ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, financial technology startup Ramp published a pitch for how to tackle wasteful government spending. In a 4,000-word blog post titled “The Efficiency Formula,” Ramp’s CEO and […]
Trump Regime Used Gmail Accounts to Discuss Sensitive Plans: Report
Top national security officials at the White House, including national security advisor Michael Waltz, have sometimes been using regular Gmail accounts to discuss highly sensitive military operations, according to a new report from the Washington Post. Gmail is not end-to-end encrypted like more secure government systems available to officials like Waltz and can be intercepted […]
Notes on a Meme: The Grotesque Pleasure of Bloated JD Vance Pictures
Like many of you, I spend a lot of time texting back and forth with friends. Many of those text chains are now inundated with pictures of JD Vance. Maybe you’ve seen them. There are new ones every day. The bearded Vice President bloats, his eyes grow huge, he’s a carnival grotesque, his chin widening, […]
I’m Obsessed With J.D. Vance’s Apple Watch
Sometimes, the Vice President of the United States wears an Apple smartwatch. Last week the blog Watches of Espionage called out Vance over the issue in what it called an “open letter” to the Vice President. Smartwatches are a security risk, they collect a lot of valuable information about us, and it’s strange for a […]
Elon Musk Rehiring DOGE Staffer Who Resigned Over Racist Tweets
Elon Musk is rehiring the guy who resigned from DOGE yesterday. And we can’t say that we’re entirely surprised. Musk launched a poll on his social media platform X Friday to ask followers if he should rehire Marko Elez, a 25-year-old software engineer who had been working on the DOGE project that’s currently ransacking the […]