I recommend this excerpt from Rachel Maddow's show the other night. She asked a host of questions about the Oval Office ambush of Zelensky that, for the most part, have been ignored or downplayed by the "mainstream" press.
Such as, how did a Russian government "journalist" get into the meeting? The explanation from the White House press office was one of the most obvious lies in history.
Such as, who gains from what the Trump regime is doing? First among others, Putin gains. A vicious dictator who is loathed by the American public and the entire Western world other than right-wing extremists, Putin might as well be Trump's ventriloquist.
MSNBC is rapidly shedding it credibility as it sheds its top anchors and commentators. I hope Maddow isn't on the firing line, because if she goes there won't be any reason to watch that channel.
While cryptocurrencies were once viewed as a subversive financial instrument intended to be independent from governments, banks, or the traditional financial system, and although many in the industry still like to repeat that narrative when it suits them, it’s become clear that the crypto world is deeply dependent on outside forces propping it up.
Those "outside forces" working on behalf of the endlessly corrupt cryptocurrency "industry" are, as the incomparable Molly White discusses in this newsletter update, mostly the ones that have poured money into the pockets of Trump and members of Congress in the past several years.
As she explains, Trump touted specific assets (remember, crypto assets are often, if not mostly, a mirage), all tied to the investment companies that have fueled the latest crypto bubble and stand to lose the most if the sky-high prices plummet. "These assets were certainly not chosen at random, and give us some insight into who’s got the ear of the president (at least at the current moment)," she writes.
Trump's bubble-inflating came days after what was apparently the biggest-ever theft – $1.5 billion – from speculators' "cold wallets" at a crypto company called Bybit. The thieves, by most accounts, were North Korean government operatives. And the way they pulled this off suggested that holders of these supposed assets are even more at risk than we'd imagined.
This is only one more reason why a) crypto is a terrible investment; and b) the idea of using taxpayers' money to support it is super-dangerous.
Since launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 15, Blue Ghost traveled more than 2.8 million miles, downlinked more than 27 GB of data, and supported several science operations. This included signal tracking from the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) at a record-breaking distance of 246,000 miles with the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment payload – showing NASA can use the same positioning systems on Earth when at the Moon. Science conducted during the journey also included radiation tolerant computing through the Van Allen Belts with the Radiation-Tolerant Computer System payload and measurements of magnetic field changes in space with the Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder payload.
The successful landing and deployment of various research projects is a testament to the wisdom of public-private partnerships. NASA's approach with lunar exploration is to fund a bunch of private endeavors and not worry about it when some of them fail.
Some projects will never fit into commercial ventures. The beyond-brilliant Webb Space Telescope went way, way over budget but it proving to be the most important tool for cosmology and astronomy in human history. We need to do both.
We also need to bring private industry under better control. The proliferation of communication satellites in low-earth orbit – with Elon Musk's company in a dominant position – is creating a major space-junk hazard, wrecking terrestrial astronomy, and harming communities here on Earth. But the Trump regime, apparently under orders from Musk, is wiping out all regulation of his businesses. This is already a clear and present danger. It's likely to get much, much worse.
Elon Musk’s satellite business Starlink may not have officially taken over Verizon’s $2.4 billion contract with the Federal Aviation Administration yet to upgrade the systems it uses to manage America’s airspace. However, on Friday, FAA officials ordered staff to begin finding tens of millions of dollars for a Starlink deal, according to a source with knowledge of the FAA and two people briefed on the situation. The sources note that these internal directives have mostly, if not entirely, been delivered verbally — which they say is unusual for a matter like this. The source with knowledge of the FAA tells Rolling Stone that it appears as though “someone does not want a paper trail.”
This Rolling Stone story (here's an alternative link if you hit a paywall) doesn't have enough on-the-record sourcing for my taste, but its outlines have been semi-confirmed by several other news outlets. And it is entirely plausible because Trump and Musk are so thoroughly sleazy.
Trump is by far – there's no one remotely close – the most corrupt president in U.S. history. Musk has a consistent record of contempt for norms and rules, both personally and in the operation of his various businesses. So it's a no-brainer to assume that both of them are going to steal everything that isn't nailed down during this administration – and they'll be able to do so with impunity, given Trump's absolute immunity from prosecution for crimes he commits while in the White House, and his visible delight in using the unaccountable pardon powers all presidents enjoy.
This newsletter is a compendium of the reporting and commentary that best explains the America's political, economic, and social conditions – and, most important, how we can find a way back from the dark days ahead. You will rarely find anything here from the New York Times or Washington Post or any of the other Big Journalism companies that failed us so completely during the 2024 elections and are now sucking up – even more than usual – to Donald Trump, his cult, and corporate oligarchs. My focus will be on smaller, more honorable outlets (and individuals). I hope you'll support them with your attention and your money. For more details, please read my About page.
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Molly White
Andrew Perez
