Odds and Ends — 28 May 2025
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, AI, and Debt:
Trading Platform eToro Adds 12 Tokens to US Platform Following SEC Settlement and IPO Push
Stocks Rally on the ‘TACO Trade’
Stock markets jumped on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 posting its biggest gain in weeks. The index rose 2 percent in afternoon trading, which analysts attributed to President Trump’s delaying a proposed 50 percent tariff on the European Union that he had threatened only a few days earlier.
They also talked about tacos.
Or rather, the ‘TACO’ trade, which is short for Trump Always Chickens Out. The tongue-in-cheek term, coined by a Financial Times columnist, has been adopted by some to describe the pattern in which markets tumble after Mr. Trump makes tariff threats, only to rebound just as sharply when he relents and gives countries more time to negotiate deals.
U.S. Steel Situation Gets Even Stranger
The U.S. Steel saga is entering its ludicrous era, more than 17 months after the Pittsburgh-based company agreed to be acquired by Japan’s Nippon Steel for around $15 billion.
None of this is working the way it’s supposed to, and the chaos has opened the door for potential impropriety.
Behind the Curtain: A white-collar bloodbath
Dario Amodei — CEO of Anthropic, one of the world's most powerful creators of artificial intelligence — has a blunt, scary warning for the U.S. government and all of us:
AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years…
Amodei said AI companies and government need to stop "sugar-coating" what's coming: the possible mass elimination of jobs across technology, finance, law, consulting and other white-collar professions, especially entry-level gigs.
Coronavirus and Public Health:
With Covid vaccine decisions, RFK Jr. unleashes an unfettered assault on public health
Politics:
The warlords who sacked Rome did not intend to doom Western Europe to centuries of ignorance. It was not a foreseeable consequence of their actions.
The same cannot be said of the sweeping attack on human knowledge and progress that the Trump administration is now undertaking—a deliberate destruction of education, science, and history, conducted with a fanaticism that recalls the Dark Ages that followed Rome’s fall.
Kristi Noem Backs Nationalist Candidate in Poland
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem urged Poles to vote for the nationalist opposition candidate in Sunday’s presidential election, wading into a tightly-contested campaign that threatens to derail efforts to rebuild the country’s democratic institutions.
ICE Told to Step Up Immigrant Arrests
In a tense meeting last week, top Trump aide Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanded that immigration agents seek to arrest 3,000 people a day.
The new target is triple the number of daily arrests that agents were making in the early days of Trump’s term — and suggests the president’s top immigration officials are full-steam ahead in pushing for mass deportations.
Even IF they somehow managed to do that, it would take 10+ years to deport America’s undocumented population.
———— Autocracy R Us ————
Judge Strikes Down Trump Order Targeting Law Firm
A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that President Trump’s attempt to punish an elite law firm associated with his political opposition was unconstitutional and directed the government not to enforce an order Mr. Trump signed in March that had threatened its business.
Siding with WilmerHale, which sued to block the president’s order, Judge Richard Leon of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that Mr. Trump appeared intent on coercing the firm to the bargaining table under the threat of harsh penalties.
The ruling was welcome news for the handful of law firms that opted to fight the White House even as several of their peers caved to the pressure campaign and made deals with Mr. Trump to avoid persecution.
ICE Taps into Nationwide AI-Enabled Camera Network
Data from a license plate-scanning tool that is primarily marketed as a surveillance solution for small towns to combat crimes like car jackings or finding missing people is being used by ICE.
Local police around the country are performing lookups in Flock’s AI-powered automatic license plate reader system … giving federal law enforcement side-door access to a tool that it currently does not have a formal contract for.
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1927160382663139496
Why attack universities? Why attack journalism? Because ignorance works for power. First, make the truth seekers live in fear. Sue the journalists. For nothing. Then send masked agents to abduct a college student, a writer of her college paper who wrote an editorial supporting Palestinian rights, and send her to a prison in Louisiana and charge her with nothing. Then, move to destroy law firms that stand up for the rights of others.
With that done, power can rewrite history. With grotesque, false narratives, they can make heroes criminals and criminals heroes. And they can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality. ‘Diversity’ is now described as ‘illegal.’ ‘Equity’ is to be shunned. ‘Inclusion’ is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my friends…
https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1926993201665122742
Why Is This Supreme Court Handing Trump More and More Power?
The court may believe that it retains the ultimate authority to check presidential lawlessness, even as it signs off on the elimination of many other constraints on presidential power. The danger is that by the time the court tries to exercise that authority, it may be too late.
Journalists Under Pressure from Fear of Retribution
Executives at major media outlets are reportedly instructing their newsrooms to temper their coverage of President Trump and his administration amid growing fears of political retribution.
President Trump may not have the political power to pass laws that hurt the press, but his threats of regulatory scrutiny and private lawsuits have proven just as damaging in silencing his critics.
———— Blatant In-Your-Face Corruption ————
https://twitter.com/Malinowski/status/1927410899809378726
https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1927518355461976570
Trump to Pardon Reality TV Stars
…Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he’s planning to pardon TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, famous for “Chrisley Knows Best,” a reality show that followed their tight-knit family and extravagant lifestyle that prosecutors said was boosted by bank fraud and hiding earnings from tax authorities.
The Chrisleys were convicted in 2022 of conspiring to defraud banks in the Atlanta area out of more than $30 million in loans by submitting false documents. They were also found guilty of tax evasion, obscuring their earnings while showcasing a luxurious way of living that authorities said included high-priced cars, designer clothes, real estate and travel…
“Your parents are going to be free and clean and I hope that we can do it by tomorrow,” Trump said in a call with their daughter, Savannah Chrisley, according to a video posted online by a White House aide. In a social media post, the aide declared, “Trump Knows Best!”
———— Putin&Krasnov vs. Ukraine ————
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1927397906002153571
Trump Calls Putin ‘Crazy’—And the Kremlin Shrugs
The Russians continue their bombing while snarking that the American president is too emotional.
https://twitter.com/ruthbenghiat/status/1927442745867514240
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1927406967246463456
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1927379731680219298
How to Hide a 350-Foot Megayacht
Russian oligarchs use the offshore system to shield their luxury assets. The Trump Administration is ending an effort to find and seize them.
https://twitter.com/YourAnonCentral/status/1927401742896976195
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1927396920428793948
———— Smoot-Hawley 2.0 ————
Trade Crime Is Soaring, U.S. Firms Say, as Trump’s Tariffs Incentivize Fraud
As President Trump’s tariffs have ratcheted up in recent months, so have the mysterious solicitations some U.S. companies have received, offering them ways to avoid the taxes.
Shipping companies, many of them based in China, have reached out to U.S. firms that import apparel, auto parts and jewelry, offering solutions that they say can make the tariffs go away.
———— Hegseth on the Rocks ————
https://twitter.com/lawindsor/status/1927568649973370886
Pentagon promotes Kingsley Wilson to press secretary despite history of antisemitic comments
Wilson has also called Confederate General Robert E. Lee “one of the greatest Americans to ever live” and regularly promoted the antisemitic “Great Replacement Theory.”
https://twitter.com/covie_93/status/1927401729026343350
———— Mors Imperii ————
Trump Says ‘Golden Dome’ to Cost Canada $61 Billion
President Donald Trump said Canada would need to pay $61 billion to join the ‘Golden Dome’ system he’s proposed to boost missile defense with space-based interceptors.
But the president needled Ottawa by saying he would be willing to protect Canada for free if the nation opted to join the United States, his latest suggestion that the northern neighbor would benefit from being absorbed by the US.
https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/status/1927484547328774251
You're Not Crazy. America Has Gone Mad
We are throwing the most advanced health science research system into the sea and have turned over our public health infrastructure to quacks and crooks. We are destroying our prosperity to sate the president’s desire to play at 19th century political economy. We are blithely ignoring the potential for war with former allies as Trump crows about annexing Canada and Greenland.
In a rational world, we would already have seen markets balk at Trump’s trade policies, investigations into the mismanagement of our health services, and impeachment proceedings against a man who continues to menace treaty allies for nothing but personal ego.
But it isn’t a rational world, at least not this American corner of it. And so I want to explore madness as the ordering principle of American life by looking at some of the key sites of breakdown. There is nothing curative in this essay, but diagnosis is a first step. And our symptoms are many.
Sweeping Cuts at Veterans Affairs Tanks Morale
Morale is plummeting inside the Department of Veterans Affairs as tens of thousands of employees prepare for deep staffing cuts, raising alarms among employees, veterans and advocates who fear the reductions would severely damage care and benefits for millions of the nation’s former service members.
Republicans Won’t Install Plaque for January 6 Officers
More than three years after its installation was approved by Congress, a plaque honoring law enforcement personnel for defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is instead sitting in a Capitol basement utility room surrounded by tools and maintenance equipment.
The cast bronze memorial to the officers, which declares that ‘their heroism will never be forgotten,’ was required by law to be installed by March 2023 near the west front of the building.
Serendipity:
https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1927659493048918306
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