Odds and Ends — 19 May 2025

@preparedwombat 78

12 days ago

oddsandends

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

https://twitter.com/SpencerHakimian/status/1924155351911268384

Circle pursues IPO—but talks with Coinbase and Ripple could mean a sale

https://twitter.com/allenanalysis/status/1924121674976305203

Coronavirus and Public Health:

New Covid-19 wave grips Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Thailand

https://twitter.com/DrNeilStone/status/1924487682543030511

Politics:

Liberal mayor Dan beats nationalist in tense race for Romanian presidency

Joe Biden Has ‘Aggressive Form’ of Prostate Cancer

https://twitter.com/krassenstein/status/1924263790041878851
https://twitter.com/covie_93/status/1924544511553818680

Trump Lacked Authority to Dismantle Institute of Peace

A federal judge in Washington ruled Monday that the Trump administration exceeded its authority when it dismantled the U.S. Institute of Peace, an independent nonprofit created by Congress.

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1924520016105386015

Pope Leo Snubs J.D. Vance

Pope Leo XIV spurned J.D. Vance on Sunday, offering him a quick greeting after his inaugural mass while holding extensive private meetings with other world leaders.
The first American pope shook Vance’s hand during a brief, 17-second exchange during the procession line after the mass.

https://twitter.com/Logically_JC/status/1924066451696062642

———— Autocracy R Us ————

GOP Tax Bill Would Curtail Power of Courts

Tucked deep in the thousand-plus pages of the multitrillion-dollar budget bill making its way through the Republican-controlled U.S. House is a paragraph curtailing a court’s greatest tool for forcing the government to obey its rulings: the power to enforce contempt findings.
It’s unclear whether the bill can pass the House in its current form — it failed in a committee vote Friday — whether the U.S. Senate would preserve the contempt provision or whether courts would uphold it. But the fact that GOP lawmakers are including it shows how much those in power in the nation’s capital are thinking about the consequences of defying judges as the battle between the Trump administration and the courts escalates.

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1924422873734660208

Trump Is Literally Attempting to Rewrite History

For generations, official American documents have been meticulously preserved and protected, from the era of quills and parchment to boxes of paper to the cloud, safeguarding snapshots of the government and the nation for posterity.
“>Now, the Trump administration is scrubbing thousands of government websites of history, legal records and data it finds disagreeable.

https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1924129107891101718

Your Papers Please: Trump employs proof of identity tactic to monitor Americans

The Trump administration has instated all sorts of requirements to monitor Americans, particularly immigrants in its first months.
From an undocumented immigrant registry to proof-of-citizenship for voting, President Trump has attempted to create a landscape in which the government can demand to know — and force people to prove — their identity in radical new ways.

———— Smoot-Hawley 2.0 ————

Trump’s Addled Tariff Rant

———— Putin&Krasnov vs. Ukraine ————

I was U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. I resigned because of Trump's foreign policy.

“I cannot stand by while a country is invaded, a democracy bombarded, and children killed with impunity. I believe that the only way to secure U.S. interests is to stand up for democracies and to stand against autocrats. Peace at any price is not peace at all ― it is appeasement. And history has taught us time and again that appeasement does not lead to safety, security or prosperity. It leads to more war and suffering.”

———— Mors Imperii ————

https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1924079240602874148

Attack of the Sadistic Zombies

Republicans in Congress, taking their marching orders from Donald Trump, are on track to enact a hugely regressive budget — big tax giveaways to the wealthy combined with cruel cuts in programs that serve lower-income Americans. True, the legislation suffered a setback last week, initially failing to make it out of committee. But that was largely because some right-wing Republicans didn’t think the benefit cuts were vicious enough.
OK, news at 11. Isn’t this what Republicans always do? But this reconciliation bill — that is, legislation structured in such a way that it can’t be filibustered and may well pass with no Democratic votes — is different in both degree and kind from what we’ve seen before: Its cruelty is exceptional even by recent right-wing standards.

https://twitter.com/Logically_JC/status/1924542658531172705

https://twitter.com/DeathMetalV/status/1923924682035573243

https://twitter.com/CalltoActivism/status/1924142577051226306