Celsius has repaid two-thirds of its eligible customers as part of its long-awaited bankruptcy proceedings. According to an Aug. 26 court filing, the bankrupt crypto lender has repaid approximately $2.53 billion to 251,000 creditors.
The amount represents approximately 84% of the $3 billion worth of assets owed by the defunct crypto lender to over 375,000 creditors.
The bankruptcy payments are a positive development for the expanding crypto industry. They coincide with the bankruptcy proceedings of the Mt. Gox exchange, which owed over $9.4 billion in crypto to 127,000 creditors. After 10 years, these creditors are finally beginning to recover their assets.
Not all creditors are actively looking to claim their cryptocurrency due to the small amount they are owed.
This is because of the remaining 121,000 creditors who have yet to claim their funds, around 64,000 have less than $100 worth of crypto, while 41,000 creditors are owed between $100 to $1,000, according to the filing:
“Given the small amounts at issue for many of these creditors, they may not be incentivized to take the steps needed to successfully claim a distribution.”
The bankruptcy administrator will retry distributing to these creditors via Coinbase every two weeks, while PayPal claim codes remain redeemable for credits at all times.
The administrator said it “attempted more than 2.7 million distributions in total for the approximately 372,000 currently eligible creditors.”
The company claimed that the pause was necessary to put it in a “better position to honor, over time, its withdrawal obligations” after the price of its native token, Celsius (CEL) plummeted in 2022.
Its bankruptcy saw Celisus settle $4.7 billion in fines with the United States Federal Trade Commission alongside settlements with the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Its former CEO, Alex Mashinsky, was arrested and charged by federal prosecutors with various financial fraud, manipulating CEL’s price and misleading Celsius customers. Mashinsky has pleaded not guilty and is out on a $40 million bond pending trial in September.
New York State Anesthesiologist Pleads Guilty To Chloroforming, Assaulting Kid’s Nanny While She Slept
A New York State anesthesiologist has pleaded guilty to drugging and sexually abusing his family’s nanny while she was sleeping in his home.
60 year old Paul Giacopelli was indicted in March, and pleaded guilty last Wednesday, according to the NY Post. His lawyer commented that he has “assumed responsibility for his crimes, and now is focused on tending to his family.”
The Post report says that the victim would sometimes stay overnight at his house when watching his children so he could work at the hospital. She said there were four times in 2023 where she fell asleep, “woke up to a rag being held over her face, smelled chemicals and blacked out”, the Post writes.
After setting up a hidden camera, she caught Giacopelli assaulting her. She then brought the video to local police and he was questioned.
Giacopelli confessed to filling a rag with Sevoflurane, an anesthetic agent, according to the Post report. He also said he had a “chloroform fetish” and confessed to sexually assaulting the victim.
He said she was an easy target because she was a “heavy sleeper”.
Giacopelli also admitted to taking drugs, including fentanyl, from the hospital to his home, testimony revealed.
The state Board for Professional Medical Conduct has since barred him from practicing medicine. Giacopelli is set to be sentenced on November 20 and is expected to receive four years in state prison.
Purging voter registration rolls should not be controversial.
The process is part of ensuring the integrity of the vote, making sure that ineligible voters are not allowed a ballot.
But for some Democrats looking to make an issue of purging people from the voter rolls, it’s a racist attempt to deny people of color the right to vote.
Do states purge some eligible voters from the rolls inadvertently or by mistake? No doubt the answer to that question is yes. Perhaps someone who moved forgot to change their address. Perhaps they didn’t notice the postcard that came in the mail reminding them to register with their new address.
The fact is that the overwhelming number of people who are purged from voter rolls were either dead or moved without telling the local registrar.
Stupidity and laziness are colorblind.
Gov. Greg Abbot (R-Texas) announced yesterday that Texas had purged more than one million voters from the registration rolls.
“The Secretary of State and county voter registrars have an ongoing legal requirement to review the voter rolls, remove ineligible voters, and refer any potential illegal voting to the attorney general’s office and local authorities for investigation and prosecution,” Abbott said in a press release.
“Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated. We will continue to actively safeguard Texans’ sacred right to vote while also aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting.”
Since Senate Bill 1 passed in 2021, 1.1 million people have had their names purged from voter registration rolls. “Among the 1.1 million removed from Texas’s voter rolls are over 457,000 people who died and over 463,000 people on the state’s suspense list, the governor said Monday” reports the Washington Examiner.
Abbott also noted how over 6,500 of these voters removed from Texas’s voter rolls were noncitizens, 1,930 of whom have a voting history. The Texas Secretary of State’s office is working on sending all 1,930 of these records to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Office for investigation and any legal action.
The Texas governor’s news comes shortly after Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) issued an executive order to “protect legal voters and accurate counts,” which included “stringent ballot security, complete and thorough counting machine testing,” and “best-in-the-nation voter list maintenance.” The order also revealed that between January 2022 and July 2024, 6,303 noncitizens were removed from the state’s voter rolls.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled on Arizona’s proof of citizenship law, allowing the state to require those registering to vote to present proof of citizenship. Republican National Committee Chairman Lara Trump called the decision “a huge win” for the RNC. She also said the decision “sets a precedent across the country” for other states to take similar action.
“Voting is a sacred right that must be preserved for citizens who qualify under our elections laws,” Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson said.
“My responsibility is to ensure free and fair elections and that only qualified voters participate.”
As part of the SOS voter roll oversight process, records of potential non-citizens are sent to counties, and voter registrars are required by law to investigate and remove all ineligible voters. The SOS is also by law required to “withhold election funds from a county voter registrar for failure to approve, change, or cancel a voter’s registration in a timely manner,” according to a new law that went into effect in 2021.
Her office “monitors each voter registrar’s list maintenance activity on an ongoing basis for compliance with their voter registration cancellation duties,” Nelson said.
Nelson also reminded registrars that they have the right to initiate their own investigations, as do Texas voters.
In Texas, it’s going to be extremely difficult for an illegal alien to vote, just as it is in every other state. But both Democrats and Republicans should welcome measures that either party takes to prevent election skullduggery.
Baltimore Schools CEO Discusses Why Her Husband Has Not “Punched Out” Fox Reporter
Investigative journalist Chris Papst of Fox45 News’ Project Baltimore has spent years exposing grade scandals and corruption within Baltimore City Schools. His reporting has undoubtedly drawn the ire of the head of the school system, who, in a recent interview, jokingly said her husband hasn’t “punched out” the reporter.
“Baltimore City has been good to me – it has been good to my family – um you know my husband has not punched out Chris Papst, which is great because I don’t want him going to jail, um when we have college tuitions to pay,” Baltimore City Schools CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises discussed in an interview with Fox45 News and its media partner The Baltimore Sun.
Santelises has been at the top of the school system for years, embroiled in several grade-changing scandals. Since she took charge in the 2016/17 school year—the same time Papst’s team began its investigations—district enrollment has declined by 6,500 students, or about 8%. Despite this slide in students, the school system’s budget has swelled by $400 million. Yet, as more taxpayers’ monies are spent, grade scores are going in the wrong direction.
Over the last eight years, the school system’s graduation rate has declined, while the dropout and chronic absenteeism rates have been rising.
In 2023, only 26% of students across the school system scored proficient on the state English test, up from 22.4% one year earlier. This places city schools last in Maryland, behind Somerset County at 31.4%. Math in city schools is also the lowest in the state. Last year, only 8.8% of students tested proficient in math.
Meanwhile, under Papst’s leadership, Project Baltimore has uncovered massive grade-changing scandals that have gained national attention:
Project Baltimore reached out to the school system, replying with this statement:
“The comment about Mr. Papst was clearly made in jest, even eliciting laughs from WBFF’s photographers.”
Where else does incompetence and failure result in the head of a school system being paid nearly half a million dollars per year with total compensation?
Well, only in Baltimore, of course.
Furthermore, the big question is: How can a school system spend taxpayer money like a drunken sailor while grade scores decline?
Maybe this is because the school system is in cahoots with teacher unions that see students as commodities that scheme off taxpayers. After all, unions fund the Democratic Party’s political machine…
We should all stop celebrating Ivy League presidents resigning.
Last December, Liz Magill, then president of my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, resigned. This was the result of a public relations nightmare for the school, brought on by a rise in antisemitism on campus, widespread protests, and, of course, her disastrous performance in front of the House Education and Workforce Committee. While the right celebrated, I wrote a cautionary tale about their excitement. Now, as Ivy League presidents keep dropping like flies, the latest victim being Columbia’s chief administrator, Minouche Shafik, we should all remember that new management doesn’t fix a broken business model.
As was evident by Liz Magill and Claudine Gay’s viral appearances in front of Congress, the Ivies are plagued by a vacuous type of moral relativism. For decades, failing to prioritize intellectual diversity in the hiring of faculty and admission of students has led to declining quality in curriculum and campus discourse. Choosing to ignore warnings of long-time heterodox academics, the administrators hid behind lengthy “statements of open expression,” as ours was called at Penn. These sent free speech monitors to right-wing events where locations were decided based on the safety considerations of expected protestors and looked the other way as action was taken against faculty and students accused of “hate speech.” What they lacked was any real commitment to First Amendment principles.
One should certainly acknowledge these presidents have failed to do their jobs of maintaining their university’s image and securing donations, thus making a strong argument that they should be pushed out. Nevertheless, despite “three presidents down,” we have seen little to no substantive change at these universities. Less controversial interim presidents have followed, and with them fruitless committees investigating “hate” on campus like the task forces at Penn.
In the case of Columbia, the anti-Israel left celebrated Shafik’s resignation, citing her use of administrative power to punish (a small number) of Columbia students involved in the protests. Many on the right have suggested that “this is just the beginning,” and these resignations represent a reckoning against the powers that be in academia. In reality, all they do is take the heat off the universities, a heat which is absolutely vital to the type of change conservatives want and these schools need. In some instances, as has been evident in the response to the Columbia president’s resignation, this strategy of pushing out presidents seems to have emboldened left-wing actors who have substantial influence in university spaces to engage in a similar “naming and shaming.”
Fiery admissions of concern from well-known alumni at Harvard and Penn were crucial to the resignations of Magill and Gay. In their public statements against the universities, Marc Rowan and Bill Ackman cited a litany of concerns they had about the state of their alma maters, chiefly that they had become harbors of antisemitism. This problem was not solved by Magill and Gay’s absence, with the universities taking very little action against encampments this spring.
It makes perfect sense, of course, that the protests still occurred with new leadership because the problem is, in fact, much deeper. Most of these universities cost upwards of $80,000 a year, a burden that has strapped roughly 43 million Americans with student loan debt. Many of these individuals majored in social sciences and humanities, and they simply could not get a return on their education investment sufficient to pay back their debt.
While these students leave universities unable to find well-paying jobs in the careers they have pursued, they also leave unprepared for citizenship. Where liberal and civic education used to be at the center of advanced learning, creating individuals who were empathetic, in pursuit of the truth, and literate in history and government, today’s college graduates lack anything remotely resembling those qualities. A recent survey conducted by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) showed a stunning lack of knowledge about the United States and its past, with just 28% knowing that the 13th Amendment freed the slaves.
None of this is particularly surprising, especially to those of us following the situation at America’s premier universities this last year. What is shocking, however, is how, in a country that prides itself on its free markets, an entire industry has been running for decades on a failing business model that delivers its consumers such a lackluster product.
By ridding ourselves of these university presidents, we only succeeded in removing an easy target of public criticism, a fact that allows the schools to deflect accountability. The focus of our ills now must be some obscure bureaucratic structure hiding behind veils of “academic freedom.” If concerned actors, alumni, and members of Congress alike are serious about seeing reform in higher education, they need to target the business model of higher education and not just keep looking for new management.
Our students and our country deserve better.
Lexi Boccuzzi is a policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute. She is also a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania where she founded a new heterodox student publication, The Pennsylvania Post. She often writes about culture, conservatism, electoral politics, and higher education as it pertains to Gen Z. Her work can also be found in City Journal and National Review. Follow her on X @lexiboccuzzi.
Special counsel Jack Smith filed an updated indictment against former President Donald Trump in Washington on Aug. 27 following the Supreme Court’s ruling that he enjoyed some presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.
“Today, a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned a superseding indictment, charging the defendant with the same criminal offenses that were charged in the original indictment,” an Aug. 27 filing from the special counsel’s office reads.
“The superseding indictment, which was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case, reflects the government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings and remand instructions in Trump v. United States.”
The new indictment narrows the allegations against the former president by removing allegations involving his interactions with the Justice Department.
It no longer lists as a co-conspirator former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark. Trump’s co-conspirators were not named in either indictment, but they have been identified through public records and other means.
Smith’s superseding indictment still contains four charges against the former president, including those from the financial reform law the Supreme Court addressed in Fischer v. United States.
Presidential Immunity
In Trump v. United States, a majority of the Supreme Court held that presidents enjoyed several tiers of immunity from prosecution: absolute immunity for acts that fall within their “conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” a presumption of immunity for their official acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts.
Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion grouped the allegations into three categories: those surrounding Trump’s work with the Department of Justice (DOJ); those involving his communication with state electors and his communications on Jan. 6, 2021; and his urging Vice President Mike Pence to not certify the election results in the Senate.
Trump received absolute immunity from prosecution of the first category. For the second, the Court remanded the issue to the district court to determine whether his actions were official. His communications with Pence are “presumptively immune,” but the DOJ can rebut that presumption in court.
It’s unclear how much of the superseding indictment will survive. D.C. Judge Tanya Chutkan will likely receive briefings from both the special counsel and former Trump’s legal team advocating their view of which charges should be dropped or maintained in the indictment.
The Supreme Court has left her with the task of parsing former Trump’s actions and determining which were official and which were unofficial.
Judge Chutkan has scheduled a status conference for Sept. 5.
Experts have told The Epoch Times that the prosecution will extend past the election. If Trump wins the presidency, he’s expected to withdraw the case. Even if he loses, however, the case could face additional appeal and potentially make its way back to the Supreme Court.
Last year, Trump’s legal team filed a motion to dismiss on statutory grounds and alleging that the initial indictment failed to “state an offense.” More specifically, it alleged the indictment failed to allege the type of deceit or trickery needed for the first count, which focused in both indictments on an alleged conspiracy to defraud the United States.
On Aug. 3, Judge Chutkan denied the motion without prejudice and stated that Trump “may file a renewed motion once all issues of immunity have been resolved.”
The superseding indictment came just a day after Smith asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to affirm the legitimacy of his office. Florida Judge Aileen Cannon had dismissed his classified documents case against Trump on the grounds that Smith’s appointment violated the constitution.
That case too could reach the Supreme Court where at least one justice — Justice Clarence Thomas — expressed concern about Smith’s office. That came in his concurrence for Trump v. United States. None of the other justices joined that opinion, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh expressed concern about the special counsel’s power during oral argument on April 25.
Cannon limited her decision to the documents case, although it raised questions about the legitimacy of his other prosecutions.
“All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed, they must rely exclusively on force.” – George Orwell
“The future’s becoming muddled. The lines of vision are narrowing. But now they’re desperate. All paths lead into darkness.” – Frank Herbert – Dune
Trying to decipher the path ahead becomes more difficult by the day. We are purposefully bombarded with misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda by the ruling class, designed to distract us from their real purpose, real agenda, and real plans to imprison us in their techno-gulag, eating zee bugs in our container sized hovels, using our government issued CBDCs to subsist, unless we dared to question the approved narrative – resulting in our social credit rating dropping into the domestic terrorist zone – getting us banned and shunned from society. This is the New World Order the Davos crowd has designed and will implement as a Great Reset, if they succeed in retaining and increasing control over the U.S. and the rest of the Western World in the next six months.
I know many bloggers/analysts depend on clicks, likes, and subscriptions to their websites/social media to make a living, so they constantly predict Armageddon within the next week, and it never happens. This “little boy who cried wolf” routine has resulted in even the critical thinking among us becoming complacent and unconcerned as we accelerate towards our dire rendezvous with destiny. We shrug off Ukraine invading Russia and bombing a nuclear power plant, while Belarus moves troops towards the Ukraine border, Putin bombs Kiev, and U.S. military equipment is employed by U.S. military personnel against Russia.
We discount the possibility of Iran actually mounting a devastating response against Israel, prompting an even larger response by Israel, and the U.S. getting drawn into the conflict with Iran, because we’ve been here before and nothing happened. And nothing may happen again in the next week, but Fourth Turnings NEVER de-intensify. There will be blood, death, and war on an enormous scale before this Crisis is resolved.
Personally, I believe the next six months will determine the course of humanity for the next century and beyond. I don’t think that is hyperbole when you step back and observe the big picture. It is so easy to get lost in the inconsequential minutia, because they want you lost in the inconsequential minutia, while the consequential decision-making is being done by the billionaire puppet-masters behind closed doors. This Fourth Turning is slated to reach its bloody denouement in or around 2032, based upon historical precedent. Of course, with nuclear arms, it could all end in the blink of an eye.
We are in an existential battle between good and evil, and unlike the movies there is no guarantee the good guys will win in the end. We are lost in a blizzard of lies, with super-elite factions vying for power and control over our lives. People who just want to be left alone to live their lives in peace, with the freedom to say and do what they want, are being bullied, tyrannized, surveilled, censored, taxed, and pushed to their limit by those pulling the levers of this society.
Most people are unwilling or unable to confront the brutal facts of our current reality. They cling to their normalcy bias, disbelieving and minimizing the unmistakable catastrophic threats staring them right in the face. As James Stockdale stated many decades ago, you can’t confuse faith we will overcome the evil forces we are confronting, with the discipline and tremendous sacrifices we will have to make in order to achieve victory over those evil forces. The normalcy bias crowd, with their heads planted firmly in the sand, will not be able to sit out this chaotic, violent, bloody installment of this Fourth Turning Crisis. Sides must be taken. Choices must be made. Engaging in distressing behavior will be required. The 2nd Amendment will need to be used in order to retain the 1st Amendment.
If ever Lenin’s quote, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”, applied, it has been the six weeks since the Deep State/Invisible Government attempted to assassinate Trump in Butler, PA. Events have been happening at a breakneck pace and it is difficult to determine which incidents are being engineered and which are occurring naturally. As a died in wool conspiracy theorist, who needs new conspiracy theories because all of mine have come true, I believe most of what we have witnessed over the last several weeks has been engineered by competing super-elite factions vying for control over our government in a life-or-death struggle to rule over our demise as an empire in the throes of its death rattle.
As Dylan noted in the 1960s, times are a-changin. The waters of debt have grown, and we are sinking like a stone.
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
With the national debt already above $35 trillion, generating $1.1 trillion of interest expense per year, our leaders continue to heap $6 billion of debt per day ($4.2 million per minute) upon our backs, destroy our standard of living through relentless Fed created inflation, wage undeclared wars across the globe, unblinkingly report provably fake economic data to maintain their Potemkin empire façade, conspire with the Fed and their Wall Street owners to push the stock market to all-time highs, before they pull the rug out at a time of their choosing. They know the ignorant masses are disinterested and/or incapable of understanding the machinations they use to keep the sheep calm, as they lead them to slaughter.
Last week they quietly reported that 818,000 jobs they reported as existing were entirely fake. They knew they were fake when they reported them, but you gotta do what you gotta do to maintain your wealth, control and power. A good rule of thumb is whatever the government reports as the unemployment rate or inflation rate, double it to get close to the real number. Using real numbers would reveal the country is in a recession and has been for over a year. You should always watch what they do, rather than what they say, to understand the truth.
Powell told the world this week he is going to cut rates in September and keep cutting. Why would he do such a thing when the stock market is at an all-time high, home prices are at all-time highs (75% higher than the 2006 peak), employment is at all-time highs, GDP is growing strongly, and inflation is still 50% higher than the Fed’s target? Because he knows the reported numbers are a lie and his bosses know reigniting inflation will drive their stocks higher and make their debt burden less burdensome. A catastrophic debt and asset collapse beckons. But the music is still playing, so everyone keeps on dancing.
Maybe they want the collapse to occur on Trump’s watch to put a final nail in his coffin, convincing the ignorant masses it was his fault, allowing them to overthrow his regime and introduce their new world order of CBDCs, social credit scores, 15-minute cities, bugs for you and caviar for them, Big Brother surveillance, and war with Russia and China. When they pull the plug on this shitshow of debt, the Great Taking will commence, and they expect the masses to beg to be saved. The Covid plandemic was the test run and the vast majority bowed down to fear propaganda and authoritarian measures in order to be “saved” by their all-powerful overlords. They will use the same game plan again.
Their diabolical plans are there for all to see, but most continue to stare at their iGadgets, conduct their fantasy football drafts, go further into debt buying shit they don’t need, gulping down the toxic chemicals marketed to them as food, believing voting for one of the two selected Uniparty options will change our course, and are all in on war against those evil dictators Putin and Xi. Is there a rhyme or reason to the events that have taken place over the last several weeks, and is the next three months already orchestrated with a pre-determined outcome? And, if so, is that outcome designed to generate a response from the various competing factions, which allows the true ruling elite to roll-out additional aspects of their totalitarian Great Reset agenda?
I’ve been trying to decipher what the hell is going on since the dementia dummy pretend president was purposely sacrificed on the debate altar on June 27 by his puppet-masters because they knew his pants shitting, child sniffing, and ice cream eating antics weren’t going to cut it this time around. They need the polls to be close enough that they can activate their cheating machine to steal the election again. Those fake mail-in ballots aren’t going to fill themselves in and be dumped into the collection bins at 3:00 am. It was clear Biden was going to lose in a landslide, so they needed to adjust their plans.
Plan A, the assassination of Trump before the RNC convention, failed by a half inch. There is no doubt in my mind the CIA/Secret Service/Deep State colluded to eliminate Trump, because they perceive his election threatens their continued control over the levers of power in this country and our European puppet regimes. They tried to replay the Oswald “lone gunman/patsy killed playbook”, and failed, but their regime media mouthpieces have buried the story, and no one seems to give a shit anymore, just like the Deep State likes it. You’re a conspiracy nutjob if you don’t buy their ridiculous narrative of feigned incompetence.
It became readily apparent their pretend game of Biden running again was a joke when their lackey co-conspirators in the media all turned on Slow Joe at the exact same moment. They were all given the memo to suddenly realize his mental capacities were non-existent after actively suppressing the fact he was a dementia ridden cadaver his entire time in office. Plan B has now been activated. The selection of the diverse, vacuous, cackler commie by the Deep State puppeteers, as the savior for the Republic, even though she is a truly dumb human being who has never had an original thought in her life, can only mean one of two things.
They are either so confident in their cheating operations in swing states they believe they can produce a redo of 2020 or they don’t want to win. The selection of tampon Tim over Josh Shapiro as VP points towards them not wanting to win. With Shapiro they would have had a much better shot at winning Pennsylvania, which they must win. There has been a monumental effort by the regime media to produce fake polls showing kackling Kamala ahead or even with Trump. This is an essential ingredient to stealing the election with fake and illegal immigrant mail-in ballots stuffed into ballot boxes by Soros paid flunkies.
Based on the amount of money they are spending here in Pennsylvania, with Kamala ads every three minutes, it appears the powers that be do want to install another dimwit puppet, who will do as they are told and say whatever the teleprompter tells them to say. With Kamala they can continue the destruction of the nation, pillaging the wealth, keeping the border wide open, promoting deviancy, shredding the Constitution, and instigating the onset of WW3 to keep the military industrial complex satiated.
They may be able to neutralize Trump, as they did during his first term with Russiagate, impeachments, and a scamdemic, but he isn’t nearly as controllable as the dimwitted cackler. They fear his potential retribution and unleashing of someone like RFK Jr. in a role as Attorney General or CIA Director. That would be too dangerous for the Deep State psychopaths. That is why they will try to assassinate Trump again if his lead seems insurmountable.
The other major development over the last several weeks is the fact we are actively fighting a war with Russia. Everyone knows we’ve provided a couple hundred billion in “military aid” to Zelensky, which is essentially funneled to U.S. arms dealers, after Zelensky and his nazi apparatchiks take their slice. But the invasion of Russia and the pinpoint drone attacks on bridges, oil refineries, nuclear power plants, and other civilian targets have been conducted with U.S. hardware, U.S. logistical planning, and U.S. drone operators.
The depleted Ukraine military is incapable of conducting operations on this scale and do not have the technological acumen to utilize the American technology. Therefore, U.S. personnel are conducting military operations against Russia, meaning we are conducting an undeclared war against Putin, and he knows it.
This has been the neocon plan since 2014. Lure Russia into military operations in Ukraine in order to deplete their military and their treasury. After two years of sanctions and $200 billion into the Zelensky black hole, Russia is winning, Ukraine has been bled dry by the U.S. and their puppet Zelensky, and the sanctions have crushed the EU economies. The U.S. blew up the Nordstream pipeline and continues to peddle utterly ridiculous tripe about some drunken Ukrainians blowing it up from their dinghy.
Putin has shown tremendous restraint in not annihilating Kiev and inflicting real pain on Ukrainian citizens. But I get the feeling his patience is wearing thin. The neocons, like Graham, Nuland, and the majority of corrupt psychopaths in Congress believe starting WW3 will somehow restore the glory of an empire accelerating towards full-fledged collapse. This belief is utter madness, from those who never fought in war and do not know the horrors of combat. They will gladly sacrifice our children to retain and expand their wealth, power and glory.
It seems like years of historic events have occurred in the last two months, and I fear the next three months will be wrought with events which will be discussed in history books decades from now, as we read about the Great Crash, Great Depression, and World War II today. Those constituting the invisible government (aka Deep State, Oligarchs, Ruling Elite), manipulating and molding the minds of the masses, continue to use all means at their disposal to suppress free speech and retain their control by: arresting the CEO of Telegram, threatening Musk, extraditing Kim Dotcom, torturing Assange for years, forcing Snowden into Russian exile, censoring dissenters, and throwing people into prison for peaceful protests and exercising their right to free speech.
The basement dummy strategy they used to keep the public ignorant of Biden’s dementia in 2020 is being attempted again with Willie Brown’s whore, as they keep her hidden from journalists asking questions which would reveal her immense stupidity and inability to think on her feet. She was always much better on her knees.
Based on the Kamala’s record over the last four years regarding the BLM riots, support of Covid lockdowns and forced vaccinations, her Border Czar performance, her coverup of Joe’s declining mental faculties, association with the economic policies which have created massive inflation and ruined the lives of millions and picking a far-left lying looney toon as her VP, she should have zero chance of becoming president. But we know presidents are selected, not elected. And we know those counting the votes are all that matter in the end.
I know everyone wants their team to win and it does matter in the short-term whether Harris or Trump is in the White House for the next four years. But neither will keep the country from its ruinous destiny with history. All empires die, it’s just a matter of whether they collapse violently or just fade into the sunset. The American empire will go out with a bang, as it is run by narcissistic psychopaths bent on the destruction of mankind if it can’t rule the world.
Electing Trump may allow the catastrophic collapse to be paused for a moment, but there is nothing substantive he can do to reverse decades of poor decisions, and a teetering tower of debt poised to come crashing down at any moment, as the world loses faith in the USD. If the powers that be choose so, Trump may be the sucker holding the bag when they pull it. There really is no escape, as described by Ludwig von Mises many decades ago. With debt of $35 trillion and rising by a trillion every few months, our credit expansion has reached its limit. Collapse is inevitable.
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”
The selection of Harris would continue the tragic course we have been on for the last four years, with her handlers completing their destruction of our society, culture and economic system. The next three months could see the onset of WW3, the latest heavily marketed plandemic (monkeypox, bird flu, covid variant 9.0, West Nile or some Gates mosquito virus), more assassination attempts, false flag terrorist incidents to create civil chaos, and if Trump wins – cities burning as the BLM and ANTIFA terrorists are activated by Soros and Obama.
I don’t know what will happen in the coming months, but I do know it will not be uneventful. Fourth Turnings always intensify towards violent upheaval, death, destruction, and clear winners and losers. No matter the outcome of this election, violence will follow as the losing side will not accept defeat. I expect civil war to be coupled with global conflict as we travel towards some type of climax and resolution by 2032, twenty-four years after this crisis was triggered in 2008 by the Fed and their Wall Street owners.
No matter how prepared you think you are for the dreadful challenges ahead, the level of violence likely to overwhelm the world will be shocking and disconcerting to even the most hardened and toughest individuals. Is anyone really prepared for their bank accounts to be drained by shadowy entities; empty grocery shelves; the power grid being down, attacks from within and from without; and hordes of armed gangs roaming the streets and countryside?
Chaos is going to reign, especially if Trump manages to defy the odds and be elected. Those who conspired against him are willing to destroy the world rather than face the consequences of their traitorous schemes. The end of an empire, which refuses to accept its pre-ordained fate, will not be pretty. The facts are unequivocally bad, and feelings, gender gibberish, diversity and inclusion bullshit, and what you are told to believe by the regime media and your glorious leaders, won’t matter when every day becomes a matter of life or death.
I stumbled across a Bob Dylan song from 62 years ago called Let Me Die in My Footsteps, which was inspired by the Cold War and the building of bomb shelters in the late 1950s to survive a nuclear attack. The lyrics are haunting and probably more applicable today than they were in 1962. My interpretation is that we have to keep living our lives to the fullest, speaking truth to power, understanding the propaganda spewed by our supposed leaders are nothing but lies, fear is their tactic to control us and push us towards war, and we might need to make a stand against tyranny and die where we stand.
Cowering in a bunker while the Deep State pillages our nation is not the choice of people who care about the future and are willing to fight for future unborn generations. Everyone is going to need to ask themselves whether they are willing to die in their footsteps for a greater cause. The answers will determine the future course of history. What kind of American are you?
I will not go down under the ground ’Cause somebody tells me that death’s comin’ ’round An’ I will not carry myself down to die When I go to my grave my head will be high Let me die in my footsteps Before I go down under the ground
There’s been rumors of war and wars that have been The meaning of life has been lost in the wind And some people thinkin’ that the end is close by ’Stead of learnin’ to live they are learnin’ to die Let me die in my footsteps Before I go down under the ground
I don’t know if I’m smart but I think I can see
When someone is pullin’ the wool over me
And if this war comes and death’s all around
Let me die on this land ’fore I die underground
Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground
There’s always been people that have to cause fear
They’ve been talking of the war now for many long years
I have read all their statements and I’ve not said a word
But now Lawd God, let my poor voice be heard
Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground
Artificial intelligence could soon be governing a city in the United States — at least if one American mayoral candidate has his way.
Victor Miller recently threw his hat into the ring for mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming, pledging to manage the 65,000-person city exclusively with a generative AI bot he built himself — called VIC, or Virtual Integrated Citizen.
He argued that it could quickly scan heaps of municipal documents, summarize events and render error-free judgments in near real-time. Its rulings would also be objective — without fear of favor or influence from lobbyists — which would be good for democracy.
Tech-savvy Wyoming is arguably the most crypto-friendly state in the United States, so maybe it’s fitting that itscapital city also has the first AI political candidate.
AI governance is “highly irresponsible”
However, some scientists and even AI practitioners are aghast at the prospect of outsourcing local government to an AI-enhanced bot.
“AI should be considered a tool that we can use to help government services run more efficiently, not take over entirely,” Terrence Sejnowski, professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of California at San Diego and a researcher on the intersection of AI and neuroscience, told Cointelegraph.
Even if the AI bot’s decisions were accurate, there would still be non-routine cases brought to City Hall that are beyond the realm of a bot’s training data.
“This became apparent with self-driving cars, which have no problem with 99.9% of the decisions a driver has to make but struggle with unusual edge cases,” Sejnowski commented.
Often these involve unique individual cases, the sort that have traditionally been settled by courts and lawyers. That shouldn’t change, in Sejnowski’s opinion.
“It would be highly irresponsible at this point in time to use generative artificial intelligence for any moderate-to-high risk decision-making in government,” Julian Cardarelli, CEO of GovCore, a government tech firm, told Cointelegraph.
“I would rule it out entirely for anything that requires an informed decision to be made with such a risk profile.”
Still, in his view, some low-risk government functions could safely be taken over by generative AI software programs, such as processing social assistance claims or renewing licenses and permits (drivers, hunting, fishing, firearms, etc.).
Also, tax calculation and collection, “and any other transactional function of government where there isn’t a risk of physical harm or injury,” Cardarelli added.
Is candidate Miller for real?
So, what is one to make of Cheyenne mayoral candidate Miller? Is this all just an election gimmick?
According to a Washington Post interview with the candidate, Miller sees himself as a path-breaker for the “untapped potential of artificial intelligence in government.”
His light-bulb moment occurred this spring when the city “erroneously” denied him a public records request, a decision later reversed. But an AI bot might not have made that initial mistake, he reasoned.
“I started wondering if AI would make a better mayor than any human,” Miller told the Washington Post. He created a program using ChatGPT 4.0 and “fed it city ordinances and related documents. He found that the bot could swiftly recall public-records laws and make decisions on issues like funding new city construction or fixing potholes,” reported the newspaper.
“This incident in Wyoming seems to be testing the frontiers of local regulation,” Valerie Wirtschafter, an AI researcher at the Brookings Institution, told the Post.
Elsewhere, Eyal Darmon, North American public service generative AI lead for IT consulting firm Accenture, has said that AI really could make a difference in governments around the world.
Indeed, more than 50% of government activities could one day be “disrupted” by generative AI, he told Government Technology.
“AI is not there yet”
Is Miller really on to something, then?
Chris Rothfuss, an engineer by training, is the senate minority leader of the Wyoming State Legislature. He also co-chairs the legislature’s Select Committee on Blockchain, Financial Technology and Digital Innovation Technology.
“In my view, AI is not there yet,” Rothfuss told Cointelegraph.
“It is not well enough developed that one should even think about ceding the sort of control Miller is talking about — even if it were ethical — which it’s not,” he says.
“It’s not a good idea.”
Not long ago, Rothfuss and other members of the select committee attended an AI workshop at Stanford University to learn more about AI and government.
Other local and state governments are now experimenting with AI models, including projects in which the computer algorithm would be the finaldecision-maker.
These included decisions that could harm an individual’s welfare, such as whether to shut off Medicare or Medicaid payments.
These rulings were being made automatically by a bot, with no final review by a human being.
“I don’t want that in the future,” Rothfuss told Cointelegraph.
“The main areas we wouldn’t want to turn over are executive decisions, legislative decisions and judicial decisions,” added Cardarelli. “Those are high-risk functions.”
AI eliminates errors and makes faster decisions
But that doesn’t mean that bringing AI into the mayor’s office is necessarily a bad idea — just that it shouldn’t be alone in the office, i.e., it should assist the elected Mayor and others.
Summarizing long documents such as “municipal minutiae” for human users “would certainly create manifold improvements in efficiency,” said Cardarelli. Also, writing presentations and documentation materials, briefing notes, meeting minutes, summarized video calls and so on.
“This kind of effort is very labor intensive for human beings, and AI can get it done in near real-time, said Cardarelli.
It could also lead to fewer errors in local government — the sort that outraged candidate Miller. “We know that there is a wide degree of variability of output when humans conduct this work,” said Cardarelli. That is not the case with AI, which is very consistent with this kind of work.
High-risk decisions — the sort AI should be kept away from — comprise only 20% of local government, roughly speaking, while the other 80% is administrative and ripe for disruption, in Cardarelli’s estimation, adding:
“I think we should be very bold about the potential to create a hyper-efficient, digital government model that drastically reduces inequalities and radically improves access to services.”
AI as a social worker
One strength of the modern age is that waves of innovation spread quickly around the world.
Regarding AI and local governance, the city of Sydney, Australia, is using AI to enhance the review process for Complying Development Certificates. The city can receive as many as 30,000 applications a year, and in the past, the review process “was marred by inconsistencies and delays,” reported law firm DLA Piper, adding:
“With this AI-driven method, applicants more quickly receive a preliminary assessment, thereby streamlining submissions and boosting the efficiency of the planning department.”
Elsewhere, the transport department in the Australian state of New South Wales is exploring the use of AI to develop “real-time diagnostics of road conditions, paving the way for proactive maintenance.”
Indeed, many have yet to appreciate the sheer breadth of local or state government functions that could be eventually improved by AI. “One that may not come to mind is social services, where empathy is needed,” said Sejnowski, adding:
“AI has been proven to have better empathy than most doctors and is preferred by patients for psychotherapy. No need to wait for a social worker when AI can see you now.”
Rothfuss would oppose using AI as final authority for any decision that could potentially cause human suffering, like cutting off the gas to a person’s house. Those sorts of orders will always require human review. By comparison, a decision whereby an individual gainssomething, like a reduction in a tax assessment, could be fully automated at some point, according to the state senator.
Need for AI regulation
Sejnowski observed that the Industrial Revolution created tools that greatly enhanced our physical power. The information age has magnified our cognitive power manyfold. “In both cases, people have to decide how to use the tools.”
That’s really the nub of the problem. “The tools can also be misused, so we need to regulate them,” Sejnowski explained. So maybe the questions about AI and government need to be reframed along the lines of, “Ask not what AI can do for you, but what you can do to make AI safer,” he told Cointelegraph.
“The potential is enormous,” added Cardarelli.
“We are at the very, very early stages of this transformation,” a process that could take 20–30 years to fully unfold.
“But at the end of it, we could reasonably expect to find ourselves with a new kind of government that is more democratic because it is efficient, effective and fair,” he said.
Solid 2Y Treasury Auction Prices At Lowest Yield In Two Years
After a sharp reversal in yields, which in August tumbled to a fresh 2024 low, some traders were eyeing today’s 2Y auction nervously to see if the move higher in yields would lead to some indigestion. In the end, it turned out there was no reason to be worried because moments ago the Treasury sold $69BN in paper to stellar market demand.
The auction stopped at a high yield of 3.874%, the lowest since August 2022 and down sharply from the 4.434% last month, a 56bps drop which was the biggest since the December recession scare (when we saw a 57bps drop), which in turn was the biggest since the March 2023 bank crisis. In short: any time you have a 50bps+ drop in sequential 2Y bond yields, you get a powerful recession scare. And yet, aside from March 2020 when the entire world shut down, the past two such recession scares ended up being a false start. We’ll see if this latest one is the same.
The auction also stopped through the 3.800% When Issued by 0.6bps, which was good but not as good as last month’s 2.3bps stop through which was the biggest in the past decade.
While the bid to cover dropped to 2.68 from last month’s stellar 2.81, it was still one of the highest in the past year, and well above the six-auction average of 2.62.
The internals were also on the meh side, with Indirects awarded 69.0%, down from 76.6% but above the recent average of 66.2%, and with Directs taking down 19.1%, the most since June, Dealers were left holding 11.9%, up from the record low 9.0% last month but above the recent average of 13.7%.
Overall, this was a solid if not stellar 2Y auction, and one which helped push 10Y yields lower, toward 3.83% after rising as high as 3.86% earlier in the session. Still, with the Fed now on pace to cut rates by 25bps no matter what, the real catalyst will be the August payrolls report next week while tomorrow’s NVDA earnings may also have some impact on where the US rates complex will trade.
Goldman Cuts Oil Price Target By $5 To $70-$85 Just As Sentiment Hits All-Time Low
In yet another indication that the bottom for oil prices is in, and following a similar move last week by Morgan Stanley whose actions have been a rock-solid contrarian indicator in the past…
*MORGAN STANLEY CUTS 4Q BRENT PRICE FORECAST BY $5 TO $80/BBL
… overnight Goldman’s commodity analyst – now without “supercycle” permabull Jeff Currie – Daan Struyven slashed his expected range for Brent oil prices by $5 to $70-$85 per barrel, citing weaker Chinese oil demand, high inventories, and rising U.S. shale production, but the biggest driver for the cut is his belief that “OPEC will raise production in Q4 as the market is potentially shifting from an equilibrium where OPEC supports spot balances and reduces volatility to a more long-run equilibrium focused on strategically disciplining non-OPEC supply and supporting cohesion.”
“Prices could significantly undershoot in the short term, especially if OPEC were to strategically discourage US shale growth more forcefully, or if a recession were to reduce oil demand,” the bank’s analysts noted, referring to a scenario in which Brent could trade lower than its price forecast.
That, we can assure the Goldman analyst, will not happen.
First, US liquids supply is beating expectations on ongoing efficiency gains and a 0.7mb/d YoY surge in NGL supply.
Second, China demand growth has slowed on structural road fuel switching and on petrochemical demand weakness.
Yet despite what he believes will be higher US supply and lower China demand growth (oddly enough, nobody talks about India which is rapidly becoming the biggest swing factor on the demand side), Goldman looks for oil prices “to decline only modestly in 2025” for two reasons:
Solid OECD and India demand limits the uptick in our 2025 surplus forecast to 0.6mb/d (vs. 0.5mb/d).
Second, lower interest rates and a normalization in valuation should limit downward price pressure.
As a result, the bank has “nudged” down its fair value estimate for Brent by $2/bbl to $70/bbl following efficiency gains from US shale producers, an upgrade in peak production on the GS Top Projects curve, and our view that cheaper global natural gas from 2026 will reduce oil demand growth.
That said, the bank warns of downside risk to prices and upside risk to volatility: “The risks to our $70-85 range skew to the downside given high spare capacity, potential trade tensions, and the possibility that OPEC may fully reverse the extra cuts in 2025.” While US shale breakeven Brent prices around $70 provide the long-run floor under Brent, prices could undershoot in the short-term; therefore, Goldman sees upside risk to oil implied volatility as short-term inventory volatility may pick up with OPEC’s focus on long-run balance; geopolitical conflicts remain unresolved; Iran supply may fall; and current market pricing of volatility remains low.
As noted above, Morgan Stanley has also recently revised its oil price forecasts downward, reflecting expectations of increased supply from OPEC and non-OPEC producers amid signs of weakening global demand. The bank now anticipates that while the crude oil market will remain tight through the third quarter, it will begin to stabilize in the fourth quarter and potentially move into a surplus by 2025.
Morgan Stanley has cut its forecast for the fourth quarter to $80 per barrel, down from $85, and now expects prices to gradually decline to $75 per barrel by the end of 2025, slightly lower than their previous estimate of $76.
