Coffee Talk with Tiff

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It’s Friday.

Shitshow’s public schedule for…

04/24/2026:

His weekend schedule:

Free For All Friday!

US Attorney Wino Pirro admits her case against Fed Chairman Jerome Powell was politically motivated.

Narrator: The taxpayer does not pay for the Federal Reserve.

The Fed Explained: What the Central Bank Does (135 pg. pdf):

PDF Page 12:

The Federal Reserve is not funded by congressional appropriations. Its operations are financed primarily from the interest earned on the securities it owns—securities acquired in the course of the Federal Reserve’s open market operations. The fees received for priced services provided to depository institutions—such as check clearing, funds transfers, and automated clearinghouse operations—are another source of income; this income is used to cover the cost of those services.

After payment of expenses and transfers to surplus (limited to an aggregate of $6.785 billion), all the net earnings of the Reserve Banks are transferred to the U.S. Treasury (figure 1.4).

The Fed Explained: What the Central Bank Does (135 pg. pdf).

Figure 1.4:

The More You Know: Make no mistake she is dropping the charges for the same reason she brought the charges. Politics. Retiring Senator Thom Tillis had been vocal that his support for Kevin Warsh to be the next Federal Reserve Chairman was dependent on closing the investigation into Powell.

Wannabe Action Movie Hero has thoughts…

We broke it we want Europe to fix it.

The rest of Acyn Tweet says: Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan all took years, decades. Vague missions, shifting sands, a little to show for it. Epic Fury has been laser focused from the start. It’s a gift to the world.

I replied:

U.S. Soldier Charged for using classified to win a bet…

Thursday the DOJ announced charges against U.S. Army soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke:

The Justice Department announced today the unsealing of an indictment charging Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a U.S. Army soldier, with unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction. The charges arise from an alleged scheme in which Van Dyke used sensitive classified information to make wagers on Polymarket, a prediction marketplace. As alleged in the indictment, Van Dyke participated in the planning and execution of the U.S. military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro, called “Operation Absolute Resolve,” and Van Dyke used his access to classified information about that operation to personally profit. Van Dyke will be presented today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian S. Meyers in the Eastern District of North Carolina. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett in the Southern District of New York.

DOJ. 04/23/2026.

Sleepy Don was asked about the indictment and if he had concerns about federal employees using inside information to bet on prediction markets:

Reporter: Mr. President, apparently there was a special forces soldier who was involved in the capture of Venezuelan President Maduro who was arrested by federal authorities today on suspicion of insider trading and betting on Polymarket. Are you concerned that federal employees are betting on these prediction markets and potentially getting rich?

Sleepy Don: Well, I don’t know about it, but was he betting that they would get him or they wouldn’t get him?

Reporter: It sounds like he was betting on his removal from office, that Maduro would be removed. It sounds like he was involved in the operation.

Sleepy Don: That’s like Pete Rose betting on his own team. (laughing) It’s a little like Pete Rose. Pete Rose, it kept him out of the Hall of Fame because he bet on his own team. Now, if he bet against his team, that would be no good, but he bet on his own team. I, I’ll look into it. Yeah.

RollCall.com. 04/23/2026.

Reporter: There are also bets that are being placed, as well, on the Iran conflict, too. And there have been some trackings where people suspect that there’s insider trading happening on these prediction markets around the war. Are you concerned about that?

Sleepy Don: Well, you know, the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino. And you look at what’s going on all over the world, in Europe and every place, they’re doing these betting things. I was never much in favor of it. I don’t like it conceptually, but it is what it is. No, I think that I’m not happy with any of that stuff.

Sleepy Don: But they have all these different sites. They have predictive markets.

Reporter: Mm-hmm.

Sleepy Don: It’s a crazy world. It’s a much different world than it was, is. Please.

RollCall.com. 04/23/2026.

Republicans are in trouble…

The article is for subs only. I copied the text that Cook Political.com let me see.

For Republican candidates running in competitive House districts, The Cook Political Report’s Battleground District Project is a flashing red warning light for the fall.

In an exclusive poll of districts rated by The Cook Political Report as Toss Up, Lean Republican or Lean Democrat — districts which President Donald Trump won by an average of two points in 2024 — Democrats hold a six-point advantage on the generic congressional ballot, 50% to 44%.

If that advantage were to hold come November, any district Trump carried by 10 points or less could be in significant danger of flipping into Democratic hands.

The poll, which was conducted April 7-14 by New River Strategies and the GS Strategy Group, also shows that Democrats have an advantage over the GOP on almost every important issue, from the economy to foreign policy.

Voters aren’t buying the argument from Trump and many Republicans that former President Joe Biden is to blame for the weak economy. By a nine-point margin, 50% to 41%, voters in these competitive districts blame Trump and Republicans for the high cost of

Cook Political.com. 04/24/2026.

This is an Open Thread

Have a great weekend, everyone.

About the opinions in this article…

Any opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this website or of the other authors/contributors who write for it.

About Tiff 3588 Articles
Member of the Free Press who is politically homeless and a political junkie.