Friday News Roundup
If you haven’t done so already, please check out my previous email “Gang Truces and the Axis of Autocracy.” I was originally planning to have it as part of my usual Friday News Roundup, but it eventually expanded enough that I felt it required its own newsletter. It’s about how the Trump Administration and Nayib Bukele’s dictatorial prison regime in El Salvador are not really fighting MS-13 gang violence, but in cahoots with it. The administrative errors that lead to non-gang members deported to Salvadoran gulags are not occasional lapses, but precisely how Trump and Bukele can hide their corrupt bargain with MS-13.
Elon’s DOGE Cyber-Oligarchy Strikes Again
It will probably get missed because it’s only a two-line story, but Reuters revealed that Musk and DOGE are seeking broad access to Securities and Exchange Commission data. The attorney representing DOGE and by extension Elon Musk’s interests in this matter is a guy named Eliezer Mishory, who previously represented the sports betting firm Kalshi. Before joining Kalshi, Mishory had been a regulator at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. If anybody epitomizes “revolving door” corruption in shuttling back and forth between regulators and industry, it’s definitely Mishory.
Needless to say, Elon Musk himself has been a frequent violator of SEC regulations, such as the falsely claiming in 2018 about taking Tesla private, failing to disclose Twitter shares during his hostile takeover, and making misleading statements about the safety of Neuralink. When Elon Musk is teaming up with a guy like Eliezer Mishory to get access to SEC, it’s what the kids today call “highly sus.”
Elon’s DOGE minions also got unauthorized access to National Labor Relations Board data. According to NLRB whistleblower Daniel Berulis, DOGE members refused to log their online activities or keep any records at all, which is a big red flag from a security standpoint. DOGE violated basic security protocols so badly that a Russian IP address nearly accessed the private NLRB info, which includes data such as whistleblower reports against companies engaging in major safety violations against the workers. According to a statement released by the advocacy group Whistleblower Aid, Berulis was also threatened by having drone pictures of himself waking in his neighborhood taped to his door by somebody presumably affiliated with DOGE. Since Elon Musk has a long track of violating NLRB regulations by intimidating union members, flouting anti-discrimination laws, and violating workplace safety standards, I’m going to argue that Elon thinks Russian breaches of our government data are a feature, not a bug.
DOGE employees engaged in a hostile takeover against career government employees who tried to protect U.S. residents’ private tax information. The goal was to get the private home addresses of 700,000 immigrants so that they could be deported. DOGE’s breach of private IRS data is likely a move that will financially enrich Musk’s fellow oligarch Peter Thiel. Thiel’s shadowy private security company Palantir stands to profit from some fat government contracts, while using our private tax data as the basis for the unaccountable Big Brother operations.
Other News Highlights
Nikita Casap, a teen affiliated with the neo-Nazi, Satanic group the Order of Nine Angles, has been charged with killing his parents, as well as attempting to start a race war by assassinating Donald Trump.
Donald Trump quickly exempted computers and smartphones from his new tariffs, despite some of his trade advisors naively assuming that Trump wanted to bring computer and smartphone manufacturing to America.
Donald Trump’s favorite European autocrat, Hungary’s Victor Orban, has passed anti-LGBTQ changes to the country’s constitution.
Donald Trump menacingly suggested that he wants to expand deportations to what he calls “homegrowns” (i.e., U.S. citizens).
Cody Ballmer was arrested for firebombing Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence while the Shapiro and his family celebrated their Passover seder. The incident is currently being investigated as an anti-Semitic hate crime.
As the U.S. trade war with China escalates, China announces that it will no longer buy planes from Boeing.