Podcasts about Open Secrets

Original E Street Band multi-instrumentalist David Sancious talks about meeting Bruce Springsteen as a teenager, recording and touring behind the Boss' first three albums, being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, touring with Peter Gabriel and Sting (sometimes at the same time), his thoughts on Little Steven Van Zandt's acting abilities in The Sopranos, his current collaboration with Living Colour drummer Will Calhoun, and the truth behind how Bruce's E Street Band got its name! David Sancious and Will Calhoun's Open Secret project tours the northeast US starting in May...full details at https://www.therealdavidsancious.com/ TORONTO LEGENDS is hosted by Andrew Applebaum at andrew.applebaum@gmail.com All episodes available at https://www.torontolegends.ca/episodes/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Clement Manyathela speaks to Micheal Marchant, the Head of Investigations at Open Secrets about why the NPA has not been able to prosecute high-profile state capture or corruption cases The Clement Manyathela Show is broadcast on 702, a Johannesburg based talk radio station, weekdays from 09:00 to 12:00 (SA Time). Clement Manyathela starts his show each weekday on 702 at 9 am taking your calls and voice notes on his Open Line. In the second hour of his show, he unpacks, explains, and makes sense of the news of the day. Clement has several features in his third hour from 11 am that provide you with information to help and guide you through your daily life. As your morning friend, he tackles the serious as well as the light-hearted, on your behalf. Thank you for listening to a podcast from The Clement Manyathela Show. Listen live – The Clement Manyathela Show is broadcast weekdays between 09:00 and 12:00 (SA Time) on 702 https://www.primediaplus.com/station/702 Find all the catch-up podcasts here https://www.primediaplus.com/702/the-clement-manyathela-show/audio-podcasts/the-clement-manyathela-show/ Subscribe to the 702 daily and weekly newsletters https://www.primediaplus.com/competitions/newsletter-subscription/  Follow us on social media: 702 on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TalkRadio702   702 on TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@talkradio702  702 on Instagram: www.instagram.com/talkradio702  702 on X: www.x.com/Radio702  702 on YouTube: www.youtube.com/@radio702  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are South African government officials indirectly funding Israel’s war on Gaza - despite the government having ensured that this war was classified as genocide by the International Court of Justice? What about the funding of fossil fuel companies who may be responsible for accelerated climate change through carbon emissions? These are the subjects of a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application sent by Open Secrets and Fossil Free SA to the South African Government Officer Bearers’ Pension Fund (GOBPF). John Maytham speaks to Luthando Vilakazi, lawyer at Open Secrets. Good Morning Cape Town with Lester Kiewit is a podcast of the CapeTalk breakfast show. This programme is your authentic Cape Town wake-up call. Good Morning Cape Town with Lester Kiewit is informative, enlightening and accessible. The team’s ability to spot & share relevant and unusual stories make the programme inclusive and thought-provoking. Don’t miss the popular World View feature at 7:45am daily. Listen out for #LesterInYourLounge which is an outside broadcast – from the home of a listener in a different part of Cape Town - on the first Wednesday of every month. This show introduces you to interesting Capetonians as well as their favourite communities, habits, local personalities and neighbourhood news. Thank you for listening to a podcast from Good Morning Cape Town with Lester Kiewit. Listen live – Good Morning CapeTalk with Lester Kiewit is broadcast weekdays between 06:00 and 09:00 (SA Time) https://www.primediaplus.com/station/capetalk Find all the catch-up podcasts here https://www.primediaplus.com/capetalk/good-morning-cape-town-with-lester-kiewit/audio-podcasts/good-morning-cape-town-with-lester-kiewit/ Subscribe to the CapeTalk daily and weekly newsletters https://www.primediaplus.com/competitions/newsletter-subscription/ Follow us on social media: CapeTalk on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CapeTalk   CapeTalk on TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@capetalk   CapeTalk on Instagram: www.instagram.com/capetalkza  CapeTalk on X: www.x.com/CapeTalk  CapeTalk on YouTube: www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kelli and Troy have mentioned Bryan Singer since the start of this podcast, and now it's his turn. Get ready as your hosts discuss the allegations against the disgraced director. Get your tickets today!! - https://www.x1entertainment.com/beyondtheblinds Patreon - patreon.com/Beyondtheblinds Articles - My Traumatizing Year With Bryan Singer - https://variety.com/2021/film/news/bryan-singer-blake-stuerman-1235136986/ An Open Secret - https://vimeo.com/channels/1618618 The Atlantic - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/bryan-singers-accusers-speak-out/580462/ Noah Galvin article - https://www.vulture.com/2016/06/noah-galvin-has-nothing-to-hide.html --------Sponsors!---- ASPCA Pet Insurance! - To explore coverage, visit ASPCApetInsurance.com/BLINDS. Soul! Bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to Soul today! Right now, Soul is offering my audience 30% off your entire order! Go to GetSoul.com and use the code BLINDS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Long regarded as one of the world's premier musicians, David Sancious is pleased to announce the release of tracks from his upcoming album, “The Ghost of Jim Crow.” The full version of the first track, "Why Must It Be So,” is now available. Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductee David Sancious has recorded and performed on keyboards and guitar and toured with various Grammy Award-winning artists. David is an original member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. Peter Gabriel, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Santana, Natalie Merchant, Yousou Ndour, Erika Badu, Aretha Franklin, Seal and others have used David's talents as pianists, synthesists, guitarists, arrangers, and producers on recording sessions and concert tours, playing an eclectic and diverse range of music. After several years of playing keyboards and guitar in Jazz, R&B, and Rock Bands in the Jersey Shore area, David met Bruce Springsteen at the entrance to a club where Bruce was organizing a jam session. This led to an invitation to join a new band that Bruce was putting together. This eventually became Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band (named after the street David lived on). After recording three albums and touring the country with Bruce, David left to form the group Tone and recorded several albums. In May, he will tour with Will Calhoun, the drummer for Living Colour, on the Open Secret project throughout the Northeast US.   Want to watch: YouTube Meisterkhan Pod (Please Subscribe)

In Dallas, Sandra Bridewell's disturbing past is revealed and   an eerie pattern begins to take shape.   Binge all episodes of Fatal Beauty, ad-free today by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge Crimes on Apple Podcasts and hit ‘subscribe' or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access. The Binge – feed your true crime obsession. Fatal Beauty is A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For this episode Dr Marianne Camerer, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town's Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, and Devi Pillay, a research fellow with the GI-ACE programme, join regular KB host Liz David-Barrett to discuss the experience of state capture in South Africa, under the presidency of Jacob Zuma. Check out the following resources to learn more about the issues discussed in this episode: The Open Secrets website which houses the Civil Society Working Group Against State Capture https://www.opensecrets.org.za/civil-society-working-group-on-state-capture/ The State Capture Commission website https://www.statecapture.org.za/ The Public Protector's 2016 report https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/state-capture-report-public-protector-14-october-2016 A short summary written by Devi of the Commission and its findings https://pari.org.za/summary-the-state-capture-commission And the book "State Capture in South Africa: How and why it happened", edited by Mbongiseni Buthelezi and Peter Vale https://pari.org.za/new-book-state-capture-in-south-africa-how-and-why-it-happened/

Stephen Pimpare is Professor of Public Policy at Vermont Law and Graduate School. He is the author of four books, including A People's History of Poverty and, most recently, Politics for Social Workers: A Practical Guide to Effecting ChangeLincoln Mitchell teaches political science and public policy at Columbia University. He is the author of nine books and his writings have appeared at CNN, Reuters, the New York Times, NBC, the San Francisco Examiner and numerous other media platforms. For more of Lincoln's work you can subscribe to his Substack “Kibitzing with Lincoln” at /lincolnmitchell.substack.com/.”Dave Levinthal Based in Washington, D.C., Dave has led Raw Story's newsroom as editor-in-chief and served as deputy editor of Business Insider, where he oversaw the publication's political investigations and enterprise journalism. Dave has also worked as an editor or reporter at the Center for Public Integrity, Politico, OpenSecrets, the Dallas Morning News and the Eagle-Tribune.His articles have appeared in dozens of publications, including The Atlantic, TIME, Politico Magazine, Rolling Stone, Slate, Salon, Daily Beast and Columbia Journalism Review.We have a discussion about the various issues of importance today:-Verbal and threatened physical attacks on judges who disagree with the administration, including threats for future actions.-The lawlessness of the Trump administration with its tsunami of actions-Defiance of court orders and rulings-Wiping historical references to Blacks, women, and others.-Democratic leadership is absent, with a few exceptions-The need for massive, very public demonstrations against Trump and Musk-Appeasement to Trump by large law firms and universities.The WI Supreme Court race, and Musk's large dollar spend.Music: From David Rovics, “The Richest Man in the World Says So”, 2025-

Recording of a laid back interactive conversation on Kundalini Shakti awakening and surrender.Brent's Offers:⚕️KUNDALINI AWAKENING FUNDAMENTALS: A Crash Course (FREE)

Dan Corder is joined by Michael Marchant, Head of Investigations at Open Secrets, to unpack one of South Africa’s most pressing economic debates: Should the country introduce a wealth tax on its richest individuals?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you get clients? This is one question that repeats itself endlessly. You'd think the answer would be common knowledge by now, and it is. The answer lies in a concept called “groups”. We fail to understand the power of groups, and that's where the struggle begins. How do you use the power of groups? Let's find out.

Episode: 00257 Released on March 10, 2025 Description: In this episode of Analyst Talk with Jason Elder, expert Jan Mondale discusses another Open Secret in the world of open-source intelligence (OSINT) with expert Jan Mondale. From the basics of Google and Bing searches to advanced tips for finding hidden information online, Jan breaks down the art of effective searching. We explore Boolean operators, the power of search shortcuts, and why it sometimes pays to think like a "Google dork." Whether you're an investigative support analyst or just looking to sharpen your search skills, this episode is packed with actionable advice. Tune in to learn how to uncover open secrets like a pro! [Note:  Description produced by ChatGPT.] Get to know more about Jan by listening to his episode on Analyst Talk With Jason Elder: https://www.leapodcasts.com/e/atwje-jan-mondale-inquiring-minds/ CHALLENGE: There are Easter eggs in one of the tables of the Excel chapter that Jason wrote for the IACA textbook. First-person to email us at leapodcasts@gmail.com about what the Easter eggs are will receive a $75 gift card from us. Happy hunting! *** Episode 7 Analysis - IACA Conference Preview - Rethinking Thought https://youtu.be/YC_b8GWofDk  *** Related Links: Jan's Online Search document:  https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/437i47bpbj5n8wzh/OS02_Online_Search8tf85.pdf Association(s) Mentioned:  Vendor(s) Mentioned:  Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janmondale/  Transcript: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/5ruixn7e7crti923/OS02_transcript.pdf  Podcast Writer:  Podcast Researcher:  Theme Song: Written and Recorded by The Rough & Tumble. Find more of their music at www.theroughandtumble.com. Logo: Designed by Kyle McMullen. Please visit www.moderntype.com for any printable business forms and planners.  Podcast Email: leapodcasts@gmail.com   Podcast Webpage: www.leapodcasts.com   Podcast Twitter: @leapodcasts

Clarence Ford speaks to Jane Borman, lawyer at Open Secrets. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dave looks into Zen's famous wariness towards teachers and teaching, while delving into his own hang ups around the role as he prepares to formally play it. Are we all doomed to unwittingly adopt our teachers hang ups and issues? Is obedience just a matter of finding someone to tell you to do what you want? Is liberation just telling ourselves that whatever we're doing is what we really want?? Find out here!

Part 1:We talk with Jonathan Alter, an award-winning author, political analyst, documentary filmmaker, columnist, television producer and radio host.We discuss the inauguration.Part 2:We talk with David Leinthal who has ledRaw Story's newsroom as editor-in-chief and served as deputy editor ofBusiness Insider, where he oversaw the publications political investigations and enterprise journalism. Dave has also worked as an editor or reporter at theCenter for Public Integrity, Politico, OpenSecrets, the Dallas Morning News and the Eagle-Tribune.We discuss the inauguration. What can we expect in the near future? WNHNFM.ORG  productionMusic: David Rovics, "Time to Act", for Will Von Sproson

Jesse Morris has been there. On and behind the camera, all around every incarnation of Davis Arena, all the way back to Danny Davis himself. Coming back from mortal circumstances, Jesse keeps reinventing himself and finding new ways to delight the OVW Fan Nation!Watch the latest Interview from the OVW Podcast, the Unofficial podcast of Ohio Valley Wrestling.  And subscribe where you get your podcasts.#ovw #podcast #ovwwrestling #theunofficial #ovwpodcast #jessemorris #prowrestling #ovwhistory #louisville #ovworigional

In this episode, political and news commentator Primod joins us for a deep dive into multiculturalism and the line between left and right wing. We also explore the impact of censorship on free speech, question whether the fires in LA are a distraction, uncover truths about the Diddy crimes, and discuss the ethics of puberty blockers in kids. This conversation unpacks the narratives shaping society today. Don't miss it! PATREON  Support The Hard Yarns and get access to exclusive drops, content, live shows and promo codes : www.patreon.com/thehardyarnspodcast  FIND US  Email: info@thehardyarns.com  Instagram: @thehardyarnspodcast  TikTok: @thehardyarnspodcast  Web: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.thehardyarns.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  SPONSORS  All Trades Cover - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.alltradescover.com.au⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Pheed - https://bit.ly/4fha4zj  10% off Code word - hardyarn GOAT - ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://thegoatco.au⁠⁠⁠⁠  15% off Code word - hardyarn Kahuna Golf - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kahunaco.com.au/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...⁠⁠⁠  For 15% off Kahuna apparel, code word hardyarns15  Hard Yarns is Produced by B32media ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠#hardyarns⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠#podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠#comedy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Exploring the Impact of a Four-Day Workweek on Nonprofits In this week's episode of the Nonprofit News Feed by Whole Whale, George Weiner and Nick Azulay dive into the potential effects of a four-day workweek on the nonprofit sector. As digital strategists and nonprofit enthusiasts, they explore how this shift, gaining traction in places like Tokyo and parts of Europe, could influence volunteer availability and nonprofit operations. Nick highlights the growing trend towards shorter workweeks, noting that it could alleviate burnout among nonprofit staff, often overworked and underpaid. This change might also lead to an increase in volunteer hours, as people could have more free time to contribute to causes they care about. George adds that advances in AI and digital tools could streamline volunteer coordination, making it easier for nonprofits to manage their resources efficiently. The discussion also touches on the broader implications of a shorter workweek, such as a shift in how productivity is measured—focusing on outcomes rather than hours. This shift could open up new opportunities for nonprofits to fill the "purpose gap," engaging more people in meaningful work beyond traditional employment metrics like GDP. Legislative Update: Nonprofits Face Potential Threats The episode also covers the reintroduction of HR 9495 in the Senate, a bill that could allow the U.S. Treasury to strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status if deemed to support terrorism. The hosts express concern over the lack of due process in this legislation, which could expose nonprofits to abuse and harassment. With Congress's session ending soon, the bill's fate remains uncertain, but advocacy efforts continue to highlight its potential dangers. Challenges in Nonprofit Funding Transparency Another topic discussed is the financial struggles of OpenSecrets, a nonprofit dedicated to government transparency and tracking money in politics. Recent layoffs at OpenSecrets reflect a broader trend of dwindling support for transparency-focused organizations, posing a risk to public understanding of political finance. Mackenzie Scott's Continued Philanthropic Impact Ending on a positive note, the hosts celebrate Mackenzie Scott's recent $65 million donation to Enterprise Community Partners, an affordable housing nonprofit. This gift underscores Scott's ongoing commitment to addressing critical societal issues through substantial philanthropic efforts.

Exploring the Impact of a Four-Day Workweek on Nonprofits In this week's episode of the Nonprofit News Feed by Whole Whale, George Weiner and Nick Azulay dive into the potential effects of a four-day workweek on the nonprofit sector. As digital strategists and nonprofit enthusiasts, they explore how this shift, gaining traction in places like Tokyo and parts of Europe, could influence volunteer availability and nonprofit operations. Nick highlights the growing trend towards shorter workweeks, noting that it could alleviate burnout among nonprofit staff, often overworked and underpaid. This change might also lead to an increase in volunteer hours, as people could have more free time to contribute to causes they care about. George adds that advances in AI and digital tools could streamline volunteer coordination, making it easier for nonprofits to manage their resources efficiently. The discussion also touches on the broader implications of a shorter workweek, such as a shift in how productivity is measured—focusing on outcomes rather than hours. This shift could open up new opportunities for nonprofits to fill the "purpose gap," engaging more people in meaningful work beyond traditional employment metrics like GDP. Legislative Update: Nonprofits Face Potential Threats The episode also covers the reintroduction of HR 9495 in the Senate, a bill that could allow the U.S. Treasury to strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status if deemed to support terrorism. The hosts express concern over the lack of due process in this legislation, which could expose nonprofits to abuse and harassment. With Congress's session ending soon, the bill's fate remains uncertain, but advocacy efforts continue to highlight its potential dangers. Challenges in Nonprofit Funding Transparency Another topic discussed is the financial struggles of OpenSecrets, a nonprofit dedicated to government transparency and tracking money in politics. Recent layoffs at OpenSecrets reflect a broader trend of dwindling support for transparency-focused organizations, posing a risk to public understanding of political finance. Mackenzie Scott's Continued Philanthropic Impact Ending on a positive note, the hosts celebrate Mackenzie Scott's recent $65 million donation to Enterprise Community Partners, an affordable housing nonprofit. This gift underscores Scott's ongoing commitment to addressing critical societal issues through substantial philanthropic efforts.

At trial and at sentencing, Lorenzo's many surviving victims testified against him, including the impactful statements made by Albert Perkins, who Lorenzo kidnapped and assaulted in February of 2000. The testimony and eventual plea deals made by both Schweickert and Lorenzo would provide great insight into their MOs and victimology. But at what cost?Because by some accounts, investigators and the prosecution were as hard on the survivors as they were Lorenzo himself.This episode was written, researched, edited, and produced by Josh HallmarkResources:Fox 13 Tampa Bay: https://www.fox13news.com/news/nothing-behind-his-eyes-his-face-was-contorted-victim-of-steven-lorenzo-woke-up-panickedThe Tampa Bay Times: https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2006/01/28/defiant-lorenzo-gets-200-years/The Netflix documentary Victim/Suspect: https://www.netflix.com/title/81288561Featuring:Albert PerkinsThis is a Studio BOTH/AND production: bothand.fyiFor an ad-free experience: patreon.com/studiobothandMusic by: Circles, Field, Yehezkel Raz, and AhimsaFeatured music by: Rufus Wainwright

The secret to living a godly life does not lie in some technique, program, or discipline. Pastor Colin shows that it is possible to live a godly life through Jesus Christ.

You can fulfill the purpose for which God made you and live the life to which He is calling you. Pastor Colin talks about what godliness is.

Open Secrets challenges Home Affairs on citizenship granted to alleged war criminal by Radio Islam

OpenSecrets demands answers on SA citizenship for alleged war criminal Christoph Huber by Radio Islam

Episode: 00242 Released on November 25, 2024 Description: Dive into the world of open-source intelligence (OSINT) with the first episode of Open Secrets, a new series from Leapodcasts. Join host Jason Elder and expert Jan Mondale as they unpack the history and evolution of OSINT, revealing its power as a cost-effective and accessible intelligence tool. In this episode, Jan highlights often-overlooked resources like library systems, news aggregators, and digital archives, while debunking the myth that OSINT is a recent phenomenon. Whether you're a seasoned analyst or new to the field, this episode offers practical tips for breaking down paywalls and enhancing your research strategies. Stay tuned for future discussions on the intersection of OSINT and social media. [Note:  Description produced by ChatGPT.] Get to know more about Jan by listening to his episode on Analyst Talk With Jason Elder: https://www.leapodcasts.com/e/atwje-jan-mondale-inquiring-minds/ CHALLENGE: There are Easter eggs in one of the tables of the Excel chapter that Jason wrote for the IACA textbook. First-person to email us at leapodcasts@gmail.com about what the Easter eggs are will receive a $75 gift card from us. Happy hunting! *** Episode 6 of Cocktails & Crime Analysis - IACA Conference Preview - Presenters Edition https://youtu.be/FS6qqCQfcJI  *** Name Drops: Related Links: Feedly A news aggregator that lets you curate and access a variety of news sources. Website: https://feedly.com Recorded Future A tool focused on cyber-related news and intelligence, offering both free and paid resources. Website: https://www.recordedfuture.com Google Scholar A search engine for scholarly articles, books, and academic publications. Website: https://scholar.google.com Scribd (pronounced "scribed") A digital library for books, audiobooks, and articles. Website: https://www.scribd.com Newspapers.com A historical newspaper archive useful for research, especially cold cases. Website: https://www.newspapers.com Wayback Machine An internet archive that captures and stores web pages over time. Website: https://archive.org/web/ Google Books A service to find, read excerpts, and search through books. Website: https://books.google.com Intel Techniques by Michael Bazzell A resource for open-source intelligence tools and training. Website: https://inteltechniques.net Association(s) Mentioned: International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts (IALEIA) Website: https://www.ialeia.org/ Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC) Website: https://ncric.org/ Australian Institute of Professional Intelligence Officers (AIPIO) Website: https://www.aipio.asn.au/ Osmosis Institute Website: https://www.osmosiscon.com/ Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Website: https://www.acm.org/ Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Website: https://www.asist.org/ Vendor(s) Mentioned:  Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janmondale/  Transcript: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/t4k8rs8gkq4yfppz/OpenSecretsEp01_Transcripts.pdf  Podcast Writer:  Podcast Researcher:  Theme Song: Written and Recorded by The Rough & Tumble. Find more of their music at www.theroughandtumble.com. Logo: Designed by Kyle McMullen. Please visit www.moderntype.com for any printable business forms and planners.  Podcast Email: leapodcasts@gmail.com   Podcast Webpage: www.leapodcasts.com   Podcast Twitter: @leapodcasts

There are dangers lurking in our food that affect your health and the health of our entire society, and you should know about them. In this episode, get the highlights from two recent Congressional events featuring expert testimony about the regulation of our food supply, as well as testimony from the man who is soon likely to be the most powerful person in our national health care system. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Joe Rogan Episodes The Joe Rogan Experience. The Joe Rogan Experience. The Joe Rogan Experience. The Joe Rogan Experience. Ron Johnson Scott Bauer. January 3, 2023. AP News. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Daniel Cusick. October 28, 2024. Politico. Rachel Treisman. August 5, 2024. NPR. Susanne Craig. May 8, 2024. The New York Times. Department of Health and Human Services U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. FDA “Generally Recognized as Safe” Approach Paulette M. Gaynor et al. April 2006. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Paulette Gaynor and Sebastian Cianci. December 2005/January 2006. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Glyphosate September 20, 2023. Phys.org. Lobbying and Conflicts of Interest OpenSecrets. OpenSecrets. OpenSecrets. LinkedIn. Shift from Democrats to Republicans Will Stone and Allison Aubrey. November 15, 2024. NPR. Helena Bottemiller Evich and Darren Samuelsohn. March 17, 2016. Politico. Audio Sources September 25, 2024 Roundtable discussion held by Senator Ron Johnson Participants: , Author, Good Energy; Tech entrepreneur, Levels , Co-founder, Truemed; Advocate, End Chronic Disease , aka the Food Babe, food activist Jillian Michaels, fitness expert, nutritionist, businesswoman, media personality, and author Dr. Chris Palmer, Founder and Director, Metabolic and Mental Health Program and Director, Department of Postgraduate and Continuing Education, McLean Hospital; Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School Brigham Buhler, Founder & CEO, Ways2Well Courtney Swan, nutritionist, real food activist, and founder of the popular platform "Realfoodology" , Founder and CEO, HumanCo; co-founder, Hu Kitchen Dr. Marty Makary, Chief of Islet Transplant Surgery, Professor of Surgery, and Public Policy Researcher, Johns Hopkins University Clips Robert F. Kennedy, Jr: When discussing improvements to US healthcare policy, politicians from both parties often say we have the best healthcare system in the world. That is a lie. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr: Every major pillar of the US healthcare system, as a statement of economic fact, makes money when Americans get sick. By far the most valuable asset in this country today is a sick child. The pharma industry, hospital industry, and medical school industry make more money when there are more interventions to perform on Americans, and by requiring insurance companies to take no more than 15% of premiums, Obamacare actually incentivized insurance companies to raise premiums to get 15% of a larger pie. This is why premiums have increased 100% since the passage of Obamacare, making health care the largest driver of inflation, while American life expectancy plummets. We spend four times per capita on health care than the Italians, but Italians live 7.5 years longer than us on average. And incidentally, Americans had the highest life expectancies in the world when I was growing up. Today, we've fallen an average of six years behind our European neighbors. Are we lazier and more suicidal than Italians? Or is there a problem with our system? Are there problems with our incentives? Are there problems with our food? 46:15 Robert F. Kennedy, Jr: So what's causing all of this suffering? I'll name two culprits, first and worst is ultra processed foods. 47:20 Robert F. Kennedy, Jr: The second culprit is toxic chemicals in our food, our medicine and our environment. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr: The good news is that we can change all this, and we can change it very, very, very quickly, and it starts with taking a sledgehammer to corruption, the conflicts in our regulatory agencies and in this building. These conflicts have transformed our regulatory agencies into predators against the American people and particularly our children. 80% of NIH grants go to people who have conflicts of interest, and these scientists are allowed to collect royalties of $150,000 a year on the products that they develop at NIH and then farm out to the pharmaceutical industry. The FDA, the USDA and CDC are all controlled by giant for-profit corporations. Their function is no longer to improve and protect the health of Americans. Their function is to advance the mercantile and commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry that has transformed them and the food industry that has transformed them into sock puppets for the industry they're supposed to regulate. 75% of FDA funding does not come from taxpayers. It comes from pharma. And pharma executives and consultants and lobbyists cycle in and out of these agencies. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr: Money from the healthcare industry has compromised our regulatory agencies and this body as well. The reality is that many congressional healthcare staffers are worried about impressing their future bosses at pharmaceutical companies rather than doing the right thing for American children. Today, over 100 members of Congress support a bill to fund Ozempic with Medicare at $1,500 a month. Most of these members have taken money from the manufacturer of that product, a European company called Novo Nordisk. As everyone knows, once a drug is approved for Medicare, it goes to Medicaid, and there is a push to recommend Ozempic for Americans as young as six, over a condition, obesity, that is completely preventable and barely even existed 100 years ago. Since 74% of Americans are obese, the cost of all of them, if they take their Ozempic prescriptions, will be $3 trillion a year. This is a drug that has made Novo Nordisk the biggest company in Europe. It's a Danish company, but the Danish government does not recommend it. It recommends a change in diet to treat obesity and exercise. Virtually Novo Nordisk's entire value is based upon its projections of what Ozempic is going to sell to Americans. For half the price of Ozempic, we could purchase regeneratively raised organic agriculture, organic food for every American, three meals a day and a gym membership for every obese American. Why are members of Congress doing the bidding of this Danish company instead of standing up for American farmers and children? Robert F. Kennedy, Jr: For 19 years, solving the childhood chronic disease crisis has been the central goal of my life, and for 19 years, I have prayed to God every morning to put me in a position to end this calamity. I believe we have the opportunity for transformational, bipartisan change to transform American health, to hyper-charge our human capital, to improve our budget, and I believe, to save our spirits and our country. 1:23:10 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Our next presenter, Dr. Marty Makary also bears a few scars from telling the truth during COVID. Dr. Makary is a surgeon and public policy researcher at Johns Hopkins University. He writes for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, and is the author of two New York Times best selling books, Unaccountable and The Price We Pay. He's been an outspoken opponent of broad vaccine mandates and some COVID restrictions at schools. Dr. Makary holds degrees from Bucknell University, Thomas Jefferson University and Harvard University. Dr. Marty Makary: I'm trained in gastrointestinal surgery. My group at Johns Hopkins does more pancreatic cancer surgery than any hospital in the United States. But at no point in the last 20 years has anyone stopped to ask, why has pancreatic cancer doubled over those 20 years? Who's working on that? Who's looking into it? We are so busy in our health care system, billing and coding and paying each other, and every stakeholder has their gigantic lobby in Washington, DC, and everybody's making a lot of money, except for one stakeholder, the American citizen. They are financing this giant, expensive health care system through their paycheck deduction for health insurance and the Medicare excise tax as we go down this path, billing and coding and medicating. And can we be real for a second? We have poisoned our food supply, engineered highly addictive chemicals that we put into our food, we spray it with pesticides that kill pests. What do you think they do to our gut lining and our microbiome? And then they come in sick. The GI tract is reacting. It's not an acute inflammatory storm, it's a low grade chronic inflammation, and it makes people feel sick, and that inflammation permeates and drives so many of our chronic diseases that we didn't see half a century ago. Who's working on who's looking into this, who's talking about it? Our health care system is playing whack a mole on the back end, and we are not talking about the root causes of our chronic disease epidemic. We can't see the forest from the trees. Sometimes we're so busy in these short visits, billing and coding. We've done a terrible thing to doctors. We've told them, put your head down. Focus on billing and coding. We're going to measure you by your throughput and good job. You did a nice job. We have all these numbers to show for it. Well, the country is getting sicker. We cannot keep going down this path. We have the most over-medicated, sickest population in the world, and no one is talking about the root causes. Dr. Marty Makary: Somebody has got to speak up. Maybe we need to talk about school lunch programs, not just putting every kid on obesity drugs like Ozempic. Maybe we need to talk about treating diabetes with cooking classes, not just throwing insulin at everybody. Maybe we need to talk about environmental exposures that cause cancer, not just the chemo to treat it. We've got to talk about food as medicine. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): So, Dr Makary, I've got a couple questions. First of all, how many years have you been practicing medicine? Dr. Marty Makary: 22 years. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): So we've noticed a shift from decades ago when 80% of doctors are independent to now 80% are working for some hospital association. First of all, what has that meant in terms of doctors' independence and who they are really accountable too? Dr. Marty Makary: The move towards corporate medicine and mass consolidation that we've witnessed in our lifetime has meant more and more doctors are told to put their heads down, do your job: billing and coding short visits. We've not given doctors the time, research, or resources to deal with these chronic diseases. 1:32:45 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Dr. Casey Means is a medical doctor, New York Times Best Selling Author, tech entrepreneur at Levels, an aspiring regenerative gardener and an outdoor enthusiast. While training as a surgeon, she saw how broken and exploitative the health care system is, and led to focus on how to keep people out of the operating room. And again, I would highly recommend everybody read Good Energy. It's a personal story, and you'll be glad you did. Dr. Casey Means: Over the last 50 years in the United States, we have seen rapidly rising rates of chronic illnesses throughout the entire body. The body and the brain, infertility, obesity, type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes, Alzheimer's, dementia, cancer, heart disease, stroke, autoimmune disease, migraines, mental illness, chronic pain, fatigue, congenital abnormalities, chronic liver disease, autism, and infant and maternal mortality all going up. Americans live eight fewer years compared to people in Japan or Switzerland, and life expectancy is going down. I took an oath to do no harm, but listen to these stats. We're not only doing harm, we're flagrantly allowing harm. While it sounds grim, there is very good news. We know why all of these diseases are going up, and we know how to fix it. Every disease I mentioned is caused by or worsened by metabolic dysfunction, a word that it is thrilling to hear being used around this table. Metabolic dysfunction is a fundamental distortion of our cellular biology. It stops our cells from making energy appropriately. According to the American College of Cardiology, metabolic dysfunction now affects 93.2% of American adults. This is quite literally the cellular draining of our life force. This process is the result of three processes happening inside our cells, mitochondrial dysfunction, a process called oxidative stress, which is like a wildfire inside our cells, and chronic inflammation throughout the body and the gut, as we've heard about. Metabolic dysfunction is largely not a genetic issue. It's caused by toxic American ultra processed industrial food, toxic American chemicals, toxic American medications, and our toxic sedentary, indoor lifestyles. You would think that the American healthcare system and our government agencies would be clamoring to fix metabolic health and reduce American suffering and costs, but they're not. They are deafeningly silent about metabolic dysfunction and its known causes. It's not an overstatement to say that I learned virtually nothing at Stanford Medical School about the tens of thousands of scientific papers that elucidate these root causes of why American health is plummeting and how environmental factors are causing it. For instance, in medical school, I did not learn that for each additional serving of ultra processed food we eat, early mortality increases by 18%. This now makes up 67% of the foods our kids are eating. I took zero nutrition courses in medical school. I didn't learn that 82% of independently funded studies show harm from processed food, while 93% of industry sponsored studies reflect no harm. In medical school, I didn't learn that 95% of the people who created the recent USDA Food guidelines for America had significant conflicts of interest with the food industry. I did not learn that 1 billion pounds of synthetic pesticides are being sprayed on our food every single year. 99.99% of the farmland in the United States is sprayed with synthetic pesticides, many from China and Germany. And these invisible, tasteless chemicals are strongly linked to autism, ADHD, sex hormone disruption, thyroid disease, sperm dysfunction, Alzheimer's, dementia, birth defects, cancer, obesity, liver dysfunction, female infertility and more, all by hurting our metabolic health. I did not learn that the 8 billion tons of plastic that have been produced just in the last 100 years, plastic was only invented about 100 years ago, are being broken down into micro plastics that are now filling our food, our water, and we are now even inhaling them in our air. And that very recent research from just the past couple of months tells us that now about 0.5% of our brains by weight are now plastic. I didn't learn that there are more than 80,000 toxins that have entered our food, water, air and homes by industry, many of which are banned in Europe, and they are known to alter our gene expression, alter our microbiome composition and the lining of our gut, and disrupt our hormones. I didn't learn that heavy metals like aluminum and lead are present in our food, our baby formula, personal care products, our soil and many of the mandated medications, like vaccines and that these metals are neurotoxic and inflammatory. I didn't learn that the average American walks a paltry 3500 steps per day, even though we know based on science and top journals that walking, simply walking 7000 steps a day, slashes by 40-60% our risk of Alzheimer's, dementia, type two diabetes, cancer and obesity. I certainly did not learn that medical error and medications are the third leading cause of death in the United States. I didn't learn that just five nights of sleep deprivation can induce full blown pre-diabetes. I learned nothing about sleep, and we're getting about 20% less sleep on average than we were 100 years ago. I didn't learn that American children are getting less time outdoors now than a maximum security prisoner. And on average, adults spend 93% of their time indoors, even though we know from the science that separation from sunlight destroys our circadian biology, and circadian biology dictates our cellular biology. I didn't learn that professional organizations that we get our practice guidelines from, like the American Diabetes Association and American Academy of Pediatrics, have taken 10s of millions of dollars from Coke, Cadbury, processed food companies, and vaccine manufacturers like Moderna. I didn't learn that if we address these root causes that all lead to metabolic dysfunction and help patients change their food and lifestyle patterns with a united strong voice, we could reverse the chronic disease crisis in America, save millions of lives, and trillions of dollars in health care costs per year. Instead, doctors are learning that the body is 100 separate parts, and we learn how to drug, we learn how to cut and we learn how to bill. I'll close by saying that what we are dealing with here is so much more than a physical health crisis. This is a spiritual crisis we are choosing death over life. We are we are choosing death over life. We are choosing darkness over light for people and the planet, which are inextricably linked. We are choosing to erroneously believe that we are separate from nature and that we can continue to poison nature and then outsmart it. Our path out will be a renewed respect for the miracle of life and a renewed respect for nature. We can restore health to Americans rapidly with smart policy and courageous leadership. We need a return to courage. We need a return to common sense and intuition. We need a return to awe for the sheer miraculousness of our lives. We need all hands on deck. Thank you. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): I'm not letting you off that easy. I've got a couple questions. So you outlined some basic facts that doctors should know that truthfully, you could cover in one hour of an introductory class in medical school, yes. So why aren't we teaching doctors these things? Dr. Casey Means: The easy thing to say would be, you know, follow the money. That sounds sort of trite, but frankly, I think that is the truth, but not in the way you might think that, like doctors are out to make money, or even medical schools. The money and the core incentive problem, which is that every institution that touches our health in America, from medical schools to pharmaceutical companies to health insurance companies to hospitals offices, they make more money when we are sick and less when we are healthy. That simple, one incentive problem corrodes every aspect of the way medicine is thought about. The way we think about the body, we talked about interconnectedness. It creates a system in which we silo the body into all these separate parts and create that illusion that we all buy into because it's profitable to send people to separate specialties. So it corrodes even the foundational conception of how we think about the body. So it is about incentives and money, but I would say that's the invisible hand. It's not necessarily affecting each doctor's clinical practice or the decision making. It's corroding every lever of the basics of how we even consider what the human body is and what life is. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): In your book, you do a really good job of describing how, because of the specialization of medicine, you don't see the forest for the trees. The fact is, you do need specialized medicine. I mean, doctors can't know it all. So I think the question is, how do we get back to the reward for general practitioners that do focus on what you're writing about? Dr. Casey Means: I have huge respect for doctors, and I am incredibly grateful for the American health care system, which has produced miracles, and we absolutely need continue to have primary care doctors and specialists, and they should be rewarded highly. However, if we focused on what everyone here is talking about, I think we'd have 90% less throughput through our health care system. We would be able to have these doctors probably have a much better life to be honest. You know, because right now, doctors are working 100 hours a week seeing 50, 60, 70 patients, and could actually have more time with patients who develop these acute issues that need to be treated by a doctor. But so many of the things in the specialist office are chronic conditions that we know are fundamentally rooted in the cellular dysfunction I describe, which is metabolic dysfunction, which is created by our lifestyle. So I think that there's always going to be a place for specialists, but so so many, so much fewer. And I think if we had a different conception for the body is interconnected, they would also interact with each other in a very different way, a much more collaborative way. And then, of course, we need to incentivize doctors in the healthcare system towards outcomes, not throughput. 1:46:25 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Our next presenter is Dr. Chris Palmer. Dr. Palmer is a Harvard trained psychiatrist, researcher and author of Brain Energy, where he explores a groundbreaking connection between metabolic health and mental illness. He is a leader in innovative approaches to treating psychiatric conditions, advocating for the use of diet and metabolic interventions to improve mental health outcomes. Dr. Palmer's work is reshaping how the medical field views and treats mental health disorders. Dr. Chris Palmer: I want to build on what Dr. Means just shared that these chronic diseases we face today. Obesity, diabetes, fatty liver, all share something in common. They are, in fact, metabolic dysfunction. I'm going to go into a little bit of the science, just to make sure we're all on the same page. Although most people think of metabolism as burning calories, it is far more than that. Metabolism is a series of chemical reactions that convert food into energy and building blocks essential for cellular health. When we have metabolic dysfunction, it can drive numerous chronic diseases, which is a paradigm shift in the medical field. Now there is no doubt metabolism is complicated. It really is. It is influenced by biological, psychological, environmental and social factors, and the medical field says this complexity is the reason we can't solve the obesity epidemic because they're still trying to understand every molecular detail of biology. But in fact, we don't need to understand biology in order to understand the cause. The cause is coming from our environment, a toxic environment like poor diet and exposure to harmful chemicals, and these are actually quite easy to study, understand, and address. There is no doubt food plays a key role. It provides the substrate for energy and building blocks. Nutritious foods support metabolism, while ultra processed options can disrupt it. It is shocking that today, in 2024, the FDA allows food manufacturers to introduce brand new chemicals into our food supply without adequate testing. The manufacturer is allowed to determine for themselves whether this substance is safe for you and your family to eat or not. Metabolism's impact goes beyond physical health. I am a psychiatrist. Some of you are probably wondering, why are you here? It also affects mental health. Because guess what? The human brain is an organ too, and when brain metabolism is impaired, it can cause symptoms that we call mental illness. It is no coincidence that as the rates of obesity and diabetes are skyrocketing, so too are the rates of mental illness. In case you didn't know, we have a mental health crisis. We have all time prevalence highs for depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, deaths of despair, drug overdoses, ADHD and autism. What does the mental health field have to say for this? Well, you know, mental illness is just chemical imbalances, or maybe trauma and stress that is wholly insufficient to explain the epidemic that we are seeing. And in fact, there is a better way to integrate the biopsychosocial factors known to play a role in mental illness. Mental Disorders at their core are often metabolic disorders impacting the brain. It's not surprising to most people that obesity and diabetes might play a role in depression or anxiety, but the rates of autism have quadrupled in just 20 years, and the rates of ADHD have tripled over that same period of time. These are neuro developmental disorders, and many people are struggling to understand, how on earth could they rise so rapidly? But it turns out that metabolism plays a profound role in neurodevelopment, and sure enough, parents with metabolic issues like obesity and diabetes are more likely to have children with autism and ADHD. This is not about fat shaming, because what I am arguing is that the same foods and chemicals and other drivers of obesity that are causing obesity in the parents are affecting the brain health of our children. There is compelling evidence that food plays a direct role in mental health. One study of nearly 300,000 people found that those who eat ultra processed foods daily are three times more likely to struggle with their mental health than people who never or rarely consume them. A systematic review found direct associations between ultra processed food exposure and 32 different health parameters, including mental mental health conditions. Now I'm not here to say that food is the only, or even primary driver of mental illness. Let's go back to something familiar. Trauma and stress do drive mental illness, but for those of you who don't know, trauma and stress are also associated with increased rates of obesity and diabetes. Trauma and stress change human metabolism. We need to put the science together. This brings me to a key point. We cannot separate physical and mental health from metabolic health. Addressing metabolic dysfunction has the potential to prevent and treat a wide range of chronic diseases. Dr. Chris Palmer: In my own work, I have seen firsthand how using metabolic therapies like the ketogenic diet and other dietary interventions can improve even severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, sometimes putting them into lasting remission. These reports are published in peer reviewed, prestigious medical journals. However, there is a larger issue at play that many have talked about, medical education and public health recommendations are really captured by industry and politics, and at best, they often rely on weak epidemiological data, resulting in conflicting or even harmful advice. We heard a reference to this, but in case you didn't know, a long time ago, we demonized saturated fat. And what was the consequence of demonizing saturated fat? We replaced it with "healthy vegetable shortening." That was the phrase we used, "healthy vegetable shortening." Guess what was in that healthy vegetable shortening? It was filled with trans fats, which are now recognized to be so harmful that they've been banned in the United States. Let's not repeat mistakes like this. Dr. Chris Palmer: So what's the problem? Number one, nutrition and mental health research are severely underfunded, with each of them getting less than 5% of the NIH budget. This is no accident. This is the concerted effort of lobbying by industry, food manufacturers, the healthcare industry, they do not want root causes discovered. We need to get back to funding research on the root causes of mental and metabolic disorders, including the effects of foods, chemicals, medications, environmental toxins, on the human brain and metabolism. Dr. Chris Palmer: The issue of micro plastics and nano plastics in the human body is actually, sadly, in its infancy. We have two publications out in the last couple of months demonstrating that micro plastics are, in fact, found in the human brain. And as Dr. Means said, and you recited, 0.5% of the body weight, or the brain's weight, appears to be composed of micro plastics. We need more research to better understand whether these micro plastics are, in fact, associated with harmful conditions, because microplastics are now ubiquitous. So some will argue, well, they're everywhere, and everybody's got them, and it's just a benign thing. Some will argue that the most compelling evidence against that is a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine a few months ago now, in which they were doing routine carotid endarterectomies, taking plaque out of people's carotid arteries. Just routinely doing that for clinical care, and then they analyzed those plaques for micro plastics. 58% of the people had detectable micro plastics in the plaques. So they compared this 58% group who had micro plastics to the ones who didn't, followed them for three years, just three years, and the ones who had micro plastics had four times the mortality. There is strong reason to believe, based on animal data and based on cell biology data, that microplastics are in fact, toxic to the human body, to mitochondrial function, to hormone dysregulation and all sorts of things. There are lots of reasons to believe that, but the scientists will say, we need more research. We need to better understand whether these micro plastics really are associated with higher rates of disease. I think people are terrified of the answer. People are terrified of the answer. And if you think about everything that you consume, and how much of it is not wrapped in plastic, all of those industries are going to oppose research. They are going to oppose research funding to figure this out ASAP, because that will be a monumental change to not just the food industry but our entire economy. Imagining just cleaning up the oceans and trying to get this plastic and then, more importantly, trying to figure out, how are we going to detox humans? How are we going to de-plasticize human beings? How are we going to get these things out? It is an enormous problem, but the reality is, putting our heads in the sand is not going to help. And I am really hopeful that by raising issues and letting people know about this health crisis, that maybe we will get answers quickly. Dr. Chris Palmer: Your question is, why are our health agencies not exploring these questions? It's because the health agencies are largely influenced by the industries they are supposed to be regulating and looking out for. The medical education community is largely controlled by pharmaceutical companies. One and a half billion dollars every year goes to support physician education. That's from pharmaceutical companies. One and a half billion from pharmaceutical companies. So physicians are getting educated with some influence, large influence, I would argue, by them, the health organizations. It's a political issue. The NIH, it's politics. Politicians are selecting people to be on the committees or people to oversee these organizations. Politicians rely on donations from companies and supporters to get re-elected, and the reality is this is not going to be easy to tackle. The challenge is that you'll get ethical politicians who say, I'm not going to take any of that money, and I'm going to try to do the right thing and right now, the way the system is set up, there's a good chance those politicians won't get re-elected, and instead, their opponents, who were more than happy to take millions of dollars in campaign contributions, will get re-elected, and then they will return the favor to their noble campaign donors. We are at a crossroads. We have to decide who are the constituents of the American government. Is it industry, or is it the American people? 2:09:35 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Calley Means the co-founder of Truemed, a company that enables tax free spending on food and exercise. He recently started an advocacy coalition with leading health and wellness companies called End Chronic Disease. Early in his career, he was a consultant for food and pharma companies. He is now exposing practices they used to weaponize our institutions of trust, and he's doing a great job doing interviews with his sister, Casey. Calley Means: If you think about a medical miracle, it's almost certainly a solution that was invented before 1960 for an acute condition: emergency surgical procedures to ensure a complicated childbirth wasn't a death sentence, sanitation procedures, antibiotics that insured infection was an inconvenience, not deadly, eradicating polio, regular waste management procedures that helped control outbreaks like the bubonic plague, sewage systems that replaced the cesspools and opened drains, preventing human waste from contaminating the water. The US health system is a miracle in solving acute conditions that will kill us right away. But economically, acute conditions aren't great in our modern system, because the patient is quickly cured and is no longer a customer. Start in the 1960s the medical system took the trust engendered by these acute innovations like antibiotics, which were credited with winning World War Two, and they used that trust to ask patients not to question its authority on chronic diseases, which can last a lifetime and are more profitable. But the medicalization of chronic disease in the past 50 years has been an abject failure. Today, we're in a siloed system where there's a treatment for everything. And let's just look at the stats. Heart disease has gone up as more statins are prescribed. Type 2 diabetes has gone up as more Metformin is prescribed. ADHD has gone up as more Adderall is prescribed. Depression and suicide has gone up as more SSRIs are prescribed. Pain has gone up as more opioids are prescribed. Cancer has gone up as we've spent more on cancer. And now JP Morgan literally at the conference in San Francisco, recently, they put up a graph, and they showed us more Ozempic is projected to be prescribed over the next 10 years, obesity rates are going to go up as more is prescribed. Explain that to me. There was clapping. All the bankers were clapping like seals at this graphic. Our intervention based system is by design. In the early 1900s, John D. Rockefeller using that he could use byproducts from oil production to create pharmaceuticals, heavily funded medical schools throughout the United States to teach a curriculum based on the intervention-first model of Dr. William Stewart Halsted, the founding physician of Johns Hopkins, who created the residency-based model that viewed invasive surgical procedures and medication as the highest echelon of medicine. An employee of Rockefeller's was tasked to create the Flexner Report, which outlined a vision for medical education that prioritized interventions and stigmatized nutritional and holistic remedies. Congress affirmed the Flexner Report in 1910 to establish that any credentialed medical institution in the United States had to follow the Halsted-Rockefeller intervention based model that silos disease and downplay viewing the body as an interconnected system. It later came out that Dr. Halsted's cocaine and morphine addiction fueled his day long surgical residencies and most of the medical logic underlying the Flexner Report was wrong. But that hasn't prevented the report and the Halsted-Rockefeller engine based brand of medicine from being the foundational document that Congress uses to regulate medical education today. Calley Means: Our processed food industry was created by the cigarette industry. In the 1980s, after decades of inaction, the Surgeon General and the US government finally, finally said that smoking might be harmful, and smoking rates plummeted. We listened to doctors in this country. We listened to medical leadership, and as smoking rates plummeted, cigarette companies, with their big balance sheets, strategically bought up food companies, and by 1990 the two largest food companies in the world were Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds, two cigarette companies. These cigarette companies moved two departments over from the cigarette department to the food department. They moved the scientists. Cigarette companies were the highest payers of scientists, one of the biggest employers of scientists to make the cigarettes addictive. They moved these addiction specialists, world leading addiction specialists, to the food department by the thousands. And those scientists weaponized our ultra processed food. That is the problem with ultra processed food. You have the best scientists in the world creating this food to be palatable and to be addictive. They then moved their lobbyists over. They used the same playbook, and their lobbyists co-opted the USDA and created the food pyramid. The Food Pyramid was a document created by the cigarette industry through complete corporate capture, and was an ultra processed food marketing document saying that we needed a bunch of carbs and sugar. And we listened to medical experts in this country, the American people, American parents. Many parents who had kids in the 90s thought it was a good thing to do to give their kids a bunch of ultra processed foods and carb consumption went up 20% in the American diet in the next 10 years. The Devil's bargain comes in in that this ultra processed food consumption has been one of the most profitable dynamics in American history for the health care industry. As we've all just been decimated with chronic conditions, the medical industry hasn't. Not only have they been silent on this issue, they've actually been complicit, working for the food industry. I helped funnel money from Coca Cola to the American Diabetes Association. Yeah. 2:31:40 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Next presenter will be Brigham Buhler. Brigham is the Founder and CEO of Ways2Well, a healthcare company that provides personalized preventive care through telemedicine, with a strong background in the pharmaceutical industry. Brigham is focused on making healthcare more accessible by harnessing the power of technology, delivering effective and tailored treatments. His vision for improving health outcomes has positioned him as a leader in modern patient centered healthcare solutions. Brigham Buhler: We hear people reference President Eisenhower's speech all the time about the military industrial complex, but rarely do we hear the second half of that speech. He also warned us about the rise of the scientific industrial complex. He warned us, if we allow the elite to control the scientific research, it could have dire consequences. 2:36:30 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): I'm going to call an audible here as moderator, I saw that hopefully the future chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Mike Crapo from Idaho, came into the room. I asked Mike to share his story. He used to wear larger suits, let's put it that way. But he went down the path of the ketogenic diet, I believe. But Mike, why don't you tell your story? And by the way, he's somebody you want to influence. Chairman of Senate Finance Committee makes an awful lot of decisions on Medicare, Medicaid, a lot of things we talked about with Ozempic, now the lobbying group try and make that available, and how harmful, I think, most people in this room think that might be so. Senator Crapo, if you could just kind of tell us your story in terms of your diet change and what results you had. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID): Well, first of all, let me thank you. I didn't come here to say anything. I came here to listen, but I appreciate the opportunity to just have a second to tell you my personal story. I'll say before I do that, thank you for Ron Johnson. Senator Johnson is also a member of the Finance Committee, and it is my hope that we can get that committee, which I think has the most powerful jurisdiction, particularly over these areas, of any in the United States Congress, and so I'm hopeful we can get a focus on addressing the government's part of the role in this to get us back on a better track. 2:54:35 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Vani Hari, known as the Food Babe -- they wrote that for me, that wasn't me, that's my not my nickname -- is a food activist, author and speaker committed to improving food quality and safety. She has built a powerful platform through her blog advocating for transparency in food labeling and the removal of harmful chemicals from processed food. Her activism has spurred significant change in the food industry, encouraging consumers to make healthier, more informed choices, while prompting companies to adopt cleaner practices. Vani Hari: Our government is letting US food companies get away with serving American citizens harmful ingredients that are banned or heavily regulated in other countries. Even worse, American food companies are selling the same exact products overseas without these chemicals, but choose to continue serving us the most toxic version here. It's un-American. One set of ingredients there, and one set of ingredients here. Let me give you some examples. This is McDonald's french fries. I would like to argue that probably nobody in this room has not had a McDonald's french fry, by the way, nobody raised their hand during the staff meeting earlier today. In the US, there's 11 ingredients. In the UK, there's three, and salt is optional. An ingredient called dimethyl polysiloxane is an ingredient preserved with formaldehyde, a neurotoxin, in the US version. This is used as a foaming agent, so they don't have to replace the oil that often, making McDonald's more money here in the United States, but they don't do that across the pond. Here we go, this is Skittles. Notice the long list of ingredient differences, 10 artificial dyes in the US version and titanium dioxide. This ingredient is banned in Europe because it can cause DNA damage. Artificial dyes are made from petroleum, and products containing these dyes require a warning label in Europe that states it may cause adverse effects on activity and attention in children, and they have been linked to cancer and disruptions in the immune system. This on the screen back here, is Gatorade. In the US, they use red 40 and caramel color. In Germany, they don't, they use carrot and sweet potatoes to color their Gatorade. This is Doritos. The US version has three different three different artificial dyes and MSG, the UK version does not and let's look at cereal. General Mills is definitely playing some tricks on us. They launched a new version of Trix just recently in Australia. It has no dyes, they even advertise that, when the US version still does. This is why I became a food activist. My name is Vani Hari, and I only want one thing. I want Americans to be treated the same way as citizens in other countries by our own American companies. Vani Hari: We use over 10,000 food additives here in the United States and in Europe, there's only 400 approved. In 2013, I discovered that Kraft was producing their famous mac and cheese in other countries without artificial dyes. They used Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 here. I was so outraged by this unethical practice that I decided to do something about it. I launched a petition asking Kraft to remove artificial dyes from their products here in the United States, and after 400,000 signatures and a trip to their headquarters, Kraft finally announced they would make the change. I also discovered Subway was selling sandwiches with a chemical called azodicarbonamide in their bread in other countries. This is the same chemical they use in yoga mats and shoe rubber. You know, when you turn a yoga mat sideways and you see the evenly dispersed air bubbles? Well, they wanted to do the same thing in bread, so it would be the same exact product every time you went to a Subway. When the chemical is heated, studies show that it turns into a carcinogen. Not only is this ingredient banned in Europe and Australia, you get fined $450,000 if you get caught using it in Singapore. What's really interesting is when this chemical is heated, studies show that it turns into a carcinogen. Not only is this ingredient banned, but we were able to get Subway to remove azodicarbonamide from their bread in the United States after another successful petition. And as a bonus, there was a ripple effect in almost every bread manufacturer in America followed suit. For years, Starbucks didn't publish their ingredients for their coffee drinks. It was a mystery until I convinced a barista to show me the ingredients on the back of the bottles they were using to make menu items like their famous pumpkin spice lattes. I found out here in the United States, Starbucks was coloring their PSLs with caramel coloring level four, an ingredient made from ammonia and linked to cancer, but using beta carotene from carrots to color their drinks in the UK. After publishing an investigation and widespread media attention, Starbucks removed caramel coloring from all of their drinks in America and started publishing the ingredients for their entire menu. I want to make an important point here. Ordinary people who rallied for safer food shared this information and signed petitions. Were able to make these changes. We did this on our own. But isn't this something that the people in Washington, our elected politicians, should be doing? Vani Hari: Asking companies to remove artificial food dye would make an immediate impact. They don't need to reinvent the wheel. They already have the formulations. As I've shown you, consumption of artificial food dyes has increased by 500% in the last 50 years, and children are the biggest consumers. Yes, those children. Perfect timing. 43% of products marketed towards children in the grocery store contain artificial dyes. Food companies have found in focus groups, children will eat more of their product with an artificial dye because it's more attractive and appealing. And the worst part, American food companies know the harms of these additives because they were forced to remove them overseas due to stricter regulations and to avoid warning labels that would hurt sales. This is one of the most hypocritical policies of food companies, and somebody needs to hold them accountable. Vani Hari: When Michael Taylor was the Deputy Commissioner of the of the FDA, he said, he admitted on NPR, we don't have the resources, we don't have the capabilities to actually regulate food chemicals, because we don't have the staff. There's no one there. We are under this assumption, and I think a lot of Americans are under this assumption, that every single food additive ingredient that you buy at the grocery store has been approved by some regulatory body. It hasn't. It's been approved by the food companies themselves. There's 1000s of chemicals where the food company creates it, submits the safety data, and then the FDA rubber stamps it, because they don't have any other option. 3:09:15 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): So our next presenter is Jason Karp. Jason is the founder and CEO of HumanCo, a mission driven company that invests in and builds brands focused on healthier living and sustainability. In addition to HumanCo, Jason is the co-founder of Hu Kitchen, known for creating the number one premium organic chocolate in the US. My wife will appreciate that. Prior to HumanCo, Jason spent over 21 years in the hedge fund industry, where he was the founder and CEO of an investment fund that managed over $4 billion. Jason graduated summa cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. 3:11:10 Jason Karp: I've been a professional investor for 26 years, dealing with big food companies, seeing what happens in their boardrooms, and why we now have so much ultra processed food. Jason Karp: Having studied the evolution of corporations, I believe the root cause of how we got here is an unintended consequence of the unchecked and misguided industrialization of agriculture and food. I believe there are two key drivers behind how we got here. First, America has much looser regulatory approach to approving new ingredients and chemicals than comparable developed countries. Europe, for example, uses a guilty until proven innocent standard for the approval of new chemicals, which mandates that if an ingredient might pose a potential health risk, it should be restricted or banned for up to 10 years until it is proven safe. In complete contrast, our FDA uses an innocent until proven guilty approach for new chemicals or ingredients that's known as GRAS, or Generally Recognized as Safe. This recklessly allows new chemicals into our food system until they are proven harmful. Shockingly, US food companies can use their own independent experts to bring forth a new chemical without the approval of the FDA. It is a travesty that the majority of Americans don't even know they are constantly exposed to 1000s of untested ingredients that are actually banned or regulated in other countries. To put it bluntly, for the last 50 years, we have been running the largest uncontrolled science experiment ever done on humanity without their consent. Jason Karp: And the proof is in the pudding. Our health differences compared to those countries who use stricter standards are overwhelmingly conclusive. When looking at millions of people over decades, on average, Europeans live around five years longer, have less than half our obesity rates, have significantly lower chronic disease, have markedly better mental health, and they spend as little as 1/3 on health care per person as we do in this country. While lobbyists and big food companies may say we cannot trust the standards of these other countries because it over regulates, it stifles innovation, and it bans new chemicals prematurely, I would like to point out that we trust many of these other countries enough to have nuclear weapons. These other countries have demonstrated it is indeed possible to not only have thriving companies, but also prioritize the health of its citizens with a clear do no harm approach towards anything that humans put in or on our bodies. Jason Karp: The second driver, how we got here, is all about incentives. US industrial food companies have been myopically incentivized to reward profit growth, yet bear none of the social costs of poisoning our people and our land. Since the 1960s, America has seen the greatest technology and innovation boom in history. As big food created some of the largest companies in the world, so too did their desire for scaled efficiency. Companies had noble goals of making the food safer, more shelf stable, cheaper and more accessible. However, they also figured out how to encourage more consumption by making food more artificially appealing with brighter colors and engineered taste and texture. This is the genesis of ultra processed food. Because of these misguided regulatory standards, American companies have been highly skilled at maximizing profits without bearing the societal costs. They have replaced natural ingredients with chemicals. They have commodified animals into industrial widgets, and they treat our God given planet as an inexhaustible, abusable resource. Sick Americans are learning the hard way that food and agriculture should not be scaled in the same ways as iPhones. 3:16:50 Jason Karp: They use more chemicals in the US version, because it is more profitable and because we allow them to do so. Jason Karp: Artificial food dyes are cheaper and they are brighter. And the reason that I chose to use artificial food dyes in my public activist letter is because there's basically no counter argument. Many of the things discussed today, I think there is a nuanced debate, but with artificial food dyes, they have shown all over the world that they can use colorants that come from fruit. This is the Canadian version. This is the brightness of the Canadian version, just for visibility, and this is the brightness of artificial food dyes. So of course, Kellogg and other food companies will argue children prefer this over this, just as they would prefer cocaine over sugar. That doesn't make it okay. Calley Means: Senator, can I just say one thing? As Jason and Vani were talking, it brought me back to working for the food industry. We used to pay conservative lobbyists to go to every office and say that it was the "nanny state" to regulate food. And I think that's, as a conservative myself, something that's resonated. I just cannot stress enough that, as we're hopefully learned today, the food industry has rigged our systems beyond recognition. And addressing a rigged market is not an attack on the free market. Is a necessity for a free market to take this corruption out. So I just want to say that. 3:21:00 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Our next presenter is Jillian Michaels. Ms. Michaels is a globally recognized fitness expert, entrepreneur, and best selling author. With her no nonsense approach to health, she's inspired millions through her fitness programs, books and digital platforms, best known for her role on The Biggest Loser, Michaels promotes a balanced approach to fitness and nutrition and emphasizing long term health and self improvement. Jillian Michaels: The default human condition in the 21st century is obese by design. Specific, traceable forms of what's referred to as structural violence are created by the catastrophic quartet of big farming, big food, Big Pharma, and big insurance. They systematically corrupt every institution of trust, which has led to the global spread of obesity and disease. Dysfunctional and destructive agricultural legislation like the Farm Bill, which favors high yield, genetically engineered crops like corn and soy, leading to the proliferation of empty calories, saturated with all of these toxins that we've been talking about today for three hours, it seems like we can never say enough about it, and then this glut of cheap calories provides a boon to the food industry giants. They just turn it into a bounty of ultra processed, factory-assembled foods and beverages strategically engineered to undermine your society and foster your dependence, like nicotine and cocaine, so we literally cannot eat just one. And to ensure that you don't, added measures are taken to inundate our physical surroundings. We're literally flooded with food, and we are brainwashed by ubiquitous cues to eat, whether it's the Taco Bell advertisement on the side of a bus as you drive to work with a vending machine at your kids school, there is no place we spend time that's left untouched. They're omnipresent. They commandeer the narrative, with 30 billion worth of advertising dollars, commercials marketed to kids, with mega celebrities eating McDonald's and loving it, sponsored dietitians paid to promote junk food on social media, utilizing anti-diet body positivity messaging like, "derail the shame" in relation to fast food consumption, Time Magazine brazenly issuing a defense of ultra processed foods on their cover with the title, "What if altra processed foods aren't as bad as you think?" And when people like us try to sound the alarm, they ensure that we are swiftly labeled as anti-science, fat shamers, and even racists. They launch aggressive lobbying efforts to influence you. Our politicians to shape policy, secure federal grants, tax credits, subsidy dollars, which proliferates their product and heavily pads their bottom line. They have created a perfect storm in which pharmaceuticals that cost hundreds, if not 1000s per month, like Ozempic, that are linked to stomach paralysis, pancreatitis and thyroid cancer, can actually surge. This reinforces a growing dependence on medical interventions to manage weight in a society where systemic change in food production and consumption is desperately needed and also very possible. These monster corporations have mastered the art of distorting the research, influencing the policy, buying the narrative, engineering the environment, and manipulating consumer behavior. Jillian Michaels: While I have been fortunate enough to pull many back from the edge over the course of my 30 year career, I have lost just as many, if not more, than I have saved. I have watched them slip through my fingers, mothers that orphan their children, husbands that widow their wives. I have even watched parents forced to suffer the unthinkable loss of their adult children. There are not words to express the sadness I have felt and the fury knowing that they were literally sacrificed at the altar of unchecked corporate greed. Most Americans are simply too financially strained, psychologically drained and physically addicted to break free without a systemic intervention. Attempting to combat the status quo and the powers that be is beyond swimming upstream. It is like trying to push a rampaging river that's infested with piranhas. After years of trying to turn the tide, I submit that the powers that be are simply too powerful for us to take on alone. I implore the people here that shape the policy to take a stand. The buck must stop with you, while the American people tend to the business of raising children and participating in the workforce to ensure that the wheels of our country go around. They tapped you to stand watch. They tapped you to stand guard. We must hold these bad actors accountable. And I presume the testimonials you heard today moved you. Digest them, discuss them, and act upon them, because if this current trend is allowed to persist, the stakes will be untenable. We are in the middle of an extinction level event. The American people need help. They need heroes. And people of Washington, your constituents chose you to be their champion. Please be the change. Thank you. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): There was one particular piece of legislation or one thing that we could do here in Washington, what would it be? Jillian Michaels: Get rid of Citizens United and get the money out of politics. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Okay. 3:37:00 Calley Means: To the healthcare staffers slithering behind your bosses, working to impress your future bosses at the pharmaceutical companies, the hospitals, the insurance companies, many of them are in this building, and we are coming for you. 3:37:25 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Next up is Ms. Courtney Swan. Ms. Swan is a nutritionist, real food activist, and founder of the popular platform, Realfoodology. She advocates for transparency in the food industry, promoting the importance of whole foods and clean eating. Courtney is passionate about educating the public on the benefits of a nutrient dense diet, and she encourages sustainable, chemical-free farming practices to ensure better health for people and the planet. Courtney Swan: Our current agriculture system's origin story involves large chemical companies -- not farmers, chemists. 85% of the food that you are consuming started from a patented seed sold by a chemical corporation that was responsible for creating agent orange in the Vietnam War. Why are chemical companies feeding America? Corn, soy and wheat are not only the most common allergens, but are among the most heavily pesticide sprayed crops today. In 1974 the US started spraying our crops with an herbicide called glyphosate, and in the early 1990s we began to see the release of genetically modified foods into our food supply. It all seems to begin with a chemical company by the name IG Farben, the later parent company of Bayer Farben, provided the chemicals used in Nazi nerve agents and gas chambers. Years later, a second chemical company, Monsanto, joined the war industry with a production of Agent Orange, a toxin used during the Vietnam War. When the wars ended, these companies needed a market for their chemicals, so they pivoted to killing bugs and pests on American farmlands. Monsanto began marketing glyphosate with a catchy name, Roundup. They claimed that these chemicals were harmless and that they safeguarded our crops from pests. So farmers started spraying these supposedly safe chemicals on our farmland. They solved the bug problem, but they also killed the crops. Monsanto offered a solution with the creation of genetically modified, otherwise known as GMO, crops that resisted the glyphosate in the roundup that they were spraying. These Roundup Ready crops allow farmers to spray entire fields of glyphosate to kill off pests without harming the plants, but our food is left covered in toxic chemical residue that doesn't wash, dry, or cook off. Not only is it sprayed to kill pests, but in the final stages of harvest, it is sprayed on the wheat to dry it out. Grains that go into bread and cereals that are in grocery stores and homes of Americans are heavily sprayed with these toxins. It's also being sprayed on oats, chickpeas, almonds, potatoes and more. You can assume that if it's not organic, it is likely contaminated with glyphosate. In America, organic food, by law, cannot contain GMOs and glyphosate, and they are more expensive compared to conventionally grown options, Americans are being forced to pay more for food that isn't poisoned. The Environmental Working Group reported a test of popular wheat-based products and found glyphosate contamination in 80 to 90% of the products on grocery store shelves. Popular foods like Cheerios, Goldfish, chickpea pasta, like Banza, Nature Valley bars, were found have concerning levels of glyphosate. If that is not alarming enough, glyphosate is produced by and distributed from China. In 2018, Bayer bought Monsanto. They currently have patented soybeans, corn, canola and sugar beets, and they are the largest distributor of GMO corn and soybean seeds. Americans deserve a straight answer. Why does an agrochemical company own where our food comes from? Currently, 85 to 100% of corn and soy crops in the US are genetically modified. 80% of GMOs are engineered to withstand glyphosate, and a staggering 280 million pounds of glyphosate are sprayed on American crops annually. We are eating this roundup ready corn, but unlike GMO crops, humans are not Roundup Ready. We are not resistant to these toxins, and it's causing neurological damage, endocrine disruption, it's harming our reproductive health and it's affecting fetal development. Glyphosate is classified as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer. It is also suspected to contribute towards the rise in celiac disease and gluten sensitivities. They're finding glyphosate in human breast milk, placentas, our organs, and even sperm. It's also being found in our rain and our drinking water. Until January of 2022, many companies made efforts to obscure the presence of GMOs and pesticides in food products from American consumers. It was only then that legislation came into effect mandating that these companies disclose such ingredients with a straightforward label stating, made with bio engineered ingredients, but it's very small on the package. Meanwhile, glyphosate still isn't labeled on our food. Parents in America are unknowingly feeding their children these toxic foods. Dr. Don Huber, a glyphosate researcher, warns that glyphosate will make the outlawed 1970s insecticide DDT look harmless in comparison to glyphosate. Why is the US government subsidizing the most pesticide sprayed crops using taxpayer dollars? These are the exact foods that are driving the epidemic of chronic disease. These crops, heavily sprayed with glyphosate, are then processed into high fructose corn syrup and refined vegetable oils, which are key ingredients for the ultra processed foods that line our supermarket shelves and fill our children's lunches in schools across the nation. Children across America are consuming foods such as Goldfish and Cheerios that are loaded with glyphosate. These crops also feed our livestock, which then produce the eggs, dairy and meat products that we consume. They are in everything. Pick up almost any ultra processed food package on the shelf, and you will see the words, contains corn, wheat and soy on the ingredients panel. Meanwhile, Bayer is doing everything it can to keep consumers in the dark, while our government protects these corporate giants. They fund educational programs at major agricultural universities, they lobby in Washington, and they collaborate with lawmakers to protect their profits over public health. Two congressmen are working with Bayer right now on the Farm Bill to protect Bayer from any liability, despite already having to pay out billions to sick Americans who got cancer from their product. They know that their product is harming people. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Couple questions. So you really have two issues raised here. Any concern about just GMO seeds and GMO crops, and then you have the contamination, Glycosate, originally is a pre-emergent, but now it's sprayed on the actual crops and getting in the food. Can you differentiate those two problems? I mean, what concerns are the GMO seeds? Maybe other doctors on t

The homestretch of the presidential campaign means huge rallies, a final barrage of campaign ads, and massive multi-state get out the vote efforts. All of that costs money.And it seems like every successive presidential election ends up being the most expensive election in history.Open Secrets, a group that tracks election spending, estimates the 2024 federal election cycle will cost nearly $16 billion. It was around $15 billion in 2020.Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign raised a record billion dollars in just three months.And, according to Open Secrets, tech billionaire Elon Musk has poured more than $118-million into his America PAC in support of former President Donald Trump.As we publish this episode Tuesday afternoon, we don't know who will win this election. But we do know that outside money has played a bigger role than ever before.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

One candidate called for unity and promised to be a leader for all Americans on the Ellipse. The other continued a grievance tour and promised mass deportations amid a “love fest” at MSG. On this last episode before the election, Senator Claire McCaskill is joined again by Symone Sanders Townsend, former senior advisor to Vice President Harris, and co-host of MSNBC's The Weekend. They tally the closing arguments of both candidates and the incredible volume of dark money in this election. Then, NBC's own data whiz and numbers guru Steve Kornacki stops by to frame up what to expect on election night and the day(s) after, how to think about the polling and what to take away from shifting early voting trends. And the last segment of this episode is for you- the voters. Claire and Symone urge you be patient, keep calm and carry on. And even if you're not in a swing state, do not sit this one out.Further Reading: As Claire and Symone mentioned, here is the Open Secrets tally of 2024's biggest campaign contributors: Who are the Biggest Donors?Want to listen to this show without ads? Sign up for MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. As a subscriber you'll also be able to get occasional bonus content from this and other shows. 

During the RNC and DNC, Jen interviewed nine members of Congress about Congress itself. What is it like to work there? Do they think Congress is dysfunctional? If so, how do they think it could be fixed? In this episode, listen to the most interesting responses from all of the interviews. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources David Daley. October 4, 2024. The Guardian. OpenSecrets. OpenSecrets. Accessed October 30, 2024. Congressional Research Service. Accessed October 30, 2024. Congressional Research Service. Music by Editing Production Assistance

This week we talk about Joe Rogan, Call Her Daddy, and podcast monetization.We also discuss Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and double-haters.Recommended Book: You Sexy Thing by Cat RamboTranscriptIn the world of US politics, double-haters are potential voters who really just don't like the candidate from either major political party, and thus they decide whether and how to vote based on who they dislike least—or in some cases who they would like to hurt, the most.This isn't a uniquely American concept, as voters in many global democracies face similar situations, but it seems to be an especially pressing issue in this year's upcoming US Presidential election—and election day is a week away as of the day this episode goes live—because the race is just so, so close, according to most trusted polls.In that same context, swing states are states that could swing either way, theoretically at least, in terms of who their votes go to, and because these swing states contain enough electoral college votes to allow even the candidate who doesn't win the popular vote to win the presidency, that makes them especially vital battlegrounds.So there's a scramble going on right now, for both parties, to muster their existing bases, to shore-up some of the demographic groups they're relying upon in this election, and to get their messaging in front of as many of those double-haters and other undecideds as possible so as to maybe, possibly swing this neck-and-neck race in their direction.Toward that end, we've seen simply staggering sums of money pulled in and spent by both major parties' campaigns: it's looking likely that this will be the most expensive election season in US history, with just under $16 billion in spending across federal races, alone—which is up from just over $15 billion in 2020, according to nonpartisan group Open Secrets; that actually means this election will probably end up being just a smidgeon cheaper than 2020's election, if you adjust for inflation, rather than comparing in absolute dollar terms, but both of these races will have been several times as expensive as previous elections, weighing in at about double 2016's cost, and triple what these races tended to cost previously, in the early 2000s.For perspective, too, US elections were already quite a lot more expensive than elections held in other wealthy countries.According to a rundown by the Wall Street Journal, Canada's 2021 election only cost something like $69 million in inflated-adjusted dollars, and US elections tend to cost about 40-times more, per person—so this is a population-scaled figure—than elections in the UK and Germany.The cost of local elections in the US have been increasing, as well, in some cases substantially, and that's part of why unpaid exposure and promotion is becoming increasingly valuable: it takes a lot of communications oomph to puncture the hubbub of commercial marketing messages in the US, and while pulling in a lot of money to buy ads and fund other promotional efforts is one way to do that, it's also possible to approach the problem asymmetrically, going to people where they already are, basically, and getting some of that valuable face-time without having to spend a cent on it.And that's what I'd like to talk about today—specifically, efforts by candidates to get on popular podcasts, and why this medium in particular seems to be the go-to for campaigns at a moment in which the electoral stakes are historically high.—Podcasts, by traditional definition, are audio files delivered using an old-school, open technology called RSS.In the years since they first emerged, beginning in the early days of the 2000s, the transmission mechanisms for these audio files have become a bit more sophisticated, despite being based on essentially the same technology. They've been joined, though, by utilities that allow folks to stream undownloaded audio content, to ping the servers where these audio files are stored more regularly, and to attach all kinds of interesting and useful metadata to these files, which add more context to them, while also providing the fundaments of basic micropayment schemes and the capacity to include video versions of an episode, alongside audio.That video component has been pushed forward in part by the success of content-makers on YouTube, where for a long while podcasters have promoted their audio shows with visualized snippets, behind-the-scenes videos, and other such add-on content. Over the past handful of years, though, it has also become a hotbed of original video podcast content, some podcasters even using YouTube as their native distribution client—and that, combined with Spotify's decision to start offering video podcasting content alongside audio podcasting content, in part to compete with YouTube, has pushed video-podders to the forefront of many charts.Multi-person conversational and interview shows have maybe benefitted most from that shift toward video, as being able to see the people recording these shows, and to watch their body language, all the little microexpressions and other components of conversation and social dynamics that are left out of pure audio shows, has helped them attract more listeners / viewers, while also making these shows an even more potent source of parasocial camaraderie—which was especially valuable during the lockdown-heavy phase of the covid-19 pandemic, but which is also arguably a valuable thing to provide at a period in which a lot of people across all demographics are suffering from intense loneliness and a perceived lack of connection; the sense of familiarity that folks felt listening to a familiar voice in their ear on a regular basis has been emphasized still-further by the ability to see those people on their phones, TVs, and laptops in the same way, and at the same regular cadence.The business model of podcasting has also contributed to the expansion of this type of show, as while podcasting has never been as big and spendy an industry as comparable broadcast mediums, it has been growing, with most shows leaning on some combination of ads, sponsorships, memberships, patronage models, and subscriptions to keep their operations in the black.Some shows make use of many or all of these income-generation approaches, and many of them have varied their business models based on the boom and bust phases the industry has seen over the years; so when ad revenue plummets, formerly ad-heavy shows will pivot to memberships, and when the listener membership well grows shallow, they might shift to some kind of featured sponsor model.As of early 2024, there are more than half a billion regular podcast listeners, globally, and ad spending in this space, globally, reached over $4 billion for the first time this year.That aforementioned shift toward video has tilted a lot of listening in that direction, with about a third of all podcast listeners in the US also watching at least one podcast, rather than just listening to it.That watchability component has also nudged YouTube and Spotify into the lead in terms of podcast delivery, alongside Apple, which didn't invent the podcast, even though the medium is named after their iPod product, but they did bring it to the forefront and make it widely available—Apple's relative lack of investment in this space, for years, left the doors open for those other competitors, and again, their decision to feature video podcast content alongside pure audio shows has shifted the landscape of this industry substantially, raising questions about what a podcast even is, if any old YouTube show could also theoretically be categorized as such; it's a blurry distinction at this point, a bit like the debate over whether audiobooks should be considered books, or if only written, visual versions should bear that label.Also worth noting here is that nearly half, about 47%, of all US citizens ages 12 and up listen to a podcast at least once a month, and 34% listen every week.11% of that demographic's daily audio-time is spent listening to podcasts, which is quadruple the figure a decade ago, in 2014, and 23% of weekly podcast listeners in the US spend 10 or more hours with these shows each week, though the average listening time each week is also pretty high, weighing in at 7.4 hours.Podcasts have diverse audiences and hit a range of economic classes and people of varying education levels—though it leans slightly higher than the average in terms of both educational attainment and income—and interestingly, folks seem to be especially influenced by podcast recommendations, 46% of weekly podcast listeners reporting that they purchased something based on a recommendation or advertisement they heard on a show.All of which points at why podcasts, and especially interview podcasts, and even more especially video-heavy interview podcasts, have become such highly desired media real estate in this year's US presidential election; these sorts of shows aren't always the most desired medium for brands, because tracking return on investment, money earned per dollar spent, is difficult with podcasts compared to, for instance, buying ads on streaming TV shows or social media, but they're great for raising awareness and general brand-building efforts, which is exactly what these candidates and their parties are aiming for.So more people are listening to these things, people tend to trust what they hear on podcasts more than on other types of media, and the demographics these shows reach are highly desirable, politically.This is why, over the past few weeks, candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have appeared on some of the biggest podcasts in existence, right now: Call Her Daddy for the former, and the Joe Rogan Experience for the latter.Both of these appearances were ostensibly pretty risky, as podcast interviewers tend to color outside the lines compared to hosts on conventional television or radio shows, but the potential upsides were huge for both, as Alex Cooper, the host of Call Her Daddy, which is kind of a comedic advice show, has become a massive force in the world of women's issues, and she recently became one of the best-paid and most influential podcasters in the world by leaving Spotify for SiriusXM, that change beginning in 2025, for a reported $100 million.Joe Rogan, in contrast, has consistently been the number one podcast in the world for years, and his audience skews toward the people Trump wants to reach: the listening base is 80% male, more than half of those listeners are ages 18-34, more than a third identify as Independents, politically, and a little over a quarter are Democrats who might be convinced to switch sides for this election, because of Rogan's somewhat conservative-leaning, independent stance on most things.Trump recorded a 3-hour podcast interview with Rogan, leaning into the host's chilled-out, but often heavy and asymmetric-question laden format, and that was blasted out to the show's 14.5 million Spotify followers and 17.5 million YouTube subscribers.Call Her Daddy is the second-biggest podcast on most networks after Rogan's show, and while it has a comparably meager 5 million weekly listeners, the show's demographics lean heavily toward women, and especially young women, which is seemingly favorable to the messaging Harris wants to megaphone at this point in her campaign; she's rounded-out that appearance with appearances on other shows, like All The Smoke, which is hosted by a pair of NBA stars, and The Breakfast Club, which is hosted by the popular personality, Charlamagne Tha God.Trump has appeared on quite a few podcasts of late, as well, though they've largely been in the same demographic vein as Joe Rogan—Trump went on YouTuber Logan Paul's show, Impaulsive, for instance, alongside This Past Weekened with Theo Von and the Lex Fridman Podcast—all shows that lean heavily toward the young, male demographic, and which skew somewhat conservative and/or the libertarian side of independent.Like many aspects of this election, we don't really know if these bets will pay off for these candidates and their campaigns. There's a lot to suggest that folks trust podcasts and podcasters, and that this industry may therefore be an excellent means of blasting a message to the right people, allowing politicians to realize a huge return on the time they invest preparing for their appearances and recording these interviews.On the other hand, there's a chance that, like many supposed means of reinforcing brand awareness and identity, that the numbers are kind of fuzzy and don't necessarily reflect the reality many people think they reflect: it could be that folks tune in, listen, and then don't do anything with what they learn; a more passive means of engagement that results few, if any, real-world conseqences.It could also be that one or the other, or both of these parties aimed at the wrong audiences, or at the wrong influencers to help them reach those audiences, which could result in the same outcome, but with their demographic assumptions to blame, rather than the nature of the medium.We won't know for sure until after the election, and even then it'll still be an open question, because it's difficult to definitely link action to outcome when it comes to this facet of the political world.That said, it does seem pretty likely, that for the next few elections, at least, podcasters will carry somewhat higher credibility and weight, and consequently attract even more attention, and probably ad-dollars, too, because it's becoming more and more difficult to reach the right people, the right potential voters, and podcasts are still new and wild westy enough that they could break through the hubbub, even when other content types struggle to do so.Show Noteshttps://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8nn0913e8ohttps://backlinko.com/podcast-statshttps://www.insideradio.com/free/candidates-embrace-podcasts-but-is-it-working-here-s-what-one-survey-shows/article_b8858d76-92a8-11ef-9063-13e0c716cedd.htmlhttps://www.npr.org/2024/10/27/nx-s1-5162304/politics-chat-trump-gives-3-hour-joe-rogan-interview-harris-leans-on-fascist-labelhttps://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/23/trump-harris-turn-to-podcasts-and-maybe-joe-rogan-for-us-election-boosthttps://www.elle.com/uk/life-and-culture/culture/a62526922/kamala-harris-call-her-daddy/https://www.quillpodcasting.com/blog-posts/podcast-stats-and-facts-2024https://soundsprofitable.com/research/the-podcast-landscape-2024/https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-podcast-consumer-2024-by-edison-research/https://finance.yahoo.com/news/alex-cooper-lands-100-million-143000863.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_Her_Daddyhttps://www.edisonresearch.com/the-race-to-rogan-who-will-candidates-reach-on-americas-top-podcast/https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/10/25/trump-joe-rogan-podcast-interview/https://time.com/7099104/presidential-podcast-media-tour-donald-trump-kamala-harris/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/alex-cooper-interview-call-her-daddy-1236023570/https://apnews.com/article/trump-election-lies-rogan-interview-ballots-voting-c8c06eb608c1b1ae8ca0e93ec1022b02https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/elections-cost-us-highest-spend-b8475961https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/10/21/meet-the-worlds-double-haters-00184634https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/25/wisconsin-swing-state-undecided-voters-trump-harris/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

Anna Massoglia, Editorial and Investigations Manager for Open Secrets, joins Chris and Amy to discuss the legality of Elon Musk giving away millions of dollars to registered voters who sign a petition for his pro-Trump PAC. Open Secrets is a nonprofit based in D.C. that publishes data on campaign finance and lobbying.

This election has featured a lot of talk about ‘immigration' and ‘the border' but has been short on specifics. In this episode, you'll get those specifics. Specifically, you'll learn what was in H.R. 2, a Republican bill passed by the House, and you'll learn what was in the so-called bipartisan border bill which was killed by Donald Trump's loyalists in the Senate and which Kamala Harris has promised to revive as President. Which bill would actually solve the problems? Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes Current Immigration Process Visas Accessed October 22, 2024. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs. Accessed October 22, 2024. Boundless. Accessed October 22, 2024. Boundless. October 22, 2024. USAGov. September 3, 2024. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs. Asylum August 1, 2024. USAFacts. Ted Hesson and Mica Rosenberg. June 5, 2024. Reuters. Accessed October 22, 2024. Migration Policy Institute. Unauthorized Immigration John Gramlich. October 1, 2024. Pew Research Center. Jeffrey S. Passel and Jens Manuel Krogstad. July 22, 2024. Pew Research Center. Backlog December 18, 2023. TRAC Immigration. Immigrant Detention Eunice Cho. August 7, 2023. American Civil Liberties Union. Irwin County Detention Center November 15, 2022. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Jonathan Raymond. November 15, 2022. 11 ALIVE. May 20, 2021. WABE. Molly O'Toole. May 20, 2021. The LA Times. C. Carlos Carreiro Immigration Detention Center in Bristol County, MA Ben Berke. May 21, 2021. The Public's Radio. December 15, 2020. Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General Civil Rights Division. Etowah County Detention Center in Gadsden, Alabama Erin Wise. April 15, 2022. ABC 33 40 News. Ted Hesson and Mica Rosenberg. March 25, 2022. Reuters. March 25, 2022. BirminghamWatch. March 25, 2022. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Paul Moses. June 8, 2018. The Daily Beast. Glades County Detention Center in Moore Haven, Florida February 2, 2022. Freedom for Immigrants. Debbie Wasserman Schultz et al. February 1, 2022. South Texas Family Residential Center Accessed October 22, 2024. OpenSecrets. Sandra Sanchez. Updated June 24, 2024. Border Report. Ted Hesson. June 10, 2024. Reuters. Penalties for Illegally Entering Countries World Population Review. Bipartisan Border Bill Failure Ariana Figueroa. May 24, 2024. Missouri Independent. Catherine Rampell. May 23, 2024. The Washington Post. Mary Clare Jalonick and Stephen Groves. February 7, 2024. AP News. Mary Clare Jalonick and Stephen Groves. February 7, 2024. AP News. The Bills H.R. 2 Outline Division A - Border Wall Would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to resume “all activities” related to constructing a border wall between the US and Mexico that were planned by the Trump administration. Wall would have to be at least 900 miles long, and include not only a physical wall, but also surveillance towers, radars, seismic acoustic detection sensors, and 24 hour drone monitoring. Would require killing all carrizo cane and salt cedar plants along the Rio Grande River by releasing non-stinging wasps imported from Spain and France into the area. Would waive “all legal requirements” that would stand in the way of of building the wall. Division B - Immigration Enforcement and Foreign Affairs Would make it illegal to process asylum claims of individuals who: do not enter at official ports of entry. crossed through another country on their way to the US and did not apply to live there and receive an official denial in each country they entered before entering the US. have been convicted of misdemeanor offenses, allowing the Secretary of Homeland Security or Attorney General to add disqualifying acts without approval from Congress and no court reviews allowed. Would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to take away the authorization for an individual who has been accepted into the US through the asylum process to work legally in the US. Work permits would only be authorized for 6 months at a time. Would reopen detention centers that were closed by the Biden Administration. Title V - Protection of Children Would require the DHS Secretary to return unaccompanied children back to their home countries if they are not trafficking victims and do not have a fear of Return. Would authorize immigration officers to withdraw a child's application to be admitted into the United States regardless of the child's ability or desire to do so. Would require the DHS to collect information - name, social security number, DOB, address, contact info, and immigration status - of people who will be taking custody of immigrant children. Within 30 days of receiving that information, if they determine that individual is not legally in the United States, must initiate removal proceedings. Would change the law so that these people have “access” to lawyers instead of having lawyers to represent them. Title VI - Visa Overstay Penalties Would Increase fines for illegally entering the United States from $50-250 to $500-1000 Would create new penalties for overstaying visas: First offense: fines up to $1,000 or up to 6 months in prison, or both Repeat offenses: fines up to $2,000 or up to 2 years in prison, or both S.4361 Outline Division A - Border Security & Combatting Fentanyl Supplemental Appropriations $6.3 billion to border patrol. $6 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ~$2.4 billion for deportations. ~$1.6 billion for prisons (the goal in the bill is for ICE to be able to detain 46,500 humans at all times). ~$1.2 billion for services to help people navigate the immigration and asylum system, and to help people leave the country if denied visas (). ~$415 million to hire more ICE agents (goal is to hire 800 more agents). ~$200 million for counter fentanyl investigations. ~$4 billion to US Citizenship and Immigration Services with most going towards hiring more staff. ~ $1.2 billion to the State Department $850 million for “humanitarian needs in the Western Hemisphere” to reduce migration (with the idea being that if their home countries are less dangerous, then people won't want to come here as often) $230 million to pay other countries to accept deported individuals. $440 million, most of which would be spent on Immigration Judge Teams which include lawyers, court administrators, staff, and court costs. Would expand the number of border patrol and ICE officers authorized to issue a notice to appear, reducing the workload of the judges. Would allow protection determination proceedings to take place in any federally owned or leased building that is not property owned, leased or managed by ICE or border patrol and is “a reasonable distance” from the migrants current residence, expanding the locations where the cases can be heard beyond the already too crowded court buildings. Division B - Border Act Title I - Capacity Building For five years: would give the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to appoint people to positions within the Refugee, Asylum, and International Operation Directorate, the Field Operations Directorate, and the Service Center Operations Directorate of US Citizenship and Immigration Services if the Secretary determines that a critical hiring need exists. would give the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to appoint ICE deportation officers if the Secretary determines that a critical hiring need exists. Would provide a permanent authority for the DHS Secretary to re-hire a former employee to any position in ICE, Border Patrol, or US Citizenship & Immigration Services. Would give asylum officers a 15% pay raise. Would require annual training for border patrol officers about the law, de- escalation techniques, and migrant and agent safety measures. Title III - Securing America For three years, the Secretary of Homeland Security would be given the authority “in the Secretary's sole and unreviewable discretion” to declare a “border emergency” and remove any migrant who doesn't have pre-determined permission to enter the United States or doesn't present themselves at a port of entry in accordance with a process approved by the DHS Secretary. Title IV - Promoting Legal Immigration Would set up a special process to more easily admit no more than 10,000 refugees who worked with the United States from Afghanistan. Would allow the spouse, fiancé, or child of an admitted migrant to join them in the United States and receive employment authorizations. Would slightly increase the number of visas for family members that would be issued in years 2025 through 2029 (512,000 instead of 480,000 = ~ 6% increase). Audio Sources August 22, 2024 29:45 Vice President Kamala Harris: And let me be clear. After decades in law enforcement, I know the importance of safety and security, especially at our border. Last year, Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades. The Border Patrol endorsed it. But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign. So he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal. Well, I refuse to play politics with our security. Here is my pledge to you: As President, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed. And I will sign it into law. July 18, 2024 April 18, 2018 Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration Witness: James McHenry, Director, Executive Office for Immigration Review, U.S. Department of Justice Clips 2:42 Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX): Earlier administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have struggled with how to reduce the case backlogs in the immigration courts. And, unfortunately, Congress has never provided the full extent of immigration judges and support staff truly needed to eliminate the backlogs. As a result, backlogs continue to grow, from 129,000 cases in fiscal 1998 to a staggering 684,000 as of February 2018. 3:27 Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX): Aliens in removal proceedings sometimes wait for years before they ever appear before an immigration judge. For example, as of February 2018 courts in Colorado have the longest time for cases sitting on their docket more than 1,000 days -- almost three years. In my home state of Texas, the current wait is 884 days -- almost two and a half years. 28:45 James McHenry: A typical immigration court proceeding has two stages, or two parts. The first is the determination of removability. The Department of Homeland Security brings charges and allegations that an alien has violated the immigration laws. The judge, the immigration judge, first has to determine whether that charge is sustained, and that will be based on the factual allegations that are brought, so the judge will make determinations on that. If there is a finding that the alien is removable, then the case proceeds to a second phase. If the judge finds the alien is not removable, then the case is terminated. At the second phase, the immigration judge gives the alien an opportunity to apply for any protection or relief from removal that he or she may be eligible for under the Immigration and Nationality Act. This will involve the setting of a separate hearing at which the respondent may present evidence, they may present witnesses, they have the right to cross-examine witnesses brought by the department, and they will bring up whatever factual bases there is for their claim of relief or protection. At the end of that hearing, the immigration judge will assess the evidence, will assess the testimony, will look at the law, and will render a decision. The judge may either grant the application, in which case the respondent will get to remain in the United States. The judge may deny the application but give the respondent an opportunity to voluntarily depart at their own expense and sometimes after paying a bond, or the immigration judge may order the alien removed. 41:50 Senator Mike Lee (R-UT): I believe you recently testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee that it would take about 700 immigration judges in order to be able to address the backlog and address the current case load. Is that correct? James McHenry: Yeah, last fall the president proposed adding additional immigration judges, up to a number of 700. If we can get 700 on board, especially with our performance measures, we could complete over 450,000 cases a year. That would eviscerate the backlog. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT): So, 700 would do it…. End of Episode Announcements Andrew Heaton's New Book: Music by Editing Production Assistance

We talk campaign finance trends on this week's Access Louisville podcast. A few weeks ago, LBF Reporter Piper Hansen began digging into donation trends among workers at some of Louisville's biggest employers. She found that most of those donations (for the second quarter of 2024) went to Democratic presidential nominee and sitting Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump.   Here's a look at trends from the top three employers, according to info from OpenSecrets.org, a nonprofit campaign finance tracking website.United Parcel Service Inc. employees — $226,529 donated in total; Harris contributions: $139,746; Trump contributions: $86,783Ford Motor Co. — $119,986; Harris contributions: $76,071; Trump contributions: $43,915Kroger Co. — $85,917; Harris contributions: $46,696; Trump contributions: $39,221Hansen talks about these figures on this week's Access Louisville podcast and you can read more about what she found here. Campaign contribution data just released for the third quarter, as well. Hansen is digging into those figures now — looking at individual donations this time — we expect to be posting a story soon at Bizjournals.com/Louisville. Election Day is on Tuesday, Nov. 5. More this weekFollowing the campaign finance talk we discuss talk a little restaurant news, including an ownership change Le Relais. We also chat about a new endeavor from the team behind Wild Eggs. It'll be doing a virtual kitchen for a related concept (Crazy Bowls & Wraps) in order to serve customers on delivery apps.We talk about a deal to purchase the former Harvest restaurant building selling and some news from the Louisville Economic Development Alliance. And wrap things up with some local media news, with Bill Lamb returning to WDRB.Access Louisville is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. It's available on popular podcast services, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Groups backing three constitutional initiatives in Montana this election cycle are far outraising their opponents. That's according to data compiled by the research group Open Secrets.

Open Secrets and the P. Diddy Case: A Christian Perspective on Silence and Accountability In this week's episode of Pass The Mic, hosts Dr. Jemar Tisby and Tyler Burns dive deep into the ongoing Sean "Diddy" Combs case, exploring the complexities of open secrets and the conspiracy of silence that often surrounds influential figures. With thought-provoking commentary, they discuss how similar patterns of silence and protection of power occur within Christian institutions. From addressing how faith communities can become complicit in covering up wrongdoing, to calling for accountability and transparency, Jemar and Tyler challenge listeners to think critically about the ways silence can harm both individuals and communities. Support this podcast at patreon.com/passthemic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm not a financial advisor; Superpowers for Good should not be considered investment advice. Seek counsel before making investment decisions.Watch the show on television by downloading the e360tv channel app to your Roku, AppleTV or AmazonFireTV. You can also see it on YouTube.When you purchase an item, launch a campaign or create an investment account after clicking a link here, we may earn a fee. Engage to support our work.Devin: What is your superpower?Kerry: People, when I'm interviewed, continually say to me, you're fearless, you're fearless, you're fearless. But I'm not fearless at all. I think my superpower, if I have one, is that I will lean into things that scare me. I may appear fearless to other people, but I'm not. Trust me! I feel the fear, but I'm never going to run away from fear. I will lean into fear.Author's note: North Carolina, especially Asheville, but also including the broader region, was devastated by Hurricane Helene. Please consider joining me in making a donation to Rotary International, where the funds will be distributed locally where needed and will be matched by the Rotary Foundation.In today's episode, I had the honor of speaking with filmmaker Kerry David, who has dedicated her career to telling impactful stories through her lens. Her latest project, "Open Secret," delves into a difficult subject—systemic child abuse and the corruption that allowed it to continue in North Carolina schools. Despite the heartbreaking topic, Kerry finds and showcases the resilience of individuals fighting to make a difference.Kerry's journey with this project began unexpectedly when she moved to North Carolina. Initially hesitant to take on another heavy subject, Kerry ultimately decided to lend her talents to highlight a story of immense courage. “The film really is about the courage to challenge something in your community that isn't working despite this being detrimental potentially to your own self,” she shared.What makes this project truly unique is Kerry's decision to raise funds through a regulated investment crowdfunding campaign on Wefunder. This approach allows people from all over the country to participate in the movement against abuse in schools. “Allowing people everywhere to invest in this film is a way of helping to maximize your audience, maximize the impact, maximize the reach,” she explained. By involving the community, Kerry aims to spark a national conversation and prevent future tragedies.This opportunity to invest in a project that combines social impact with powerful storytelling is rare, and Kerry's passion shines through every frame of her work. If you're moved by this story, consider joining the effort to support change—just as Kerry has done.tl;dr:* In today's episode, Kerry David shared her experience transitioning from working at Paramount Pictures and with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman to starting her own production company and directing impactful documentaries.* Kerry discussed her latest project, "Open Secret," which explores systemic abuse in North Carolina schools and the courage of community members who fought against the corruption that enabled it.* Kerry emphasized her superpower of leaning into fear, recounting a challenging decision to change filming locations for safety during her previous project, demonstrating her ability to balance courage with prudence.* The episode highlighted Kerry's initiative in founding the nonprofit Over and Above Africa, which supports anti-poaching efforts and raises awareness through film.* Kerry explained her decision to use crowdfunding on WeFunder for her latest film to involve and empower communities nationwide to tackle systemic issues beyond North Carolina.How to Develop Leaning into Fear As a SuperpowerKerry's superpower is her ability to “lean into fear.” She doesn't ignore or try to eliminate fear—instead, she faces it head-on, refusing to let it control her decisions or actions. This willingness to confront fear, rather than shy away from it, allows Kerry to push boundaries and take on challenging projects that make a difference in the world.One powerful example of Kerry leaning into fear came during the production of her last film. She and her crew were scheduled to travel from South Africa to Uganda, but just days before, a nearby kidnapping involving three British citizens left her in a state of intense fear for her team's safety. Despite initially wanting to go ahead, Kerry made the difficult decision to pivot and film in Vietnam instead. This decision, rooted in both courage and concern for her crew's safety, ultimately kept them out of harm's way.To develop this superpower, Kerry suggests several actionable strategies:* Evaluate the consequences of not acting. Consider how avoiding a fearful situation could lead to missed opportunities or negative outcomes.* Honor your moral compass. When you know something is the right thing to do, face the fear and act anyway.* Start with small acts of courage. Practicing courage when the stakes are low helps build confidence for larger challenges.* Accept that fear is normal. Understand that feeling fear doesn't mean you're weak—it's an opportunity to show strength by moving forward despite it.By following Kerry's example and advice, you can make leaning into fear a skill. With practice and effort, you could make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!Guest ProfileKerry David (she/her):Filmmaker and Philanthropist , KDC FilmsAbout KDC Films: My company is KDC Films.  Now in our 11th year, we produce, write, direct and fundraise for feature films and documentaries - soon to expand into series. Website: WeFunder.com/OpenSecretInstagram Handle: @OpensecretthefilmOther URL: OverAndAboveAfrica.comBiographical Information: Kerry David is an award-winning filmmaker with an extensive career in film production. She began at Paramount Pictures, later working for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman on major projects such as "Mission Impossible 2" and "Eyes Wide Shut." She then launched her own production company, producing films including "Agent Cody Banks," "My Date with Drew," and "Like Dandelion Dust," which won over 35 festival awards globally.Kerry has directed impactful documentaries like "Breaking Their Silence," focusing on women fighting against poaching, and "Open Secret," highlighting corruption in a North Carolina school district. She also founded Over and Above Africa, a nonprofit supporting endangered species and communities in Africa. Kerry's passion for social issues and education through entertainment drives her ongoing work in creating inspiring and impactful films.Linkedin: LinkedIn.com/in/KerryDavidMax-Impact MembersThe following Max-Impact Members provide valuable financial support to keep us operating:Carol Fineagan, Independent Consultant | Lory Moore, Lory Moore Law | Marcia Brinton, High Desert Gear | Ralf Mandt, Next Pitch | Add Your Name HereUpcoming SuperCrowd Event CalendarIf a location is not noted, the events below are virtual.* SuperCrowd Mastermind Group, twice monthly on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays at noon Eastern. This group is for entrepreneurs and small business owners interested in raising money from the crowd. Attend your first meeting free!* Impact Cherub Club Meeting hosted by The Super Crowd, Inc., a public benefit corporation, on October 15, 2024, at 1:00 PM Eastern. Each month, the Club meets to review new offerings for investment consideration and to conduct due diligence on previously screened deals. To join the Impact Cherub Club, become an Impact Member of the SuperCrowd.* SuperCrowdHour, October 16, 2024, at 1:00 PM Eastern. Each month, we host a value-laden webinar for aspiring impact investors or social entrepreneurs. At October's webinar, Devin Thorpe will provide an in-depth answer to the question, “How to Assess Your Crowd's Potential for Investing?” Free to attend.Community Event Calendar* Successful Funding with Karl Dakin, Tuesdays at 10:00 AM ET - Click on Events* Community Revitalization, Thursdays, 10:00 AM Eastern.* Community Capital Alternatives for Outdoor Recreation Challenges, Kathleen Minogue of Crowdfund Better speaking at American Trails, October 3, 10:00 AM, free.* Main Street Skowhegan and NC3 Entrepreneur Finance Workshop Series, September 17 - November 19, 2023.* Krishi Janani PBC Crowdfunding Virtual Office Hour, Sep 21, 2024, Noon Eastern.* Investment Week 24, October 19-20, 2024, Los Angeles. * Crowdfunding Professional Association, Summit in DC, October 22-23* Asheville Neighborhood Economics, November 12-13.If you would like to submit an event for us to share with the 8,000+ members of the SuperCrowd, click here.We use AI to help us write compelling recaps of each episode. 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Why stop emitting when we can just plant a bunch of trees?BONUS EPISODES available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/deniersplaybook) SOCIALS & MORE (https://linktr.ee/deniersplaybook) CREDITS Created by: Rollie Williams, Nicole Conlan & Ben BoultHosts: Rollie Williams & Nicole ConlanExecutive Producer: Ben Boult Post-production: Jubilaria Media Researchers: Carly Rizzuto, Canute Haroldson & James Crugnale Art: Jordan Doll Music: Tony Domenick Special thanks: The Civil Liberties Defense Center, Shelley Vinyard & The National Resources Defense Council, Angeline Robertson & Stand.EarthSOURCESMrBeast. (2019). Planting 20,000,000 Trees, My Biggest Project Ever! YouTube.Charmin. (2022, January 31). Protect Grow Restore | Charmin® Loves Trees. YouTube.CNBC Television. (2020, January 21). Watch President Donald Trump's full speech at the Davos World Economic Forum. YouTube.Carrington, D. (2019, July 4). Tree planting “has mind-blowing potential” to tackle climate crisis. 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Nature, 525(7568), 201–205. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14967Bastin, J.-F., Finegold, Y., Garcia, C., Mollicone, D., Rezende, M., Routh, D., Zohner, C. M., & Crowther, T. W. (2019). The global tree restoration potential. Science, 365(6448), 76–79.St. George, Z. (2022, July 13). Can Planting a Trillion New Trees Save the World? The New York Times.Pomeroy, R. (2020, January 22). One trillion trees - uniting the world to save forests and climate. World Economic Forum.Guarino, B. (2020, January 22). The audacious effort to reforest the planet. Washington Post.FAQs. (2024). 1t.org.The Partnership. (n.d.). Trillion Trees.Ballew, M., Carman, J., Rosenthal, S., Verner, M., Kotcher, J., Maibach, E., & Leiserowitz, A. (2023, October 26). Which Republicans are worried about global warming? Yale Program on Climate Change Communication; Yale School of the Environment.Kennedy, B., & Tyson, A. (2024, March 1). How Republicans view climate change and energy issues. Pew Research Center.Roll Call. 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G., Dechoum, M. de S., Diaz-Toribio, M. H., Durigan, G., Ewel, J. J., Fernandes, G. W., Fidelis, A., Fleischman, F., Good, S. P., Griffith, D. M., & Hermann, J.-M. (2019). Comment on “The global tree restoration potential.” Science, 366(6463). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aay7976.Erratum for the Report: “The global tree restoration potential” by J.-F. Bastin, Y. Finegold, C. Garcia, D. Mollicone, M. Rezende, D. Routh, C. M. Zohner, T. W. Crowther and for the Technical Response “Response to Comments on ‘The global tree restoration potential'” by J.-F. Bastin, Y. Finegold, C. Garcia, N. Gellie, A. Lowe, D. Mollicone, M. Rezende, D. Routh, M. Sacande, B. Sparrow, C. M. Zohner, T. W. Crowther. (2020). Science, 368(6494). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc8905Anderson, T. R., Hawkins, E., & Jones, P. D. (2016). CO2, the greenhouse effect and global warming: from the pioneering work of Arrhenius and Callendar to today's Earth System Models. Endeavour, 40(3), 178–187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2016.07.002Hasler, N., Williams, C. A., Vanessa Carrasco Denney, Ellis, P. W., Shrestha, S., Terasaki, D. E., Wolff, N. H., Yeo, S., Crowther, T. W., Werden, L. K., & Cook-Patton, S. C. (2024). Accounting for albedo change to identify climate-positive tree cover restoration. Nature Communications, 15. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46577-1Viani, R. A. G., Bracale, H., & Taffarello, D. (2019). Lessons Learned from the Water Producer Project in the Atlantic Forest, Brazil. Forests, 10(11), 1031. https://doi.org/10.3390/f10111031Vadell, E., de-Miguel, S., & Pemán, J. (2016). Large-scale reforestation and afforestation policy in Spain: A historical review of its underlying ecological, socioeconomic and political dynamics. Land Use Policy, 55, 37–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.03.017TED-Ed. (2023, December 19). Does planting trees actually cool the planet? - Carolyn Beans. YouTube.Howard, S. Q.-I., Emma, & Howard, E. (2022, December 12). “How are we going to live?” Families dispossessed of their land to make way for Total's Congo offsetting project. Unearthed.Garside, R., & Wyn, I. (2021, August 6). Tree-planting: Why are large investment firms buying Welsh farms? BBC News.Gabbatiss, J., & Viisainen, V. (2024, June 26). Analysis: UK misses tree-planting targets by forest the “size of Birmingham.” Carbon Brief.Buller, A. (2022). The Value of a Whale. Manchester University Press.Alexander, S. (2024, May 3). A Billionaire Wanted to Save 1 Trillion Trees by 2030. It's Not Going Great. Bloomberg.No Watermark Clips. (2019, May 21). King of the Hill on Carbon Offsets. YouTube.Choi-Schagrin, W. (2021, August 23). Wildfires are ravaging forests set aside to soak up greenhouse gases. The New York Times.Hodgson, C. (2021, August 4). US Forest Fires Threaten Carbon Offsets as Company-Linked Trees Burn. Inside Climate News.What's the potential of a trillion trees? (2020). Crowther Lab.Luhn, A. (2023, December 13). Stop Planting Trees, Says Guy Who Inspired World to Plant a Trillion Trees. Wired.TED Audio Collective. (2022, July 3). Can planting trees really stop climate change? | Thomas Crowther | The TED Interview. YouTube.Fleischman, F., Basant, S., Chhatre, A., Coleman, E. A., Fischer, H. W., Gupta, D., Güneralp, B., Kashwan, P., Khatri, D., Muscarella, R., Powers, J. S., Ramprasad, V., Rana, P., Solorzano, C. R., & Veldman, J. W. (2020). Pitfalls of Tree Planting Show Why We Need People-Centered Natural Climate Solutions. BioScience, 70(11). https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biaa094Oglesby, C. (2021, Feb 9). Republicans want to plant 1 trillion trees — and then log them. GristCORRECTIONSFelix Finkbeiner was 13 years old when he spoke at the United Nations, not 12.The industry that has currently contributed the most to Rep. Bruce Westerman's career campaigns for federal congress is the Forestry & Forest Products industry, as reported by Open Secrets. The Oil & Gas industry is listed as #2.DISCLAIMER: Some media clips have been edited for length and clarity.[For sponsorship inquiries, please contact climatetown@no-logo.co]See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Everything is Biblical; all the secrets are being revealed. We will dig into Pedowood and the Diddy debacle... 30 pieces of silver anyone? Today's pre-show is brought to you by Survial Essentials. Grow your own food! Save 10% on seed packs with promo code DEFIANT at www.survival-essentials.com Check out all our featured sponsors at www.patriotpartypod.com. Grow your own food with electroculture! Save 20% on electroculture antennas with promo code WOLFPACK at www.electrofreedom.com

For the 176th episode of Private Parts Unknown, host Courtney Kocak shares an audio essay about aging, beauty, sexism, and why finding her first maybe-gray hair down there took her back to the Sony hack. Here's a link to Courtney's Open Secrets essay: https://opensecretsmag.substack.com/p/sony-hack-amy-pascal-gray-pubes-pubic-hair-dye And here's a link to Rachel Kramer Bussel's How to Write Erotica episode: https://www.privatepartsunknown.com/how-to-write-erotica-with-rachel-kramer-bussel/ Psst, Courtney has an 0nIyFan$, which is a horny way to support the show: https://linktr.ee/cocopeepshow Courtney is also teaching the writing and publishing intensive of your dreams this November. It's called November Newsletter & Pitch Party Extravaganza and will definitely take your writing practice and career to the next level. To join the fun, head to courtneykocak.com/teaching and use code PRIVATE for $100 off. Private Parts Unknown is a proud member of the Pleasure Podcast network. This episode is brought to you by: Our Sponsor, FLESHLIGHT, can help you reach new heights with your self-pleasure. Fleshlight is the #1 selling male sex toy in the world. Looking for your next pocket pal? Save 10% on your next Fleshlight with Promo Code: PRIVATE at fleshlight.com. STDCheck.com is the leader in reliable and affordable lab-based STD testing. Just go to ppupod.com, click STDCheck, and use code Private to get $10 off your next STI test. Explore yourself and say yes to self-pleasure with Lovehoney. Save 15% off your next favorite toy from Lovehoney when you go to lovehoney.com and enter code AFF-PRIVATE at checkout. https://linktr.ee/PrivatePartsUnknownAds If you love this episode, please leave us a 5-star rating and sexy review! —> ratethispodcast.com/private  Psst... sign up for our Private Parts Unknown newsletter for bonus content related to our episodes! privatepartsunknown.substack.com Let's be friends on social media! Follow the show on Instagram @privatepartsunknown and Twitter @privatepartsun. Connect with host Courtney Kocak @courtneykocak on Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You do not have the right to repair your own belongings because of intellectual property rights granted to corporations by Congress in 1998. In this episode, listen to the debate happening in Congress about if and how they should grant customers the right to repair and get a status update on the multiple efforts under way in the current Congress, including one with a good chance of becoming law. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes McDonald's Ice Cream Machines Andy Greenberg. December 14, 2023. Wired. Joseph Fawbush. March 29, 2022. FindLaw. John Deere Luke Hogg. January 8, 2024. Reason. Internet of Things Updates and Maintenance Márk Szabó. August 27, 2024. WeLiveSecurity. Massachusetts Auto Repair Law Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General. DoD's Revolving Door OpenSecrets. OpenSecrets. Karl Evers-Hillstrom and Reid Champlin. June 18, 2019. OpenSecrets. OpenSecrets. Salary.com. Military Right to Repair Issues Kyle Mizokami. February 11, 2020. Popular Mechanics. Max Finkel. February 8, 2020. Jalopnik. Elle Ekman. November 20, 2019. The New York Times. Lucas Kunce and Elle Ekman. September 15, 2019. Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) Jennifer Zerkee. November 8, 2023. Simon Fraser University. Cyber Risks Sam Curry et al. January 3, 2023. samcurry.net. Apple Lawsuit Brandon Vigliarolo. December 18, 2023. The Register. NDAA Sec. 828 Jason Koebler. August 28, 2024. 404 Media. AdvaMed et al. July 30, 2024. DocumentCloud via 404 Media. Laws Bills Sec. 828 : REQUIREMENT FOR CONTRACTORS TO PROVIDE REASONABLE ACCESS TO REPAIR MATERIALS. Fair Repair Act Audio Sources May 16, 2024 Senate Armed Services Committee Witnesses: Carlos Del Toro, Secretary of the Navy Clip Sen. Elizabeth Warren: So the Navy acquires everything from night vision goggles to aircraft carriers through contracts with big defense contractors, but the contractors often place restrictions on these deals that prevent service members from maintaining or repairing the equipment, or even let them write a training manual without going back through the contractor. Now the contractors say that since they own the intellectual property and the technical data underlying the equipment, only they have the right to repair that equipment. These right to repair restrictions usually translate into much higher costs for DOD, which has no choice but to shovel money out to big contractors whenever DOD needs to have something fixed. So take the Navy's littoral combat ship, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin considered much of the data and equipment on the ship to be proprietary, so the Navy had to delay missions and spend millions of dollars on travel costs, just so that contractor affiliated repairmen could fly in, rather than doing this ourselves. Secretary Del Toro, when a sailor isn't allowed to repair part of their ship at sea, and a marine isn't allowed to access technical data to fix a generator on a base abroad. One solution is for the Navy to buy the intellectual property from the contractors. So can you say a little bit about what the benefits are of the Navy having technical rights for the equipment that it has purchased. Sec. Carlos Del Toro: The benefits are enormous, Senator, and we've actually had tremendous success, I'd say, in the last year and a half to two years, through the taxpayer advocacy program that we initiated when I came in. There have been three examples, one, gaining the intellectual property rights for the new ACV class of ships that will replace the AAVs. The F-35 negotiations really proved themselves out in a significant way as well, too. And lastly, the 20 F-18s that the Congress authorized in ‘22 and ‘23, we were able to make significant gains in terms of the government finally getting the intellectual property rights that were necessary for us to be able to properly sustain those moving forward. Sen. Elizabeth Warren: So I am very, very glad to hear this. I like the taxpayer advocacy project and how you're training contract officers to secure technical equipment that the Navy buys, but I think you should have the support of Congress on this. Senator Braun and I have introduced the Stop price gouging the military act to give DoD more tools to get cost and pricing data so that you will be in a better position to negotiate better deals with contractors. There's also more that we can do to ensure that the Navy and the rest of the services have the rights they need to bolster readiness. So let me ask you, Secretary Del Toro, would having a stronger focus on right to repair issues during the acquisition process, like prioritizing contract bids that give DoD fair access to repair materials, and ensuring that contract officers are looking into buying technical rights early on, would that help the Navy save costs and boost readiness at the same time? Sec. Carlos Del Toro: Very much. Senator, in fact, one of the things that we have prioritized since I came in as Secretary of the Navy, given my acquisition background, is actually those negotiations need to happen as early as possible before that we even as we develop the acquisition strategy for that contract to go out to bid, and by doing so, we will reap tremendous returns. July 18, 2023 House Judiciary Committee Witnesses: Aaron Perzanowski, Thomas W. Lacchia Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School , Legal Fellow, Hudson Institute's Forum for Intellectual Property Kyle Wiens, Co-founder and CEO, iFixit Paul Roberts, Founder, SecuRepairs.org; Founder and Editor-in-Chief, the Security Ledger Scott Benavidez, Chairman, Automotive Service Association; Owner, Mr. B's Paint & Body Shop Clips 41:25 Scott Benavidez: My name is Scott Benavidez. I'm the Chairman of the Automotive Service Association's Board of Directors. I am also a second generation shop owner from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mr. B's Paint and Body Shop. Scott Benavidez: We do have concerns when some insurers insist on repairs that are simply cheaper and quicker, without regard to quality and safety. Repairers understand better than anyone the threat of replacement crash parts or lesser quality. We can and should have a competitive marketplace that doesn't compromise quality or safety, deciding to only cover the cheapest option without understanding implications for quality leaves collision shops and their customers in a tough position. Very few consumers have the knowledge about these types of crash parts used on their vehicles as numerous crash parts in the marketplace, such as OEM (original equipment manufactured) parts, certified aftermarket parts, aftermarket parts, reconditioned crash parts, and recycled crash parts. Repairers can make recommendations, but their customers are unlikely to hear if the insurance won't cover them. 46:45 Paul Roberts: My name is Paul Roberts, and I'm the founder of Secure Repairs. We're an organization of more than 350 cyber security and information technology professionals who support the right to repair. 46:55 Paul Roberts: I'm speaking to you today on behalf of our members to make clear that the fair access to repair materials sought by right to repair laws does not increase cyber risk, and in fact, it can contribute to a healthier and more secure ecosystem of smart and connected devices. Paul Roberts: Proposed right to repair legislation considered by this Congress, such as the Repair Act, or last session, the Fair Repair Act, simply asks manufacturers that already provide repair information and tools to their authorized repair providers to also provide them at a fair and reasonable price to the owners of the devices and to third parties that they may wish to hire to do their work. 47:35 Paul Roberts: By definition, the information covered by right to repair laws is not sensitive or protected, as evidenced by the fact that the manufacturers already distribute it widely to hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of workers for their authorized repair providers. This could be everyone from mechanics working at auto dealerships to the folks staffing the Geek Squad at Best Buy. 48:00 Paul Roberts: Also, we have yet to find any evidence that the types of information covered by right to repair laws like schematic diagrams, service manuals, diagnostic software and replacement parts act as a portal to cyber attacks. The vast majority of attacks on internet connected devices - from broadband routers to home appliances to automobiles - today exploit weaknesses in the embedded software produced and distributed by the manufacturers, or alternatively, weak device configurations so they're deployed on the internet in ways that make them vulnerable to attack. These security weaknesses are an epidemic. A recent study of the security of Internet of Things devices, by the company Phosphorus Labs, or a cybersecurity company, found that 68% of Internet of Things devices contained high risk or critical software vulnerabilities. As an example, I'd like to call attention to the work of a group of independent researchers recently led by Sam Curry, who published a report, and you can Google this, "Web Hackers vs. the Auto Industry" in January 2023. That group disclosed wide ranging and exploitable flaws in vehicle telematics systems from 16 different auto manufacturers. At a leading GPS supplier to major automakers, the researchers claimed to obtain full access to a company-wide administration panel that gave them the ability to send arbitrary commands to an estimated 15.5 million vehicles, including vehicles used by first responders, police, fire and so on. Hacks like this take place without any access to repair materials, nor is there any evidence that providing access to repair software will open the doors to new attacks. 50:05 Paul Roberts: For the last 25 years, Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has given manufacturers an incentive to deploy software locks widely and to limit access to security researchers. That's kind of a model what we call in cybersecurity, security through obscurity. In other words, by keeping the workings of something secret, you're making it secure. But in fact, that doesn't work, because cyber criminals are very resourceful and they're very determined, and they don't really care what the law says. 50:35 Paul Roberts: Section 1201 has also enabled what one researcher has described as dark patterns in the design and manufacture of hardware that includes everything from locking out customers from access to administrative interfaces, administrative features of the products that they own, as well as practices like part pairing, which Kyle will talk to you more about, in which manufacturers couple replaceable components like screens and sensors and cameras to specific device hardware. Such schemes make manufacturers and their authorized repair providers gatekeepers for repairs, and effectively bar competition from the owners of the devices as well as independent repair providers. 54:45 Kyle Wiens: You think about what is local? What is American? Main Street you have a post office and a repair shop. And unfortunately, we've seen the whittling down of Main Street as the TV repair shops went away when the manufacturers cut off access to schematics, as the camera repair shops went away when Nikon and Canon decided to stop selling them parts. We've seen this systematically across the economy. In the enterprise space, you have Oracle and IBM saying that you can't get security updates to critical cyber infrastructure unless you buy a service contract with them, so they're tying long term service contracts with the security updates that are necessary to keep this infrastructure secure. 56:45 Kyle Wiens: Over the last decade plus, I've been working on Section 1201, trying to get exemptions for the ability to repair products. The challenge that we've had in the section 1201 process every triennial I go back and we ask for permission to be able to fix our own things is that the exemptions we've gotten really only apply to individual consumers. They aren't something that I could use to make a tool to provide to one of you to fix yourself. So in order for someone to take advantage of a 1201 exemption that we have, they have to be a cybersecurity researcher and able to whittle their own tools and use it themselves, and that just doesn't scale. 57:45 Devlin Hartline: My name is Devlin Hartline, and I'm a legal fellow at the Hudson Institute's forum for intellectual property. 57:50 Devlin Hartline: I'd like to start with a question posed by the title of this hearing, is there a right to repair? And the answer is clearly no. A right is a legally enforceable claim against another, but the courts have not recognized that manufacturers have the duty to help consumers make repairs. Instead, the courts have said that while we have the ability to repair our things, we also have the duty not to infringe the IP rights in the process. So it is in fact, the manufacturers who have the relevant rights, not consumers. 58:30 Devlin Hartline: Right to repair supporters want lawmakers to force manufacturers to make the tools, parts, and know-how needed to facilitate repairs available to consumers and independent repair shops. And the assumption here is that anything standing in the way of repair opportunities must necessarily harm the public good, but these tools, parts and know-how, are often protected by IP rights such as copyrights and design patents. And we protect copyrighted works and patented inventions because, as the Constitution recognizes, this promotes the public good. We reward creators and innovators as an incentive for them to bring these things to the marketplace and the public benefits from the introduction of new products and services that increase competition. Thus, the right to repair movement isn't based on a pre-existing right. It's instead asking lawmakers to create a new right at the expense of the existing rights of IP owners. 1:00:45 Devlin Hartline: IP owners are merely exercising their federally protected IP rights, and this is not actionable anti-competitive conduct. It is instead how the IP system is supposed to work. We grant IP owners exclusive rights so they can exclude others, and this, in turn, promotes the investments to create and to commercialize these creative innovations in the marketplace, and that promotes the public good. Aaron Perzanowski: My name is Aaron Perzanowski. I am a professor of law at the University of Michigan, and for the last 15 years, my academic research has focused on the intersection of personal and intellectual property rights in the digital economy. During that time, the right to repair has emerged as a central challenge to the notion that we as consumers control the devices that we buy. Instead consumers, farmers, small businesses, all find that manufacturers exert post-sale control over these devices, often in ways that frustrate repair. Aaron Perzanowski: Repair is as old as humanity. Our Paleolithic ancestors repaired hand axes and other primitive tools, and as our technologies have grown more complex, from the Bronze Age through the Renaissance, to the high tech devices that we all have in our pockets here today, repair has always kept pace. But today, manufacturers are employing a range of strategies that restrict repair, from their hardware and software design choices to clamp downs on secondary markets, and we also troublingly see attempts to leverage IP rights as tools to restrict repair. These efforts are a major departure from the historical treatment of repair under the law, the right to repair is not only consistent with nearly two centuries of IP law in the United States, it reflects half a millennium of common law property doctrine that rejects post-sale restrictions on personal property as early as the 15th century. English property law recognized that once a property owner sells an item, efforts to restrain how the new owner of that item can use it are inconsistent with the essential nature of private property and obnoxious to public policy. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized, IP laws' respect for the property interests of purchasers of copyrighted and patented goods was profoundly shaped by this common law tradition. In 1850, the Supreme Court recognized that the repair of a patented machine reflected "no more than the exercise of that right of care, which everyone may use to give duration to that which he owns." A century later, the Court held that the repair of a convertible car roof was justified as an exercise of "the lawful right of the property owner to repair his property." And just a few years ago, the court reaffirmed the rejection of post-sale restrictions under patent law in Impression Products vs. Lexmark, a case about refurbishing printer ink cartridges. Copyright law, not surprisingly, has had fewer occasions to consider repair restrictions. But as early as 1901, the Seventh Circuit recognized "a right of repair or renewal under US copyright law." When a publisher sued to prevent a used book dealer from repairing and replacing damaged components of books, the court said that "the right of ownership in the book carries with it and includes the right to maintain the book as nearly as possible in its original condition." A century after that, Congress itself acknowledged repair as a right that owners enjoy, regardless of copyright restrictions, when it enacted section 117 C of the Copyright Act. That provision was designed to undo a Ninth Circuit decision that allowed copyright holders to prevent third party repairs of computers. Section 117 C explicitly permits owners of machines to make copies of computer programs in the course of maintenance or repair. And finally, the US Copyright Office over the last decade has repeatedly concluded that diagnosis, repair, and maintenance activities are non-infringing when it comes to vehicles, consumer devices, and medical equipment. So the right to repair is firmly rooted in basic principles of US IP law. Aaron Perzanowski: Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it practically impossible for consumers to exercise their lawful right to repair a wide range of devices, from tractors to home electronics, even though the copyright office says those activities are not infringing, and the weakening of standards for design patents allow firms to choke off the supply of replacement parts needed to repair vehicles, home appliances, and other devices. Aaron Perzanowski: One way to think about a right is as an affirmative power to force someone else to engage in some behavior, and in some cases, that is what we're talking about. We're talking about imposing, especially on the state level, regulations that impose requirements on manufacturers. I think that's true of the Repair Act on the federal level as well. But, I think part of what we also need to keep in mind is that sometimes what you need to effectuate a right is to eliminate barriers that stand in the way of that right. So we can think about this, I think, helpfully in the context of tools that enable people to engage in repair. The state level solution has been to require manufacturers to give their own tools to repair shops, sometimes compensated under fair and reasonable terms. The other solution would be to change section 1201 to say, let's allow independent repair shops to make their own tools. I think both of those solutions have some value to them. I also think it's really important to keep in mind that when we're talking about IP rights, there are always multiple sets of interests at stake, and one of the key balances that IP law has always tried to strike is the balance between the limited statutory exclusive rights that the Patent and Copyright Acts create and the personal property rights of consumers who own these devices. And so I think a balancing is absolutely necessary and appropriate. 1:15:20 Aaron Perzanowski: I think the best solution for Section 1201 is embodied in a piece of legislation that Representatives Jones and Spartz introduced in the last Congress, which would create a permanent exception to Section 1201 for repair that would apply not only to the act of circumvention, but would also apply to the creation and distribution of tools that are useful for repair purposes that does not open the door to broad, unrestrained, creation of circumvention tools, but tools that are that are targeted to the repair market. 1:16:40 Devlin Hartline: He cited a case about where you can repair a cover on a book. That's very different than recreating the book, every single word in it, right? So there's a difference between repairing something and then crossing the line into violating the exclusive rights of IP owners in the patented product or the copyrighted book. And so the things that repair supporters are asking for is that, if somebody has a design patent that covers an auto body part, well, they have the right to exclude other people from making that part, but repair supporters say they shouldn't have that exclusive right, because, you know, we could increase competition if we just took away their design patent and now other people could make that part, and so that's competition. But that's not the type of competition that IP law and competition law seek to support. That's like saying, if we just let the Pirate Bay copy and distribute all of the Disney blockbuster movies, then that's competition, and prices would go down. But that's not the way that we do it, right? So competition means other people come up with new products and new services, and so that's what we should be trying to support. 1:26:45 Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): Repair advocates argue that section 1201, prevents non-infringing circumvention of access controls for purposes. But Congress contemplated this use when it passed the DMCA in 1998, allowing for a triennial exemption process. Is the exemption process working as intended? And if not, are there actions Congress can take to expand exemptions or make them easier to acquire? Devlin Hartline: What's important about the triennial rulemaking is that the proponent of an exemption has to come forward with evidence and demonstrate that there's actually a problem and it relates to a certain class of works, and then they can get a temporary exemption for three years. And so it is true that the Librarian of Congress, the last few rulemakings, has said that because using a copyrighted work in a way for repair, maintenance, etc, is Fair Use that they grant these exemptions. But these exemptions are quite narrow. They do not allow the trafficking of the computer programs that can crack the TPMs. And so it's very narrowly done. And the concern is that if you were to create a permanent exemption that opens things all the way up with access controls, copy controls and trafficking thereof, is now you're getting to the point of why we even have these TPMs under 1201 in the first place, and that's because they guard against piracy. And so the concern is that you're opening the piracy floodgates. You make these devices less secure, and then content owners are going to be less likely to want to put their content on these devices. Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA): How does section 1201 of the DMCA impact the ability of consumers and independent repair shops to modify or repair devices that have proprietary software and data in the consumer electronics industry? Aaron Perzanowski: Thank you so much for the question. As we've been talking about the copyright office in 2015, 2018, 2021, and they're in the process for the current rulemaking, has determined that engaging in circumvention, the removal or bypassing of these digital locks for purposes of repair, is perfectly lawful behavior, but there is a major practical mismatch here between the legal rights that consumers enjoy under federal law today and their practical ability to exercise those rights. And that's because, as Devlin was just describing, the section 1201 rulemaking does not extend to the creation or distribution of tools, right? So I have the right under federal law, to remove the technological lock, say, on my video game console, if I want to swap out a broken disk drive. How do I do that? I'd like to think of myself as a pretty technologically sophisticated person. I don't have the first clue about how to do that. I need a person who can write that code, make that code available to consumers so that I can. All I'm trying to do is swap out a broken disk drive on my video game. But you would argue that code is proprietary, correct? So I'm talking here about a third party making their own code that is simply allowing me to engage in activity that the Copyright Office has repeatedly said is non-infringing. Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA): So you want to give them a map. Is that, essentially, what you're saying? Aaron Perzanowski: Absolutely, yes, I do. Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA): Do trade secrets play a role in the right to repair debate? Aaron Perzanowski: There are occasions where trade secrets are important. I don't think in the context that we're talking about here with section 1201, that we're typically running into trade secret issues. The state-level bills that have been introduced do typically address trade secrets and often have carve outs there. And I think that's something worth considering in this debate. But I think it's important to keep in mind that just because we have some hypothetical worry about some unknown bad actor taking a tool that I use to fix my video game console -- Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA): It's not unknown. The Chinese do it all the time. Aaron Perzanowski: I don't think the Chinese are particularly worried about whether or not I can fix my video game console, and in fact, I think that point is important, but the bad actors already have these tools. All we're trying to do is get very targeted tools in the hands of law abiding citizens who just want to repair the stuff they buy for their kids for Christmas, right? If the Chinese are going to hack the PlayStation, they've already done it. 1:32:25 Aaron Perzanowski: So the 1201 process is what established the legality of circumvention for repair purposes. But when Congress created that rulemaking authority, it only extends to the act of circumvention, the actual removal. Congress did not give the [Copyright] Office or the Librarian [of Congress] the authority to grant exemptions to the trafficking provisions, and that's where I think legislative intervention is really important. 1:39:00 Kyle Wiens: One of the challenges was section 1201. It doesn't just ban repair tools, it also bans the distribution of cybersecurity tools. And so we've seen security researchers....Apple sued a company that made a security research tool under 1201 and that tool has markedly made the world more secure. It's very popular amongst government security researchers. So I think that's kind of the sweet spot is, allow some third party inspection. It'll make the product better. 1:41:25 Kyle Wiens: These ice cream machines are made by Taylor, and there is an incredibly complex, baroque set of touchscreens you have to go through. And then there's a service password you have to be able to get past in order to access the settings that really allow you to do what you want. And so, in an ideal world, you'd have an entrepreneur who would come along and make a tool to make it easier for McDonald's, maybe they could have an app on their phone that they could use to configure and help them diagnose and repair the machine. Unfortunately, the company who made that tool is struggling legally because of all these challenges across the board. If we had innovation outside of the manufacturers and to be able to develop new tools for fixing ice cream machines or anything else, you have a whole flowering ecosystem of repair tools right now. It doesn't exist. The US is like this black hole where innovation is banned in software repair. There's all kinds of opportunities I could see, I had a farmer ask me for help fixing his John Deere tractor, and I had to say, I can't do that particular repair because it's illegal. I'd love to build a cool app for helping him diagnose and fix his tractor and get back back in the field faster. We don't have that marketplace right now. It's like farmers have been forced to, like, use cracked Ukrainian versions of John Deere diagnostic software, right? Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): So it's not just ice cream machines. I led off with that, but it's farmers, it's farm equipment, it's iPhones, it's somebody's Xbox, right? I mean, these are all things.... in your experience, what are the challenges that these customers and stakeholders face when they're trying to repair their own devices? What are some things that they face? Kyle Wiens: It's absolutely infuriating. So my friend, farmer in San Luis Obispo, Dave grows all kinds of amazing products. He has a $300,000 John Deere tractor, came to me and said, Hey, there's a bad sensor. It's going to take a week to get that sensor sent out from Indiana, and I need to use the tractor in that time. Will you help me bypass the sensor? I could hypothetically modify the software in the tractor to do that. Practically, I didn't have the legal ability, and so he had to go and rent an expensive tractor for the week. This is impacting people's lives every single day. 1:43:50 Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): So, to pivot a little bit, what role do you see from a federal side, from legislation, and what specific measures do you think might be included in such legislation? Kyle Wiens: So we've seen the solutions being approached from two angles. At the state level, you have states saying John Deere and other manufacturers, if you have a dealership that has fancy tools, sell those tools to consumers and to independent shops, allow that competition. At the federal level, what we can do is enable a competitive marketplace for those tools. So rather than compelling John Deere to sell the tool, we can say, hey, it's legal for someone, an entrepreneur, to make a competing tool. And you have this in the car market. You can take your car down the AutoZone, you can buy a scan tool, plug it into your car, and it'll decode some of the error messages. Those tools exist on the auto market because we have a standard diagnostic interface on cars that you can access without circumventing a TPM. We don't have that for any other products. So another farmer in my town, he showed me how if he has a transmission go out on a truck, he can fix that. But if he has a transmission go out on his John Deere tractor, he can't. He can physically install the transmission, but he can't program it to make it work. I'd love to be able to make a software tool to enable him to replace his transmission. Aaron Perzanowski: So I think if we see passage of the SMART Act, we can anticipate significant reductions in the expenses associated with auto collision repairs. Estimates are that design patents on collision parts are responsible for about $1.5 billion in additional expenditures. We see price premiums on OEM parts over third party parts often reaching into like the 40% range, right? So these are pretty significant cost savings associated with that. Part of this problem, I think, does relate back to the kind of unique structure of this market. Most consumers are not paying out of pocket for collision repairs. Those costs are being covered by their auto insurance provider, and so the consumer doesn't see that the - I'm pulling this from memory, so don't hold me to this figure - but the side view mirror of a Ford Fiesta costing $1,500, that's not something that the consumer is confronted with, right? So this goes back to the question of notice. Do consumers know when they buy that vehicle that the repairs are going to be that expensive? I think in most cases, they don't. And so I think the SMART Act is a very targeted solution to this problem. I do think it's important to note that the design patent issue for replacement parts is not limited to the automotive industry. I think it's the most, I think that's the area where the problem is most pressing. But home appliances, consumer electronics, we see companies getting design patents on replacement water filters for refrigerators so that they can charge three times as much when the little light comes on on your fridge to tell you that your water might not be as clean as you want it to be. So I think we have to think about that problem across a range of industries, but the automotive industry, I think, is absolutely the right place to start. Paul Roberts: I mean, one point I would just make is that with the Internet of Things, right, we are facing a crisis in the very near future as manufacturers of everything from home appliances to personal electronics to equipment, as those products age and those manufacturers walk away from their responsibility to maintain them. So we're no longer supporting the software. We're no longer issuing security updates. Who will step in to maintain those devices? Keep them secure, keep them operating right? The manufacturers walked away. Do we just get rid of them? No, because the equipment still works perfectly. We're going to need a market-based response to that. We're going to need small businesses to step up and say, hey, I'll keep that Samsung dishwasher working for another 20 years. That's a huge economic opportunity for this country, but we cannot do it in the existing system because of the types of restrictions that we're talking about. And so this is really about enabling a secure future in which, when you buy a dishwasher with a 20 year lifespan, or 25 year lifespan, it's going to last that 25 years, not the five to six years that the manufacturer has decided, you know, that's how long we want to support the software for. Paul Roberts: My understanding is the use of design patents has increased dramatically, even exponentially, in the last 10 to 15 years. If you go back to the 90s or 80s, you know, parts makers, automakers were not applying these types of patents to replaceable parts like bumpers and rear view mirrors. Somebody had a business decision that, if you can do so, then we can capture more of that aftermarket by outlawing identical aftermarket replacements that has a huge downstream impact on car owners and on insurers and on all of us. 2:10:15 Paul Roberts: Both of the things that we're really proposing or talking about here, which would be changes to Section 1201 of the DMCA as well as passage of robust right to repair laws, would empower a market-based response to keeping the internet of things working, secure and functioning. DMCA 1201 reforms by making it clear that you can circumvent software locks for the purpose of repair and maintenance and upkeep, right? So that would take the threat of the federal crime away from small business owners as well as security researchers who are interested in, you know, plumbing that software for purposes of maintenance, upkeep and repair. And on the right to repair by making the tools available to maintain and upkeep products - diagnostic software, schematic diagrams, service manuals - available. Once again, you'll be empowering small business owners to set up repair shops and say, I'm going to keep your smart appliance running for its full 25 or 30 year lifespan, and I'm going to support my family doing that locally, and not be basically choked out of business by a company that says, Well, you don't have the right to access this product. From a cybersecurity perspective, that is really important, because one thing we don't want is a population of millions or tens of millions of out of date, unsupported, unpatched, insecure internet connected home appliances, webcams, home routers out there available to nation state actors, cyber criminal groups, to compromise and use for their own purposes. And that's something we already see, particularly around broadband routers and other types of devices, and it's a real threat going forward that I think this type of these types of changes would support. Aaron Perzanowski In a lot of instances, this conversation, and we've touched on this earlier, focuses on cost savings, right? And cost savings are an important consideration, right? Farmers aren't thrilled that they have to pay a technician from the John Deere dealer to drive maybe hours to get to their farm and connect their laptop and, you know, download these payload files to enable their equipment to work. But in the agricultural space, the thing I hear most often in the conversations I have with farmers is and Kyle touched on this a bit earlier, is a real concern about the time sensitivity of their work. If your tractor is out of commission for a week or two in the wrong part of the season, that is going to have disastrous effects, right, not only on that farm's economic outlook, but collectively, it can have an impact like, not to be hyperbolic here, but on our national food supply, and so I think it's really important that farmers have flexibility in terms of where and how they execute repairs, so that they can get their equipment back up and running. If my laptop breaks and I can't get it fixed for a week or two, I'm annoyed there will be emails that go unanswered, but like the world will continue to spin. That is not the case in the agricultural space where we, I think, have to be much more concerned. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): If I remove from my BMW, at least during certain models, I remove the radio, unplug it, and then plug it back in, simply because I was fiddling around with the dash, I now have to go back to the dealer to reinstall it. Similarly, the transmission example. I've got two John Deere tractors. One's got a busted engine, the other's got a busted transmission. Currently, they will prohibit you from moving the transmission from one to the other. From a standpoint of intellectual property, where, in God's green earth or the Constitution, are any of those designed to be rights that belong to the manufacturer, rather than rights that belong to the owners of those two John Deere tractors? Devlin Hartline: So those are a bunch of different situations, and so I think there would be underlying facts that differ with each right. So we started on the iPhone, and I was going to point out that iPhone will actually give you the tool to synchronize it. In those other situations, I don't know the business justification for it. How is that an IP problem? Right? So if that's locked up with the TPM, and you have to bypass the TPM, well then that's a violation of 1201, so that's how they can that's how they can lock -- Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): So what you're saying is that Congress has created impediments to the right to repair. Mr. Roberts, would you say that is correct? That, in fact, the right to repair, were Congress never to have done anything since, you know, George and Thomas were our presidents, so to speak, knowing those two presidents, we'd be able to do things we're not able to do because they're now prohibited by acts of Congress. Paul Roberts: Yes, and we certainly know going back to the 50s, 60s, 70s, there was a much more you know....First of all, companies would ship products with service and repair manuals with detailed schematic diagrams with the understanding that owners would want to replace and service them. And what I would say is, yes, absolutely. I doubt very much. And I know we had members who were here in 1998 authoring the DMCA. I think if you had said to them, in 25 years time, this law will be used to prevent somebody with a broken dishwasher from getting that serviced by their local repair shop or by for fixing it themselves, this law will prevent them from doing that, I doubt very much they would have said, yeah, that's pretty much what we want. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): Well, I will tell you that the I was the chairman of what is now the Consumer Electronics Association in 1998 and we did predict a lot of these items were going to be expanded beyond the scope of the original. Paul Roberts: Right now this is not an urgent issue, because most of the cars out there are older vehicles. As we move forward, as telematic systems evolve, as automakers continue their trend of moving more and more information to telematic systems, this is going to become a bigger problem. I'll point out another problem, which is the Massachusetts law is contingent on data transfers of diagnostic and repair information via the OBD or onboard diagnostic two port under the dashboard. That's only there because of federal Clean Air law. Electronic vehicles don't have that port because they don't have emissions, and so in the very near future, as we shift to electronic vehicles, that data access port will no longer be there. It will all be telematics data, and so the utility of the Massachusetts law is going to decline over time, going forward. And again, I you know, when you start talking about right to repair, you become like this crazy person who talks about right to repair every time it comes up. But one thing I try and stress to people when I talk to them about auto repair is, if you live in Michigan or California and you have taken your vehicle to the local independent repair shop, you have only done that because the voters in Massachusetts passed a ballot measure over a decade ago and then updated it in November 2020. That is the very thin thread that our right to use independent auto repair hangs by in this country. That's not the way it's supposed to be. This is something that affects vehicle owners, hundreds of millions of them in all 50 states. And it's a type of thing that the federal government needs to address with federal legislation. It should not hang by this very thin thread. 2:30:20 Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA): Are software updates new creations, and thus copyrightable? Devlin Hartline: Software updates, yeah, they're computer programs, and so Congress said explicitly in 1980, but it was understood before then, that computer programs are literary works and they're protected, just like any other copyrighted work. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA): Thank you, Professor Perzanowski, do you disagree? Aaron Perzanowski: I don't disagree at all that software updates are protectable subject matter under the Copyright Act. But what I think is important to keep in mind right is the Copyright Act and copyrights exclusive rights, and all of the exceptions and limitations to copyrights exclusive rights are created by Congress, and so if you think those rights are interfering with other important issues and concerns, then I think Congress clearly has the power to make changes to the copyright law in order to best serve what you ultimately determine to be in the public interest. 2:35:30 Aaron Perzanowski: Access to firmware and other code is really essential to the functioning and repair of lots of devices. I think there's some important differences between the standard essential patent context and kind of what we're talking about here in that in the standard essential patent context, we're relying on standard setting bodies to identify technologies and to require companies to license their patents under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. We don't quite have that infrastructure in place in the copyright context, but what we do have are compulsory licenses that exist within the Copyright Act already, one of which you were alluding to earlier, the mechanical license for musical works. We also have compulsory licenses for retransmissions of satellite and broadcast content that essentially say the copyright owner is entitled to compensation of some form, but they're not entitled to prevent people from using or accessing that underlying work, and I think that could be a useful framework here for getting owners of devices access to the firmware that they need. Music by Editing Production Assistance

ZOHAR Re'eh: Open Secret. The Deepest Mystery is in the Literal. Embodied Spirituality. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ravpinsonpodcast/support

Today, the tech industry is  the second-biggest lobbying power in Washington, DC, but that wasn't true as recently as ten years ago. How did we get to this moment? And where could we be going next? On this episode of Your Undivided Attention, Tristan and Daniel sit down with historian Margaret O'Mara and journalist Brody Mullins to discuss how Silicon Valley has changed the nature of American lobbying. Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_RECOMMENDED MEDIAThe Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government - Brody's book on the history of lobbying.The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America - Margaret's book on the historical relationship between Silicon Valley and Capitol HillMore information on the Google antitrust rulingMore Information on KOSPAMore information on the SOPA/PIPA internet blackoutDetailed breakdown of Internet lobbying from Open Secrets RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODESU.S. Senators Grilled Social Media CEOs. Will Anything Change?Can We Govern AI? with Marietje SchaakeThe Race to Cooperation with David Sloan Wilson CORRECTION: Brody Mullins refers to AT&T as having a “hundred million dollar” lobbying budget in 2006 and 2007. While we couldn't verify the size of their budget for lobbying, their actual lobbying spend was much less than this: $27.4m in 2006 and $16.5m in 2007, according to OpenSecrets. The views expressed by guests appearing on Center for Humane Technology's podcast, Your Undivided Attention, are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CHT. CHT does not support or oppose any candidate or party for election to public office 

The Boeing 737 Max line of airplanes has been in the news often in the last 5 years after two fatal plane crashes and a door plug flew off a plane mid-flight, but Boeing's recklessness extends far beyond the 737 Max. In this episode, hear testimony from whistleblowers, engineering experts, and government regulators during recent Congressional investigations into Boeing's prioritization of its stock price over our safety. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes Boeing's Ongoing Problems Mike Bedigan. July 10, 2024. The Independent. July 10, 2024. Federal Aviation Administration. Noa Halff. July 9, 2024. The Daily Mail. March 8, 2024. NBC Bay Area. Tom Vacar and Zak Sos. March 7, 2024. KTVU FOX 2. NASA Starliner AP. June 29, 2024. NPR. Kenneth Chang. June 5, 2024. The New York Times. Kenneth Chang. March 6, 2020. The New York Times. Ties to US Government Defense Edward Carver. May 29, 2024. Truthout. Yeganeh Torbati and Aaron Gregg. November 25, 2020. The Washington Post. Lobbying OpenSecrets. OpenSecrets. Alaska Airlines Door Plug Blowout Simon Scarr et al. January 11, 2024. Reuters. FAA “Oversight” Marc Warren and Paul Alp. February 1, 2024. Adams and Reese LLP. Deferred Prosecution Agreement January 7, 2021. U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division. Boeing Guilty Plea David Koenig and Alanna Durkin Richer. July 9, 2024. AP News. Joel Rose. July 9, 2024. NPR. David Dayen. July 3, 2024. The American Prospect. Stock Buybacks Stock Buybacks History. Boeing Orders Boeing. John Barnett Mike Bedigan. June 18, 2024. The Independent. Theo Leggett. March 11, 2024. BBC News. May 4, 2021. United States Department of Labor Administrative Law Judges. Staying Safe on Planes Peter Weber. January 8, 2015. The Week. Harold Maass. January 8, 2015. The Week. Charles W. Bryant. Nd. Mapquest Travel. McDonnell Douglas Merger James Surowiecki. January 15, 2024. The Atlantic. Natasha Frost. January 3, 2020. Quartz. Laws Audio Sources June 18, 2024 Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Witnesses: David Calhoun, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Boeing Company June 13, 2024 Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation Witnesses: , Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration April 17, 2024 Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Witnesses: Sam Salehpour, Current Quality Engineer, Boeing Ed Pierson, Executive Director, The Foundation for Aviation Safety, Former Boeing Manager Joe Jacobsen, Aerospace Engineer and Technical Advisor to the Foundation for Aviation Safety, Former FAA Engineer Dr. Shawn Pruchnicki, Professional Practice Assistant Professor of Integrated Systems Engineering, The Ohio State University April 17, 2024 Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation Witnesses: Dr. Javier de Luis, Lecturer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Dr. Tracy Dillinger, Manager for Safety Culture and Human Factors, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Dr. Najmedin Meshkati, Professor, University of Southern California, Aviation Safety and Security Program March 6, 2024 Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation Witnesses: Jennifer Homendy, Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board Bloomberg Originals March 12, 2020 June 4, 2019 Music by Editing Production Assistance

On today's episode of The Morning Rush: #UsapangOpenSecret - Chico, Hazel, Markki, and the Rushers talk today's Top 10. Thanks @UniterxKatseye for the topic! The Morning Rush, the multi-award-winning comedy radio program, is now on your favorite streaming platforms! Join Chico, Hazel and Markki for a daily dose of laughter and hilarity as they cover the latest news, pop culture, celebrity gossip with Tea over Coffee, and of course, the Daily Top 10's. With our hilarious hosts and engaging guests, The Morning Rush is the perfect way to start your day with a smile. Join our daily Top 10 entries by sending us a post on X with the hashtag of the day's Top 10 topic and #TheMorningRush Send in your greets or requests via the Monster text line on Viber or Telegram: +63 961 1367 931 Follow us on our socials: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ channel for more content! Follow our TMR hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chico⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Hazel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Markki⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Every American who has a mortgage is required by their bank to have homeowners insurance, but getting it and keeping it is becoming a challenge. In this episode, hear the highlights of a Senate hearing examining the problems in the homeowners insurance market and why they might lead to much bigger problems next time disaster strikes. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Effects of Climate on Insurance Christopher Flavelle and Mira Rojanasakul. May 13, 2024. The New York Times. Chris Van Hollen et al. September 7, 2023. Chris Van Hollen, U.S. Senator for Maryland. Alice C. Hill. August 17, 2023. Council on Foreign Relations. Insurance Information Institute. Antonio Grimaldi et al. November 19, 2020. McKinsey & Company. Lobbying OpenSecrets. OpenSecrets. OpenSecrets. Heritage Foundation SourceWatch. Demotech William Rabb. April 15, 2024. Insurance Journal. Parinitha Sastry et al. December 2023. Fannie Mae Adam Hayes. May 17, 2023. Investopedia. Hurricanes National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Audio Sources Senate Committee on the Budget June 5, 2024 Witnesses: Glen Mulready, Insurance Commissioner, State of Oklahoma Rade Musulin, Principal, Finity Consulting Dr. Ishita Sen, Assistant Professor of Finance, Harvard Business School Deborah Wood, Florida Resident , Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation's Grover Hermann Center for the Federal Budget Clips 23:05 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): In 2022 and 2023, more than a dozen insurance companies left the Florida residential market, including national insurers like Farmers. Residents fled to Citizens Property Insurance, the state backed insurer of last resort, which ballooned from a 4% market share in 2019 to as much as 17% last year. If it has to pay out claims that exceed its reserves, citizens can levy a surcharge on Florida insurance policy holders across the state. Good luck with that. Particularly if the surcharge grows to hundreds or even thousands of dollars to depopulate its books. Citizens has let private insurers cherry pick out its least risk policies. Those private insurers may have problems of their own, as we will hear today. 25:10 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): The federal budget takes a hit because these insurers and their policies are accepted by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, who either own or guarantee a large part of our $12 trillion mortgage market. This all sounds eerily reminiscent of the run-up to the mortgage meltdown of 2008, including a role of potentially captive or not fully responsible rating agencies. 25:45 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): Florida is far from alone. A New York Times investigation found that the insurance industry lost money on homeowners coverage in 18 states last year, and the states may surprise you. The list includes Illinois, Michigan, Utah, Washington, and Iowa. Insurers in Iowa lost money each of the last four years. This is a signal that hurricanes and earthquakes, once the most prevalent perils, are being rivaled by hail, windstorms, and wildfires. 28:00 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): This isn't all that complicated. Climate risk makes things uninsurable. No insurance makes things unmortgageable. No mortgages crashes the property markets. Crashed property markets trash the economy. It all begins with climate risk, and a major party pretending that climate risk isn't real imperils our federal budget and millions of Americans all across the country. 33:45 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): Insurance premiums are far too high across the board and may increase after the recent storms, including those very storms in my state of Iowa. Climate change isn't the primary driver of insurance rate hikes and collapse of the insurance industry isn't imminent. Although I'll have to say, Iowa had six property and casualty companies pull out of insuring Iowans. Climate change doesn't explain why auto insurance premiums in 2024 have increased by a whopping 20% year over year. It also doesn't account for the consistent failure of liberal cities to fight crime, which has raised insurance risk and even caused insurers to deny coverage. Expensive liberal policies, not climate change, are much to blame for these market dynamics. 39:00 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): The first witness is Rade Musulin. Rade is an actuary with 45 years of experience in insurance, specializing in property pricing, natural perils, reinsurance, agriculture, catastrophe, risk modeling, public policy development, and climate risk. Specifically, he spent many years working in Florida, including as chair of the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund Advisory Council during the time in which Citizens Property Insurance Corporation was established. 39:35 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): Our second witness is Dr. Ishida Sen. Dr. Sen is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School. Her recent research examines the pricing of property insurance and the interactions between insurance and mortgage markets. This includes the role that institutions and the regulatory landscape play and the broader consequences for real estate markets, climate adaptation, and our overall financial stability. 40:00 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): Our third witness is Deb Wood. Ms. Wood and her husband Dan McGrath are both retired Floridians. They moved to South Florida in 1979 and lived in Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale for 43 years until skyrocketing insurance premiums became too much. They now reside in Tallahassee, Florida. 40:35 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): Dr. EJ Antoni is a Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget. His research focuses on fiscal and monetary policy, and he previously was an economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Antoni earned his Master's degree and Doctor's degree in Economics from Northern Illinois University. 41:10 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): Commissioner Glen Mulready has served as Oklahoma's 13th Insurance Commissioner and was first elected to this position in 2019. Commissioner Mulready started his insurance career as a broker in 1984, and also served in the Oklahoma State House of Representatives. 42:15 Rade Musulin: Okay. My name is Ray Muslin. I'm an actuary who has extensive experience in natural hazard risks and funding arrangements for the damage and loss they cause. I've worked with many public sector entities on policy responses to the challenges of affordability, availability of insurance, and community resilience. This work included participating in Florida's response to Hurricane Andrew, which included the creation of the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund and Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. The Cat Fund and Citizens can access different forms of funding than traditional insurance companies. Instead of holding sufficient capital or reinsurance before an event to cover the cost of potential losses, both entities use public sources of capital to reduce upfront costs by partially funding losses post-event through bonding and assessments. All property casualty insurance policy holders, whether in Citizens or not, are subject to its assessments. While the Cat Fund can also assess almost all policies, including automobile, this approach exposes Floridians to debt and repayment if large losses occur, and it subsidizes high risk policies from the entire population. These pools, others like them in other states, and the NFIP have contributed to rapid development in high risk areas driving higher costs in the long run. In Florida, national insurers have reduced their exposure as a significant proportion of the insurance market has moved to Citizens or smaller insurers with limited capital that are heavily dependent on external reinsurance. To date, Florida's system has been successful in meeting its claims obligations, while improvements in building codes have reduced loss exposure. However, for a variety of reasons, including exposure to hurricanes, claims cost inflation, and litigation, Florida's insurance premiums are the highest in the nation, causing significant affordability stress for consumers. According to market research from Bankrate, the average premium for a $300,000 home in Florida is three times the national average, with some areas five times the national average. A major hurricane hitting a densely populated area like Miami could trigger large and long lasting post-event assessments or even exceed the system's funding capacity. Continued rapid exposure growth and more extreme hurricane losses amplified by climate change will cause increasing stress on the nation's insurance system, which may be felt through solvency issues, non-renewals, growth of government pools, and affordability pressure. 44:55 Rade Musulin: Evidence of increasing risk abounds, including Hurricane Otis in 2023, which rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to a cat. five hurricane and devastated Acapulco in Mexico last summer. Water temperatures off Florida exceeded a hundred degrees Fahrenheit last week. As was alluded to earlier, NOAA forecast an extremely active hurricane season for '24. We've seen losses in the Mid-Atlantic from Sandy, record flooding from Harvey, and extreme devastation from Maria, among others. In coming decades, we must prepare for the possibility of more extreme hurricanes and coastal flooding from Texas to New England. 46:50 Dr. Ishita Sen: Good morning Senators. I am Ishita Sen, Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School and my research studies insurance markets. In recent work with co-authors at Columbia University and the Federal Reserve Board, I examine how climate risk creates fiscal and potentially financial instability because of miscalibrated insurer screening standards and repercussions to mortgage markets. 47:15 Dr. Ishita Sen: Insurance is critical to the housing market. Property insurers help households rebuild after disasters by preserving collateral values and reducing the likelihood that a borrower defaults. Insurance directly reduces the risks for mortgage lenders and the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Mortgage Lenders therefore require property insurance and the GSEs only purchase mortgages backed by insurers who meet minimum financial strength ratings, which measure insurer solvency and ability to pay claims. The GSEs accept three main rating agencies AM Best, S & P and, more recently, Demotech. And to provide an example, Fannie Mae requires insurers to have at least a B rating from AM Best, or at least an A rating from Demo Tech to accept a mortgage. Now, despite having this policy in place, we find a dramatic rise in mortgages backed by fragile insurers and show that the GSEs and therefore the taxpayers ultimately shoulder a large part of the financial burden. Our research focuses on Florida because of availability of granular insurance market data, and we show that traditional insurers are exiting and the gap is rapidly being filled by insurers, rated by Demotech, which has about 60% market share in Florida today. These insurers are low quality across a range of different financial and operational metrics, and are at a very high risk of becoming insolvent. But despite their risk, these insurers secure high enough ratings to meet the minimum rating requirements set by the GSEs. Our analysis shows that many actually would not be eligible under the methodologies of other rating agencies, implying that in many cases these ratings are inflated and that the GSEs insurer requirements are miscalibrated. 49:20 Dr. Ishita Sen: We next look at how fragile insurers create mortgage market risks. So in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, homeowners with a policy from one of the insolvent Demotech insurers were significantly more likely to default on their mortgage relative to similar borrowers with policies from stable insurers. This is because insurers that are in financial trouble typically are slower to pay claims or may not pay the full amounts. But this implies severe economic hardships for many, many Floridians despite having expensive insurance coverage in place. However, the pain doesn't just stop there. The financial costs of fragile insurers go well beyond the borders of Florida because lenders often sell mortgages, for example, to the GSEs, and therefore, the risks created by fragile insurers spread from one state to the rest of the financial system through the actions of lenders and rating agencies. In fact, we show two reasons why the GSEs bear a large share of insurance fragility risk. First is that lenders strategically securitize mortgages, offloading loans backed by Demotech insurers to the GSEs in order to limit their counterparty risk exposures. And second, that lenders do not consider insurer risk during mortgage origination for loans that they can sell to the GSEs, even though they do so for loans that they end up retaining, indicating lax insurer screening standards for loans that can be offloaded to the GSEs. 50:55 Dr. Ishita Sen: Before I end, I want to leave you with two numbers. Over 90%. That's our estimate of Demotech's market share among loans that are sold to the GSEs. And 25 times more. That's Demotech's insolvency rate relative to AM Best, among the GSE eligible insurers. 57:15 Glen Mulready: As natural disasters continue to rise, understanding the dynamics of insurance pricing is crucial for both homeowners and policymakers. Homeowners insurance is a fundamental safeguard for what is for many Americans their single largest asset. This important coverage protects against financial loss due to damage or destruction of a home and its contents. However, recent years have seen a notable increase in insurance premiums. One significant driver of this rise is convective storms and other severe weather events. Convective storms, which include phenomena like thunderstorms, tornadoes, and hail, have caused substantial damage in various regions. The cost to repair homes and replace belongings after such events has skyrocketed leading insurance companies to adjust their premiums to cover that increased risk. Beyond convective storms, we've witnessed hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding. These events have not only caused damage, but have also increased the long-term risk profile of many areas. Insurance companies are tasked with managing that risk and have responded by raising premiums to ensure they can cover those potential claims. 58:30 Glen Mulready: Another major factor influencing homeowner's insurance premiums is inflation. Inflation affects the cost of building materials, labor, and other expenses related to home repair and reconstruction. As the cost of living increases, so does the cost of claims for insurers. When the price of lumber, steel, and other essential materials goes up, the expense of repairing or rebuilding homes also rises. Insurance companies must reflect these higher costs in their premiums to maintain financial stability and ensure they can meet those contractual obligations to policyholders. 59:35 Glen Mulready: I believe the most essential aspect of managing insurance premiums is fostering a robust, competitive free market. Competition among insurance companies encourages innovation and efficiency, leading to better pricing and services for consumers. When insurers can properly underwrite and price for risk, they create a more balanced and fair market. This involves using advanced data analytics and modeling techniques to accurately assess the risk levels of different properties. By doing so, insurance companies can offer premiums that reflect the true risk, avoiding excessive charges for low risk homeowners, and ensuring high risk properties are adequately covered. Regulation also plays a crucial role in maintaining a healthy insurance market. Policyholders must strike a balance between consumer protection and allowing insurers the freedom and flexibility to adjust their pricing based on the risk. Overly stringent regulations can stifle competition and lead to market exits, reducing choices for consumers. We've seen this play out most recently in another state where there were artificial caps put in place on premium increases that worked well for consumers in the short term, but then one by one, all of the major insurers began announcing they would cease to write any new homeowners insurance in that state. These are all private companies, and if there's not the freedom and flexibility to price their products properly, they may have to take drastic steps as we've seen. Conversely, a well-regulated market encourages transparency and fairness, ensuring that homeowners have access to the most affordable and adequate coverage options. 1:02:00 Dr. EJ Antoni: I'm a public finance economist and the Richard F. Aster fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where I research fiscal and monetary policy with a particular focus on the Federal Reserve. I am also a senior fellow at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. 1:02:15 Dr. EJ Antoni: Since January 2021, prices have risen a cumulative 19.3% on average in the American economy. Construction prices for single family homes have risen much faster, up 30.5% during the same time. 1:03:20 Dr. EJ Antoni: Actuarial tables used in underwriting to estimate risk and future losses, as well as calculate premiums, rely heavily on those input costs. When prices increase radically, precisely as has happened over the last several years, old actuarial tables are of significantly less use when pricing premiums because they will grossly understate the future cost to the insurer. The sharp increase in total claim costs since 2019 has resulted in billions of dollars of losses for both insurers and reinsurers prompting large premium increases to stop those losses. This has put significant financial stress on consumers who are already struggling with a cost of living crisis and are now faced with much higher insurance premiums, especially for homeowners insurance. 1:05:10 Dr. EJ Antoni: The increase in claims related to weather events has undoubtedly increased, but it is not due to the climate changing. This is why the insurance and reinsurance markets do not rely heavily on climate modeling when pricing premiums. Furthermore, climate models are inherently subjective, not merely in how the models are constructed, but also by way of the inputs that the modeler uses. In other words, because insufficient data exists to create a predictive model, a human being must make wide ranging assumptions and add those to the model in place of real world data. Thus, those models have no predictive value for insurers. 1:07:40 Sen. Sheldon Whitehoue (D-RI): You say that this combination of demographics, development, and disasters poses a significant risk to our financial system. What do you mean by risk to our financial system Rade Musulin: Well, Senator, if you look at the combination, as has been pointed out, of high growth and wealth accumulation in coastal areas, and you look at just what we've observed in the climate, much less what's predicted in the future, there is significant exposure along the coastline from Maine to Texas. In fact, my family's from New Jersey and there is enormous development on the coast of New Jersey. And if we start to get major hurricanes coming through those areas, the building codes are probably not up to the same standards they are in Florida. And we could be seeing some significant losses, as I believe was pointed out in the recent Federal Reserve study. Sen. Sheldon Whitehoue (D-RI): And how does that create risk to the financial system? Rade Musulin: Well, because it's sort of a set of dominoes, you start with potentially claims issues with the insurers being stressed and not able to pay claims. You have post-event rate increases as we've seen in Florida, you could have situations where people cannot secure insurance because they can't afford it, then that affects their mortgage security and so on and so forth. So there are a number of ways that this could affect the financial system, sir. Sen. Sheldon Whitehoue (D-RI): Cascading beyond the immediate insurer and becoming a national problem. Rade Musulin: Well, I would just note Senator, that in Florida, the real problems started years after we got past Andrew. We got past paying the claims on Andrew, and then the big problems occurred later when we tried to renew the policies. 1:10:50 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): And you see in this, and I'm quoting you here, parallels in the 2008 financial crisis. What parallels do you see? Dr. Ishita Sen: So just like what happened during the financial crisis, there were rating agencies that gave out high ratings to pools of mortgages backed by subprime loans. Here we have a situation where rating agencies like Demotech are giving out inflated ratings to insurance companies. The end result is sort of the same. There is just too much risk and too many risky mortgages being originated, in this case backed by really low quality insurers that are then entering the financial system. And the consequences of that has to be born by, of course the homeowners, but also the mortgage owners, GSCs (Government Sponsored Enterprises), the lenders, and ultimately the federal and state governments. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): You say, this will be my last question. The fragility of property insurers is an important channel through which climate risk might threaten the stability of mortgage markets and possibly the financial system. What do you mean when you refer to a risk to the financial system? Dr. Ishita Sen: Well, as I was explaining the GSEs, if there are large losses that the GSEs face, then those losses have to be plugged by somebody. So the taxpayers, that's one channel through which you've got risk to the financial system and the GSE's serve as a backstop in the mortgage market. They may not have the ability or capacity to do so in such a scenario, which affects mortgage backed security prices, which are held by all sorts of financial institutions. So that starts affecting all of these institutions. On the other hand, if you've got a bunch of insurers failing, another channel is these insurers are one of the largest investors in many asset classes like corporate bonds, equities, and so on. And they may have to dump these securities at inopportune times, and that affects the prices of these securities as well. 1:12:45 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-AI): Dr. Antoni, is there any evidence to support the notion that climate change is the greatest threat to the insurance market? Dr. EJ Antoni: No. Senator, there is not. And part of that has to do again, with the fact that when we look at the models that are used to predict climate change, we simply don't have enough empirical data with which we can input into those models. And so as a result of that, we have to have human assumptions on what we think is going to happen based essentially on a guess. And as a result of that, these models really are not of any predictive value, and that's why these models for the last 50 years have been predicting catastrophic outcomes, none of which have come true. 1:14:45 Glen Mulready: This focus on the rating agencies, I would agree with that if that were the be all end all. But the state insurance commissioners in each 50 states is tasked with the financial solvency of the insurance companies. We do not depend on rating agencies for that. We are doing financial exams on them. We are doing financial analysis every quarter on each one of them. So I would agree if that was the sort of be all end all, forgive that phrase, but it's not at all. And we don't depend very much at all on those rating agencies from our standpoint. 1:22:15 Dr. Ishita Sen: On the point about regulators looking at -- rating agencies is not something that we need to look at. I would just point out that in Florida, if you look at the number of exams that the Demotech rated insurers, that by the way have a 20% insolvency rate relative to 0% for traditional insurers, they get examined at the same rate as the traditional insurers like Farmers and AllState get examined, which is not something that you would expect if you're more risky. You would expect regulators to come look at them much, much more frequently. And the risk-based capital requirements that we have currently, which were designed in the 1980s, they're just not sensitive enough to new risks like wildfire and hurricanes and so on. And also not as well designed for under-diversified insurance companies because if so, all of these insurers were meeting the risk-based capital requirements, however, at the same time going insolvent at the rate of 20%. So those two things don't really go hand in hand. 1:23:25 Dr. Ishita Sen: Ultimately what the solution is is something that is obviously the main question that we are here to answer, but I would say that it is extremely hard to really figure out what the solution is, in part because we are not in a position right now to even answer some basic facts about how big the problem is, what exactly the numbers look like. For instance, we do not know basic facts about how much coverage people have in different places, how much they're paying. And when I say we don't know, we don't know this at a granular enough level because the data does not exist. And the first step towards designing any policy would be for us to know exactly how bad the problem is. And then we come up with a solution for that and start to evaluate these different policy responses. Right now we are trying to make policy blindfolded. 1:23:50 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): So we've had testimony before this committee that we've already spent $5-6 trillion. That's 5,000 to 6,000 billion dollars trying to mitigate climate change. We haven't made a dent in it. Their estimates, it's going to cost tens of trillions of dollars every year to reach net zero. So again, this is not the solution for a real problem, which is the broken insurance market. I have enough Wisconsin residents who live on the Gulf Coast in Florida to know after Hurricane Ian, you got some real problems in Florida. But fixing climate change isn't the solution. 1:33:15 Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR): In looking at the materials I saw that Citizens Property Insurance Company, I gather that's Louisiana and Florida, that have a completely state backed program. Well, alright, so if the state becomes the insurer of last resort and they now suffer the same losses that a regular private insurance company is suffering, now the folks in the state are carrying massive debt. So that doesn't seem like a great solution. Dr. Ishita Sen: That's definitely a problem, right? The problem is of course, that whether the state then has the fiscal capacity to actually withstand a big loss, like a big hurricane season, which is a concern that was raised about Citizens. And in such a scenario then in a world where they do not have enough tax revenue, then they would have to go into financial markets, try to borrow money, which could be very costly and so on. So fiscally it's going to be very challenging for many cities and many municipalities and counties and so on. 1:36:40 Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): I wish there were something we could do that would reduce the climate change we're seeing and the warming of the planet. But I've seen absolutely nothing proposed by anyone that reduces CO2 emissions, methane gases and the heating of the planet. Climate change is going to happen because of the development in China and Indonesia and Brazil, and the only thing that actually makes any measurable impact at all is putting a price on carbon, and no one seems to be willing to consider doing that. Everything else that's being talked about on the climate — Democratic Senator: I got two bills. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): I know you and I are, but you guys had reconciliation. You could have done it all by yourselves and you didn't. So the idea that somehow we're going to fix climate and solve the insurance problem is pie in the sky. That's avoiding the reality that we can't fix climate because that's a global issue, not an American issue. Anyway, let me turn back to insurance. 1:38:30 Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): So the question is, what actions can we take? Fiscal reform? Yes, to try and deal with inflation. Except I want to note something, Mr. Antoni, because you're esteemed at the Heritage Foundation. 72% of federal spending is not part of the budget we vote on. So we talk about Biden wants to spend all this.... 72% we don't vote on; we only vote on 28%. Half of that is the military. We Republicans want more military spending, not less. So that means the other 14%, which the Democrats want to expand, there's no way we can reduce the 14% enough to have any impact on the massive deficits we're seeing. So there's going to have to be a broader analysis of what we have to do to reign in our fiscal challenges. I just want to underscore that. I would say a second thing we can do, besides fiscal reform and dealing with inflation, is stopping subsidizing high risk areas. Basically subsidizing people to build expensive places along the coast and in places that are at risk of wildfire. And we subsidize that and that creates huge financial risk to the system. And finally, mitigation of one kind or another. That's the other thing we can do is all sorts of mitigation: forestry management, having people move in places that are not high risk. But if you want to live in a big house on the coast, you're gonna have to spend a lot of money to insure it or take huge risk. That's just the reality. So those are the three I come up with. Stop the subsidy, mitigation, and fiscal reform. What else am I missing, Mr. Musulin? And I'm just going to go down the line for those that are sort of in this area to give me your perspectives. Rade Musulin: Well, thank you, Senator. And I'd agree with all those things. And I'd also add that we need to start thinking about future-proofing our building codes and land use policies. The sea levels are rising. If you're going to build a house that's supposed to last 75 years, you ought to be thinking about the climate in 75 years when you give somebody a permit to build there. So I'd say that's important. I'd also say that large disasters also drive inflation because it puts more pressure and demand on labor and materials. More disasters means supplies that could have been used to build new homes for Americans or diverted to rebuild homes in the past. So certainly doing things to reduce the vulnerability of properties and improve their resilience is important. And I do think, sir, that there are things we can do about climate change with respect over periods of decades that can make a difference in the long run. Thank you. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): Thank you. Yes. Dr. Ishita Sen: So before that, the one point about inflation that we are missing, which is without doubt it is a contributing factor, but the US has had inflation in the past without such an acute crisis in insurance markets. So whether that is the biggest cause or not is up for debate. I don't think we have reached a conclusion on inflation being the biggest contributor of rising insurance cost. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): It's just a big one. You'd agree It's a big one? Dr. Ishita Sen: I agree. It's a big one, but I wouldn't say it's the biggest one in terms of policy solutions. I completely agree with you on, we need to stop subsidizing building in high risk areas. That's definitely one of the things we need to do that. Mitigation, another point that you bring up. And on that, I would say not only do we need to harden our homes, but we also need to harden our financial institutions, our banks, and our insurance companies in order to make them withstand really large climate shocks that are for sure coming their way. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): Thank You, Ms. Wood. I'm going to let you pass on this just because that's not your area of expertise. Your experience was something which focused our thinking today. Mr. Mulready. Glen Mulready: Thank you, Senator. I would say amen to your comments, but I'll give you three quick things. Number one, FEMA has a survey out that states that every $1 spent in mitigation saves $6 in lost claims. It pays off. Number two, unfortunately, a lot of communities have to have a disaster happen. In Moore, Oklahoma, back a dozen years ago, an EF5 (tornado) hit, it was just totally devastating. After that, the city of Moore changed their zoning, they changed their building zoning codes, and then third, the city of Tulsa, back in the eighties, had horrible flooding happened. So they invested over decades in infrastructure to prevent flooding. Now we're one of only two communities in the country that are Class one NFIP rated. 1:45:40 Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD): One way to address this, and I think it was discussed in a different matter, is the need to get the data and to get consensus on where the risks lie, which is why last year Senator Whitehouse, Senator Warren and I sent a letter to the Treasury Department, to the Federal Insurance Office (FIO), urging them to collect information from different states. I'm a supporter of a state-based insurance system for property and casualty insurance, but I do think it would benefit all of us to have a sort of national yardstick against which we can measure what's happening. So Dr. Sen, could you talk a little bit about the benefit of having a common source of insurance data through the FIO and how that could benefit state regulators and benefit all of us? Dr. Ishita Sen: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for bringing that up. That's just the first order importance, I think, because we don't even know the basic facts about this problem at a granular enough level. The risks here are local, and so we need to know what's going zip code-by-zip code, census tract-by-census tract, and for regulators to be able to figure out exactly how much risk is sitting with each of these insurance companies they need to know how much policies they're writing, what's the type of coverage they're selling in, what are the cancellations looking like in different zip codes. Only then can they figure out exactly how exposed these different insurers are, and then they can start designing policy about whether the risk-based capital ratios look alright or not, or should we put a surcharge on wildfires or hurricanes and so on? And we do need a comprehensive picture. We just can't have a particular state regulator look at the risks in that state, because of course, the insurer is selling insurance all over the country and we need to get a comprehensive picture of all of that. 1:47:40 Sen. Chris Van Hollen: I appreciate that. I gather that the Treasury Department is getting some resistance from some state insurance regulators. I hope we can overcome that because I'm not sure why anyone would want to deny the American people the benefit of the facts here. 1:48:45 Rade Musulin: I will just note that sometimes climate change itself can contribute to the inflation we've been talking about. For example, there were beetle infestations and droughts and fires in Canada, which decimated some of the lumber crop and led to a fivefold increase in the cost of lumber a few years ago. So some of this claims inflation is actually related to climate change, and I think we need to address that. 1:49:35 Glen Mulready: If you didn't know, the NAIC, National Association of Insurance Commission is in the midst of a data collection right now that will collect that data for at least 80% of the homeowner's market. And we have an agreement with FIO (Federal Insurance Office) to be sharing that data with them. They originally came to us, I got a letter from FIO and they were requesting data that we did not actually collect at the zip code level, and they had a very stringent timeline for that. So my response, it wasn't, no, it was just, look, we can't meet that timeline. We don't collect that today. We can in the future. But from that is where this has grown the data called by the NEIC. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD): So I appreciate, I saw that there had been now this effort on behalf of the....So has this now been worked out? Are there any states that are objecting, to your knowledge at this point in time, in terms of sharing data? Glen Mulready: I don't know about specific states. We will be collecting data that will represent at least 80% of the market share. Music by Editing Production Assistance

The 2024 campaign was already shaping up to be the most expensive election of all time, but now several high-profile billionaires are dumping massive amounts of money into the presidential race. Laura Barrón-López discussed where the money is coming from and where it's being spent with Anna Massoglia, the editorial and investigations manager at Open Secrets. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

In this episode, Sara Gonzales tackles the Biden administration's deeply concerning new Title IX rules that leave young girls vulnerable by allowing biological males access to private spaces like restrooms and locker rooms. She condemns this as a real "war on women" coming from the Left, stripping girls of their privacy, safety, and athletic opportunities. Oklahoma's state superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, joins to discuss his bold move instructing all school districts to disregard these illegal federal rules. He calls out the overreach, stating the rules violate the Constitution and longstanding civil rights protections for women and girls. Walters emphasizes protecting students over bowing to federal diktats. The conversation also covers the Texas border crisis, with Brandon Herrera providing insight from his grassroots campaign to unseat Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales. Herrera slams Gonzales' weak stance on border security despite it directly impacting his constituents. He vows to be the real conservative voice his district needs. New York's highest court has overturned Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction, ordering a new trial in the landmark #MeToo case. We are joined by BlazeTV contributors Jaco Booyens and Matthew Marsden. Today's Sponsors: PreBorn! To donate, dial #250 and say the keyword “baby” or go to https://preborn.com/sara Patriot Mobile Just go to https://www.patriotmobile.com/SARA or call 972-PATRIOT to get FREE ACTIVATION when you use the offer code SARA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After an unprecedented embassy bombing followed by an unprecedented drone and missile attack, Israel and Iran may have us on the brink of WWIII. In this episode, as Congress and the Biden administration ponder additional support for Israel, we take a look at what has already been approved for Israel in the 2024 defense authorization and funding law. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes Netanyahu Howard Eissenstat. Sept 20, 2012. Slate. Akiva Eldar. February 10, 2009. Haaretz. Attacks on U.S. Bases Ken Klippenstein. February 9, 2024. The Intercept. Doug G. Ware. November 6, 2023. Stars and Stripes. Doug G. Ware. October 31, 2023. Stars and Stripes. Iran-Israel Conflict David Hearst. April 15, 2024. Middle East Eye. Tom Spender. April 15, 2024. BBC. Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw. April 14, 2024. The Intercept. Barak Ravid. April 14, 2024. Axios. Ben Samuels. April 14, 2024. Haaretz. Cassandra Vinograd and Natan Odenheimer. April 14, 2024. The New York Times. Permanent Mission of I.R.Iran to UN, NY (@Iran_UN). April 13, 2024. Ellen Knickmeyer and Lolita C. Baldor. April 3, 2024. PBS NewsHour. Fear of U.S. War with Iran Ali Vaez. April 15, 2024. Foreign Affairs. Murtaza Hussain. April 14, 2024. The Intercept. Carol E. Lee et al. April 14, 2024. NBC News. Uri Misgav. November 23, 2023. Haaretz. Julian Borger. December 17, 2023. The Guardian. Marwan Bishara. October 9, 2023. Aljazeera. Defense funding for Israel Yuval Azulay. April 15, 2024.” CTech by Calcalist. Noah Robertson. November 15, 2023. Defense News. Jeremy M. Sharp. March 1, 2023. Congressional Research Service via EveryCRSReport.com. Raytheon. 2021. Rafael. Jeremy M. Sharp. September 30, 2014. Congressional Research Service via EveryCRSReport.com. Tony Capaccio. May 27, 2014. Bloomberg. January 7, 2014. Boeing. Boeing and Raytheon Campaign Contributions and Lobbying Open Secrets. Open Secrets. Open Secrets. Open Secrets. Foreign Military Financing Nathan J. Lucas and Michael J. Vassalotti. February 21, 2020. Congressional Research Service via EveryCRSReport.com. March 2017. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, U.S. Department of Defense.* Abraham Accords U.S. Department of State. Jordan Zvi Bar'el. April 15, 2024. Haaretz. Jonathan Shamir. April 16, 2023. Haaretz. Saudi Arabia April 14, 2024. Al Arabiya English. Laws Executive Producer Recommended Sources King Abdullah. 1947. From the Internet Archive, originally published in The American Magazine. Music by Editing Production Assistance

The federal deficit is growing, and a former U.S. Treasury secretary is offering a solution: raising taxes! We’ll get into why talking tax hikes is a big no-no in Congress and why spending cuts may not cut it this time either. And, foreign nationals aren’t allowed to contribute to U.S. elections. But a loophole is seemingly allowing some foreign-influenced companies to do just that. Plus, the story of an astronaut and a dangerous ultimatum. Here’s everything we talked about today: “Joe Manchin's debt crusade” from Politico “Rubin Says US In a ‘Terrible Place' on Deficit, Urges Tax Hikes” from Bloomberg “All these government shutdown close calls cost money” from Marketplace “Foreign-Influenced Corporate Money in State Elections” from Open Secrets “Jon Stewart Returns to ‘Daily Show’ as Monday Host, Executive Producer” from Variety “What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?” from Ars Technica We love to hear from you. Send your questions and comments to makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.

The federal deficit is growing, and a former U.S. Treasury secretary is offering a solution: raising taxes! We’ll get into why talking tax hikes is a big no-no in Congress and why spending cuts may not cut it this time either. And, foreign nationals aren’t allowed to contribute to U.S. elections. But a loophole is seemingly allowing some foreign-influenced companies to do just that. Plus, the story of an astronaut and a dangerous ultimatum. Here’s everything we talked about today: “Joe Manchin's debt crusade” from Politico “Rubin Says US In a ‘Terrible Place' on Deficit, Urges Tax Hikes” from Bloomberg “All these government shutdown close calls cost money” from Marketplace “Foreign-Influenced Corporate Money in State Elections” from Open Secrets “Jon Stewart Returns to ‘Daily Show’ as Monday Host, Executive Producer” from Variety “What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?” from Ars Technica We love to hear from you. Send your questions and comments to makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.