In 2021, Todd Bensman stood on the edge of the Rio Grande River with a cartel member. Despite usually trying to avoid the cartels, Bensman found himself interviewing the man, who happened to be on vacation after guiding a group of illegal aliens into Texas.
“He had his cocaine. He had a couple of friends there. He had a couple of women there for hire, and that's how he was doing his vacation, under the bridge, drinking beer,” Bensman said of the cartel member.
"To what do you owe this great prosperity?" Bensman recalls asking the man.
“La invitacion,” the cartel member responded. When Bensman pressed the man as to what he meant, the cartel member explained that President Joe Biden had communicated to the world that the doors to America are open, creating an exceptional business market for the cartels.
On this week’s show, Kamz is joined by Hedera leadership, Chief of Staff and Head of Global Policy at Hedera, Nilmini Rubin and Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer, Betsabe Botaitis.
Nilmini Rubin is the Chief of Staff and Head of Global Policy for Hedera. Previously, she worked on the global policy team at Meta, and before that, Nilmini headed Tetra Tech’s global team, implementing energy and internet projects that resulted in millions of people gaining access to electricity for the first time.
For 12 years, she served as a senior aide on both the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, where she spearheaded the passage of legislation to provide electricity access in Africa, increase global internet access, reduce corruption through transparency, and reform U.S. foreign assistance.
She is an adviser to the Women's Democracy Network and the Energy Growth Hub, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Academy of the Global Teacher Prize, and the International Mindfulness Teachers Association.
Betsabe Botaitis is the newly appointed treasurer and chief financial officer at Hedera. She was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. During the Mexican peso crisis in the 1990s. The crisis left many families in financial ruin, and after witnessing her family being negatively impacted, she enrolled in a 6-month course to become a bank teller at 14-years old.
Betsabe began her career as a bank teller at Citibank at the age of 15 and rose through the ranks, growing more interested in fintech and financial inclusion as her career progressed. She has since held senior positions at companies like Citigroup, and Lending Club.
Botaitis is a member of Hipower, a network of executive women leaders in Silicon Valley, and she was recently awarded Nasdaq’s top honor at the annual Latina Disruptors Event. Above all, she is a passionate advocate for economic equality, who has been working in blockchain since 2016.
On this incredible panel, we discuss:
💡What Hedera brings to the web3 ecosystem
👩⚖️The evolving regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies and blockchain
🏛️The government's role in shaping the future of blockchain and cryptocurrency
🫰How decentralized finance can make future and existing financial products more accessible
🧘🏽♀️We end with a two-minute mindfulness exercise! :)
Follow me on Twitter@KamalaAlcantara to stay up to date on the show and join our weekly Twitter Space!
This episode was produced and edited by Michele Musso with executive producer Jared Schwartz. Our theme song is ‘Twennysomething’ by Daniele Musto. Other music used is ‘Mind and Soul’ by Stefano Vita and ‘Electrolove’ by Lunareh.
Are you building the next big thing in Web3? Apply to pitch your project live on stage at the CoinDesk Pitchfest Powered by Google Cloud at Consensus, the industry’s most influential event happening April 26-28 in Austin, Texas. Apply by March 31 for a chance to be among the twelve finalists selected to pitch. Visit consensus.coindesk.com/pitchfest for more information.
Has the American Dream changed? Is a side hustle the answer to income inequality? And is self-reliance the all-important north star we have been led to believe it is? Today, author, journalist, and Executive Director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, Alissa Quart, asserts that at the heart of our distress is a misplaced belief in our independence and the conviction that we must rely on ourselves alone. Plus, a look at women's rights worldwide and a rise in guaranteed paid paternity leave.
The Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, delivered a controversial speech at an interfaith breakfast, raising issues of church/state separation, gun control, and the role of religion in governance. Akhil uses the opportunity for some comparative constitutional analysis, and we look at the worldwide continuum of separationist approaches. The mayor is quite provocative on school prayer and quite confusing on guns, and we take that up as well. Meanwhile, we take a question on the judiciary in a far away and yet not so far away land.
Research into very, very old DNA has made huge leaps forward over the last two decades. That has allowed scientists like Beth Shapiro to push the frontier further and further.
"For a long time, we thought, you know, maybe the limit is going to be around 100,000 years [old]. Or, maybe the limit is going to be around 300,000 years," says Shapiro, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz. "Well, now we've been working with a horse fossil in Alaska that's about 800,000 years old."
Beth's career has spanned the heyday of ancient DNA research, beginning in the late 1990s when rapid genetic sequencing technology was in its early days. She talked with Short Wave co-host Aaron Scott about the expanding range of scientific puzzles the young field is tackling — from new insights into our Neanderthal inheritance to deep questions about ecology and evolution.
Katherine May, like so many other people, found herself submerged in anxiety and restlessness during COVID-19 lockdowns. But as cities reopened, she looked for new ways to immerse herself in the awe of the natural world around her. That journey is at the center of her new book, Enchantment. And as she tells NPR's Rachel Martin, her relationship with her faith, prayer and her definition of God played a big role.
Winter weather wreaks havoc across the U.S. President Biden aims to toughen background checks. Russian jet collides with U.S. drone. CBS News Correspondent Matt Pieper has tonight's World News Roundup.
Ravi, Rikki, and Joe start by revisiting the wave of ChatGPT discourse and looking at some new data on how it’s affecting America’s classrooms. Then we turn to classrooms in Arkansas, where new Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders is setting down an early marker on her education policy: the LEARNS Act. Finally, we look to some new reporting from the New York Times and try to answer a provocative question: is the entire economy gentrifying?
[03:22] - Classroom AI
[23:12] - Arkansas’ LEARNS Act
[38:19] - Gentrifying Economy?
[53:58] - Voicemails
Leave us a voicemail with your thoughts on the show! 321-200-0570
Reporter Ken Vogel was a lead reporter on the NYT series "A Risky Wager: How online sports betting took America by storm." He's here to discuss what some states got wrong, while others hit the jackpot on legalized sports wagering. Plus, the international criminal court is reportedly bringing war crimes charges against Russia for kidnapping Ukrainian children. And the ratings are up (Oscars) but also down (banks).
A new documentary called Sextortion: The Hidden Pandemic has gained attention at screenings hosted by universities, police departments and even the Pentagon. But many of the claims made in the film are poorly supported and overhyped.
The film warns parents about the dangers of sexually coercive crimes online and suggests that strangers are targeting potentially millions of minors - pressuring them into sharing revealing content and, often, extorting them for money.
But NPR has found the documentary could leave viewers with an incomplete and exaggerated sense of the risk by relying upon statistics that lack context. Experts fear it could hinder harm reduction efforts by skewing public perception.
NPR's Lisa Hagen, who covers how false and misleading information spreads, shares her reporting into the documentary and its filmmakers.
