“Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, has scored the highest quarterly close ever of $107,149 on the Bitstamp exchange. The BTC price was up by nearly 30% in the second quarter of the year after declining by 11.6% during the first quarter. … Last month, Bitcoin was up by a relatively modest 2.4%. This marked the third consecutive month in the green for the leading cryptocurrency. It added 14.11% and 11.11% in April and May, respectively. In May, Bitcoin reached its current all-time high of $112,000.” (07/01/25)
“President Trump’s economists, and sometimes Trump himself, often remind me of the late TV celebrity Art Linkletter, who used to have a segment on his television variety show called ‘Kids Say the Darndest Things.’ Linkletter would ask children questions, and some of their responses were inadvertently hilarious, which shocked Linkletter and made his audience laugh. That’s increasingly what we’re seeing from some of Trump’s economists when they try to defend the president’s tariff and trade policies. Take, for example, Stephen Miran, the head of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers. The Harvard-trained economist recently tried to explain to Politico reporter Victoria Guida why the president’s tariff policies could result in little or no price increases for U.S. consumers and businesses.” (07/01/25)
“The jury in the ongoing Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial has reached a verdict on four of the five counts in his federal case, with deliberations on the outstanding racketeering charge expected to continue [Wednesday]. Jurors reached a partial verdict late on Tuesday afternoon and are deadlocked on the racketeering charge. At 4:05 p.m., the jury notified Judge Arun Subramanian that a consensus had been reached on two counts of sex trafficking and another two on transportation to engage in prostitution. The jury’s ruling on the four counts will not be announced until they decide on the fifth.” (07/01/25)
“Am I a citizen? Right now, the answer is pretty simple: yes. I am adopted, though I was born in North Carolina. I assume both of my birth parents were citizens, and know that my adoptive parents are citizens. But my adoption was closed, which, as I’ll explain, means I have severely limited means of accessing information about my biological family or details about my birth. With the Supreme Court ruling against universal injunctions and the Trump administration’s signal that they see it as a green light to pursue their agenda, including further attacks on citizenship rights, the answer to my question now seems somewhat less clear. … Domestic and international adoptees face different considerations, but both have reason to be concerned about their status if the Trump administration continues its assault on the definition and regulation of citizenship.” (07/01/25)
“A notorious drug cartel enlisted a hacker who was able to infiltrate phone data and Mexico City’s surveillance cameras to help track and kill FBI informants, the U.S. Justice Department has revealed. The 2018 operation was disclosed Thursday in a 47-page audit by the Justice Department Inspector General, outlining the FBI’s ‘efforts to mitigate the effects of ubiquitous technical surveillance.’ … The report urged the FBI to conduct an enterprise-wide threat assessment to determine where the agency is most vulnerable.” (07/01/25)
“[T]he leftist that is currently running for mayor of New York views people in the 1% and the 98% percentile (of income or wealth) as occupying the same class, at least regarding ‘us versus them’ battles with the top 1%. A homeless person living in a back alley in the Bronx is united with an elegant lady living in a condo in New York’s Upper East Side in their battle for ‘economic justice?’ Sorry, I’m not buying that argument. In the old days, Marxists thought of class in terms of the capitalists, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Even that was far too simple, but at least it had a certain logic. Lumping together the 1% and the 98% into one group makes no sense at all. Is this just harmless rhetoric? I don’t think so.” (07/01/25)
“On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court said it will not hear a case brought by a group once led by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that claimed Facebook censored its vaccine-related content. The Children’s Health Defense sued Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. It claimed the company removed their content in violation of free speech rights, NBC News reported. Kennedy, who is now Health and Human Services secretary in the Trump administration, founded the group and served as its chairman. It has a history of anti-vaccine activism. The group argued that Meta colluded with the federal government to silence its posts starting in 2019. Its Facebook page was taken down in 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic. … Because Meta is a private company, the courts ruled it has the right to decide what content it allows.” (07/01/25)
“Eric Peters from Eric Peters Autos joins me for our weekly conversation. We talk about the upcoming holiday and what exactly we’re pretending to celebrate.” (07/01/25)
