JUST IN: $170B WisdomTree says Bitcoin was built for economic uncertainty and proved itself in 2026. "Bitcoin is apolitical and rule-based. It's a simpler option for navigating the complex macro situation."

Who knew that immigration, emigration, and tourism could all be parts of economic statecraft? Anybody who knew anything about the topic: EVERYTHING can be! China will now restrict overseas trips for mid-to-senior-level civil servants, CCP cadres, SOE employees, and private citizens working in sensitive areas. By contrast, the West will open its doors wide for anyone going in and out. Question: which works better in a Cold and hot war environment, and why? Years ago, I lived in a Moscow suburb that had until then been a closed Soviet science city: its highly-educated population had been shielded from others for national security reasons. Question: With contacts in elite universities saying many western scientists are underpaid, autistically apolitical and focused on their research, or utopian or anti-western thinkers, and universities focus on making money, how long until a western politician argues their scientists and experts need to have restrictions imposed on travel and contact with outsiders, etc.? Economic statecraft is not just tariffs!

Rapper Macklemore says he has been dropped from Ed Sheeran's tour after turning the stage into his own political soapbox. Macklemore says Robert Kraft told Sheeran that the rapper must be dropped or he wouldn't be able to perform at Gillette Stadium. "Ed also told me that Kraft had rallied some of the other stadium owners, and collectively they gave him an ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues," the rapper claimed. "Ed was in a f*cked up position. He knew it. His typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it never had been before. He told me that the words." "I told him that if [Free Palestine] was more offensive than tens of thousands of Palestinian children being killed by Israel, then there was a fundamental disconnect between where those people stood and where I stood. But he couldn't get past his public-facing, 'I don't take sides.'"

CNN: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson offered a blistering critique Monday of the Supreme Court’s handling of a recent high-profile redistricting case, asserting that the court needed to be “really, really careful” in the churn of an election year to avoid appearing political and suggesting it had failed to do so in that case. “Courts are apolitical, not supposed to be issuing rulings that are in the political realm,” Jackson said at an event in Washington hosted by the American Law Institute. “We have to be scrupulous about sticking to the principles and the rules that we apply in every case and not look as though we’re doing something different in this kind of context.”