Odds and Ends — 18 April 2025

13 days ago

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

Coinbase Embroiled in Alleged Frontrunning Controversy With ‘Base Is for Everyone’ Token

Judge Rules Google Operates Illegal Ad Monopoly

Alphabet’s Google created an illegal monopoly that allowed it to control parts of the online advertising industry, a federal judge ruled Thursday, a decision that could upend one of the technology giant’s core business.

How China Took Over the World’s Rare Earths Industry

China shook the world in 2010 when it imposed an embargo on exports of crucial rare earth metals to Japan. Panicked Japanese executives appeared on television to warn that they were running out of the critical raw materials.
The embargo, prompted by a territorial dispute, lasted only seven weeks. But it changed the global supply chain for these metals. When the embargo was over, China took forceful control of its mineral bounty. Top officials in Beijing rooted out corruption, crushed smugglers and consolidated the industry under state control.

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

Studies across 14 nations show 25% to 30% rate of long COVID

Politics:

Trump State Department Redefines ‘Human Rights’

The Trump administration is substantially scaling back the State Department’s annual reports on international human rights to remove longstanding critiques of abuses such as harsh prison conditions, government corruption and restrictions on participation in the political process.
Despite decades of precedent, the reports, which are meant to inform Congressional decisions on foreign aid allocations and security assistance, will no longer call governments out for such things as denying freedom of movement and peaceful assembly. They won’t condemn retaining political prisoners without due process or restrictions on ‘free and fair elections.’
Forcibly returning a refugee or asylum seeker to a home country where they may face torture or persecution will no longer be highlighted, nor will serious harassment of human rights organizations.

FDA Plans to End Routine Food Inspections

The Food and Drug Administration is drawing up plans that would end most of its routine food safety inspections work and effectively outsource this oversight to state and local authorities.

https://twitter.com/KenGardner11/status/1912603700247273824

———— BLACKWHITE ————

Destroying endangered species' habitat wouldn't count as 'harm' under proposed Trump rule

“Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief that Big Brother is omnipotent and that the Party is infallible. But since in reality Big Brother is not omnipotent and the party is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The keyword here is BLACKWHITE. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to BELIEVE that black is white, and more, to KNOW that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.” – George Orwell

———— Autocracy R Us ————

https://twitter.com/danielsgoldman/status/1912952107940061605
https://twitter.com/SonnyBunch/status/1912970208685539817
https://twitter.com/HeathMayo/status/1912971490707792065

5 Points On How Judge Boasberg Broke Down The Admin’s Alien Enemies Contempt

https://twitter.com/adamscochran/status/1912635247809950146

https://twitter.com/Strandjunker/status/1912739465694478634

A Loophole That Would Swallow the Constitution

Trump’s ploy is almost insultingly simple. He has seized the power to arrest any person and whisk them to Bukele’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, where they will be held indefinitely without trial. Once they are in Bukele’s custody, Trump can deny them the protections of American law. His administration has admitted that one such prisoner, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was sent to El Salvador in error, but insists that it has no recourse. Trump, who has threatened the territorial integrity of multiple hemispheric neighbors, now claims that requesting the return of a prisoner he paid El Salvador to take would violate that country’s sovereignty.
Neither Trump nor Bukele bothered to make this absurd conceit appear plausible. Even as Trump and his officials claim that only El Salvador has the power to free wrongfully imprisoned American residents, the United States is paying El Salvador to hold the prisoners…
And so Trump has opened up a trapdoor beneath the American legal system. This trapdoor is wide enough to swallow the entire Constitution. So long as he can find at least one foreign strongman to cooperate, Trump can, if he wishes, imprison any dissident, judge, journalist, member of Congress, or candidate for office.

https://twitter.com/AdamKinzinger/status/1912689899565875285

https://twitter.com/theliamnissan/status/1912857622228726060

Senator: Judges could make Trump and MAGA heads explode with devious immigration ruling

https://twitter.com/krassenstein/status/1912641634812244238

https://twitter.com/NicoPerrino/status/1912976577450950829

https://twitter.com/JamesTate121/status/1912871312373985697
https://twitter.com/thejackhopkins/status/1912936931765243988

———— The Attack on Josh Shapiro ————

https://twitter.com/covie_93/status/1912905266112188833

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1912883995437642111

———— Smoot-Hawley 2.0 ————

https://twitter.com/CaptainSwing666/status/1912437957484556573

Trump’s Tariffs Have Nothing to Do with Trade

Economists and pundits have spent the last two weeks frantically trying to decode what President Donald Trump’s ultimate aim is with tariffs. Last week’s spectacular flip-flop, in which he paused the majority of them for 90 days, came after the White House had spent days insisting the tariffs were not up for negotiation but were instead a long-term strategy to help revitalize the US industrial base and bring back jobs.
However, there is a simple reason that Trump’s shortlived tariffs make little economic sense: they are not designed as economic policy but as a means to compel loyalty to the president.

https://twitter.com/upholdreality/status/1912954706739269991

We’re fewer than 90 days into Trump’s second term; many more collisions between the president and the real world will come. So what can we expect, based on what we’ve witnessed?
We won’t see qualities from Trump that we haven’t seen before, but we will see them in a more extreme version. He is more impulsive, more vindictive, and more anarchic than in his first term…
Compounding the problem is that the president has surrounded himself with men and women who are utterly loyal to him, unwilling to challenge him, and certainly unable to contain him.

https://twitter.com/AdamKinzinger/status/1912866861890605138

Harvard Is Fighting Back. So Can We.

So the Trump administration’s attack against Harvard continues and intensifies. Its assault on private institutions that remain beyond their control, on the institutions of civil society that retain their independence, continues and intensifies.
And, of course, this is not the end, or even the beginning of the end, of the Trump administration’s attack on the private sector, on civil society, on a free society. I’ve heard from reliable sources that the administration is planning to launch next week a first wave of attacks on think tanks and philanthropies it dislikes by moving to revoke their 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.

https://twitter.com/Angry_Staffer/status/1912703244561772722

FCC Chairman Threatens Comcast

https://twitter.com/cwebbonline/status/1912719877401628764

Trump Brushes Aside Attempts to Limit His Power

Donald Trump’s second presidency has been defined by his conviction to govern alone, with escalating disregard for the courts or Congress.
As he approaches his 100th day in office, Trump appears increasingly emboldened to push the boundaries of executive power. He and his top advisers argue he is acting with a broad mandate from American voters as he drives an agenda to remake American society and the global economy, even amid many legal challenges.
But as courts challenge Trump’s drive for unilateral authority, the White House is increasingly circumventing unfavorable decisions with a tone of defiance.

https://twitter.com/ArmandDoma/status/1912896738249359576

Serendipity:

https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1912721436621348913

World’s largest meat company may break Amazon deforestation pledges again

‘Parkinson’s is a man-made disease’

Europe’s flawed oversight of pesticides may be fueling a silent epidemic, warns Dutch neurologist Bas Bloem. His fight for reform pits him against industry, regulators — and time.

Well, maybe to some extent. But James Parkinson wrote about the disease (calling it shaking palsy) two hundred years ago, long before MPTP or paraquat existed.