The ceasefire is two days old and every piece of it has a price tag.

Someone turned $13,200 into $467,000 betting on the Iran ceasefire hours before Trump announced it - while Trump Jr. holds a financial stake in the platform it happened on. Meanwhile, Trump pitched a toll booth on the Strait of Hormuz, Israel killed 254 people in Lebanon the same day it was excluded from the deal, and Pete Hegseth’s broker tried to buy weapons stocks before the war started.

Today’s episode is up now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

In other news:

Four essays dropped yesterday, and they all connect to the same throughline: people in power doing exactly what they were paid to do — and counting on you not to notice. Let’s go.

The CIA Director’s Grandson Just Threatened the Pope

Pete Hegseth’s top policy aide — grandson of CIA director William Colby — invoked the Avignon Papacy to warn Pope Leo XIV to stay in his lane. That’s not a history lesson. That’s a threat dressed up in 700-year-old precedent.

The Pentagon doesn’t usually threaten popes. When it does, it’s worth asking who authorized it, why now, and what exactly the new pope said that made the Defense Department nervous enough to reach for medieval blackmail.

Read more →

Israel Poisoned Lebanon’s Farms. Then Killed the 262nd Reporter.

Glyphosate doesn’t just kill crops. It kills the people trying to document what happened to the crops. Mohammed Wishah was the 262nd journalist killed in this conflict. He was covering the agricultural destruction when he was shot.

The evidence keeps piling up. The witnesses keep disappearing. That’s not a coincidence — that’s a pattern.

Read more →

Altman Proposes Taxing Robots While Selling Them to the Pentagon

Sam Altman wants a robot tax. He also just signed a deal to sell AI systems to the Defense Department. The company that dropped its ethics policy lost the bid. The one that kept them got the contract. Draw your own conclusions about what “ethics” actually means here.

The sleight of hand is impressive: propose a safety net for the workers your products are replacing, while cashing the government check for deploying those same products at scale.

Read more →

Epstein Helped Bannon Design the Authoritarian Playbook. Vance Is Running It.

This one connects some dots that have been sitting in plain sight. Bannon and Epstein were in contact during the period when the authoritarian movement playbook was being drafted. JD Vance — Thiel’s guy, Bannon’s ideological heir — is now in a position to run it.

The strategy was never improvised. It was designed. And the people who designed it knew exactly where they wanted to end up.

Read more →

That’s the grift for today. Share what’s useful, ignore what isn’t, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

// Go Deeper

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Intelligence Operations

Steve Bannon

Cover-Ups

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Podcast Sources

Iran Prediction Market Bets on Polymarket Raise Questions Over Insider Activity - Bloomberg

Potential Insiders Made $600K Predicting US and Iran Ceasefire on Polymarket - Yahoo Finance

Newly Created Polymarket Accounts Profit from Insider Bets on US-Iran Ceasefire - NYC Today

With Casino Empire Gone, Trump Family Bets on Prediction Markets - CNN

Trump Administration Sues Three States Over Attempts to Regulate Prediction Markets - NPR

Trump Says US Could Charge for Strait of Hormuz Passage Amid Iran War - Al Jazeera

Trump Floats a Toll-Charging Venture with Iran in Strait of Hormuz - Washington Times

Iran Demands $1 Per Barrel of Oil Passing Through Strait of Hormuz, Paid in Crypto - The Hill

Trump Says Lebanon Not Included in US-Iran Ceasefire Amid Israeli Assault - Al Jazeera

Israel Says Iran Ceasefire Doesn’t Apply to Lebanon, Strikes Central Beirut - PBS

Iran War Updates: Israel Kills 254 in Lebanon After US-Iran Agree Ceasefire - Al Jazeera

Pete Hegseth’s Broker Sought Defense ETF Before Iran Attack - Salon

Morgan Stanley Broker Explored Defense Investment for Hegseth Ahead of Iran Strike - AdvisorHub

Trump Wants Strait of Hormuz Open Without Limitation During Iran Ceasefire - CNBC

The president told the nation the war is almost over. The Pentagon is asking for $200 billion. The money goes to companies owned by the Deputy Defense Secretary’s old firm. And the FBI got hacked three times by the country we are bombing - after the director fired the team that was supposed to be watching them.

Today’s episode follows the money from Trump’s Wednesday address to the defense contractors to the Deputy Secretary’s office and asks the question nobody on cable news bothered to ask: who profits from the $200 billion?

Today’s episode is up now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

In other news:

The FBI director fired the team that tracks Iran – then got hacked by Iran. Ohio passed a drag ban co-sponsored by a man accused of climbing into bed with a minor. And the CDC stopped testing for rabies because there’s barely anyone left who knows how. Three stories about what happens when the people in charge care more about the performance than the job.

Kash Patel Got Hacked by Iran After Firing the Team That Tracks Iran

Three FBI breaches in one month. Kash Patel fired the Iran counterintelligence team days before Iran-linked hackers breached his personal email. A separate breach hit the bureau’s classified network in March. A third compromised FBI devices at Mar-a-Lago. The FBI director who gutted internal security is now the FBI director with the worst security record in bureau history.

Read the full story ->

Ohio’s “Protect the Children” Drag Bill Was Co-Sponsored by a Man Accused of Climbing Into Bed with a Minor

Ohio’s HB 249 bans drag performances anywhere a minor could be present. Co-sponsor Rodney Creech was accused by a 15-year-old of climbing into bed with her and touching her while she slept. The bill’s author, Josh Williams, rallied alongside neo-Nazis at a Proud Boys event. The law passed anyway.

Read the full story ->

Trump Gutted the CDC and Now There’s One Person Left to Handle a Rabies Crisis

The CDC pulled rabies and poxvirus testing from its lab directory after Trump-era cuts gutted staffing by 20 to 25 percent. The rabies team will be down to one person by July. The pox team will have nobody. The acting director runs the CDC and NIH simultaneously from hundreds of miles apart. The proposed budget cuts CDC funding by 42 percent. The World Cup starts this summer.

Read the full story ->

That’s the grift. Three institutions – the FBI, a state legislature, a federal health agency – all hollowed out by people who wanted the title but not the responsibility. More at rachelandthecity.com.

Trump and Every President Before Him Has Been Selling You Fear on Purpose

A graphic design grad reverse-engineers the White House war propaganda – the Call of Duty edits, the Mortal Kombat audio over real missile strikes, the Braveheart clips – and finds the same playbook every president has used. Make you afraid of the right things so you stop asking questions. The monster changes. The business model doesn’t.

Read the full story ->

// Go Deeper on rachelandthecity

Latest Posts

Steve Bannon

Trump – Bondi Connection

SCOTUS

PODCAST SOURCES

Trump Address to the Nation on Iran - NPR

Iran War May Give Defense Contractors $200 Billion Windfall - TIME

Cracks Emerge in GOP Over Iran War Cost - CNN

Trump’s War on Iran Could Cost Trillions - The Intercept

The Trump Administration’s Reckless War in Iran Has Already Cost More Than $5 Billion - Center for American Progress

Documents Reveal a Web of Financial Ties Between Trump Officials and the Industries They Help Regulate - ProPublica

How DOGE Government Spending Cuts Are Hampering the US Government Amid War with Iran - CNN

By the End of the Week the Iran War Will Likely Have Cost $25 Billion - Center for American Progress

Hegseth Says Potential $200 Billion Iran War Spending Request Could Shift - CNBC

Iran’s Ex-Foreign Minister Kharazi Gravely Wounded in Attack on His Home - Al Jazeera

Surprise: Iranian Ex-Official Involved in Peace Talks Was Just Bombed - The New Republic

The law is working exactly as redesigned - it just depends on who you are.

Today’s episode follows 23,000 criminal cases the DOJ quietly dropped to triple immigration prosecutions. Then we trace how an oil lobbyist’s name ended up in the metadata of the letter he wrote against pollution rules - and how he’s now running the EPA office that writes them. And we close with a pardoned nursing home owner who walked after three months, while his victims haven’t seen a dime.

Today’s episode is up now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

In other news:The FBI director fired the agents investigating him, then got sued for it. Meanwhile, Israel’s parliament passed a death penalty law that applies to one ethnic group but not another – and the guy who pushed it wore a noose pin to the vote.

Kash Patel Is Being Sued By Agents He Fired for Investigating Him

Kash Patel was subpoenaed in the same January 6th and Mar-a-Lago cases he’s now using as a firing list. Three FBI agents who worked those investigations just filed a class action lawsuit after being terminated. The FBI director is purging the people who investigated the crimes he was personally involved in – and calling it reform.

Read the full story ->

Netanyahu Just Passed a Death Penalty Law That Applies to Palestinians but Not Jewish Israelis

Israel’s Knesset voted to make the death penalty mandatory for Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis – while Jewish Israeli citizens get the option of life imprisonment for the same crime. Two different legal tracks, sorted by ethnicity. Itamar Ben-Gvir showed up to vote wearing a decorative noose pin on his lapel. Israel hadn’t executed anyone since Adolf Eichmann in 1962.

Read the full story ->

Both of these stories are about the same thing: people in power using the legal system to protect themselves and punish everyone else. One’s doing it at the FBI. The other’s doing it at the Knesset. The mechanism is different. The math is the same. More at rachelandthecity.com.

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Latest Posts

Kash Patel

Trafficking & Exploitation

Bondi – Epstein Connection

PODCAST SOURCES

Trump DOJ Dropped 23,000 Criminal Investigations in Shift to Immigration - ProPublica EPA’s Aaron Szabo Once Helped Write Oil Industry Argument Against Methane Rules - ProPublica Whitehouse Blasts EPA Nominees for Defending Polluters, Role in Project 2025 - Senate EPW Committee Bondi Dropped Thousands of Criminal Probes to Investigate Immigrants - The New RepublicTrump’s DOJ Drops 1,000+ Terrorism Cases While Promising to ‘Make America Safe’ - Raw Story

Happy April Fool’s Day. Today’s episode is about the oldest trick in Washington: the promise of reform.

Congress spent Q1 swearing it would pass a stock trading ban. Q1 just ended. Congress went on vacation. Meanwhile, the Deputy Attorney General killed crypto enforcement while personally holding crypto - and nobody is being held accountable for any of it. And we close with two numbers you need to hear at the same time: $220 million, and 366. Listen to find out why they belong together.

Today’s episode is up now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Link in bio.

In other news:The Defense Secretary’s broker tried to buy war stocks before the bombs dropped. Memphis cops pepper-sprayed the people keeping protesters safe. And the guy who wrote the White House’s AI policy quit so he could fund the politicians who’ll protect it. Three stories about the same thing: the people with the most power using it to make sure nobody else gets any.

Pete Hegseth’s Broker Tried to Buy Defense Stocks Weeks Before the Iran War Started

Pete Hegseth’s Morgan Stanley broker called BlackRock in February asking about putting several million into a defense industry ETF – weeks before the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran. The investment didn’t go through because the fund was too new to process. The Pentagon denied the Financial Times report. The STOCK Act has a $200 fine and no teeth. 86% of Americans want a trading ban. Congress has an honor system.

Read the full story ->

Memphis Police Pepper-Sprayed the Protest Marshals at the No Kings March

Several thousand people marched peacefully through downtown Memphis on Saturday for No Kings. Minutes before it ended, police rolled up, deployed pepper spray, and arrested three people – the march’s own safety marshals in orange vests. The charge was “obstructing a highway,” a brand-new Tennessee law sponsored by a Republican state senator. Trump declared Memphis his model city last week. The city sent its answer back.

Read the full story ->

David Sacks Wrote Trump’s AI Policy Then Quit to Fund the Politicians Who’ll Keep It

David Sacks spent a year as Trump’s AI czar shaping deregulation policy. Then he stepped down and backed a $100 million PAC to elect candidates who’ll protect what he built. Total AI industry midterm spending now tops $300 million. They’ve already won 10 of 11 primaries where they spent money. Polling shows bipartisan skepticism toward AI – but the demand for deregulation isn’t coming from voters. It’s coming from the people spending $300 million to make sure voters don’t decide.

Read the full story ->

The full investigation lives at rachelandthecity.com. Start with the suspects, or dig into the GriftMatrix.

// Go Deeper on rachelandthecity

Latest Posts

David Sacks

Epstein & Wexner

PODCAST SOURCES

Lawmakers said they wanted to rein in their own stock trading. What happened? - Roll Call

Complaint Accuses Trump’s Criminal Attorney of “Blatant” Crypto Conflict in His Role at DOJ - ProPublica

Documents Reveal a Web of Financial Ties Between Trump Officials and the Industries They Help Regulate - ProPublica

March 22, 2026 - Heather Cox Richardson / Letters from an American

Partial DHS shutdown drags past 6 weeks as Congress remains split - NBC16/AP CREW and 7 organizations tell Congress: oppose the Stop Insider Trading Act - CREW

If you read the essays below, you know the No Kings math and why Elizabeth Warren's two-cent tax makes billionaires act like the revolution is coming. Today on the podcast: Bank of America just paid $72.5 million for looking the other way while Jeffrey Epstein ran a trafficking operation through their accounts - and they're the third bank to settle. The DOJ admitted it's sharing your voter registration data with DHS. And Pete Hegseth personally blocked four Army officers from becoming generals. Every institution is doing something other than its actual job. Hit play.

In case you missed it…

8 Million People Showed Up Saturday. The Number That Actually Matters Is 11.5 Million.

The No Kings movement hit 8 million across 3,300 events in all 50 states – the largest single-day protest in US history. But Harvard’s Erica Chenoweth found no nonviolent movement has ever failed once it hit 3.5% of the population. That’s 11.5 million. Saturday was 2.4%. The growth is real but compressing, and the White House is betting this is the ceiling.

Read the full story ->

Elizabeth Warren Asks Billionaires for Two Pennies on the Dollar and You’d Think She Proposed Guillotines

Warren’s Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act would charge 2% on net worth above $50 million and 3% above $1 billion. It would raise $6.2 trillion over ten years – enough to fund universal child care, free college, and Medicare expansion. The Forbes 400 pay a 24% effective rate. The general population pays 30%. The bill won’t pass. That’s the point.

Read the full story ->

The full investigation lives at rachelandthecity.com. Start with the suspects, or dig into the GriftMatrix.

// Go Deeper on rachelandthecity

Latest Posts

Donald Trump

The Breakdown

Corruption of Power

If this kind of work matters to you, the tip jar is always open:Venmo | PayPal | Ko-fi

PODCAST SOURCES

Bank of America agrees to pay $72.5 million to settle Epstein survivors suit - NBC News

Bank of America reaches $72.5 million settlement in Epstein lawsuit - CBS News

Epstein victims to get $72.5M from Bank of America settlement - CNBC

Bank of America settles with Epstein victims for $72.5 million - American Banker

Wyden Statement on Bank of America Settlement with Epstein Survivors - Senate Finance Committee

DOJ plans to share states' sensitive voter data with DHS - NPR

The Justice Department plans to share sensitive voter data with Homeland Security - NHPR

Headlines for March 30, 2026 - Democracy Now! DHS funding lapse is now the longest government shutdown in U.S. history - NBC News

This weekend, nine million Americans showed up to the largest single-day protest in US history - in all 50 states, including deep red Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. The White House called them a leftist funding network. Then Congress left for a two-week vacation during the longest government shutdown in American history. Meanwhile, the oil futures insider trading story keeps getting worse, and a federal judge blocked the Pentagon from blacklisting an AI company for refusing to build autonomous weapons, calling it "Orwellian." The grift isn't even pretending anymore. Hit play.In other News:Bernie Sanders and AOC want to freeze every new data center in America until Congress regulates AI. Noble idea. One problem: the tech giants are already supply-constrained and would love nothing more than a government-enforced moat around their existing capacity. One story this week about a bill that accidentally does Big Tech’s job for it.

Bernie Sanders Turned an Instagram Rant Into a Data Center Bill Nobody Will Pass

Sanders and AOC dropped a bill to halt all new data center construction until Congress passes AI regulation. The market is already supply-constrained – Microsoft alone has $80 billion in unfulfilled Azure orders because it can’t find enough electricity. Freezing the supply side doesn’t reduce demand. It just locks in the incumbents and pushes construction offshore where there are zero environmental rules.

Read the full story ->

The full investigation lives at rachelandthecity.com. Start with the suspects, or dig into the GriftMatrix.

// Go Deeper on rachelandthecity

Latest Posts

Tech Oligarchy

GriftMatrix

The Breakdown

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This is The Daily Grift - a new daily podcast from me, Rachel Hurley. It’s news for people who are sick of the news. Every morning, I dig through the day’s biggest political stories and find the grift - the corruption, the cover-ups, the hypocrisy, the money trails, the quiet power grabs that both parties should find outrageous but somehow nobody is talking about. I connect the dots so you don’t have to. No spin, no sides - just receipts.

Today’s episode: TSA agents haven’t been paid in five weeks but found time to build a quiet surveillance pipeline feeding your flight data to ICE. A jury just handed Meta its Big Tobacco moment with internal documents showing they knowingly hooked children. The feds are buying your cell phone location data without a warrant through a loophole Congress left wide open. And Minnesota still can’t get the names of the federal agents who killed two American citizens. Every one of these stories is the same story.

Hit play.

In other news: The Army will take your bad knees, your weed conviction, and your 42-year-old spine – but not your trans identity. Meanwhile, Tennessee is building a public database of trans patients’ medical records and calling it “transparency.” Two stories this week about who gets to exist in public and who gets erased from it.

Hegseth Kicked Out the Queers to Replace Them With Potheads and Old Dudes

The Army raised its maximum enlistment age to 42 and dropped the Pentagon-level waiver for marijuana convictions. The recruiting pipeline is so broken they’ll take anyone – except the 15,000 trans troops Pete Hegseth already fired. Replacing that expertise will take 20 years and cost $18 billion.

Read the full story ->

Tennessee’s “Transparency” Bill Is a Trans Registry With Extra Steps

HB 754 requires doctors to hand over trans patients’ prescription dates, dosages, counties, and full psychiatric histories to the state – which then publishes it all online in downloadable format. The bill doesn’t need names when it has everything else. Doctors who refuse face license suspension.

Read the full story ->

The full investigation lives at rachelandthecity.com. Start with the suspects, or dig into the GriftMatrix.

// Go Deeper on rachelandthecity

Latest Posts

Pete Hegseth

Corruption of Power

The Breakdown

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