Category Archives: Economics

Political physiology of the Jeffery Epstein cover-up

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Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell in Tallahassee, FL yesterday, July 24. As a reminder, when Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in 2024 in his Stormy Daniels hush money trial, Todd Blanche was Trump’s defense attorney, so the political self-interest here is clear to all.

Another reminder, Ghislaine Maxwell was not only convicted of abetting Jeffery Epstein in his sex trafficking ring, but was also found guilty of two counts of perjury. This makes Todd Blanche’s interview with Ghislaine Maxwell all the more troubling, since he hasn’t reviewed all the FBI Epstein files and therefore wouldn’t be able to keep her in line during questioning if she attempted to lie– as she has provenly done in the past.

Despite this criminal history, Blanche claimed, “Ghislaine Maxwell answered every single question” during the Justice Department meeting, and that she answered them honestly without taking the 5th Amendment. That’s quite a statement, and impossible to verify without transcripts of the interview and the full release of the FBI Epstein files.

Along these same political lines, Trump’s impromptu order to release grand jury testimony, which was denied by the courts, was another red herring in that nothing revelatory or consequential was contained in them. Victim privacy wasn’t asked be protected, which was the reason for the court’s denial, which once again indicates Trump’s motivation was to distract, instead of reaching truth & justice on the matter.

What we have is a bipartisan cover-up operation that is fooling no one. The Democrats are just as implicated in the Epstein files as Republicans, along with their rich friends & political supporters who solicited the services of Jeffery Epstein for decades. Bill Clinton rode the “Lolita Express” 27 times, so he doesn’t want these files released any more than Donald Trump, meaning any Democratic Party posturing on this is cynical grandstanding meant to score political points while they work behind the scenes to conceal the evidence & facts.

What keeps getting lost in all this are the rights of the victims, as over 1,000 girls & young women were molested, abused & discarded by this criminal & depraved sex cartel and its clientele. There has been no justice for these victims, as political interests have protected the powerful men who solicited Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) called an early recess to prevent any Congressional action this past week, as Trump tries to evade responsibility for his criminality. All Congress has to do is subpoena the estate of Jeffery Epstein, and the attorney in charge of it would immediately release the Jeffery Epstein “50th-birthday book” to Congress, but that hasn’t happened either. All evidence of criminal relations to Jeffery Epstein have been systematically kept from the public by both political parties as they maneuver to cast ‘conspiracy blame’ onto the other.

All this is meant to protect the existing set-up. A vast fake economy is being insulated from accountability because to expose this criminality would lead to its collapse. Corporate bosses, major celebrities & sports figures are surely on the Epstein client list, and to ‘out’ them would be to prosecute them, which is something that is unacceptable to the ruling class. Capitalism has created these fake heroes and to disgrace them en masse would undermine the authority that has been bestowed upon them by their wealth & celebrity.

ICE immigration raids, #MeToo witch hunts, and slandering anti-Zionist protesters as ‘antisemitic’ are all part of the same reactionary cloth, whose purpose is to attack & scapegoat the working population and keep left-wing political dissent under the thumb of right-wing class rule. Occasionally a prominent politician, businessman, or celebrity needs to be sacrificed to maintain the whole, but never can the entire ruling class be prosecuted. This is the class battle that is being fought now. It is a war for truth & justice, and working people everywhere must take up the fight themselves, otherwise the truth will get buried (as it always does) by corporate-driven, two-party politics.

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Intersecting Hollywood dramas & documentary filmmaking

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I have written previously that the 21st century is the beginning of the golden age of documentary filmmaking. The internet now provides ambitious artists with the means & material necessary to make a movie on any subject, and distribution is more readily available. This means the rules have changed, and of course the Hollywood film industry doesn’t like this. In fact, it is fighting this with everything they’ve got as Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now their main tool (weapon) of choice in creating new dramatic films.

But technical gadgetry & AI special effects can only take filmmaking so far, and its limitations are already being reached. The quality of Hollywood films now is generally poor. Audiences who thirst for challenging & stimulating content aren’t finding it in the multiplexes, whose vapid content is generally a form of dumbed-down propaganda.

Sports movies: a critical analysis

Hollywood sports movies are generally disappointing because they fail to capture the “spirit of the game,” emphasizing fictitious drama over hard realities. See Moneyball (2011), perhaps the best baseball book ever published (2003), which became a watered-down sports-drama starring Brad Pitt. Actors aren’t professional athletes, and their attempts to portray them are usually unconvincing & clichéd.

To this movie-lover, the best Hollywood sports movies are The Longest Yard (1974), Bull Durham (1988), and The Great White Hype (1996), which had engaging scripts revealing a deep respect & understanding of that particular sport. Most of the rest of Hollywood sports movies are lame-to-unwatchable because they lack these qualities. Note that this phenomenon also applies to films about musicians & artists. Documentaries on such subjects are almost always more worthwhile because of the authentic footage, voices & artistry on display. Hollywood sports flicks suffer from a lack of genuineness created by an inherent weakness in these types of movies that few filmmakers can overcome.

The difference from other subjects of Hollywood films is that the public is usually very familiar with celebrity athletes, sports, music, etc, so the audience is harder to fool on the big screen. Movies are about creating an ‘illusion of reality’ with scripts, actors, special effects, etc. Network (1976) & House of Cards (2013-2017) are brilliant examples of bringing political reality to life through film fiction. Politicians & business executives generally hide their intentions & actions, so Hollywood filmmakers can exploit that gap in understanding more readily & effectively because the public is often unaware of these realities. Conversely, sports are rabidly followed by the masses, and thus their level of comprehension is far greater from the start, which makes sports movies unsatisfying to many movie buffs, especially sports fans.

War movies: documentaries vs dramatic re-enactment

War movies are an area of filmmaking that provide room for Hollywood-type dramatization and documentaries to be artistically successful. This is because the subject is far too broad for just one genre to tell the whole story. The best documentaries on war include The World at War (1973), a 26-part UK production on WWII narrated by Laurence Olivier. The authentic footage & participant interviews are its greatest strengths. But what is missing are the individual acts of bravery, heroism & drama, and that’s where dramatic films can fill in the gaps.

Das Boot (1981) is a German/UK production on the life of a German U-boat crew in 1943, a perilous time for these sailors. It has riveting action & drama, bringing their terror to life on the big screen. The World at War has a chapter titled “U-boats in the Atlantic,” which relates the objectives, strategies and history of this war theater. The U-boats had the potential to win the war for Nazi Germany if Hitler had used them properly, and it wasn’t until mid-1943 that the Allies solved the U-boat problem by exploiting aircraft with radar. This is an instructive filmmaking example of a documentary & a fictional thriller complimenting each other. If you’ve seen them both, then you have a much greater understanding of the subject from both a military & human perspective.

Midway (1976) is a Hollywood war movie that splices actual US Naval war footage with dramatic Hollywood filmmaking. The Navy war footage was shot in 16mm, and then blown up to 35mm and weaved into the fictional drama. This movie has many stars, but the editing-in of authentic war footage is what makes it all come together. Film clips from war dramas 30 Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) & Tora Tora Tora (1970) were also used, along with newly shot warbird & aircraft carrier footage at sea. Miniature models were filmed on a lake in California to great effect for recreating the destruction of the Japanese carrier fleet at Midway in June 1942. Midway is one of the best Hollywood war movies because of how it edits authentic Naval footage with dramatic film scripting.

Ken Burns best documentary project is arguably The Vietnam War (2017), and probably the best film on the subject to date. In the Year of the Pig (1968) is the other essential Vietnam War documentary. Many dramatic Hollywood Vietnam War movies had been made previously, the most notable & popular include: Apocalypse Now (1979), Platoon (1986) & Full Metal Jacket (1987). Until Ken Burns’ definitive documentary, these Hollywood productions were among the best film documents on the subject. What Ken Burns did was to render these Hollywood productions less important by creating a definitive documentary. Apocalypse Now and Platoon no longer have the impact they did when they were released because a documentary has artistically eclipsed them.

What this process reveals is that just about any important film subject (based on non-fictional events) needs a definitive documentary, and when it is made, it renders all Hollywood dramas on the subject less vital. This is a dialectical process of discovering truth, first through fictional drama, then through documentary authentication. This is why documentary filmmaking is the true future of movies as an artform.

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WNBA CBA issues coming this fall

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The WNBA is now a speculative bubble, and the only way players can significantly increase their salaries is to take ownership of the league for themselves. Expansion fees are now so high that owners won’t agree to any significant payroll increases during the next CBA negotiations starting this October. WNBA expansion fees for the newest franchises in Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia were $250 million each, compared to $50 million paid by the Golden State Valkyries who began play this season.

How can the new owners in Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia afford payroll increases with a $250 million entry fee? They can’t. Therefore that franchise value must go to the players who create the league value, otherwise the disparity between ownership revenues and players’ salaries will become highly contentious, threatening a destructive labor stoppage. The NFL, MLB & NBA have all experienced work stoppages in the past which hurt their leagues. At this crucial point in its development, the WNBA can ill-afford one itself, yet that is where it is heading.

WNBA franchise valuations have ballooned, with the average team value jumping from $96 million in 2024 to $269 million in 2025, according to GoLocalProv, a 280% increase in value in just one year [!]. The jump in WNBA valuation is entirely attributable to irrational exuberance & TV money, as the WNBA has secured a new media rights deal worth $2.2 billion over 11 years.

Caitlin Clark (2025 averages: 16.5 pts, 5.0 reb, 8.8 asst, 1.6 stl), personifies the irrational exuberance, as she has become the face of the league. Caitlin Clark adds value to the WNBA because: 1) she’s a transformative basketball player, and 2) she’s white– not necessarily in that order. The racialist aspect of this is not a good sign for the WNBA. Note that this is not Caitlin Clark’s fault, it’s the fault of ESPN and the media executives who encourage this.

WNBA minimum salary for players with 0-2 years of experience is $66,079, while players with 3+ years of experience have a minimum salary of $78,831 for the 2025 season. The highest-paid players can earn the super maximum salary, which is currently around $241,984, according to ESPN. The players naturally want a bigger piece of the pie as the league grows, but it is likely that the WNBA has already had its biggest growth spurt. It’s impossible to keep growing at a rate of 280% per year. The only other industry that does that is crypto.

So what the WNBA players face is a political choice of insisting on owning their league, or being salary-stunted by traditional ownership. “Pay us what you owe us” is an empty protest that will fall on deaf ears, as owners want to make money, and with such a high WNBA start-up cost the only way to do that is for owners to keep players’ salaries depressed. The only fair solution is for the players to become owners in the franchises they play for, as that’s where the money is.

But instead, the WNBA players have taken up a protest campaign, which may rally some support initially, but history shows that when the CBA negotiations come around, fans won’t be so sympathetic. Sports is entertainment, nothing more, and if these WNBA players strike over salaries that are already higher than what many fans make, they will be seen as greedy & selfish, just like the MLB players in 1994, the NFL players in 1987, etc.

When this much money is involved, it becomes a Marxist issue of worker control over production vs. exploitation. Instead of complaining about this unfairness, WNBA players need to take control of their game by becoming owners themselves, otherwise they will get cut out of the profits and be castigated by casual fans who view striking players as unappreciative of their privilege.

After all, sports is entertainment, and fans can turn off the TV and do/watch something else anytime they feel like it. What basketball players do isn’t essential, so the only way working people & youth (the vast majority of their fans) will get behind them is if they take a revolutionary stance at the next CBA– demonstrating actual leadership against ownership oppression. Any other position is acquiescence to the status quo, which inspires no one and is a losing proposition for the players.

NFLPA corruption: A serious lesson for the WNBA players

When it comes to representation in CBA negotiating, the WNBA players would be well advised to look at the current NFLPA situation where union representatives withheld evidence of ownership collusion from the players after QB Deshaun Watson signed a five-year, fully guaranteed $230 million contract in March 2022. Owners clearly colluded to suppress NFL player contracts after that deal and the players weren’t informed of this by their union representatives after evidence came to light in the courts. The NFLPA kept ownership collusion a secret from the NFL players for three years, until ESPN reporter Pablo Torre, broke the story a few weeks ago.

Union representatives who aren’t rank-and-file members, in any industry including the WNBA, are tools of management & ownership whose job is to keep labor in line and working for suppressed wages. These union representatives are nothing more than well-paid lackeys who collaborate with ownership to maintain their cushy jobs, salaries & benefits. This applies to teachers, auto & factory workers, municipal employees, etc.

This is why the emerging WNBA CBA is now a cutting edge sports issue. The WNBA’s new found success presents the current players with an opportunity to take control of their industry by representing themselves. For this they need to be a united fist of rank-and-file players, insisting on a fair stake in ownership, otherwise they will eventually be crushed by ownership duplicity with union/management collaboration.

These same issues apply to every industry globally, but they are more highlighted here because because sports gets so much media attention. WNBA players taking control of their negotiations and insisting on becoming the owners of the game they’ve created & built themselves is the key to a labor victory for the players. It is the only way to garner lasting public support for their cause without alienating their fans.

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The Jeffrey Epstein cover-up & MeToo campaign complicity

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The Epstein ‘client list’ which had been promised to be revealed by Donald Trump has now been officially denied by Attorney General Pam Bondi. The public outrage over this ranges from grassroots MAGA Trump supporters who feel they’ve been lied to, to everyday people who want justice for these crimes of pedophilia & sex trafficking. What has been notable this past week has been the silence from the MeToo campaign, which purportedly claims to be protecting women from such predators.

The fact is the MeToo campaign is a political tool of the Democrats who have no interest in exposing Jeffery Epstein’s client list, as many of its supporters and party members were connected to this criminality. Bill Clinton, Donald Trump & Prince Andrew are among the most prominent names on that undisclosed list, which now officially doesn’t exist.

Most people with any intellectual faculty believe Jeffery Epstein was murdered in prison in August 2019, and everything since has been a FBI cover-up. The MeToo campaign which came to prominence in November 2017 has made no statements on the recent government denials of any Epstein client list. How is this to be explained?

The MeToo campaign is an attack dog used by the Democratic Party to silence left-wing artists & political dissent. It uses terms such as safe space for women to justify attacking men, particularly working class straight white men. For nearly a decade it’s been a propaganda war, with MeToo claiming women are always the victims, women are always to be believed, facts don’t matter, etc.

But this propaganda only holds true for MeToo when accusing someone outside the ruling elite. Within the ruling class lurks the most dangerous sexual predators who are protected by their wealth & privilege, and MeToo has shown no interest in prosecuting those individuals. A Google search of ‘MeToo & Jeffery Epstein’ shows no recent articles.

MeToo is the political flipside of MAGA Trump racism & sexism. MeToo is meant to attack & divide working people, through toxic feminism, while offering no real justice against those sex offenders who are most dangerous to the public. MeToo prosecutions are always politically motivated to silence any real dissent on the left.

The MeToo campaign began in earnest with taking down Kevin Spacey on false sexual assault charges because of his role in House of Cards (2013-2017, season 1-5), a powerful political streaming series on Netflix that educated viewers on the inner workings of government corruption at the highest levels. This revealing series had become intolerable to the ruling establishment. After Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016, MeToo became a primary propaganda vehicle for the Democratic Party in its attacks on leftist figures.

MeToo claims to be a movement, but there is no popular support for this reactionary feminism which has nothing to do with equality & justice. The MeToo campaign is really about Democratic Party led feminist oppression of men and deflecting the blame for its own political & social criminality. It’s a tired act based on false narratives.

MeToo is largely despised by the public at this point. Democratic Party DEI initiatives dovetailed with the MeToo campaign to create a reactionary climate where white supremacists could reasonably claim they were being discriminated against, thus creating a social groundswell for Trump’s politics. This was a major reason Biden/Harris lost to a fascist in 2024.

The MeToo campaign has nothing progressive to offer. It is a slander campaign meant to intimidate & subdue the masses through false narratives & political intimidation. Exposing MeToo lies gets you branded as a ‘woman hater’, the same way those protesting Zionist genocide of the Palestinian population are slandered as ‘antisemites’. MeToo is a slander campaign with ruling class bias, attacking the truth while protecting class privilege.

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The Blend

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In musical artistic terms “the blend” refers to how your voice is integrated with the instrument you are playing. In my case it’s guitar. The blend is correct instrument playing & vocals which are projecting your true voice. You don’t have to be a 4-octave vocalist to be an influential singer. You don’t need to be Eddie Van Halen on guitar either, but you do need to blend like Jimi Hendrix. Blending means you have no weakness which limit your ability to communicate with an audience. All aspects of performance have to be at a high level of competency to be able to effectively blend.

Jimi Hendrix is still that standard for perfect rock blend, an unbeatable guitar prodigy who found his songwriting voice which is now imitated by everyone. No one can match Jimi Hendrix, so take what you can from that and realize he didn’t leave a blueprint to follow– for if you try to live like Jimi, you will die like Jimi. Hendrix had so much pure talent (which none of us have), meaning you can’t surpass him artistically– only be inspired by his greatness & learn from his mistakes. Jimi Hendrix was too far ahead of his time to be understood, but he was also human with fallibilities like the rest of us.

Blending on guitar means playing the notes well along with using volume & syncopation. Volume helps create drone effect, which the Velvet Underground perfected with John Cale, while Jimi Hendrix mastered drone by controlling amplifier feedback. See his famous Woodstock solo performance of “The Star Spangled Banner” posted below, as it’s the drone effect which hypnotizes the listener. He’s so natural.

Syncopation comes more into play as a solo performer who favors an acoustic approach with no drummer. Artistically & stylistically it can be considered the difference between Bob Dylan & Jimi Hendrix. Bob Dylan can’t play guitar like Jimi Hendrix, but he is a better songwriter, so he turns down the volume (even in his electrified coming out era) as compared to the Velvets or Jimi. Bob Dylan favors syncopation (beats in his head) over feedback. Bob Dylan achieves drone effect on harmonica, and is one of the most prolific harmonica players ever. Bob Dylan came from folk music & the blues, and when he found his songwriting voice (which he also blended as drone) became arguably the biggest rock star ever. It’s because he could blend.

John Lennon is another brilliant example of blend. Whether it’s on guitar or piano; with the Beatles, solo, or with studio musicians John Lennon could create songs with anyone who had talent. He could always blend.

Understanding the recording process & production is part of the blend. If you can do this then surely you will perform better to a live audience. The studio is where a lot of good musicians feel intimidated and can get overwhelmed. The art of blending comes when nervous, but talented musicians are on the clock in the studio. A new song is uncharted territory which can be scary. The leader is the one who blends by getting their part (in my case guitar & vocals) well recorded in a way that makes everyone else’s job on the song easier. If it needs a click track, for the drummer & bass player to add later, then it must be done to a click track, otherwise they won’t be able to blend with the song. Figure out what the song needs and pick your blend.

If the lyrics are tight & engaging that will inspire creativity from everyone involved. Everyone wants to be part of something great, especially in the music business. It is the songwriter’s responsibility to give the musicians & producer what is needed for them to blend their talents into the project. You can’t do it all by yourself, but you can learn how to do as many things as possible, making everyone else’s job easier.

Blending is about leadership. In rock music you start everything by writing a new song, then you find the right people to help and inspire them to be creative. It really can’t happen any other way. Blending isn’t allowed to happen anymore by a music industry that has been locked-up tight since the late 1990’s & American Idol. What’s happening now is all about professional songwriters & producers who are completely out of touch. Technically they have the chops, but there is no heart, soul, or real love in any corporate music anymore. It’s all canned product. The producers deserve most of the credit for any catchy hit that is made anymore. As a musical artist, it feels like K-Pop has now been mainstreamed into American popular music. K-Pop is about sexual exploitation, human trafficking, drug trafficking & the fashion industry but no one is allowed to say that.

Blending a songwriting voice with guitar in this era means understanding the politics of our time and being a leader. This means you will have fans & haters, so deal with both appropriately. What we have politically is fascism under Trump with the Democrats acting as Vichy collaborators. Writing new songs from this Marxist perspective keeps an artist on the path of truth politically, making the music more influential & easier to blend over time.

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Crypto legislation & Trump’s coup attempt

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Crypto legislation was passed this week, with the GENIUS Act getting Senate approval, and the CLARITY Act moving out of House subcommittees. What this means is their passage is now inevitable. This will set the stage for another bitcoin bull run, followed by a crypto industry bailout when things inevitably go south. That bailout language is in the Senate-approved GENIUS Act.

Also, Trump will be allowed to profit on stablecoins without restriction. The crypto industry spent an estimated $130 million buying lawmakers to get their legislation passed. Opposition was tepid at best in both Houses of Congress, as few politicians wanted to take on the crypto PACs, which threatened to throw money against opponents during the next election cycle. It was politics as usual in Washington.

Right now, finance capital is salivating over the potential profits it can make issuing their own crypto, backed by US treasuries & the dollar, all now fully guaranteed by the US taxpayers in event of failure.

What we have under the Trump administration is the wholesale pardoning & rehabilitating of the crypto industry. Crypto criminals have been absolved, while Trump deploys the national guard & marines against the population protesting ICE Gestapo raids. The 1st, 4th, 5th & 6th amendment to the Constitution have been rendered invalid, as president Trump’s long-planned coup attempt to establish a police state dictatorship now enters its critical phase.

Democrats are doing nothing to stop this, in fact they are aiding & abetting Trump. Millions of Americans are facing higher prices due to Trump’s tariff war, which affects working class people disproportionately. This has thrown tens of thousands of people out of work, on top of the millions who are struggling to find a decent job already.

Every political action from Washington favors the wealthy, as Trump attempts to divide the population between US citizens & immigrants using ICE, DHS, etc, as a fascist spearhead. No culture, art, or any form of protest is to be tolerated by the fascist Trump regime, while Democrats preach “law & order.” This class inequality has become intolerable to the vast majority of the population, and the only serious answer is an international general strike. The violence in Israel/Gaza, Ukraine/Russia, and the Middle East & beyond is simply the foreign policy expression of Trump’s fascist agenda. A war on China would be the culmination of this madness.

Workers need to protect themselves, since the police & military are being brought in to attack them. Organize workers, students & neighborhoods into safety committees to resist ICE abductions & police state violence. The wealth of society is created by the workers, not the billionaires. An organized working class is the international power that must be harnessed to stop fascism.

I see this as my final article on crypto, as there is nothing more for me to say on the subject. It’s now time for organizing & action. Before Trump re-took office, I began explaining the importance of crypto to the incoming Trump-Musk administration. Elon Musk is a crypto whale and probably the largest holder of bitcoin in the world. I estimate he holds 40-75% of all the available bitcoin. No one in the fake media will ask him these questions, and he’s not giving out any good answers– that’s for sure. History will have the final say.

The much hyped Trump-Musk break-up has since been reconciled. The reason for this is these two crypto fascists need each other. They can no longer exist independently. Certainly neither will jump to the other side of the revolutionary barricade in this war. Trump needs Elon Musk’s crypto expertise & influence, while Musk needs Trump to not crush him with his power of the state.

Trump-Musk crypto fascism is the transitional form of government in America right now. It’s an attempt to establish a police state dictatorship under Trump. The American people are resisting en masse, and that will only continue to grow. The American people have been put into a political slumber for a long time, especially those who have supported the Democratic Party. Those on the left, who trusted the Democrats, now find themselves without a political voice and are searching in the direction of socialism. The Socialist Equality Party (SEP), and their political organ the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) is the only political organization that represents the true left. All other variants, DSA, Green Party, etc, orbit the Democrats.

Contact the SEP/WSWS to join the war against fascism, which includes defeating Vichy cohorts known in America as the Democratic Party. Only class struggle can stop fascism. United as an unbreakable international force, the workers of the world can defeat fascism & free mankind through a socialist revolution. The Trotskyists are the true socialists, that’s why you never hear Leon Trotsky (pic above) mentioned in bourgeois politics & the mass media. Trotsky is hated by the Stalinists & the bourgeoisie because of his internationalism.

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Stablecoin legislation update

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The fake media is reporting today, “Despite the charted course for GENIUS Act passage by the end of the week, one amendment proposal threatens to derail plans. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) is pushing to insert the text of the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) into the stablecoin bill, drawing the ire of several lawmakers. The CCCA, introduced on the House floor in 2023, has failed to pass through the legislative process. The bill seeks to mandate major banks to use a payment network apart from Visa and Mastercard, but an amendment proposal to merge it with the GENIUS Act has generated dissent.”

In other words, leading Democratic lawmakers are unwilling to stand up and state to the American people that crypto is a Ponzi scheme. Their only resistance to crypto is to sneak an unrelated poison pill amendment into the GENIUS Act.

Let’s be clear, every Democrat in Congress knows crypto is a scam. Since FTX/SBF in late 2022 this has been acknowledged by everyone, outside the Kool-Aid drinkers. There is massive public opinion against crypto, especially with Trump’s brazen conflict of interest in establishing his own crypto exchange & tokens. Yet the Kool-Aid drinkers are about to get their stablecoin legislation, legitimizing crypto as money and setting up bitcoin for another bull run.

The Laken-Riley Act, the Big Beautiful Bill, and crypto legislation are all together as part of the Trump-Musk crypto-fascist plan to transform our US constitutional democracy into a dictatorial police state. The Democrats are Vichy collaborators in this crypto-fascist process. That’s the rest of story which needs to be understood.

* An amendment requires a simple majority to be approved in the Senate. The Credit Card Competition Act is considered politically toxic because it pits finance capital against restaurants & retailers. Bourgeois politicians don’t like that. So if a Senate majority votes the CCCA amendment in, it’s a signal the GENIUS Act is dead, because everyone votes against the CCCA. This is how Democrats are playing both sides of the legislative fence in this crypto debate.

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Classic comedy & crypto-fascism

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Mind if I show you a little something? I’ve been watching you, to see what the hell you’re up to, and this is what I see…

Caddyshack (1980) is the funniest movie ever. Beyond that, it was the first movie with a modern soundtrack, featuring the music of Johnny Mandel and also containing two hit songs from Kenny Loggins: “I’m Alright” the film’s classic theme song, and “Mr. Night” the caddy pool-party song. This christened a new movie soundtrack style for the decade, which showed-up in features across all genres including: Flashdance (1983), Ghostbusters (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985) & Dirty Dancing (1987) to name just a few.

Caddyshack is about class lines & the differences between country club members and the caddies who serve them. The class bite gets hidden somewhat underneath all the laughs. Danny Noonan represents the young, unmotivated everyman who see little reason to work hard because there is little-to-no reward for him.

Bill Murray delivers the best scenes, often by himself, and they live in golf lore– as every golfer loves Caddyshack. If you don’t laugh with the Caddyshack audience, then that audience is laughing at you. Few comedies can twist you up like that, and Caddyshack sets the standard.

And to clarify a Caddyshack point regarding Donald Trump, he is a real-life amalgamation of Judge Smails & his grandson Spaulding– meaning they are cheaters at golf, not golfers. This is why you have to be careful when someone asks you to kill every golfer on the course.

Rodney Dangerfield & Ted Knight represent the battle of new money vs old money in Caddyshack. Ted Knight never had a better or more memorable role. Rodney Dangerfield was in one other classic comedy, Back to School (1986), which is relevant to this discussion. Back to School is an underrated movie, with a stellar cast including: Sally Kellerman, Ned Beatty & Robert Downey Jr.

Sam Kinison helps students of history appreciate what happens when you give a good answer to a difficult question, but it isn’t the answer the teacher is looking for…

Robert Downey Jr. as Derek Lutz intervenes at his college homecoming rally to “point out that football is a crypto-fascist metaphor for nuclear war.” Somewhere very recently, that line got me thinking and helped me theorize Trump-Musk crypto-fascism. This proves the arts & laughter are food for thought & meditation, so take a hike all you elitist fraternity scumbags…

The latest on crypto-fascism: Stablecoins are seen as “low hanging fruit,” so that’s the current top priority for the crypto industry. Congressional legislation in May has multiple crypto bills being circulated, as the financial media is finally beginning to see the priority of crypto in the Trump-Musk administration. Increasingly it is apparent that crypto is a primary economic & foreign policy driver for the Trump White House.

Stablecoins are a way of connecting worthless crypto to tangible assets such as the US dollar, Treasury notes, etc. In short: stablecoins are a gateway to a crypto-fascist billionaire heist of the US Treasury. Not one “stablecoin” has ever held its 1:1 peg to whatever it’s tied to. STABLE & GENIUS are the crypto bills currently being “debated.” Political blowback has already started as the ‘crypto PAC money Democrats’ are starting to sway due to increasing public concerns. Crypto is a political fight where an educated public can really benefit the cause of revolutionary socialism.

April 2 was “Liberation Day” when the Trump tariffs were announced. The tariff plan was to declare economic war on the nation of China, along with a cost-of-living & jobs war on the international working class. A side benefit for Trump was the chaos it provoked in the news cycles, which deflected attention away from his hidden crypto agenda. The crypto-fascist plan was for the STABLE & GENIUS bills to already be passed, or at least well on their way by now. But these bills have been “paused” instead. Crypto works best in secret, and the timelines on these events (tariffs & crypto legislation) suggest they were part of a coordinated fascist plan. Any public disclosures & analysis of crypto-fascist criminality damages Trump immeasurably.

Lou, dressing down his troops in Caddyshack: I’m gonna lay it right on the line. There have been a lot of complaints already– horsing around on the course, bad language, smoking grass, poor caddying! You wanna get fired, be replaced by golf carts– just keep it up.

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The 2025 Colorado Rockies & franchise mismanagement

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Preface: The 2024 Chicago White Sox finished 41-121, which ranks among the worst MLB seasons ever. Projections all indicate the White Sox will lose at least 110 games in 2025. Currently they are 9-24, worst record in the AL. Their Pythagorean W-L: 14-19, -25 run differential, indicates they have been quite unlucky early on, which may or may not turn itself around. When you are as bad as the White Sox, you can’t just expect luck to turn itself around. You have to play better to create more of your own luck, so Pythagorean W-L is not as reliable an indicator when a team is this extremely bad.

The 2025 White Sox still have a bunch of guys who can’t hit, including CF Luis Robert, Jr (.182/.300/.345) who is now officially untradable after being shopped for years Their pitching staff is a bunch of young arms with plenty of veteran flotsam mixed in. It’s going to be another long season for the South-siders, but it won’t approach the historical badness of 2024. This team is younger and will finish stronger than in 2024, where the White Sox had three major losing streaks, a 14-game streak (May 22-June 6); an AL-record-tying 21-game streak (July 10-August 5); and a 12-game streak (August 23-September 3). That’s hard to replicate in baseball, no matter how bad you are. The 2024 White Sox were really bad, and they had awful leadership on top of that, which turned them into a historical disaster.

The 2024 White Sox were completely demoralized by management & ownership, starting in Spring Training when they dealt their ace RHP Dylan Cease to the San Diego Padres. This unexpected trade (March 13, 2024) challenged everyone on the White Sox pitching staff to step up and fill a slot, and when they couldn’t it quickly collapsed. The key pitching prospect in the Dylan Cease deal, LHP Drew Thorpe, made nine starts for the Pale Hose until he came up Tommy John surgery. That’s how things started death-spiraling for the 2024 White Sox.

After unloading anything they could at the Trade deadline, the front office was unable to deal their most-coveted asset– young LHP Garrett Crochet, so the team had to ride out the rest of the season with their best pitcher on an innings-limit, so he would remain a valuable trade commodity in the winter. Garrett Crochet was dealt to the Red Sox for four prospects in December. The White Sox now have a top-10 farm system, so they will get better, which isn’t saying much but it is somewhat of a relief.

Setting the mark for most losses in a MLB season and putting your team in the discussion for ‘worst MLB team ever’ doesn’t happen every year, which makes the 2025 Colorado Rockies all the more remarkable. The 2025 Colorado Rockies are already a contender for worst MLB ever. The modern list starts with the 1962 New York Mets, managed by the great Casey Stengel, who were 40-120, with a .250 winning percentage. The 2024 White Sox lost one more game, but also won one more game and had a better winning percentage at .253. Mathematically speaking, as bad as the White Sox were last year, the 1962 Mets were a fraction worse. Futile teams from the dead-ball & pre-integration MLB eras include: 1916 Philadelphia Athletics 36-117, .235; 1935 Boston Braves 38-115 .248: 1904 Washington Senators 38-113 .252; so there are historical teams with a lower winning percentage than the 1962 Mets but they are of a completely different era.

Currently the Colorado Rockies are 6-27, with a Pythagorean W-L: 8-25, and a -83 run differential, by far the worst in MLB. This basically means the Rockies are who they are at this point. Their 8-25 expected winning percentage (Pythagorean) is .242, which over a season projects to 39-123 for the Colorado Rockies. But the Rockies are 6-27, which is a .182 winning percentage, which means they have to start playing a lot better just to get to 40 wins in 2025.

Looking deeper into this futility only reveals more bad news for Colorado Rockies fans. The White Sox have the good fortune to be in one of the two Central divisions in MLB, which are qualitatively less completive than the East & West behemoths in both leagues. By contrast, the 2025 Colorado Rockies are in the toughest division in MLB.

Furthermore, it is impossible to discuss Colorado Rockies baseball without understanding what high altitude does to the game, particularly pitchers. Coors Field fastballs don’t ride as much, sinkers don’t sink, and sweepers don’t sweep. The thin air doesn’t allow spin to work as effectively. It’s about survival, so Rockies pitchers have to pitch differently in their home park, and they all look forward to starting on the road. How can a baseball team win with that?

The altitude also affects conditioning, meaning shorter outings, more fatigue buildup during games and over the course of a season in Denver. With advanced metrics normalized across MLB, they now prove beyond any doubt that it is impossible to build a winning team in Denver, Colorado due to these conditions. The Rockies need to move their franchise (Oakland?) to ever have any hope of competing. They haven’t made the post-season since being ousted in the 2018 Divisional series, and have only fallen further from contention since. The last Rockies free agency splash was Ian Desmond in 2017, signed to play SS but had to move to 1B/DH, he produced -2.8 WAR in three seasons before retiring. Their 2007 World Series appearance is a distant memory.

Can you name one current Colorado Rockies player? Most MLB fans outside of Colorado can’t, and they aren’t intersted in learning, which is the problem. This is a boring, homegrown team that never makes a free agency splash anymore, because (outside of OF Larry Walker) none have worked. Since Bret Saberhagen, Denny Neagle & Darryl Kile, top free agent pitchers never list Colorado as a desired destination during hot stove season, and the same goes for position players who need to waive their no-trade clauses to be dealt– they NEVER authorize a trade to Colorado. How can a GM build an organization up against all this? It’s tough enough to beat the Dodgers at sea level, just ask the Padres, Giants & Diamondbacks, who are trying.

The Rockies have a beautiful ballpark, top-5 by MLB standards, and they fill it up with fans every year, so this comes down to a discussion about what is best for the game. Is it okay for a team that sells-out and has a beautiful modern ballpark to play where the game really isn’t baseball? Baseball in Denver is arena baseball, a distorted pinball version of the game. How long will Colorado Rockies fans put up with the inevitable futility on the field? These questions will grow louder & louder if the Rockies continue to play as they have.

We should not see two consecutive seasons of historic futility in MLB anymore, which is troubling for fans. This can only mean that in an era where sports is more competitive & lucrative than ever, it is now becoming commonplace for teams to completely give up before the season starts. The White Sox did it in 2024, and now it’s the Rockies in 2025 and possibly beyond. The Colorado Rockies are #18 in the latest MLB farm system rankings, but what does that mean when NONE of their pitching prospects can develop into real MLB pitchers?

Baseball is the most unique game, the only game where the defense has the ball, and that’s why you can’t play baseball at high altitude. You can play football, basketball & hockey in Denver, and it affects the game for sure, but it doesn’t handicap a NFL, NBA or NHL franchise from winning a title– which the Broncos, Nuggets & Avalanche have done. The Colorado Rockies aren’t anywhere close to that class of winning and never will be. It’s completely unfair to pitching prospects to be drafted by the Colorado Rockies, which is the worst place in the world to go as a young pitcher. That should have been recognized long ago, but MLB is run by owners & front-office executives who don’t understand the game because they can’t see past their ticket sales.

NBA mismanagement 101: This situation isn’t as extreme as the Colorado Rockies or Chicago White Sox, but it deserves attention from sports fans nonetheless. The Milwaukee Bucks have mismanaged themselves into a situation where they are about to lose their superstar, Giannis Antetokounmpo. It really began after the Bucks were defeated in the playoffs by the Celtics in 2022. Instead of getting younger around their two studs, Giannis Antetokounmpo & Jrue Holiday, the Bucks front office kept their aging, diminishing-returns roster together.

Most disastrous was the Damian Lillard trade in 2023, as Jrue Holiday is one of the most valuable players in the NBA as far as winning a championship goes. Steve Kerr knows that, and that’s why Jrue Holiday was on the 2024 gold medal US Olympic team, while Damian Lillard wasn’t. Lillard is now out for the next season-and-a-half, with a torn ACL, while ace defensive stopper Jrue Holiday (pic above) is trying to help the Boston Celtics to another championship. Plus, the Bucks gave up a first-round pick (and two potential swaps– more below) to acquire Damian Lillard, the inferior player in the deal.

The Milwaukee Bucks with all their fruitless wheeling & dealing since 2021, do not have a first-round pick in the 2025 draft. Their 2026, 2028 & 2030 first-round picks are subject to potential swaps with the New Orleans Pelicans & Portland Trail Blazers, meaning if the Bucks hit the lottery in those drafts, the Pelicans (in 2026) or Trail Blazers (2028, 2030) will get their pick. The Bucks do not have first-round picks in 2027 or 2029, which means their next available first-round pick is in 2031. When the Bucks trade Giannis Antetokounmpo this summer (as they now have to) they will be a lottery team for several seasons, in which their top picks will be going to other teams. That’s about about badly as a GM can mismanage a championship roster in four years.

The 2025 NBA draft lottery is Monday, May 12. The Houston Rockets & San Antonio Spurs have been rumored to be the teams most interested & able to acquire Giannis Antetokounmpo from the Bucks. It’s the ‘Cooper Flagg draft’ in the NBA this year, so the Bucks can shift directly into a rebuild with the young stud from Duke by dealing Giannis for the top 2025 pick, but it depends on how the draft lottery goes, so everyone in basketball will be watching.

Any of the teams involved can win the draft lottery, no matter what the “odds” say. There are years where it may have been rigged, going back to the first draft lottery in 1985, and there are too many instances where the team with the lowest odds has won the draft lottery for it not to have been rigged. In 2025: Utah, Washington, Charlotte and New Orleans are the top-4 favorites with the best “odds,” but none of them are thrilling options for the NBA in the Cooper Flagg draft. After that it’s Philadelphia, Brooklyn & Toronto which isn’t any better for media conscious NBA executives.

After that, San Antonio has a 6.7% chance of winning over two picks– 6.0% from their own, and 0.7% from the Atlanta Hawks. Houston has a 3.8% chance of winning, with rights to a Phoenix pick via Brooklyn. The Spurs or Rockets winning would be the most exciting draft lottery outcome for the NBA on May 12, but also among the least likely statistically– a 10.5% composite likelihood. Look for it anyways, since this isn’t fair play, it’s a ruthless business.

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Crypto-fascist history & propaganda

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The financial press is buzzing over bitcoin’s performance as compared to the bond & stock markets since Trump again took office. Banks and other corporate institutions are looking to cash-in on the new crypto gold rush. What a story, blah, blah, blah…

Meanwhile, there is virtually no mention or analysis of crypto-fascism in the fake media. Any sensationalist crypto tidbit is fine to report in the corporate media, but the dangers of Trump-Musk crypto fascism must be kept quiet. Crypto-fascism is an issue that could topple the entire economic & political house-of-cards, it is that murky-murky. Crypto is probably tied into ICE disappearances of visa students & even US citizens to Central American prison hellholes. Constitutional rights and due process have been thrown out the window by the crypto-fascists, while traditional finance & the CIA Democrats sit on their hands and do nothing.

There is massive popular resistance to fascism in any form, but it is being marginalized & politically suppressed by the corporate-union apparatus. Polling data can’t be relied upon, as all their numbers are clearly faked upwards to boost whomever is US President. As a rule, I cut all “in favor” or “support” poll numbers in half– at least. Corporate polling has class bias favoring the upper-middle-class & ultra-wealthy, meaning it doesn’t accurately reflect popular sentiment because it excludes working class & the poor, ie- the great majority. There are plenty of non-voters who are disgusted with Trump & the Democrats, but their voices are silenced by the two-party straitjacket.

Corporate America installed Trump in 2024 and therefore they must bow to his wishes, unless he goes too far as he did with his steep tariffs, then Trump zig-zags somewhat. To illustrate who is in charge, just two days ago Amazon threatened to post the cost of Trump tariffs online, provoking a tantrum from the führer who immediately called Jeff Bezos to demand a retraction, which happened. In this vein, favorable reporting of crypto is primary for Trump. Crypto connections to murky fascist third-world prison camps is NOT on the White House agenda for the corporate press. Legitimizing bitcoin and playing up its “benefits” as a ‘reserve currency’ is the crypto-fascist propaganda line.

Crypto exchanges recommended by Google/Investopedia (as of this publication) are: Kraken for lowest fees; Gemini for best experienced traders [!]; Coinbase for beginners [!!]; Crypto.com for bitcoin; and Bitmart for altcoins. These listed exchanges are proven frauds, most were given wrist-slap punishments for their malfeasance during the Biden administration. But even that limited government oversight is now deemed too harsh for Trump-Musk and his crypto fascist cohorts.

To correct myself on a bitcoin anecdote I shared yesterday, according to crypto folklore in 2010 a bitcoin owner offered 10,000 bitcoins for two pizzas, which is the first claimed transaction in crypto. Of course, there are no receipts or proof-of-purchase documents, just online hearsay, but Kool-Aid drinkers are very sensitive & particular about bitcoin history so to avoid hysterics I wanted to set the record straight on that. It wasn’t just a “few bitcoins” as I wrote, it was ten thousand– supposedly.

I read now that January 3, 2009 is considered the bitcoin launch date. Color me skeptical there too, as bitcoin price data first became available only in July 2010. Kool-Aid drinkers keep trying to push bitcoin development & historical dates backwards in time (18 months) to give it more longevity. This supposedly helps in selling crypto’s legitimacy. As a side note, I suspect many pro-crypto online comments are now being generated by Elon Musk AI bots.

In terms of crypto history, 2017 was the year bitcoin exploded into popular consciousness, especially on social media. Bitcoin started at ~$1,000 and went crazy from there, maxing-out at over $19,000 by December. But bitcoin crashed (again) in 2018, ending the year at ~$3,700. If there is any single repeating trend in bitcoin history, it’s its boom-bust cycle. That keeps getting overlooked by crypto proponents, as does the FTX/SBF crypto fraud of 2022, etc.

Satoshi Nakamoto conceived a maximum of 21 million bitcoins ever being created or “mined,” which is crypto gospel. This fixed supply creates an ever-increasing demand among Kool-Aid drinkers (who don’t understand where money comes from or how it is a store of value), which perpetually inflates the crypto bubble. Libertarians all believe in supply-and-demand as a store of value, while entirely ignoring commodity use value, which means bitcoin goes to zero when the crypto bubble bursts.

As of this publication, the total number of bitcoins created is 19,857,590.625. This means there are over 1.1 million bitcoins remaining to be mined. Crypto whales own all the bitcoin, and here are the numbers to prove it. The top 8% of crypto wallets own ~99% of all bitcoin in circulation. The top 1% of crypto wallets control over 90% of the bitcoin.

Currently, it costs ~$137,000 in electricity for a small-scale operation to mine a bitcoin. Gizmodo estimates the most optimal cost for whales mining a bitcoin to be ~$82,000, up from ~$56,000 last September. Rising interest rates and/or energy costs put all bitcoin mining operations into the red, no matter how large their scale. Then you have to store bitcoin on a slow & bulky blockchain which is another energy hog in terms of computer use. The costs of crypto never end.

The only way bitcoin can remain viable is for its price to keep rising. That is the definition of a pyramid scheme. The pressures on bitcoin are immense, as it is requiring huge flows of billionaire capital just to keep the crypto Ponzi scheme from collapsing. There are plenty of fascists with nine zeros in the bank accounts, so lack of capital won’t be the direct cause of the final bitcoin collapse. It will more likely be a mass public awareness of the dangers of crypto-fascism that eventually brings down bitcoin. In any case, the big crypto crash is inevitable and it is coming soon.

Investigating basics & tips: When following & investigating crypto, you have to do an initial deep dive into the subject, then pull yourself out of the muck while learning to see macro-trends over time. Don’t take your eye off the ball, which is bitcoin. I’ve posted all the crypto shortcuts you need (and you need them), so start here, here & here. For the record, my first article on crypto was in December 2017, so I’ve been following long enough to know what goes on.

A seminal event in the Trump-Musk administration was the White House crypto summit on March 7, previewed the week of here & here, then reported here.  One can’t understand crypto-fascism without understanding the importance this recent political event, which most of the media ignored or at best only took lightly. Now they are rushing to catch up.

By mid-2023 US crypto banks Silvergate, Silicon Valley Bank & Signature had collapsed (reported here & here) and as a consequence, Coindesk cut their staffing dramatically. Since then their crypto reporting has turned into headlines only or bland AI-generated content. They even limit the number of free articles per month now, something they never did in their prime. For years before that, Coindesk was the best place to go for anything news in crypto. Now it’s probably Cointelegraph. What I learned at Coindesk is that you definitely need to be young to survive in crypto, as I believe the speed of it all is part of the addiction. When crypto was dead-in-the-water by mid-2023, every Kool-Aid drinker looked towards Donald Trump as the white knight who would ride in and save crypto, when he is actually the conman who rides away with all the loot.

Things happen at such dizzying speed in crypto, and everything is mutable, especially its history. For instance, I typically use Coindesk’s bitcoin tracker, but sometimes I’ll use bitcoin data from another source, as I did above. Often when I compare historical tracker data, there is a significant difference in bitcoin price. Kool-Aid drinkers always rattle on about ‘secure blockchains’ and their ‘immutability’ yet I’ve seen & reported bitcoin tracker data manipulated. Bitcoin falling to $26 on Coindesk’s tracker on July 2, 2019 was proof positive that crypto is entirely a scam. Coindesk covered up their own blockchain tracker data meltdown with generic garbage and pretended that no one noticed– and most didn’t. That’s how crypto has gotten so far.

Understand you don’t see that level of blatant manipulation & fraud with any fiat currency or exchange-traded commodities– these exchanges all list the same prices, always. There are ‘reputable’ trackers for different crypto, and it’s been boiled down to a few (Blockchain Explorer & Coindesk) since Fed interest rates were lifted, but now they mostly share their data to maintain “industry continuity” which (in their mind’s eye) burnishes their public veneer of legitimacy. In other words, crypto Kool-Aid drinkers assume you are too stupid to ask questions and brazenly go ahead from there. Once confronted with facts & rational understanding crypto fascist Kool-Aid drinkers can be neutralized by their own poison.

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