Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, asked by Rep. Velazquez if he works for Trump: “We’re an independent central bank... My goal inside the central bank is for there to be no politics.”

Senator Lummis on Clarity Act ethics rules: "We can't just legislate for one person… This needs to be something that will withstand the test of time." Then reminds everyone Congress let Pelosi trade stocks while in office.

Student loan severe delinquency rates went from 0% to 25% in a matter of months after the COVID-era payment pause ended. Exposed how many borrowers were only 'current' because they weren't required to pay.

The Top 10 S&P 500 stocks now make up 43% of the index while the bottom 250 account for just 8%. Market concentration hasn't been this extreme in modern history.

The White House's top crypto adviser, Patrick Witt, is taking a months-long military leave to begin Army National Guard JAG training. He wraps up next Friday and reports July 27. The timing matters. The Clarity Act is entering its most critical stretch with Senate Republicans racing to bring it to the floor before August recess, widely seen as the last realistic window to pass the bill this Congress. Witt has been the administration's chief negotiator, brokering compromises on stablecoin yield, navigating the ethics provision fight, and working with law enforcement groups on the most contested parts of the bill. The biggest bottleneck remains the ethics provisions around Trump's crypto interests. His 2025 disclosures showed over $1 billion in personal crypto income. That conflict is what's keeping Democrats from the table, and you need 7 of them to clear the filibuster. Section 604 is still under attack. That's the developer protection provision that would prevent open-source software developers from being treated as money transmitters. Law enforcement groups, prosecutors, and 160 former intelligence officials have all pushed to gut or kill it. It's arguably the most important section in the entire bill for anyone building freedom tech. Witt's deputy Harry Jung steps in and has been in the room for most of the negotiations. But losing the lead negotiator right now with the August recess clock ticking raises a real question about whether this actually gets across the finish line, and if it does, whether Section 604 survives intact.

"Two government departments vying to run the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. That probably doesn't happen if this is either fully on ice or just completely irrelevant to them." - @JOHN ARNOLD

"The bankers lobbying group sent a letter saying stop, pump the brakes. A few months later the OCC effectively said 'no, I don't think I will' and moved ahead with Circle and Kraken." - @JOHN ARNOLD

New Jersey just signed the Power NJ Act, launching a competitive procurement process for at least 1,100 megawatts of new nuclear generation. Governor Sherrill signed it today with unanimous bipartisan support from both chambers of the Legislature. This is the same state that lifted a 50-year moratorium on new nuclear development just three months ago in April. In six months in office, Sherrill has gone from freezing rate hikes on day one to actively procuring new nuclear plants. The bill has real ratepayer protections built in. No costs passed to consumers until a plant is built and delivering electricity. Projects must secure federal financing, shifting construction risk away from ratepayers. Every project has to demonstrate a net benefit. That matters because the last major US nuclear build, the two reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, came in seven years late and more than doubled its original budget to over $35 billion. Nuclear already provides over 40% of New Jersey's total energy. These plants run at 90-95% capacity. Nothing else comes close to that combination of reliability and density. The backdrop here is AI-driven electricity demand. New Jersey also just rolled out what it calls the most comprehensive data center plan in the nation. The energy demands of the next decade require baseload power that solar and wind simply cannot provide at scale without nuclear filling the gap.

"El-Erian frames everything Bessent laid out as permanent and systemic, not ad hoc. For this headline to be in the Times, there's some ideological pump priming going on." - @JOHN ARNOLD

The guy your dad warned you about meeting the guy your other dad warned you about.

"What's interesting about both Strategy and Strive is they have dollar reserves that can hold them over from a dividend perspective without having to sell the Bitcoin. That should give folks more comfort." - (APompliano) on CNBC

"The charts are not looking great. You didn't get the same retrenchment anywhere close to pre-war levels and now we're back up moving much more meaningfully toward recent highs." - @JOHN ARNOLD

"The ceasefire is dead, and there's no off ramp until one side blinks. The incentives on both sides are to keep this going and now Trump wants to be paid to guard the strait." - @JOHN ARNOLD We discuss: ⚡ 3 ships hit in 24 hours ⚡ The MOU is over ⚡ Nobody wants it to end

Former OpenAI researcher (DKokotajlo) on what happens when your AI timelines collapse. "I used to be known as a pretty chipper and optimistic person." Then GPT-3 hit and he realized super intelligence was plausibly coming by end of decade.

"People believe what they need to believe in order to think that they're good people and that they need to keep doing what they're doing." (DKokotajlo) on whether AI CEOs think there's a chance of extinction.

OpenAI's exit paperwork said (DKokotajlo) couldn't criticize the company or tell anyone about the clause. He refused to sign, nearly lost 80% of his net worth. Sam Altman said he was "embarrassed he didn't know."

A Russian statesman in the 1890s observed that when you de-Christianize the state, you don't get liberty. You get another cult that runs the state. "I've noticed that too." - Tucker Carlson

"Very wealthy families about a hundred years ago were able to buy off many of the mainline Protestant denominations and turn them into effectually NGOs." (JayDyer) on how the Rockefellers invested in the World Council of Churches to make Christianity a form of soft power.

.(JayDyer) cites the Rothschild biography on wiring a million rubles to Lenin to make Russian Christians "pay for what they did for many centuries." "No one's paid more dearly." - Tucker Carlson

Why Byzantium was the most successful empire in history, how it flourished on sound money, and fell when they started clipping the gold. "If your civilization is logo-centric, you're aligned with what's true. You're just going to prosper." - (JayDyer) on Tucker Carlson