Brandi

Interested in policy, history, systems, writing, animals, comms, and breaking narratives (MA). SPM, Leader, mentor, and coach.

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

It is important to resist the commodification of basic human needs. Food, water and healthcare cannot be subordinated to market considerations or geopolitical interests. Access to adequate food is a fundamental human right grounded in the dignity of every person. Meeting this need not only alleviates suffering but also addresses underlying causes of geopolitical instability. Indeed, food security is an essential component of global and integral security. https://t.co/DgkM9RegJ7

[The Lever @LeverNews]

NY’s comptroller controls a nearly $300B pension fund. Most voters couldn’t name the office. The day before the primary, @davidsirota talks to challenger @RajGoyle
about @TomDiNapoli, Palantir, Israel bonds, and the political power hidden in plain sight.

[S @even_steven8tht]

This is so insane. A evil genocidal country went and illegally kidnapped peaceful protesters on international waters and now they are parading them around like cattle and NOT A SINGLE major news network is covering it.

[Devin Nunes' Cattle Dog 🇺🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇸🇨🇦 🇦🇺 @Kaos_Vs_Control]

Pete Hegseth call wounded soldiers liars and is asked to resign

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

🚨LEVER TIME: How a battle over used cars, funeral homes & an obscure immigration case at the Supreme Court became an epic White House power grab - and gave Congress an excuse to claim it can't stop a president's war.

One of the most fascinating stories I've ever reported👇

[Brandi @Brandi_BJB]

MAGA ordered America first.
They got a Temu administration.
So, this checks out.

[ella devi @ellad3vi]

pete hegeseth's wife wore a dress from temu to the white house correspondents dinner (i'm not joking)

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

Here's the trailer of MELTDOWN - our series showing how Obama using his populist election mandate to rescue his Wall Street donors as millions faced foreclosures created backlash conditions for Trump.

I'm thrilled to see my posts about this topic now trending across Twitter.

[non aesthetic things @PicturesFoIder]

A clear, well-articulated argument against a new data center in Ohio... worth watching

[Guitar Gods Unleashed @gguworld]

"Ramble On" is 56 years old and Robert Plant just walked onto The Late Show and made it sound like he wrote it this morning.

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

In 2024, the @LeverNews podcast MASTER PLAN exposed the secret 50-year plot to use the Supreme Court to legalize corruption.

@GrahamForMaine is the first Senate candidate I've seen who is explicitly campaigning against this specific master plan.

Watch this clip & pass it on.

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

The entire point of journalism and a free press in a democracy is to spotlight gaps between politicians' words & actions, so that voters have information to cast informed votes.

That some liberals are mad about this piece simply spotlighting the indisputable gap between a candidate's words & legislative actions tells you that many of them - like MAGA - genuinely loathe journalism and a free press.

I’m not telling Michigan voters how to vote in this race. I’m simply reporting on the difference between what a top candidate is saying on social media and what she is doing (or not doing) in her current role as a leader of her state’s senate.

It’s up to Michigan Democratic primary voters to decide what to do with that information - but the point is, that information should be out there. That’s called journalism.

[CooperBaggs 💰🍞 @edgaralandough]

My favorite quote from Atomic Habits by James Clear:

"It doesn't make sense to continue wanting something if you're not willing to do what it takes to get it.
If you don't want to live the lifestyle, then release yourself from the desire.
To crave the result but not the process is to guarantee disappointment."

[Deep Psychology @DeepPsycho_HQ]

The difference between animals and humans is that animals would never allow the dumbest member of the herd to lead them.

[Night Sky Today @NightSkyToday]

BREAKING🚨: Quantum physics reveals that luck follows patterns, a discovery that has stunned top physicists.

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

🚨After the East Palestine train derailment, politicians got themselves headlines, lawyers & investors got big payouts & Norfolk Southern got a settlement protecting its execs & shareholders.

But many victims are sick & have gotten little to nothing.

You must read this👇

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

🚨BREAKING: PhRMA funneled a secret $4 million donation to congressional Republicans' dark money group & months later the GOP delivered an $8 billion windfall to PhRMA by defanging rules that lower medicine prices.

The secret $4 million donation was discovered in tax documents.

[Zack Guzmán @zGuz]

NEW: I'm told 60 Minutes is planning to release a new piece looking at The Trumps' growing crypto empire and his controversial pardon of Binance founder CZ

In August, producers on 60 Minutes reached out to me.

Here's why the biggest name in news turned to a small crypto outlet:

We had been investigating Trump's crypto rise for the past two years. Personally, I thought nothing much of Trump's crypto endeavors being particularly unique until a few months ago.

Sure, he had the Trump NFT digital trading cards. (Fairly harmless stuff.) Then the Trump memecoin (slightly less harmless.) The President and Eric Trump even RT'd one of my threads highlighting their projects. But then their family's crypto project launched their own digital dollar, and things categorically changed.

When they launched their own stablecoin, it was no longer the case that their crypto endeavors were limited to buyers who wanted to speculate under their own free liberties — it shifted more into the realm of a family leveraging the power of the Presidency for profit.

It opened an entirely new can of worms. Interestingly, no one seemed to cover this. Then, it became clear why:

The journalists who understood what was happening were at crypto outlets that maybe didn't want to tell the story for fear of retribution from those in the industry. And those in the mainstream press didn't really understand the nuances of crypto. We started @coinage_media as the first community-owned Web3 media outlet precisely to fix that problem.

In August, when 60 Minutes reached out for help, they were originally planning to cover Trump's memecoin. I mentioned that that story might be a little dated after 7 months, and explained that there was a much bigger story happening out in the open:

The Trumps' crypto project World Liberty Financial had launched a digital dollar. They were shopping it around to various people. If anyone used it, the company could collect interest payments to the tune of potentially billions of dollars a year. (Even some Republicans I spoke with took issue with this.)

Along the way, Binance inked a deal to accept $2 billion in USD1, the Trump stablecoin. Rather than earn interest on $2 billion, that meant the interest would instead be collected by the Trump company. That seemed weird, because why would Binance want to give up what could have been ~$40M in interest? And why would they pick USD1 of all stablecoins? (The one deal alone constituted 90% of USD1's entire market cap.)

Around the same time, our own members (NFT holders) were asking me why Coinage wasn't covering Trump's stablecoin. But after helping 60 Minutes' producers understand the connections and how things worked, I realized Coinage was perfectly suited to explain all this in an objective way.

Our little team of 3 sprung into action, our editor slept on the floor of our office and in a week, we had produced a 17-minute mini-documentary that even Trump supporters said changed their minds on what they thought about what was going on.

After all, we were making the piece for them — the viewers who paid to co-own our outlet and find the truth together.

Then, months later, Trump pardoned Binance's founder CZ. Binance has not responded to whether they plan to now sell their USD1.

I'm not sure what the 60 Minutes piece will include or how they will tell the story with a larger team and a larger budget, but I'm proud to have played a part in at least helping to explain what's happening in crypto.

We are a small, independent news co-op owned by our NFT holders and built transparently onchain and funded by our memberships and $COINAGE

For crypto to succeed in its mission for transparency and community ownership, I think it is paramount for the industry to have simple examples to cite in order to show we are walking the walk.

I have no doubt the 60 Minutes piece will get more views and coverage than our documentary which came out in September, but if you're curious, it's linked below and every view helps. Just know where the search for truth started:

In a newsroom, built onchain, funded and co-owned by a completely random set of people from around the world who wanted to co-own a media outlet.

[✧ @wydbanx]

The amount of hard work he put is insane. This is the biggest flex of all time

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

Justice wins when people rise, organize, unite, and MOVE,TOGETHER. If it can happen in NY, it can happen anywhere: Italy, Germany, UK, everywhere hearts still beat for freedom.
A just, free, and loving world is possible. Let's imagine it today, so we can walk within it tomorrow.

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

🚨NEWS: @JDVance is quietly spearheading a Supreme Court case to expand Citizens United & eliminate remaining anti-corruption laws in the campaign finance system.

Another case could soon kill off all anti-bribery laws.

A preview of our new book MASTER PLAN in @RollingStone👇