Justice Dept. scales back crypto cases in line with Trump administration memo
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
The memo: https://archive.ph/Td0Fn (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43636327)
They will still go after the Sam Bankman-Frieds:
>Prosecutors shall prioritize cases that hold accountable individuals who (a) cause financial harm to digital asset investors and consumers; and/or (b) use digital assets in furtherance of other criminal conduct...
But seem to be intending to deal with whether it is ok to do things like issue trump token by setting regulations rather than prosecuting companies after the event. Which is not wholly a bad idea.
Memo text here: https://archive.ph/Td0Fn
Just another good reason to stay out of crypto unless you're already rich and have money to gamble.
That would make sense if the Trump admin were actually regulating crypto but they're tearing that up as well.[1] Why would Trump regulate his own scam coins? Finally regulation isn't a magic wand that stops behavior, it stops it with the threat of punishment after the event. So no this doesn't make sense.
1: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5170036-trump-sec-cryp...
And as your link says:
> “We in the crypto space felt it was very deceptive the way they [the Biden administration] went about dealing with crypto firms. They told crypto firms to come in and register, to come in and engage with them,” said Nic Carter, a founding partner at crypto investment firm Castle Island Ventures. “There was no meaningful way to do that.”
But BTC and ETH at least are not considered securities at this point, and in general, the SEC has not done all that well when companies took it to court.
Technically FTX/Alameda was able to repay investors and consumers so did SBF cause financial harm?
He definitely did fraud (a crime), but did he cause financial harm?
Similarly does Money Laundering (a crime) cause financial harm?
FTX was only able to repay customers because the value of BTC increased during that time. But customers were only repaid the value of their portfolio at the time of the collapse.
If I steal your money, invest it, then return the principal amount after 2 years, would you consider it financial harm?
It’s hard to make the same case for crypto, which (despite the insistences of its participants) more or less exists in isolation from the rest of the market. The industry feels it is over-regulated. Makes sense that a more lassiez-faire leader would take a more hands-off approach to it.
There is a reason exchanges were investigated in the first place and it wasn’t for fun.
> Prosecutors shall prioritize cases that hold accountable individuals who (a) cause financial harm to digital asset investors and consumers; and/or (b) use digital assets in furtherance of other criminal conduct, such as fentanyl trafficking, terrorism, cartels, organized crime, and human trafficking and smuggling. Seeking accountability from individuals who perpetrate these types of wrongdoing deters future illegal activity, compensates victims, and promotes the public’s confidence in the digital asset markets and broader industry. On the other hand, criminal matters premised on regulatory violations resulting from diffuse decisions made at lower levels of digital asset companies often fail to advance the priorities of the Department.
I read this as switching from proactive enforcement (stop the act before it causes damage) to reactive regulation (punish the guilty after the act happens). Proactive regulation of public markets makes sense because the general public has an interest in well-functioning capital markets even if they are not direct participants (markets are essentially the capitalist replacement for central planning).
Trump’s secret sauce is exploiting this from every angle.
— Alfred describing why the mob hired the Joker
It’s clear that both political parties in the US are captured by the investor class, the democrats didn’t even have an election to choose Kamala she was selected by their donors who preferred someone they could control over someone with the best chance of winning.
If the lesson people take away from this is that Republicans are just uneducated and naive, they’re missing the point. People were desperate for something different, they thought Trump was someone from outside of the system but they didn’t realize that the system is money and no one is outside of it.
It has an interesting conjecture, and sounds like it was written in good faith.
Biden won the primary, then he stepped down. That's the actual story, and if you don't include the teensy little detail you're being dishonest. As a reminder to everyone, choosing not to tell the whole truth is dishonesty.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/is-it-really-unlawful-...
You’re the one being dishonest. The democratic nomination wasn’t official until August, and to suggest the Democratic Party had no other option is factually incorrect and a revision of history that ignores the months the party and pundits spent discussing other options, as well as the legal argument the party itself made to justify choosing Harris.
Two important notes: the RNC would have been just as screwed if the DNC had succeeded in putting a bullet in Trump’s brain. Also, Harris performed unusually badly during her presidential primary, stoking angers that she was not only unelected, but that she wouldn’t have been elected given the chance.
Wait, what?
Ultimately, if Harris wasn't a good candidate for the Presidency, then she shouldn't have been VP in 2020. That was where the issue lay.
> The nomination will officially be voted on either shortly before or during the convention itself. Unless a major Democratic figure mounts a serious challenge — which did not appear to happen within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement — the president’s endorsement of Harris will likely carry the day with delegates.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/is-it-really-unlawful-...
The idea that Harris was the only option because they couldn’t move funding is absurd, we’re talking about an election for the highest position in the world. If the party wanted to choose someone else, they would have found a way to reallocate the funding or just eat the cost.
There's a very good reason for this: those general elections cost states money. Money they have not budgeted to re-run a primary. In addition, in most states, the primary is framed in a legal process that does not allow for an "out-of-band" second election. It would, generally, have been illegal to re-run an election (at least using the physical voting apparatus of the myriad states) to choose an alternate when Biden dropped, which is why the party chooses via their own process.
And as far as I'm aware, that process was followed following Biden's announcement. I wouldn't accuse Republicans of being uneducated and naive if people didn't vote for Harris because "she never won a primary..." I'd accuse traditional Democrat voters of not knowing very much about the party they (nominally) tend to support. It'd be nice if civics weren't just something people's parents and grandparents did.
As for being an outsider... In 2024, I fail to see how voters would think a former President could be considered outside the system.
1: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/joe-biden-one-te...
2: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/biden-president-...
This is exactly the problem. The Democratic Party excuse is always "we're following the process". The results suck and then they wring their hands wondering how they lost the election. The goal should be to get power, and getting power requires nominating someone popular. Anyone who has paid attention to US politics for the last decade could have explained just how unpopular Kamala Harris would be.
The Democrats do follow process. That's one of the key things that makes them Democrats in contrast to the demagoguery and power-at-any-cost approach that seems to have co-opted their colleagues across the aisle. I don't think the kind of people who would vote for a Democratic candidate at all actually want a rule-breaker (and if they do, we got one in the Oval Office right now).
Some of you do. Some of you don't. Most of you want of you presidents to obey courts at least.[1]
> So glad they kept the filibuster
In 2013 Democrats eliminated the 60 vote requirement for most nominations. In 2022 all but 2 Democrats voted to eliminate it for some legislation. Who kept it was 100% of Republicans, Sinema, and Manchin.
Some people who sounded like you said Democrats could have and should have blackmailed Sinema and Manchin to get 50 votes. They couldn't explain what would have stopped Sinema or Manchin from defecting to the Republicans.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/majority-americans-believe-...
If we're blackmailing Senators, what do we do when the courts step in to stop it?
Breaking the process leads to a pyrrhic victory. It's France going from guillotining the king to guillotining feminists. If that's one's goal, rejoice! The man in charge right now is the best opportunity since the adoption of America's Constitution in the first place to get there.
ETA: As a side question on this topic: let's assume the Democrats, upon finding that Biden wouldn't be willing to serve, found some way to re-run the primary. We'll magically ignore the massive cost to do so and the fact that it would be illegal to use the voting apparatus of most states in a surprise out-of-band second primary, and we'll magically assume they could organize and pull it off in time for the general election. Who would have come out of that process that would have beaten Trump?
For what its' worth, by the time Biden was elected, the party was already dead. It would have realized that in 2020 if Trump hadn't messed up COVID so badly. The best example of what I am talking about is Obama not seating Merrick Garland on the court and daring the Senate to stop him.
Instead, I saw Americans stay home, again, and Trump get elected, again. It would appear, sadly, Americans are getting the government they're willing to put in the effort to have. All the resources in the world to stop these circumstances and they didn't use them.
Ah, well. Pax Americana was a pretty good run. We got the Internet out of it. Hopefully, the reshuffling of global power into something that replaces it will be even better.
And in the American system, where We the People consent to be governed by a government that derives its power from those people... Where else would the blame lie?
Maybe subconscious feelings made people not bother to get to the polls to vote for her, but I don’t think there’s a sensible conscious argument to ditch her on this basis. In fact, people often say she failed for a reason that is almost an opposite of her unfairly replacing Biden – they say she acted just like him and wouldn’t differentiate herself from him.
I get it was unusual and maybe offensive the way she got nominated, but if a principled voter is going to weigh informal notions of legitimacy, the obvious choice is hold their nose and vote for Harris.
I don’t believe in voting for the lesser of two evils. It’s a myopic viewpoint that doesn’t take into account long term consequences.
People can rationally look at the long term benefits vs short term risks and rationally vote for Trump. It is extremely hubristic to think that people who don’t agree with you politically are stupid or irrational.
I fail to see that position. There's always a choice between better and worse; even if the choice of better isn't what you want right now, it bends the arrow in the direction where the next choice starts from a better position.
Is your argument that there's a risk of local maxima? Perhaps. But I think it's hubris to imagine that if you bend the arrow down, you'll get to decide who survives the local minima to see whether there's a better maxima after it. That's a choice to put a lot of blood on one's hands.
I would have preferred if the GOP hadn't put actual fascism on the table so that people had meaningful choice over policy (and, indeed, had Trump lost, perhaps it would be the GOP who would've learned their lesson that Americans won't tolerate fascism). But since they did, and America chose the GOP choice, we're now in a situation where the best we can hope for in 2028 is a vote to reject fascism instead of something better.
I don't think that gets us pointed in the right direction, sadly.
(In the larger sphere, the problem is people thinking all they can or should do is vote for President. There's a whole four years and several Congress and state elections in which to do something effective towards desired outcomes, but Americans get very drilled-down on the President only, to their detriment. Half the reason Congress is so sclerotic is most Americans can't be bothered to know who their Congressional reps are, let alone what they stand for).
Back in the olden days of Bush or Obama, they would at least have a trial in a secret court with a judge who was maybe not rubber-stamping it, the public was pretty sure they were real terrorists, and the jailers (or executioners!) were Americans who faced consequences when they mistreated the prisoners.
... until they weren't. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there sure are a lot of historians in America who have actually packed up and fled the country as of late...
Speaking of myopia... so a voter considering voting Dem should have thought, "Well, if Biden died today she would become President for awhile anyway, and if he died after winning she would be president for the rest of his term, so she's halfway to being a presidential candidate anyway... but I'm really pissed they didn't re-run the primaries in ways that might not even be legal and would inevitably invite attacks on the legitimacy of the winner, so I'm going to teach them a lesson. I'm so mad I didn't get a chance to have a new-blood lefty or whoever I think is better than Harris but somehow didn't beat Biden, that I'd rather make it more likely for the far-right to win again. I won't vote for someone who disrespects democracy by accepting an unprecedented party nomination, I would rather the winner be the one who disrespects democracy by egging on violent attacks on the capitol, attempting fake elector schemes and pressuring the VP and state governors to throw the election, and violate campaign finance laws. I may be saddling myself and the entire country with a president I don't want, but at least I will have stood my ground stopping Democratic party insiders from upgrading a nearly-nominated VP candidate to Presidential candidate!"
That is the argument that I am saying is stupid and irrational, not being Republican or voting for Trump per se. I just don't see a reasonable, self-consistent argument from "I'd consider a Democrat, but they bent their own rules" to "I should let the non-Democrat who has broken laws win." That's emotion, insistence on following one rule at the expense of all others, and denial of political realities, not logic. And people are free to vote on feelings and perceptions, as I am free to argue they were stupid or irrational if they say this is their reason.
And yeah, some of those accusations against Trump haven't been proven in a court of law, but neither has the idea that Harris was illegitimate.
If you care about Dem ideology etc enough to follow their primaries, you would stick with the party even if they didn't yield exactly the flavor of candidate you prefer, not hang everyone out to dry with a far-right alternative in the generals. If you were content to let the far right win, it doesn't feel like you were truly invested in the Dems anyway, so why should they care how you would have voted in their primary re-run? Again, it's emotionally-driven, this desire or hope to use the party's power to get your candidate onto the ballot, and punish them if they don't do it.
Maybe I should be open to choices other than Trump or Harris, but I feel they're worthless in this climate, and I don't think your premise cares about them either. If you want to vote third party, why care whether one of the two parties followed their nomination rules?
It's also "fun" how Republicans whined about rule-breaking and denying the will of the people in this situation, then a few months later they're entertaining plans like putting up a strawman for president so he can resign and give Trump a third term by succession. (Which as I understand, most lawyers believe is BS, but these days... it might just work.)
I don’t. I follow both primaries because that’s where almost all of the democratic process in the Presidential election happens. Once you have two candidates (third parties are obviously jokes), you get to choose between the two.
So, the primary process is very important to make sure democracy happens and I put a lot of importance in it. As should everyone.
And so, if a candidate does not win through that primary process, that candidate is illegitimate.
If Biden won and died on day 1 in the office, you'd still end up with "a president who never won the primary" but it wouldn't be the party's fault. Biden stepping down is approximately the same endpoint without dying; is it really logical to blackball the party over a possibility that could have happened accidentally?
Even supposing they legally could have done what you want, they were also legally permitted to do what they did. Harris was a candidate produced by the party following laws and its own procedures. You didn't like the outcome, but that doesn't mean it was not legitimate. Call it undemocratic if you want (though I'm not sure the normal primary process is democratic anyway), but it's legitimate.
That's a great point, and one I wish more voters understood. The primaries are very undemocratic, both of them. In most states, you can't even vote in both primaries because you can only have one party affiliation.
How much real choice do Americans have when the primaries determine, practically, the candidates and they can only lend their voice to one party's choice of candidate?
It is very clear that, long before the primary, Biden was not fit to run again, probably not even fit to stay in office. A functioning party would have gotten their senile standard-bearer to at least not run again, ideally even step down and let his VP take office and build a relationship with voters. Either way, they could have run a real primary and therefore chosen somebody that Democratic voters might actually have been excited about voting for in the general election. This may even have been Harris, but a version of Harris with a much better shot at winning because she'd spent an additional year or so campaigning.
Why is this an impossible set of events? If it isn't, why not lay the blame for this colossally bad fuckup at the feet of the Democratic leadership?
I think people believe elections are internet-fast or internet-convenient, which is where this skewed idea comes from. They aren't, for reasons that should be obvious with some consideration about how elections are secured.
Basically speeches/debates/mini campaign before the convention, and the delegates vote at the convention without regard for the original primary.
The primary process itself is just for show, but a competent party would understand that it needs to have at least the appearance of legitimacy.
The last Democratic presidential primary that seemed legitimate to voters who were paying attention was 2008: 2012 was 2nd term Obama, in 2016 insiders ratfucked Sanders to pick Clinton, 2020 they did something similar to pick Biden, and then of course the disaster of 2024.
It's been nearly 20 years since we've had a "real" Democratic primary that at least advertised itself as a democratic process. Seems logical that Democratic voters would be skeptical about the so-called leadership of the party.
But there's no reason to assume that anyone would have shown up to challenge Harris. The incumbent effect is very strong in both parties, and it's extremely rare to refrain from nominating the sitting first-term President, so there's no reason to believe the result of all of that wouldn't have been the successor the President recommended. Note that the initial Primary went landslide to Biden. American voters tend to go with recognizable names and tend to hew to tradition.
You're quite correct that relative to the GOP, the Democrats have a more elitist structure that consolidates leadership to party operatives. When you don't have that... Well, nobody in the GOP party machinery really wanted President Trump, but the GOP doesn't have superdelegates.
> 2016 insiders ratfucked Sanders to pick Clinton
This is a common hypothesis but Sanders never had the votes. He was about 3 million short of Clinton. While there's no doubt that the party preferred Clinton, the voters didn't show enough of a preference for Sanders to overcome that inertia. Again, American voters tend to go with recognizable names, and they already saw Clinton close to the White House (even if, as First Lady, she wasn't actually elected).
Were the Democratic voters even wrong? Clinton ultimately went on to win the popular vote. There's no particular reason to believe Sanders would have done so; we'll never know what that alternate reality would have looked like, but his opponents would have drilled in on his Jewish heritage and it would have gotten quite ugly (as Trump revealed, there's a lot of straight-up bigots who became politically motivated in 2016).
This is exactly what they voted for, what they were hoping for. They knew leopards would've eaten the face of a few of them, but it was somewhat expected, a calculated risk. There's a few casualties even when you win the war.
They saw something they could cling to, to avoid changes for the remaining of their lives, even if this meant destroying their country, the rest of the world or the future for the matter. And they replied with "Yes, we're fine with that".
The way many of them think of it is that illness and death due to disease, starvation, lack of medication, problem pregnancies, etc. are acts of god and a part of life. They don’t want relief from that, if it comes with a government that has the power to change things they don’t want to change.
In particular, the "Make America Great Again" era they seem to hearken to was an era of massive industrial growth fueled by being the largest country untouched domestically by a World War. Getting back there would require burning half the world again. We shouldn't want that.
These are lessons history teaches consistently, and I'm sorry they apparently slept through that day of class.
But it is worth noting that an April 2024 NBC News poll showed Trump leading voters who say they do not follow political news by 26-points. Meanwhile voters who said they read a newspaper every day supported Joe Biden 70% to Trump’s 21%.[0] Additionally, a survey conducted in November 2024 by Northeastern University found that just 24% of Republican voters relied on news media, while the rest said they got their news from family and friends, as well as social media.
This means that while less than 1/3rd of eligible voters cast their ballots for Trump, only ~8.3% of the electorate entered the voting booth reliably informed, and then still chose to support him.
0. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/poll-biden-tr...
Thank you for enrolling at Banana Democracy Uni! We look forward to train the new generation of wannabe dictators.
The memo did not say “no longer targeting fraud”- it said that it was no longer targeting individuals and exchanges for regulatory missteps. The theme of the memo is “we’re not going to use mountains of regulations written for non-crypto regulation to go after crypto exchanges”, which is in line with a general regulatory themes of the Trump administration to avoid “lawfare” type activities and reduce regulatory burdens.
In fact, the memo specifically said (according to the article, near the end) that the government would focus their efforts on fraud against crypto investors.
Now you might or might not agree with these goals, and you might or might not support the Trump administration, and you might or might not like Trump, but the article headline was at odds with the article content and with the DoJ memo.
The idea is to move good, substantive comments that have something to contribute to the new thread, and to leave the ones that don't fit that description and are bound by the context of the previous article.
I'm not saying I made all the calls perfectly about which ones to move and which ones to leave, but that's the idea at least! If there are cases I missed, I'd be happy to take a look.
> Especially when the only ones moved seem to be conservative talking points.
You can't jump to conclusions like that from such a paltry handful of datapoints. I say "you can't", but of course you can, because everyone does! But it's not reliable to do so:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
> This one even discusses a title that doesn’t exist on this article?
Yes, that's why I replied—to make the context switch explicit because otherwise the comment wouldn't make sense.
What was the idea before? It wasn't necessarily illegal but they prosecuted it anyway?
> Executive Order 14178 requires the Justice Department to prioritize investigations and prosecutions that involve conduct victimizing investors, including embezzlement and misappropriation of customers’ funds on exchanges, digital asset investment scams, fake digital asset development projects such as rug pulls, hacking of exchanges and decentralized autonomous organizations resulting in the theft of funds, and exploiting vulnerabilities in smart contracts. Such enforcement actions are important to restoring stolen funds to customers, building investor confidence in the security of digital asset markets, and the growth of the digital asset industry.
I guess before anyone using these crypto services was a target for prosecution and now they are not, just by the virtue of using them.
Trump serves only to serve himself consummately.
Wonder if this hints at possibly reducing or relaxing KYC rules also?
Good call, I would assume so. KYC helps prevent money laundering, bribes and a ton of other illegal transactions. Eliminating it would line up with other actions performed by this admin.
I'd prefer if governments would take a step back and invest into enforcing actual crimes themselves and not just stick with money laundering charges because these are easier to prove. It was already bad under Al Capone (who got nabbed for taxes instead of murder), and it's way worse today.
Now, the police seizing money is different, but the police are the police. They can do almost anything they want, and you have next to zero recourse. Of course, they're going to abuse this and steal your money.
Why? Because Sam donated to Democrats in addition to the GOP. Paying both sides, or playing both sides, doesn't matter. Sam donated money to the GOP's mortal enemy. That's a sin.
Trump would have thrown the fucking book at him and then some.
corruption has the best ROI around, by fucking far.
They must be laughing so hard how easily it is to manipulate Trump to do their bidding.
Our courts have established that the Executive branch can't decide which laws to enforce, but can prioritize which laws to enforce.
States can do their own thing, using their own laws & resources, +/- the risk of annoying Trump.
(And, separately, also has plenary power to pardon federal crimes).
*Late edit: there was an historic case study of this power balance, just a few weeks ago. When Trump directed the DoJ to suspend the criminal prosecution of NYC mayor Eric Adams, in order to corruptly use the continuing threat of prosecution as a cudgel to extort policy concessions from his office, no federal prosecutor had any ability to resist that order. At least seven resigned[0] rather than obey it. The illustration being: whatever laws might say and whatever ethical norms exist—a federal prosecutor, as an employee of the executive branch under the POTUS, has no practical ability to contradict what the POTUS directs them to do.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2025/02/14/nx-s1-5298040/justice-departm... ("Fallout from Eric Adams case continues at the Justice Department")
He can "do" essentially anything, per the supreme court. For 250 years we had norms and customs and decorum and shame that kept things from escalating to a constitutional crisis. But that has all been so thoroughly broken at this point that literally no one knows what will happens next. One thing is certain, that there will be no way out of this but elections.
This is often said, but it's not true and it has nothing to do with anything that Trump is doing. What they ruled is that he can't be _prosecuted_ for most actions he takes as president. It obviously doesn't mean that the Supreme Court can't overrule executive actions, because they continued to do that after that ruling was made. And as much as Democrats complained about it at the time, it's probably the only thing keeping Biden from facing some kind of phony indictment right now.
The _only_ thing that is allowing Trump to get away with this is Congress's inability to act, or passive acquiescence to what he's doing.
What is their plan for enforcing said ruling?
This is not true. It has everything to do with what Trump is doing and has done.
> What they ruled is that he can't be _prosecuted_ for most actions he takes as president.
Again untrue. What they ruled is that he cannot be held criminally liable for any official actions. Unofficial actions are still up for debate. And you'd have to be extremely naive to wonder why they didn't give any guideline regarding distinction between official and unofficial actions. Or wonder why they refused to take up the exact same issue when asked by the prosecutor.
> And as much as Democrats complained about it at the time, it's probably the only thing keeping Biden from facing some kind of phony indictment right now.
This isn't true as well. If they wanted to, they can still go after Biden and claim that his acts were "unofficial".
> The _only_ thing that is allowing Trump to get away with this is Congress's inability to act, or passive acquiescence to what he's doing.
Definitely not the only thing, but one of the reasons why Congress doesn't act is because of violent backlash from the MAGA crowd. Like when credible death threats pressured the NC senator into voting for the SecDef - https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/politics/cowardice-gop-faces-...
Those inconveniences will be next for the chop. Mark my words.
For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_4483
But it's also a political question (this means the Court probably won't get involved, not that the question is normal politics) because the only way to end such an obvious travesty is to impeach, convict, and remove from office.
To whatever degree the Congress can't do that, impugns the Congress who all take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, not a leader.
To whatever degree people continue to elect those who support and defend a cult instead of the Constitution? They have given in to passion, and can't be reasoned with. Why argue with irrational people?
However, courts have historically given the executive leeway in how it chooses to prioritize things and this has led to plenty of cases where the federal government has official policy to deprioritize enforcement of certain crimes. This has not been abused too much in the past but I'm not sure if that norm will hold in the future.
There have been interesting examples on both sides of the aisle of strategic non-enforcement. When states began legalizing marijuana, the law is quite clear (as per the supremacy clause) that federal law enforcement can still enforce the restrictions on growing and selling it. The Obama administration made extremely clear that within the states where it had been legalized, enforcing the federal law would be a career-limiting move for the relevant federal agents. AFAIK, every administration since has de-facto kept that policy regarding those states, even though Congress has never moved to make marijuana legal to use and distribute.
Reviewers trashed Donald Trump’s first book. They dismissed The Art of the
Deal as self-promotional pap. They called the author a huckster. “The man’s
lack of taste is as vast as his lack of shame,” said the Washington Post.
Fortune noted his “shallowness” and “pomposity” and his need for “more
money,” more “toys” and “more attention.” The book, said The New Republic,
“is a weapon in the continuing public relations war that is Donald Trump’s
way of doing business.”[cough]
>Screenwriter Bob Gale confirms long-standing fan theory that Marty’s nemesis in the trilogy was modelled on the Republican presidential candidate
>“We thought about it when we made the movie! Are you kidding?” Gale said to the Daily Beast. “You watch Part II again and there’s a scene where Marty confronts Biff in his office and there’s a huge portrait of Biff on the wall behind Biff, and there’s one moment where Biff kind of stands up and he takes exactly the same pose as the portrait? Yeah.”
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/23/back-to-the-fut...
Donald Trump once owned a home in that town. He didn't hold on to it for very long, as Donald Trump was the butt of every joke those same financiers and their kids told growing up in the 90s and early 2000s. He realized that in the world of UHNW people, wealth is quiet and wealth also knows who's for real, and who isn't.
Turns out, a loudmouth who wears makeup and bankrupted 2 casinos isn't really wealth. Donald Trump was ran out of town because it was clear quickly that he was nothing more than a cartoon character.
I think what it comes down to is that the average person in our society is just an aggressive basic shithead who isn't burdened by an abundance of thinking, and so to them Trump appears as a successful businessman rather than a hollow snake oil salesman.
When the president gets away with all sorts of crime. When he openly mocks people. When he indulges in racism. When he complains about being treated unfairly. When he lies. When he defrauds, or grifts, or flip-flops. When he's misogynitic. What's he saying is "you too can do these things and get away with it".
People like that. People like that there's no accountability for bad behavior.
Sure, we can talk about policy, or economy, or whatever (how's that working out?) But deep down the democrats ask us to be the best version of ourselves (or else) and Republicans delight in us being the worst.
Human nature being what it is, we end up here. Just remember folks, we voted for this.
But Wisconsin was wondering because people hate Elon Musk.
My worry is that billionaires would fund anonymously both political media and they also own their own social media and so citizens would kind of less vote ... Or billionaire power would overcome that of citizen.
I think we need citizens to be aware of this but I also understand politics is a shitshow and i have so many hassles, why take another one.
And to that, I have no answer. i myself am stuck on this dilemma. I am really going to stop reading news because I don't think I personally can do anything. I have better things to do like studying or building software which can do better impact.
Though it also doesn't sucks to know about politics except I have seen people are really set in stone of politics, myself included.
For this therapeutic session there is no room for looking beyond the absolute surface of the issue, like you did.
But unfortunately these narratives don’t just get trotted out among apolitical libs. The political scientist Rachel Bitecofer had a social media meltdown when Trump won. And again the analysis was “who pushed the Republican button”.
Now, maybe this stuff wasn't all historically true, but in a sense it was better than true. It set an expectation for an ideal President. Serious dishonesty was taught as being disqualifying for the office of President, and honesty was taught as the deepest American value. Even if, in reality, prior Presidents hadn't always been honest, it created a tendency for voters to strongly prefer honest appearing candidates. Nixon's resignation was maybe the strongest affirmation of this principle that ever happened. I think it was with Clinton that this broke, and people started not to care too much about honesty and exclusively focus on their own perceived interests. Certainly the media environment, economic conditions, and the decline of mainline Protestantism had something to do with it too.
Or, more likely, when Fox News was launched (1996) during his tenure.
The lower production costs, higher reach, and nonexistent regulation of wide bandwidth cable TV created the space for Fox, and then also to a lesser extent, MSNBC.
In my opinion, the distorted information propagated by these outlets had a synergistic effect with the changes in the emphasis of the educational system in the late 80s-early 90s to deemphasize honesty as a core American value.
Not a great comparison obviously, but education was great in the Weimar republic as well, with a diverse and thriving press and near 100% literacy. The United States can't match those numbers.
It seems its always about something else besides educational level.
"NATO secretary-general tells Trump he’s motivating alliance members to spend more on defense"
It doesn't say anything about Greenland. It should have because Trump continued to push it:
""We've been dealing with Denmark, we've been dealing with Greenland, and we have to do it. We really need it for national security. I think that's why NATO might have to get involved in a way, because we really need Greenland for national security. It's very important," Trump said."
From Reuters, which seems to be doing a moderately better job.
"Trump wants to control Greenland" along with "Trump threatens to annex Canada" should be at the top of every headline because its complete insanity. No one voted for this, no one wants this, if Biden had said it or Obama had said it or any president had said it at any time every they would have become a laughing stock and every politician and voter would have risen up against them.
But it gets swept under the rug, in the same way all his insanity gets swept under the rug. Where were the headlines when he openly admired Arnold Palmer's penis? Nowhere, instead we got "Trump attacks Harris on immigration".
I've got my explanations but they all make me sound like a raving conspiracy theorist. Nevertheless, its my only explanation. This is what happens when its us vs. the billionaires. They can always outspend, and everyone really only cares about the bottom line.
You're assuming people _want_ to be "informed." You could build the best news apparatus in the world, the most accurate reporting, with full scale third party auditing of your results.
It likely would not change very much. Humans are not designed to lock into large scale groups and then make coordinated long term decisions together. In my opinion we should avoid doing this as much as is possible.
We're all clear Disney, Star Wars, TV is entertainment. People are not clear that Rush Limbaugh, opinion makers on podcasts, Fox, CNN, Tick-tock is also entertainment.
The straightest venue for news proper has got to be CSPAN. They're clearly there to inform not to push a point, piss you off at the other side, or any other shadow-boxing goals.
Getting people pissed off to own the liberals, the neo-cons, to own the Trump supporters is ... entertainment and it doesn't hurt (I write this cynically) it helps drives up ad-revenue.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/paus...
https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/trumps-meme-coin-...
Trump forgets the US, and most other major nations have a cryptocoin. a loss of confidence in an emerging currency market is a great way to torpedo your nations hegemony.
I think it is clear that they are not out there to inform the citizenry in any meaningful capacity. (Side note: I suggest watching the channel every now and then just to get an idea of what the largest “news” channel is feeding Americans.)
NYT, CNN, etc are biased towards other things first (conflict, spectacle, consensus) and while the majority of their staff likely have a liberal bias, they are not actively partisan.
Someone should do something about that Stewart fellow if he keeps getting away with the stuff
It's very effective.
Eh, wrong is too weak. I think you fully understand the false comparison you are making and how it influences public discourse
You might not agree with Stewart's principles, but he has them and will fight his own party over it. Tucker flew over to Russia to kiss Putin's behind and even Putin made fun of how bad it was. He then tried to show how awesome it was in Russia and made it obvious that he hasn't been in a grocery store in ages.
Where Stewart has and does continue to work successfully with several mainstream media channels, Carlson is so dislikable he can only be heard because he founded his own podcast. Truly, it is a great country that has the laws protecting that man's right to keep being heard.
Clumping everyone in one group is actually one of the goals of this: to get people tired of trying to figure out reality and to give up.
As obvious as it is - when you think everyone lies, liars will be the only ones who win. When you think that everyone is the same - the worst ones will win every time.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1895597181945725304
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1905778768511406175
Boolean is a more general concept in algebra, tracing back to George Bool. That many programming languages call the 2-valued data type that expresses truth values as some variant of "boolean" is unfortunate.
What is meaningful is the degree to which they are, and what else they are. I don't think we need a pedantic debate about Fox News.
Television is meant to sell ads and blanket the nations with a haze of opiates in order to keep us pacified and distracted and far too stupid to make waves.
And people blame religion for this stuff ...
That, or he's just a recognition of reality: resources and being a dick get you everywhere, whether it be business, politics, international relations, or the courts. Being authoritarian didn't stop China from becoming a near-parity superpower. Europeans were more than happy to start working on Nordstream 2 and attend both the World Cup and Winter Olympics in Russia long after it became apparent that Putin and his ilk were going to return to being imperialistic autocrats. Why does it matter if the US does the same if you're willing to fall in line?
Really, if Putin hadn't invaded Ukraine, I don't think Europeans would particularly care about those problems in Russia. It only really became problematic when the order of the continent was threatened, and even then it took some serious arm-twisting to get certain members of NATO and the EU to commit to measures to do something.
That's proportionate. Equally, though, I'm sure they would be pleased to find Russia wanting to join a rules based order. Bolsonaro was just recently found to be plotting to kill his political rival in Brazil. What should we who are not Brazilians do about that?
If not, and no one else is, then there's a chance that someone like Trump might try to do something like that himself. That's what he does. He sees someone else getting away with something bad, tries to do it because he thinks he'll get an advantage, gets caught, and complains about how unfair it is that he got caught.
We depend on our institutions to investigate cases of fraud. If all a fraudster has to do in order to legally commit fraud is to launder it through a cryptocurrency then of course every fraudster is going to do that.
It's getting fucking exhausting seeing how blatant this orange president is being without even trying to pretend he's not corrupt. He launched two cryptocurrencies on the day he took office, and he's in charge of a publicly traded company.
Frankly I am kind of just sick of this cryptocurrency shit in general. I am embarrassed that I ever fell for it, and frankly if anyone still believes in it as a concept at this point then I really don't understand why.
> Per Blanche’s memo, which was circulated on Monday, the Justice Department is dropping litigation and enforcement actions “while President Trump’s actual regulators do this work outside the punitive criminal justice framework.”
Elon Musk and Russell Vought have been trying to kill the CFPB and the SEC is toothless now so what financial regulators is he talking about?