Thoughts tagged "US politics"

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The DOE “book banning hoax” press release claimed that challenged books are “age-inappropriate, sexually explicit, or obscene”. Only 13% of banned books in 2023–24 included “on the page” sexual scenes—but 36% featured PoC characters and 25% featured LGBTQ characters.

Certain identities are being removed from library shelves en masse. During the 2023-2024 school year, 36% of all banned titles featured characters or people of color and a quarter (25%) included LGBTQ+ people or characters. Of titles with LGBTQ+ people or characters, over a quarter (28%) feature trans and/or genderqueer characters. Erasure of identities is pervasive within banned illustrated and graphic-heavy titles. For example, 73% of all graphic and illustrated titles feature visuals with LGBTQ+ representation, of people or characters of color, or that address race/racism. More specifically, 64% of banned picture books have pictures or illustrations that depict LGBTQ+ characters or stories. For all the inflammatory rhetoric about “explicit books,” only 13% of banned titles had “on the page” descriptions of sexual experiences, compared to 31% with “off the page” sexual experiences. Overall, 40% of banned titles include sexual experiences (some contained both “on” and “off the page”). Books banned during the 2023-2024 school year overwhelmingly address violence (65%), death and grief (55%), and abuse (43%); all very real human experiences.
"Cover to Cover: An Analysis of Titles Banned in the 23–24 School Year".
by PEN America.
In the 2023-2024 school year, there were more than 10,000 instances of banned books in public schools, affecting more than 4,000 unique titles. These mass book bans were often the result of targeted campaigns to remove books with characters of color, LGBTQ+ identities, and sexual content from public school classrooms and libraries. As book bans reached an unprecedented high in the last school year, PEN America sought to further understand the impacts of this censorship – the identities, content areas, genres, and types of books that are being erased from America’s public schools. In November 2024, PEN America previously reported on the content of titles that had experienced two or more bans (1,091 titles); here, we include a more comprehensive analysis of all 4,218 titles banned during the 2023-2024 school year.  What have we found?  Book bans are not a hoax.

Coinbase says that the SEC has agreed to drop the enforcement case against the company. It only cost them $75 million in political contributions.

(Don’t forget that $50 million of those contributions appeared to be blatantly illegal, although Trump is already hard at work making the Federal Elections Commission even less effective than it previously was.)

SEC moves to freeze lawsuit against Binance

Although early reporting suggested the SEC would likely look to “potentially freeze some litigation that does not involve allegations of fraud”, the first case the SEC has proposed freezing is SEC v. Binance: a case alleging serious fraud and knowing violation of US securities laws.

JOINT MOTION TO STAY Plaintiff Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and Defendants Binance Holdings Limited, BAM Trading Service Inc., BAM Management US Holdings Inc., and Changpeng Zhao (collectively, the “Parties”) jointly move to stay this case for a period of 60 days. A district court has “broad discretion to stay proceedings as an incident to its power to control its docket.” Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 706 (1997). A district court considers three factors when deciding whether to stay a case: “(1) harm to the nonmoving party if a stay does issue; (2) the moving party’s need for a stay—that is, the harm to the moving party if a stay does not issue; and (3) whether a stay would promote efficient use of the court’s resources.” Center for Biological Diversity v. Ross, 419 F. Supp. 3d 16, 20 (D.D.C. 2019). Here, the Parties believe a brief stay is warranted. On January 21, 2025, new SEC Acting Chairman Mark T. Uyeda launched a crypto task force dedicated to helping the SEC develop a
regulatory framework for crypto assets.1 The work of this task force may impact and facilitate the potential resolution of this case. Accordingly, the SEC proposed a brief stay to Defendants, and the Defendants agreed that a stay is appropriate and in the interest of judicial economy. As this is a joint motion, there is no prejudice to any party here, and a stay could save the Parties resources because, if an early resolution could be reached, it would obviate the need to continue merits discovery. Further, this brief stay will promote the efficient use of the Court’s resources, as a resolution would obviate the need for the Court to resolve Defendants’ pending Motions to Dismiss the Amended Complaint. See Dkt. Nos. 285, 287. Finally, the proposed stay is limited in duration and interferes with no current Court-issued deadlines. See Belize Soc. Dev. Ltd. v. Gov’t of Belize, 668 F.3d 724, 731-32 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (noting that stays of “indefinite duration” are disfavored). At the end of the 60-day stay period, the Parties propose that they will submit a joint status report, including whether a continuation of the stay is warranted. Accordingly, the Parties respectfully request that this Court grant this Joint Motion to Stay.
111. As Binance’s CCO bluntly admitted to another Binance compliance officer in December 2018, “we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.” (Emphasis added.)

The original complaint alleges that not only did Binance lie about trying to prevent fraudulent behavior on Binance.US, one of the primary companies involved in illegal wash trading on the exchange was controlled and operated by Binance’s founder and Binance employees.

268. In fact, wash trading on the Binance.US Platform did occur and went undetected. Much of this wash trading occurred through numerous accounts affiliated with Sigma Chain, an entity owned and controlled by Zhao and operated by Binance employees at Zhao’s direction. 269. At Zhao’s insistence, Sigma Chain became a market maker on the Binance.US Platform from the time of its launch. Sigma Chain held dozens of user accounts through which it conducted wash trading that fraudulently inflated trading volumes on the Binance.US Platform. 270. Both BAM Trading and BAM Management were aware that Sigma Chain had dozens of accounts and was an active trader on the Binance.US Platform. On June 23, 2020, for example, in discussing a drop in trading volume from market makers on the Binance.US Platform, BAM CEO A asked the BAM Trading’s Sales Director to “pull [Sigma Chain’s] data to hold them accountable too . . . they should be consistent too – we can ask for more volume but they’ve been up to 50% for us before.” On January 6, 2021, the Sales Director messaged BAM
CEO A and other BAM Trading employees “fyi these are ALL sigma chain,” and then listed 20 account numbers. Another BAM Trading employee responded, “whoa.” 271. Wash trading between Sigma Chain’s accounts occurred from the launch of the Binance.US Platform in 2019 through at least June 23, 2022. This wash trading activity corrupted the Binance.US Platform’s reported trading volume in a strategic pattern that coincided with at least three critical periods for crypto asset investors and the Equity Investors: (1) the Binance.US Platform’s launch in September 2019; (2) BAM Trading’s making available certain new crypto asset securities for trading on the Binance.US Platform; and (3) the months leading up to BAM Trading’s seed funding round starting in September 2021. 272. For example, on September 25, 2019, the day after the Binance.US Platform opened for trading, wash trading between Sigma Chain accounts and other accounts owned by Zhao and/or associated with Binance senior employees, constituted more than 99 percent of the initial hour of trading volume in at least one crypto asset. By the end of the day, wash trading by these accounts amounted to nearly 70 percent of that same crypto asset’s total volume. 273. Sigma Chain also engaged in wash trading on or around the time when BAM Trading made at least 65 new crypto assets, including crypto asset securities, available for trading on the Binance.US Platform. Between January 1, 2022 and June 23, 2022 alone, Sigma Chain accounts engaged in wash trading in 48 of 51 newly listed crypto assets.

Despite claims from the SEC’s new leadership that they intend to provide “sensible, clear rules” without providing a “haven for fraudsters”, this action definitely seems to reveal their true marching orders.

It’s likely that they will soon request to pause ongoing enforcement cases against companies including Coinbase, a company which has alone spent more than $100 million on political lobbying over the past two years.

“We just launched a 16TB archive of every dataset that has been available on data.gov since November. This will be updated day by day as new datasets appear. It can be freely copied, and we're sharing the code behind it to help others make their own archives of data they depend on.” Harvard Library Innovation Lab (via BlueSky)

"Announcing the Data.gov Archive".
in Harvard Library Innovation Lab.
Today we released our archive of data.gov on Source Cooperative. The 16TB collection includes over 311,000 datasets harvested during 2024 and 2025, a complete archive of federal public datasets linked by data.gov. It will be updated daily as new datasets are added to data.gov. This is the first release in our new data vault project to preserve and authenticate vital public datasets for academic research, policymaking, and public use. We’ve built this project on our long-standing commitment to preserving government records and making public information available to everyone. Libraries play an essential role in safeguarding the integrity of digital information. By preserving detailed metadata and establishing digital signatures for authenticity and provenance, we make it easier for researchers and the public to cite and access the information they need over time.

White women are about to be the latest to learn that when you support fascists because "they'll go after other people and improve things for me", "other people" always shifts to include you eventually

(Tweet by Trump's new Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs)

Tweet by Darren J. Beattie on October 4, 2024: "Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men."

White men who think you won't be next on the chopping block: I guarantee you have a lot more in common with the "other people" than you have with the people in power.

Beattie was fired from his position as a speechwriter under Trump's previous administration when a past appearance on a white nationalist panel came to light. This time around that same thing probably strengthened his application.

After years of the crypto industry claiming to fight for liberty, privacy, and free and open information and tech, I'm very excited for our new "pro-crypto Congress" to get to work protecting access to medical care (including reproductive and gender-affirming care), data privacy, press freedom, freedom of expression, net neutrality, and the right to private and secure communications.

I assume they will also quickly and vocally oppose mass detentions, mass surveillance, book banning and related censorship, attempts to roll back human rights, and attempts to target and retaliate against individuals and organizations based on ideological disagreements.

Any second now!

Crypto executive order establishes a digital assets working group to recommend regulatory changes and "evaluate the potential creation" of a digital asset stockpile, prohibits the development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), and revokes Biden's crypto EO.

My immediate thoughts: this is mostly symbolic. The revocation of the previous EO doesn't do much (because the prev EO didn't do much), and although a lot of people have blustered about banning the creation of a CBDC, no US entity ever really pursued creating one.

Regarding the stockpile, I suspect bitcoiners are going to be upset that it is now a "digital asset" stockpile and not a bitcoin stockpile. Furthermore, echoes Trump's original idea of establishing such a stockpile by merely not selling off cryptos seized by law enforcement.

The people who were most excited about a bitcoin stockpile were mostly looking at the proposals by RFK Jr., Sen. Lummis, etc. who had proposed going out and buying a bunch of BTC for a "strategic reserve" (thus pumping the BTC price), and this does not look like that.

The most meaningful portion of this will likely be the regulatory changes to come, though those were pretty clearly coming regardless of any EO.