Tough Prosecutors Save Lives, But Not How You Think

A new paper from Panka Bencsik (Vanderbilt) and Daniel Giles (Wellesley) studied hundreds of closely contested partisan elections for local prosecutors between 2010 and 2019 using a regression discontinuity design. The finding: electing a Republican prosecutor reduces all-cause mortality among men aged 20 to 29 by 6.6%. The effect is driven almost entirely by reductions in firearm-related deaths.

The most striking result is among Black men, where firearm homicide drops significantly in jurisdictions that narrowly elect a Republican prosecutor versus a Democrat. Among White men, the effect shows up as a smaller reduction in firearm suicides and accidents. There is no measurable effect on opioid overdose mortality, which serves as a useful placebo test. Prosecutors don't influence drug supply chains, but they do influence who gets convicted and what legal consequences follow.

Here's where it gets interesting for both sides of the political spectrum. The mechanism is not primarily incapacitation, meaning it's not just about locking dangerous people in cages. Prison incapacitation only explains about one third of the mortality reduction among Black men. The dominant channel is conviction-based restrictions on firearms access. Under federal and most state laws, a felony conviction strips your legal right to own a gun. Republican prosecutors secure higher conviction rates, which means more people in high-risk demographics lose legal access to firearms. The lives saved come from people who can no longer legally purchase or possess a weapon.

This is uncomfortable for everyone. The right has to reckon with the fact that the mechanism saving lives is effectively a form of gun restriction. The left has to reckon with the fact that it only works when prosecutors actually pursue convictions instead of diversion programs. The data doesn't care about your priors. Tough prosecution, applied through the existing legal framework, produces measurable reductions in death. That's not opinion. That's hundreds of elections and a decade of mortality data.

Block Layoffs: The Reactions Tell the Real Story

Why it matters: The first major AI-driven restructuring could set the template for corporate America.

The Block layoffs that cut roughly 4,000 jobs have been digested for 48 hours now, and the reactions are more revealing than the news itself. Jack Dorsey's tweet about the decision racked up 19.3 million views and 24,500 likes. Block's stock jumped 25%. The market rewarded Dorsey with roughly $600 million in new shareholder value for cutting headcount, which tells you everything about how Wall Street values bloated tech companies right now.

The reactions split into two camps. One side sees this as the first truly AI-driven layoff at scale, a signal that automation is replacing human labor faster than anyone expected. Matthew Pines warned of a cascade effect across the industry. The other side argues that AI is a convenient scapegoat for a company that was simply overstaffed. Jack had a bloated company and was seeing real AI productivity gains. Both things can be true simultaneously. As we noted, the doomsday scenario where everyone loses their jobs overnight ignores physical constraints. We are short workers in skilled trades, healthcare, and infrastructure. But the white-collar knowledge worker? That job description is being rewritten in real time.

Bitcoin ETFs Bought $506.6M in a Single Day

Why it matters: Institutional demand is accelerating again after a volatile stretch.

The spot Bitcoin ETFs collectively purchased $506.6 million worth of BTC yesterday, a significant single-day inflow that signals renewed institutional appetite. This comes on the heels of a volatile week that included revelations about Jane Street's involvement in the ETF arbitrage ecosystem. The consistent pattern remains: institutions buy the dips that retail panics over. Over half a billion dollars in a day is not passive allocation. That is active accumulation by entities with long time horizons and deep pockets.

Citi Confirms Move Toward Bitcoin Integration

Why it matters: A $2.5 trillion bank exploring BTC services is another domino falling.

Citibank, one of the largest financial institutions in the world with $2.5 trillion in assets, confirmed at MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin for Corporations conference this week that it is working on making Bitcoin "bankable" for its clients. This represents another major institutional domino. The pattern is unmistakable: first BlackRock, then Fidelity, then the custodians, then the prime brokers, and now the commercial banks themselves. Each entry normalizes Bitcoin for the next tier of conservative capital. The question is no longer whether traditional finance adopts Bitcoin. It's how fast the integration happens and how much of the existing financial infrastructure gets rebuilt around it.

MicroStrategy Now Has the Highest Short Interest Among US Stocks

Why it matters: Massive short positioning creates squeeze potential as pension funds keep buying.

MicroStrategy (MSTR) now holds the highest short interest of any stock in the US market. This is happening despite pension funds continuing to accumulate shares and the stock recovering from its recent lows. The setup is textbook: a heavily shorted name with persistent institutional buying pressure and a catalyst (Bitcoin price appreciation) that could force rapid short covering. The bears are betting that Saylor's leveraged Bitcoin strategy will implode. The longs are betting that Bitcoin's trajectory makes the leverage look conservative in hindsight. One side is going to get destroyed. The short interest data suggests the pain trade is up.

Iran Rushing Oil Onto Ships Ahead of Potential US Strikes

Why it matters: Geopolitical risk is repricing in real time across energy and prediction markets.

Iran is reportedly loading oil onto tankers at an accelerated pace in anticipation of potential US military strikes. This isn't idle speculation. Polymarket currently has $6.1 million in volume on the question of whether the US strikes Iran by February 28. When a nation starts panic-selling its primary export commodity, it's pricing in kinetic conflict as a near-term probability. The implications for energy markets, and by extension every risk asset including Bitcoin, are significant. A strike on Iranian infrastructure would send oil prices surging, amplify inflationary pressures globally, and potentially trigger a broader regional conflict. Watch this one closely.

Indiana Greenlights Bitcoin for Public Retirement Funds

Why it matters: State pension money is the most conservative capital in America, and it's now legally allowed to flow into Bitcoin.

Indiana's House approved HB 1042 by a 59-33 vote, clearing it through both chambers and sending it to Governor Mike Braun's desk for signature. The bill does three things: it protects Bitcoin self-custody rights, prohibits discriminatory taxation on cryptocurrency, and allows digital asset allocation within state-managed retirement and pension funds. Indiana joins at least 21 other states evaluating similar legislation, but the scope of this bill is unusually comprehensive. Wisconsin's pension fund already made headlines by buying spot Bitcoin ETFs last year. Texas bought Bitcoin directly for its strategic reserve. The pattern is unmistakable: state-level fiduciary capital is formalizing Bitcoin exposure, not as speculation but as a recognized asset class within regulated portfolios. When pension managers start allocating, the infrastructure around custody, compliance, and reporting has to follow. That is how adoption becomes irreversible.

Supertanker Shipping Costs Hit Pandemic-Era Highs on Middle East Route

Why it matters: Energy logistics are repricing war risk in real time, and the inflation implications are significant.

The cost of shipping oil via supertankers on the critical Middle East Gulf to China route has surged to roughly $206,000 per day, the highest levels since the 2020 pandemic era according to Baltic Exchange data and Reuters reporting. This is not an abstract number. Supertanker day rates are one of the purest real-time signals of geopolitical risk in global energy markets. When shipping costs spike like this, it means insurers are repricing war risk premiums, vessel operators are demanding hazard pay, and route availability is tightening. The timing is not coincidental: Iran is loading tankers at an accelerated pace ahead of potential US strikes, Polymarket has $6.1 million in volume on a US-Iran strike by February 28, and Houthi disruptions continue to reroute traffic away from the Red Sea. Higher shipping costs feed directly into the price of crude at the refinery gate, which feeds into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and every product that moves by truck or ship. This is an inflationary pressure that central banks cannot print away.

Rothschild Heir Begs Clients Not to Flee Over Epstein Ties

Why it matters: The old financial establishment's credibility crisis keeps deepening.

Baroness Ariane de Rothschild is reportedly pleading with clients not to pull their money from Edmond de Rothschild over her connections to Jeffrey Epstein. She has characterized Epstein as a mere "business acquaintance," but that framing conveniently omits a $25 million DOJ settlement and other documented connections. The broader pattern is impossible to ignore: legacy financial institutions built on trust and discretion are watching that trust evaporate as their connections to compromised figures become public. In a world where Bitcoin offers an exit from counterparty risk and institutional decay, stories like this are not just gossip. They are recruitment ads for self-sovereignty.

The New York Times: "Crypto Is Pointless. Not Even the White House Can Fix That."

Why it matters: The Paper of Record has been wrong about Bitcoin for 17 years. Here are the receipts.

The New York Times published an op-ed declaring crypto "pointless" and arguing that not even the White House can save it. This is worth documenting not because the argument is new, but because the NYT's track record on Bitcoin is one of the most reliable contrarian indicators in financial media. A brief history:

In 2013, the NYT ran "Can Bitcoin Conquer Argentina?" while BTC traded at $130, framing it as a novelty for unstable economies. In 2014, after Mt. Gox collapsed, they published pieces questioning whether Bitcoin could survive at all. BTC was under $400. In 2017, Paul Krugman wrote "Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I'm a Crypto Skeptic" at around $8,000. In 2018, they ran "Bitcoin Is (Nearly) Worthless" when BTC hit $3,500. In 2022, after FTX imploded, the NYT gave Sam Bankman-Fried a puff piece at a DealBook summit while simultaneously publishing "The Crypto Crash Is Coming" takes. Bitcoin was at $16,000.

Every single time the NYT has declared Bitcoin dead or pointless, it has been a generational buying opportunity. Bitcoin has gone from $0 to a $1.3 trillion asset with spot ETFs, sovereign adoption, and pension fund allocation. The NYT is now publishing this take while Indiana is literally voting to put Bitcoin in retirement funds. At some point, the pattern stops being coincidence and starts being institutional bias. File this one away for 2029.

Bohemian Grove Membership List Leaked

Why it matters: The anti-establishment mood keeps finding new targets, and this one is real.

The full membership list of the Bohemian Grove has been leaked. For decades, the Grove has been the most exclusive gathering of American political, business, and media elites, an invitation-only retreat in Northern California where presidents, CEOs, and power brokers mingle behind closed doors. The existence of the club was never secret, but the membership roster was. Now it's public. In the current political climate, where institutional trust is at historic lows and the "conspiracy theory to confirmed fact" pipeline keeps accelerating, this is gasoline on an already raging fire. Expect this to trend for days.

SLNT

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