Lauren Boebert Reelected

Posted on | November 19, 2022 | 3 Comments

For some reason — I don’t know, I barely pay attention to this kind of stuff — Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert is the one Republican that Democrats most hoped to beat this year. And . . . nope:

Democrat Adam Frisch announced Friday that he had called GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert and conceded the race for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.
Although there will be an automatic recount done by the Colorado secretary of state’s office, Frisch said in a live Facebook speech that he did not ask for a recount, does not expect the results to change and does not want there to be fundraising done for an essentially fruitless cause.
“The likelihood of this recount changing more than a handful of votes is very small. Very, very small. It’d be disingenuous and unethical for us or any other group to continue to raise false hope and encourage fundraising for a recount,” Frisch said. “Colorado elections are safe, accurate, and secure. Please save your money for your groceries, your rent, your children, and for other important causes and organizations. I just got off the phone with Rep. Boebert. I called her to formally concede this election.”
Boebert acknowledged Friday that she had received Frisch’s concession call, tweeting, “I look forward to getting past election season and focusing on conservative governance in the House majority. Time to get to work!”
As of Friday morning, with almost all the votes tallied, Boebert led Frisch by only 551 votes in what had been considered a safely Republican western Colorado district. In Colorado, any race decided by a margin that’s 0.5% or less of the votes earned by the top finisher is automatically recounted.

Frisch was in a hard place because one of the reasons Democrats hate Boebert is that she’s an “election denier,” which is what they call anyone who doubts that Democrats got an 81-million-vote landslide for a brain-addled septuagenarian who never left his basement during the 2020 presidential campaign. So it would have been difficult for Frisch to claim he’d been cheated in a fraudulent election — pot, meet kettle.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, they say.

Fun fact: @laurenboebert is returning to Congress. @Liz_Cheney is not.

— Alex Bruesewitz ?? (@alexbruesewitz) November 18, 2022

Category: Colorado, Congress, Election

In The Mailbox: 11.18.22

Posted on | November 19, 2022 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Wargaming A Red Chinese Invasion of Taiwan
Twitchy: Elon Musk’s “Picture Of The Day” Mocks Democrat Investigative Priorities, also, Journalist Calls Elon Musk’s Purchase Of Twitter “An Act Of War”, Everybody Laughs
Louder With Crowder: It’s finally happened – Elon Musk has REINSTATED the Babylon Bee’s Twitter account
Vox Popoli: An Easy Decision, They Think They Don’t Like it NOW, Yes, the Deck is Stacked, and The Hero of Free Speech
According To Hoyt: Ain’t Gonna Work Today, ThERe iS ABsoLuTeLY nO fRAud!, and Beyond the Red Rage Horizon
Monster Hunter Nation: WriterDojo S3 E19: Third Person Narrative

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: The Elon Musk Freakout
American Greatness: I Cannot Vote for Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker, Biden’s EPA Holds Up Major Oil Refinery Despite Looming Fuel Crisis, and Lauren Boebert’s Democrat Opponent Concedes in Tight Colorado House Race
American Power: Twitter Workers Say Farewell After Musk Ultimatum Over Terms of Employment Passes, also, Another Post-Election Surprise!
American Thinker: Election Fraud 2.0! O.K., So What Are You Gonna Do About It?, How the Game is Fixed, and Madame Secretary, Your Woke Policies are Killing the Army
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five America Suffering Friday
Babalu Blog: Donations of flour allow Catholic nuns in Cuba to bake Communion hosts once again, Former U.S. congressman Joe Garcia lies while promoting business partnerships with Cuban dictatorship, Cuba’s new ‘entrepreneurs’, and On day 23,348 of the ‘Revolution,’ Cubans scramble to scoop up broken eggs from roadway
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm for November 18, 2022
Behind The Black: SpaceX cancels launch after reviewing static fire test data, 1st suborbital launch by Indian private company, Boeing announces major reorganization, and Pushback – Court orders school board to stop censoring and banning parents
Cafe Hayek: Generosity Is Admirable, But It’s Wasteful When Poorly Aimed, also, DeMuth Stumbles
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Reality Doesn’t Care What Twitter Employees Think
Don Surber: Khashoggi’s death was an outrage until we needed oil, also, It is the painting they protest, not the oil
First Street Journal: They all looked scared, Do the Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer have no mirrors in their homes?, and Let ’em Loose Larry wants to lock up police officers
Gates Of Vienna: Father of Saman Abbas Arrested in Pakistan, Truckers’ Strike in Brazil?, and Do-Over in Berlin
The Geller Report: Arizona GOP Gubernatorial Favorite Kari Lake REFUSES TO CONCEDE, Hires Lawyers to Contest Result
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, A Dense Cloud, and Raaaaacism!
Hollywood In Toto: ‘Spirited’ Can’t Escape ‘Elf’s’ Shadow, Bruce Springsteen Kisses Blue-Collar Brand Goodbye, and CNN’s Licht Embraces Fake News, Denies ‘Gutfeld!’s Late Night Supremacy
The Lid: School Board Gets Conservative Majority, Fires Woke Superintendent, Bans Critical Race Theory, also, White House Attempts to Shame GOP Over Coming Hunter Biden Probe
Legal Insurrection: Merrick Garland Appoints Special Counsel for DOJ Trump Investigations, Northeastern U. School of Law Brags That it’s the ‘Queerest Law School in the Nation’, Survey Finds Majority of College Students Know Little About Thanksgiving, and NBC News Paints ‘Moms for Liberty’ as Racist After a SC School Board Fired Its Black Superintendent
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: ESPN Deletes Tweet Implying US Men’s National Team Isn’t Good Enough, Blacklisted Basketball Player Enes Kanter Freedom Wins ‘Most Valuable Patriot’ Award, Rob Manfred & MLB, Making Over $1 Billion On Sports Betting, Not Budging On Pete Rose Ban, Qatar Bans Beer Sales At World Cup Stadiums, Reversing Course At The Final Hour Before Tournament Begins, and Auburn In Contact With Dabo Swinney’s Reps?
Power Line: Nancy, We Knew Ye Too Damn Well, Thoughts from the ammo line, and The Daily Chart – Silicon Valley’s Political Leanings
Protein Wisdom Reborn: Brave New Whirled
Shark Tank: Florida Marks 30th Straight Month Of Job Growth In October
Shot In The Dark: Adios, Au Revoir, Auf Wiedersehen, #Unexpectedly, and Whatever Happened To Monkeypox?
STUMP: Read the News with Meep: On Suicide Trends by Race (and Sex) in 2021 (and Earlier)
The Political Hat: Election Aftermath — A Snapshot Of Politics In Flux
This Ain’t Hell: Planes unable to fly, VA suicide prevention efforts need more focus on gun safety training, Reduction of US defense stockpiles in support of Ukraine, Valor Friday, and What’s the Deel? Follow-up
Transterrestrial Musings: The Corporate Media Jihad, Gen Z, and Freedom
Victory Girls: Jan 6 Committee’s Last Desperate Gamble, also, Chuck Schumer Hates Americans
Volokh Conspiracy: A Pivotal Pick for the Ohio Supreme Court
Watts Up With That: Climate Summit Boasts Opulent Beef, Seafood Menu Despite Spearheading Anti-Meat Initiatives, also, Celebrating War as Climate Win Makes Red True Color of “Greens”
Weasel Zippers:Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) Claims Slavery Reparations Would Have Stopped Covid From Spreading, Texas Sends Another Busload Of Illegal Immigrants To Kamala Harris’ Home In DC, and Biden’s Frequent Delaware Trips Have Cost Taxpayers At Least $11 Million
The Federalist: Buckle Up For Lame-Duck Congressional Democrats’ Holiday Spending Spree, Why Is The Government Arming More Federal Bureaucrats Than US Marines?, Therapist: Yes, Post-Abortive Women Suffer From ‘Trauma’ and ‘Complicated Grief’, Georgia Democrats Cry ‘Voter Suppression’ Over A Law That Will Restrict Ballot Harvesting Plans, and How Joe Biden Used Taxpayer Money To Buy Young Voters In The 2022 Midterms
Mark Steyn: The Presumption of Guilt, Reckoning Upon a Dervish, and Live Around the Planet: Friday November 18th

Early Black Friday Deals
Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

Heckuva Job, Nancy Pelosi: Manager of the Decline of the Democratic Party

Posted on | November 18, 2022 | Comments Off on Heckuva Job, Nancy Pelosi: Manager of the Decline of the Democratic Party

It was perhaps predictable, once it became clear that Republicans had won a majority in the House of Representatives, that Nancy Pelosi would resign from the Democratic leadership in the House. She’s 82 years old, after all, but if Democrats had managed to keep their majority, she probably wouldn’t have turned over the Speaker’s gavel. The difference between being Speaker and House Minority Leader is night and day. Unlike the Senate, where the filibuster grants a certain amount of power to the minority, the majority in the House calls all the shots, and the minority gets zero, zilch, nada. Pelosi has served two separate four-year terms as House Speaker, first after the 2006 midterms, before losing the majority in the 2010 midterms. Republicans then held the House majority for eight years before Democrats recaptured the Speaker’s gavel for Pelosi in the 2018 midterms, only to have it slip from their grasp again this year. Democrats would have been smart to dump Pelosi after 2010, when she was already a septuagenarian, but despite her general ineptitude, she’s good at one thing, i.e., bossing around her fellow Democrats, and that was enough to keep her in power another 12 years.

How did she get there? How did this woman, the daughter of a Baltimore party boss, who became the epitome of a “San Francisco liberal,” end up with so much power? Well, does the name David Bonior ring a bell? How about Dick Gephardt? And does anyone still remember Tom Foley?

Tom Foley, a Democrat from Washington State, became Speaker of the House in 1989 because his predecessor, Jim Wright of Texas, had resigned amid an ethics scandal. At the time, Foley had already been in Congress more than 20 years, during which time Democrats had always been in the majority. In fact, a Republican hadn’t been Speaker of the House since Joseph Martin turned the gavel over to Sam Rayburn after the 1954 midterms. Democrats losing their majority was simply unthinkable, and hubris certainly played a role in the Democrats’ 1994 midterm wipeout that not only saw Newt Gingrich lead the GOP to a historic victory, but also saw Foley defeated in his own reelection bid, as he lost to Republican challenger George Nethercutt by a 4,000-vote margin. Before the 1994 midterms, Washington State’s House delegation was eight Democrats and one Republican; after 1994, it was seven Republicans and two Democrats. Heckuva job, Tom!

Taking over as leader of congressional Democrats was Dick Gephardt of Missouri, who had much higher ambitions. First elected to Congress in 1976, he sought the 1988 presidential nomination, but ultimately lost to Mike Dukakis. However, the campaign raised Gephardt’s national profile and helped him become the No. 2 man in the House Democratic leadership under Foley. When Foley got beat, Gephardt became the minority leader, a position he held for the next nine years, as Republicans maintained their majority control. After 2002, however, Gephardt decided to try another run for the White House, ultimately losing to John Kerry. (It says a lot about Gephardt that he lost to a couple of losers like Dukakis and Kerry.) Gephardt didn’t seek reelection to Congress in 2004. When he was first elected in 1976, Missouri’s congressional delegation was eight Democrats and two Republicans. When Gephart left office, Missouri’s congressional delegation was five Republicans and four Democrats. Are you noticing a trend here?

Say hello to David Bonior, a Michigan Democrat who was first elected to Congress in 1976, the same year Gephardt was elected. In 1987, Bonior became deputy whip of the Democratic caucus, and became whip in 1990. When Republicans won the majority in 1994, Bonior decided to make himself a full-time nuisance, filing 75 ethics charges against Speaker Newt Gingrich. This did nothing to help Democrats win back the House, however, and after the 2000 census, redistricting put Bonior into a new district where his reelection was uncertain. Bonior decided to throw his hat in the ring as a candidate for governor of Michigan, but lost the Democratic primary to Jennifer Granholm by a 20-point margin. When Bonior was first elected to Congress in 1976, Michigan had 19 House seats, 11 Democrats and eight Republicans. When Bonior left office, Michigan had 15 House seats, nine Republicans and six Democrats.

Could the trend be any clearer? All of these Democratic leaders saw their party’s fortunes decline during their tenure in Congress, and it was this general trend of decline that led to Nancy Pelosi becoming speaker. She was first elected to Congress in 1986 — way back when Tip O’Neill was still Speaker of the House — and in 2002, when Bonior resigned the post of Democratic whip, Pelosi got that job. Pelosi was catapulted to minority leader a year later, when Gephardt, contemplating his 2004 presidential bid, stepped aside. For nearly 20 years, then, Pelosi has been the top Democrat in the House, and with what result?

When she was first elected in 1986, there were 258 Democrats and 177 Republicans in the House. The results of this month’s midterms are still not final, but when Congress convenes again in January, it appears there will be 221 Republicans and 214 Democrats in the House. Democrats will be right back to the minority status they were in when Gephardt resigned as leader in 2003 and Pelosi took over. Heckuva job, Nancy!

Category: Congress, Nancy Pelosi

In The Mailbox: 11.17.22

Posted on | November 17, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 11.17.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.
OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Crypto – A House of Cards
EBL: Robert Clary, RIP, also, Confirmed – The Mar-A-Lago Raid Was A Politically Motivated Witch Hunt
Twitchy: Sen. Hawley Grills FBI Director Wray On That Hearing He Needed To Cut Short To “Catch A Plane”, also, Educator Explains Why Parents Should Trust Experts Like Her To Teach Gender & Identity
Louder With Crowder: Critics lash out at Tim Allen’s alleged right-wing Santa Claus in The Santa Clauses, also, Ron DeSantis shuts down reporter, explains where people can stick their ‘GOP civil war’ nonsense
Vox Popoli: Bolsonaro Crosses the Rubicon, Dark Lord News, and Once is an Accident
Stoic Observations: The Destiny Question – Gardener vs. Winnower

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: All Bets Are Off
American Conservative: The Suicide-By-Synod Of The German Catholic Church, also, Stop Invading Haiti
American Greatness: The Fake Trump-DeSantis War and the 2022 Non-Election, Another Brick in the Blue Wall of Fraud, and New Democrat Group Led By David Brock to Mount Multi-Million Dollar Campaign to Undermine GOP Investigations
American Thinker: Why the Red Tsunami Turned into a Ripple
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Comeback News
Babalu Blog: Cuban dictatorship orders another interrogation of Catholic news network reporter, Recently arrived Cuban refugee gets emotional after his first American paycheck, and Four flowers for 1,000 pesos: Exorbitant costs of grieving for the dead in Cuba
BattleSwarm: FTXed Up, also, Fired Twitter Employee Applies For A Real Job
Behind The Black: Ten cubesats released by SLS on way to Moon; one has problems, Ispace announces new launch date and landing site on Moon for Hakuto-R lander, Slowly the Ukrainians continue to regain their country, and Today’s blacklisted Americans – Anti-Semitic attacks skyrocket on college campuses
Cafe Hayek: On Tax Cuts and Private Enterprise
CDR Salamander: Happy Talk and Arrogance to China Isn’t Helpful
Chicago Boyz: Nihilism — Really?
Da Tech Guy: Five Assorted Thoughts Under the Fedora, also, No matter how disheartened we are we patriots must never give up the good fight
Don Surber: Judge junks lawsuit against Trump, also, Hi. Remember Trump the Press?
First Street Journal: Good News: China Suckers Biden Admin Into Restarting Climate Talks, What Are The Democrats Three Main Economy/Inflation Plans Now That They Kept The Senate?, and NIMBY!
Gates Of Vienna: A Call to Annul the 2022 Elections, We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Passports!, France Sends a Few of ’em Back, and The Children of Men
The Geller Report: CNN Mass Layoffs Coming As ABC News and NBC Universal Go on Firing Spree, Pennsylvania Democrat Political Consultant Arrested For Massive Ballot Fraud, and House GOP Launches Far-Reaching Investigation Into Biden Including Human Trafficking and Fraud
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, JWST Looks at a Protostar, and Nothing To See Here. Move Along!
Hollywood In Toto: The Menu Deliciously Skewers the Rich and Pampered
The Lid: Secret Democrat Campaign Cash Broke Biden’s Rules Over Illicit Foreign Donations
Legal Insurrection: FBI and Air Force Raid Area 51 Researcher’s Homes, U. Arizona Black Student Activists Demand Removal of Queer Latina Diversity Chief, Molotov Cocktail Lawyers Disbarred, Election Denier Hakeem Jeffries is the New House Democratic Leader, and De-Transitioned Transgendered Teen Suing Doctors Who Provided “Gender Affirming” Treatments
Nebraska Energy Observer: Everybody’s got one
Outkick: ‘No Fun League’ Strikes Again As NFL Ruins Detroit Carnival With Bills-Browns, Raiders Can’t Afford to Fire Head Coach Josh McDaniels, Forecasted Snowmageddon In Buffalo Could Force NFL To Move Browns At Bills, Saquon Barkley Crowns Giants QB Daniel Jones With Unforgettable Nickname: ‘Vanilla Vick’, and Brittney Griner’s Russian Prison Status Gets Big Update
Power Line: “Green” Energy Circles the Drain, The Daily Chart – Greenies Need to Take More Lithium, and Ryan Girdusky on the midterms
Shark Tank: Florida’s Congressional Democrats Praise Pelosi’s Leadership
Shot In The Dark: Expectations, also, Deja Vu
STUMP: Lesson from Chester PA – Don’t Count Assets You Don’t Actually Have, Public Pension Plans
This Ain’t Hell: Quick updates: Dem election spending against Reps, Poland missiles, Hunt, Retired Marine Generals Attempt to Include Beirut Bombing Victims in Legislation, DoD fails audit, sees Ukraine as ‘teachable moment’ in accountability, and Can the Air Force train new pilots without planes?
Transterrestrial Musings: Lab-Grown Chicken, Gravitics, Things We Learned Only After The Election, and Reason On Space
Victory Girls: Tax And Spend California Has A $25 Billion Deficit
Volokh Conspiracy: Verdict Against Auburn University in Economics Professor’s First Amendment Retaliation Lawsuit
Watts Up With That: Canada’s Green New Deal – “To Hell with That”, also, Unrealistic Net Zero Policies Cost Families Dearly
Weasel Zippers: Texas Gov. Declares Southern Border Crisis An “Invasion”, Sen. Hawley (R-MO) Roasts FBI Director For Leaving Committee Hearing To Go On Vacation, Oregon Sheriffs Say They Won’t Enforce New Gun Law, and Occasional Cortex Proclaims Abortion Is A “Class Struggle”
The Federalist: Here’s How Democrats Broke Congress And How Republicans Can Fix It, Kevin McCarthy Should Follow Through On His Promise To Kick Dems Off Congressional Committees, Senate Republicans Keep Showing Us Why They Never Deserved A Majority, Boy Scout Troops Still Do Good, Though The National Organization Is Forever Stained, and Here’s Everything Republicans Should Do Now That They Control The House
Mark Steyn: Trump in His Pomp, Mandated to Death, “When Mark Steyn Struck Back”, and Digital Fentanyl

Early Black Friday Deals
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Category: Linkagery

The CEO Was a Tumblrina? How Did Somebody Overlook This Gigantic Red Flag in the FTX Catastrophe?

Posted on | November 17, 2022 | Comments Off on The CEO Was a Tumblrina? How Did Somebody Overlook This Gigantic Red Flag in the FTX Catastrophe?

Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research

“This is worse than Theranos, this is worse than Madoff, if what I’m reading is true.”
— John Reed Stark, former SEC official

Suppose that you’re a major Silicon Valley venture capitalist, someone entrusted to invest vast sums of other people’s money in new enterprises. Don’t you have an obligation, as due diligence, to research the people running the companies you’re funding? Because now I’m imagining a courtroom trial in a lawsuit brought by people who entrusted their savings to whatever VC funders decided that investing money in a company run by Sam Bankman-Fried‘s girlfriend was a good idea.

*** (Spoiler alert: It was not a good idea.) ***

The story of how Caroline Ellison ended up as CEO of Alameda Research, the company from which Bankman-Fried (known as “SBF”) spun off the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is eventually going to be a major motion picture, the “happy ending” of which is going to be these people going to prison (if they don’t conveniently commit suicide, as sometimes happens to people who become “problematic” to the Democratic Party). Meanwhile, investors around the world — including many who had no idea their money had been invested in this blatant Ponzi scheme run by a clique of Gen Z geeks — are certain to become plaintiffs in a class-action suit against investment firms like Sequoia Capital, who ignored so many red flags about SBF’s operation. Just two months ago, Sequoia “published a long, meandering profile of Sam Bankman-Fried, a.k.a. SBF, the now-disgraced founder of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The article, ‘Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex — And Maybe You Should Too,’ ran to an eye-glazing 14,000 words and featured flowery prose that looked especially ridiculous after FTX’s spectacular collapse.”

Sequoia deleted that article from their website, but not before somebody archived it, so you can get the full taste of enthusiastic gushing over SBF’s “epiphany” about pursuing “effective altruism,” which inspired him to quit his job as a trader at Jane Street Capital and eventually launch Alameda Research in 2017, before creating FTX in 2019. This is where Caroline Ellison enters the story. Whereas SBF is the son of two Stanford Law professors and attended MIT, Ellison is the daughter of an MIT professor and attended Stanford. (See “Assortative Mating” in The Bell Curve, pp. 110-113. Certainly Charles Murray would have something interesting to say about this.) Ellison worked at Jane Street Capital with Bankman-Fried and, like her boyfriend, Ellison became a devotee of “effective altruism.” From the 14,000-word article:

Caroline Ellison, a friend and colleague who was trading on the equities desk at Jane Street during that time, remembers the moment well. “It was unusual,” she says, “because he decided to quit — not to do anything in particular, but just under the premise that there were a lot of other options out there.” . . .
Ellison is a freckle-faced redhead with a personality that splits the difference between bubbly and nerd-ball. She’s partial to a pair of designer frames that make her look a bit like Edna Mode, the superhero stylist in The Incredibles.
About six months after SBF dropped out, Jane Street sent Ellison on a recruiting trip to California, so she decided to call on her old friend. They’d been office buddies at Jane, but they’d also occasionally socialized outside of work, too, being fellow EA acolytes.

(And by “occasionally socialized outside of work,” of course they mean, MAKING THE BEAST WITH TWO BACKS, but continue . . .)

Ellison wanted to catch up, but from the get-go, SBF was acting uncharacteristically shifty. There were several canceled coffee dates, and when the two finally did get together — at Jumpin’ Java, an old-school Berkeley coffeehouse with hand-painted murals on the wall and whimsical art in the windows—SBF evaded even the most innocuous of questions.
“So,” Ellison asked after joining SBF at a table, “what have you been up to in the last few months?” Ellison, it should be noted, was dressed as a sultry wood nymph — she was on her way to a LARP (Live Action Role Play) party. . . .

(Permit me to interrupt: She was “DRESSED AS A SULTRY WOOD NYMPH”? The future CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company was LARPing? As a WOOD NYMPH? Words fail . . .)

The story was pretty remarkable. After SBF quit Jane Street, he moved back home to the Bay Area, where Will MacAskill had offered him a job as director of business development at the Centre for Effective Altruism. He rented a modest apartment near CEA HQ in Berkeley, he still had a couple of weeks to just explore before his job started. This was his first vacation in, well, ever. In the years working at Jane, SBF had never taken any significant time off.
He spent his vacation just soaking everything in: It was his first time in the Bay Area as an adult, and he found his home turf unexpectedly thrilling. It was where all the new technology was. It was where all the startups were. It was where the bulk of the EA community was starting to congregate. SBF ended up hanging out a lot with his younger brother Gabe, who was living in an EA commune on nearby Stuart Street.
At that time, everyone in the tech world was talking about crypto. In the Bay Area, you couldn’t escape the chatter. . . .

To cut a long story short, SBF discovered that Asian markets were selling crypto at significantly higher prices than in the U.S., figured out how to take advantage of that spread, invested $50,000 of his own money into this project, quickly increased that, then secured $50 million in funding to start Alameda Research:

With a goosed-up capital account, the money started piling up so fast that SBF placed what he refers to as “a market order for employees” to tend to the Rube Goldberg operation that kept the capital spinning. There were constant blowups with banks, which are wary of anything crypto. Crypto was so new that regulators in South Korea and elsewhere were constantly changing their mind about regulations—then making those changes retroactive. It was a swirling mess. Pulled into the vortex was Nishad Singh, a friend of SBF’s brother Gabe, and a fellow EA member. Singh is a bespectacled and baby-faced young man with an earnest mien. He often wears a T-shirt with the words “compassionate to the core” printed, in a diminutive all-lowercase font, over his heart. After just one conversation with SBF, Singh decided to leave Facebook to take on the more meaningful work of building FTX. Caroline Ellison came, too, quitting Jane Street and moving to California only weeks after SBF described the operation to her over tea. The first 15 people SBF hired, all from the EA pool, were packed together in a shabby, 600-square-foot walk-up, working around the clock. The kitchen was given over to stand-up desks, the closet was reserved for sleeping, and the entire space overrun with half-eaten take-out containers. It was a royal mess. But it was also the good old days, when Alameda was just kids on a high-stakes, big-money, earn-to-give commando operation. Fifty percent of Alameda’s profits were going to EA-approved charities. . . .

Or so we are expected to believe. Turns out that there are people in the “effective altrusm” community who have heard tales of abusive behavior by Bankman-Fried during the 2017-2019 early years of Alameda Research, which led several employees to quit. So the assertion that SBF was donating 50% of his profits to “EA-approved charities” is something for which I’ll have to see the receipts before I’ll believe it.

Sam Bankman-Fried Promised
Millions To Nonprofits. Some Say
They Didn’t Get The Money.

Going from obscure nerd to Fortune magazine cover boy in just five years was, it must be admitted, a remarkable feat. His “effective altruism” shtick was a major factor in SBF’s celebrity, as was the fact that he became the second-largest contributor of campaign cash to the Democratic Party. Nobody seems to have thought this was suspicious and, similarly, the connection between the currency exchange FTX and the trading firm Alameda Research also failed to raise concerns. Is putting your girlfriend in charge of a multibillion enterprise really a good idea? What ultimately crashed SBF’s empire was the fact — which both Bankman-Fried and Ellison have admitted — that SBF “loaned” funds from FTX customers to Alameda, to the tune of $10 billion. But if Alameda was successful, why would it need such a “loan”?

When asked about the blurred lines between his companies in August, Bankman-Fried denied any conflict of interest and said FTX was a “neutral piece of market infrastructure.”
“I put a lot of work over the last few years into trying to eliminate conflicts of interest there,” 30-year-old Bankman-Fried told CNBC in an interview. “I don’t run Alameda anymore. I don’t work for it, none of FTX does. We have separate staffs — we don’t want to have preferential treatment. We want as best as we can, to treat everyone fairly.” . . .
Three sources familiar with the company told CNBC that [employees] were blindsided by the company’s actions and that, to their knowledge, only a small cohort knew that customer deposits were being misused. Employees said in some cases, their life savings are tied up on FTX.
“We’re just shocked and devastated,” a current FTX employee said. “I feel like I’m in a movie that’s playing out in real time. No one saw this coming.”
As a result of the public backlash FTX has faced over these missing funds, employees who say they were just as devastated as customers are now facing financial hardship, harassment surrounding their involvement with the company, and tarnished future employment prospects.
“We could not believe how we were being betrayed,” a former employee said.
— CNBC, Nov. 13

Did I mention that FTX had an in-house psychotherapist and employees were reportedly doing a lot of prescription stimulants?

This operation had more red flags than a May Day parade in Beijing, but nobody seemed to notice any problems with FTX/Alameda when Bankman-Fried’s empire was the hottest firm in the hottest “emerging” sector of the economy. What we can now call The Crypto Bubble never really made sense from an economic perspective. It was mainly popular because it was unregulated, a sort of anarchist pirate kingdom based on a theory of implied value that appealed to the kind of people who talk a lot about “fiat currency” and “Jekyll Island” (nudge, nudge). I mean, I get it — in an ideal world, I’d be a goldbug fanatic, but we’re not living in an ideal world, and I am skeptical of the promise that cryptocurrency is the road to Utopia. Meanwhile, in the real world, the crypto king SBF was living in a $40-million penthouse in the Bahamas with 10 of his dorky minions in some kind of polyamorous cult situation.

Of all the revelations in the wake of the FTX meltdown, none is more shocking than this: Caroline Ellison had a Tumblr blog.

The handle of her blog was “worldoptimization” — a reference to her goal as a devotee of “effective altruism” — and someone has archived the whole thing back to 2014, when Ellison was still a college student, and interested in a lot of right-wing ideas, including “human biodiversity” (abbreviated HBD, popularized by Steve Sailer). Ellison had been raised Catholic, but turned atheist as a teenager, and considered herself part of the “trad” (traditionalist) movement of women who rejected feminist promises of “sexual liberation.” There has been a lot of ignorant and biased commentary about Ellison’s blog, accusing her of endorsing pseudoscientific “race science,” etc., but after skimming over it pretty heavily, I think these critiques are missing the main point: What kind of adult has a Tumblr blog? Answer: Not the healthy kind.

As crazy as Twitter can be, at least there are verifiably sane people who use Twitter, which cannot be said for Tumblr, the Internet’s Quasi-Official Lunatic Asylum. And when you read what Ellison was posting there, you discover that she was, for example, a fan of The Bachelor series. Do you really want someone like that running a multibillion-dollar trading company? No, you don’t. Her Tumblr blog reveals Caroline Ellison to be a fundamentally silly person, obsessed with trivial nonsense.

Some regular readers may be saying, “Wait a minute, Stacy. Aren’t you kind of ‘fundamentally silly’ yourself?” Yes, of course, but I am a mere journalist. I’m not running a gigantic financial company — and thank God for that, because I’d probably botch it at least as badly as Caroline Ellison has botched it. However, I’d botch it in a more traditional way — a scandal involving strippers, cocaine, Lamborghinis, etc. — not wasting my time blabbing about The Bachelor on a Tumblr blog.

In a sane world, the venture capitalists who gave investors’ money to Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison would be ritually humiliated — lashed and pilloried — if not indeed hanged in the public square. But we don’t live in a sane world, so they’ll escape the brutal justice they deserve.

Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 11.16.22

Posted on | November 16, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 11.16.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.
OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Armed Citizen Stops Kidnapping
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #1903
EBL: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Opps! Ukraine shot those missiles into Poland, also, Francisco Pizzaro Captures Inca Emperor Atahualpa at the Battle of Cajamarca
Twitchy: Woman goes viral for berating her “racist, Trump-loving, cis white” father at “funeral”, also, Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) didn’t appreciate Elon Musk’s japery
Louder With Crowder: ‘Joe Biden is the face of left-wing failure’, also, Elon Musk, man enough to admit when he’s wrong, ‘rehires’ Ligma and Johnson back to Twitter
Vox Popoli: Calling Rome to Repentance, Meme of the Week 006, “British”, and She’s Going To Blow

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Against The N.I.C.E. Conditioners
American Greatness: Democrats Sue to Demand Extra Day of Voting in Georgia Runoff Election, Far-Left Dark Money Group Spent Over $1.5 Billion for Left-Wing Causes in 2021, and Trump Announces 2024 Presidential Run
American Thinker: The Unpopular Cure for Our Electoral Woes, Key Takeaways from the FBI Whistleblowers Report, and Americans Haven’t Suffered Enough
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: MSC Cruises under investigation for using Cuban slave labor on its ships, Photos of the Day: Well-fed Communist Oligarchs vs. daily bread for Cubans, and Cuban dictatorship sends slave doctors to World Cup in Qatar despite health care crisis in Cuba
Behind The Black: NASA’s SLS rocket successfully launches Orion toward the Moon, Red Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy launches five satellites into orbit, A hidden baby star, seen in infrared, and Today’s blacklisted American: Half of today’s students support the death penalty for some speech
Cafe Hayek: More on Personal Liability for Lockdowners
CDR Salamander: Chaos is a Ladder: Opportunity in the High North
Chicago Boyz: Thoughts on the Waukesha Christmas Parade Trial
Da Tech Guy: Acceptable Terms
Don Surber: Trump won without you, National Review, also, Trump dances on the graves of the media
First Street Journal: Lots Of Young People Took Long Fossil Fueled Flights To COP27 Or Something
Gates Of Vienna: Ye of Little Faith
The Geller Report: Philadelphia Soros-Backed DA Larry Krasner impeached by Pennsylvania lawmakers in GOP-led effort, Maricopa County Election Judge Says Voting Machines Were Programmed to Reject Ballots on Election Day, and “This Wasn’t an Election”
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, NGC 3293, and Cleaning House at Twitter
Hollywood In Toto: K-von’s Essential Promises Jokes You Can’t Tell (But He’ll Tell ’em Anyway), also, She Said Offers Powerful Snapshot of Harvey Weinstein’s Downfall
The Lid: Matt Gaetz Proposes SPICY Rule Changes To Congress, The Establishment Will HATE
Legal Insurrection: Nancy Pelosi Claims Democrats Have “Always Been” Unifying The Country, University of Florida Student Protests Fizzle as Ben Sasse is Named New School President, Yale Allegedly Pressured Suicidal Students to Leave School and Reapply, and Steve Scalise Wins Unanimous Support of House Republicans as New Majority Leader
Nebraska Energy Observer: Country Roads
Outkick: Brittney Griner Faces Horrific Conditions In Russian Prison, UCLA Proposes Terrible Idea To Save Money In The Big Ten, UVA Cancels Football Game After Horrific Killings, Jemele Hill Attacks OutKick In Desperate Attempt To Boost Failing Book Sales, and Joe Rogan Questions Kyrie Irving’s Persecution For Tweeting A Film Amazon Sells
Power Line: Organized Theft Is Big Business, The Daily Chart: The Electric Car Partisan Divide, and Musk admits mistake
Protein Wisdom Reborn:
Shark Tank: Mast Adds His Support To Mayorkas Impeachment
Shot In The Dark: Curious, also, For The Children
This Ain’t Hell: Air Force’s turn in the barrel, Phony Veteran’s Day Story – What’s the Deel?, and Charges dismissed for Marines involved with San Diego Zoo gondola incident
Transterrestrial Musings: Community College
Victory Girls: Missile Hit In Poland Was Likely Ukraine Misfire
Volokh Conspiracy: “Enforcing the First Amendment on Campus Won’t, by Itself, Address the Problem of Academic Freedom”
Watts Up With That: Nationwide Cold Wave Continues with Numerous Low Temperature Records Likely to Be Set…Intense Great Lakes Snow Event on The Way, also, Africa: The Place where Claims Renewables are Cheaper Go to Die
Weasel Zippers: Spanish Government Celebrates Communist Party With Commemorative Postage Stamp, Thanksgiving Dinners Will Be 20% More Expensive This Year, Schumer Now Says Democrats Want Immigration Bill Because Of Population Decline, Calls For Amnesty, and Raphael Warnock: “America Has A Pre-Existing Condition — It’s Called Racism, It’s Called Classism, It’s Called Bigotry, It’s Called Xenophobia”
The Federalist: Court Blocks Biden’s Loan Bailout But It Already Bagged The Votes It Was Designed To Buy, Why Did Gen Z Turn Out To Vote For Democrats And Against Their Own Interests?, ‘National Conservatism’ Is A Dead End, and Corrupt Media Have Created A Hilarious Problem For Themselves In Time For Trump’s 2024 Campaign
Mark Steyn: Lest We Forget (Albanians), Culture Trumps Politics, and The Consolidation of Wealth and Power

Early Black Friday Deals
Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

The Ka-Bar Killer? ‘Edged Weapon’ Used to Kill 4 Idaho Students, Police Say

Posted on | November 16, 2022 | 1 Comment

Sunday afternoon, police got a call about an “unconscious person” at a residence near the University of Idaho campus in Moscow, Idaho. It was soon reported that four people had been killed, but police wouldn’t say how they’d been killed or what the motive might be. Murders are very rare in the town of 26,000 permanent residents, and now here were four murder victims at once — two university seniors, seniors Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21, junior Xana Kernodle, 20, and freshman Ethan Chapin, 20. Then on Tuesday, the local coroner let slip that the victims had all been stabbed to death, Police then said an “edged weapon” had been used in what they called a “targeted attack.” The owner of a local hardware store said police asked him if his store sold military-style Ka-Bar knives (made famous in the Rambo movies), which suggests they have some idea such a weapon was used in the murders.

Furthermore — and this is what’s freaking people out — police say that while (a) they don’t have a suspect in custody, (b) they don’t believe there is a threat to the community. Right. You’ve got a mass murderer at large, but don’t worry — there’s no “imminent danger.”

It seems obvious to me that police know a lot about the case they’re not saying publicly. Discussing the case with my brother Kirby, who’s pretty good with this kind of stuff, he thinks maybe the cops actually have their eyes on a main suspect, but are trying to get enough evidence or testimony to qualify as probable cause for a search warrant. This would explain why they believe there’s no “immient danger” to anyone else, because if police have a suspect under surveillance, and know why he did this “targeted” killing, then they also have reason to believe that the suspect isn’t just going around killing people at random.

All things considered, I’d expect police to announce an arrest within two or three days because (a) there can’t be many people who could possibly have a motive for such a “targeted” attack, (b) you don’t stab four people to death without leaving behind a lot of evidence, and (c) there’s got to be surveillance video somewhere showing somebody escaping the scene of the crime. Still, at this point, it seems very mysterious.

Stay tuned . . .

Category: Crime, Idaho