“Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are widely – but wrongly – panned as unregulated casinos or Ponzi schemes that create no real value. For example, US Senator Elizabeth Warren called crypto a ‘threat to financial stability,’ while the UK’s Treasury Select Committee said that cryptocurrency ownership ‘more closely resembles gambling than a financial service.’ While some cryptocurrencies are mainly speculative, many serve specific business or functional purposes. We can identify some of the value created by cryptocurrencies by breaking them into four general categories: Bitcoin, stablecoins, meme coins, and utility tokens.” (01/06/26)
“Both of the police departments operating on and around Yale’s campus are without permanent leadership after the sudden resignation of New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson on Monday. Jacobson resigned after being confronted with allegations that he appropriated city funds for personal use, Mayor Justin Elicker announced at a press conference …. According to Elicker, other officers ‘flagged irregularities’ with Jacobson’s use of a fund meant to support the police department’s confidential informant program. On Monday morning, assistant chiefs David Zannelli, Bertram Ettienne and Manmeet Bhagtana confronted Jacobson in his office at the police station, Elicker said. Following the confrontation, Jacobson ‘admitted to taking the funds for personal use’ and resigned, Elicker said.” (01/05/26)
“Free-speech advocates have long warned Americans about the dangers of adopting ‘hate speech’ codes. If they became widely enforced, the result wouldn’t be the kinder society intended by such censorship; it would be an intimidated, even frightened one. Either you engage in mass arrests, or you enforce the rules selectively — which means targeting some viewpoints above others. For an indication of where this censorious impulse can lead even in a democratic society, look no further than European Union nations and Britain, where the experiment in speech control is running not on university campuses but on national scales, backed by the state’s monopoly on force. The results are so extreme that American readers might assume they’re exaggerated. They aren’t.” (01/06/26)
“In June 1983, Paramount Studios released a comedy starring Dan Akyroyd and Eddie Murphy which culminates in an attempt by two wealthy commodity brokers to corner … the market in frozen concentrated orange juice futures, of all things. The film was called ‘Trading Places’ …. This was a peculiarly commercial example of Art imitating Life. Three years earlier, Bunker and Herbert Hunt, Texan heirs to an oil fortune, had attempted to corner the market in silver. … Although the current silver market environment would seem to suggest that the story of the Hunt Brothers – wild bull market followed by calamitous crash – is playing out all over again, there are some key distinctions this time around …” (01/06/26)
“Removing Maduro: What is the Point? MAGA Goes Full Neocon: Embracing Lindsey Graham and Imperialism; Trump Influencers Spread Fake Videos as U.S. Government Propaganda.” (01/05/26)
“When Russia invaded Ukraine, the EU high representative for foreign affairs Kaja Kallas said that ‘sovereignty, territorial integrity and discrediting aggression as a tool of statecraft are crucial principles that must be upheld in case of Ukraine and globally.’ These were not mere words. The EU has adopted no less than 19 packages of sanctions against the aggressor — Russia — and allocated almost $200 billion in aid since 2022. Surely one would expect, then, the EU to condemn the U.S. unilateral attack on Venezuela in early days of 2026, resulting in an abduction of its leader Nicolás Maduro? Yet, nothing of the sort happened. In fact, the EU has already demonstrated its selective approach to the international legality when it failed to condemn its violations in Gaza half as vociferously as it did in Ukraine, shredding Europe’s credibility in the Global South and among many European citizens as well.” (01/06/26)
“A Minnesota hotel that wouldn’t allow federal immigration agents to stay there this month is apologizing and saying the refusal violated its own policies. The Department of Homeland Security had accused the global Hilton hotel chain of a ‘coordinated’ effort to refuse service to its employees. Hilton and local operators of the Hampton Inn Lakeville property released statements within hours apologizing and said the messages refusing to serve agents who were focused on immigration enforcement didn’t reflect their policies.” (01/05/26)
