Odds and Ends — 23 June 2026

@preparedwombat 79

16 days ago

oddsandends

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

https://twitter.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/2068080306612248985

US Senate passes housing bill with CBDC ban until 2030

https://twitter.com/shanaka86/status/2069203918593364227

Coronavirus and Public Health:

Connected 79-Year-Old Got Early Access to Obesity Drug

Millions of Americans with obesity are eagerly awaiting a powerful new drug from Eli Lilly called retatrutide, which has demonstrated bariatric-surgery levels of weight loss. Some aren’t even waiting for approval from the Food and Drug Administration, instead racing to acquire it through sketchy means.
But STAT has learned that Eli Lilly and the FDA have allowed one person to gain access to the drug through the FDA’s ‘compassionate use’ program, a pathway that gives patients with serious and immediately life-threatening medical issues access to experimental treatments.
This person was a 79-year-old man at the time the request was made in April, according to three sources familiar with the matter. Those sources, who requested anonymity due to fear of reprisals, said it drew the interest of top health officials, suggesting the person receiving this drug was well connected.

Who could that special snowflake possibly be?

Iran:

https://twitter.com/PitBackle/status/2068809163153518898

Trump’s Second Gamble on Iran

Donald Trump’s war against Iran began with one gamble and ended with another. Initially, the president bet that he could stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions by bombing Iran’s revolutionary regime out of existence. So he spent tens of billions of dollars, and upended the global economy, only to sign a memorandum of understanding undoubtedly weaker than any deal he could have struck before the war. Embedded in this document is a new gamble: that if Iran’s revolutionaries can’t be dislodged by force, they might instead be bribed to abandon their identity.
The memorandum offers a bundle of American inducements so lopsided that it reads as if Tehran wrote the plan unilaterally.

The Scale of Trump’s Blunder in Iran Comes Into Focus

The first major poll conducted since the Trump administration signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran has a point that seems like good news for Trump: Americans overwhelmingly agree he should end the war rather than push for more concessions.
But it’s not because they actually like the agreement; it’s because they think the war is a debacle, and they just want to be done with it.

Politics:

https://twitter.com/sorrogrande/status/2068892758761468084

https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/2068999894111584526

Trump Is Defying Congress on Foreign Aid

Officials have delayed spending on global health, have not issued funds for some projects and have labeled money destined for humanitarian aid as ‘unallocated’ to control how it can be spent… And when lawmakers have asked about their actions, officials often have not responded.

The End of the U.S.-Israel Alliance

Democratic Socialists Have Momentum in Urban America

The biggest city in the country is led by a democratic socialist, and another is in the running to lead the second biggest. Seattle has a socialist mayor. And in 2027, a democratic socialist will almost certainly be taking the reins of the nation’s capital.
With her convincing victory in the Democratic primary in Washington last week, Janeese Lewis George, 38, became the latest candidate to claim victory with the once-forbidden “S word” in her biography and an ambitious left-wing agenda, promising to harness the power of municipal government to tackle the costs and challenges of urban living.

https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/2069043728115810593

———— Minnesota Under Siege ————

Judge Voids Trump Subpoenas to Minnesota Officials

A federal judge has quashed six grand jury subpoenas the Trump administration served against Minnesota state and local government offices — including Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey — ruling the subpoenas were retaliatory and unlawful.

———— The Reflecting Pool ————

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/2069149138441142381

https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/2069173174093373519

Trump Says He’s Preparing Lawsuits Against ABC News

President Donald Trump said his administration is about to sue ABC over its reporting on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Pay attention kids. All of this Reflecting Pool nonsense from Trump is designed to flood the zone so that we’re fixated on this grifting fiasco rather than on the Iran war debacle. Which was designed so we’d be fixated on the Iran war rather than on Trump being a pedophile.

https://twitter.com/leftcoastbabe/status/2068946120118821369

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/2069168777283932405

https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/2069183842800508963

———— Autocracy R Us ————

ICE Spent $700 Million on Seven Warehouses. Now It Wants to Get Rid of Them.

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/2069152322165379394

https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/2069206238240346546

———— Blatant In-Your-Face Corruption ————

Republicans Are Dismantling a Key Tool in the War Against Kleptocrats

GOP lawmakers are pushing forward a bill to repeal a vital shell company database—completely undoing the biggest anti-kleptocracy step forward the U.S. has seen in decades.

https://twitter.com/WeTheBrandon/status/2069074912078188749