Odds and Ends — 13 December 2025

@preparedwombat 78

6 days ago

oddsandends

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

Brazil’s largest private bank advises investors to allocate 3% to Bitcoin in 2026

OpenAI isn't too big to fail. It's bigger.

Tether Makes Offer to Acquire Juventus FC

Coronavirus and Public Health:

COVID hospitalization tied to 69% higher risk of death for up to 2 years

Politics:

Judge Orders Return of Evidence Against Comey

A federal judge ruled Friday that the Justice Department unlawfully accessed evidence central to its case against former FBI director James Comey, delivering what could be a death blow to President Donald Trump’s efforts to reindict one of his most prominent perceived rivals.

Obamacare Changed the Politics of Health Care

Fifteen years after its passage, the ACA is a gigantic political pain point for the GOP. You would think Republicans would have made their peace with the law by now and turned their attention to other issues.”
But unlike pretty much every other conservative party in the industrialized world, where the legitimacy of universal health coverage is largely a given, the GOP seems resigned to bleed out on health care.

https://twitter.com/BedoyaUSA/status/1999444733370991037

Donald Trump Had a Really Bad Day

The House rejected one of his executive orders; another grand jury refused to indict Letitia James; a judge freed Kilmar Abrego Garcia and called out the Administration’s bullshit; Kristi Noem faceplanted in congressional testimony; his concept of a health care plan crashed in the Senate; and his poll numbers continued to crater.
But all of this was merely prologue to Trump’s humiliation by the sort of Republicans we are thought were utterly extinct.
Despite a vicious pressure campaign, the Republican-dominated Indiana Senate overwhelmingly rejected Trump’s demand that they gerrymander the state’s congressional map to benefit the GOP.
What happened yesterday — an outburst of Republican courage — was as rare as a sighting of Bigfoot, Lindsey Graham’s spine, or natural breasts at Mar-a-Lago.

https://twitter.com/neeratanden/status/1999468256483328003

———— The Epstein Coverup ————

https://twitter.com/GoodPoliticGuy/status/1999642814335058331

Big Majority Say Trump Is Hiding Information on Epstein

———— Autocracy R Us ————

https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1999483784899756424

https://twitter.com/David_J_Bier/status/1999480795271168219

https://twitter.com/GregTSargent/status/1999534747882553508

The Price of American Authoritarianism

What Can Reverse Democratic Decline?

https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1999564092067975466

https://twitter.com/ComradeOhio/status/1999097766270894131

https://twitter.com/RoguePOTUSStaff/status/1999477666085503120

Trump’s Long-Term Damage

The things we won’t be able to fix even if we wanted to.

https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1999509383919653259

In rejecting yesterday a redistricting plan backed by President Donald Trump, Indiana’s Republican-controlled senate did not merely deny Republicans two new U.S. House seats in next year’s midterm elections. They also engaged in a mass revolt against the president. The stakes of their defiance reach far beyond the midterms. This vote was possibly the most significant blow yet against the authoritarian ambitions that have defined Trump’s second term.
The significance of Indiana’s noncompliance lies not in the specifics of what was refused—attempts to gerrymander electoral maps are hardly unprecedented, even though a mid-decade battle violates norms—but in the act of refusal itself. Trump’s authoritarian project relies on the cultlike hold he has over his party.

Trump Waves the White Flag on U.S. Attorneys Gambit

For months, President Donald Trump has used unconventional tactics to install loyalists as top federal prosecutors across the country, and battled challenges to their authority. Now, he appears to be conceding defeat.
The Trump administration has signaled in recent days that it may refocus its efforts on trying to eliminate a Senate procedural tool used to block U.S. attorney nominees, rather than continuing to challenge the disqualifications in court.

Good luck with that. I can’t imagine that the Senate will scrap the blue slip process. Many Senators will still be in office long after Trump is gone.