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BY HANNAH WEINBERGER / CROSSCUT
Originally published Feb. 10, 2021 on Crosscut.com
Seattle’s technology billionaires are many things: innovators, visionaries, philanthropists and some less polite descriptors, depending on whom you ask. But thanks to some scrupulous digging by industry journal The Land Report, which tracks land ownership across the country, we now know that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has another feather in his multi hyphenated career cap: America’s Top Private Owner of Farmland.
Gates has spent years quietly diversifying his $129 billion fortune through asset manager Cascade Investments to include at least 224,000 acres of U.S. farmland since at least 2014, when the acreage was rapidly increasing in value. But a few weeks ago, The Land Report Editor Eric O’Keefe revealed Gates’ field-topping stake in cropland as well as that he’s now the 49th largest private owner of land in the country, period.
February 15, 2021 - 4:20pm
The board of the far-right social media app Parler has fired its CEO and put the platform in the hands of interim CEO Mark Meckler and right-wing British political operative Matthew Richardson, along with board chair and majority owner Rebekah Mercer.
Meckler, whom Mercer recruited for Parler, is a well known right-wing activist who co-founded the Tea Party Patriots and is president and CEO of the Convention of States Foundation and its partner Convention of States Action, organizations pushing for a constitutional convention to radically rewrite America s founding document.
Many participants in the deadly Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6 were Parler users. A Gizmodo report used GPS data from hundreds of archived Parler videos to prove that numerous users stormed the nation s legislative branch. Many of those videos, which were archived by a hacker, were featured in a montage that House impeachment managers used in Trump s impeachment trial.
Bill Gates is investing big in American farmland
The Microsoft co-founder’s personal investments mirror a growing trend amongst the uber-wealthy. By Hannah Weinberger, Crosscut
Share: FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2018, file photo, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda take part in an AP interview in Kirkland, Wash. Bill Gates is starting a new fight against systemic poverty in America, as his private foundation announces millions of dollars toward unspecified initiatives ranging from data projects to funding for community activists. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
Seattle’s technology billionaires are many things: innovators, visionaries, philanthropists and some less polite descriptors, depending on whom you ask. But thanks to some scrupulous digging by industry journal The Land Report, which tracks land ownership across the country, we now know that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has another feather in his multi hyphenated career cap: America�
February 25, 2020 - 11:36am
The Wisconsin Assembly passed a resolution calling for a rewrite of the U.S. Constitution on February 18
by a 60-38 vote, almost entirely along party lines. The measure, Assembly Joint Resolution (AJR) 77, now heads to the Senate, where its companion, Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 57, has yet to move out of committee.
If passed, Wisconsin would become the 16
th state to back right-wing efforts to call for a constitutional convention to propose sweeping amendments to the Constitution to curtail the powers of the federal government. Under Article V of the Constitution, at least two-thirds of the States must submit applications in order to convene a constitutional convention.