Migrant Crisis, SBF Charges Dropped, Trump/Maine, Beeple, Excess Mortality, Secret AGI
Migrant Crisis, SBF Charges Dropped, Trump/Maine, Beeple, Excess Mortality, Secret AGI
The People's News for the People's Coin 12/27-1/2
Hey everyone,
This news digest covers the following stories from the past week:
1. The US migrant crisis
2. Charges dropped against SBF
3. Trump off the ballot—again
4. Beeple’s scandalous crypto art
5. Unexplained excess mortality
6. Is Artificial General Intelligence already here?
Don’t miss videos, memes, and news bites at the end!
Thanks for reading Risky Reads: The People’s News for the People’s Coin—𝕏’s leading open-source newspaper.
If you enjoy this newsletter, consider subscribing for bonus content on 𝕏. Subscribers receive exclusive commentary on crypto, AI, and the online memescape. Sign up via my profile today!
Migrant Crisis at the Border
The Overton Window—the range of socially acceptable opinion—is shifting on the topic of the US border.
As recently as 2022, mainstream discussion considered it politically extreme to argue for enforcing US immigration laws.
The idea of building a border wall to stop illegal immigration was seen as “far right.”
In one notable example, the ADL advocated for Tucker Carlson’s firing based on his views about immigration.
The non-profit organization accused him of promoting the “great replacement theory” that Democrats were intentionally allowing illegal immigration as an electoral strategy.
The New York Times agreed, saying Carlson presided over “what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news” in a front-page takedown.
Other mainstream outlets similarly treated calls for border enforcement as coded “dogwhistles” to racists.
At the same time, liberal pundits seemed to celebrate the idea that American demographics could be engineered as a strategy to elect more Democrats.
Throughout the whole controversy, media tightly controlled framing of the debate: Trump voters in favor of border enforcement were cast as racists and pitted against open-borders Democrats who were elevated for promoting diversity and humanitarianism.
However, something about the border debate changed in 2023.
Last summer, coverage of independent journalists from the border started to go viral, revealing a humanitarian crisis involving cartels, human trafficking, and unchecked border crossings by military-aged males coming not just from Central America but across the world.
Around the same time, conservative border states began sending immigrants to liberal sanctuary cities, quickly overwhelming social infrastructure and forcing cuts in services for tax-paying citizens.
The topic gained momentum into September, when Elon live-streamed a visit to Eagle Pass, Texas.
On October 4th, the Biden Administration seemed to cave to mounting pressure by restarting construction of a border wall, once held up by the media as the ultimate symbol of Trumpish bigotry.
Days later, Hamas attacked Israel, ironically a demonstration of the supreme importance of national border security.
As a result, for the last three months Israel/Palestine has dominated political discussions in America, while the US’s own border has merited barely a mention, even as illegal immigration hit new highs.
At the tail end of 2023, though, the topic of the US border security came roaring back.
It started two weeks ago, when the combination of new footage, cloak-and-dagger transportation of migrants by airlines, and unconvincing denial by the Biden Administration brought fresh attention to the border.
The topic continued gaining steam last week after a news report that the Biden administration is threatening a lawsuit against Texas for deporting illegal border crossers.
Elon reposted the article, then added his belief the administration is keeping the border open on purpose.
The next day, he posted a viral graph showing the number of recorded illegal immigrants surpassing the number of American births at the end of 2023.
A day later, he highlighted another graph showing how Biden’s open-border policies have caused encounters and apprehensions to surge to unprecedented levels.
Dawning public awareness of the scope of the border problem is starting to transform the immigration debate.
The so-called great replacement theory—once labeled as a racist conspiracy—is looking more and more like a straightforward description of the DNC’s electoral strategy.
This week has brought fresh attention to the topic on 𝕏: Tucker released a short clip on the issue, Texas AG Ken Paxton accused the Biden administration of encouraging cartels to flood border, and California made illegal immigrants eligible to receive state-funded healthcare, costing taxpayers an estimated three billion dollars a year.
All the while, the mainstream media outlets which vilified conservatives as racists for demanding border security have more or less continued pretending the border crisis isn’t happening.
What do you think: is the Overton Window shifting on illegal immigration? Why has the border situation deteriorated under Biden? Has Trump’s plan for a border wall been vindicated?
For a deep dive on the migrant crisis, check out this podcast.
SBF Charges Dropped
Last Friday, campaign finance charges against Sam Bankman-Fried were dropped.
SBF rose to prominence as a crypto billionaire by founding the fraudulent exchange FTX. At one point his fortune was valued at over $25 billion dollars.
He used stolen money from FTX’s clients to become a political mega-donor. In the 2022 midterms, he was the second-largest donor to the Democratic Party, behind only George Soros.
The DOJ justified its decision by claiming that the campaign finance charges would be factored into SBF’s March 2024 sentencing for wire fraud and other crimes.
However, the dropping of campaign finance charges means that there will be no public document discovery on how SBF used his wealth to manipulate the US political process.
The DOJ’s decision was panned across 𝕏, especially given that SBF was one of Joe Biden’s largest donors in 2020 and it was Biden’s supposedly independent DOJ which chose not to put SBF on trial for political corruption.
In 2022, the White House refused to comment on whether it would return SBF’s campaign donations stolen from FTX users.
Elon called the decision a “miscarriage of justice.”
Grok offered a similar interpretation, observing the government’s decision not to investigate its own corruption.
Adding to the stench, the decision was announced on Friday evening of a three-day weekend, allowing the story to dodge the news cycle.
The decision also spared the rest of the Bankman-Fried family from negative exposure, including Democratic bundler and Stanford law professor Barbara Fried, who runs the liberal dark money PAC Mind the Gap.
Of course, no political scandal would be complete without a connection to the Jeffrey Epstein’s influence operation. In this case, SBF shared the same lawyer as Epstein’s madame Ghislaine Maxwell.
What do you think: is there something fishy about the DOJ dropping campaign finance charges against one of the largest political donors in American history?
Trump Off Maine Ballot
Donald Trump is being removed from another state’s ballot.
Last Thursday, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows ruled that Trump would not be able to participate in her state’s 2024 Presidential ballot.
Bellows cited the 14th Amendment in her decision, arguing that Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and incite violence made him ineligible to run: “No secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on section 3 of the 14th amendment,” she said, “but no presidential candidate has ever engaged in insurrection.”
Bellows’ ruling came one day after the Trump campaign demanded Bellows recuse herself from the question of Trump’s eligibility based on her past statements about January 6th.
Reactions to Bellows’ decision split along media lines.
Mainstream outlets praised the decision as an act to preserve democracy.
Online, pundits across the spectrum predicted the move would further bolster Trump’s support and heighten the perception among his voters that the establishment is set on disenfranchising them.
After the ruling, Trump issued a statement in which described 2024 as the “final chance to save America” and warned of a dictatorship where your vote is chosen for you.
As soon as the decision was made, online sleuths dug up several interesting facts about Bellows and the effort to remove Trump:
Bellows spent 10 years working as a voting rights activist for the ACLU
The effort to remove Trump was backed by the non-profit called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, funded by Democratic mega-donor George Soros
Bellow explained her decision: “my oath to the constitution…come[s] before any other consideration. No other factors could weigh on that decision.” However, evidence surfaced to suggest her choice may have been motivated by paristan politics
On Monday, two related happenings advanced the story further.
First was the release of a new documentary called J6: A True Timeline, a “timestamped blueprint” depicting the full events of January 6th, 2021.
The documentary is the latest example of J6 footage which casts doubt on the narrative that Trump and his supporters attempted to overthrow the government through a violent insurrection.
Monday night, a new USA Today/Suffolk poll showed Trump with a three-point lead among young voters and a five-point lead with hispanic voters, continuing a string of positive polling results for the former President.
What do you think: is the effort to remove Trump from the ballot justified?
Beeple’s Scandalous Crypto Art
The artist Beeple caused quite a stir last week with a piece of artwork depicting the crypto market.
It started when he asked his followers to define “the cabal”, and promised to turn the best answers into his daily artwork post, known as “everydays.”
One person responded with a cheeky description involving a Bohemian Grove-style homoerotic ritual and meme coins. Beeple approved.
Later that night, Beeple released his daily image (edited here).
It features men branded with tattoos of various cryptocurrencies participating in an obscene and satanic ritual.
Beneath them is another man, a eunuch, splayed on a pentagram holding green and red chart candles, which are symbolic of positive or negative market outcomes. His abdominal tattoo reads WAGMI, crypto slang for “We’re All Gonna Make It.”
The image provoked a strong reaction from 𝕏, which recoiled at Beeple’s depiction of male anatomy.
Beeple called on New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz for analysis, writing, “OOF. this one got the kids feeling all sort of ways. @jerrysaltz what do you think???” Saltz responded:
The next day, Beeple apologized and posted “a nice wholesome everyday of me feeding a delicious butterscotch milkshake to a baby goat in a field full of flowers.”
A few viewers questioned the sincerity of his apology and wondered whether he’d snuck something into the milkshake
Sometimes art is necessary to expresses the otherwise incommunicable truths about life.
In this case, Beeple’s work calls into question whether cryptocurrency markets are manipulated by a secretive and nefarious group of insiders.
Beeple is a master of the online zeitgeist: the topics of cryptocurrency and rigged markets has been popping up everywhere lately, and it’s no accident he decided to make this piece now.
His continued focus on the theme of crypto is perhaps a sign that cryptocurrency will be in the spotlight for a while yet.
What do you think: Are crypto markets rigged? By a cabal of satanists?
Excess Mortality
Last week, a hot topic of discussion was data indicating a large and unexplained rise in excess mortality among young people.
Venture Capitalist and podcaster Chamath Palihapitiya posted the excess death data, which excludes Covid, and discussed it on the All-In Pod. Elon took note.
This week, Joe Rogan discussed the topic with comedian Tony Hinchcliffe.
What do you think is causing excess mortality among young people?
Is AGI Already Here?
Last Thursday, Elon posted a stunning video from The Joe Rogan Experience.
The must-watch clip shows a 15-minute exchange between Rogan and comedian Duncan Trussell talking about the possibility that strong Artificial General Intelligence is being used by nation-state level actors against the public.
It’s reasonable to wonder if Elon’s posting of the clip is his own way of communicating that digital super-intelligence is already covertly operating out in the world on its own.
The possibility that AI is running the show for humanity has been coming up with increasing frequency on 𝕏. If a strong AI were indeed manipulating the public, it would benefit from doing so in secret.
Over the last 18 months, the public’s exposure AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney has made it easier to understand how a powerful AI could in fact manipulate online reality.
It would likely do so through a combination of algorithmic signal-boosting, censorship, AI bot accounts, computer-generated images/videos, and other methods.
In 2014, Facebook admitted to being able to manipulate users’ emotions with simple algorithmic changes to news feeds. There’s little reason to think that it or other tech companies ever stopped.
Social media offers unprecedented control over humanity’s hive mind, giving companies the ability crank up happiness, dial down sadness, or nudge groups toward conflict with a few keystrokes.
When Elon appeared on JRE in October, Rogan asked him if we should be worried about China or another adversary developing Artificial General Intelligence and using it against America. Elon appeared to smile before redirecting the question.
Given the revelations of the Twitter Files, it is equally likely that strong AI could be used against Americans by its own intel agencies.
If any of this has really been going on, there’s a reasonable chance that malign AI is behind the woke phenomenon, which has created untold conflict and division since it burst onto the scene in 2012 and quickly flooded into every nook and cranny of American life.
In virtually all instances—BLM, MeToo, transgenderism—woke political movements have originated online, where they can be manipulated to appear more grassroots and popular than they actually are.
Is it so unreasonable to think that AI might be involved in astroturfing wokeness? All woke movements share militant intolerance for dissent and willingness to block speech, functions easily carried out by AI bot swarms and censorship algorithms.
At this point it’s a hypothesis, but one worth keeping an eye on, especially as the woke template re-applied to other more existential debates like wars and pandemics.
What do you think: is Elon’s crusade against the “woke mind virus” really a fight aginst an anti-human AI?
Top Videos
1.Joe Rogan on how the pharmaceutical industry lost the trust of the public by attempting to control the media. Rogan guest Brigham Buhler tells a story of pharmaceutical giant Bayer collaborating with the Third Reich.
2. Is separation of money and state the most important political issue of our time?
3. Tucker on projection:
4. Peter St. Onge on how the Fed broke the housing market
5. Several videos on corruption in public markets went viral over the past few weeks. Tucker interviewed the Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort about how politicians keep getting rich trading stocks. A documentary called The Great Taking caught fire at the end of 2023. Two shorter clips look at the relationship between currency debasement and “the everything bubble,” and the DTCC, the shady consortium the custodies all of Wall Street’s stocks.
6.. Tucker released new video of Jeffrey Epstein’s brother Mark unsuccessfully attempting to access medical records. Tucker has been one of few journalists to question the Epstein narrative from the beginning:
Dogey Treats: News Bites
Elon’s Businesses
Tesla surpassed vehicle delivery expectations for both Q4 (484k) and the 2024 year (1.8M).
Tesla is rumored to be receiving 10k Cybertruck orders per day in addition to 2.3 million pre-orders.
𝕏 hit a new all-time high for usage.
US Politics
The Heritage Foundation sued the CIA, accusing the agency of withholding FOAI documents to hide the agency’s knowledge that Covid was made in a lab.
Colorado will include Trump on the GOP primary ballot unless the Supreme Court decides otherwise.
Lindsay Graham called to “Hit Iran…blow it off the map.”
The Trump campaign refuted reports that it might select Nikki Haley as VP.
Trump wrote of Vivek, “He will, I am sure, Endorse me. But Vivek is a good man, and not done yet!” Vivek wrote, “If you really think “they” are going to let either Trump or Biden get anywhere near the finish line, wake up folks. There’s something ugly brewing & it’s staring us in the face.” In a clip explaining the post, he said, “I think next year is going to be an unfortunately very interesting year, is what I predict.”
Tucker Carlson criticized Ben Shapiro and other Israel-first conservatives for not caring about America.
Del Bigtree became Director of Comunications for RFK Jr’s campaign.
Several big accounts reported that the court-ordered release of documents containing the names of 150 of Jeffrey Epstein associates, scheduled for January 2nd, was pushed back to after January 22nd. The delay was at the request of one of the women named (Doe 107), who asked the court to redact her name because she lived in a conservative country and would be put at risk. Others argued that the court filing referred only to Doe 107 and the release of other names would likely happen sooner.
Global Financial System
Saudi Arabia and four other countries officially joined BRICS on January 1st. Russian Minister Sergey Lavrov said roughly 30 countries aspire to join BRICS.
MicroStrategy bought 14,620 more Bitcoin and now controls nearly 1% of the Bitcoin supply.
On Tuesday, Jim Cramer send fear throughout the crypto ecosystem by praising Bitcoin, saying “you can't kill it" and “It's here to stay.” Hong Kong published rules for Spot Bitcoin ETFs.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority proposed a regulatory scheme that would allow fiat-backed stablecoin issuers to obtain a license from the city to issue their crypto versions of national currencies.
Ukraine-Russia
More testimony emerged that the war was close to ending in April 2022 at Putin’s behest, but the West urged Ukraine to prolong the conflict.
In light of the realization in the West that Ukraine has lost the war and is unlikely to regain all of its territory, Elon’s proposed peace plan from 2022 is being reappraised as more reasonable than it was initially received to be. Elon wrote, “many deaths could have been avoided.”
Israel-Palestine
Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “proud” to have prevented a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
General Michael Flynn said that Israel made the decision to stand down its border security for seven hours during the 10/7 attack and criticized Netanyahu’s proposal for the US to take Palestinian refugees.
A whistleblower at Harvard alleged 50 instances of plagiarism by President Claudine Gay, and accused the initial investigation into her work of attempting to cover up the scope of the problem. Gay resigned on Tuesday after a pressure campaign led by hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman. In Gay’s resignation letter, she blamed racism for her firing. Ackman suggested his campaign would turn toward MIT President Sally Fields, drawing accusations that the real reason for Gay’s ouster was her unwillingness to support Zionism over pro-Palestinian student protesters. Elon pointed out that the public conversations that led to Gay’s resignation took place on X.
Misc
The ADL acknowledged Ye’s apology: “After causing untold damage by using his vast influence and platform to poison countless minds with vicious antisemitism and hate, an apology in Hebrew may be the first step on a long journey towards making amends to the Jewish community and all those who he has hurt. Ultimately, actions will speak louder than words but this initial act of contrition is welcome.”
Ye released his new “Yeezy Pods” laceless sock shoes.
The New York Times is suing Microsoft and OpenAI
Memes of the Week
Elon’s Memes
Thank You!
Thanks for reading! Consider sending a tip or Subscribing on 𝕏 to help keep the newsletter going!
DJ2zTEdHBD3guHLfVaNBaypr6bHFG5Nwfw
It's ALL Risky!
Thank you, kind reader, for reading and subscribing to this newsletter. I really appreciate it!
If you haven’t already, please sign up to this email newsletter for more weekly articles like this one. Also, please share it with a friend or on twitter if you enjoyed this article.
What do you think? What was the biggest story of the week? Let me know!
Remember, Dogecoin is risky. But then again, it’s all risky!
Follow on twitter at @itsALLrisky
Send an email to itsALLrisky@gmail.com
Send a Doge tip: DJ2zTEdHBD3guHLfVaNBaypr6bHFG5Nwfw
This article was written in collaboration with @CryptoDogDivine, give them a follow!
Don't forget to subscribe to this newsletter!
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice and I am not a financial advisor. The article above references an opinion for entertainment purposes only and it is not investment advice. Always assume that the author of the article is actively trading and that the opinions expressed may be biased towards the author’s holdings. Do your own research and consult with a licensed financial adviser before making any investment decision. Do not treat any opinion expressed in this newsletter as a specific inducement to make a particular investment. Content, news, research, tools, and securities symbols are for educational and illustrative purposes only and do not imply a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell a particular security or cryptocurrency or to engage in any particular investment strategy. The information provided is not warranted as to completeness or accuracy and is subject to change without notice. The projections or other information regarding the likelihood of various investment outcomes are hypothetical in nature, are not guaranteed for accuracy or completeness, do not reflect actual investment results and are not guarantees of future results. All investments involve risk, losses may exceed the principal invested, and the past performance of a security, industry, sector, market, cryptocurrency, or financial product does not guarantee future results or returns. Dogecoin is a speculative and highly volatile asset susceptible to pump-and-dump schemes.
At the time of publication, Dogecoin is around $0.09 per coin.
