Odds and Ends — 10 July 2025

@preparedwombat 78

7 days ago

oddsandends

Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, AI, and Debt:

Inside a 30,000 phone bot farm stealing crypto airdrops from real users

El Salvador President Bukele Mocks Senate Democrats Over Bitcoin Scrutiny

AI bot Grok makes disturbing posts about Minneapolis man, who is now mulling legal action

Grok gave users a detailed plan on how to break into Will Stancil's home and sexually assault him.

Coronavirus and Public Health:

What long covid can teach us about future pandemics

https://twitter.com/StatisticUrban/status/1943131222294827147

Texas Flooding:

Kristi Noem Slow to Act on Deadly Texas Flood

As monstrous floodwaters surged across central Texas late last week, officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency leapt into action, preparing to deploy critical search and rescue teams and life-saving resources, like they have in countless past disasters.
But almost instantly, FEMA ran into bureaucratic obstacles.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — whose department oversees FEMA — recently enacted a sweeping rule aimed at cutting spending: Every contract and grant over $100,000 now requires her personal sign-off before any funds can be released…
Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began.

Politics:

Rural Hospitals Brace for Painful Choices

Rural hospitals across the U.S. say they’re being forced to consider tough choices — like cutting services for children or cancer patients — after President Donald Trump signed into law a sprawling domestic policy bill that includes sweeping cuts to not only Medicaid but the Affordable Care Act, as well.

Foreign Students Scrub Their Social Media

Students from around the world who hope to study in the United States are winding down much of their online activity, unfollowing celebrities and politicians, asking friends and family to stop sending news links and scouring their own internet presence for posts that carry even the faintest whiff of hot-button politics.
International student visa applicants told The Washington Post that the sanitization is driven by fear that a single ‘like’ or meme, if taken the wrong way, could derail years of hard work, should it run afoul of sweeping new visa-vetting procedures under President Donald Trump. Tech companies have also been marketing account-scrubbing and screening tools to foreign visitors.

https://twitter.com/nolacampanella/status/1943119195849298276

Call it a guess, but this is going nowhere: Democrats propose inspector general specifically for Trump

A group of House and Senate Democrats introduced legislation to create an inspector general to specifically oversee and investigate President Trump’s office.

https://twitter.com/johnsemley3000/status/1942999923315872227

Trump says Liberian president uses 'such good English'

During a White House event, President Trump praised Liberian President Joseph Boakai for using "such good English." Liberia's national language is English, with many of those living there being the descendants of freed American slaves sent to Africa in the early 19th century.

https://twitter.com/rhcm123/status/1943021013505327438

———— Theresienstadt in the Everglades ————

https://twitter.com/HarryPotterMAGE/status/1942882138975531020

https://twitter.com/tomaskenn/status/1942958504098013230

———— The Epstein Coverup ————

https://twitter.com/SweetFnLucifer/status/1942887400201486533

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1942734303546204535

Pam Bondi Draws the Ire of Trump’s Supporters

And it’s striking that while Trump was quick to rally to the defense of FBI chiefs Kash Patel and Dan Bongino — who are also getting it in the neck from the MAGA faithful — there’s been no such show of love for Bondi as yet.

https://twitter.com/thejackhopkins/status/1943038310127145025

The Great Disappointment

Nick Cattogio points out that Jeffrey Epstein’s client list was “the moral pillar” upon which Donald Trump’s “authoritarian pretensions rested.”
If Trump won, the thousands of predators who supposedly populate our elite institutions would be exposed, discredited, arrested, and imprisoned. The many moral compromises Trumpists have made over the past 10 years on behalf of their leader and the movement he inspired would be vindicated. It would be a sort of political Judgment Day, with the wicked cast into the lake of fire and the virtuous left to inherit the Earth.
Now here’s the prophet, speaking through his DOJ, to say there will be no Judgment Day. Disappointments don’t get much greater than that.

———— Autocracy R Us ————

Trump’s immigration raids have gone too far

Prior to May, most Americans viewed ICE positively. Now the agency evokes images of masked men huddled around blacked-out vans and Alligator Alcatraz. Agents’ refusal to identify themselves, and MAGA’s celebration of their unaccountability, has led millions of Americans to see the agency as little more than Trump’s personal skullcrushers. Now, 54 percent of adults say ICE’s actions have gone too far.

https://twitter.com/FPWellman/status/1942954375191646566

ICE May Have Your Medical Records

Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement have gained access to a massive database of health and car insurance claims and are using it to track down people they want to deport.
The database, which contains details on more than 1.8 billion insurance claims and 58 million medical bills and growing, includes peoples’ names, addresses, telephone and tax identification numbers, license plates, and other sensitive personal information.

Trump on Brennan, Comey probe reports: "Maybe they have to pay a price"

———— Putin&Krasnov vs. Ukraine ————

Trump threatened to bomb Moscow and Beijing to deter potential invasions, audio shows

———— Smoot-Hawley 2.0 ————

Lesotho declares state of disaster amid US tariff uncertainty

Trump to Impose 50% Tariff on Copper

President Donald Trump said he will announce a 50% tariff on copper, hoping to boost U.S. production of a metal critical to electric vehicles, military hardware, the power grid and many consumer goods.

Chile produces five times as much copper as the United States does. What are the chances that a tariff would induce U.S. miners to make huge capital investments in long-lead-time new mines? The biggest U.S. producer, by far, is Freeport-McMoRan. I’m curious which Trump associates may have engaged in insider trading Freeport-McMoRan in the last week or so.

Trump delays tariffs as the rest of the world plays hardball

https://twitter.com/meiselasb/status/1943045466381521406

Trump Puts 50% Tariff on Brazil in Retaliation

…Trump said on Wednesday that he planned to impose a 50 percent tariff on all Brazilian imports, partly in retaliation for what he sees as a “witch hunt” against his political ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing trial for attempting a coup.
In a letter to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Mr. Trump wrote that the new tariffs would take effect on Aug. 1. “The way that Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his Term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace.”
Mr. Trump’s effort to use tariffs to intervene in a criminal trial in a foreign nation is an extraordinary example of how he views levies as a one-size-fits-all cudgel.

———— Melon Husk ————

Musk Acolytes Fight for Control of DOGE

Elon Musk has left the government, but his clout at DOGE lives on.
Weeks after the billionaire left his role at the Department of Government Efficiency amid his feud with President Trump, a small band of Musk loyalists is fighting to preserve the legacy—and power—of the government-slashing office.

https://twitter.com/ekcollapse/status/1942997745159303168

———— Hegseth on the Rocks ————

https://twitter.com/JayinKyiv/status/1942963359357268201

———— Mors Imperii ————

https://twitter.com/SK8Wireless/status/1943055159095103797

U.S. Botched a Deal to Swap Venezuelans for Americans

The Trump administration’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was overseeing a deal to free several Americans and dozens of political prisoners held in Venezuela in exchange for sending home about 250 Venezuelan migrants the United States had deported to El Salvador.
But the deal never happened.
Part of the reason: President Trump’s envoy to Venezuela was working on his own deal, one with terms that Venezuela deemed more attractive. In exchange for American prisoners, he was offering to allow Chevron to continue its oil operations in Venezuela, a vital source of revenue for its authoritarian government.

https://twitter.com/Liberty_Xtreme/status/1942732935376859171

Layoffs hit UMN Extension food educators as MN grapples with Trump’s budget