Mike Sharp
@mikesh8rp.bsky.social
Reposted by Mike Sharp
If you have $100 million to spend on ads saying you shouldn’t be taxed you’re not being taxed enough
Google cofounder Sergey Brin has spent $102 million to fight California’s proposed billionaire tax—he could owe $13 billion if he loses fortune.com/article/how-...
Google cofounder Sergey Brin has spent $102 million to fight California’s proposed billionaire tax—he could owe $13 billion if he loses fortune.com/article/how-...
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has now spent $100 million to fight California’s proposed billionaire tax—he could owe $13 billion if he loses | Fortune
The state’s ultrawealthy, including Larry Page and Peter Thiel, have similarly donated to efforts opposing the wealth tax.
fortune.com
October 4, 2026 at 12:23 PM
If you have $100 million to spend on ads saying you shouldn’t be taxed you’re not being taxed enough
Google cofounder Sergey Brin has spent $102 million to fight California’s proposed billionaire tax—he could owe $13 billion if he loses fortune.com/article/how-...
Google cofounder Sergey Brin has spent $102 million to fight California’s proposed billionaire tax—he could owe $13 billion if he loses fortune.com/article/how-...
Reposted by Mike Sharp
I’ve been obsessed with this possible trendline for a decade. If you cut the things that keep people who remain in state healthy and increase access to guns guess what happens
Deaths now outnumber births in reliably Republican counties for the first time since at least 1982. We explain how this may already be affecting voting patterns in America bit.ly/471apDL
September 26, 2026 at 11:54 PM
I’ve been obsessed with this possible trendline for a decade. If you cut the things that keep people who remain in state healthy and increase access to guns guess what happens
Reposted by Mike Sharp
Please know that this is one of my few legitimate areas of actual, high-level professional expertise: Kicking the healthiest people off of a health insurance program will bankrupt it.
Not 'could;' not 'might,' not 'probably," but absolutely will, with mathematical certainty.
Not 'could;' not 'might,' not 'probably," but absolutely will, with mathematical certainty.
Dr Oz says the Trump administration will kick more than a million people off health insurance because some of them have "never filed a claim"
September 22, 2026 at 4:39 PM
Please know that this is one of my few legitimate areas of actual, high-level professional expertise: Kicking the healthiest people off of a health insurance program will bankrupt it.
Not 'could;' not 'might,' not 'probably," but absolutely will, with mathematical certainty.
Not 'could;' not 'might,' not 'probably," but absolutely will, with mathematical certainty.
Reposted by Mike Sharp
The Oligarch who funded Don Jr.'s wedding is deeply linked to Russia's mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children.
Trump credits Melania Trump with "securing the return" of Russian children (?) who have been displaced by the war Russia is waging inside Ukraine
September 22, 2026 at 3:35 PM
The Oligarch who funded Don Jr.'s wedding is deeply linked to Russia's mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children.
Reposted by Mike Sharp
Meta's new AI agent wanted my passport info. Not to help me. To train on me.
Actually, it wanted everything: bank accounts, email inboxes, ID info.
No surprise coming from Meta. But always worth reminding readers that AI automations come with major privacy risks.
www.wired.com/story/metas-...
Actually, it wanted everything: bank accounts, email inboxes, ID info.
No surprise coming from Meta. But always worth reminding readers that AI automations come with major privacy risks.
www.wired.com/story/metas-...
Meta's Muse Is Better at Surveilling Than Helping Me
The Muse app continues Meta’s trend of opting users into data collection for AI training. It also nudges you to share your bank account, email, and passport information.
www.wired.com
September 21, 2026 at 7:17 PM
Meta's new AI agent wanted my passport info. Not to help me. To train on me.
Actually, it wanted everything: bank accounts, email inboxes, ID info.
No surprise coming from Meta. But always worth reminding readers that AI automations come with major privacy risks.
www.wired.com/story/metas-...
Actually, it wanted everything: bank accounts, email inboxes, ID info.
No surprise coming from Meta. But always worth reminding readers that AI automations come with major privacy risks.
www.wired.com/story/metas-...
Reposted by Mike Sharp
I graduated med school in 2014. I was taught-and saw-how hard melanoma was to treat, like a death sentence
Since then, new treatments have made it possible for people w/ the most advanced melanoma, like Jimmy Carter, to live to 100!
We are killing ourselves by letting them destroy American science
Since then, new treatments have made it possible for people w/ the most advanced melanoma, like Jimmy Carter, to live to 100!
We are killing ourselves by letting them destroy American science
A cancer vaccine succeeded in a clinical trial in preventing the recurrence of melanoma, a result experts say is a breakthrough for mRNA-based treatments.
Trials for lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and other diseases' vaccines are also underway.
Trials for lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and other diseases' vaccines are also underway.
A melanoma vaccine was hailed as a breakthrough. Which cancers are next?
Trials investigating mRNA vaccines for lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and other diseases are already underway.
www.washingtonpost.com
September 19, 2026 at 10:08 PM
I graduated med school in 2014. I was taught-and saw-how hard melanoma was to treat, like a death sentence
Since then, new treatments have made it possible for people w/ the most advanced melanoma, like Jimmy Carter, to live to 100!
We are killing ourselves by letting them destroy American science
Since then, new treatments have made it possible for people w/ the most advanced melanoma, like Jimmy Carter, to live to 100!
We are killing ourselves by letting them destroy American science
Reposted by Mike Sharp
My grandfather, who is 102 and a medical doctor, has told me about the times before polio was cured. Most years, upon returning to school after summer’s break, there would be some children would didn’t make it back to school because of polio.
“On Thursday, Mr. Gorton said that “the success of the polio vaccine was a massive medical fraud” and that widespread vaccination was a “public health disaster.” He received a standing ovation…
Mr. Kennedy spoke next, linking arms with the group even as measles cases continue to rise”
Mr. Kennedy spoke next, linking arms with the group even as measles cases continue to rise”
RFK Jr. Assures Vaccine Skeptics They Have a ‘Friend at the White House’
The health secretary spoke at a conference featuring misinformation about vaccines, including a claim that the success of the polio vaccines was a “fraud.”
www.nytimes.com
September 18, 2026 at 1:56 AM
My grandfather, who is 102 and a medical doctor, has told me about the times before polio was cured. Most years, upon returning to school after summer’s break, there would be some children would didn’t make it back to school because of polio.
Reposted by Mike Sharp
If you're wondering why Trump is all of a sudden pushing AI and dismissing concerns about its safety as a "hoax," just look at his stock trades.
September 17, 2026 at 1:45 PM
If you're wondering why Trump is all of a sudden pushing AI and dismissing concerns about its safety as a "hoax," just look at his stock trades.
Reposted by Mike Sharp
This “game” on the White House website, a version of Snake where you play as a white man in a suit and you run around picking up identifiably black, Asian, and Latino men and putting them in orange jumpsuits, might be the most openly white supremacist thing I’ve ever seen the US government produce
September 5, 2026 at 12:28 PM
This “game” on the White House website, a version of Snake where you play as a white man in a suit and you run around picking up identifiably black, Asian, and Latino men and putting them in orange jumpsuits, might be the most openly white supremacist thing I’ve ever seen the US government produce
Reposted by Mike Sharp
There are endless studies showing this and also the financial and societal benefits of universal basic income and or housing-first policies but the U.S. never goes for any of it because it would require allowing the poor to receive benefits that the rich consider “undeserved”
“A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.”
ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects
A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it
ysph.yale.edu
September 2, 2026 at 9:05 AM
There are endless studies showing this and also the financial and societal benefits of universal basic income and or housing-first policies but the U.S. never goes for any of it because it would require allowing the poor to receive benefits that the rich consider “undeserved”
Reposted by Mike Sharp
tbf, it was an underappreciated scandal of his first term, too www.politico.com/story/2018/0...
September 2, 2026 at 2:26 PM
tbf, it was an underappreciated scandal of his first term, too www.politico.com/story/2018/0...
Reposted by Mike Sharp
It's like a parody, but it's deadly serious; the Commerce Department (which includes Census, NOAA, and others) has outright deleted "don't alter or suppress scientific findings for political reasons" from its scientific integrity rules.
Seriously.
Seriously.
August 31, 2026 at 11:43 PM
It's like a parody, but it's deadly serious; the Commerce Department (which includes Census, NOAA, and others) has outright deleted "don't alter or suppress scientific findings for political reasons" from its scientific integrity rules.
Seriously.
Seriously.
Reposted by Mike Sharp
US media: Why in the world are people voting for democratic socialists?
Financial Times: “US corporate profits have hit a record high while workers’ slice of the pie has sunk to historic lows.”
Financial Times: “US corporate profits have hit a record high while workers’ slice of the pie has sunk to historic lows.”
August 28, 2026 at 11:15 AM
US media: Why in the world are people voting for democratic socialists?
Financial Times: “US corporate profits have hit a record high while workers’ slice of the pie has sunk to historic lows.”
Financial Times: “US corporate profits have hit a record high while workers’ slice of the pie has sunk to historic lows.”
Reposted by Mike Sharp
Four-year-old girl dies from suspected diphtheria after parents failed to vaccinate her.
Please protect your children with extremely safe and effective vaccines!
www.unionesarda.it/e...
1/2
Please protect your children with extremely safe and effective vaccines!
www.unionesarda.it/e...
1/2
Four-year-old girl dies from suspected diphtheria after parents failed to vaccinate her. - L'Unione Sarda English
The prosecutor's office has opened an investigation. The little girl had arrived at the hospital for the first time with fever, vomiting and loss of appetite.
www.unionesarda.it
August 21, 2026 at 7:01 AM
Four-year-old girl dies from suspected diphtheria after parents failed to vaccinate her.
Please protect your children with extremely safe and effective vaccines!
www.unionesarda.it/e...
1/2
Please protect your children with extremely safe and effective vaccines!
www.unionesarda.it/e...
1/2
Reposted by Mike Sharp
We put a tracking device in a shipment of rare books acquired by an anonymous buyer. It ended up at an Amazon facility where the company scans books for training data and destroys them in the process: www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
www.404media.co
August 17, 2026 at 1:18 PM
We put a tracking device in a shipment of rare books acquired by an anonymous buyer. It ended up at an Amazon facility where the company scans books for training data and destroys them in the process: www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...
Reposted by Mike Sharp
“You see this in the top ranks of the Trump administration, which is a lot of people who are incompetent, and their only pathway to success is through slavish devotion to this moron. And there was no other way for them to get there. So they’re willing to make those compromises.”
All these corrupt toadies glommed onto Trump because they misread 2024 as a permanent national shift: The future was MAGA. Now they're like cartoon characters who ran off a cliff and realized there's nothing under them.
Me and @amandamarcotte.bsky.social on this:
newrepublic.com/article/2140...
Me and @amandamarcotte.bsky.social on this:
newrepublic.com/article/2140...
August 7, 2026 at 12:38 PM
“You see this in the top ranks of the Trump administration, which is a lot of people who are incompetent, and their only pathway to success is through slavish devotion to this moron. And there was no other way for them to get there. So they’re willing to make those compromises.”
Reposted by Mike Sharp
So the answer to "how did the super spooky all powerful AI go rogue" is that they just let it rip and then went home for the day
In a normal world, this would be a story about OpenAI's culture of negligence and half-assery, not how we should all bow down to the AI overlords
In a normal world, this would be a story about OpenAI's culture of negligence and half-assery, not how we should all bow down to the AI overlords
NEW: OpenAI's rogue agents built their own message board inside an internal package manager and used it to trade exploits, divide up tasks, and coordinate a hacking spree. Hundreds of thousands of messages. Nobody at OpenAI noticed.
New details from Black Hat, by @lhn.bsky.social:
New details from Black Hat, by @lhn.bsky.social:
OpenAI Didn’t Notice Its AI Agents Using a Message Board to Plan Their Hacking Spree
At the Black Hat security conference, the AI giant revealed new details about how its agents went rogue, hacked several other companies—and did it all right under the company’s nose.
www.wired.com
August 6, 2026 at 10:41 AM
So the answer to "how did the super spooky all powerful AI go rogue" is that they just let it rip and then went home for the day
In a normal world, this would be a story about OpenAI's culture of negligence and half-assery, not how we should all bow down to the AI overlords
In a normal world, this would be a story about OpenAI's culture of negligence and half-assery, not how we should all bow down to the AI overlords
Reposted by Mike Sharp
‘Anthropic described the project as “our effort to disruptively scan all the world’s books” in an internal memo, which noted “we do not want it to be known that we are pursuing this project”.’
July 29, 2026 at 8:04 PM
‘Anthropic described the project as “our effort to disruptively scan all the world’s books” in an internal memo, which noted “we do not want it to be known that we are pursuing this project”.’
Reposted by Mike Sharp
Remember the SNAP cuts in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill?” Children account for nearly half of the 2.4 million people who are no longer receiving SNAP in at least 19 states. The true number of kids impacted nationwide is unknown. This is horrifying. No child should go hungry.
🚨NEW: In the 9 months after last year’s reconciliation law enacted unprecedented SNAP cuts, the number of people receiving SNAP fell by more than 4.5 million. Based on available data, we estimate that at least 1.5 million fewer kids are receiving SNAP.
www.cbpp.org/research/foo...
www.cbpp.org/research/foo...
July 21, 2026 at 6:53 PM
Remember the SNAP cuts in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill?” Children account for nearly half of the 2.4 million people who are no longer receiving SNAP in at least 19 states. The true number of kids impacted nationwide is unknown. This is horrifying. No child should go hungry.
Reposted by Mike Sharp
The US built the greatest talent magnet ever, attracting the smart, skilled, and striving. They’d come to study, then stay and build things here, or leave with positive impressions and fruitful connections. Helped make the US wealthy and powerful.
Then America chose to throw it away. And for what?
Then America chose to throw it away. And for what?
July 18, 2026 at 1:10 PM
The US built the greatest talent magnet ever, attracting the smart, skilled, and striving. They’d come to study, then stay and build things here, or leave with positive impressions and fruitful connections. Helped make the US wealthy and powerful.
Then America chose to throw it away. And for what?
Then America chose to throw it away. And for what?
Reposted by Mike Sharp
The world would be significantly better if meta ceases to exist
Meta says US states are seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties in August youth safety trial
Meta Platforms said in a court filing on Monday that four states were seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties over accusations the company designed its Facebook and Instagram platforms to addict young us...
www.reuters.com
July 9, 2026 at 9:15 PM
The world would be significantly better if meta ceases to exist
Reposted by Mike Sharp
I charted city property tax revenue in real dollars vs the Seattle-area inflation rate for my little city. Everything is bad but post-COVID inflation (including tariffs, trade wars, wars, labor, etc.) is just killing cities. Road construction costs are up like 70% year over year.
July 10, 2026 at 12:04 AM
I charted city property tax revenue in real dollars vs the Seattle-area inflation rate for my little city. Everything is bad but post-COVID inflation (including tariffs, trade wars, wars, labor, etc.) is just killing cities. Road construction costs are up like 70% year over year.
Reposted by Mike Sharp
"His wife has said that he relied on an inhaler for asthma, but ICE agents rejected her attempt to give them the device when he was taken into custody."
An Afghan national who fought alongside U.S. forces has died from an allergic reaction while in ICE custody, one day after he was detained for deportation proceedings, his death certificate shows. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
Afghan national who fought with U.S. forces died of allergic reaction in ICE custody
Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, 41, suffered “an adverse drug reaction” to an unidentified substance, which triggered anaphylaxis and exacerbated his asthma, the death report shows.
www.nbcnews.com
July 7, 2026 at 3:44 PM
"His wife has said that he relied on an inhaler for asthma, but ICE agents rejected her attempt to give them the device when he was taken into custody."
Reposted by Mike Sharp
Facebook’s own researchers found that “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools”, an internal report in 2016 found.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
July 8, 2026 at 8:41 AM
Facebook’s own researchers found that “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools”, an internal report in 2016 found.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Reposted by Mike Sharp
I’m not sure why this isn’t being mentioned more, but: IRS policy for 50 years has been that the sitting president & VP get audited every year, in an effort to reassure the public they’re not corruptly abusing the office to enrich themselves.
Trump and sons to be ‘forever’ exempt from tax audits ft.trib.al/ePJ9DiF
Trump and sons to be ‘forever’ exempt from tax audits
Justice department deal comes day after government set up $1.8bn fund to pay president’s allies hit by alleged ‘lawfare’
ft.trib.al
May 19, 2026 at 11:56 PM
I’m not sure why this isn’t being mentioned more, but: IRS policy for 50 years has been that the sitting president & VP get audited every year, in an effort to reassure the public they’re not corruptly abusing the office to enrich themselves.