Odds and Ends — 20 June 2025
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, AI, and Debt:
North Korean Hackers Are Targeting Top Crypto Firms With Malware Hidden in Job Applications
TikTok Hits Back At Congressman's '$300 Million Bribe' Accusation Over Trump Meme Coin
The truth hurts.
CEO Economic Outlook Sinks to Five-Year Low
Economic sentiment among America’s top CEOs plunged to the lowest level since 2020, according to a new survey by the Business Roundtable.
Chief executives have not been this sour on the economy since the once-in-a-century pandemic, with significant downgrading expectations for hiring, investment and sales growth.
Coronavirus and Public Health:
What we know about ‘razor blade throat’ COVID
Travel Restrictions Bar Residents Needed at U.S. Hospitals
Travel and visa restrictions imposed by the Trump administration threaten patient care at hundreds of hospitals that depend on medical residents recruited from overseas.
Foreign medical residents often serve as the frontline caregivers at busy safety-net hospitals in low-income communities. Normally the residents begin work on July 1. Orientation programs for some of them already started this week.
Now some of those hospitals are racing to prevent staffing shortages.
Politics:
The Trojan Horse Will Come for Us Too
The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East offer Americans a glimpse into the battles of the future—and a warning.
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1935838520569966637
Huh. I guess it’s just a coincidence that he mentioned that on Juneteenth rather than Columbus Day.
Record Debt Limit Increase Would Break GOP Precedent
For years, Republicans have warned about the government’s reliance on borrowed money to pay its bills. That stance has often led to standoffs over raising the nation’s borrowing cap, with Republicans insisting that any increase in America’s so-called debt limit be paired with spending reductions.
This year, the party of fiscal conservatism is poised to discard that philosophy as Republicans prepare to press ahead with domestic policy legislation that combines nearly $4 trillion in tax cuts with a $5 trillion increase to the debt limit. An increase of that magnitude would be a record and underscore the ideological flexibility that many Republicans are willing to embrace when they are in power.
https://twitter.com/TencicFred/status/1935498771821117602
https://twitter.com/WedgeLIVE/status/1935569233305387322
https://twitter.com/AndrewHilaryUS/status/1935838025008750835
U.S. Giving Up on Taxing Inheritances?
Congressional Republicans are proposing to permanently allow wealthy families to pass on more of their assets tax-free, as the federal government all but abandons taxing large inheritances.
———— Autocracy R Us ————
https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1935774904642597116
———— Los Angeles Dodgers ————
Los Angeles Dodgers to Help Immigrant Communities
The Dodgers on Thursday will announce their plans to assist the immigrant communities recently impacted in Los Angeles.
Dodgers Deny ICE Access to Stadium Grounds
https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1935803003937681460
———— Israel/Krasnov/Iran ————
I noted over the weekend several reasons why Donald Trump himself, his presidency, and his administration overall are nowhere near prepared for the Iran/Israel situation.
But the more that it becomes an Iran/US situation, the more it’s important to add one more important point: Trump is absolutely, utterly unprepared to rally the nation around a war effort. And nothing we’ve seen in the last ten years even hints that he’s capable of it.
https://twitter.com/Weinsteinlaw/status/1935810777958826368
https://twitter.com/YourAnonCentral/status/1935778859317969034
https://twitter.com/theliamnissan/status/1935766318642336015
https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1935756963339547115
———— Smoot-Hawley 2.0 ————
China Rolled Trump in Latest Trade Negotiations
…Donald Trump may have touted the latest trade deal between the US and China as a win for America. But it’s Chinese leaders who have walked away with an extra spring in their step.
While full details of the agreement, reached by negotiators in London last week, remain under wraps, it appears largely to restore an earlier arrangement sealed in May, which had rapidly deteriorated as mistrust and tension between the two sides spiraled.
This time around, China has learned a key lesson: the power of its leverage over the US — and how it can use that to its advantage in the months ahead.
———— Mors Imperii ————
https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1935708149769744581
https://twitter.com/thetonymichaels/status/1935431173703872800
Trump to Cut Inspectors Monitoring Gun Sales
The Justice Department plans to slash the number of inspectors who monitor federally licensed gun dealers by two-thirds, sharply limiting the government’s already crimped capacity to identify businesses that sell guns to criminals.
The move, part of the Trump administration’s effort to defang and downsize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, comes as the department considers merging the A.T.F. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. It follows a rollback of Biden-era regulations aimed at stemming the spread of deadly homemade firearms, along with other gun control measures.
Serendipity:
https://twitter.com/DissentFu/status/1935452029742440451
https://twitter.com/adrianmckinty/status/1935668077548437718
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My husband and I are the only people we know who have never had COVID. He gets every vaccine available; I have only taken the first two. I'm really careful to limit our exposure wherever possible.