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“The Justice Department has charged Yahya Sinwar and other senior leaders of Hamas for financing, directing, and overseeing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the national security of the United States,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “On October 7th, Hamas terrorists, led by these defendants, murdered nearly 1200 people, including over 40 Americans, and kidnapped hundreds of civilians. This weekend, we learned that Hamas murdered an additional six people they had kidnapped and held captive for nearly a year, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23 year old Israeli American. We are investigating Hersh’s murder, and each and every one of Hamas’ brutal murders of Americans, as an act of terrorism. The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations. These actions will not be our last.” //
Hamas raises money to fund its terrorist activities through a variety of methods, including by soliciting and receiving cryptocurrency payments, advertising the ostensible anonymity of such transactions. //
While that may be true, it leaves out a key detail that UNWRA, the UN refugee organization meant to help stabilize the area, became embedded with Hamas with even its staff perpetrating crimes on Oct. 7. The U.S. has been the largest contributor of UNWRA, giving it $7.3 billion since 1950. //
Dieter Schultz Jim frm Palo Alto
3 hours ago edited
Political theater. The U.S. has no jurisdiction over what happens in Israel and Gaza.
It's more than just political theater!
Like the saying in the movie that "the Russians don't take a dump, son, without a plan", the Dems don't make a move like this without an ulterior motive.
mopani Dieter Schultz
a few seconds ago edited
Yep. This is the beginning of making anonymous cryptocurrency illegal because it funds terrorism.
But here's our shiny new government approved crypto currency, you can use this, it will be great! //
Dieter Schultz
4 hours ago edited
The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations. These actions will not be our last.
If I were the suspicious type I'd think that this action was taken to preempt or provide leverage over Netanyahu to stop him from ending Sinwar's life...
They are trying to force Netanyahu to stop and turn it over to the US' court system. Then, if I had to guess, the plan, on the off-chance that they would be able to capture him or have him turn himself over to the US, would be to turn him over to be tried in... oh, I don't know, a federal court in Dearborn?
But... I'm not the suspicious type... nope, I'm not!
I imagine this arrangement should help the credit bureaus steer more people away from freezing their and toward their respective “credit lock” services, which the bureaus have marketed as just as good as a credit freeze but also easier to use.
All three big bureaus tout their credit lock services as an easier and faster alternative to freezes — mainly because these alternatives aren’t as disruptive to their bottom lines. //
Unsurprisingly, the bureaus’ use of the term credit lock has confused many consumers; this was almost certainly by design. But here’s one basic fact consumers should keep in mind about these lock services: Unlike freezes, locks are not governed by any law, meaning that the credit bureaus can change the terms of these arrangements when and if it suits them to do so.
This case has taken 13 years to conclude. Billions of dollars were lost to consumers in what will ultimately be seen as excess fees.
With Loper Bright opening the door to challenging agency regulations and Corner Post removing a six-years-from-rule-finalization statute of limitations, many regulations that should be tossed out will no longer have the shield of Supreme Court precedent and a lapsed statute of limitations to hide behind. This is the beginning of an Administrative State that is modest and chastened, and it remembers that it works for the people, not for the post-retirement careers of the bureaucrats writing rules to favor industries.
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If one drop was $1, the national debt would fill an Olympic pool... 4000 feet deep...
KilRoy-db
3 days ago
Fill a tractor trailer with 18,000# of $100. bills it would take 1225 of them to carry 1 trillion
dollars.
So it would take 41,650 truck loads of hundred dollar bills for 34 trillion dollars.
MIND BLOWING THE AMOUNT WE PISS AWAY FOR SHITTY PROJECTS.......
In today’s enlightened digital age, your purchase is simply an entry at your broker’s computer, and you do not own what you think you own. Under laws in all 50 states, what you actually own is a “securities entitlement.” This is a new form of “property ownership” that is more like a contract between you and your broker. Progress.
But if the financial system were to totally collapse—think 2008, but much bigger—nearly every stock and bond that is in electronic form can be legally taken as collateral by the largest “too big to fail” financial institutions. Sure, it would crush many millions of individual investors. But it’s all for a good cause: saving the systemically important financial institutions. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, right?
This will happen without your knowledge and without any action or fault on your part—even if you are entirely debt free. If that sounds wrong, it’s because it is. It is also legalized fraud.
So, how did we get here? It is a fascinating story involving some of the most boring and dense state laws on the books. Hat tip to ZeroHedge for posting an article titled “Intentional Destruction: First COVID, Now Comes ‘The Great Taking’” by Matthew Smith that was in part based on the work of David Webb and his book The Great Taking. //
The Uniform Law Commission (ULC) was formed for the purpose of developing state-level laws that would change the patchwork quilt of state laws into a more uniform set of statutes. The most prominent uniform law is the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), and this issue centers around UCC Article 8. The ULC presented a model law revising Article 8 in 1994, and the law was passed by all 50 states over the next several years.
Sitting inside the new Article 8 language are several provisions that put the rights of individual investors at risk. The first significant change is the concept of “securities entitlement.” //
The individual investors have no role in the lending practices of their broker, why does the law allow the taking of their assets?
To answer that question, you need to know the fundamental objective of the Article 8 revisions. The driving motivation was systemic risk in the financial markets (if they were worried about systemic risk in 1994, what do they think about it now?). Importantly, the Article 8 revisions did not do anything to reduce the likelihood of systemic risk. In fact, the committee made it worse by removing risk and consequences for shady financial activity. Instead, what the changes actually do is protect the “too big to fail” banks if a systemic financial collapse occurs.
The UCC has turned the concept of property rights upside down, but the UCC is also a state law, and state legislators can, therefore, take steps to restore the rights of investors or, at the very least, require informed consent. //
any system that requires the people to sacrifice their property to support the financial institutions that built this mess in the first place is not a system worth saving. //
anon-cugn
14 hours ago
From The Two Towers:
Theoden: I will not risk open war!
Aragorn: Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.
We have an enemy. We are at war.
1 Peter 5:6-11
John LeFevre @JohnLeFevre
·
Charlie Munger’s formula for success is simple and perfect:
- Spend less than you earn
- Invest prudently
- Avoid toxic people and toxic activities
- Defer gratification
- Never stop learning
4:12 PM · Nov 28, 2023 //
Geiger Capital @Geiger_Capital
·
Some of the best of Charlie Munger:
“Every time you hear EBITDA, just substitute it with bullshit earnings”. Absolute legend. 🐐
5:00 / 5:00
4:15 PM · Nov 28, 2023 //
My favorite from that clip? "Warren, if people weren't often so wrong, we wouldn't be so rich." //
In a 2019 interview with CNBC, Munger taught us how to lead a happy life:
You don’t have a lot of envy, you don’t have a lot of resentment, you don’t overspend your income, you stay cheerful in spite of your troubles. You deal with reliable people and you do what you’re supposed to do. And all these simple rules work so well to make your life better. And they’re so trite.
And staying cheerful ... because it’s a wise thing to do. Is that so hard? And can you be cheerful when you’re absolutely mired in deep hatred and resentment? Of course you can’t. So why would you take it on?