Bridget Bartol

I've fed many #boston squirrels cupcakes. For that, I am sorry. twitter.com/MetzgerBot/sta…

I am deeply concerned about Section 373 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which would expand military access to Washington, DC’s airspace. This provision would reverse the progress we’ve made following the tragic crash over the Potomac River in January. I urge Congress to strike Section 373 and to follow the recommendations of safety experts. My full statement:

Consumers trimmed holiday spending plans in November…average estimate of $778, down $229 from October’s $1007 and significantly lower than last November’s estimate of $1012 ⁦@Gallup⁩

Reporter: Average selling prices were 7% higher than last year. That's more than twice the overall rate of inflation. That's well more than average wages. Some of the categories seeing the biggest price increases are exposed to tariffs. 6% increase on clothes, 7% on electronics, and 24% on appliances.

Trump is pursuing a protectionist economic policy with a massive carve out for AI, where admin policy is quite globalist so what you’ve got is a proudly “anti-globalization” agenda nestled inside a de facto pro-globalization AI agenda that’s actually driving the economy

It appears Trump will, in fact, touch Social Security. (or, as the piece makes clear, Russ Vought will through a rule change putting tighter limits on disability benefits) washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/…

Thinking about this moment ahead of RFK Jr's Senate hearing tomorrow.

Inflation pressures haven't eased much per ISM ... 15 industries reported increased prices for raw materials in August

If someone is infected at birth, they have a much higher chance of developing liver cancer and of spreading hepatitis B to others.

Empirically, this is not true. Not all mothers have prenatal care. Some get infected between testing in the first trimester and delivery. In some cases, the test is overlooked. If a child is infected at birth, they have a 95% chance of becoming chronically infected UNLESS, they get one dose of hepatitis B vaccine. If they do, they have less than a 5% chance of being chronically infected.

This is such a huge story now. Seemingly happening to everyone. I wrote about the causes here: heatmap.news/energy/why-is-…

Thanks to tariffs (esp re: Canada), US aluminium prices are now roughly 50% higher than in Europe & Japan, thus putting US manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage. Heckuva industrial strategy.

Breaking: BILL CASSIDY is calling for CDC's vaccine advisers meeting to be postponed. "If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership."

To recap: * They took $1b out of DC's budget * They promised to restore it * They never did *They gutted the National Park Service * They called in the National Guard from a number of states to combat crime * The guard is doing custodial work that DC and NPS usually do

@aphysicist @mims You’re essentially highlighting what the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was set up to do (specifically at dept of energy) which was billions to fund real manufacturing and system infrastructure at large demo & commercial scale instead of the traditional R&D.

@mims they take forever to win and are generally negative signal to investors because they aren't 'real customers'

today i ran an experiment that exposed what i believe to be one of the biggest threats to america right now i attempted to raise funding for a manufacturing company from silicon valley VCs and from PE funds the VC gave me 5 minutes on zoom and said this was "more of a PE deal" because it was "too capital intensive", and they had no comps to benchmark it to, so they left to hop on another zoom and give an AI saas company a $50M pre seed the PE fund had no one to answer. i tried two others same thing. finally got a hold of the fourth which said they "don't fund r&d" and "we buy ebitda", and suggested i talk to VCs about de-risking the tech first so i call back the VC and ask "what about tesla or spacex?" and they said "those aren't replicable, you're not elon" while funding the 47th AI email assistant this is the reality: america is being priced out of its own industrial future while companies get stuck in the valley of death between VC and PE this is why 50% of our founders don't care anymore about building hard tech / manufacturing, because VCs want guilt free 100x returns from the saas casino, and pe wants existing cash flows if we want to support reindustrialization and domestic manufacturing, we need investors who understand the middle ground exists, and real tech can enable massive empires otherwise the factories of tomorrow won't be american, they'll be chinese. but at least we'll have another b2b saas platform with a 40x revenue multiple

A year ago, I wrote about the ways President Trump could target offshore wind projects in a 2nd term. There was one big one: Using voluntary remands to void permits for fully authorized wind farms being battled in court. It's happening: bloomberg.com/news/articles/… via @AriNatter

Gas prices in Ohio now stand 14.5 cents per gallon higher than a year ago and have seen the largest weekly rise (32c/gal) of any state.

John Deere is laying off 238 workers at three factories in Iowa. The company said Tariffs and lower commodity prices are to blame. “Tariff costs in the quarter were approximately $200 million, which brings us to roughly $300 million in tariff expense year to date,” said director of investor relations Josh Beal.” American Companies and American Consumers Pay the Cost of American Tariffs. Time to Get Back to Free Trade with Free Nations!🇺🇸 wsj.com/opinion/deere-…

@drvolts Manufacturing readiness and capacity

The electricity affordability crisis is upon us. GOP will surely blame Democrats without self awareness that global trade wars and throttling supply (especially projects that are almost complete!) makes electricity more expensive not less.

Cancelling an energy project basically right before it’s finished and delivering power to the grid shows that Trump’s energy policy is about creating shortages so that prices go up. I do not wonder why.