Odds and Ends — 21 April 2025

@preparedwombat 77

10 days ago

oddsandends

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

Crypto casino takings top $80bn as gamblers bypass blocks

Platforms now rival traditional betting groups in scale despite their services being illegal in most countries

Bybit CEO: Two-Thirds of Funds From $1.4B Lazarus Group Hack Still Traceable

Farmers are switching to stablecoins

Politics:

Pope Francis Is Dead

Pope Francis has died, the Vatican announced on Monday, ending a groundbreaking pontificate that sought, however haltingly, to reshape the Roman Catholic Church into a more inclusive institution.

https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1913856086106685905

Mark Carney Unveils Plan to Trump-Proof Canada

Liberal Leader Mark Carney released his election platform on Saturday, touting an emphasis on new military spending and bolstering Canada against Donald Trump’s expansionist vision.
Said Carney: “In this crisis we have to prepare for America’s threats to our very sovereignty. They want our land, our resources, they want our water, they want our country.”
He added: “President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us, and that will never happen. Canada is not America, and it never will be, but we need to do more to just recognize that. We need a plan to deal with this new reality.”

https://twitter.com/AntiToxicPeople/status/1914051142633619951

In the olden days, we called this blatant corruption: Trump Raised $239 Million for Inauguration

…Trump raised $239 million for his inauguration festivities in January, a norm-shattering amount fueled by corporate America’s desire to curry favor with a famously transactional president.

———— Autocracy R Us ————

https://twitter.com/MaxFlugrath/status/1913673730414305647

From National Review, that hotbed of radical Marxism: What Trump Wants

Trump intends to illustrate that he has amassed uncheckable power. That is, having extirpated what made the Republican Party conservative and constitutionalist, and with Congress thus no obstacle (at least for the next 21 months), the president wants it known that such constitutional constraints on executive power as courts and due process are no longer operative.

GOP Judge Darkly Warns Of Last Chance To Avoid Tyranny

If you had told me in 2005 that 20 years hence federal appeals court Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III would be writing a paean to our lost liberties and freedoms under a Republican president, I may have politely suggested you seek some help.
On what planet does a man on President George W. Bush’s short list to replace Chief Justice William Rehnquist end up as a forlorn voice lamenting the erosion of the rule of law and the collapse of the constitutional order? A planet on which Donald Trump is twice elected president.

https://twitter.com/RetroAgent12/status/1913724225783009446

“We live in a moment when our freedoms are once again under attack from the highest office in the land. We see things that would be familiar to our revolutionary predecessors: the silencing of critics, the disappearing of people from our streets, demands for unquestioning fealty.” — Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey

How to dismantle democracy: Lessons aspiring autocrats may take from Hungary’s Orbán

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer,“ the New York Times reports.
Some of those people said that the information Mr. Hegseth shared on the Signal chat included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen — essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic.

https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1914105386379997632

https://twitter.com/FPWellman/status/1914107897165795721

https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1914069633650630977

Pentagon Is In ‘Total Chaos’

The Pentagon is in ‘total chaos’ and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is unlikely to remain in his role, according to its former top spokesperson, who painted a scene of dysfunction, backstabbing and continuous missteps at the highest levels of the department.

https://twitter.com/hissgoescobra/status/1914078355235934473

———— Putin&Krasnov vs. Ukraine ————

https://twitter.com/HotSotin/status/1913578104297042385

Ukraine On the Clock to Respond to Trump Plan

Ukraine is under pressure to respond this week to a series of far-reaching Trump administration ideas for how to end the war in Ukraine by granting concessions to Russia, including potential U.S. recognition of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and excluding Kyiv from joining NATO.
The ideas were outlined in a confidential document presented by senior Trump administration officials to their Ukrainian counterparts in Paris on Thursday, according to Western officials. They were also shared with senior European officials at the daylong meeting.
The U.S. is now waiting for Kyiv’s response, which is expected to come at a meeting of U.S., Ukrainian and European officials in London later this week. Then if there is a convergence among the American, European and Ukrainian positions, the proposals could be floated to Moscow.

Far-reaching Trump administration ideas? WTF?

Okay, I’m going to go way out on a limb here and say that there’s about a 0.00001% chance that Ukraine will agree to this far-reaching Putin idea. Even Stevie Wonder can see that Trump is a Russian agent.

———— Mors Imperii ————

https://twitter.com/yeeeerika/status/1913429000459866227

Order Calls for Drastic Overhaul of State Department

A draft White House executive order proposes a drastic restructuring of the State Department, including eliminating almost all of its Africa operations and shutting down embassies and consulates across the continent.
The draft also calls for cutting offices at State Department headquarters that address climate change and refugee issues, as well as democracy and human rights concerns.
The signing of the executive order would be accompanied by efforts to lay off both career diplomats, known as foreign service officers, and civil service employees, who usually work in the department’s headquarters in Washington.

https://twitter.com/SpencerHakimian/status/1914002358779973944

Trump to Pull Another $1 Billion in Funding from Harvard

The Trump administration has grown so furious with Harvard University after a week of escalating dispute between the two sides that it is planning to pull an additional $1 billion of the school’s funding for health research.
Trump administration officials thought the long list of demands they sent Harvard last Friday was a confidential starting point for negotiations.
They were surprised on Monday when Harvard released the letter to the public. Before Monday, the administration was planning to treat Harvard more leniently than Columbia University, but now officials want to apply even more pressure to the nation’s most prominent university.

Now they’re saying that it’s a starting point for negotiations? Just yesterday, they were saying it was malpractice by Harvard to not realize that this letter was so outrageous it probably wasn't true.

https://twitter.com/KwikWarren/status/1913791423641530405

https://twitter.com/ArtCandee/status/1913960850659950794