Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:
Bitcoin Now Has a Trustless Bridge to Ethereum Through Arbitrum L2
Kraken secures MiFID license to offer derivatives in Europe
Coronavirus and Public Health:
Politics:
Republican Senators Say They’re Fine Handing Their Power to Elon Musk
Musk’s actions may be unconstitutional but “nobody should bellyache about that,” Sen. Thom Tillis said.
This is called ethnic cleansing and I’m guessing that Palestinians have no intention of obeying: Trump Says Palestinians Must Leave Gaza
…Trump declared on Tuesday that Palestinians had no choice but to leave Gaza because of the devastation wrought by Israel’s war with Hamas after the terrorist attack of Oct. 7, 2023, suggesting that they be given a new homeland.
Said Trump: “They have no alternative right now… I mean, they’re there because they have no alternative. What do they have? It is a big pile of rubble right now.”
He added: “I don’t know how they could want to stay. It’s a demolition site. It’s a pure demolition site.”
And this is ethnic cleansing on steroids: Trump proposes U.S. control of Gaza, permanent displacement of residents
…Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed that the United States take a ‘long-term ownership position’ over Gaza, moving its residents to a ‘good, fresh, beautiful piece of land’ in another country and rebuilding the war-torn territory under U.S. control, offering a vision of mass displacement likely to inflame sentiments in the Arab world as he welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House.
Trump’s proposal was likely to provoke a furious reaction from many Palestinians as well as their Arab allies in the region, since it suggested permanently removing Gaza’s 2.2 million residents from Palestinian territory and settling them outside of their land. It would also pull the United States even more deeply into the conflict by taking over territory that belongs to Palestinians.
A Battle for the Soul of the FBI
An agency that is defined by loyalty to a person, rather than principles can neither be guided nor reined in by rules. It is built around, and driven by, contempt for them.
The current Justice Department’s willingness to decimate almost half of its agent workforce without due process protections owed to those employees and despite the danger to Americans that will result from the vacuum left by agents no longer investigating and monitoring critical threats, is already signaling a step in this direction.
FBI agents sue DOJ to block release of who worked on Trump, Jan. 6 cases
A group of nine FBI agents asked a federal judge on Tuesday to block the Trump administration’s efforts to collect information on thousands of case agents across the country who worked on investigations tied to President Donald Trump or the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Attorneys for the agents, who filed suit anonymously in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said any effort to use that information as a basis to fire FBI employees would be unlawful, retaliatory and a violation of civil service protections.
Inside Trump’s ‘Exhausting’ Hunt for Leakers
Over the past two weeks, President Donald Trump and his billionaire patron Elon Musk have embarked on a frenzied MAGA purge of federal agencies and departments. The duo and their allies’ blitz across the government triggered a torrent of press leaks, coming from career officials and other personnel appalled by the speed and scale of Trump and Musk’s power grab and budding constitutional crisis.
One of the things Musk and Trump have discussed, according to a source familiar with the situation and another person briefed on it, is the geyser of leaks coming from the administration and the need to identify, root out, and persecute the leakers. The problem is there is so much leaking going on currently that doing so would likely be a mammoth task.
Said one federal career official: “Come and find me, assholes.”
As usual, it’s all about him: Trump says he’s given advisers instructions for Iran to be ‘obliterated’ if it assassinates him
It’s almost as if he doesn’t realize that it wouldn’t be his call. Couchfucker Vance might think twice about trying to obliterate a country of 86 million people.
Vladimir Putin approves this message: The CIA Is About to Get a Trump Makeover
The Central Intelligence Agency offered buyouts to its entire workforce Tuesday, in what officials said is a bid to bring the agency in line with President Trump’s priorities, including targeting drug cartels.
The CIA appeared to be the first intelligence agency to tell its employees that they can quit their jobs and receive about eight months of pay and benefits as part of Trump’s push to downsize the federal government. The offer last month made to most civilian federal agencies exempted some categories of federal workers, including those with national security roles.
All Eyes Are Now on the Courts
With a blinding speed that has left adversaries virtually paralyzed, Trump allies are purging the Justice Department and FBI of perceived enemies. Elon Musk, empowered by Trump, has deployed a band of loyalists to take over the federal spending apparatus managed by the U.S. Treasury. Trump’s temporary pick to lead federal prosecutions in Washington says anyone who resists Musk’s efforts could be breaking ‘numerous laws.’
The White House is attempting to freeze virtually all federal grants, which nonprofits say is already wreaking havoc on programs for vulnerable Americans. With almost no notice, the administration has dismantled the agency responsible for international aid and offered millions of federal employees a buyout with questionable legal authority. Trump fired many of the internal watchdogs — inspectors general — who would review these decisions.
Congressional Democrats seem flummoxed by the pace, responding to crises from three news cycles ago while new ones keep arising in real time. And congressional Republicans have either stayed silent or applauded Trump for sending shock waves through the federal government.”
All eyes are now on federal courts, where challenges tothese decisions are slowly starting to take shape.
Serendipity:
Water is the other US-Mexico border crisis, and the supply crunch is getting worse
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