plinky

As we reported on Monday, a bill called the GENIUS Act would set up a relatively weak regulatory framework for stablecoins, digital assets pegged to the U.S. dollar and used mostly to facilitate crypto trading. It was almost destined for success, as a significant number of crypto-friendly Democrats, boosted by campaign contributions from the industry, were all set to sign on. But then reports about Trump’s family organization launching a stablecoin, and the United Arab Emirates using it in a $2 billion deal to purchase the digital currency exchange Binance started bubbling up. Suddenly, it seemed like terrible politics for Democrats to effectively rubber-stamp Trump’s crypto corruption.

Late on Wednesday, Democrats took a deal that will give them a standalone vote on the End Crypto Corruption Act, as an amendment to the GENIUS Act. When that fails—and it will fail, because Republicans in the majority are not going to vote to force a divestiture of their president’s crypto empire—they will proceed to a vote on the GENIUS Act.

This gives Democrats on the fence the ability to say that they tried everything they could to stop Trump corruption. But it’s completely untrue. Sen. Merkley, who I’m sure is sincere in his effort and who wasn’t part of this deal, released a statement on Wednesday saying, “This is the right moment to have anti-corruption provisions included in the GENIUS Act.” He’s right: If Democrats were serious about ending crypto corruption, they could have made those provisions a condition of their votes on the GENIUS Act. Instead they got a worthless amendment and gave away their leverage.

“Schumer 101,” said one source with knowledge of the process.

Relentless advancement to produce new gen of seppos

I asked Wendy if I could read the paper she turned in, and when I opened the document, I was surprised to see the topic: critical pedagogy, the philosophy of education pioneered by Paulo Freire. The philosophy examines the influence of social and political forces on learning and classroom dynamics. Her opening line: “To what extent is schooling hindering students’ cognitive ability to think critically?” Later, I asked Wendy if she recognized the irony in using AI to write not just a paper on critical pedagogy but one that argues learning is what “makes us truly human.” She wasn’t sure what to make of the question. “I use AI a lot. Like, every day,” she said. “And I do believe it could take away that critical-thinking part. But it’s just — now that we rely on it, we can’t really imagine living without it.”

for election heads interesting read

Nessel was recruited by university regents, who were frustrated by local prosecutors’ unwillingness to crack down on most of the students arrested, to take over the case and file charges, three people with direct knowledge of the decision told the Guardian at the time.

The investigation also found that six of eight regents contributed more than $33,000 combined to Nessel’s campaigns. Additionally, her office hired a regent’s law firm to handle major state cases, and the same regent co-chaired her 2018 campaign. Meanwhile, Nessel received significant campaign donations from pro-Israel state politicians, organizations and university donors who over the last year have vocally criticized Gaza protests, records show.

advanced lessons in bribery from freedom reich

But the vote instead revealed deep unhappiness within Merz’s coalition. The two parties hold 328 seats, which suggests that 18 lawmakers defected from the camp. Merz had hoped to inject some calm into the country with trips to Paris and Warsaw in the coming days; now, he will be forced to whip support for a fresh parliamentary vote, expected later this week.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/06/europe/merz-chancellor-german-parliament-intl

linky

being redditor is incurable, comrades, stay safe

i think there are several very debatable points here, mainly on the class side (especially concerning ngo-s/size of working class/petit bourgeoisie), but still interesting summary of some divides which will drive trumpo

The Trump regime is a regime of betrayal. It is already leading to the abandonment of the lower-middle class, which through the MAGA movement brought it into power, as well as the working-class majority.74 What it offers to its core lower-middle class constituency is a kind of nationalist culturalism, which is a mere veil for a system of far more centralized capitalist control of the state in a White House now filled with billionaires, ultimately leading to the increased economic exploitation and expropriation of the underlying population. The material betrayal of the working class will be absolute, economically and politically. For such a regime of capitalist overlords to continue, it will have to increase its repression of the body politic at every step. Its greatest fear is that the enraged masses, especially the working-class majority, would mobilize and rise up in resistance, bringing with it all of those in the society as a whole who are committed to democratic rule and to the survival of humanity in the face of growing environmental perils.

self-evidently, majority of working class don't particularly care about environmental perils. The betrayal likely would be at the petit-bougie side, especially farmers/advertising driven small businesses

Israel was seen as inspiring militarist power, which Germany should emulate. Over a thousand West Germans asked the Israeli embassy if they could become Israeli soldiers, including the writer Günter Grass, previously of the Waffen-SS. The speaker of the “Mutual Aid Association of Former Waffen-SS Members” (HIAG), Karl Cerff, discovered his comrades in Israel. He found the Israelis “amazing” and stated positively how “the Kibbutz are similar to the [Reich] labor service.” One SS veteran donated 1,500 Marks to the Israeli embassy to prove that “not all SS members were criminals.”

The media joined in the chorus too, with the Israeli foreign minister thanking the German “press, radio and television to have in each phase of the conflict . . . sided with us.” Der Spiegel talked of “Israel’s Blitzkrieg,” enthusiastically describing Israel soldiers as “winning like Rommel.” The Rheinische Post discovered in Moshe Dayan “the student” of Erwin Rommel, as in their view Israeli victories strengthened German self-consciousness. Berliner Zeitung talked of Israel’s “total victory.”

The right-wing media was even more enthusiastic: for Die Welt, Israel’s offensive was a “cleansing thunder,” whose success should inspire West Germany to resort to military confrontations in East Germany too. It “disproved the fashionable thesis that war may not be a ‘means of politics’ anymore. No one may learn more from Israel’s behavior than Germany.” Bild surpassed all others, discovering the Federal Republic’s own “Arabs” who must be conquered: East Germans, Poles, and Czechs. Der Spiegel would print a reader’s letter from South Africa from no other than “Congo Müller,” a Wehrmacht veteran who would become an infamous mercenary and responsible for multiple war crimes in the central African country. He praised Israel’s existence and described the threat of Israeli encirclement by the Soviet-backed Arab states to be the “number-one world threat” for the “free world.”

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linky to article

linky

yeah, no, entryism is fucked