1717: Mr. Peepers

How Libra Was Killed. I never shared this publicly before, but since

opened the floodgates on

’s pod, it feels appropriate to shed more light on this. As a reminder, Libra (then Diem) was an advanced, high-performance, payments-centric blockchain paired with a stablecoin that we built with my team at

. It would’ve solved global payments at scale. Prior to announcing the project, we spent months briefing key regulators in DC and abroad. We then announced the project in June 2019 alongside 28 companies. Two weeks later, I was called to testify in front of both the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, which was the starting point of two years of nonstop work and changes to appease lawmakers and regulators. By spring of 2021 (yes they slow played us at every step), we had addressed every last possible regulatory concern across financial crime, money laundering, consumer protection, reserve management, buffers, and so much more, and we were ready to launch. We had worked on a slow rollout of a limited pilot that some members of the Fed’s Board of Governors were supportive of. At last, Chair Jay Powell was ready to let us move forward in a limited way. The story, as I heard it, is that Jay Powell was told by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen at one of their biweekly meetings that allowing this project to move forward was “political suicide,” and she would not have his back if he let it happen. I wasn’t in the room when this conversation happened, so take these words with a grain of salt, but effectively this was the moment Libra was killed. Shortly thereafter, the Fed organized calls with all the participating banks, and the Fed’s general counsel read a prepared statement to each of them, saying: “We can’t stop you from moving forward and launching, but we are not comfortable with you doing so.” And just like that, it was over. One essential point is worth making here. There was no legal or regulatory angle left for the government or regulators to kill the project. It was 100% a political kill—one that was executed through intimidation of captive banking institutions. That was the hardest part of this story for me personally. Not that we had failed, but that America, this country I immigrated to and became a proud citizen of because of its rule of law and value system, behaved in such a way for political reasons. It was a very tough pill to swallow. The bright side of the story, though, was the many learnings from this wild ride. By the end of the project, we had made so many concessions to get a thumbs-up that the whole design of the network became a Frankenstein of our initial ambitions. We also learned the biggest lesson of all, which is that if you’re trying to build an open money grid for the world—eventually moving trillions of dollars a day, designed to be here 100 years from now—you have to build it on the most neutral, decentralized, unassailable network and asset, which, hands down, is Bitcoin. And now this is what many of us who went through this scarring journey are building together at

. And this time, we won’t stop until we get it done!

Hi Fellas,

Thought I would tell you a bit about what's going on in Australia.

The Misinfo bill recently got pushed through parliament in a rush. The point of this was to give the power to the government and your californian import and CIA asset Julie Inman Grant (and suspected only fans model) the power to take down any commentary between the public that the government deemed to be false.

A truely terrifying prospect as you can agree.

Luckily, the smarter Australian public who are not bogged down with Conspiritainment and have learnt how democracy actually works over the past 4 years of shit here in Australia have spoken.

While the Senate initially supported the bill, they received so many letters and calls from concerned Australians that it was defeated and can not be made law.

Unfortunately they had a back door plan and introduced 40 bills in one day to be pushed through only 2 days ago.

Because they have bi-partisan support on the under 16 social media bill, it got passed with no debate.

Our opposition leader dutton is even worse on censorship than Elmer fudd. He is the one that put forward the bill to make encryption illegal, and is really hell bent on supporting the government in power in getting this and a few others through.

They will try to make adults verify their age using their new Voluntary digital ID, and they will get there eventually as we are a two party system.

But I came out of this week with a lot of hope. The Australian people have woken up in the right way. Its been a hard slog, but we are finally getting off social media complaining about what we don't like and actually partaking in the process.

Australians have finally realised that democracy doesn't happen every 4 years, it happens every day. And if we don't act, others will act for us.

Regards

Mitch

I've been trying to figure out why I'm more optimistic now than I was before the election, even though I was so against the guy who won. I know now. MAGA is not my mortal enemy (and neither is the extreme left). My mortal enemy is the establishment. And they have been defeated!

It's not just that the establishment candidate lost, it's that their media is mortally wounded. The source of their strength was not insipid politicians like Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden. The source of their strength was their propaganda machine - the mainstream media.

Now, online media is strong enough that their oppressive monopoly on the American mind has been broken. Now, we're in the jungle. They hate that! I love it! This uncontrolled marketplace of ideas is where I'm home. I'd rather be in the populist woods than an establishment prison.

Link

Sorry for the long note, but this crap is happening everywhere.

I have a sister that lives in NC, and when she found out that me, my

mother, and my step father voted for Trump, she texted the entire family

and said she would not be visiting us for Thanksgiving (or Christmas).

She spouted the same BS about how none of us care about women. She's a

LINO (lesbian in name only). I say this because she made the choice to

get an abortion several months ago, after a reckless relationship, and

blamed Trump for having to drive 6 hours to kill her baby. (she lived in

Arkansas at the time)

I have tried sharing my sourced information with her to clarify some of

the points that she was attempting to make (a lot of material from your

show, which is "2 old right wing boomers" according to her) She has been

so brainwashed into believing this CRAP by the M5M, that she has now

blocked everyone in the family except for my 20 year old son. This is

only because he's too afraid to mention that he voted for Trump, because

he doesn't want his aunt to disown him.

I hear about this stuff on your podcast, but I never think it's going to

affect me personally, but the TOK video that John played last week could

have literally been my sisters TikTok account, and I would not be

surprised. She said all the same stuff.

At the end of the day, all I was able to tell her is to get back in touch

with me in 6 months and see if she still feels the same. However, she

has already said that anything good that happens with Trump in office is

"due to policies that Joe Biden put into place. They just take a

while."

Please

pray for these disillusioned people. There needs to be an avenue for a

HEALTHY dialogue and education for all Americans. I am praying that more

sane people move to podcasting, and I thank you for doing all the

legwork to continue to grow and expand the platform.

The

good news for me is that I bought her that HAM radio you recommended

for Christmas, so now I have a new HAM radio! THANKS TRUMP!

God Bless!

RJ

Just listened to yesterday’s show.

The note written by Dan’s wife could have been written by my wife. Liz and I have been married 29 years this month. I’m not sure we’ll make it to 30.

Yesterday, I made a big mistake in posting a link to this…

[https://x.com/speakerjohnson/status/1862129493491454102?s=46](https://x.com/speakerjohnson/status/1862129493491454102?s=46)

…in the family text group. My only intention was to share the message. I wasn’t even thinking about who it came from and that it would be received as an insult.

My wife made it clear that I just crapped on her family when I did that because it came from Mike Johnson who she says wants to take women’s rights away. Plus everything that Dan’s wife wrote, almost verbatim.

We still had Thanksgiving but I, for the most part, said nothing at the gathering.

Regards,

Danny

Adam -

Wanted to send you a note about incentive payments paid to pediatricians for giving vaccines to their patients. You mentioned in episode 1715 that you didn't think that pediatricians were given bonuses, but I can assure that they absolutely are bonused based on the percentage of patients that receive various treatments. These are often called "Physician Group Incentive Programs" or the less transactional sounding "Value Partnerships".

For pediatricians specifically, the image below (a little blurry) is from my former employer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan in 2016. Pediatricians can receive a $400 payment PER ELIGIBLE PATIENT if the percentage of children who have had the following immunizations by their second birthday exceeds 80%:

1. **4 DTaP (Diphtheria, Tetanus, acellular Pertussis)**

2. **3 IPV (Inactivated Polio Vaccine)**

3. **1 MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella)**

4. **3 Hep B (Hepatitis B)**

5. **3 Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b)**

6. **1 VZV (Varicella Zoster Virus)**

7. **4 PCV (Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine)**

8. **1 Hep A (Hepatitis A)**

9. **2 or 3 RV (Rotavirus)**

10. **2 Flu (Influenza)**

The percentage based calculation is the nefarious part and why pediatricians will kick patients out of their practice. If you have 100 patients and only 79 of them are meeting the metrics, you can kick one that isn't out of the practice and magically exceed the 80% threshold.

Additionally, hospitals and group practices enrolled in the program receive physician specific reports, so those physicians who are not meeting the metrics, and thus reducing revenue coming into the practice, can be targeted, shamed, and even kicked out of the practice.

Could write a book on this, but these bonus payments absolutely happen - perhaps most famously in Anthem Blue Cross' leaked COVID vaccine incentive payments.