Jeff Jennings

Lawyer, 3 time Malibu mayor, trainer of horses, cowboy manque

[a16z crypto @a16zcrypto]

https://t.co/5HWCyID7R0

[Jeff Jennings @malibu]

@shellshockkk Consider that the only common denominator of all your bad experiences is you

[CFTC @CFTC]

@CFTC and @SECGov Announce Historic Memorandum of Understanding Between Agencies: https://t.co/Ir3tNVPvZm

[Walter Curt @wcdispatch]

https://t.co/3GGge57bAy

[a16z crypto @a16zcrypto]

Today we're talking about the passage of the GENIUS Act.

The "Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act" — which provides clear rules of the road for stablecoins in the U.S. We cover the law's implications, the recent high-stakes vote in the House of Representatives, and the bipartisan efforts to pass this groundbreaking bill.

We also touch on the CLARITY Act — a major new “market structure” bill that would establish a clear regulatory framework for digital asset markets — which the House also passed with bipartisan support and which is now headed to the Senate.

Here to separate the signal from the noise are members of the a16z crypto team who had a front-row seat to the action. We've got @milesjennings, a16z crypto's General Counsel and Head of Policy, plus a16z Government Affairs Partners @BenNapier and Michael Reed, who are responsible for liaising with House Republicans and House Democrats, respectively. They share the inside scoop.

Timestamps:
(0:00) Introduction
(1:01) Understanding the GENIUS Act
(3:56) News Summary: What Happened in the House
(5:45) Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Contention
(7:01) House Vote Drama: Republicans
(9:31) House Vote Drama: Democrats
(14:28) Winners and Losers
(16:01) Decentralized Stablecoins and SEC Involvement
(17:49) CLARITY Act and Future Legislation
(21:47) Looking Ahead

w/ our host @rhackett 🎙️

[Jeff Jennings @malibu]

@BasedMikeLee @glennbeck To every human problem there’s a simple solution: neat, plausible and wrong.

[Jeff Jennings @malibu]

@ProfMJCleveland “Fair proceedings free from any suggestion of impartiality…”. There are typos. This is a thinking

[Rohin Dhar @rohindhar]

The San Francisco housing cycle (a cautionary tale):

Prevent new construction of homes in effort to maintain neighborhood character

Prices go up since supply of homes is now fixed

Add rent control to combat rising prices

No incentive to fix up dilapidated buildings since can’t increase rents so buildings start falling apart

Now you have a rental housing stock that is expensive for new tenants and falling apart for everyone

Blame the developers and landlords and create further penalties and disincentives to build housing

Add more regulations because the buildings are really falling apart at this point

Building owners find it’s not really worth being in the landlord business. Wait for buildings to become vacant so they can exit

Developers see there is lower demand for being a landlord so stop jumping through the hoops to build new apartments

Build a few affordable housing units but find it’s costing you a million+ per unit and not making a dent. Some good press at the ribbon cutting ceremony though!

Now when you realize you need more apartments, find that no one trusts you enough to build them bc you’ve been implementing punitive policies for decades

Not sure exactly how you escape this cycle

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

For more than a decade, the media, Democrats, and Hollywood have told us that Western civilization in general and the United States in particular are white supremacist, genocidal, and unsustainable. The founding of America occurred not in 1776 but rather in 1619 with the beginning of slavery, whose effects are felt more strongly than ever. The original colonies and the expansion of the Western frontier depended on the extermination of indigenous people and theft of their lands. And our crimes against nature have resulted in apocalyptic climate change, which requires radical changes to the way we live our lives.

The consequences of this self-hating Woke ideology can be seen today in catastrophic fires, mass evacuations, and burned rubble of Los Angeles. So-called progressives finally achieved what they supposedly warned of but in truth wished for: the eviction of the affluent descendants of colonizers, the incineration of their homes, and the destruction of a city that, more than any other, represents our bloody history of white supremacy and conquest.

I’m not suggesting that Democrats consciously sought to destroy Los Angeles. The entertainment industry professionals in Malibu, Topanga Canyon, and Pacific Palisades, who voted overwhelmingly for California’s progressive Governor, Gavin Newsom, and LA’s radical Left mayor, Karen Bass, thought they were voting for social justice and sustainability. They didn’t imagine their vote would result in their homes burning down.

And yet that’s what their votes resulted in. Over the last 24 hours, the evidence of gross mismanagement and incompetence by Newsom and Bass has only grown more overwhelming. On January 2nd, a full eight days ago, the National Weather Service urgently warned of extreme fire conditions. To drive home the point, the National Weather Service’s Los Angeles office held a press briefing warning of impending catastrophe.

On that day, Newsom and Bass should have called out the National Guard. They should have had planes and helicopters circling over Los Angeles spotting fires and putting them out immediately upon detecting them. They should have issued emergency warnings to residents. And they should have used various methods to spray water, including mobile sprinkler units alongside normal firefighter hoses, to wet down vulnerable areas.

Instead, the following day, Karen Bass flew to Ghana on a frivolous junket. And Gavin Newsom only called out the National Guard yesterday, seven days later than he should have.

In truth, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Newsom and Bass should have constructed two to three times more water reservoirs than Los Angeles has in order to deal with fires of that magnitude. Newsom and Bass should have not only built water recycling and desalination plants, like they have in Israel, they should have built them with excess capacity so that, in an emergency, those plants could have pumped fresh water to supplement the water in the reservoirs.

And instead of emptying the prisons and jails, subsidizing rampant homelessness, eliminating penalties for breaking the law, and allowing addicts the mentally ill to camp everywhere and start fires, Newsom and Bass should have cracked down on the rampant disorder and violent crime, all of which has skyrocketed under their misrule.

It now appears that at least one of the fires was started by a homeless man. Whether or not that’s the case, over half of all fires put out by the Los Angeles Fire Department are started by the homeless, which has diverted the agency from doing what it should have been doing, which was preventing catastrophic fires, including by putting them out as soon as they started.

Why didn’t they? Why did Newsom and Bass make so many catastrophic errors?

Part of the reason is that they are self-centered and craven politicians, typical of the people who hold office in California. They claim to care about society’s victims; in truth, they care only about themselves and their self-image. Newsom, Bass, and other California politicians are uninterested in doing a good job and instead obsessed with their own personal promotion. For that reason, they have long been focused like a laser on playing politics rather than governing effectively.

Another reason is that they are beholden to affluent, radical Left environmentalist and social justice donors who live in places like Marin County and Hollywood. These are the same people who bankroll radical Left groups like the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council, who have successfully blocked desalination and water storage plants, the proper clearing of flammable debris in forests, and effective management of landscapes around housing development, for over 45 years.

Before that, the same groups and financial interests halted the expansion of nuclear power, which is the perfect energy source for desalination.

And these are the same people who demanded that homeless encampments be allowed to spread throughout the city and that addicts and the mentally ill be given free housing with no strings attached.

All of these things were done in the name of saving the environment, social justice, and saving black lives. The result of them was the destruction of the environment, grotesque injustice, and the disproportionate loss of black lives, including from violent crime, which increased 15% since Newsom took office and grew to be 31% higher than the national average.

For decades, Hollywood cranked out movies and TV depicting the exhaustion of natural resources and climate as causing the apocalypse. Yesterday, some reporters and scientists blamed climate change for the lack of rain in LA. That’s ridiculous. There's no trend in annual rainfall from 1877 to 2024. We have wet years and dry years.

Destroying civilization turned out to be expensive, not cheap. Californians pay the highest taxes for the most expensive gasoline, electricity, and water in the nation. Under Newsom, we spent $24 billion to increase homelessness by 40%.

Both ancient wisdom and modern psychology teach us that one can understand a person’s motivation by the consequences of their actions.

California’s Democrats, progressives, and politicians lied when they said their highest priority was protecting the people of California. They lied when they said they cared about social justice. And they lied when they said they cared about protecting the environment.

Instead, what they cared about was destroying the civilization they had long ago decided was evil. All civilizations require a story. The story that built Los Angeles and California was one of human progress. The story that destroyed it was of human sin. For decades, progressives, Democrats, and the news and entertainment media preached that civilization was evil and doomed. Slavery, indigenous genocide, and climate change were proof.

And now, as the city of angels smolders, it’s clear that progressives reaped what they sowed.

[a16z crypto @a16zcrypto]

Debanking (and "de-risking") has been happening behind the scenes for years but is back in the public conversation, with many individuals, policymakers, companies, and — most importantly for U.S. innovation — entrepreneurs coming forward on the issue.

Since the crypto industry and specific agencies have come up, here’s a quick explainer to help separate the signal from the noise:

- What is debanking
- Why does it matter
- Reasons why and effects
- Where Operation Choke Point(s) comes in
- Which agencies are involved?
- Scope of the issue for the crypto industry

Check out the post: https://t.co/a98vkl79kR

[miles jennings @milesjennings]

Looking to get caught up on the debanking controversy?

We got you covered (link in next tweet):

[The Babylon Bee @TheBabylonBee]

Election Officials Assure Everybody Things Are Looking Good And You Can Go To Sleep And They'll Take Care Of The Rest Of The Counting Overnight
https://t.co/973JGezd5K

[George @BehizyTweets]

Dear Democrats,

After Trump wins, by the grace of God, I promise to advocate for a complete audit of the results to ensure he didn't cheat.

I just need you guys to stop pretending like our elections are suddenly safe when you used to say the exact same things we say now.

Madam Corruption, aka Hillary Clinton, used to say the exact same things we say now. This compilation from @KanekoaTheGreat documents almost every time Democrats have questioned the fraudchines.

[miles jennings @milesjennings]

Lawfare like this should scare everyone.

It's not that lawfare is new — Jefferson wrote about tarring and feathering those that wouldn't support the War of 1812.

It's that lawfare is now practiced openly and shamelessly — it's being celebrated, when it should be scorned.

[Jeff Jennings @malibu]

@LawSelfDefense So this your basic appeal to authority?

[Jeff Jennings @malibu]

@CollinRugg He would release it or…or he could keep it secret and keep its power

[miles jennings @milesjennings]

Left: Description of the city of San Francisco's commissions.

Right: CIA instructions on how to sabotage the effectiveness of any organization.

[miles jennings @milesjennings]

To Americans, attacks on free speech may sound far-fetched, but there’s actually a clear path.

In the 90’s, Congress passed Section 230, which protects companies from liability for user posts.

Kill Section 230 and you kill social media.

Lawmakers are already considering this