Greg Boris

Lover of books, travel, active transportation, community involvement, live music, and good conversation

[Crazy Vibes @CrazyVibes_1]

John D. Rockefeller called her “that poisonous woman.”

He had reason to fear her.

Because Ida Tarbell did something almost nobody had successfully done before:

She documented, piece by piece, how the richest corporation in America quietly built its empire by crushing everyone beneath it.

And she did it so carefully that even Standard Oil could not truly deny what she found.

Ida Tarbell did not approach the story as a detached outsider.

She grew up inside the Pennsylvania oil fields during the violent early years of the American petroleum boom. Her father, Franklin Tarbell, was one of thousands of independent oil producers trying to survive while Standard Oil steadily swallowed the industry.

At first, small oilmen believed competition would decide who survived.

Then Rockefeller changed the rules.

Standard Oil secretly negotiated railroad rebates that gave the company enormous shipping discounts unavailable to smaller competitors. Worse still, the railroads often charged independents extra fees and quietly funneled portions of those payments back to Standard Oil itself.

The result was devastating.

Independent producers could not compete with prices artificially manipulated against them.

Businesses collapsed.

Towns declined.

Families lost everything.

Tarbell watched it happen as a child.

Her father barely survived financially.

One of his business partners eventually killed himself under the crushing pressure surrounding the industry.

Ida never forgot any of it.

But instead of reacting with public fury, she became something far more dangerous:

A meticulous journalist.

By the time she joined McClure’s Magazine at the turn of the twentieth century, investigative reporting was beginning to transform American journalism. Tarbell believed the most powerful stories were not built from outrage alone, but from evidence so overwhelming nobody could dismantle it afterward.

So she began investigating Standard Oil.

And she worked like an accountant assembling a criminal case.

Court filings.

Railroad contracts.

Internal company memoranda.

Corporate records.

Testimony from former executives.

Government documents.

Thousands upon thousands of pages copied by hand because modern research tools did not yet exist.

She traveled constantly between Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Washington gathering material.

Then came one of the strangest parts of the entire story.

Henry Rogers — one of Standard Oil’s top executives and one of the most powerful businessmen in America — agreed to speak with her repeatedly over the course of nearly two years.

He genuinely seemed to believe he could manage her.

Charm her.

Control the narrative.

Perhaps he assumed a woman journalist would eventually soften the conclusions.

Instead, Tarbell simply kept gathering facts.

Then in November 1902, McClure’s began publishing The History of the Standard Oil Company.

Nineteen installments.

Running through May 1904.

The writing itself was not explosive in tone.

That was the brilliance of it.

Tarbell did not rant.

Did not exaggerate.

Did not perform outrage.

She simply laid out, calmly and methodically, how Standard Oil used predatory pricing, secret transportation deals, intimidation, and systematic market control to destroy competitors across the oil industry.

Readers were horrified precisely because the prose sounded so controlled.

The evidence spoke for itself.

And the impact was enormous.

Public anger toward monopolies suddenly crystallized into political momentum. President Theodore Roosevelt — already moving against powerful corporate trusts — drew heavily upon the climate Tarbell helped create.

Then came 1911.

The United States Supreme Court ruled in Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States that the company violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and ordered it broken apart into 34 separate companies.

Those fragments later became corporations like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Marathon, and ConocoPhillips — companies still among the most powerful in the world today.

And Rockefeller himself?

He publicly refused to engage with Tarbell.

“Not a word,” he reportedly instructed his associates. “Not a word about that misguided woman.”

He understood something important:

Arguing with her only gave her findings more oxygen.

Because nobody could truly disprove the documents.

So critics attacked her personally instead.

They called her bitter.

Vindictive.

Difficult.

Emotional.

Almost never inaccurate.

That distinction mattered.

Ida Tarbell spent the rest of her career carrying a strange reputation:

Deeply respected.

Rarely embraced.

She wrote sixteen more books and became one of the most influential journalists of her generation. Yet in private letters, she sometimes admitted feeling that admiration did not always translate into belonging.

Perhaps because she had exposed something many powerful people preferred to keep hidden:

How quietly enormous systems can be built through manipulation that looks almost invisible while it is happening.

And maybe that is why Ida Tarbell still matters more than a century later.

Because she proved journalism does not always require dramatic speeches or public theatrics.

Sometimes the most dangerous thing in the world is simply a patient person with enough evidence.

She did not write to be liked.

She wrote so the record would exist.

And once it existed, even Rockefeller could not erase it.

[Handre @Handre]

Two small island economies blew up in 2008. Iceland and Ireland. Their names differ by one letter, and their handling of the crisis differed by everything that matters.

Iceland's three big banks, Kaupthing, Landsbanki, and Glitnir, had grown assets to roughly ten times the country's GDP by 2008. Pure credit-fueled madness. When the music stopped, the Icelandic government did the unthinkable: it let them fail. Bondholders ate the losses. The state refused to socialize private bank debt onto 320,000 citizens who never signed up for it. Capital controls went up, the króna collapsed, and the politicians actually prosecuted bankers. Twenty-six of them went to prison. Sigurður Einarsson and Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson, the men who ran Kaupthing, served real sentences.

Ireland took the opposite road. In September 2008, the Irish government issued a blanket guarantee covering the liabilities of its major banks, including Anglo Irish Bank, a property-lending casino that should have been allowed to die in peace. The taxpayer absorbed the bill. By the time the rescue ended, Ireland had poured around 64 billion euros into its banks, roughly 40 percent of GDP. The state took on private gambling debts, then went to the Troika in 2010 hat in hand for an 85 billion euro bailout, and accepted years of austerity to pay for losses it had no business owning.

Both economies recovered. Both eventually grew again. The difference is who paid and who learned. Iceland made creditors and reckless bankers bear the consequences of their own decisions, which is the entire point of capitalism: profit and loss, not profit and bailout. Ireland protected the people who made the bad bets and handed the invoice to schoolteachers and shopkeepers.

You will hear economists call Ireland's GDP rebound a triumph (much of that "growth" is multinational accounting fiction, Leprechaun economics, but that's another lesson). What they skip is the moral architecture. When you guarantee bank liabilities, you abolish the discipline that makes markets work. You tell every banker in the country that downside is optional.

Iceland jailed its bankers. Ireland reimbursed theirs.

[FactPost @factpostnews]

Markwayne Mullin had the FDA delete warnings about the dangers of kratom, an addictive and sometimes lethal drug found in gas stations.

Mullin holds an up to $1 million stake in a major kratom company.

[Katie @KazooKatherine]

Wow! Raskin just sent Kash Patel this letter. It’s umm… interesting. Read it twice. 👀

The House Judiciary minority says Patel has handed out more than $1 million in “bonus” payments to agents on his Director’s Advisory Team and his security detail. The letter calls it a personal slush fund.

Here’s the mechanism. Federal pay is capped by statute. The letter alleges Patel routed money around that cap. Nearly $8,000 per agent, every two-week pay period. Some collected five in a row. Roughly $40,000 each.

Then the accounts ran dry. Raskin says some of the payments bounced.

Who got paid? The letter points to the unit NOTUS reported as the “Payback Squad.” And it ties the cash to silence, alleging agents were polygraphed over whether they helped cover up Patel’s drinking.

Now the other column. The agents he fired include an FBI Medal of Valor recipient, the official who led the Jan 6 law enforcement response, a Marine combat veteran cut weeks after his wife died of cancer, and a counterintelligence unit that tracked Iranian threats.

Reward the loyal. Purge the rest.

Raskin wants every bonus, every authorization, and every legal memo on whether this broke federal law. Deadline June 29.

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

🚨BREAKING: Trump-endorsed Mike Collins, who's known for his hateful social media posts, just won the GOP nomination in Georgia to run against Sen. Jon Ossoff.

This is how he built his career: blowing up ballot boxes.

Collins has deleted THIS tweet, but the internet is forever.

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

NEWSNATION: The Heritage Foundation has dug into this and they found a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of fraudulent voters over nearly 40 years of elections. Doesn't that tell you our elections are secure?

SEN. MARSHA BLACKBURN: I have not looked at the Heritage Foundation data

[Frank @FrankVeri]

🍁 🍁🍁🍁🍁
Monsanto wanted its growth hormone in every glass of Canadian milk. One government scientist stood in the way and his own bosses spent 14 years trying to destroy him for it.

His name was Dr. Shiv Chopra.

Born in India, 1934. Came to Canada in the 1960s. PhD in microbiology. Senior scientist at Health Canada's Bureau of Veterinary Drugs. 35 years reviewing drug applications. Approve the safe ones. Reject the unsafe ones. Protect the public.

For 20 years he did it quietly.

Then Monsanto came knocking.

A new drug. Bovine growth hormone. Brand name Posilac. Inject it into dairy cows, get 10-15% more milk. Bigger profits for the industry. Far bigger profits for Monsanto. The FDA had rubber-stamped it in 1993. Monsanto expected Canada to follow.

The file landed on Chopra's desk.

He started reading the science. He started finding holes.

The data was thin. Long-term safety studies were missing. The cow studies that did exist showed lameness, mastitis, reproductive failure, shortened lifespans.

If it was doing that to the cow, what was it doing to the milk?

His recommendation: reject it. Demand real safety data.

His managers had a different idea.

Approve it. The Americans approved it. Why are you holding it up? Just sign off.

He refused.

So the pressure started. Closed-door meetings. Attempts to pull the file and hand it to someone friendlier. Gag orders don't talk to the media, don't talk to anyone. Suspensions. Reprimands. Demotions. Dead-end reassignments.

He kept refusing.

Two other scientists refused with him. Dr. Margaret Haydon. Dr. Gérard Lambert. Same data. Same alarm. Same answer.

In 1998 the Canadian Senate launched an investigation into what was happening inside Health Canada.

Chopra and his colleagues did something almost nobody does. They walked into the Senate and testified under oath. Said managers were pressuring them to approve unsafe drugs. Said industry was running the regulator. Said the system was broken.

It made headlines around the world.

In 1999, Health Canada rejected Monsanto's application. rBGH would not be approved. Europe banned it next. Then most of the developed world.

Sit with that. One immigrant scientist in Ottawa beat one of the largest chemical corporations on Earth — and won.

Then his own government fired him for winning.

July 14, 2004. After 35 years of service, Health Canada fired Chopra, Haydon, and Lambert on the same day. Official reason: insubordination. Real reason: he embarrassed them in front of the country.

The same year, the Prime Minister mailed him a gold watch for "illustrious service." While they were firing him. He called it comedy.

He sued to clear his name. The fight took 13 years. He lost appeal after appeal. The final ruling came down in 2017. Three months later, in January 2018, he died. 83 years old. Never reinstated. Never given his pension back. Never owed an apology by anyone.

But here is what they could never take back.

rBGH is still banned in Canada today. Every glass of Canadian milk is still hormone-free — because one man refused to sign.

And the United States? Never banned it. It's still legal there. Right now.

He kept it out of Canada and they fired him. The system he fought is still pouring it into glasses across the border.

So tell me below was Shiv Chopra a hero, or just a troublemaker who got what was coming to him? Pick a side. Because someone in those meetings is still telling scientists to "just sign off."

[𝗰𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗺 @chrisbriem]

Worth repeating

[Greg Boris @gregboris]

@RepDustyJohnson Think of all the fraudsters who received a presidential pardon and no longer are obligated to pay back the money they stole

[Andy Boenau @Boenau]

Public agencies, consultants, advocacy groups, teachers... they'd all benefit from having a digital library with explainer videos like this one. Any and every transportation topic.

[Jason, @jasonc_nc]

The core, real question re: single stair buildings to rank and file firefighters should be this:

Which of these 2 buildings would you prefer in an active unit fire with risk of spread? Which requires more resources and is more likely to extend them to a point where you need to call in equipment from elsewhere, further delaying full response and increasing risk for anyone still inside?

The one with 12 units per floor, or the one with just 2?

Reality is the one on the left has a much greater fuel load, far more area to spread, higher risk of large scale collapse, and 6x more spaces and people to clear. And this double loaded corridor example is smaller than the norm. In practice the difference between the two is even greater.

Common single stair limits are a total floor area of just 4,000 sq ft. A double loaded corridor can be 46,000 sq ft - 11x the size and risk in a fire.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Scientists at Trump’s EPA say they are being told to make chemical risks “disappear on paper.” Not to study or manage them, but to make them vanish.

When a safety test on a household chemical shows danger, supervisors reportedly ask to keep shrinking the scenario until the poison looks safe.

They have reassigned senior scientists to paperwork and handed life-and-death risk assessments to staff with less experience. They have installed former chemical industry lobbyists to run the very offices that are supposed to regulate the chemical industry.

A gift to industry, paid for with your family’s health.

They are even throwing out research on how certain chemicals hit certain communities harder, calling decades of established science “DEI.”

You can make risk disappear on paper.

The cancer does not disappear.

The birth defects do not disappear.

The infertility does not disappear.

The kids drinking the water and getting sick do not disappear.

The EPA exists to protect people, not to protect the profit margins of the people poisoning them.

Every American deserves to know what is happening. #TrumpMakesUsSick

https://t.co/5DwXgxBybt

[Hildegard Angel Oficial @hilde_angel]

Nem uma única bola rolou no gramado até agora e este é o quadro da COPA 2026:
• As equipes do Senegal e do Uzbequistão foram tratadas na chegada como criminosos, com buscas completas em seus orifícios.
• O melhor árbitro da África foi enviado de volta à Somália, apesar de seu passaporte diplomático.
• O Fotógrafo da equipe do Iraque foi impedido de entrar mesmo com visto válido.
• Foi negada a entrada nos EUA de 90% dos fãs marroquinos com ingressos já adquiridos.
• Foram recusados vistos a 14 membros da equipe de apoio do Irã.
• Foi negada a entrada no país do principal atacante da Suíça, o camaronês Breel Embolo. A equipe viajou sem ele. Após a forte repercussão, o visto foi enfim concedido.
• A equipe iraniana, cujos jogos serão todos nos EUA, foi proibida de pernoitar no país. Imediatamente a após cada partida, os atletas voarão de volta ao México, onde se hospedam.
- Qual é o sentido de sediar a Copa do Mundo se não pretendem que o MUNDO faça parte dela???

[Roger Gall @Shambles151]

"A Swiss court has acquitted five Palestine solidarity activists, annulled their fines, recognised the reality of genocide in Palestine, and affirmed that peaceful civil disobedience is protected by freedom of expression."

Please RT this until the UK courts do the same.

Thanks.

[Morgan J. Freeman @mjfree]

🔥🔥🔥 TRUMP & EPSTEIN ARE SEX TRAFFICKERS & I’m gonna post this every day so nobody forgets exactly who Pedophile Trump is and why the Epstein files have suddenly disappeared.

[Ounka @OunkaOnX]

A 17-year-old valedictorian, Leen Hijaz, used her graduation speech to speak for the voiceless: "Millions suffering in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan. Families torn apart by ICE."

The school administrator cut her mic. Told her: "If you don't stop, you're not graduating." They withheld her diploma for four days.

[Sammi🦋 @StoriesBySammi]

The federal government just banned bison from public land in Montana.

Not cattle.

Bison.

Interior Secretary Burgum revoked grazing permits for 950 bison
on 63,000 acres of federal land in northeastern Montana.

The reason?

Bison raised for conservation don't count as livestock
under a 1934 law.

Bison raised for meat and milk? Fine.

Bison raised to restore a native species to its native land? Get out.

Meanwhile, cattle ranchers across the West keep grazing on your land.

For $1.69 a month.

One cow. One calf. Thirty days. $1.69.

On land that belongs to every American.

The Cheyenne River Sioux. The Coalition of Large Tribes —
50+ Native nations. Defenders of Wildlife.

They all filed formal protests.

They called it exactly what it is.

"DEI for cows."

The bison have until September 30 to be gone.

Who decided cattle belong on public land more than bison do?

#DemsUnited

[Jessica González-Rojas (votejgr.bsky.social) @votejgr]

Best video ever! Brilliant work by @NYCMayor @ZohranKMamdani and @JabariBrisport 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

I look forward to work with Jabari and other colleagues in the Senate to pass the New York Health Act!

[Vijay Malhotra @pedalandtring]

𝗘𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗯𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗵 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗦𝗼𝗻𝗴 ‘𝗔𝗺𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗮𝗺’

Link to video: https://t.co/W3dZtOIiOV

A musical rallying cry for cities to prioritise cyclists and pedestrians is being released by Edinburgh musician and cycling activist Dan Abrahams on the 3rd of June - World Cycling Day. The song is his third cycling anthem, ‘Amsterdam’. Following on from ‘Our Streets’2 and ‘Big Car’3, the new song celebrates cities which prioritise cycling.

The song’s video sees Dan cycling around Edinburgh with a golden picture frame on the back of his bike. Inside the frame cityscapes are transformed (by celebrated German animator Jan Kamensky) from car-filled concrete-jungles, to utopias filled with trees, benches and people walking and wheeling peacefully.

The song asks how the Dutch capital became such a cyclists haven, and asks why UK politicians can’t prioritise that infrastructure too. After all, it rains just as much in Holland as it does in the UK, and the Dutch didn’t always enjoy such world-class infrastructure - their citizens had to fight for it.

The video features many Edinburgh cycling activists in a scene which celebrates one of the great infrastructure successes of the capital - a new bridge which connects two popular cycle routes: Union canal and Roseburn Path. Other parts of the city, which have for too long been dominated by cars, are given a sudden makeover by Kamensky’s beautiful utopian animations. These include Dalry Road, Haymarket and Castle Street (off George Street).

Dan hopes the song and video will be shared far and wide, both in and out of the cycling community, contributing to a positive vision of what our urban future can look like.

The video was made possible thanks to the generous donations of members of the public, as well as funding from Edinburgh cycling organisation Spokes and Transport Scotland.

Amsterdam is released as a video on YouTube and social media, as well as on streaming platforms such as Apple Music, Quboz and bandcamp.

#WorldBicycleDay #Amsterdam #CyclingSong #PedalAndTringTring #DutchCycling

@Leszek33 @modacitylife @edinburgh @Iamsterdam @danabrams

[Scott Dworkin @funder]

🚨 THE LIE IS EXPOSED. Republicans are pushing laws across the country to require proof of citizenship to vote, claiming it's to stop "massive noncitizen voting." But US District Judge Samantha Elliott just looked at 26 years of actual data and slaughtered that narrative in a major 98-page ruling.

The actual facts? Noncitizen voting is "essentially nonexistent." Out of 8.3 million ballots, they found exactly eight cases by noncitizens in 26 years. The law wasn't about integrity; it was a voter suppression scheme designed to purge legitimate voters right before the midterms. This ruling changes everything.

Hit the ❤️ LIKE and SHARE buttons to stop the voter suppression machine! Click the link to see how a courageous judge just saved your right to vote: 👇 https://t.co/vUykYSx15u