Gig economy (neoliberal wet dream)
Bezzle
No investment firm has been as talked about in Silicon Valley as SoftBank — the mere utterance of which can send tremors down the spines of rival firms or the competitors to SoftBank’s portfolio companies. It is behind the (unprofitable) tech companies familiar to so many of us: Uber. Slack. WeWork. DoorDash.[1]
Historically—I don’t know if this remains the case—Softbank has been Uber’s biggest investor.[2] So now I’m wondering if, when Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi referred to a “‘seismic shift’ in investor sentiment,”[3] he might actually have been referring to Softbank, which, with high tech industry stocks falling, seems headed for some investor pain.[4]
Jacky Wong, “SoftBank’s Tech Boom Goes Bust—Again,” Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbanks-tech-boom-goes-bustagain-11652357244
Police White supremacist gangs
Andy Sheehan, “Police traffic stops decreasing in Pittsburgh’s communities of color,” KDKA-TV, May 11, 2022, https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/police-traffic-stops-decreasing-in-pittsburghs-communities-of-color/
Residential schools
Mark Walker, “Report Catalogs Abuse of Native American Children at Former Government Schools,” New York Times, May 11, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/us/politics/native-american-children-schools-abuse.html
John Fetterman
Jonathan Tamari, “Trump just warned Republicans that Kathy Barnette ‘will never be able to win’ the Pa. Senate race,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 12, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/donald-trump-kathy-barnette-pa-senate-20220512.html
Jonathan Tamari, Julia Terruso, and Ryan W. Briggs, “The ‘knives are coming out’ for Kathy Barnette as Republicans, and Trump, scramble to stop her,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 12, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/kathy-barnette-oz-mccormick-attack-pa-senate-20220512.html
Abortion
Alexandra Martinez, “Birth control, gay and interracial marriage, and more may be at risk if Roe v. Wade falls,” Prism, May 5, 2022, https://prismreports.org/2022/05/05/civil-rights-roe-v-wade/
Anna North, “Abortion has been treated as a fringe issue by Democrats for decades. This is the result,” Vox, May 5, 2022, https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2022/5/5/23057317/abortion-supreme-court-roe-v-wade
Martin Pengelly, “Louisiana Republicans advance bill to make abortion a crime of murder,” Guardian, May 5, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/05/louisiana-abortion-bill-murder-republicans
William Rivers Pitt, “Democrats Had 50 Years to Save and Protect ‘Roe.’ They Failed,” Truthout, May 6, 2022, https://truthout.org/articles/democrats-had-50-years-to-save-and-protect-roe-they-failed/
Margaret Atwood, “‘Enforced childbirth is slavery’: Margaret Atwood on the right to abortion,” Guardian, May 7, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/07/enforced-childbirth-is-slavery-margaret-atwood-on-the-right-to-abortion
Jennifer Haberkorn, “Abortion pills: A post-Roe game changer — and the next battleground,” Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2022, https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-05-05/medication-abortion-safety-net-battleground
Amy Davidson Sorkin, “How Alito’s Draft Opinion on Abortion Rights Would Change America,” New Yorker, May 8, 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/16/how-alitos-draft-opinion-on-abortion-rights-would-change-america
David Charter, “Republican states plot to make birth control a crime,” Times, May 9, 2022, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/republican-states-plot-to-make-birth-control-a-crime-sljmb2s7f
Sarah Gantz, “Outside Philly and Pittsburgh, it can be as hard to get an abortion in Pa. as in Mississippi,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 9, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/health/abortion-roe-v-wade-overturned-20220509.html
Eriq Gardner, “Was Politico’s Supreme Court Leaker an Inside Man?” Puck News, May 9, 2022, https://puck.news/was-politicos-supreme-court-leaker-an-inside-man/
Peter Hamby, “The Dark Truth Behind the SCOTUS Ruling,” Puck News, May 9, 2022, https://puck.news/the-dark-truth-behind-the-scotus-ruling/
Jill Elaine Hasday, “On Roe, Alito cites a judge who treated women as witches and property,” Washington Post, May 9, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/09/alito-roe-sir-matthew-hale-misogynist/
Vanessa Williamson and John Hudak, “The War on Abortion Drugs will be just as racist and classist,” Brookings, May 9, 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2022/05/09/the-war-on-abortion-drugs-will-be-just-as-racist-and-classist/
Jordain Carney, “Senate GOP, Manchin block abortion rights legislation,” Hill, May 11, 2022, https://thehill.com/news/senate/3485010-senate-gop-manchin-block-abortion-rights-legislation/
Josh Gerstein, Alexander Ward, and Ryan Lizza, “Alito’s draft opinion overturning Roe is still the only one circulated inside Supreme Court,” Politico, May 11, 2022, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/11/alito-abortion-draft-opinion-roe-00031648
Molly Jong-Fast, “It’s Mask Off for the Supreme Court,” Atlantic, May 12, 2022, https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/wait-what/627d0d9366d6b500218d7450/supreme-court-partisanship-roe-v-wade/
Ukraine
Times of Israel, “Putin apologizes for Russian FM’s ‘Jewish Hitler’ remarks, Bennett’s office says,” May 5, 2022, https://www.timesofisrael.com/putin-apologizes-for-russian-envoys-hitler-comments-bennetts-office-says/
Christian Esch, Susanne Koelbl, and Fritz Schaap, “Putin’s Disaster and What Could Happen Next,” Spiegel, May 6, 2022, https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/putin-s-disaster-and-what-could-happen-next-a-e8c89bfa-b7a3-4e32-908a-7642a301eda6
Anthony Faiola, “How millions of Russians are tearing holes in the Digital Iron Curtain,” Washington Post, May 6, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/06/russia-vpn-putin-censorship-disinformation/
Thomas Latschan, “Mysterious series of deaths among Russian oligarchs,” Deutschewelle, May 7, 2022, https://www.dw.com/en/mysterious-series-of-deaths-among-russian-oligarchs/a-61719107
Jamie Seidel, “Russia-Ukraine War: Putin’s Plan B is failing as Russian troops ‘pushed out’ of Donbas,” New Zealand Herald, May 7, 2022, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/russia-ukraine-war-putins-plan-b-is-failing-as-russian-troops-pushed-out-of-donbas/H73PJNRK3TJDUIN7YUCMI4DNM4/
Associated Press, “Russia marks WWII victory overshadowed by Ukraine,” May 9, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-world-war-ii-2d4f0f3a1e59cdad92b26c521ed08669
Max Boot, “Putin is trapped in a quagmire and doesn’t know how to get out,” Washington Post, May 9, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/09/putin-victory-day-russia-ukraine-quagmire/
Julia Ioffe, “About a Boy: The Roots of Putin’s Evil,” Puck News, May 10, 2022, https://puck.news/about-a-boy-the-roots-of-putins-evil/
Matthew Lee, “US, Western Europe fret over uncertain Ukraine war endgame,” Associated Press, May 11, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-western-nato-a990adcad47a34764d64b03bdcd69f7b
Dominic Nicholls, Joe Barnes, and JohnJo Devlin, “Finland and Sweden joining Nato shows just how terribly Vladimir Putin has miscalculated,” Telegraph, May 11, 2022, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/05/11/finland-sweden-joining-nato-shows-just-terribly-vladimir-putin/
Sune Engel Rasmussen, “Finland Says It Will Apply to Join NATO in Response to Russia’s Ukraine Invasion,” Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/finlands-leaders-announce-intention-to-apply-for-nato-membership-11652340796
Mark Trevelyan, “Russia says Finnish entry to NATO poses threat to which it will respond,” Reuters, May 12, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kremlin-says-finland-joining-nato-is-definitely-threat-russia-2022-05-12/
- [1]Theodore Schleifer, “SoftBank, the most powerful — and controversial — tech investor in Silicon Valley, explained,” Vox, May 10, 2019, https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/10/18563267/softbank-vision-fund-explainer-uber-wework-slack-ipo↩
- [2]Theodore Schleifer, “SoftBank, the most powerful — and controversial — tech investor in Silicon Valley, explained,” Vox, May 10, 2019, https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/10/18563267/softbank-vision-fund-explainer-uber-wework-slack-ipo↩
- [3]Reuters, “Uber to cut costs, slow down hiring, CEO tells staff,” May 9, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uber-cut-costs-slow-down-hiring-ceo-tells-staff-cnbc-2022-05-09/↩
- [4]Jacky Wong, “SoftBank’s Tech Boom Goes Bust—Again,” Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbanks-tech-boom-goes-bustagain-11652357244↩