Jason (His name is my name too) 🥥🥑🥓

alive and well. grateful, too. keeping up with current events, learning something new everyday

[theleahfiles @leahfiles]

If I were president and I wanted to tank the dollar and get rich off it, here is exactly what I would do.

I would hire a Treasury Secretary who already made $3.5 billion crashing another country's currency. I would put my guy in charge of the agency that approves bank charters. I would install a crypto czar with $200M in crypto holdings and give him an ethics waiver so nobody could challenge it.

Then I would sign an executive order banning the government from ever creating a digital dollar so there was no competition.

Then I would have my family launch their own private digital dollar. My family takes 75% of net profits. I would grow it to $4.6 billion in circulation and route a $2 billion Abu Dhabi sovereign fund deal through it to prove it works.

Then I would get Congress to pass a law requiring every stablecoin in the country to hold short-term Treasury bills. Now every dollar of my digital currency is a forced buyer of government debt. Brookings projects $2.3 trillion in captive demand by 2030.

Then I would have my OCC guy grant my family's company a federal bank charter. Now I can issue my digital dollar with federal authority.

Then I would have my Treasury Secretary weaken the actual dollar. Bond buybacks that suppress yields but tank the currency. Build a $950 billion war chest for more. Let the debt hit $40 trillion. Dollar index drops to 99. Gold goes to highest point ever.

Then I would kill the Corporate Transparency Act and delete the FinCEN beneficial ownership database. That was the one law that required every shell company in America to report who actually owns it. Without it, nobody can trace who is buying my stablecoin, who is routing money through it, or where the profits land.

Then I would let the loop run. Weaker dollar drives demand for "stable" digital alternatives. The law I passed forces those alternatives to buy T-bills. That funds the government's debt. My family takes profit on every transaction. Foreign central banks walking away from Treasuries get replaced by legally mandated stablecoin reserves my family controls.

Then I would use sanctions to start cutting countries off from the dollar system entirely. And when those countries need a new way to transact in dollars, the only federally chartered private digital dollar in existence is mine. They can buy it through shell companies nobody can trace because I deleted the ownership database.

I just built a toll booth on the global financial system. I take a cut every time someone uses the dollar. And I made it so nobody can see who is paying.

And every single step I just described has already happened.

So what does that mean for you and I?

The reason the United States can borrow at low rates and keep your mortgage and your car payment and your import prices stable is because foreign central banks hold trillions in dollar reserves. That system has always been public. The benefit went to everyone. Lower borrowing costs, cheaper goods , and the single biggest economic advantage any country has ever had.

What I just described is the privatization of that function. The entity buying the debt is no longer a central bank acting in the public interest. It is a private company taking 75% of net profits for one family. The reserve function used to generate a public benefit. Now it generates a private fee.

Your purchasing power shrinks every time the dollar weakens. Your 401k buys less in real terms. Everything you import costs more. And every time the dollar drops, demand for the private digital alternative goes up. The one the president's family owns. The one that by law must buy government debt.

You absorb the cost of a weakening dollar. His family collects the profit. That is the trade.

The enforcement mechanism to stop a sitting president from doing this? There isn't one. Former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter says it would be a violation for literally any other federal employee, but not the president.

Nobody voted for this. No one was asked. There was no debate. There is no enforcement mechanism. There is no one investigating it. The Senate tried and it was blocked.

This is the largest conflict of interest in American history happening in broad daylight while everyone argues about something else.

So what do you do? Share this. Make it impossible to ignore. Send it to your representative, your senator, every journalist you follow. We make them answer for it.
Because the only thing protecting this scheme right now is the fact that not enough people understand it yet.

[theleahfiles @leahfiles]

They tell you Flock cameras are there to fight crime.

So I pulled the actual police logs from my new favorite website (haveibeenflocked . com). 233 million searches that they have been able to get via FOIA requests and here's what "fighting crime" actually looks like:

> 84% had no case number at all
> The most common reason a cop typed in the box? Blank, nothing
> Only about 9% were even tagged as a real crime.
> "Test" and "training" show up as reasons, run on real people's cars
> The FBI and Homeland Security were wired into local camera networks your town never signed off on.

So what is Flock?

FLOCK: 100,000+ plate cameras bolted to poles across America. They read your plate everywhere you drive and never forget.

NOVA: Flock's AI that turns your plate into you. Your name, address, family, everyone you know, in seconds, no warrant.

SIGNALTRACE: a competitor's tool that tracks the Bluetooth off your phone, your AirPods, your watch. Doesn't even need your plate.

Then I followed the money and the lead investor behind Flock also funds an Israeli company that can hack cameras and change the footage. Another lead investor backs a 911 app that flips on your phone's camera and mic. Trace it all the way back and you hit a former Israeli prime minister and Jeffrey Epstein's money.

Full article with photos and receipts is on my Substack now (link in bio). Enjoy!

[Stephen Piccarella @spiccarella]

Fyi she's not on Twitter anymore but Isabel Pabán Freed just dropped an essay on her site that settles both art fungibility discourse and Sally Rooney Marxism discourse for good:

[Vaibhav Sisinty @VaibhavSisinty]

A college student just killed the biggest advantage politicians have ever had. The gap between the lie and the fact-check.

He built a Chrome extension called InTruth. It listens to any live speech, debate, or interview.

Transcribes every word. And checks every claim against real sources in real time. Before the speaker even finishes the sentence.

It works on debates. Press conferences. Town halls. Interviews. Anything with someone talking on video. The fact-check shows up on your screen while they're still talking.

Until now, fact-checking happened hours or days later. By then the clip has been shared, the headline has been written, and the damage is done. Nobody reads the correction.

InTruth closes that gap to seconds. The claim and the fact-check exist in the same moment.

A college student, a Chrome extension, and an AI model just did what entire newsrooms couldn't figure out for decades.

[J. J. Ellis @jjellisart]

I said this about AI well over a year ago. Using it to diagnose and fire people with medical conditions so they lose their insurance AND their income is somehow even more heartless and evil than I’d predicted.

[The Ball Is Orange @theballisorange]

This is why Spirit Airlines mattered. Whether you flew them or wouldn’t be caught dead, they served as an industry deterrent to shit like this. With Spirit gone and no real national low-cost successor, the same shitty legacy airlines are freer than ever to price gouge.

[Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes]

The CEO of StubHub exposed in SEC documents to own a hedge fund thats scalping millions of tickets on StubHub making a fortune

Everything is a scam

“StubHub bills itself as an online marketplace for fans where they can buy and sell tickets, but it turns out that StubHub CEO himself also has a hedge fund that is scalping millions of dollars worth of its own tickets”

“The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange last fall. They had to file documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and in those SEC filings, we find some interesting information. The CEO, Eric Baker, actually owns and manages a hedge fund by the name of Andro Capital.

Its business: selling millions of dollars worth of tickets on StubHub — So essentially, StubHub and its CEO are in the business of mass scalping”

Here’s a step by step of how the scam works

- StubHub CEO’s Andro Capital buys large numbers of tickets, sometimes in bulk from primary sellers, other brokers and events

- They then list and sell those same tickets on StubHub at much higher prices

- When fans buy the tickets, Andro makes a profit on the price difference, this is the scalping markup

- StubHub helps them by handling the listing, pricing and delivery of the tickets, sometimes with special arrangements or lower fees for Andro

The result is millions of dollars in ticket sales flow through Andro on StubHub, and the profits go back to the hedge fund that StubHub CEO Baker owns and manages

It means with his big money and influence he can move in early, gets the tickets for events, then mark them and rob everyone blind

[Furkan Gözükara @FurkanGozukara]

🚨 BOMBSHELL! Top journalist Ana Kasparian confirms Texas police use unregulated AI Flock cameras to track women crossing state lines for abortion pills.

She reveals the company blatantly lied to city councils.

The establishment is building a massive tracking database!

[HealthRanger @HealthRanger]

The site https://t.co/9tOj5Eqnbs has a map showing all the Flock cameras (with license plate readers) near you. Over 100,000 Flock devices already registered. Mass surveillance is under way. Spread the word and oppose Flock cameras. They need to be outlawed. This is a private company monitoring vehicles and selling all the data to the government and various corporations, in total violation of the Fourth Amendment.

[Chris Murphy 🟧 @ChrisMurphyCT]

Trump has turned the White House into a 24/7 corruption operation. This is a national crisis.

Trump thinks the public will stop paying attention.

So I went to the Senate floor to call his bluff. I told the ENTIRE STORY of his 500 days of corruption.

1/ Here it is - in one🧵

[Ryder Kessler @ryderkessler]

I am once again reposting E.B. White

[Uzi @UziCryptoo]

In Denmark, McDonalds workers make $25 an hour and, if they are over twenty, the company starts paying into a pension plan for them, and in addition they have a full 6 weeks of paid vacation.

Now how much do you think this costs customers? The Economist looked into this and found out that the Big Mac costs 76 cents less than it does here.

Don't believe the lies that raising the minimum wage would force prices to go up.

[Matt Viser @mviser]

2019: Donald Trump calls on China to investigate Joe Biden for having son Hunter fly to China on Air Force Two as he sought business in China.

2026: Donald Trump flies son Eric to China on Air Force One as company linked to him explores a deal with a Chinese chipmaker.

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

The DOJ is reportedly considering dropping any audits of Trump, his family, or his businesses as part of a potential settlement of his bogus lawsuit against the IRS.

That’s on top of the $10 billion in damages he wants.

This is corruption on steroids — and taxpayers will pay the price.

[The Serfs (youtube.com/theserftimes) @theserfstv]

Data centers are a two fold mechanism for fast tracking water and energy privatization. It's why billionaires and politicians are forcing them as quickly as possible.

They undo all the progress we've made on climate change and increase the cost of electricity and water forever

[Elias @iam_elias1]

Two economists just published a mathematical proof that AI will destroy the economy.

Not might. Not could. Will — if nothing changes.

The paper is called "The AI Layoff Trap." Published March 2, 2026. Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Boston University. Peer reviewed. Mathematically modeled.
The conclusion is one sentence.
"At the limit, firms automate their way to boundless productivity and zero demand."

An economy that produces everything. And sells it to nobody.
Here is how you get there.
A company fires 500 workers and replaces them with AI. A competitor fires 700 to keep up. Another fires 1,000. Every company is behaving rationally. Every company is following the incentives correctly. And every company is building a trap for itself.

Because the workers who were fired were also customers.
When they lose their jobs faster than the economy can absorb them, they stop spending. Consumer demand falls. Companies respond by cutting costs — which means automating more workers — which means less spending — which means more falling demand — which means more automation.

The loop has no natural exit.
The researchers tested every proposed solution. Universal basic income. Capital income taxes. Worker equity participation. Upskilling programs. Corporate coordination agreements.
Every single one failed in the model.
The only intervention that worked: a Pigouvian automation tax — a per-task levy charged every time a company replaces a human with AI, forcing them to price in the demand they are destroying before they pull the trigger.

No government has implemented this. No major economy is seriously discussing it.
Meanwhile the numbers are already tracking the curve. 100,000 tech workers laid off in 2025. 92,000 more in the first months of 2026. Jack Dorsey fired half of Block's workforce and said publicly: "Within the next year, the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion."
Nobody is doing anything wrong. Companies are following their incentives perfectly. That is exactly the problem.

Rational behavior. At scale. Simultaneously. With no mechanism to stop it.
Two economists built the math. The math leads to one place.

Source: Falk & Tsoukalas · Wharton School + Boston University ·
https://t.co/4m8E9jQNYm

[Fuck You I Quit @fuckyouiquit]

Taps sign

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank.

It just published a 30-year study showing immigrants paid 14.5 trillion dollars more in taxes than they received in government benefits.

Every single year. For thirty years. Without exception.

The country was lied to.

Here is what the study found.🧵

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Warren Buffett, in his first sit-down since stepping down as Berkshire CEO, gave the cleanest indictment of legalized gambling in a decade. He called it a tax cut for the wealthy. The math proves him exactly right.

Americans wagered $165 billion at legal sportsbooks in 2025. They lost $16 billion of that. FanDuel pulled $6 billion of the losses. DraftKings pulled $5.3 billion. Every state with legal mobile sports betting collected a tax on the bettor side. New York alone took in over $1.2 billion in 2025 sports betting tax revenue.

Layer the lottery on top. State lotteries generate over $90 billion a year. The bottom half of income earners account for roughly 70% of total spend. The average lottery player makes $38,000. A household earning $20,000 spends three times more on tickets than one earning $30,000. The implicit tax rate, meaning whatever the state keeps after prizes, runs 30 to 50% depending on the game. No other revenue source in America has that base and that rate.

The structural design is the engine. A single straight sports bet carries a hold of 4 to 5%. A four-leg parlay carries a hold above 30%. FanDuel and DraftKings spent five years rebuilding their apps to make parlays the default product. FanDuel's blended hold rate hit 11.4% in 2025, up from roughly 7% in 2022. The product got worse for the customer and the customer wagered more anyway.

Now look at the substitution. Nine US states have no state income tax. Seven of those nine run state lotteries. Seven of those nine have legalized sports betting. The states most committed to never taxing wealth are the same states running the largest extraction machines on people who cannot afford to lose. Read it as policy.

Here is what Buffett is actually pointing at. The state needs revenue. It can raise income tax on the top decile, or it can run a lottery plus a sports betting tax. The second option raises the money from the people who can least afford it. The first option becomes politically optional. New York's $1.2 billion in 2025 sports betting tax is $1.2 billion the state did not have to ask of someone earning $5 million.

DraftKings and FanDuel sell a privatized collection mechanism for a regressive tax that the state never has to defend at the ballot box again. Voters approve legalization once. Collection runs forever. The state takes a cut. The wealthy get a quieter top bracket. The bettor's cut shrinks every quarter as the parlay menu gets pushed harder.

The function of a government, Buffett said, is not to play its people for suckers.

Thirty-nine state governments now do.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Asphalt is everywhere — it covers an estimated 40% of Phoenix alone, and millions of miles of roads across America. We walk, drive, and live on it every day.

But according to new research from Arizona State University, this ubiquitous pavement is quietly releasing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can harm our health — especially on hot, sunny days when emissions spike.

ASU researcher Elham Fini and her team have been studying how asphalt (made from bitumen, a petroleum byproduct) continuously emits carbon-based vapors. These VOCs contribute to poorer air quality, form ultrafine particles after sunset, and become even more problematic as pavement ages and breaks down in heat and sunlight.

Short-term effects include dizziness and difficulty breathing. Long-term exposure has been linked to increased risk of lung cancer (particularly for construction workers) and — most concerningly — significant neurological damage. The toxic compounds are small enough to enter the bloodstream, arteries, and organs. Modeling and tests suggest the neurological impacts are worse for women and the elderly.

Heat makes it worse. In hot urban areas like Phoenix, the urban heat island effect exacerbates emissions from the vast expanses of asphalt. Yet these pavement-related VOCs are often overlooked in standard air quality assessments.

The good news? There’s a promising solution on the horizon.

Fini has partnered with algae expert Peter Lammers at ASU’s Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation. They’re growing algae using nutrient-rich wastewater from Phoenix treatment plants, then baking it into a binder that can be mixed into asphalt.

A study in Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy found that while algae-infused asphalt doesn’t drastically cut total VOC volume, it reduces the toxicity of the emissions by roughly 100-fold by trapping the most harmful compounds. Bonus: the algae also slows pavement breakdown, which could lower maintenance costs and extend road life.

Fini puts it well: “To make something truly sustainable, you cannot ignore the human side of it.” And with 4 million miles of roads in America, she argues we should make that infrastructure work better for both people and the planet.

This research highlights an important point: when we talk about sustainable cities, we need to look beyond carbon footprints and energy use — we also have to consider what our built environment is releasing into the air we breathe every day.

Real-world testing is now underway in Phoenix, and the team is exploring other bio-based binders too.

What do you think? Should cities start prioritizing lower-toxicity paving materials, especially in hot climates? Have you noticed stronger asphalt smells on hot days in your city?

[Fini, E.H., et al. (2025). Health impacts of asphalt emissions: Examining neurological risks and the need for long-term exposure mitigation. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 486, 136849. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.136849]