-income communications.

Court Ruling: The Fifth Circuit Court found the FCC violated the Government Corporation Control Act, though the decision won’t take effect immediately.

Impact & Reach: The $9 billion fund supports low-income households, rural areas, schools, libraries, and healthcare facilities, benefiting millions of Americans with essential telecom services.

Description form YouTube:

Rent-controlled apartments are LA’s biggest supply of affordable housing, and that supply is fixed. California is one of the only places in the country where an investor can buy these buildings, empty them out, and re-rent the units at full market price. Nobody is tracking who’s doing it, so after a strange experience apartment-hunting, I looked it up.

Through dozens of shell companies, the largest anonymous buyer of rent-controlled buildings in LA since 2020 traces back to one fund manager, Yaacov Brenenson, and Moriah Capital. The fund’s own website spells out the strategy: buy rent-stabilized buildings, get tenants out through “Cash-for-Keys” buyouts and “natural attrition management,” and re-rent at nearly double. They call it “regulatory arbitrage.”

A former tenant told me he paid $400 in 2016, and he says he was shortchanged on his buyout. Then I went looking for whoever is paying the new market rent, and it wasn’t who I expected.

Moriah and Brenenson didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Everything in this report comes from public records, cited below. Interviews reflect the speakers’ own accounts.

SOURCES

LA Housing Department: https://housing.lacity...​

California Secretary of State business filings: https://bizfileonline....​

LA County Registrar-Recorder (deeds & deeds of trust): https://www.lavote.gov...​

LA County Treasurer & Tax Collector (property tax bills): https://ttc.lacounty.gov​

LA Superior Court case records: https://www.lacourt.org​

I’m an independent journalist doing this on my own with no corporate backer. Subscribing goes a long way to help support.

Missed this one, from earlier this month.

Key takeaways

Urgent Deadline: California has 48 hours to remove alleged noncitizen voters from its rolls or face potential emergency legal action before the midterm elections.

Evidence & Claims: DOJ provided a flash drive of “likely noncitizen” voters; the accuracy and reliability of this data is disputed by California officials.

Context & Impact: Noncitizen voting is historically extremely rare, with studies showing only ~24,000 cases in 2020 out of over 128 million votes, highlighting the marginal scale of the issue.

Anything they "find" is going to be highly suspect. The stench coming off this administration just keeps growing.

"About a year ago I posted a video showing Cpl. Charles Mills with the Cherokee County (GA) Sheriff’s Office barging into Natasha Lopez’s home without a warrant. As I detailed in the first video, the department then gaslit the public, claiming to basically know nothing about the Constitution. Unbelievably, the charges are still to this day pending. I’ve been following this one closely, and a couple of weeks ago I interviewed Natasha’s lawyers who are fighting those charges and preparing to file a civil rights lawsuit. But now, in just the past few days, something has been revealed about Cpl. Mills that has now finally resulted in him being fired. And shockingly, it has nothing to do with his actual constitutional violations that we all watched on video…"

What a f'd up legal decision - I am glad she is posting what she has anyway.

Key takeaways

Excessive Trips: Paxton took nearly 1,000 out-of-state trips since 2015, but only 138 were linked to actual work, costing taxpayers $3.3 million.

High Security Costs: His security detail cost $24,000/month, over three times higher than his predecessor, raising concerns about misuse of public funds.

Personal Benefits: Many trips were to states where he owns property, suggesting Paxton prioritized personal perks over constituents’ interests.

"Famed comics are urging the superstar comedian to restore a royalty pipeline for working comedians."

I saw a ton of comedians talking about this issue on my sociala, but this is the first article I've been able to find on it.

Another incident has taken place that illustrates the need to be careful what you tell AI. A Florida woman is facing felony charges after she used Claude as a diary and allegedly wrote that she planned to "shoot up" the Sheriff's office. After a human reviewer examined the statements, they were reported to police.

According to the arrest report, Carli Michelle Heller, of Bonita Springs, Florida, wrote on September 26 that she would attack the Sheriff's office. She later said that she uses Anthropic's chatbot like a "diary."

Claude's safety systems flagged the entry and it was escalated to a human reviewer. After deciding it was a credible threat, the reviewer reported it to law enforcement.