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UNFTR Weekly Roundup |
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Max NotesSo many thoughts still bouncing around my brain after attending Netroots Nation in NOLA this past week. It set back my production schedule by a few days but it was certainly worth it to rub elbows with the true patriots and warriors of social justice movements from all over the country. I expressed some of my feelings about it in the ungated Members email earlier this week, so I won’t opine further today. Needless to say, I’m still in awe of the competency and dedication of grassroots organizers. Our job is to raise awareness in the comfortable setting of the UNFTR studio, but these are the people who are risking their livelihoods and, in some cases, their lives and freedom to speak truth to power.
I’m continuing this week with the Trump Stablecoin story because the situation and my understanding of it are rapidly taking shape. The Trump family crypto enterprise, World Liberty Financial, has made some important strides in bringing their stablecoin vision to life. Only a few pieces remain to give them clear passage to loot the U.S. Treasury. I don’t know how else to explain the importance of the next couple of weeks because the Senate returns in early September to mark up the CLARITY Act and Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act in committee and put them to a vote.
If these measures pass, Trump will be unstoppable and can easily and legally move to the next phase of the grand plan to become one of the most powerful de facto central banks in the world post-presidency.
To that end, we’ve organized our first petition to raise awareness and try to get the attention of our senators as they prepare to vote on privatizing the economic future of the United States. If I’ve done my job in Monday’s episode to thoroughly explain the mechanics of the takeover and what’s at stake, I would ask you all to please sign the petition and share it widely on social media to try and get the attention of the broader media. For anyone connected to independent media sources I would ask that you bring this to their attention as well so we can expand our coverage because the mainstream media is completely ignoring what amounts to an economic coup.
Sign the Petition To Stop the Senate From Passing These Bills!
Other things I’m obsessing over…
-Max |
Killer Left Take of the Week |
KLTW again goes to Leeja Miller of the Why America Podcast and YouTube. She’s done some great work lately on the Texas gerrymandering crisis and in this episode she digs deeper into the legal mess and burgeoning electoral crisis behind it.
Watch: How Today's Tensions Mirror Pre-Civil War America
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Latest From the UNFTR Podcast |
Trump vs. Lula.Trump’s Arrogance Toward Brazil and the LAC Is a Threat to Us All. |
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Donald Trump recently announced a new round of tariffs including outrageous ones on Brazil that bring the effective tariff rate to 50%. Forget that we have a surplus with Brazil or that they’re one of the biggest economies in Latin America, one of our closest allies historically and the biggest democracy in South America. Trump’s upset that the Lula administration is targeting his friend Jair Bolsonaro, dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics.” Or so he claims. There’s a lot more to this ridiculous and misguided trade war than hurt feelings and bad economics. It’s about Brazil’s leadership of the BRICS+ alliance that threatens to undermine Trump’s plan to personally become the central banker to the world.
Here’s a snippet from the pod: Max: Trump’s Brazil tantrum isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s part of a broader pattern of alienating key partners just as they’re exploring ways to reduce dependence on American financial systems. The timing couldn’t be worse for his family’s crypto ambitions, which is all he cares about. Oh, and it would be pretty shitty for the rest of us as well. |
Chart of the Week |
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Source: BLS
The markets were SHOCKED! Shocked, I tell you. Investors couldn’t believe that inflation from Trump’s indiscriminate tariff war would actually show up in prices. The PPI is the measure of inputs, making it a leading indicator of where consumer prices are headed. So far importing companies have been eating the cost of the tariffs but that’s all coming to an end. Investors were so upset about the news that the markets actually fell. And then, to no one’s surprise (who follows UNFTR at least) they went right back up again. Because THERE’S NOWHERE ELSE TO HIDE. |
Headlines |
One Nation, DesensitizedThis is an important perspective. The meme-ing of our cruelty. Using exaggerated images or cartoonish portrayals of our depravity is steeped in a long history of propaganda. The ubiquity of social media makes it even more common and easy to promote.
From the article: “Attempts to sanitize and popularize state violence through mass media and popular culture go back far further than the edgelords manning the Twitter controls at ICE, of course. During the Holocaust, cartoons envisioning Jews as rats were meant to provoke loathing and disgust, linking them with disease and contagion—something to be cast out of the body of society. Supporters of Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines’ past president, helped popularized his brutal and deadly drug war through what Buzzfeed News called ‘a never-ending meme-driven propaganda campaign.’”
Mother Jones: The Official Voice of the US Government Is Cruel, Gross, and Weird. What Is That Doing to Us?
Our Toxic War MachineThis could have been a Seymour Hersh piece from the ‘70s. I’ve said it before, The Baffler writers are next level. This kind of writing is a lost art but so vital.
From the article: “Two months before, after ten years in which he was unable to condemn the war, Anderson finally wrote that America had ‘outlived’ its welcome and become ‘toxic’ to the Afghan people. It was time to go. His change in opinion was caused by the news that a soldier named Robert Bales had walked off his post in Kandahar and murdered sixteen Afghan civilians. In a detail Anderson failed to mention in his report on the massacre, Bales was an ordinary infantryman who was at the time providing security for a special operations base under the command of special operators. A military investigation later found that those operators were getting trashed on drugs and alcohol at the time of Bales’s massacre, with Bales drinking before starting his rampage.”
The Baffler: Pipe Hitters: America’s special operators bring the war home
Monkey See, Monkey DoEmployers don’t need much of a reason to lay off workers in the best of times. But this is a new twist that I never thought of before. The top reason given for planned layoffs in the corporate sector is “DOGE Impact.” Like, what the fuck does that even mean? So because some South African ketamine tweaker took a chainsaw to federal agencies for two months means employers have license to do the same?
From the article: “So far this year, employers have announced plans to cut more than 800,000 jobs, the highest number since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has eliminated thousands of federal jobs, was the number one reason cited by employers for their planned job cuts. Experts estimate that DOGE’s actions may end up costing the United States billions of dollars.
“DOGE Impact remains the leading reason for job cut announcements in 2025,’ the report says. ‘An additional 13,056 cuts have been attributed to DOGE Downstream Impact, such as the loss of funding to private non-profits and affiliated organizations.’”
Truthout: US-Based Companies Announce Record Number of Impending Layoffs |
Resources |
Pod LoveProbably good to brush up on this one.
“The 25th amendment. A few years before JFK was shot, an idealistic young lawyer set out on a mission to convince people something essential was missing from the Constitution: clear instructions for what should happen if a U.S. president was no longer able to serve. On this episode of our ongoing series We the People, the story behind one of the last amendments to the Constitution, and the man who got it done.”
Throughline: We the People: Succession of Power
Book LoveJust felt right to revisit JKG in this moment. Glad I did.
“Arguing that the 1929 stock market crash was precipitated by rampant speculation in the stock market, Galbraith notes that the common denominator of all speculative episodes is the belief of participants that they can become rich without work. It was Galbraith’s belief that a good knowledge of what happened in 1929 was the best safeguard against its recurrence.”
The Great Crash of 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith
Unf*cker Comment of the WeekFrom @jbsop79: “WOW. Great analysis. I have to admit that a while back when you popped up in my feed from Meidas Touch I thought that you were a kook. Boy was I wrong! Thank you for providing these excellent breakdowns and for bringing the receipts. I see this bear charging our way and I’m gathering my footing to jump out of its path thanks to your information and several others because only using one source is what a fool in a cult does.”
From zero to hero! |
Progressive Corner |
Progressive Spotlight: David Dayen.David Dayen runs progressive news outlet The American Prospect and strives to confront, expose, and rectify abuses of power by the people, policies, and politics most consequential to everyday Americans, and democracy overall.
Progressive Organization of the Week: Unrig Our Economy.“Unrig Our Economy is a campaign to fix the rules of our economy to make it work for working people. We’re fighting for working Americans and holding corporations, their wealthy executives, and the politicians who enable them accountable.” |
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