Odds and Ends — 3 May 2025
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, AI, and Debt:
Arizona governor vetoes bill to make Bitcoin part of state reserves
https://twitter.com/Angry_Staffer/status/1918392405222461758
Goodbye to North America’s oldest company: 355-year-old legendary business declares bankruptcy
Coronavirus and Public Health:
VA study: Pfizer COVID booster 68% effective against hospitalization
The measles outbreak centered in northwest Texas grew to 683 cases and spread to three new counties on Friday.
Stupid is as stupid does: Kennedy Orders Search for New Measles Treatments
With the United States facing its largest single measles outbreak in 25 years, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will direct federal health agencies to explore potential new treatments for the disease, including vitamins.
The decision is the latest in a series of actions by the nation’s top health official that experts fear will undermine public confidence in vaccines as an essential public health tool.
Politics:
https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1918439178099978510
Think Trump’s Unpopular Now? Just Wait.
100 days into his second term, the president’s approval numbers are historically bad. There’s good reason to believe they’re only going to get worse from here.
https://twitter.com/thetonymichaels/status/1918320293589758246
Trump Keeps Making Up Gas Prices
President Donald Trump’s imaginary gas price has fallen.
Two weeks ago, Trump falsely claimed ‘a couple’ states had just seen gas prices fall to $1.98 per gallon. That was not even close to true – no state had an average lower than about $2.70 per gallon, and there was no evidence any individual station was offering gas for under $2 per gallon – but the next day Trump said ‘three states’ had just hit $1.98 per gallon, which was also far from the truth.
Trump repeated this inaccurate assertion about three $1.98 states at least three times this week. Then, during a commencement address at the University of Alabama on Thursday night, he used an even lower figure.
https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1918133722291028476
AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence
https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1918205829737599085
The great deliverable of Trump’s first 100 days? Revenge.
No modern president had worked so quickly to knock out the foundations from left-wing institutions, which the influencers appreciated. A year after he said he’d be ‘too busy for retribution,’ at a time when his campaign worried that voters didn’t want him to focus on retribution, he had done plenty. The State Department was even combing its records for information on some Trump foes.
This has terrified big and small ‘L’ liberals. It’s also been fairly easy, exercising powers that don’t need congressional approval and other presidents were reluctant to use. Trump can credibly tell supporters, like he did in Michigan this week, that he kept his promises.
https://twitter.com/theliamnissan/status/1918451721862291662
———— Stark. Raving. Mad. ————
https://twitter.com/PawlowskiMario/status/1918504089039577104
———— Autocracy R Us ————
https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1918431166937395658
Judge Strikes Down Trump Order on Law Firm
A federal judge on Friday permanently blocked an executive order from President Trump targeting the law firm Perkins Coie, declaring it unconstitutional.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell is a decisive win for the law firm and likely to serve as a model for judges weighing cases brought by other firms targeted in similar orders.
The judge says the law firms who resisted Trump “will be the models lauded when this period of American history is written.”
https://twitter.com/benwikler/status/1918349822550999189
https://twitter.com/marlene4719/status/1918087653075107975
https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1918405604168650789
———— Smoot-Hawley 2.0 ————
https://twitter.com/Logically_JC/status/1918421912935367094
What’s Driving Trump’s Trade Agenda
…Trump and his advisers have laid out several, sometimes contradictory goals for his tariffs: increasing federal revenue, strengthening the U.S. hand in trade talks and reshoring manufacturing jobs.
But there is a larger, less explicit objective: establishing near absolute American power over global trade rules, with Trump personally at the center of it all.
Over Trump’s first 100 days back in power, his team has sought to relegate Congress, the courts, the World Trade Organization, multinational companies and foreign nations to roles subordinate to Trump. The only way to avoid his wrath is to acquiesce to his demands. According to his allies, that is by design.
https://twitter.com/PrezLives2022/status/1918364746023084394
‘Free Trade’ Republicans Are a Dying Breed
Trump is drawing support from a rising faction of New Right economic voices that has spent the past decade working to reshape the GOP along Trumpist lines and away from laissez-faire. They say the party’s collective willingness to buckle up and go along with Trump’s trade war, whether out of ideological sympathy or political calculation, is evidence the populists are prevailing.
Some Republicans remain uncomfortable with the departure from Reaganite dogma. The tariff debate has sent markets gyrating and induced anxiety among the business community that has long been the party’s major constituency.
———— Putin&Krasnov vs. Ukraine ————
US pulls out of formal peace talks between Ukraine and Russia
https://twitter.com/joni_askola/status/1918324276702138468
https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1918190255271715122
Vladimir Vladimirovich approves: Trump Plans Major Downsizing at Intelligence Agencies
The Trump administration is planning significant personnel cuts at the Central Intelligence Agency and other major U.S. spy units, downsizing the government’s most sensitive national security agencies…
https://twitter.com/TheFl0orIsLaVa/status/1918223077093052656
https://twitter.com/GhostofHarald/status/1918152114943201554
———— Signalgate ————
Pentagon Inspector General Expands Investigation Into Hegseth’s Use of Signal
The Pentagon inspector general has expanded an investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s sharing of military plans to a second Signal chat that included his wife and brother.
When is a tattoo really a tattoo?
———— Melon Husk ————
https://twitter.com/newrepublic/status/1918350758891704527
Surprise, surprise: SpaceX Is Big Winner In Trump’s Budget
Pentagon officials say SpaceX is considered likely to be the top recipient of this burst of new spending, which could generate billions of dollars in new contracts for the company.
That is because SpaceX manufactures both rockets that can launch military payloads into orbit and satellite systems that can deliver the surveillance and targeting tools needed for the project, which would require the largest military investments the United States has ever made in space.
https://twitter.com/SawyerHackett/status/1918109016124801511
Trump Asks SCOTUS to Allow DOGE Access
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to clear the way for Elon Musk ’s Department of Government Efficiency to access Social Security systems containing personal data on millions of Americans.
https://twitter.com/joni_askola/status/1918424178820030549
———— Mors Imperii ————
https://twitter.com/krassenstein/status/1918398551807115580
Weather Service More Crippled Than Previously Thought
The National Weather Service is in worse shape than previously known, due to a combination of layoffs, early retirements and preexisting vacancies.
The nation’s forecasting agency is in tatters as what could be a destructive hurricane season nears.
https://twitter.com/Mollyploofkins/status/1918106882885009680
Press Freedoms Remain ‘Problematic’ In the U.S.
The new World Press Freedom Index finds the U.S. has fallen to 57th out of 180 countries when it comes to overall freedom of the press.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1918058753921798510
Oklahoma Schools Must Teach Trump Conspiracy Theory
Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, thousands of high school students in Oklahoma will be required to learn about President Trump’s debunked claims that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud,” Popular Information reports.
The lesson will not be part of a course on conspiracy theories, but an official component of the new social studies curriculum created by Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters (R).
https://twitter.com/iamalmostlegend/status/1918371451712741673
