I forgot to post my D-Day joke yesterday, so here it is! 😂 An old veteran was looking through his bag for his passport. The woman on passport control asked him, “Have you visited France before?” “Yes,” replied the old man. Sarcastically she responded, “Well surely you should know to have your passport ready,” to which he answered, “I didn't have to show it last time.” “Impossible!!” she barked. The old man looked her straight in the eye and said, "Last time, when I landed on D-Day in 1944, I couldn't find a dadgum Frenchman to give it to.”

Chicago lost the Bears this week. A team that's been in the city since 1921. They didn't lose them to a bigger market or a better deal. The Bears decided they'd rather be a tenant in Indiana than deal with Illinois for one more year. Think about how badly you have to run a place for that to be the smart move. They lost them for two reasons. The people running Illinois would rather villainize a builder than keep one. And they're bad at their jobs. In 2021 the Bears spent $197M on the old Arlington Park racetrack. Before they could break ground, Cook County valued the empty lot at $192M (Bears said $60M). They were salivating at the chance to extort a building that didn't even exist yet. That fight dragged on for years. The Bears were ready to put $2B into the stadium. All they wanted was a promise the county wouldn't reassess them into oblivion, plus $855M for infrastructure everyone uses. Roads, transit, utilities. A $3B project, two thirds of it private money pouring into Illinois. Springfield had since 2021 to get this done. They dragged it to the final night of session, passed it through the Senate at 3:39AM, and the House went home without voting. So now it's all gone. The funniest part? This started because Cook County tried to grab the tax early. They knew a built stadium would pay $53M a year. Now they get under $4M on a vacant lot. No jobs, no buildout, no new anything. Congrats on fighting for scraps and losing the whole prize. Pritzker: they're "an $8.5B valued business" that doesn't need propping up. But be smart for a second. Almost every NFL city throws in public money for a stadium. Not charity. The return is real. Tourism, hotels, restaurants, jobs, game days, property tax on a huge development. The math works. Indiana did the math. While Illinois sat on it for years, Indiana passed a bill in months, put up $1B, and took the team. And the Bears took a worse deal to get there. In Illinois they were going to own their stadium. In Indiana they rent it from the state. A team that wanted to build its own home gave up ownership just to escape Chicago. Nobody won but Indiana. The Bears lost their stadium. Illinois lost the team, the $2B, and $53M a year in taxes. Pritzker after they left: "I wasn't willing to give up billions of dollars of taxpayer money to give it to a billionaire-owned family or team." There it is. "Billionaire-owned." That's how Democrats talk about any business right before they run it out of town. Call them a billionaire, act like you're saving working families, take a victory lap while the tax base drives across the state line. Meanwhile they're running the whole state into the ground. And you already know how this ends. You're living in it. Pensions are $143B in the hole, worst in the country and not close. You pay $6,285 a year in property taxes, double the $2,969 national average, for a city that's $1.15B in the red. The mayor called its finances "the point of no return." When you run things this badly, you sell what's left. They leased the parking meters for 75 years to Morgan Stanley and a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi. Took $1.15B and burned through it in two years. The investors already made it all back, with 58 years left to collect. Sold the Skyway. Sold the downtown garages. Every asset that made money, gone for one check. But a fixed property tax rate for a team that's been here 106 years? That's "propping up billionaires." Companies are leaving. Boeing for Virginia. Caterpillar for Texas. Citadel for Miami. In 2023 alone Illinois lost 56,000 people and $6B in income to other states. The ones who left earned a third more than the ones who moved in. Indiana didn't outbid anyone. AAA credit, 16 years straight. A $676M surplus. Fourth-lowest debt per person in the country. They just weren't a disaster. Illinois could have collected $53M a year. It chose zero. Ignore all the bad management but make sure to stick it to those evil, pesky billionaires.

You need an id to return cans in CT.

Everything you read makes sense if you simply translate "experts" as "crazy people".

Ouch

By publishing this explicitly false story, the @FT has officially become tabloid trash for market participants. Despite my direct, on-the-record denial of ever having advocated, explored, or espoused the idea that Chancellor-Bank of England statute serving as a prototype for a Treasury-Federal Reserve relationship, FT journalists manufactured a story with the headline, “Scott Bessent praised Bank of England as model for tighter oversight of the Federal Reserve.” These pathetic journalists have clearly fabricated a story to give the impression that both I and the Trump Administration are setting “about restructuring the relationship… at a time when President Donald Trump has launched an unprecedented assault on the world’s most important central bank.” Their mendacious assertion is based on vague statements from unnamed “financial industry executives familiar with the matter.” In short, FT has literally manufactured an entirely fake policy position for me and the Administration. Other than furthering a maliciously false narrative of dysfunction and divisiveness, it baffles the mind as to why they would shred their already diminished journalistic credibility. Over the past 10 years, I have written more than 20,000 words opining on the Federal Reserve decisions, personnel, structure, and modifications. Nowhere have I ever mentioned this ridiculous notion. The Governor’s letters to the Chancellor have proven to be a useless and perfunctory device. There is much to be said about the storied Bank of England, but any recreation of its operating framework on this side of the Atlantic has never been contemplated. The shameful journalists and editors at the FT are shocking in their meretriciousness, lack of standards, and general intellectual libertinism. It is the worst tradition of Fleet Street to manufacture news rather than report on it. They have brought irredeemable shame to their parent organization, Nikkei Inc., with whom I had previously held excellent relations. In 2025, I laid out a comprehensive 6,000 word review of each and every policy reform that I believe should be adopted by the Federal Reserve. Read my actual, real thoughts on and proposals for Federal Reserve reform at the International Economy: international-economy.com/TI…

The prompts were simple. First, I told ⁦@grok⁩ to look at every single Amelia meme on the Internet. Second, I said: “Become Amelia, then make a video and tell the British people what you want them to know.” Here’s the surprising result.

I'm no historian but I don't think there's ever been a situation in the last 100 years where the people storming the churches were the good guys.

What is Wi-Fi 8? And why speed isn't your primary concern with the latest standard buff.ly/iHHDiYI via @SJVN

In FY 2025, the FTC received more than 2.6 million DNC complaints and 4.8 million new numbers were added to the DNC Registry. #FTC #DNC ftc.gov/news-events/news/pre…

Newly Approved CCPA Regulations Have Staggered Deadlines for Compliance. In other words California being California. #CCPA #privacy #infosec #cybersecurity buff.ly/fGdoxv1

Disney settles charges that it violated children’s online privacy protection law #COPPA #FTC #Disney #privacy #infosec #cybersecurity buff.ly/RYDKGgT

Another federal court sanctions lawyers over AI-Hallucinated citations backing unverified and inaccurate claims | JD Supra buff.ly/oufcYU8

Connecticut Attorney General Announces First Settlement under Connecticut Data Privacy Act #infosec #CTDPA #cybersecurity #privacypolicy #privacy buff.ly/EA7SLXt

Almost 1/3 of executives in the U.S., 31%, cited cyber risk as their greatest threat, up from 22% in 2024, according to Beazley PLC’s Spotlight on Tech Transformation & Cyber Risk 2025 report, released Friday. #cyberrisk #cybersecurity #infosec #privacy buff.ly/vY3YjW0

The seemingly endless Starwood/Marriott data breach litigation, dating back to a 2018 breach, continues... with yet another trip to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. Opinion issued today, here, reversing the District Court again: buff.ly/tl4bJKI #databreach #infosec

Latest example of an agency going above and beyond their authorization. NJ's Division of Consumer Affairs openly rewrites and expands the definition of "personal data" in its issued Rules under the NJ Data Privacy Act buff.ly/Xj2XL6W

Two weeks left to comment on the NIST Privacy Framework 1.1initial public draft. Details at buff.ly/LQsW7zi #infosec #NIST #PrivacyFramework #privacy #cybersecurity

FTC publishes final COPPA Rule amendments to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule. Amendments cover "one new definition and modifications to several others, as well as updates to key provisions." #COPPA #FTC #privacy #infosec #cybersecurity federalregister.gov/document…