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Luke Goldstein

@lukewgoldstein.bsky.social
15K followers 136 following 75 posts

Reporter at the Lever. Lgoldstein at levernews dot com

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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
David Sirota @davidsirota.com · 11/03/2026
🚨INVESTIGATION: A criminal trial involving Marco Rubio is exposing a foreign influence scheme & the Trump figures who profited off shaping U.S.-Venezuela policy, according to court documents reviewed by @levernews.com. @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social's story here: www.levernews.com/the-miami-tr...
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
Ben Lilliston @benlilliston.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
How this will affect #USDA employees already facing massive staff cutbacks and relocations is one part of this story. What do farmers think of Palantir and the company's potential access to their on-farm info? Thanks for reporting @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social www.levernews.com/palantir-jus...
levernews.com
Palantir Just Got Millions To Assign Cubicles
The Trump-linked spy firm could be paid millions to help the Department of Agriculture with “employee seat assignments” and “space utilization.”
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
The Lever @levernews.com · 12/02/2026
ICE is moving fast to expand detention capacity, including converting warehouses into new mega facilities. Behind the scenes, a small group of politically connected real estate brokers is making millions. @katyaschwenk.bsky.social and @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social ⬇️ www.youtube.com/shorts/dO5aF...
youtube.com
Who’s Profiting From ICE’s Expansion?
YouTube video by The Lever
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
Chris Tobe, CFA, CAIA @christobeky.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Jeffrey Epstein's Pension Destruction Engine – Athene PRTs still going thanks to Trump's DOL commonsense401kproject.com/2026/02/25/j... @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social @katyaschwenk.bsky.social
commonsense401kproject.com
Jeffrey Epstein’s Pension Destruction Engine -Athene -Creating a new class of victims – over 200,000 pensioners
Jeffrey Epstein didn’t just sit in a conference room with Leon Black and Marc Rowan. But in the newest batch of Epstein files, he discussed tax strategy and business architecture with them around t…
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
The Lever @levernews.com · 26/11/2025
🚨 NEW: The Lever reporter @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social on @npr.org to explain how private equity is pricing families out of youth sports. Parents are being barred from recording their own children’s games and forced to take out subscriptions to access footage. www.npr.org/2025/11/25/n...
npr.org
When private equity invests in youth sports facilities
NPR's Juana Summers speaks with Luke Goldstein of The Lever, who wrote about the rise of private equity control of youth hockey facilities.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
Freddy Brewster @freddy-brewster.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
If you have stomach issues or diarrhea in the near future blame the senators who slipped these provisions into the funding bill to reopen the government. www.levernews.com/shutdown-dea...
levernews.com
Shutdown Deal Kills Food Safety Rules
After lobbyists spent big on the Trump administration and Democratic defectors, the government funding bill cut food-contamination rules and limited ultraprocessed-food research.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
TechEquity @techequity.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
2) Employers are trying to TRAP (Training Repayment Agreement Provision) employees by making them pay for any training they received if the employee leaves their job early. @jacobinmag.bsky.social @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social jacobin.com/2025/08/corp...
jacobin.com
Corporations Want to Prevent Workers From Leaving Their Jobs
As regulators crack down on noncompete agreements that bar workers from finding better jobs, employees across the country are increasingly bound by a new form of “stay-or-pay” contract that indebts them to their bosses.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
Henry Burke @henryburke.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
The Lever's @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social and @freddy-brewster.bsky.social are out with a devastating piece on the ways the crypto industry is absolutely pulling the strings of pro-crypto Democrats. ‪Trump's corruption? Who cares. Financial stability? Fuck it. They want a payoff. Now.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Ahhhhh… www.levernews.com/trump-alread...
levernews.com
Trump Already Disarmed The War On Drug Prices
To the benefit of Big Pharma, the president’s new executive order on drug costs is missing a key price-lowering mechanism.
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
The FTC now has 3 cases open to lift regulatory restrictions put on oil executives for illegal coordination and colluding with OPEC. This comes after the oil/gas industry + those very executives contributed millions to Trump PACs and petitioned for regulatory relief
levernews.com
They Inflated Your Gas Prices — Now Trump Wants To Let Them Off The Hook
Awash in industry donations, Trump is poised to exonerate fossil fuel executives accused of colluding to increase oil prices.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
David Sirota @davidsirota.com · 08/05/2025
Texas lawmakers are now trying to change their state laws to empower Elon Musk to sue you into the ground and bankrupt you and your family if you criticize him. The group spearheading the lobbying campaign for the legislation is bankrolled by...Elon Musk.
levernews.com
The Texas-Sized Plan To Shut You Up
A corporate-led attack on free speech in Texas is making odd bedfellows and tearing the state’s GOP apart.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
Revolving Door Project @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
For more on the backstory, read @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social's previous reporting on Sheffield in @prospect.org.
prospect.org
The Mega-Donor Who Colluded With OPEC
Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield was banned from ExxonMobil’s board after a merger for conspiring to keep gas prices high.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
The Lever @levernews.com · 06/05/2025
🚨THIS JUST HAPPENED: Last year, two oil CEOs were busted for conspiring with foreign governments to raise Americans' gas prices. Then the pair of oil CEOs funneled cash to Trump's political machine. Now Trump's regulators are ending their punishment. www.levernews.com/they-inflate...
levernews.com
They Inflated Your Gas Prices — Now Trump Wants To Let Them Off The Hook
Awash in industry donations, Trump is poised to exonerate fossil fuel executives accused of colluding to increase oil prices.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
Revolving Door Project @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
The Khan-led FTC showed that U.S. fossil fuel execs conspired w/ OPEC to limit global oil supply, so they could raise prices & boost profits. Biden did not use this scandal—Trump mega-donors making your life more expensive!—to his full advantage. Dems now have a second chance.
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
Trump’s pick for retirement czar is an avid blogger…(if that weren’t bad enough) he specifically blogs about his disdain for pensioners who, in his view, are bullying Wall St with “frivolous” lawsuits for looting their nest eggs. He happens to run a company profiting from said looting.
levernews.com
The Corporate Crusade Of Trump’s Top Retirement Cop
Potential pension chief Daniel Aronowitz wants to give retirement fund managers a free pass for price-gouging workers and bungling their savings — and his company stands to profit from it.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
The CFPB continues to survive, as a second attempt to fire approx. 90% of the workers has failed. But the details of the effort is broadly applicable to DOGE's tactics, showing their contempt for and ignorance of the law, along with what it actually takes to run a federal agency.
prospect.org
Hatchet Job on CFPB Even Worse in the Details
Declarations in a case reveal a haphazard hobbling of the consumer protection agency.
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 27/04/2025
Exposing the “Biden age coverup” is not Watergate despite how much the DC press corps wants to act like it is and pat themselves on the back
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
NEW: a hidden class of consultants are helping companies use tariffs as a pretext to impose lasting price hikes, as they did during inflation. These very practices were under scrutiny by the FTC before the Trump admin ended the probe, giving companies a “green light” to gouge
levernews.com
How Trump Is Helping Price Gougers Exploit His Tariffs
Emboldened by the new administration’s regulatory reprieve, “price optimization” consultants are showing corporations how to weaponize import levies to fleece consumers.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
The Lever @levernews.com · 19/04/2025
INVESTIGATION: Trump’s administration halted a probe of surveillance pricing — now “price optimization” consultants are helping corporations weaponize Trump’s tariffs to jack up prices on consumers. “Now is the time to take advantage,” said one consultant www.levernews.com/how-trump-is...
levernews.com
How Trump Is Helping Price Gougers Exploit His Tariffs
Emboldened by the new administration’s regulatory reprieve, “price optimization” consultants are showing corporations how to weaponize import levies to fleece consumers.
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
Politico ran a paid sponsorship yesterday by "Make America Affordable Again," run by Trump campaign top strategists Chris LaCivita and Tony Fabrizio. It has nothing to do with affordability. Their sole advocacy is for "loser pays" lawsuit reform to dissuade people from suing corporations for damages
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
The Lever @levernews.com · 16/04/2025
During yesterday's Facebook antitrust trial, evidence emerged showing Mark Zuckerberg admitting that Big Tech is deliberately worsening users' online experience. www.levernews.com/zuckerberg-a...
levernews.com
Zuckerberg Admits Enshittification Is The Point
The tech CEO just confirmed what we already know: Big Tech is deliberately worsening users’ online experience.
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
This week, Senators on the Finance Committee called for a criminal probe into a fraudulent “tribal tax credit” scheme peddled by financial advisors who Trump’s IRS pick Billy Long worked for. Those same firms just paid off Long's outstanding debt from his failed Senate bid:
levernews.com
Trump IRS Pick Was Just Enriched By Tax Schemers
New documents show Billy Long’s $130,000 personal debt was suddenly paid off by donors at firms policed by the tax agency he’d lead.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
David Sirota @davidsirota.com · 16/04/2025
🚨BREAKING: Trump's IRS nominee Billy Long just had his personal debt paid off by donors whose firms have business before the tax agency he’d lead, according to documents reviewed by The Lever. If confirmed, Long would be able to do favors for the donors. www.levernews.com/trump-irs-pi...
levernews.com
Trump IRS Pick Was Just Enriched By Tax Schemers
New documents show Billy Long’s $130,000 personal debt was suddenly paid off by donors at firms policed by the tax agency he’d lead.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
Todd Tucker @toddntucker.com · 05/04/2025
Lutnick starts out by claiming the trade war will bring back manufacturing, but there won't be jobs - just robots As @samseder.bsky.social @ddayen.bsky.social noted, he realized he made an error, and tried to pivot to claiming we'll need workers to repair the robots. www.foxnews.com/video/637101...
foxnews.com
Howard Lutnick predicts a manufacturing ‘renaissance’ is coming | Fox News Video
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick elaborates on the Trump-led rebirth of the American economy and U.S. manufacturing on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime.’
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
The Lever @levernews.com · 02/04/2025
INVESTIGATION: Hospital chains are buying up billions of dollars of real estate, milking them for income while using charity status to avoid taxes that fund schools & emergency departments. Some are now using taxpayer-subsidized fortunes to buy elections.
levernews.com
Paging Dr. Land Baron
Nonprofit hospitals are building tax-exempt real estate empires — and working to crush politicians who stand in their way.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
nick gavio @gavio.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
wow, new bombshell reporting from @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social reveals: - in 2023, Corey O'Connor strongly supported Ed Gainey's legal challenges to UPMC's property tax exemptions. - in 2025, O'Connor's mayoral campaign received $25k from the UPMC Board. - he now opposes the legal challenges. 🤔
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
Helen Santoro @helenwsantoro.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
My colleague @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social & I examined how UPMC is abusing its tax-exempt status by buying up properties, not paying taxes, & influencing the Pittsburgh mayoral election. UPMC is an exemplar of a wider issue with hundreds of nonprofit hospitals abusing their generous tax breaks.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
Daniel Hanley @danielahanley.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Friendly reminder: Obama taught Republicans that controlling Big Tech is key to political power. While Obama used charm, handshakes, head nods, and backroom talks — and Trump uses threats and coercion — the implied deal is the same: pledge loyalty, and your power goes unchecked.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
David Sirota @davidsirota.com · 26/03/2025
NEWS: Democratic lawmakers worked with lawyers for Meta, Musk & other billionaires to sculpt new legislation blocking shareholders & workers from accessing corporate records when trying to hold CEOs legally accountable. Last night, Dems passed the bill.
levernews.com
Meta Drags Delaware To The Bottom
Delaware just passed a bill to let executives off the hook across the country — and Meta helped write it.
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
When a Dept. Sec. says something 180 degrees from reality u have to wonder who they're covering for. Rollins' war on CA Prop 12+other cage free laws is contradicted by USDA's own data showing it has nothing to do with birdflu or high egg prices. It's the contrary:
levernews.com
Animal Farm: Eggflation’s Monopoly Problem
Factory farms are blaming eggflation on animal welfare laws in an attempt to boost their margins and crush their competitors.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
Lucy Dean Stockton @lucydeanstockton.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
I saw a $15 carton of eggs last week 🥚 (Eggflation is real). But, as @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social reports, factory farms are blaming high prices on animal welfare laws in order to boost their margins, crush independent farms + expand CAFOs (despite the avian flu). www.levernews.com/animal-farm-...
levernews.com
Animal Farm: Eggflation’s Monopoly Problem
Factory farms are blaming eggflation on animal welfare laws in an attempt to boost their margins and crush their competitors.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
Jared Jacang Maher @jjmaher.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Cage-free laws aren’t the culprit behind high egg prices. Via @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social www.levernews.com/animal-farm-...
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
“Tiny Wesleyan Uni” … you heard it here first folks
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Pretty incredible that the largest executive compensation package in history (Elon’s at Tesla for $56 billion) was blocked b/c of your average Philly dude, former drummer in heavy metal band Dawn of Correction who sued Musk with only 9 shares in the company
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
The Lever @levernews.com · 14/03/2025
🚨Trump's White House just quietly issued an ethics waiver for the crypto mogul who Trump appointed to oversee federal crypto policy, according to documents reviewed by @LeverNews. The waiver waives federal conflict-of-interest laws for David Sacks.
levernews.com
Trump Issues Ethics Waiver For His AI/Crypto Czar
The White House granted the waiver to David Sacks a month after Trump fired the director of the independent agency charged with enforcing federal ethics statutes.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
I also want to reiterate that it took every single Democratic Senator to agree to this deal. A single Democratic Senator could have denied unanimous consent, pushed this into Monday, allowed more time for the discontent to fester. Every Senate Democrat is complicit. www.politico.com/news/2025/03...
politico.com
Senate moves ahead on shutdown votes
Democrats agreed to speed up consideration of the bill to allow a vote on Friday in exchange for votes on four amendments.
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
But he’s so funny —-
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
David Sirota @davidsirota.com · 10/03/2025
🚨INVESTIGATION: New legislation pushed by Musk would give him the largest payout in history, shield CEOs from accountability for wrongdoing & block shareholders from seeing corporate documents. The bill was written by Musk's lawyers & backed by top Dems.
levernews.com
Musk Has Triggered A Corporate Deregulation Bomb
A Delaware bill would award Elon Musk $56 billion, shield corporate executives from liability, and strip away voting power from shareholders.
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Google is incorporating AI into all office software products and making users pay higher rates for it even if they don’t want the AI feature. The architect of the price hike is the same executive whose testimony lost Google its antitrust search case last year
levernews.com
Google’s New Private Tax
With little fear of competition, the tech giant is jacking up prices for its cloud-based software as it aims for another monopoly
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
It’s no wonder the oligarchs wanted to get rid of Rohit Chopra, Biden’s director of CFPB. A scam private college CEO once described him as an “economic terrorist” who "should be sent to Guantanamo Bay for about a decade of R&R; which should include an aggressive regimen of ‘water sports’!"
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
FTC’s new director of consumer protection ! Populism !
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
I wrote up what happened to the CFPB this weekend, made possible by a years long lobbying campaign by Wall St and a recent push by Silicon Valley. Plus, a bunch of under the radar recent actions the Bureau took that enraged the business world
exilesonmainst.substack.com
The Deregulation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
One of the Right's long running projects is now being enacted with help from Silicon Valley and Wall St.
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
The Supreme Court just upheld the constitutionality of the CFPB’s funding mechanism less than a year ago
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
Pablo Manríquez @pabloreports.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
NEW: @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social's oil painting of Mark Andreessen
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
It's true. End of an era for me at TAP. More news to come soon but for the time being if you want to support the work you can buy my meme coin here: bit.ly/42KO63Y
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Luke Goldstein @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Pete Hegseth somehow left his Venmo public (govn officials please keep doing this). @DRBoguslaw and I took a look at his high-powered rolodex and what it could portend for business before the Pentagon: contracts for defense tech and VA healthcare privatization
prospect.org
Pete Hegseth’s Venmo: Defense Contractors, UnitedHealth Execs, Fox, and Friends
The VA may be the next government agency to go dark, if Pete Hegseth’s digital Rolodex is anything to go by.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
So SecDef Pete Hegseth's Venmo rolodex is public. Dan Boguslaw & @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social took a look inside. His personal contacts include many of Silicon Valley's budding defense contractors & numerous officials at UnitedHealth, which has contracts for military health care.
prospect.org
Pete Hegseth’s Venmo: Defense Contractors, UnitedHealth Execs, Fox, and Friends
The VA may be the next government agency to go dark, if Pete Hegseth’s digital Rolodex is anything to go by.
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Reposted by Luke Goldstein
David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
An under-the-radar GOP push to create "portable benefits" is intended to keep gig workers off the books as actual employees, writes @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social. The showdown pits workers against the tech companies lining up behind the Trump administration. prospect.org/labor/2025-0...
prospect.org
The ‘Pro-Worker’ Portable Benefits Scam
Big Tech app companies want to evade employment law, and they’re hoping Republicans will help.
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