We're Terrorists, Again

A note on Venezuela

Last night, a massive double earthquake rocked Caracas and surrounding areas in Venezuela. The death and injury toll is rising as time goes on. Two quakes, one 7.2 and one 7.4 hit back-to-back, causing widespread damage. My heart breaks for the people of Venezuela, and I will keep an eye out for links to share for relief efforts.

Did You Receive Your Latest Left-Wing Terrorist Cell Paycheck?

Well, I guess we're continuing on from last time, eh?

We find ourselves with the same tired refrain: a group of protestors—some of whom did break the law, but most of whom were just kinda there—have been labeled "terrorists" by the state as a judge just handed down sentences ranging from 30 to 100 years. Together, the folks wrapped up in this are often referred to as the Prairieland 19.

What did they do that merited such a sentence? Mass murder? Grand larceny? Hoarding gold bars?

One of them shot a cop in the shoulder. The cop lived. The others were just attending a protest outside of the Prairieland Detention Center outside of Dallas, Texas, where demonstrators planned to launch fireworks as a display of solidarity with the state's detainees inside. And one moved a few zines. He got 30 years.

The Trump administration has been loud about "going after Antifa," despite the tired constant response of "antifa is not an organization." It's not. There does not exist an "Antifa HQ," or a "leader of Antifa" or even "Antifa cells." It's a general term for anti-fascism. Moreover, the state did not need to formally prove that the defendants were "members of antifa" to land their terrorism charges.

Here's a quick overview of what happened. This has been covered widely, so I'm not going to re-litigate the moment to moment here. But the general timeline of events was:

• July 4, 2025: Demonstrators organize at the ICE facility, launching fireworks and making noise. As officers responded, Benjamin Song shot one officer, wounding him
  • Song maintains the shot was defensive as the officer was about to shoot a fleeing, unarmed protestor
  • Song also maintains that no other protestor was involved in the shooting and that he acted entirely alone on it
• October 2025: First indictment charging two people (Hill and Evetts) with terrorism
• November 2025: Second indictment with 9 people indicted for terrorism. Seven of the defendants take a plea deal rather than go to court against the state
• February 2026: A judge declared a mistrial during jury selection because a defense attorney wore a shirt with MLK and other civil rights era figures on it
• March 2026: All 9 defendants convicted, three more people indicted
• June 2026: Sentencing handed down for 8 people, totaling 450 years. More sentences to come.

I won't pretend a cop wasn't shot. And also, only one of them seemingly had anything to do with that. Others were charged with aiding the attempted murder, but those charges didn't land. The prosecutors mostly went with "they shot a cop and also had explosives" referring to the fireworks.

Still, the sentencing is absolutely absurd to the point of brutality:

Sanchez-Estrada's sentencing is particularly egregious, as his "crime" was having received a call from his partner (also a defendant) asking him to move some leftist literature zines from her home. Cops saw him moving a box of stuff, and now he is set to spend three decades of his life in prison.

As a reminder, the sitting president of the United States of America was found guilty of 34 felony charges of falsifying records, seeing a grand total of zero days in prison for his crimes. This is because the justice system in our country does not function to benefit the people of our country but instead functions to protect capital and white supremacy. Or to protect pedophiles, I dunno. Why not all of the above?

A Look at the Sentences

The lowest number was 30 years, the highest (Song) is 100 years, with a handful of 50-year sentences thrown in the mix. Again, nobody died.

Even if the cop did die, its still a comparatively absurd sentencing. A quick look at the United States Sentencing Commission's interactive data analyzer lets you explore average sentencing length by crime.

Here is the breakdown of sentencing for murder charges across all of the US in 2025:

The median length is about 24 years. For murder. Like, direct murder. Taking a human life intentionally with malice.

Benjamin Song received a sentencing more than four times the average length of a murder sentence. Sanchez-Estrada received 125% of the median sentencing for murder because he moved some zines with leftist messaging protected by free speech laws.

So anyway, here's the breakdown of sentencing for child pornography:

A median sentencing duration of around 8 years. Eight years for child pornography. 30 years for moving zines. 50 years for having fireworks at a protest. 100 years for injuring a cop.

Unrelated, 140 officers were injured and one died from injuries after the January 6th insurrection. The Trump administration blanketly pardoned all January 6th convicts, resulting in some officers who were involved in their trials receiving warnings that the violent people they testified against have been released and may try to get back at them. Several of the pardoned convicts have been arrested again for crimes like child pornography (EIGHT YEARS?) or even killed by cops during another altercation since having left prison.

Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys and one of the key people in January 6th was found guilty of seditious conspiracy and received 22 years in prison, only serving a couple before his pardon.

But Sanchez-Estrada moved some zines, which I guess imperiled our national security.

Some of the defendants have already said they'll appeal. The likelihood of their sentencing getting reduced is kinda low given their options for appeals courts. And even if the appeal makes it to the Supreme Court, the chances of the current SCOTUS giving a break to a group of people that the Trump administration is trying really hard to claim are a dangerous "Antifa terrorist cell" is basically zero.

Do not let this deter you from attending protests. But remember to be aware of your surroundings, who you are with. Don't bring your phone if you can leave it at home. Write down emergency contacts on your arm. And never, ever, EVER, assume that any digital communication is private, even if you are using an encrypted messaging system.

That Gold Bar Mention Was Intentional

How about a sharp pivot?

An ex-CIA official tricked the CIA into employing him for 17 years before ultimately being arrested last month with 303 bars of gold hoarded at his home, along with a bunch of other ill-gotten valuables.

David Rush, a former senior CIA officer, was found with 303 kilobars of ill-gotten gold in his home. Kilobars are the smaller bars of gold which are more widely used in retail given their size and that the price point of one bar lands somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000 USD depending on the weather. In total, the bars are valued at $40,000,000.

As the FBI investigated Rush, they found that he had fabricated the resume he used to get his role at the CIA, including a degree, military status, and claims of Navy air pilot accolades—despite not having a pilot's license.

Rush had applied to the CIA three times before getting hired, each time adding more fake stuff to his resume. He reportedly passed the polygraph test routinely at the CIA, and it wasn't until he put in the order for the gold that they decided to look a little deeper. Turns out, whoopsie! The Central Intelligence Agency's intelligence seems to be less central than we thought.

His plan was solid, but not solid gold. He used his high ranking position in the CIA to set up a fake program to route payments to, convincing two other workers to move payments into the program, which was ostensibly to help with essential government operations in the event of disaster.

As of now, he's not actually been charged with anything for the gold. He's on trial for theft of public money for a separate case where Rush had received $77,000 in compensation for fraudulently claimed military leave.

I wonder if he'll get a 50+ year sentence, seeing as this case involves documents in some capacity.

I Guess I'd Prefer Monogamous Markets

The Wall Street Journal recently published an investigation into betting platform "Polymarket," revealing that they've been paying content creators to post fake videos of winning huge bets, in some cases winning six figures in one bet.

Polymarket is one of several "prediction markets"; platforms which allow users to bet on basically anything: the weather, political events, traffic patterns, you name it. Hell, there's even betting on wartime efforts, of which we saw a bunch of bets placed perfectly timed before major Iran war advances. Even Meta is reportedly building their own prediction market app.

Now, shitty corporations paying influencers to shill their stuff without properly labeling advertisements is nowhere near new. That is a pervasive issue all around. But Polymarket's strategy took it to the next level.

According to the Journal, Polymarket and their advertising partner went as far as to provide content creators with a fake version of their website capable of setting up bets to look as if they were winning real money. This resulted in a flood of video content from creators faking betting wins in unlabeled advertising, with video of them "using" Polymarket in real time to show how "easy" it is to make money from it.

The investigation reviewed over 1,000 videos from 10 creators. The cumulative bets placed in the videos totaled $1,900,000. But again—none of it was real money.

As they continued to review the content, they found that videos showing creators winning money totaled around $900,000 in fictitious gains. When they checked how those bets would have actually played out if they were placed on the real Polymarket instead of the fake version, it would have resulted in a $166,000 loss.

Polymarket, Kalshi, and other prediction markets are relatively new and—similar to AI and crypto—have basically no meaningful regulation around them. They've been embraced by major media outlets as data analysis platforms already, bringing "here's what terminally online crypto bros think about the future" into economic discourse.

At time of writing, Polymarket has only really put out a statement saying, "nuh uh," and hasn't faced any real consequences. I'm not holding my breath; Donald Trump Jr. is on the advisory board of Polymarket and virtually no judicial action is happening on that front.

The State of the Ceasefire

I'm so, so tired of talking about ceasefires that mean nothing. It's been years of this now between the Gaza genocide, Israel's attacks on Lebanon, and then the Iran war to top it off.

Here's where things stand right now:

• The Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by the US and Iran
• Peace talks have begun between the US and Iran, despite Trump's continued flailing around with threats to restart the war
• Despite multiple "ceasefire" announcements between Israel and Lebanon, Israel is still bombing Lebanon and Netanyahu maintains that Israel will stay there
• Iran says that the Memorandum includes a ceasefire in Lebanon, which Israel continues to undermine

The whole situation is just wild. The MoU reads like a near total capitulation to Iran, while Trump seems to have accidentally stated that the US is "down to four weeks of oil reserves." At this point, it's pretty hard to see this as anything other than the deeply obvious outcome of this farce.

Here's the Weather

More Stuff

• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has stepped down, opening a path for newly-elected parliament member Andy Burnham to take over
• Valve's Steam Machine price has been announced and it's much more than people had hoped for again thanks to the hardware shortage caused by the AI boom
• The co-founder of Ubisoft and co-creator of several major Ubisoft IPs died in a plane crash
• The loudest person on earth recently broke the world record for being loud. He's an Australian.