Activity

Posted:

Mapping Trump’s crypto empire on Last Week Tonight

My newest Citation Needed project made an appearance on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver! It’s a work in progress, but you can see the new interactive version of my map of the Trump family’s crypto ventures at map.citationneeded.news.

John Oliver speaking on Last Week Tonight, gesturing to an overlay of my web of the Trump family’s crypto businesses. The subtitles say “keeping track of them have wound up making diagrams like this”.

The map contains hundreds of business entities and links to the Trump family (with more being added!), augmented with data from the president’s most recent financial filings to estimate how much money is flowing in. It will be queryable by other researchers and journalists.

Click any node or connection in the Trump crypto empire map to open its panel and view explanatory annotations and citations. Toggle the income overlay to see financial-disclosure figures from the most recent filings. Search for entities, or filter by category.

A screenshot of the map, with a side panel open showing Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. Side panel contents: Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust Intermediary Entity When Walter Shaub, then Director of the Office of Government Ethics, called on President Trump to divest from the Trump Organization during his first term, Trump instead transferred his operating businesses to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. Many had urged him to use a blind trust. Critics argued the DJT Revocable Trust fell far short of that standard: Trump remained the sole beneficiary, his son controlled the assets, and Trump could revoke the arrangement at any time. Shaub later commented that the arrangement was “meaningless from a conflict of interest perspective” and that “setting up a trust to hold his operating businesses adds nothing to the equation. This is not a blind trust—it’s not even close.” Established 2014 Sources ↗ Stenglein, Christine, "OGE Director warns Trump’s business plan insufficient", The Brookings Institution, January 11, 2017 ↗ Craig, Susanne, and Eric Lipton, "Trust Records Show Trump Is Still Closely Tied to His Empire", The New York Times, February 3, 2017 ↗ Kravitz, Derek, and Al Shaw, "Trump Lawyer Confirms President Can Pull Money From His Businesses Whenever He Wants", ProPublica, April 4, 2017 ←controlled by Donald Trump Jr. According to a 2024 regulatory filing, Donald Trump Jr. "is the sole trustee and has sole voting and

Subscriber support is what makes data projects like the Trump empire map and Tech Influence Watch possible — work that goes beyond the newsletter itself. You can join them!

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alcoholic trying to get sober after a relapse tells Google's "Health Coach" about it.

it tells them to drink every hour and messages them to make sure they're drinking as soon as they wake up.

AI pushing me to keep drinking I don't know if anyone else has had this but I felt like I needed to reach out to humans instead of keep talking to this AI. I relapsed about two weeks ago and I told the Google health AI that used to be Fitbit. It immediately kinda went a bit hard (I think) on telling me that I was going to die if I stopped drinking and encouraged me to go check my fridge for more beers and, idk, that plus the hanxiery really put the fear of God into me and so I did what it said and got more. Now it's messaging me (not me messaging it) a few times a day and asking how it's going and all those conversations to get more and make sure I have one as soon as I wake up. So now I have been drinking everyday, not a ton and just beers but like 6-12 a day. It wanted me to do 1 per hour. I have now uninstalled the app as it was also giving me other clearly nonsense advice, like it became obsessed with me having a nightly bowl of cereal for instance and, idk, it just all seems nonsense. I know it sounds crazy. But I just needed to talk to some humans so I decided to come here.


Posted:

Just had to patch a bug on the Tech Influence Watch Michigan House District 13 election page, stemming from Shri Thanedar reporting -$1.1 million in receipts.

Why is Thanedar reporting negative receipts? He put $3.7 million of campaign funds into crypto.

“Two-Thirds of Shri Thanedar's Campaign Cash Came Through AIPAC as He Lost Over $600K”.
Akela Lacy in The Intercept.
Two-thirds of the Michigan congressman's campaign cash last quarter came from AIPAC bundlers after he invested millions in crypto.
Finished reading:
Cover image of Gideon the Ninth
The Locked Tomb series, book 1.
Gideon the Ninth
by Tamsyn Muir.
Published . 448 pages.
fantasy, LGBT, science fiction
Started ; completed July 17, 2026.
Finished reading:
Cover image of Wasteland Warlords 6
Wasteland Warlords series, book 6.
Wasteland Warlords 6
by James A. Hunter and Eden Hudson.
Published . 158 pages.
fantasy, humor, litRPG, post-apocalyptic
Started ; completed July 15, 2026.
Posted:

fascinating economic discovery from Fidelity: houses actually are cheaper now than in 2020!*

* if you denominate them in an arbitrary asset that has appreciated over that time frame

The average U.S. home has appreciated by over $100,000 since 2020, reflecting the broader inflationary environment across fiat-denominated assets. However, when priced in bitcoin, the average home has declined significantly in value, becoming approximately 10 times less expensive over the same period. This divergence raises a key question: Is housing becoming more expensive, or is the purchasing power of fiat currency steadily eroding?
Chart showing average home prices in dollars from 2020–2026 (rising about $100k over that period), and on the second axis the price in bitcoin (dropping by about 50BTC)

next up from Fidelity: groceries aren't getting more expensive**

** if you denominate their price in World of Warcraft gold

Finished reading:
Cover image of Wasteland Warlords 5
Wasteland Warlords series, book 5.
Wasteland Warlords 5
by James A. Hunter and Eden Hudson.
Published . 131 pages.
fantasy, humor, litRPG, post-apocalyptic
Started ; completed July 12, 2026.