Hawk Tuah Girl’s “Scam” Scandal is Crazy, CEO Killer Updates, “Deny Defend Depose”, & Today's News
PDS Published 12/5/2024
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And then here’s a sentence I dare you to say to your grandparents to see if they understand: The Hawk Tuah girl launched a crypto memecoin that is facing a ton of backlash on X.
And actually, can you give me a minute, I’ll be right back but just saying that sentence out loud made me really feel like touching some grass to know we still live on a planet that is real.
But anyways, Hawk Tuah, AKA Haliey Welch, announced that the HAWK coin was live yesterday, and did an interview with Fortune explaining why she launched it, claiming it was “not just a cash grab.”
But she also said she used to view crypto as “just a scam” and an “easy way for you to lose money,”
And her opinion changed after attending crypto conferences, with her saying:
“I don’t really see it as, like, a gambling thing. I think it’s, like, a fun way to get my fans to interact.”
Her manager also claiming that the HAWK token will be different from other previous celebrity crypto endeavors because they are not telling people to buy it and will give free tokens to her followers and people who have purchased merch,
Also claiming that Haliey will own 10% of the supply but cannot sell for a year.
But the immediate response to the coin was a lot of skepticism, some saying she is about to “talk tuah judge.”[]
People like Coffeezilla also adding:[][]
“…please do not put your money in “hawk tuah” coin…Memecoins always benefit A.) insiders. B.) trading bots. Don’t be exit liquidity. 🫡”
And she ended up trending online this morning as people discussed the coin already plummeting substantially. []
So some have accused her and insiders of a pump and dump scheme, though Hailey has denied that anyone on her team has sold yet and said no leaders were given free tokens.[]
But per the Independent, at least one investor has already filed a complaint.
Some have also said they lost their life savings in 10 minutes to this coin, though, uh, those people are not getting a ton of sympathy.[]
But yeah, as 2024 ends, I can’t think of a more 2024 story to start wrapping this year up.
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And then, let’s talk about updates to the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, because the social media response has only grown since yesterday.
Right, yesterday we touched on the fact that people online were, well, not very sad about the news, to put it politely.
And since then Axios has done a piece noting that the murder “unleashed a wave of social media-fueled rage against health insurers.”[]
The outlet adding that:
“Experts say the lack of sympathy may reflect an inherent truth about Americans and their health plans: People tend to like their own insurer but distrust the industry — and indeed, the health system at large.”
And that outrage grew when Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield decided that yesterday would be a good day to announce it was limiting anesthesia coverage in three states.
Right, it will no longer cover the full length of anesthesia if the surgery exceeds a certain time limit, depending on what the procedure is.
The initial news stated this would impact those in New York, Missouri, and Connecticut.
Though local outlets in Connecticut have since said that at least in that state, the policy was backtracked.
And while people under the age of 22 and those receiving maternity care will be excluded from the change, medical groups have slammed this decision.
As has the Governor of New York.[]
But the biggest response, given the timing of this coming the day of the murder of UHC CEO Brian Thompson, was people deciding to share the name of Blue Cross’s CEO.
And others openly hoping for a take two.
Some saying that disdain for the health insurance industry seems to be the only thing uniting both sides of this country.[]
And right now, it looks like that response is unchanging, and really only growing as we get new updates into the manhunt for the suspect.
And speaking of those updates, we’ll touch on some of the big ones.
This morning, NYPD shared new photos of a “person of interest wanted for questioning” that show the potential suspect unmasked.[]
Officers have also said they found shell casings at the scene of the killing that had the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose,” written on them.[]
And while the gunman is still at large and the motive is unclear, some have started speculating what those words might mean.
With The New York Times saying that some of the words:
“could be a reference to the ways insurance companies seek to fend off claims. A 2010 book on the topic, “Delay, Deny, Defend,” argues that health insurers’ claims departments try to increase their profits by not honoring the terms of insurance policies.”[]
The Times also reporting that police in the Minnesota town that Thompson lived in actually investigated bomb threats into his residence around 12 hours after he was shot.
Though right now, it is unclear if the threats were linked to his killing.
But that is where we are so far, obviously this is an ongoing situation, and we will be looking out for updates as they come.
But I would love to know your response to any of this here.
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The decision to put lead in everything has to rank as one of the worst things the United States did during the twentieth century.
And if you know anything about U.S. history, that’s saying a lot.
Right, cause lead is a neurotoxin that wrecks your brain and poisons nearly every organ system in the body; I mean there’s a reason the CDC says there’s no safe amount of it.
So thankfully we banned lead paint in 1978, lead pipes in ’86, and leaded gasoline in ’96. [Image]
But that doesn’t mean we’re free of its effects.
Right, more than half of the current US population was exposed to adverse lead levels in childhood from leaded gasoline alone. [Quote, find “more than half”]
But what does that actually mean for all those people? How are they really affected?
Well now, we’ve got a peer-reviewed study from researchers at Duke University, Florida State University and the Medical University of South Carolina answering that exact question. [Study]
With it analyzing childhood blood lead levels from 1940 to 2015, and singling out the effect of leaded gasoline in particular.
And according to their findings, Americans suffered an estimated 151 million excess mental health disorders they wouldn’t have had if they didn’t breathe in all those exhaust fumes. [Quote, find “151”]
Though if you were born closer to 1940 or 2015, you have less to worry about.
Because the brunt of the damage hit Generation X, those born between 1966 and 1986. [Quote same link, find “1986”]
With people born between 1966 and 1970 getting impacted especially hard, since they grew up at the peak of leaded gasoline’s use. [Quote same link, find “1970” same quote]
So for all those folks, they could expect higher rates of depression, anxiety and ADHD, as well as altered personalities.
With the study’s co-author telling CNN, “We believe that (lead exposure) makes people a little less conscientious –– so less well organized, less detail-oriented, less likely to be able to pursue their goals in an organized way, and more neurotic.” [Quote]
And according to a previous study by the same authors, exposure to leaded gasoline lowered the IQ of half the present-day population of the United States. [Headline]
Costing an estimated 824 million IQ points in total, or 2.6 per person on average. [Quote, find “2.6”]
Which, for most people, probably isn’t that noticeable on an individual level.
But on the population level, it’s like we took the entire bell curve of America’s IQ and shifted the whole thing to the left.
And for people born in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the loss was definitely noticeable.
With them losing up to six or seven IQ points. [Quote same link, find “6 points”]
So you have the study’s co-author telling NBC, “We’re not at all concerned that we have in any way overestimated the harm.” [Quote]
In fact, if anything, the estimate might be an undercount, since the study didn’t measure all possible sources of lead exposure. [Quote, find “underestimate”]
And as we’ve talked about before, lead still contaminates water pipes, house paint, children’s toys and soil in many parts of the country.
Plus, the study only considers mental health effects, but physical ailments are a big thing too.
So the co-author adds to CNN:
“Millions of Americans are walking around with an unknown, invisible history of lead exposure that has likely influenced for the worse how they think, feel and behave.” [Quote same link]
Links:
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Maybe more than any other issue, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was about immigration.
And now that he’s been reelected, we’ve talked a little about what he’s promising and what to expect, but today, we’re taking our deepest dive yet.
And to start, let’s actually go back to the first time Trump got elected.
Right, in 2017, he started his presidency pledging to deport millions of immigrants as well.
Of course, in the end, he found out it wasn’t quite that simple.
Right, there were all sorts of logistical, financial, and legal obstacles.
And finally, there was the public outcry when he began separating migrant families at the border.
You know, which actually led to him reversing course and signing an executive order ending the practice.
But this time, while it’s still not clear what Trump is promising is actually possible to implement, there’s a lot of reason to think things could be different.
With people like Lee Gelernt (Guh-learnt), an ACLU lawyer who challenged some of Trump’s first-term immigration policies, saying:
“As bad as the first Trump administration was for immigrants, we anticipate it will be much worse this time …”
One reason for that, Trump not only won the presidency, but Republicans have also won control of the House and Senate.
And while it’s true that that happened in 2016 too, back then, there were actually Republican senators who pushed back a little.
Right, for example, nearly a dozen GOP senators once opposed his attempts to use emergency powers to take funds to build a border wall.
This time, it’s far less likely that anyone will stand in his way.
And on top of that, he’s also now starting his term with the conservative Supreme Court majority he was only able to put in place near the end of his first term.
And obviously, that’s a Supreme Court that has potentially emboldened Trump with its decision on presidential immunity.
And more notably, with the immigration issue specifically, it ruled in 2022 that lower courts cannot issue injunctions on immigration enforcement policies …
With that meaning whatever potentially illegal policies Trump implements can stay in place even as challenges work their way through the legal system.
Another big thing, Trump’s lies about immigration?
People believe them.
Right, according to one recent poll, 64 percent of Americans wrongly believe immigrants receive more in welfare and benefits than they pay in taxes.
And similarly, more than half wrongly believe unauthorized immigration is linked to rising crime.
And with all that, half of Americans reportedly support mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
Notably, including 42 percent of Democrats.
And to that point, we’ve seen that shift at the local and state level as well, especially when border states started busing migrants from the border to blue cities in 2022.
Right, many of them were so-called sanctuary cities, but now we’ve seen them clearing encampments and evicting migrants from public shelters.
And with that, you have people like Chad Wolf, who was Trump’s acting homeland security secretary, claiming Trump will have more leeway to make major changes –
Saying voters have repudiated the “chaos” at the border under Biden.
With him adding:
“I think the American people as a whole are much more open to his policies because they’ve seen what’s happened over [the] last four years.”
And in fact, to that point, while Trump is planning a border crackdown, Biden arguably already started one, or at least continued what began under Trump before.
And actually, in their campaigns, both Trump and Harris were pledging to impose some of the most restrictive immigration, asylum, and border policies in decades.
But that said, of course, there’s still an ocean of difference between how the two talk about the issue and how to deal with it.
And with that, the last big difference compared to Trump’s first presidency is immigration advocates worry that his team is just much more prepared than last time.
With the likes of immigration lawyer Hassan Ahmad, for example, saying:
“The Trump administration’s incompetence during the first term was the silver lining that allowed many of his policies to be stopped.”
And adding: “I’m not expecting that to happen nearly as much during his second term. They eventually figured it out — how to program the machine.”
And with that, the man behind a lot of it is Stephen Miller.
Right, he was the primary architect of Trump’s first-term immigration policy and will be Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy this time around.
And you have him telling The New York Times that the incoming administration is planning a “blitz” designed to overwhelm immigrant-rights lawyers.
With him saying:
“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown.”
And as far as specifics, Miller said Trump would move away from the ICE practice of arresting specific people of interest.
Instead, carrying out workplace raids and other sweeps in public places aimed at arresting many unauthorized immigrants all at once.
Trump is also reportedly planning to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states.
And with that, Miller has also claimed Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 at the border, enabling the use of federal troops to apprehend migrants.
And because of the magnitude of arrests and deportations being contemplated, they plan to build “vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers.”
You also have Miller saying they would try again to overturn something known as the Flores Settlement – a longstanding court order that says the government cannot indefinitely hold children.
And to that point, Trump has repeatedly declined to rule out restoring detention for migrant families.
And he has not given a clear answer on whether he would again try to separate migrant parents and children.
Although, notably, Trump’s new “border czar” Tom Homan? He championed the family-separation policy in first term.
And moving forward, on top of all that, Trump would reportedly significantly expand a form of fast-track deportations known as “expedited removal.”
Which denies undocumented immigrants the usual due process.
He has also repeatedly pledged to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which empowered the president to quickly deport foreign nationals without a hearing.
And this would reportedly be specifically to expel suspected members of drug cartels and criminal gangs, also without due process.
Of course, the problem being there, if there’s no due process, then how do you know they’re really part of a gang?
And notably, the history of that law is telling.
It’s reportedly only been used three times:
The War of 1812, World War One, and World War Two, when it was employed to justify internment camps for people of Japanese, German and Italian descent.
And notably, that’s not the only historical shame worth talking about.
Right, Trump has proudly admitted that his plan to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history” is modeled on the “Eisenhower Model.”
With that referring to a controversial 1950s deportation program where hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants were rounded up, separated from their families, and sent back to Mexico on buses, planes, and boats.
Now, that said, Trump and his allies have been saying the deportation of criminals and national security threats would be prioritized.
But I mean, that’s already the policy.
And in fact, one former advisor said he expects Trump to repeal Biden policies that limit deportations mostly to serious criminals and recent border-crossers.
And with that, there’s actually more reason to believe Trump’s efforts will make it harder to tackle crime.
Right, about half of ICE’s 21,000 employees are part of its Homeland Security Investigations unit.
Which focuses on transnational crime such as drug smuggling and child exploitation rather than immigration enforcement.
But several Trump allies said the unit would need to spend more time on immigration.
And notably, that’s as the unit has reportedly distanced itself from ICE’s immigration work in recent years…
Saying fear of deportation made it harder for its investigators to build trust in immigrant communities.
And to that point, a recent analysis from the CATO Institute, which is a libertarian think tank, concluded that Trump’s agenda might actually make the country less safe.
Right, saying it would shift focus away from the removal of immigrants who do commit crimes.
And with that, arguing we already saw that in Trump’s first term.
And claiming that while Trump was prioritizing prosecutions of migrant parents, separating families, and banning asylum, it also released criminals, including those who went on to commit crimes.
With the Institute ultimately arguing that Trump’s policies actually led to far more attempted illegal crossings by individuals with criminal convictions.
And now, with all that, I don’t wanna downplay the fact there’s been an uptick in border crossings and that’s come with real challenges.
Right, unlike past migrant influxes, people coming over the last four years have more often been people without relatives already in the US.
Right, with that meaning they’ve been relying more on cities and towns to provide shelter and food at a cost of billions of dollars.
But many argue there’s a lot more math we gotta do that suggests immigration is a net positive.
Right, the American Immigration Council, which I should say, is an immigrant advocacy group, estimated the cost of deporting 13 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally as $968 billion over a little more than a decade.
But then, more than that, they argue there’s all the value immigrants bring to the economy.
Right, Trump may have campaigned on the idea that the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants would lead to more jobs and higher wages.
But studies of large-scale deportations have found that these expulsions actually do the opposite.
And with that, a report from the Congressional Budget Office, for example, found increased immigration is expected to drive higher economic growth and labor supply, grow federal revenues and shrink deficits over the next 10 years.
While Trump’s immigration policies could lead to higher prices, slow job growth, lower pay, and threaten funding for social safety nets like social security and medicare.
With Robert Lynch, for example, a professor emeritus of Economics at Washington College, saying:
“Eight million undocumented people are currently earning hundreds of billions and spending hundreds of billions on food, clothing, shelter.”
“If you remove those people from the economy, American businesses will sell less…When they sell less, they’re going to produce less and will need fewer workers and lay off workers. Incomes will fall.”
And with all of that, people’s big problem isn’t necessarily with immigration, but what’s considered illegal immigration.
Right, 65% of Americans reportedly think the US should make it easier for anyone seeking a better life to enter legally so they don't need to enter illegally.[]
And 58% said they support expanding legal pathways for orderly immigration, while 46% said asylum seekers should be protected if their cases are legitimate.
And while Trump has said he supports certain legal immigration, notably, he also may pave the way for the deportation of hundreds of thousands of migrants who are actually authorized to be here.
Right, with his transition team reportedly considering ending two Biden programs that have allowed more than 1.3 million immigrants to enter the U.S. legally, making those who entered but have not yet received asylum eligible for deportation.
And ultimately, while there’s certainly no denying the challenges that exist, or the fact that there are real debates that can be had about what to do, facts have far often fallen to the wayside with this issue.
And those lies, they’ve been the basis for spreading racism, hate, and dehumanization.
Right, as president, Trump reportedly asked whether migrants crossing the border could be shot in the legs and wanted a proposed border wall topped with spikes and painted black to burn migrants’ skin.
He reportedly referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole” countries.
He perpetuated the racist lie that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating their pets.
He has called his political opponents “vermin,” referred to immigrants as “animals” and “rapists.”
He said migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” and suggested that immigrants commit horrendous crimes because “it’s in their genes.”
And all that type of rhetoric, whether Trump knows it, does echo the kind of language used by people like Hitler.
And in fact, Neo-Nazi and far right groups have seized on it.
And the whole mass deportation talk, some say it echoes concentration camp history in general.
And now, to be very clear, this is not me calling Trump a Nazi, or a fascist, or saying we’re heading toward a holocaust.
Right, it’s just to say that these parallels do exist.
And ultimately, how this all turns out is unknown.
Rights groups and advocates have been preparing for months to fight back, but we’ll have to wait and see to what extent Trump follows through and how effectively people will be able to fight back.
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Y’all, the Memphis police are on some wild shit.
I mean, this is news to nobody who actually lives there, and the rest of us saw for ourselves what was up when the cops beat Tyre [Tyree] Nichols to death during a traffic stop. [Image and Image]
But after the body cam footage of that killing shocked the country, Biden’s Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into the Memphis Police Department. [Headline/Image]
And now, 17 months later, the DoJ has revealed its disturbing findings in a 73-page report. [Report]
So let’s go down the list of allegations, starting with the systemic use of excessive force and violation of people’s rights. [Image]
Right, reportedly, officers punched, kicked and used other force against people who were already handcuffed or restrained. [Quote, find “other force”]
Acts which were nearly always approved after the fact by supervisors. [Same quote]
Also, officers resorted to force likely to cause pain or injury “almost immediately in response to low-level, nonviolent offenses, even when people were not aggressive. [Same quote]
With them reportedly firing at moving cars and resorting to “intimidation and threats.” [Quote]
As well as detaining people without adequate justification, and conducting invasive searches of people and cars. [Quote, find “invasive”]
Moreover, they relied on traffic stops to address violent crime and didn’t understand the limits on their authority, resulting in dismissed cases and dropped charges. [Quote, find “limits”]
Yet for all that, the department wasn’t even good at solving violent crime.
Right, it made an arrest in just 14% of murders last year, compared to 50% for the country on average. [Quote, find “50 percent”]
Then, the report detailed several specific cases of brutality that exemplify the patterns it’s talking about.
Like when officers hit a handcuffed man eight times in the face and torso with a baton. [Quote, find “eight times”]
Or when they pepper sprayed another handcuffed man inside the back seat of a squad car and left him inside with the doors closed, despite his pleas that he couldn’t breathe. [Same quote]
Or how about when they pepper sprayed, kicked and tased an unarmed, mentally ill man who shoplifted a two-dollar soft drink from a gas station? [Quote, find “soft drink”]
Right, there, nine squad cars and 12 officers ultimately responded to the scene. [Same quote]
With the man putting the drink down and trying to leave, but the cops shoved him against a squad car, kneed him, pulled him to the ground and then stunned him with the Taser repeatedly, even after he was handcuffed. [Same quote]
The report also concluded that the MPD treated black people more harshly than white people who committed the same offenses.
So the department was 21% more likely to cite Black drivers for driving violations, and 17% more likely to arrest or cite Black people for drug-related offenses. [Quote, find “17 percent”]
Also, over a nearly six-year period, officers arrested 180 Black children for curfew or loitering violations, but only four white kids for the same offenses. [Quote, find “four”]
And for disorderly conduct, that ratio of white to black was a staggering 120 to one. [Same quote]
So being black was bad, but according to the report, being black and a child was even worse.
With it noting that children in particular experienced “aggressive and frightening” encounters with officers. [Quote]
Pointing as an example to one 8-year-old boy with behavioral health issues who had at least nine encounters with officers over roughly a 20-month period. [Quote, find “nine encounters”]
During which he was repeatedly threatened, pushed, handcuffed or thrown. [Same quote]
So the DoJ listed some potential reforms, including new force training, required documentation of stops and searches, better discipline practices for misconduct and improved transparency. [Quote, find “force training”]
And the agency wants to enforce these changes through a consent decree, which would have to be approved by a federal judge, agreed to by the MPD itself, and overseen by an independent monitor.
But in a letter to the DoJ, the Memphis city attorney said they would not accept a decree until they could review and challenge the report. [Quote, find “challenge”]
With her saying, “From what we understand, consent decrees remain in place for an average of more than ten years, with absolutely no controls to ensure timely completion or consideration for the financial impact to the affected community. Such a proposal is not the right solution for Memphis.” [Quote]
Right, and what she’s referring to when she mentions the “financial impact” is the fines Memphis would have to pay for every violation of the decree.
Which opponents of the move argue would cost the city tens of millions of dollars and ultimately hurt the poor communities it’s meant to help.
But either way, once Biden makes way for the Trump administration, it’s doubtful that the new Justice Department will support any decree.
Right, because Obama used them, then Trump didn’t, then Biden did, and now Trump’s expected not to again.
Which is consequential not only for Memphis, but a dozen other cities under DoJ scrutiny as well.
Right, the feds have released similar reports detailing systemic police misconduct in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Louisville, Kentucky; Phoenix, Arizona; Lexington, Mississippi; and Trenton, New Jersey.
With probes ongoing in six other police agencies, though none have been locked into consent decrees yet.
Links:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/04/us/politics/memphis-police-justice-department-report.html
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We gotta talk about how you may be among the many Americans whose cellphone data has been compromised in what’s been described as the “worst telecom hack in our nation’s history.”
Right, with the White House now confirming that at least eight of the country’s telecommunications companies have been infiltrated by a Chinese hacking group dubbed “Salt Typhoon.”
And if you’re one of our international viewers, don’t worry, this may affect you too, because companies in dozens of other countries have reportedly been targeted as well.
And with that, details about Salt Typhoon’s cyber-espionage campaign actually started coming out a few months ago.
For example, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Lumen were identified as companies that may have been hacked.
Although, among those companies, you had T-Mobile saying it doesn’t believe hackers got access to customer information.
With Lumen also saying there is no evidence customer data was accessed on its network.[]
Verizon, on the other hand, saying it became aware that a “highly sophisticated, nation-state actor” accessed its and several other companies’ networks.
Adding the incident was focused on a very small subset of individuals in government and politics.[]
But now, this is the most substantial public acknowledgment by the government concerning the scale and reach of the operation.
Right, it’s also the first time officials are confirming the number of US carriers known to be affected.
With one senior official also saying the global tally of countries impacted was currently believed to be in the “low, couple dozen.”
And adding that the hacking activity dates back at least a year or two.[]
With the unnamed official also not providing specifics about the number of individuals affected, but saying:
“We believe a large number of Americans’ metadata was taken.”
“We do not believe it’s every cellphone in the country, but we believe it’s potentially a large number of individuals that the Chinese government was focused on.”[]
And with that, let’s talk about metadata.
As explained here by the Guardian, the metadata we’re talking about here is sometimes described as the who, what, when and where of phone calls.
Right, it doesn’t include the content of a call but can tell someone who you called, how long it lasted, and where you made the call from.
And with that, even without the content, it can reveal a lot about a person’s life, work, and intimate relationships, especially if they have a lot of it.[]
But beyond that, in this case, the metadata reportedly may have been a way of identifying the phone lines of senior government officials.
Which the hackers then targeted to actually steal unencrypted text messages and even listen in on some phone calls. []
And specifically there, it’s been reported that Donald Trump, JD Vance, and the Kamala Harris campaign have been among the targets.
And yesterday, you had Biden’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging tech simply saying the hacking group had gained access to communications of senior US government officials and political figures…
But adding that “classified communications” had not been compromised.[]
Though, notably, also saying:
“We do not believe any have fully removed the Chinese actors from these networks.” []
With another senior official claiming that it was “impossible” for the agencies “to predict a time frame on when we’ll have full eviction.” []
And with all that, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has issued new guidance to the country’s telecom companies to help root out the hackers and prevent attacks in the future.
Notably, with that including tips like ensuring that traffic is end-to-end encrypted to the maximum extent possible.[]
And you also have officials recommending that Americans use encrypted messaging apps to ensure their communications stay hidden from foreign hackers.
Right, and if you’re not familiar, those include some of the most popular messaging apps out there, including WhatsApp, Signal, and Messenger.
But what’s really interesting about all that is that the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies have long and repeatedly advocated against end-to-end encryption (1, 2, 3)
Right, saying it keeps them from accessing the information they need to prosecute crimes and prevent terrorism.
And so, if the agencies really are changing their tune, it’d be a huge shift.
But for now, this issue has also been brought before the Senate, with them vowing to do something about it.
But really, we’ll have to wait and see where this all ends up.
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In international news, we gotta talk about the political chaos consuming France right now.
Right, yesterday, lawmakers passed a no-confidence measure against Prime Minister Michel Barnier (Me-shell Barn-yay), forcing him to resign.
It was the first successful no-confidence vote in France in over 60 years.
Not to mention it made the prime minister’s three-month-old government the shortest-lived in the history of France’s Fifth Republic.
And with that, what triggered the vote was the prime minister forcing through a budget proposal without the approval of parliament’s lower house.
Right, that’s an executive power the prime minister is given under article forty-nine-three of the French constitution.
It’s the so-called “nuclear option.”
It’s rarely used and almost never popular, and this time, it was exactly the excuse his opponents in the National Assembly were looking for.
Notably, with that including both the assembly’s left-wing coalition and the far-right National Rally party, which actually voted together to pass the no-confidence vote.
Though, with that, this is especially seen as a victory for the National Rally party and its leader Marine Le Pen (Muh-reen Luh-pen).
Right, she and her father before her have been fixtures of French politics for decades.
And in the past two presidential elections, she lost to current president Emmanual Macron both times in the second round.
Also, notably, Luh-pen and members of her party are now accused of embezzling millions of euros of European Parliament funds.
With prosecutors seeking a five-year ban on public office that would prevent her from running for president in the next election in 2027.
With a verdict expected in late March.[]
And so, Luh-pen may be hoping the chaos pushes Macron to resign.
That way, the next election would happen before then.
And in fact, last week, she was telling journalists last week that he “won’t have very much choice” but to resign if he’s confronted with enough government instability.[]
But with that, analysts and those around Macron reportedly say it’s unlikely that he’ll actually step down.
Although there’s no doubt that he’s as weak as he’s ever been.
Right, because this chaos we’re seeing right now, it didn’t start this week.
Last June, for example, Macron dissolved the Parliament and called a snap election.
Right, hoping his party would win big, and prove that the National Rally’s support was limited.
But that clearly backfired.
The National Rally ended up as the single biggest party in the assembly.
And although a coalition of left-wing parties actually won more seats overall, no one had a majority.
So, Macron appointed the center-right Barn-yay to try and break the deadlock.
And then, you had the left vowing to bring down Barn-yay, basically leaving Luh-pen with the power to topple the government at any time.
Right, which she’s held off using until now.
And as far as what’s next, Macron reportedly hopes to name a new prime minister before Saturday’s unveiling of Notre Dame (Dom)[]
But as of now, it’s not clear who that will be, or if anyone will be satisfied enough to keep this from happening again.
With one of the big concerns being that the deadline to finalize next year’s budget is December 21st.
And now, it’s virtually impossible for that deadline to be met, since parliament is supposed to have 70 days to examine the budget once it’s submitted. []
That said, the government should be able to roll this year’s budget over to 2025…
You know, temporarily keeping public workers paid and operations running until a new budget can be adopted.
But as the Washington Post explains, “there are debatable legal questions about what powers can be used by an overthrown government in an interim role.” []
And so, if someone puts up a stink, the county could sink into even further chaos.
And with that, and with France’s economy growing slowly and burdened with a massive deficit, there’s real concern about the financial and economic fallout as well.
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