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- [00:00]
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- [00:28]
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- [01:48]
John Lal (Executive Producer)
From executive producer isaac saul, this is tangle.
- [02:03]
Will Kbach (Senior Editor and Host)
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangled Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking and a little bit of our take. I'm your host today, Senior Editor Will Kbach. Today we're gonna be covering the recent settlement that was announced between Live Nation, which is the company that owns Ticketmaster, and the Department of Justice, which centers on alleged monopolistic anti competitive practices Live Nation has engaged in over the past decade or so and promises to potentially change the way that the live events industry works. So we're going to get into the degree of reforms that may be part of this deal, as well as some of the broader issues in the event space that I'm sure many of you have experienced if you've gone to a concert recently or some other kind of live event, and particularly if you bought a ticket for that event using Ticketmaster. So excited to get into it. A little bit of a change of pace today, but a relevant story in the current news cycle as well. That being said, we also want to flag a piece that we have coming tomorrow as our Friday edition, and this is the third installment in a series that we are calling what Happened TO so in 2017, the end of the Internet as we knew it seemed imminent. The Federal Communications Commission, if you remember, was preparing to vote on a rollback of net neutrality protections, and politicians, celebrities, free SPEEC advocates, millions of everyday people rallied together against this repeal effort. But despite that public uproar, net neutrality rules went away that year and they haven't been back since. So in tomorrow's edition, we're going to ask what happened to those claims that the Internet would be forever changed if net neutrality was repealed. Reminder that this will be a premium offering for our premium podcast subscribers. If you are a free listener, you'll get a preview of the piece, but you'll have to subscribe to listen to the full thing and likewise goes for the newsletter. All right, I will pass it over to John to get us started on today's topic and then I'll be back in a bit to read my take.
- [04:15]
John Lal (Executive Producer)
Thanks, Will and welcome everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, a preliminary Pentagon inquiry into the February 28th missile strike that hit an elementary school in Iran, killing approximately 175 people, reportedly found that the United States was likely responsible for the strike. The investigation is still ongoing. Number two, the International Energy Agency announced that its member countries will release 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency stocks in an effort to ease oil prices that have sharply increased due to the war in Iran and attacks on oil vessels in the Gulf. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said the United States intends to release 172 million barrels of oil as part of the IEA's collective effort. Number three, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics reported that the Consumer price index increased 2.4% on an annual basis in February and rose 0.3% from the prior month. Number four, multiple outlets reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigations Joint Terrorism Task Force sent memos to California police departments in late February warning of Iranian ambitions to launch drone attacks against unspecified targets in California in response to a war with the United States. And number five, Michigan based medical device company Stryker announced that it experienced a cyber attack possibly linked to a pro Iranian group, affecting many employees, cell phones and computers and leaving them unable to connect to company networks.
- [05:55]
Jerry Insurance Advertiser
Live Nation has reached a surprise settlement in its antitrust case with the Justice Department, successfully allowing the concert giant to avoid a breakup with Ticketmaster now. A senior justice official said today's deal will drive down prices by giving artists and fans a bit more choice now. This follows a week of testimony in a closely watched trial that sought to potentially dismantle the live entertainment company. Federal prosecutors argued that Live Nation operated as a monopoly. Live Nation denied any wrongdoing.
- [06:25]
John Lal (Executive Producer)
On Monday, Live Nation Entertainment reached a settlement with the Department of Justice a week into its antitrust trial. The government had argued that the company's subsidiary, Ticketmaster, constituted an illegal monopoly over the ticketing industry. As conditions for the settlement, Ticketmaster agreed to provide a standalone ticketing system for third party use, divest from exclusive arrangements with up to 13amphitheaters, reserve 50% of tickets for non exclusive venues and kept ticketing service fees at 15% for events in amphitheaters it owns. Of the 40 state attorneys general who signed onto the suitcase, 28 indicated that they will continue fighting at the state level. U.S. district Judge for the Southern District of New York, Arun Subrahmanian, who is presiding over the case, gave the holdouts until the end of the week to negotiate. If no deal is reached, the trial could resume as early as Monday. For context, Live Nation is a global entertainment conglomerate that owns and operates concert venues and manages artists. In 2010, Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster, a ticket sales and distribution company that dominates the primary ticketing market for live events, sparking criticism that the new company constituted a monopoly. The DOJ launched an investigation into the company in 2022. At the time, public frustration with the company was growing after high traffic for Taylor Swift's ERAS Tour crashed Ticketmaster's systems and led Ticketmaster to cancel the general admissions sale, leaving millions of fans locked out. In May 2024, the Department of Justice, joined by 30 state attorneys general, formally filed an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation. The government's initial preferred remedy was a structural breakup, forcing Live Nation to divest Ticketmaster entirely. The settlement also includes an eight year extension of the company's consent decree with the doj, which bars Live Nation from threatening to restrict concerts from venues that don't sign deals with Ticketmaster. No financial component is included as part of the DOJ settlement itself, but Live Nation created a $280 million fund to address individual states damages claim. Justice Department officials said Monday's proposed settlement is designed to drive down ticket prices and give consumers more choice. However, the DOJ announced the settlement in court during a live trial without alerting the judge or jury, creating a chaotic courtroom scene and sparking criticism from attorneys general and lawmakers. Judge Subramanian said that the announcement showed absolute disrespect for the court, the jury and the entire process. The state attorneys general, who are continuing the suit at the state level, publicly criticized the deal. The settlement fails to address the monopoly at the center of this case and would benefit Live Nation at the expense of consumers, new York Attorney General Letitia James said. Our resolve has not wavered, said Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Scrametti. We are proud to stand with a powerful core of conservative AGs and bipartisan partners from across the country committed to continuing the fight. Today, we'll cover what the left and right are saying about the lawsuit and the settlement, and then Senior Editor Will Kbach will give his take.
- [09:40]
Isaac Saul (Executive Editor and Founder)
We'll be right back after this quick break. Hey everyone, quick thought before we get started. If you listen to Tangle, it's probably because you're trying to escape the media echo chamber. But even when you read broadly, it's hard to see which stories are being emphasized and which ones are being ignored. This episode is brought to you by Ground News. Ground News is not a publisher. It's an app and website that gathers reporting on every news story from across the political spectrum and shows you each outlet's bias rating, factuality rating and who owns it. It's more than just an aggregator. It gives you context on every perspective in one place so that you can make up your own mind. For example, a recent story about a bipartisan border deal collapsing was covered by 50 plus outlets. One left leaning headline read GOP sinks border deal under Trump Pressure, while a right leaning one said Democrats block stronger Border enforcement. Same event, very different framing. Ground News lets you compare that instantly and even flags blind spots, stories disproportionately covered by one side. If you want unlimited access to these features, subscribe to to the vantage plan for 40% off@groundnews.com tn that's groundnews.com tn promo code tn again, groundnews.com tn code tn for 40% off if you care about seeing the full picture, I think you'll really value this tool. A thoughtfully built wardrobe comes down to pieces that mix well and last. That's where quince shines premium fabrics considered design and everyday essentials that feel effortless to wear and dependable even as the seasons change. Quince has the everyday essentials I love with quality that last lightweight cashmere sweaters, short sleeve Mongolian cashmere polos, linen bottoms and shorts tees in 100% Pima cotton and European jersey linen. These are the versatile pieces that make a wardrobe actually work season to season. Quince works directly with top factories and cuts out the middlemen. You're not paying for brand markup or fancy retail stores, just quality clothing. Everything from Quince's linen pants to their cotton polo shirts have become a staple in my own wardrobe and I even get compliments from my wife for what I'm picking out for myself, which is a new accomplishment for me. So stop over complicating your wardrobe. You don't need a closet full of options. You need a few pieces that actually work. Right now you can go to quince.comtangle for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to build your wardrobe and love it. And you will now available in and Canada too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to Q U I n c e.com tangle for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com tangle.
- [12:21]
John Lal (Executive Producer)
All right, first up, let's start with what the left is saying. The left broadly criticizes the settlement, saying it doesn't address the company's monopolistic structure. Some highlight the ties between Live Nation and the Trump administration. Others argue the agreement includes meaningful concessions to Ticketmaster's competitors in the sling. Ron Knox said the settlement solves nothing. In 2010, antitrust enforcers from the Obama administration ignored the chorus of music industry and consumer critics warning about the unchecked power of a merged Ticketmaster and Live Nation. They approved the deal over these objections, subject to some promises that the combined company wouldn't force venues to use Ticketmaster in order to host Live Nation artists and tours, or what Antitrust recognizes as a tie in, knox wrote. Eight years later, Live Nation was found to have violated that remedy so flagrantly that even the first Trump administration was forced to take action. But rather than sue the company to break it up, they made Live Nation double promise that it wouldn't abuse its monopoly again. Nothing changed. This settlement appears destined to fail as well, for the reasons conduct remedies often do. The proposed behavior fixes to Live Nation's monopoly power do nothing to address the structure of the company, which is the thing that gives it the power and motivation to dominate every corner of the live music industry, knox said. So long as Live Nation controls Ticketmaster, it will want to compel the many hundreds of major artists it manages and the tours it organizes to use Ticketmaster. The milquetoast guardrails the settlement creates around venue and artist choice and ticketing platforms do nothing to change the interrelated nature of Live Nation's business. In Big Matt, Stoler wrote that Trump pardoned Ticketmaster when no one was looking. The antitrust division abruptly announced that it has reached a deal with Live Nation Ticketmaster, which led to the company's stock skyrocketing on the news. But then the state enforcers, who are also plaintiffs, said they would not be sandbagged and pledged to continue the trial. Stoller said this kind of split in a monopolization case is exceedingly rare and it never happens in a single day in court. Broadly, this consent decree would be the third TicketMaster deal since 2010 and none of them have delivered competition to the market, so there's no reason to assume that this one will either, stoller wrote. Ultimately, hanging over these proceedings is the specter of corruption. Live Nation retained well known MAGA lobbyist and fixer Mike Davis, who was able to force the previous antitrust chief Gail Slater from office. Another Trump lobbyist, Kellyanne Conway, works for Ticketmaster. The company donated 500,000 to Trump's inaugural in Slate. Nitish Pahwa suggested Ticketmaster's grip on live concerts is finally starting to break, however disappointing the initial result may be for everyone who desired some accountability for Ticketmaster's myriad of sins crashing during errors, tour sales, overcharging venues and attendees teaming up with scalpers, the fight is not over, pawa said, and the current deal also comes with notable concessions that clamp down on some of Live Nation's most risible business practices. Bit by bit, the near unanimous public antipathy toward Ticketmaster is gradually transforming audiences ticket buying experience for the better, in large part by opening up access to competitors eager to demonstrate that they are not the dreaded hated Ticketmaster. Another bonus of this settlement? Major venues, whether or not they are owned by or contracted with Live Nation, will no longer have to direct customers to Ticketmaster's interface by default, to the advantage of upstart ticketing companies like Dice, which is often praised by its partners for using extra guardrails to secure against resale, price gouging and fraudulent bot driven transactions, Pow Wow wrote. That indicates another key bit of the fallout further empowerment of the anti Ticketmaster movement. All right, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying The Right questions the government's antitrust allegations against Live Nation. Some say the company shouldn't bear the blame for high ticket prices. Others argue the deal could leave concertgoers worse off than before. In May 2024, the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote antitrust comes for Live Nation. Look past the government's legal theatrics. Its essential complaint is that Live Nation Entertainment is too big. But where's the antitrust violation? The board asked. Most economists agree that vertical integration typically produces efficiencies that benefit consumers by reducing what's known as double marginalization. Yet DOJ portrays Live Nation's use of profitable businesses to subsidize its lower margin businesses as an antitrust violation. If this were true, thousands of businesses would be breaking the law. Ticketmaster takes a roughly 5 to 7% cut on a ticket sale, and its fees are lower than those of competitors, DOJ says. Some Live Nation business lines generate up to a 70% profit margin. Yet Live Nation and Ticketmaster Boast a combined 1.4% annual net profit, the board wrote. This hardly demonstrates monopoly power. Antitrust is popular in today's anti business era, especially when the attorney general can denounce high ticket prices. But press releases won't win in court. In reason, Jack Nicastro said Live Nation settled its lawsuit with the Feds following its 2010 acquisition of Ticketmaster. Live Nation became the world's leading live entertainment ticketing sales company, according to the Justice Department. Given this massive market share, one might assume that Live Nation is responsible for jacking up ticket prices to concerts, Nicastro said. But this isn't how the primary ticket market works. Performers themselves set the price which ticketing companies sell for a fee of about 7% of the ticket's face value. Even including venue and ticket fees, which increase the all in ticket price by as much as 30%, there are far more tickets demanded than available at this low price. The Justice Department might notch Live Nation settlement as a win in the war on affordability. But as long as performers price tickets markedly below what their fans are willing to pay, scalpers will be strongly incentivized to purchase these tickets at this below market rate and get them in the hands of fans who value them the most, Nicastro said the answer is not more government intervention, but allowing prices to work. The Washington Post editorial board told readers not to expect cheaper concert tickets. The Justice Department settled with the entertainment conglomerate Live Nation this week to end a lawsuit that should never have been brought. It's unclear whether consumers will be any better off after this lengthy legal fight. But that's nothing new in the world of antitrust, the board wrote. Ticketmaster will give other companies access to part of its own backend technological systems to make it easier for venues to sell through competing providers. And Live Nation is going to let competitors share what have been exclusive arrangements with 13amphitheaters. Venues should be able to freely opt into the contracts with ticketing providers of their choice. A government compelling a private company to share its proprietary technology platforms with competitors will have unpredictable results, the board said. Concertgoers could end up worse off if new entrants use the tickets being sold at retail price to direct customers toward resale markets that offer seats at significantly higher price points. Live Nation's critics are mad that it wasn't broken up, and no doubt the company is miffed at being arbitrarily hamstrung. The only people walking away happy now are lawyers and lobbyists. All right, let's head over to Will for his take.
- [20:10]
Will Kbach (Senior Editor and Host)
Thanks, John. Now here's my take. I came of age as a concert goer in the post Covid world, so I didn't have a strong sense of the before times. Now that I'm out of school and living in New York City, I attend a lot more live events these days. And even without a baseline to compare it to, in just the past few years, ticket prices seem to have shot up, the buying process has become more convoluted, and the event experience itself is a lot more corporate and less human. So when I read about the Justice Department's lawsuit against Live Nation back in 2024, I was excited by the prospect of change. Live Nation and Ticketmaster are ubiquitous in all things events, and it seemed obvious to me that they are, at minimum, approaching monopoly status and abusing their growing leverage. Industry experts, lawmakers and reporters confirmed that sense at the time and after the 2022 Taylor Swift debacle, a range of Republican and Democratic attorneys generals signing onto the DOJ suit looked like responsive Democratic governance. That suit has now produced a settlement agreement that potentially includes $280 million for damage claims and changes to the company's most pernicious alleged practices. I support this outcome, and I think the deal will rein in some of Live Nation's worst behavior to the benefit of artists, venues and fans alike. But I also think that Live Nation has become a punching bag for all the things we dislike about live events, and the tendency to blame them for everything wrong with the industry obscures one key issue that they don't control, which is demand. But first, let's talk about the benefits of this settlement. In 2024, the DOJ accused Live Nation of a host of anti competitive practices, all of which plausibly damaged the event experience. In simple terms, the company allegedly drove up prices and boxed out competitors by amassing control over venues, tours and ticket sales, particularly after it acquired Ticketmaster. And the numbers really speak for themselves here. Under the DOJ's definition of the events market, Live Nation controls over 80% of major concert venues, primary ticketing for concerts, and about 60% of concert promotions at major US venues. It also holds exclusive arrangements with 265 venues. That degree of control is ripe for abuse. In one example cited in the suit, Live Nation allegedly colluded with venue development company Oakview Group OVG to minimize competition and maintain leverage over artists in 2016. According to emails obtained by the DOJ, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapinoe emailed OVG CEO Timothy Leiweke, seemingly warning against taking on an artist that Live Nation had previously promoted and suggesting it would allow the artist agent to play the companies off each other. Labeki replied, quote, our guys got a bit ahead. All know we don't promote and we only do tours with Live Nation. When a similar issue arose in 2022, Labicki told Rapinoe, we have never promoted without you won't, adding, quote, I never want to be competitors. In its rebuttal to the DOJ suit, Live Nation said that OVG is a venue manager, not a promoter, so a mutually beneficial agreement between the companies is reasonable and legal in theory. That's a fair point, but the emails suggest a deeper relationship wherein OVG acted as an unofficial arm of Live Nation in return for exclusive business arrangements. Such arrangements would strip leverage from both artists and fans and could constitute violations of the 1914 Clayton Act. Now, monetarily, the settlement is a slap on the wrist. The $280 million fund amounts to just 1% of Live Nation's $25.1 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2025. Now, yes, that's also about 40% of its reported $690 million profit for fiscal year 2025. But they get to keep their business whole and avoid what could have been a crippling cost if they had lost at trial. However, the changes to how Live Nation interacts with other players in the event space are much more significant, in my view. The deal would reportedly end its exclusive relationship with venues, allowing multiple vendors to sell tickets for an event, and it would permit touring artists performing in Live Nation owned amphitheaters to use non Live Nation promotion companies. Both of these reforms take direct aim at monopolistic practices and seem like wins for artists and venues, though it bears mentioning that many venues do prefer to have exclusive partnerships with ticket platforms for simplicity's sake. But the biggest victory in this settlement, in my opinion, is the agreement to cap service fees at 15% of a ticket's face value, though this only applies to amphitheaters that Live Nation owns, operates or controls. The company owns many of the most popular amphitheaters, so many consumers should pay lower fees now and for reference, more of a personal example, I recently bought tickets through Ticketmaster to see one of my favorite artists, Rufus De Sole, perform at a Live Nation owned amphitheater. The tickets themselves were $64.50 each, with a $19.25 service fee tacked on, and that's 30% of the face price. Now, Ticketmaster doesn't keep 100% of that fee. A portion does go to venues to support their operations, but revenue from fees is a major part of Live Nation's business model. Under this settlement, that fee would be halved, meaningfully lowering the cost to attend many shows and dampening the frustration of extra costs in the checkout process for consumers. It's also a major concession for Live Nation, given how much money it makes from these fees. So again, with all this in mind, the core tenets of this deal contain wins for venues, artists and fans, and it would represent a major step toward a healthier live event space. But I don't think crucially that it will bring down event prices or make the ticket buying process less stressful. For all the talk of the pandemic leaving us more isolated and introverted, demand for in person experiences has boomed over the last few years. If you've participated in concert pre sales recently, you've probably witnessed that demand firsthand. For the show that I talked about before, over 60,000 people were with me in the ticket queue for the presale, and that's for a venue with a 27,500 person capacity. And hey, that is great. I love that people want to get together to dance and listen to music, and I love that it means more support for amazing artists of all stripes, not just Taylor Swift and Harry Styles. But demand is outstripping supply, and supply is inherently limited by the venue's capacity and finite tour dates. I don't think any government intervention can change this reality now. One possibility to address affordability is to crack down on the ticket resale market, which has become a diseased husk of bot activity. Maine recently enacted a first of its kind law that bans ticket purchasers from using bots to buy tickets in bulk and then charge more than 10% of the total price of the original ticket on the resale market. I'll be curious to see what effect that law has on ticket prices and whether other states follow suit. Bluntly, though, I don't think laws like this are the answer either. The resale market has grown so big because people are willing to pay for these tickets, even at massive markups. We simply haven't hit a point where enough people decide they can't afford a ticket for an event they want to attend to bring demand into equilibrium with supply. Or at least closer to it. Putting limits on resale prices might bring down the average cost of tickets, yes, but I suspect it will just make live events inaccessible to almost everyone except those lucky enough to be at the front of the virtual queue when tickets are first released. Now that's a bitter pill to swallow. I don't like to say that, but high prices are the cost of making tickets accessible to the people who want them most. And that will remain true no matter how big a fine Live Nation pays, how many reforms it agrees to, or even in the most extreme outcome, if it's forced to split off from Ticketmaster. Demand is demand. So yes, this settlement addresses real problems that should lead to tangible improvements at several levels of the events industry. But we should also note that it's not a silver bullet. All right, that is it for my take. I'm going to pass it over to our executive producer, John Lal. I know you usually hear him at the front and end of the podcast, but John is somebody who has direct personal experience in the live events industry, and he authored A Descent to My Take today. He has a really valuable perspective to share, and we're excited to have him make his debut in the Descent section. So Jon, I'll pass it over to you and then I'll jump back in to answer our reader question.
- [29:40]
John Lal (Executive Producer)
Thanks, Will. As someone who sold tickets to shows, as a musician and has many close relationships in this industry, I think Will understates Ticketmaster's control of the resale market. DOJ's amended complaint says Ticketmaster's resale share in North America accounted for nearly one third of ticket resales in 2022. The DOJ also alleges that Ticketmaster's safe ticks technology is an anti competitive tool, making it harder for fans to use rival resale platforms by requiring transfers to occur within Ticketmaster's platform, pushing fans toward Ticketmaster resale instead. And here's the kicker. Ticketmaster typically gets fees from both the sellers and the buyers as well. Many artists have expressed a desire to price some tickets below face value in the hopes of allowing fans of ordinary means to come to a show. And Ticketmaster says they want to work with artists in doing this. But in reality, they offer ample opportunity for bots to infiltrate the purchasing queue, then dominate the resale market, both of which they control. Any settlement that doesn't address this total control of the purchasing system will continue to rob agency from artists and box ordinary people out of the opportunity to attend live events.
- [30:58]
Isaac Saul (Executive Editor and Founder)
We'll be right back after this quick break.
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- [32:16]
Will Kbach (Senior Editor and Host)
Thanks, John. All right, today's reader question is a little bit different than what we normally do. We haven't actually received this question yet, but we are anticipating getting it after today's edition is published. So I'm going to read the hypothetical question and then I'll share our response. Here it is. Why is the Washington Post editorial board listed under what the right is saying today? Didn't you previously argue that they should still be categorized under the left? Here's our response. Last October, we answered a reader question about our rationale for continuing to categorize commentary from the Washington Post editorial board under the left, despite recent shakeups inside the paper's Opinion section. We acknowledged those changes, but we noted that the major media bias evaluators still gave them a left rating, and the editorial board was still publishing columns that could reasonably be construed as center left. Candidly, even when we wrote that, though we had our doubts, those doubts manifested as a kind of paralysis within our editorial team, and we actually highlighted what those conversations looked like when we leaked our Slack transcripts a few months ago. The last time that we included the Post's editorial board in either the right or left sections was October 7, 2025, even though we still refer to their commentary in our daily research. We just haven't used them in several months now. But today's edition forced our hand, and we're glad it did. We found exactly three opinion pieces from conservative writers on the Live Nation case we covered in our main story, but only if we counted the Post's editorial board among them. So in our discussion on how to proceed, two key points swayed us toward recategorizing them. First, the board has been writing more overtly conservative columns over the last few months. In October, many of their pieces aligned with a moderate or center left view, but today their writing is more tailored toward principled conservative arguments. They still criticize both sides in both parties, but those critiques are exclusively rooted in anti regulation, anti tax, pro market fundamentals. Second, the media bias reviewers are out of date or cast too wide a net for our purposes. All Sides last reviewed the post in January 2025, before post owner Jeff Bezos announced the opinion section would shift its focus more towards that conservative point of view. Media Bias fact check last reviewed the paper in October 2024. And finally, AD Fontes maintains an up to date review, but it bases it on the entirety of the Post's coverage, not just its opinion page. However, we should note that its most recent review of an individual editorial board article rated the piece as skews right, which gives some more credence to our view. Back in October, we missed the nuance of the media bias reviewers and the timing of their reviews, and so we put more weight on their reviews than we should have. But going forward, we feel comfortable defending the decision to move the editorial board to the right, and you can expect to see them reappear in the newsletter. All right, now I'm going to pass it back over to John for our under the Radar story and the rest of the newsletter. Thanks as always for listening and have a great day.
- [35:38]
John Lal (Executive Producer)
Thanks again, Will. Here's your under the Radar story for today, folks. In January, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Social Security Administration Inspector General alleging that a former doge employee said he had access to two highly sensitive databases of and planned to share the information with his private employer. The Inspector General has opened an investigation into the disclosure, sharing the complaint with members of Congress and the Government Accountability Office. The complaint alleges that the former Doge employee claimed to possess SSA data on more than 500 million living and dead Americans. The Washington Post has this story and there's a link in today's episode description. And last but not least, our have a nice day story. In the Chicago area retirement community Sunrise of Crystal Lake, a handful of residents have found a new way to stay active and creative in their old age. They're members of the Rolling Scones Cooking Club and they gather every Saturday to cook together. I get to feel like I'm being creative again because, well, when my husband got sick, I had to just walk past my sewing room and leave all the projects I had done and cook for him and take care of him before we came here, club members Nancy Reich said. This creative need that I have is being fulfilled by creating salads. Today has this story and there's a link in today's episode description. Alright everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, Please go to retangle.com where you can sign up for a newsletter membership, podcast membership or a bundled membership that gets you a discount on both. As Will mentioned at the top, he is penning a piece this week in his continued series Whatever Happened to this time the topic is net neutrality. Tomorrow's Friday edition goes out to members only, so if you haven't signed up yet, now is a good time to do so. Another reminder that we have been releasing our Suspension of the Rules podcast on Thursdays now, so you can listen to today's episode on your favorite podcast player and also you can head over to our YouTube channel to watch the video recording of the podcast itself. I'll be be back in your ears next Monday, folks. Until then, for Isaac, Will and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have an absolutely wonderful weekend, y'.
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Ground News Sponsor Announcer
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John Lal (Executive Producer)
Peace.
- [37:51]
Isaac Saul (Executive Editor and Founder)
Our Executive Editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our Executive producer is John Lowell. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, with Senior Editor Will K. Back and Associate Editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsey Knuth and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@retangle.com.
- [38:31]
Fin AI Customer Service Advertiser
AI is transforming customer service. It's real and it works. And with fin, we've built the number one AI agent for customer service. We're seeing lots of cases where it's solving up to 90% of real queries for real businesses. This includes the real world, complex stuff like issuing a refund or canceling an order. And we also see it when FIN goes up against competitors. It's top of all the performance benchmarks, top of the G2 leaderboard, and if you're not happy with will refund you up to a million dollars, which I think says it all. Check it out for yourself at Finn
- [39:00]
McDonald's Advertiser
AI with its two juicy beef patties, three slices of melted cheese, and tangy Big Arch sauce. The Big Arch is what happens when you start making a McDonald's burger and never stop. The Big Arch the most McDonald's McDonald's burger yet for a limited time.
- [39:16]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
With almost half a million customers and over a trillion dollars of secure payments, Bill isn't new to intelligent finance. It's the proven way to simplify bill pay and maximize cash flow. Want to learn more? Visit bill.comproven for a special offer.