☕️ DIGITALLY ☙ Thursday, July 24, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Trump fuels AI boom with bold orders; crypto bill annoys libertarians; Kennedy beats pharma; Lindell wins big; media caves on tariffs; Obama chef twist; HHS scandal; Gabbard drops RussiaGate files.

Good morning, C&C family, it’s Thursday! Your speed-dating vacation roundup includes: Massive crypto bill lights up libertarians and signals a new phase in digital payments; Trump blasts open the AI revolution with trio of pro-tech executive orders; Lindell wins lawsuit; Ivy League coughs up cash; corporate media finally admits Trump’s trade wars are getting somewhere; Fox reveals Obama was there when his chef drowned; Kennedy wins battle with pharma and flu shots become mercury-free; Biden’s HHS ignored desperate pleas from tens of thousands of misplaced minors; and DNI Gabbard delivers more RussiaGate goods.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Crypto enthusiasts are madder than scalded cats this week, and digital-minded readers have been pleading with me to cover this story, which to be honest, I have avoided, since thinking about cryptocurrencies gives me sharp headaches. That is also why I did not buy Bitcoin at the beginning, and why I am not now retired, enjoying life on a Mediterranean yacht, but let us avoid that equally painful subject. I will do my best. Last week, AP ran a story headlined, “Trump signs new stablecoin regulations into law, a major milestone for crypto industry.”

The GENIUS Act (beware of fun-sounding government law names) passed in a hurry, roughly 30 days from drafting to signing. Wheee! Reportedly, Trump clinched the deal with 2am whipping calls with holdout lawmakers. Does he ever sleep? Ironically, Elizabeth “Soiled Feathers” Warren complained the bill does not protect consumers, and prune-faced Maxine Waters groused it “replicates the same mess that led to past financial crises.”

Since day one (part of the reason I am not now sipping champagne and watching the kids splash around in emerald waters), I have always believed that digital currencies were one law away from utter uselessness. So, to that extent, the GENIUS Act is a welcome improvement. But conservative libertarians, including proper geniuses like Catherine Austin Fitts, were super pissed.

🏦 The GENIUS Act regulates a specific type of digital currency called a “stablecoin.” These are invisible “coins” pegged to the U.S. dollar. The Act sets up a regulatory framework that requires private issuers to maintain one-to-one cash reserves (or Treasuries). Critics’ first complaint was that only well-heeled issuers can play now. Think: Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Goldman, Amazon, and so on.

The Act does not regulate Bitcoin or the vast majority of digital currencies that are not dollar-pegged.

Those favoring the bill said the regulations will protect grandma from getting wiped out if she buys some Romanian stablecoin that gets meme-bombed. That is true.

So far as I can tell, critics like Ms. Fitts worry about the heavy hand of government. They want digital currencies that can be traded like cash: untraceable, and which can’t be cut off whenever some Canadian truckers get outside their lanes and start protesting instead of hauling backbacon. Those are valid concerns.

But digital privacy advocates —who most of all abhor the idea of a “central bank digital currency” (CBDC)— have the same complaints about decades-old payment systems like ACH. All types of regulated payment systems are traceable and are subject to payment controls. An unregulated digital payment would be something entirely new, and would necessarily remain beyond the pale of any consumer protection.

Libertarian-minded folks think that’s an okay tradeoff. It’s a risk they are willing to take. It’s just like when grandma empties her bank account and gives the cash to the neighborhood psychic, who then vanishes in a puff of sulphuric smoke.

But the problem is, absent regulatory protection, digital currencies will never be adopted by banks and large retailers, who are 100% sure (for good reason) that they will instantly become co-defendants whenever someone gets ripped off by high-tech Nigerian digital scam artists. Greetings, I’m Crown Prince Obubongo of Botswana and just need a little help transferring some of my wealth if you want to earn a quick million. Send me your banking info.

Nor, before GENIUS, was stablecoin (or even Bitcoin) actually untraceable, unless you have GUCCIFER-level hacking and opsec skills. As one NSA veteran put it: “Bitcoin is a signals intelligence goldmine.” This should be obvious, but digital payments are totally traceable, recorded in a public database called “the blockchain,” where they can be tracked, analyzed, pattern-matched, folded, and spindled.

Digital currency fans will shoot back: all you need for true privacy is a proxy server, a pair of linux workstations, and a fake passport or two. Most of us can barely get the AI chatbot installed; we have zero hope of creating an impenetrable online system for securely trading stablecoins without leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that a blind, one-legged pigeon could follow.

Only cash is truly untraceable. We must defend cash at all costs.

Don’t get me wrong. I would love a decentralized, untraceable, unmanipulable digital currency that I could use at the Circle-K to buy raspberry-flavored vodka (don’t judge; it’s for Michelle). It’s nobody’s business what fruity flavor of smokeless intoxicant I prefer (not me, I’m just saying).

And I certainly prefer they can’t debank me just because I pointed out on Twitter that cut-up t-shirts can’t even filter pine air freshener, so forget about nanoscale viruses.

Sadly, stablecoin regulation was inevitable. But the good news is that the anti-CBDC warriors may have lost a battle, but they live to fight another day.

Note: opinions on this stuff vary. I’m just a lawyer, not a digital payments privacy expert. Inform us in the comments.

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Amidst everything else he’s doing, like signing digital payments laws and accusing former presidents of treason, the President has been having a sky-high-tech week. Yesterday, the Financial Times ran a story headlined, “Donald Trump blocks AI groups with ‘ideological bias’ from government work.” Donald. They just couldn’t bring themselves to say “president Trump.”

The President signed three AI-oriented executive orders yesterday. Together, they just re-revolutionized the already revolutionary AI industry.

The first order banned the federal government from using any AI that can’t draw a white George Washington or a male Pope. Those are real examples from the order. It also cited DEI-infused chatbots who opine that nuclear war is morally preferable to misgendering a single confused teenager.

Another example from the order was a chatbot that snippily refused to create images celebrating the “achievements of white people,” while cheerfully responding to requests for similar images related to other races.

I just tried that one for myself, and ChatGPT sputtered indignantly on the prompt like it was the Head of DEI. Laughably, Grok was only slightly better; or even possibly insidiously worse. The prompt didn’t break Grok’s brain, but it still produced this passive-aggressive rubbish:

Trump is onto something. Probably not regulating AI would be best. Trump’s order may have unintended consequences, with every AI response becoming so blandly even-handed as to be useless. But it was gratifying, at least, to see that we aren’t the only ones noticing the problem.

TechCrunch, yesterday:

As a result, federal agencies may no longer work with AI companies unless they “ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias.” In other words, not deliberately woke.

Moving on. Trump’s second and more pragmatic order “fast-tracked” federal permitting of AI data centers, by waiving certain environmental and all DEI-focused regulations. It encouraged agencies to loosen other rules around coal and natural gas. So it was also an energy order.

Environmentalists were spitting Greta Thunberg-sized nails. How dare you!

Trump’s third order launched an “American AI Export Program” under the Commerce and State Departments. The initiative aims to put rocket fuel in the American AI industry, by encouraging global adoption of a “full stack” of American AI systems, including hardware, software, models, and related services.

This reversed years of Biden’s policies, which mainly restricted AI exports, in order to hamper adversaries like China. But Trump’s plan is “growth first,” setting aside hypothetical concerns about how other countries might misuse our tech in favor of the practical objective of getting them to buy it in the first place.

Trump wants America to own the AI market.

Altogether, Trump’s three AI executive orders amounted to a radical reorientation of federal AI policy— pivoting 180 degrees from risk-aversion and ethics-first bureaucracy to a growth-maximizing, America-first, ideology-purging high-tech sales deal. It’s a sea change in how the U.S. treats artificial intelligence, not as a liability to be carefully and skeptically managed, but as an asset to be massively leveraged for America’s benefit.

Trump just transitioned from caution to competition; from fence-building to flag-planting. Trump wants to win the AI race, by treating the technology as a championship racehorse rather than a dilapidated stable of potential misinformation.

The three orders weren’t regulatory revisions; they are a launch sequence. Buckle up. We ain’t seen nothing yet. America’s AI revolution just received massive reinforcements.

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Here’s a mini-roundup of good news:

🔥 Pillow-guy and key Trump ally Mike Lindell, against very tough odds, won his appeal and his lawsuit.

🔥 Columbia University agreed to pay $225 million to settle its DEI war with the Trump Administration. In a post last night on Truth Social, President Trump said Columbia had “committed to ending their ridiculous DEI policies, admitting students based ONLY on MERIT, and protecting the Civil Liberties of their students on campus.”

🔥 On Tuesday, President Trump signed three new trade deals, with Japan, Indonesia, and the Phillippines, all including substantial tariffs being paid to the US. The other countries were happy to do it, which resulted in astonishing headlines like this CNN gem:

Unexpectedly!

🔥 Fox News (and only Fox) reported that former President Obama was on site (0:48) when his personal chef, Tafari Campbell, drowned at his Martha’s Vineyard compound.

Fox also said the Secret Service has surveillance video of the doomed chef “moments before he entered the water,” and will be trying to obtain that footage as well.

🔥 Secretary Kennedy won his long war against mercury-based preservative Thimerosal, which will be removed from all U.S. flu vaccines:

Flu vaccines still don’t work, but at least they’ll be slightly less likely to kill you now. Most headlines mocked the move (I’m looking at you, CNN). MAHA progress.

The move might even slow flu jab uptake across the board. Thimerosal was needed to kill bacteria and fungi in multi-use vials, which allowed flu vaccines to be more widely and efficiently distributed. It kills bacteria and fungus, but it’s totally safe for you, dummy. Anyway, flu vaccines must now be packaged in single-use formats.

Related: Kennedy fired two top HHS staffers this week. The rumor is that they helped rush through the recent approval of the Moderna vaccine while Kennedy was on vacation, and he wasn’t happy about it.

🔥 The Economic Times of India reported that this week, during a “heated” House Homeland Security Committee hearing, a government witness testified that 65,000 calls from unaccompanied minors reporting problems with their placements went unanswered.

Why am I unsurprised?

🔥 Finally, DNI Tulsi Gabbard isn’t done. Yesterday, she declassified another blockbuster: a double-top-secret House intelligence report on the RussiaGate scandal. Politico:

The report was so classified that most lawmakers weren’t allowed to read it. Even those who did weren’t allowed to talk about it. But now, it’s out.

In a surprise appearance at a White House press conference yesterday afternoon, Gabbard said the documents contain “irrefutable evidence that details how President Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false.”

Among other shocking details of intelligence malfeasance, the report explained that reliable sources showed Russia expected Hillary to win —not Trump— and Putin was withholding extremely damaging information about Hillary to leak after her assumed election.

In other words, Russia could have helped Trump during the final days of the campaign when polls were narrowing, but didn’t. So much for them working together.

The stuff Russia had on Hillary is wild. It basically confirmed she’s clinically crazy, is emotionally unstable, and has type II diabetes, DVT, and COPD. Russia also had intel about Obama’s State Department essentially bribing “multiple named US religious organizations” with offers of lucrative “charitable” contracts if they would support Hillary in the election.

There’s a lot more about this, and I will try to round it up for you tomorrow.

But I’ll say one thing: Tulsi is obviously not done yet. She’s trying the case in public —probably the only way to ensure it survives deep state gatekeeping— and is trickling the evidence out a little at a time. They demanded transparency, and now they are getting it through a firehose.

Have a terrific Thursday! C&C will be back, with another vacation roundup of essential news and commentary tomorrow morning. See you then.

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