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☆ FTX money trails leading to politicians, media, and other crypto exchanges point to the deep influence of Sam Bankman-Fried
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Here's what Bankman-Fried seemed to be aiming at: Stash money with all the right people, while lobbying for policy favorable to FTX. As CoinDesk reported this week, 37% of Congress took money from Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer were among the 196 senators and representatives that received funds. Other lawmakers included some who were just sworn into congressional ranks this month, which points to Bankman-Fried possibly seeking to hold sway over new members. GOLDMAN SACHS stock price on Jan. 19, 2023 Markets Insider10.

☆ TurboTax has lobbied against a free tax filing system for decades. Its head says the US' path toward one is 'unquestionably a conflict of interest.'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Jason Lalljee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The Inflation Reduction Act passed last summer allots funds to explore a free federal tax filing service. The head of TurboTax's parent company says that a government-run tax filing service would be unethical. Intuit, a global financial technology platform, owns TurboTax, one of the leading paid tax filing services. In the US, tax filing services like TurboTax and H&R Block spend millions of dollars lobbying against free tax filing services. Commercial providers such as TurboTax and Tax Act offer their own free services for those earning under a certain amount.

☆ Sam Bankman-Fried's $10 million in investment in Semafor will be held in custody until authorities decide its fate
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Brian Evans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Sam Bankman-Fried invested $10 million in news startup Semafor, according to the New York Times. But the scale of Bankman-Fried's investment was unknown until Wednesday's New York Times report. His $10 million investment was part of an initial funding round that raised a total of $25 million. Smith also has maintained that SBF's investment didn't give him any tangible shares in Semafor thanks to its dual-class ownership. If Bankman-Fried's stake had been converted to equity, then he would have been entitled to a single-digit minority stake, according to the Financial Times.

☆ A Virginia bill would allow a pregnant driver to use the HOV lane by counting the fetus as a person, proving that despite recent failures the fight for fetal personhood is far from over
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-15 | by ( Katie Balevic | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A Virginia bill would grant a fetus personhood to permit a pregnant driver to use the high-occupancy lane. It follows a similar case where a Texas woman fought a traffic ticket for driving while pregnant in the HOV. The fight over fetal personhood is far from overIn October, the US Supreme Court declined an appeal on the question of whether fetuses have constitutional rights, according to Reuters. The movement to establish fetal personhood began in 1973 following the Roe decision, and US lawmakers were trying as early as 1983 to establish fetal personhood at the national level, according to ProPublica. As of now, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, and Missouri have some kind of fetal personhood laws on the books, PBS and NPR-affiliate GPB News reported.

☆ How the job of Amazon delivery has changed with Rivian's electric vans and routing software
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-14 | by ( Katie Tarasov | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

For now, most Amazon drivers are still in about 110,000 gas-powered vans — primarily Ford Transits, Mercedes-Benz Sprinters and Ram ProMasters. Amazon wouldn't share how it determines which of its 3,500 third-party delivery firms, or delivery service partners (DSPs), are receiving Rivian vans first. Workers load packages into Amazon Rivian Electric trucks at an Amazon facility in Poway, California, November 16, 2022. Amazon vans have driver-facing cameras inside, which can catch unsafe driving practices as they happen. For example, an Amazon driver in Missouri was found dead in a front yard in October, allegedly after a dog attack.

☆ A Dollar General clerk is charged with manslaughter after police say he shot and killed an armed robber. The clerk said it was the 6th attempted armed robbery at the store since August.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Dominick Reuter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A Dollar General employee is facing charges following an armed robbery that left the suspect dead. According to the police report, Rafus Anderson was working at the Dollar General in downtown Monroe on Monday when an armed suspect robbed the store. Dollar General did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Discount retailers like Dollar General, Family Dollar, and Dollar Tree are opening more new stores than any other retail category in the US as Americans change their spending habits. Dollar General led the pack by a wide margin with more than 1,000 new stores, according to data from Coresight Research.

☆ Warren Buffett's deputy grew his retirement account from $70,000 to $264 million in under 30 years. He explained how to save a fortune, and why shrugging off losses is key.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-31 | by ( Theron Mohamed | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Warren Buffett's deputy grew his retirement fund from $70,000 to $264 million within 30 years. "In a perfect world, nobody would know about this account," Weschler told Sloan in an email, adding that he hoped the revelation would motivate people to start saving and investing early in their careers. The investor opened his individual retirement account (IRA) in 1984. "One of my personal investment mantras is that there's no such thing as a loss, it's just an unmonetized lesson," he told Sloan. The switch means he won't owe any taxes when he cashes out his retirement account.

Arizona Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs is taking the state’s child protective services agency in a radically different direction in the wake of a ProPublica-NBC News investigation into the racial disparities that have plagued the child welfare system here. This week, Hobbs, a Democrat, announced that she has selected Matthew Stewart, a Black community advocate, as the new head of Arizona’s Department of Child Safety. Arizona’s child welfare system has long disproportionately investigated Black families. After leaving DCS, Stewart formed the community organization Our Sister Our Brother, which has fought the department for more equitable treatment of Black and also low-income parents. Child welfare experts in the state and families affected by the system praised Stewart’s selection, though some wondered how much change he could bring about even in DCS’ top position.

☆ Kimberly Guilfoyle described January 6 organizers, including one of her friends, as gossipy 'Mean Girls' who had turf wars and complained about each other
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Erin Snodgrass | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Kimberly Guilfoyle compared two female GOP organizers to the teenage girls in "Mean Girls." The exchange appeared in Guilfoyle's January 6 witness testimony before the House panel. Guilfoyle told the committee that Pierson and Wren's arguing was generally unpleasant to be around. "Like 'Mean Girls.'" Minutes later, Guilfoyle told the committee she considered Wren a friend, though she couched her explanation of their relationship.

House Democrats are scrutinizing why the Internal Revenue Service failed to fully audit Donald Trump's tax returns when he was in the White House, despite an agency policy mandating such a review. Some insight into the lapse came in a report Tuesday from the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), a bipartisan congressional panel that examined Trump's tax returns from 2015-20. The JCT report was issued Tuesday, after the House Ways and Means Committee voted to make Trump's 2015-20 tax returns public. Trump was the first president not to make his tax returns public since the 1970s. Neal is pressing for legislation that would require the IRS to publish and audit presidential tax returns.

☆ A Texas superintendent ordered school librarians to remove LGBTQ books. Now the federal government is investigating.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms | Mike Hixenbaugh | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +11 min

The U.S. Education Department’s civil rights enforcement arm has launched an investigation into a North Texas school district whose superintendent was secretly recorded ordering librarians to remove LGBTQ-themed library books. The comments, combined with the district’s subsequent decision to remove dozens of library books pending a review, fostered a “pervasively hostile” environment for LGBTQ students, the ACLU wrote in its complaint. Last year, voters in Granbury elected a pair of school board members who campaigned against LGBTQ-affirming school curricula and library books. “These comments, combined with the book removals, really send a message to LGBTQ students in the districts that: ‘You don’t belong here. Lou Whiting, a student at Granbury High School, becomes emotional after speaking against the removal of LGBTQ books at a Granbury school board meeting in March.

Known in the legal world as the “death penalty” of child welfare, it can happen in a matter of months. One in 100 U.S. children — disproportionately Black and Native American — experience termination through the child welfare system before they turn 18, the study found. Still, longer timelines can also reflect a stronger focus on family reunification and a willingness to devote greater resources to meet that goal, child welfare experts say. And some child welfare advocates have criticized the law’s focus on narrow initiatives like parenting classes, which they say fail to address poverty and the other root causes of neglect that prompt most child welfare cases. Snodgrass said she never imagined when her child welfare case started that she could lose her rights to her children.

☆ ProPublica to return $1.6 mln received from Sam Bankman-Fried's foundation
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Dec 20 (Reuters) - Non-profit investigative news outlet ProPublica will return $1.6 million it received from the family foundation of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, according to a staff memo seen by Reuters on Tuesday. "It does not seem appropriate to keep these funds," said executives at ProPublica in the memo, the content of which were first reported by Axios. ProPublica also said it had terminated its relationship with the foundation, called 'Building a Stronger Future'. Last month, FTX filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection and Bankman-Fried resigned as chief executive, after rival cryptocurrency exchange Binance walked away from a proposed acquisition. Meanwhile, several crypto firms are bracing for a hit from the FTX collapse as they have exposure in millions to the beleaguered exchange.

☆ Weaponizing Tax Returns
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Many norms have been broken in American politics in recent years, and one of them is the use of private tax returns as a political weapon. The trend is destructive, as a pair of events this week illustrate. The first is a useful lawsuit by hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin against the Internal Revenue Service seeking damages for the leak of his tax records to ProPublica. In June 2021 and in articles since, the left-wing website has published the confidential tax data of Mr. Griffin, who runs Citadel Securities, and other wealthy Americans.

☆ A market downturn hasn't made activist investing any easier. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

But even with a market downturn, activist investors' campaigns haven't been the cakewalk some might expect. Insider's Daniel Geiger, Rebecca Ungarino, and Casey Sullivan spoke to industry insiders — including famed activist investor Carl Icahn — about why the current landscape isn't as accepting as some might think to activist campaigns. But when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and a difficult market environment doesn't mean we'll see the number of campaigns decrease. Click here to read more about why top activist investors like Carl Icahn say this line of work is riskier than ever. Here's a five-step plan to help you decide when that side gig you have should be the only gig you have.

☆ Billionaire Ken Griffin sues the IRS after his tax records were disclosed
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Robert Frank | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

ProPublica used IRS tax data provided by an anonymous source, and it's unclear how the data was obtained. Griffin reported an average income of $1.7 billion from 2013 to 2018, ProPublica said, citing his tax returns. Griffin was not listed as one of the billionaires who paid zero or low tax rates in any one year, and, in fact, the ProPublica tax information showed Griffin pays a higher effective tax rate than many top earners. The leaked tax returns sparked an uproar in Washington, which continues to escalate. "IRS employees deliberately stole the confidential tax returns of several hundred successful American business leaders," Griffin said in a statement.

Put another way, more Black children in metro Phoenix will go through a child maltreatment investigation than won’t. Almost all described a system so omnipresent among Black families that it has created a kind of communitywide dread: of that next knock on the door, of that next warrantless search of their home. Many Black families first moved there as a result of redlining and racial covenants that blocked them from renting or owning property elsewhere. In Maricopa County, Black children experienced child welfare investigations at one of the highest rates among large counties nationally, and nearly three times the rate of their white peers, from 2015 to 2019. But throughout the country, investigations were more pervasive among Black families.

☆ Herschel Walker had ties to two charities that appear to have engaged in little, if any charity
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Hanna Kang | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

He was also featured in marketing material for the Livio Cares Foundation and was listed as a Livio Cares Partner. However, there is no evidence Livio Cares engaged in philanthropic activities. According to ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer, Walker was listed as the director of VMP Nutrition Foundation in Fort Worth, Texas. According to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts website, the right to transact business in Texas for VMP Nutrition as well as VMP Nutrition Foundation is listed as "forfeited." In 2017, VMP Nutrition and its founder Rodriguez settled a lawsuit filed by Southside Bank for an alleged failure to repay a $2,795,534 lien.

The answer is simple, according to more than a dozen Washington insiders, FTX employees, and crypto industry observers who spoke with Insider. I don't think anyone believed that he was going to fund candidates who were, quote unquote, committed to ending pandemics who were also hostile to the crypto industry." Alex Wong/Getty ImagesRebuffed by the SEC, Bankman-Fried turned his attention to Congress. "It's not that he was welcoming regulation," says the senior figure in the crypto industry who attended meetings with Bankman-Fried. But while Bankman-Fried was busy wooing Washington, FTX was about to become Exhibit A in the case for more effective oversight of the crypto industry.

☆ How FTX's implosion put crypto news sites like CoinDesk, The Block, and Decrypt in the spotlight as they work to fend off an ad slump and conspiracy theories about their coverage
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Reed Alexander | Steven Perlberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +15 min

Crypto news sites like CoinDesk, The Block, and Decrypt have dominated coverage of the FTX implosion. Now, crypto media staffers are wondering whether more dominoes falling from FTX could further hurt the industry or cripple their ad revenues. "We cover the good, the bad and the ugly," Dan Roberts, the editor-in-chief of Decrypt, told Insider. "In general, I think these things are good for crypto media," he said. Stacy-Marie Ishmael, the managing editor for Bloomberg's crypto team, likened burgeoning crypto coverage to 1990s coverage of the Internet.

☆ The story of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX implosion put crypto news sites like CoinDesk and The Block on the map. Inside their plan to fend off an ad slump and conspiracy theories — and keep winning.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Reed Alexander | Steven Perlberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Now, crypto media staffers are wondering whether more dominoes falling from FTX could further hurt the industry or cripple their ad revenues. Crypto media kicks into overdriveRoberts said Decrypt's traffic doubled during the first week of the FTX saga. "In general, I think these things are good for crypto media," he said. Stacy-Marie Ishmael, the managing editor for Bloomberg's crypto team, likened burgeoning crypto coverage to 1990s coverage of the Internet. "It's now a situation where the crypto media has egg on their face.

☆ Vegan canapes and fat donations: How Sam Bankman-Fried won Washington before he lost everything
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Alex-Seitz-Wald-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Alex Seitz-Wald | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +13 min

Everybody was trying to get in,” said one source close to the Bankman-Frieds’ political operation who requested anonymity to speak candidly. Attempts to contact Sam Bankman-Fried for this article were unsuccessful. Sam Bankman-Fried’s mentor and the spiritual leader of Effective Altruism has disowned him. Sam Bankman-Fried is a Democrat, and he spent at least $40 million supporting the party. Some of the biggest recipients of Bankman-Fried’s money did not respond to NBC News when asked about donations they received.

☆ Why far-right GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert is in an extremely close re-election race in Colorado
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert is in a closer-than-expected race against Democrat Adam Frisch. Her Colorado district backed Trump by less than 10 points in 2020, unlike other hard-right Republicans. Boebert's district is more ideologically heterodox. "But within there, there's ski communities, there's traditional ranching communities, there's mining communities, there's industrial communities." Frisch also benefited from the endorsement and backing of GOP state Sen. Don Coram, who represented a far-southwest Colorado district and unsuccessfully challenged Boebert for the GOP nomination this year.

☆ A long-shot Democratic candidate raised more than $15.6 million to defeat Marjorie Taylor Greene. He lost by 31 points.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Marjorie Taylor Greene's Democratic opponent, Marcus Flowers, raised $15.6 million for his campaign. "Tomorrow, with your help, we could make history by defeating Marjorie Taylor Greene," Flowers wrote in a fundraising email sent on November 7, the night before the election. But let me make my case: We're building the most extensive Democratic campaign this district has EVER seen — and MTG is terrified." AP Photo/Ben GrayThe sum that Flowers raised is gargantuan for a congressional campaign, far outpacing the amounts raised by the party's most vulnerable members. Compare that to Democratic candidates in more competitive races, who have tended to raise between $3 and $10 million this year.

☆ Walmart's PAC has quietly donated nearly $1 million to campaigns ahead of the midterms. While the company has a ''don't rock the boat strategy,' it contributed to 41 election deniers.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Ben Tobin | Madison Hall | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

WALPAC donated almost 50-50 to Democratic and Republican federal candidates for the midterms. Walmart's PAC donated to 41 candidates who denied the 2020 presidential election results, ProPublica found. Of that, about 53% went to Republican candidates, and 47% went to Democrats. Some members of Congress, particularly among Democrats, also reject any corporate PAC contribution — WALPAC or otherwise — as a matter of practice. However, the company did donate a significant amount of money to candidates who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results.

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