Odds and Ends — 11 July 2025

5 days ago

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

‘Bears in disbelief’ — $1B in crypto shorts wiped as Bitcoin pumps

Bitcoin ETFs Post Second-Biggest Day Ever: Why It Matters

BlackRock’s IBIT led Thursday’s ETF inflows with $448.5 million, as capital consolidated into top issuers despite outflows from GBTC.

https://twitter.com/EdgeCGroup/status/1943330406385779038

Grok’s antisemitic rant shows how generative AI can be weaponized

Coronavirus and Public Health:

Since COVID, threats to local school officials have nearly tripled, research finds

Texas Flooding:

https://twitter.com/Roshan_Rinaldi/status/1943336168487100628

California Still Waiting for Disaster Relief

For months, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has pressed the GOP-led Congress to free up $40 billion in federal relief for swaths of Los Angeles consumed by devastating wildfires.
President Donald Trump and other Republicans have so far withheld the funds, with many arguing that Newsom and other Democrats in the deep-blue state have mishandled the fires and should be forced to rescind liberal policies in exchange for aid.
But now deadly floods have struck ruby-red Texas — and the Republican response is much different, with Trump and others promising unfettered and prompt federal support in the months and years to come.

Politics:

Law Firms’ Deals With Trump Look Worse and Worse

Trump’s executive orders and the deals struck by the settling firms have not aged well. The firms that threw in the towel appear to have misjudged the fallout — financial, reputational, political and legal.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has gotten hammered by the judges presiding over the cases challenging the White House, and it’s far from clear the government’s appeal will get a better reception in the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, if it gets there.

Texts Bolster Claim that Emil Bove Wanted to Defy Court

A fired Justice Department attorney has provided Congress with a trove of emails and text messages to corroborate his claims that a controversial Trump judicial nominee — top DOJ official Emil Bove — crudely discussed defying court orders.
The newly-released messages reinforce claims by whistleblower Erez Reuveni that Bove played a key role in a decision by Trump administration immigration officials to turn scores of Venezuelan immigrants over to El Salvador’s government despite a U.S. judge’s order not to do so.

https://twitter.com/Halcyon270/status/1943285324987191667

Mahmoud Khalil files $20m claim against Trump administration for false imprisonment

Precursor to a lawsuit also claims the Palestinian activist was maliciously prosecuted and smeared as an antisemite

———— The Epstein Coverup ————

https://twitter.com/DerekNeverFails/status/1943306123748217173

https://twitter.com/OurShallowState/status/1943070102578139306

If even The Babylon Bee has turned on Pam Bondi, she’s on borrowed time: Bondi Explains She Was Going To Release The Epstein Files But Then Some Pedophiles Asked Her Not To

https://twitter.com/TheMaineWonk/status/1943317169422344633

https://twitter.com/DerekNeverFails/status/1943476063121871293

———— Autocracy R Us ————

Federal agents clash with protesters during ICE raid at Southern California farm

Just say no: Justice Dept. Demands Patient Details From Trans Medicine Providers

The Justice Department has issued subpoenas demanding confidential patient information from more than 20 doctors and hospitals that provide gender-related treatments to minors.
The action marks a new turn in the Trump administration’s efforts to limit transgender medical care. Most of the subpoenas, issued through a unit that typically investigates health care fraud, attempt to pierce powerful federal confidentiality protections for patients and their medical providers.

Trump’s Deportations Lag Behind Obama’s

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last month arrested the most people in at least five years, but deportations are still lagging far behind what President Donald Trump has promised — and even behind those in the Obama administration.

https://twitter.com/cwebbonline/status/1943327274012487891

Judge blocks Trump's birthright citizenship order after Supreme Court ruling

https://twitter.com/reesetheone1/status/1943377140767920593

———— Blatant In-Your-Face Corruption ————

America Has Never Seen Corruption Like This

The White House has seen its share of shady deals. Ulysses S. Grant’s brother-in-law used his family ties to engineer an insider-trading scheme that tanked the gold market. Warren Harding’s secretary of the interior secretly leased land to oil barons, who paid a fortune for his troubles. To bankroll Richard Nixon’s reelection, corporate executives sneaked suitcases full of cash into the capital.
But Americans have never witnessed anything like the corruption that President Donald Trump and his inner circle have perpetrated in recent months. Its brazenness, volume, and variety defy historical comparison, even in a country with a centuries-long history of graft—including, notably, Trump’s first four years in office. Indeed, his second term makes the financial scandals of his first—foreign regimes staying at Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C.; the (aborted) plan to host the G7 at Trump’s hotel in Florida—seem quaint.
Trump 2.0 is just getting started, yet it already represents the high-water mark of American kleptocracy. There are good reasons to think it will get much worse.
Virtually every week, the Trump family seems to find a new way to profit from the presidency.