EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
NEWS NEWS
Sex Trafficking Allegations: Federal inquiry documents suggest payments to women by Matt Gaetz.
NOT NEWS NEWS
Children's Media Manipulation: CocoMelon scientifically designs content to captivate young viewers.
Ukraine Missile Strategy: Analysis of changes in U.S. missile deployment for Ukraine.
Deregulation Plan: Musk and Ramaswamy propose aggressive federal workforce and regulation reduction strategy.
Wage Reality: Extremely few workers actually earn the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
Job Market Trend: Healthcare sector driving most job growth.
Fiscal Burden: Government interest costs have quadrupled since 2015.
Industrial Automation: United States drops out of top 10 in global robot density in manufacturing.
1.) NYT: Federal Inquiry Traced Payments From Gaetz to Women
A document prepared by federal investigators bolsters claims by women who say they were hired for sex by Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for attorney general, who denies wrongdoing.
From one of the author’s Michael Schmidt:
We obtained a document from the federal sex trafficking investigation of Gaetz. It shows he made thousands $ in payments to women who told investigators they had sex w/him for money. We are publishing a redacted version of the document:
[TS] Quite the web. Some payments reportedly made through his adopted son’s Venmo.
[RELATED] The House Ethics Committee voted on whether to release the Gaetz report
Per CNN’s Jim Sciutto:
The Republicans voted to protect Gaetz, according to a person familiar.
Rep. Susan Wild, the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, stressed that her party wanted to release the report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz and did not agree with the GOP’s decision, adding: “There was no consensus on this issue.”
QUICK BITES:
Trump nominates former acting AG Matt Whitaker as ambassador to NATO.
[TS] Whitaker was on the advisory board of World Patent Marketing, a company shut down in 2017 and fined nearly $26 million by the Federal Trade Commission for defrauding consumers.
[UPDATE] on Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick for Education secretary, resigned from a state education board shortly after a newspaper asked her about her false claim that she had an education degree (per WaPo).
[TS] Very common for college graduates to forget which degree they have.
‘Students come up to me—big, burly students—with tears in their eyes and say, “Sir, I forgot my major.”’
Charlie Kirk may be interested in running for Arizona governor in 2026
Dr. Oz is receiving pushback from the right on his previous sympathetic coverage of trans people.
[TS] I mentioned yesterday about the vacuum that would be left if America retreats from the world. I stumbled upon a quote from President Roosevelt in June 1940 that serves as a “devastating rebuke to the "America First” delusion”:
“Some indeed still hold to the now somewhat obvious delusion that we of the United States can safely permit the United States to become a lone island, a lone island in a world dominated by the philosophy of force.
Such an island may be the dream of those who still talk and vote as isolationists. Such an island represents to me and to the overwhelming majority of Americans today a helpless nightmare of a people without freedom-the nightmare of a people lodged in prison, handcuffed, hungry, and fed through the bars from day to day by the contemptuous, unpitying masters of other continents.”
Trump’s popular vote margin shrinks further to 1.7% (smallest victory gap since Bush in ’04)
Repeal of ranked choice voting in Alaska fails by 664 votes
MIT announced that students from families making <$200k attend free. The UT System announced that students from families making <$100k attend free.
2.) How addictive is CocoMelon?
[TS] NYTs had an unsettling article (to me) on CocoMelon. First, the reach of CocoMelon:
It's audience research day at Moonbug Entertainment, the London company that produces 29 of the most popular online kids' shows in the world, found on more than 150 platforms in 32 languages - and with 7.8 billion views on YouTube in March alone.
So, how do they build their content?
Once a month, children are brought here, one at a time, and shown a handful of episodes to figure out exactly which parts of the shows are engaging and which are tuned out.
For anyone older than 2 years old, the team deploys a whimsically named tool: the Distractatron.
It's a small TV screen, placed a few feet from the larger one, that plays a continuous loop of banal, real-world scenes — a guy pouring a cup of coffee, someone getting a haircut - each lasting about 20 seconds. Whenever a youngster looks away from the Moonbug show to glimpse the Distractatron, a note is jotted down.
[TS] So they’re purposefully designing CocoMelon to put babies in a trance like state. Precisely optimizing the destruction of attention spans on ourselves is not good.
They’re doing this for a kids show. Imagine what type of money companies are burning to capture your attention online, or with social media, or gaming, or gambling/casinos.
#StoptheSlop
3.) [TS] Good explainer by Michael Weiss on “What changed for Ukraine to use longer-range U.S. missiles?”
4.) WaPo’s Jeff Stein: Musk, Ramaswamy today gave us first "DOGE" roadmap; as I understand the key steps…
1. Deploy AI for Regulation Cuts: Place DOGE personnel in agencies to identify thousands of regulations for elimination using advanced technology like AI.
2. Presidential Approval of Cuts: Present Trump with a list of regulations to eliminate across government for his direct approval.
3. Streamline Workforce: Identify the minimum employees required for each agency’s core functions, assuming a reduced need post-regulation cuts (referencing Musk’s drastic headcount reduction at X).
4. Federal Workforce Reductions: Implement severance packages or early retirement incentives to reduce federal employees, as proposed by Musk/Ramaswamy.
5. Cut Lapsed Programs: Eliminate programs without active Congressional spending authorization (e.g., VA healthcare, NASA, antipoverty initiatives).
6. Suspend Payments for Audits: Approve a temporary halt on federal payments amid large-scale audits, though details remain unclear.
7. Challenge Budget Law: Assert presidential authority to halt spending without Congress by contesting the 1974 budget law on impoundments.
Court Challenges Expected: Plan appears reliant on executive actions, prepared to face judicial battles as needed.
[TS] I think most people can get on board with some of this. But others? Like cutting lapsed programs? Suspending payments for audits? Challenging budget law (which would consolidate even more power to the executive branch)?
I doubt you’d have broad support for that (assuming the public fully understood the consequences - like cutting VA healthcare).
[RELATED] Trump's next budget chief, Russ Vought believes Trump will have the authority to stop spending programs *without* Congress
Russ Vought (who will almost certainly be confirmed) has said in the past:
"The Constitutional principle is certainly power of the purse means that Congress gets to set the *ceiling* ... You weren't ever meant to be forced to spend it"
[RELATED 2] The Federal Government's Workforce Has Stayed Quite Steady In The Last 60+ Years
[TS] Now, given the increase in the local/state government workforce, I think it’s relevant to ask who’s paying for the local/state governments, NGOs, and contractors to administer ever more programs?
5.) Few workers actually make federal Minimum wage of $7.25
Just 68,000 people in the country make the federal minimum of $7.25/hr, less than 1 in 1000 workers.
[TS] Some states have opted to increase their minimum wage, but even in states where it’s still $7.25, almost no one is actually making that.
6.) Healthcare has been driving job growth.
[TS] Bo McCready put together a nice graphic showing job growth by type over the last 20 years.
7.) CRFB: Interest costs have quadrupled since 2015
While inflation played a role, prices during the same time period were up less than 30%.
Why the increase? Debt is way up and interest rates are way up. Bad combination.
[SEMI-RELATED] From 2014 to 2023, the typical monthly mortgage payment increased by more than $1,100
[TS] That is pretty wild. You can see the impact rising rates had on mortgages in the later years.
8.) International Federation of Robotics: US drops out of top 10
Global Robot Density in Factories Doubled in Seven Years
The IFR released its latest report (2023) on the robot density in the manufacturing industry. Their metric is robots installed per 10,000 employees:
[TS] For reference the last report from 2020:
China: 246 —> 470 (91%)
USA: 255 —> 295 (15.7%)
Not an encouraging growth figure from the US.
[SEMI-RELATED] China is now announcing sanctions on US drone companies, significantly reducing their battery supply.
[TS] Drones are undoubtedly the future of warfare, and it’s worth considering that credits like ‘45X’ (the Advanced Manufacturing Tax Credit from Biden’s IRA), which have driven the US battery boom, are serving a very real national security function.
The effect is very clear:
