Bitcoin Rips, Candace/Shmuley, SOTU
The People's News for the People's Coin 3/6-3/12
Hey everyone,
This news digest covers the following stories from the past week:
1. Bitcoin hits a new all-time high
2. Candace Owens, Rabbi Shmuley, and Anti-Semitism
3. The State of the Union address
Don’t miss videos, memes, and news bites at the end!
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Bitcoin Rips to New ATHs
Monday morning, Bitcoin surged to a new all-time high of $72k.
As Bitcoin smashed its way to new heights, Donald Trump told CNBC that he wouldn’t ban Bitcoin if elected President again.
In the past, Trump has expressed reservations about Bitcoin, perhaps to avoid giving the apperance of undermining the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
In 2019, he tweeted, “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.”
In 2021, he told Fox’s Stuart Varney, “ I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”
However, his stance toward crypto has gradually softened over time.
Both he and his wife have released a line of NFTs. Trump’s first NFT drop was succesful enough that he did a second.
In 2022, a surprising post, Melania celebrated the anniversary of Bitcoin’s genesis block.
But nothing coming out of the Trump camp has matched his comment from two days, which are the most positive assessment yet for orange coin from the orange man:
“if you think of it, it’s an additional form of currency. I used to say, I want one currency, I want the dollar, I don’t want people leaving the dollar. I feel that way but I will tell you it has taken on a life…there has been a lot of use of that, and I’m not sure I’d want to take it away that this point.”
In, praising Bitcoin, Trump puts himself in the running for the crypto vote.
In 2023 RFK Jr gave a keynote speech at Bitcoin Miami in 2023. Vivek Ramaswamy also spoke at the conference.
Since taking office, Joe Biden has overseen a historic battle against cryptocurrency, even as his second-largest donor was imprisoned for perpetrating the largest crypto fraud in history.
The Biden Administration is currently proposing a 30% tax on electricity used to mine Bitcoin, even if the electricity is generated off-grid with personal solar panels.
If passed, the tax would destroy the Bitcoin mining industry in the US.
Trump’s comments were latest example of bullish sentiment about Bitcoin on 𝕏.
With Bitcoin some showing stability in its current price range, bigger names in finance are making optimistic statements about its future.
On Friday, investor and podcaster Chamath Palihapitiya said he believed Bitcoin was on the verge of going mainstream: "Were gonna get to a tipping point where everybody really talks about this. I still don't think we're there yet, I think we're just at the beginning."
ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood, who’d previously predicted $1M per Bitcoin by 2030, said Bitcoin’s latest run has accelerated her forecast.
El Salvador’s President Nayib Buekele has been doing victory laps on his country’s Bitcoin purchases, which was savaged in the American press, attacked by global monetary authorities, and was even the subject of legislation in the US Senate.
Elon has remained quiet about crypt this cycle, generally deflecting attention from the topic when asked by interviewers.
Still, he found a way to celebrate Bitcoin’s hitting of the memetically significant price of $69,420…
…and highlighted the return of crypto memes:
Finally, he took note of this cycle’s most egregious crypto personality—NFT Nick—who has been getting relentlessly tagged with Community Notes for videos about his supposed crypto winnings.
What do you think: Is institutional adoption of Bitcoin actually happening?
Candace, Shmuley, and Anti-Semitism
The 𝕏 debate over the meaning of anti-Semitism took several fascinating turns over the last week.
It started with a video by journalist Ian Carroll about a recent lawsuit accusing Sean “Diddy” Combs of running a sexual blackmail scheme within the rap industry.
Carrol focused on Diddy’s head of security Faheem Muhammad, who allegedly helped Diddy cover up a murder in Los Angeles.
In his video, Carroll revealed that Muhammad was head of security for Michael Jackson, and used Muhammad’s otherwise inexplicable presence on the night of Jackson’s death to suggest foul play.
Carroll also argued that Diddy’s sexual blackmail scheme operated with the tacit approval of record label executives, including Clive Davis, Tommy Mottola, and Lucian Grange, all of whom are Jewish.
Carroll’s video went mega-viral, leading Candace Owens to share clips of it on her show.
First, Owens looked at evidence that Jackson was falsely portrayed by the media as a pedophile despite a ten-year FBI investigation that produced “not a single shred of proof that Michael Jackson had abused any children.”
Then, she looked at another media campaign to depict Jackson as a Hitler-loving, Nazi-obsessed anti-Semite.
According to Owens, Jackson kept an “enemies list” of Jewish power brokers whom he claimed were trying to destroy him, including lawyer Gloria Allred, music executive Tommy Mottola (whom Jackson called “very evil” and “a devil”), his former manager Dieter Weisner, and celebrity rabbi Shmuley Boteach.
Why, Owens asked, did the media attack Jackson as both a pedophile and anti-Semite? Is it possible that Jackson had a legitimate grievance against the record label executives?
She tentatively answered her own question: “these claims keep coming up too often in Hollywood for me to be comfortable with it.”
At this point, Candace said Boteach had also threatened to destroy her own career in 2022 unless she publicly denounced Kanye West who, like Jackson, publicly complained of black artists being mistreated by Jewish music executives.
Owens went on to accuse Boteach of continuing his campaign against her into the present day.
Owens’s episode set off an extremely intense social media war between her and Boteach.
After the episode went live, Shmuley posted videos attacking Candace as a “died-in-the-wool anti-Semite” and called on Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro to fire her.
Candace responded by accusing Shmuley cynically using the claim of anti-Semitism to distract from his own actions.
The battle escalated when Shuley posted a meme showing “The Protocols of the Elders of Candace” and disputed Candace’s claim that Jeffrey Epstein worked for the Israeli Mossad. (Carrol chimed in to point out that Epstein likely worked for the Mossad).
Candace responded by calling out Shmuley for promoting Kosher sex products (Shmuley is the author of the best-selling book Kosher Sex and his daughter runs a sex shop of the same name in Tel Aviv).
The core issue of the debate is that both Carroll and Owens are suggesting existence of a cartel of Jewish power brokers within the entertainment industry, a smaller subset of whom are alleged to be involved in sexual blackmail.
Today, suggesting Jewish executives are disproportionately represented in positions of power in entertainment, media, or banking is reflexively considered to be an anti-Semitic trope.
For example, at the end of 2022, Kanye West was cancelled for sharing a chart from 2013 showing that most Presidents, CEOs, Founders, and Owners of major media companies came from Jewish backgrounds.
It was not always considered forbidden to observe that American Jews occupy a disproportionate number of leadership positions within media and entertainment.
In 2008, journalist Joel Stein penned an article for the Los Angeles Times in which he observed it’s self-evident that Jewish leadership runs Hollywood.
“The Jews are so dominant,” Stein wrote, “I had to scour the trades to come up with six Gentiles in high positions at entertainment companies. When I called them to talk about their incredible advancement, five of them refused to talk to me, apparently out of fear of insulting Jews. The sixth, AMC President Charlie Collier, turned out to be Jewish.”
The debate over whether it is permissible to observe disproportionate Jewish representation in leadership roles of certain industries hinges on what kind of speech actually constitutes anti-Semitism.
Neither Candace, Kanye, nor Carroll are calling for violence against regular Jewish citizens.
What they are trying to do is establish the existence of a nepotistic cartel within the entertainment and media industries that uses illegal means to exert power and influence over non-members.
It should not be considered anti-Semitic to point out the possible existence of this cartel, any more than it would be bigoted against all Italians to accuse the Sicilian Mafia of controlling the olive oil trade.
This is especially true when the cartel itself appears to use the accusation of anti-Semitism in bad faith to deflect from its own misdeeds.
For example, Jewish commentators Dave Smith, Eric Weinstein, Glenn Greenwald, and Norman Finklestein have all weathered accusations of anti-Semitism for asking reasonable questions about Epstein, the Mossad, or the IDF’s massacre of Palestinians.
Weinstein in particular has noted Israeli intelligence’s history of using sexual blackmail.
At this point, the accusation of “anti-Semitism” has been leveled so haphazardly and nonsensically that the term has lost its meaning, as any college student smeared as “Pro-Hamas” for demanding ceasefire in Palestine can attest.
At its worst, calling all critics of Israel anti-Semitic creates the impression that there is a vast Jewish conspiracy of social control, rather than a handful of powerful and nepotistic actors using the term to cover their own tracks.
If this cartel’s existence can been conclusively established in the public record, the goal should be to peacefully unwind its influence over Americans, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and whatever industries it controls.
To the extent that the cartel is connected rogue intelligence agencies from Israel (Mossad), the UK (MI6), and/or the US itself (CIA), the goal should be to use the political process to hold the agencies accountable.
It should also be on the table to completely disband these agencies, as JFK proposed more than sixty years ago.
The question of the meaning of “anti-Semitism” is also highly relevant to the US’s ongoing support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
If it wanted to, the United States could force a ceasefire tomorrow by refusing to send billions of taxpayer dollars to fund Israel’s military efforts.
However, there aren’t more than a dozen members in all of Congress willing to stand up against the Israel lobby AIPAC—somehow the only such lobbying organization not required to register as a foreign agent.
Those who do oppose AIPAC are smeared as anti-Semites, no matter how measured or rational their critiques of American support for Israel.
As the Shmuley-Candace debate intensified, Ian Carroll attempted to answer the question about Israeli influence on American politics by posting a fascinating documentary about pro-Israel propaganda in American media called The Occupation of the American Mind
The documentary argues that media frames Jews as perpetually oppressed victims, leading it to depict every action by Israel’s military against Palestine, no matter how barbaric, as justified.
Perhaps more than any other issue, mass media’s stubborn allegiance to Israel undermines its credibility with the left, which otherwise views it as a source of truth
It is interesting to note that this very same oppressor-oppressed framework that depicts all Jews as victims has been taken up by woke crusaders on the American left, who define themselves as victims on the basis of gender/race/sexuality and then use this victimhood to justify radical and even violent behavior against their political adversaries
Like Israel itself, no matter how radical or violent their behavior gets, these woke crusaders appear incapable of seeing themselves as aggressors because their identities are defined by their victimhood.
Ironically, many of these lefty crusaders have become the loudest voices opposing Israel’s own perceived victimhood and violence against Palestine.
The level of Israeli influence over the American political process was again put under the microscope over the weekend when South Dakota passed a new draconian speech law that effectively made it illegal to criticize Israel.
As a result of the law, the roughly 400 Jewish residents of South Dakota enjoy special protections afforded to no other ethnic group in the state.
It’s important to remember that few countries on Earth have been more hospitable to Jews than America, and no culture is more philosemitic than countries in the Anglosphere.
As long as American media ignores stories like Epstein or Diddy, American politicians shill for Israel against the interests of their own constituents, and people who question these arrangements are reflexively labeled as anti-Semites, the debate around the true meaning of anti-Semitism will continue to rage.
What do you think think: Is it possible a cartel controls the music industry through sexual blackmail? Or is it anti-Semitic to suggest as much?
State Of The Union
Last Thursday, Joe Biden gave the final State of the Union speech of his term.
The speech was widely described as “fiery.”
The evening started with a moment of political theater when congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene confronted Biden over the slaying of nursing student Laken Riley by an illegal immigrant, handing him a button that read, “Say Her Name: Laken Riley.”
Biden accepted the button and told Green, “I know how to say her name.” MTG responded by urging Biden to “say her name.”
Later, MTG interrupted Biden’s by shouting Riley’s name.
Biden held up the button and told the crowd, “Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal, that’s right, but how many of the thousands of people [are] being killed by illegals?”
After the speech, Biden was scolded by Democrats for using the world “illegal” to describe Riley’s killer.
The following day, Biden said he didn’t regret using the term because they’re “technically not supposed to be here.”
A day later, Biden said he regretted using the word to describe Riley’s murderer, saying he was an “undocumented person, I shouldn’t’ve used illegal.” He added that undocumented immigrants “built the country.”
Trump capitalized on the gaffe by meeting with Riley’s family and telling supporters Riley "would be alive today if Joe Biden had not willfully and maliciously eviscerated the borders of the United States and set loose thousands and thousands of dangerous criminals.”
In another much-debated moment, Biden said, "The pandemic no longer controls our lives. The vaccine that saved us from Covid are now being used to treat cancer, turning setback to comeback.”
Trump responded on Truth Social by taking credit for the vaccines’ fast approval.
The exchange highlighted a major quandary for Trump supporters: he continues to tout the mRNA as one of his administration’s greatest achievements, despite growing evidence that they’ve turned out to be both less safe and less effective than originally advertised.
Of course, millions of Trump voters took the vaccines and continue to believe in their safety and efficacy.
But a vocal segment of his supporters are active in health freedom circles, and cite several tweets from 2014 to question the authenticity of his current pro-vaxx stance.
RFK Jr reposted the Truth Social post and wrote, “He fails to recognize how inneffective his warp speed vaccine is.”
On 𝕏, a clip circulated showing Alex Jones imploring Trump to stop bragging about the vaccine, saying, “If I see any more of this from Trump, I’m going to have to go on the war path.”
Late last night, after Trump officially locked up the GOP nomination, Elon called on him to return to 𝕏, the only online public forum where he will get meaningful pushback from potential voters.
What do you think: Are Covid vaccines the signature achievement of the Trump administration? Will Biden’s record on immigration hurt him in the election?
Top Videos
1. Newsweek editor Batya Sargon explains how Trump is more left than any Republican President in recent history
2. RFK on RNATO and his experience meeting Jeffrey Epstein
3. Tucker Carlson interviewed the “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley. Elon wrote, “He certainly doesn’t seem dangerously crazy.” Tucker also interviewed Chris Cuomo and shared his six rules for living
4. Brett Weinstein on why the CIA appears to be waging an information war against the public
5. A far-left influencer makes the case for Trump
6. Joe Rogan explains TDS; Riley Gaines tells Rogan why she became an activist
7. Vaccinologist Stanley Plotkin admits under oath to studying experimental vaccines on orphans, babies of mothers in prisons, and subjects of colonial rule.
8. Why is the dominant narrative in America that white people suck?
Dogey Treats: News Bites
Elon’s Businesses
Elon offered to drop his lawsuit against OpenAI if it changed its name to ClosedAI, writing “OpenAI needs to stop living a lie.” In another post, he wrote, “Governments will attempt to seize power over AGI, which may be worse. But it is increasingly coming down to a choice of what company do you trust most to develop AGI.” He also responded to a post claiming, “sam altman might be the most machiavellian person alive rn.”
𝕏 will eliminate like counts and just show view counts on the main timeline.
US Politics
A series of polls showed Joe Biden with a lead over Donald Trump. The GOP majority in the House fell to one seat with the unexpected retirement of Colorado congressman Ken Buck.
Elon highlighted evidence showing that illegal immigrants are still counted on the census and used to determine congressional representation.
A report claimed that Chinese gangs known as “Snakeheads” were facilitating illegal immigration on the US-Mexico border in cooperation with Mexican cartels. Elon wrote, “Most Americans are still unaware that the census counts ALL people, including illegal immigrants, for deciding how many House seats each state gets! This results in Dem states getting roughly 20 more House seats, which is another strong incentive for them not to deport illegals.”
Elon highlighted a report of cannabalism in collapsing Haiti.
Newsweek published a story about the White House’s denial of Secret Service protection for RFK Jr.
Top Republicans in Congress are investigating the Biden Administration’s appointment of John Podesta while bypassing a congressional hearing.
Elon issued a statement that he would not be donating to either Biden or Trump and wrote, “Politics is tribal, rather than logical.”
According to the NYT, RFK is considering Aaron Rodgers and Jesse Ventura for his VP pick. The possibility of RFK running as a Libertarian was floated again. Elon advocated eliminating the two-party system.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced nine new appointees to the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, all with financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
Congress’s proposed TikTok ban was widely debated. Trump said, “Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people.” Elon agreed that Tok Tok’s banning would make Facebook bigger. He also warned that the bill was a trojan horse for government censorship and control of the Internet. Entrepreneur Palmer Luckey advocated banning the app on the grounds of lack of trade reciprocity. A recording of ADL leader Jonathan Greenblatt surfaced in which he bemoaned the role of TikTok in hurting support for Israel. Rumble made an offer to buy TikTok.
Biden proposed a 25% minimum tax on billionaires. Elon weighed in.
Special Counsel Robert Hur testified to congress about Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.
Nikki Haley ended her Presidential campaign.
Global Financial System
US inflation rose to 3.2%, higher than expected.
The London Stock Exchange plans to accept Bitcoin and Ethereum-backed Exchange Traded Notes.
Elon warned that government‘s “Overspending must stop or America will go bankrupt.” He endorsed the idea that social security is a ponzi scheme.
Health
The CDC released a 148 page study on myocarditis after Covid vaccination in which every page was completely redacted. RFK highlighted the study.
What is the difference between long Covid and long vax?
A new documentary will examine diet as a cancer treatment.
AI
All-In segment on Elon’s lawsuit against OpenAI, Times article on manipulative Altman
Elon highlighted a post arguing that Bill Gates is on the board of OpenAI by proxy. He continued to criticize OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft, writing, “OpenAI is a lite.”
Misc
After the State of the Union, Joe Biden was caught on a hot mike saying, “I told Bibi he needs to have a come to Jesus moment.”
Candace Owens argued that French First Lady Brigitte Macron is a man in a viral episode.
The UK will no longer prescribe puberty blockers to minors due to negative side effects. Elon wrote, “Gender reassignment surgery doubles risk of suicide for men.” He also highlighted a video about WPATH—the supposed gold standard authority on transgender care—and wrote, “WPATH is pure evil.” Journalist Micahel Shellenberger released the “WPATH Files” showing the organization is aware of serious side effects of transgender medicine.
The Tate brothers were arrested and will be extradited to the UK on “sexual aggression” charges. Andrew Tate said, "Unfortunately, I don't think many people in Romania understand, but in the West, the countries are owned by the Satanists. My soul is not for sale; neither are my principles.”
Boeing whistleblower John Barnett was found dead days after giving a formal deposition against the company.
A mysterious monolith appeared in Wales, reminiscent of a trend from late 2020.
Elon highlighted a report that UVA spends $20M a year on DEI initiatives.
Violent crime in NYC led to the deployment of the national guard on in subways
Memes of the Week
Elon’s Memes
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