Odds and Ends — 7 August 2025

8 days ago

I’d read reviews of the new Amazon Prime version of War of the Worlds, all panning it, some calling it the worst movie ever made. Had to see it for myself. At one point or another Plan 9 From Outer Space, Battlefield Earth, and Manos: The Hands of Fate have all been called the worst movie ever made. There’s now a new contender.

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

Trump to allow crypto in 401(k) plans for US workers: White House

OpenAI Announces Massive Federal Partnership

OpenAI is partnering with the U.S. government to make its leading frontier models available to federal employees. Under the agreement, federal agencies can access OpenAI’s models for $1 for the next year.
The partnership is the culmination of months of effort on the part of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other OpenAI executives, who have been cozying up to the Trump administration since before President Donald Trump retook the White House in January.

Lawmakers Call for Inquiry Into China's DeepSeek Over National Security, Data Risks

Coronavirus and Public Health:

https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/status/1953312829479493980

RFK Jr is wrong about mRNA vaccines – a scientist explains how they make COVID less deadly

Politics:

Top gerrymandering foe faces internal crisis as Trump pushes to redraw the maps

The nation’s most prominent anti-gerrymandering organization is in the midst of a tense internal debate over whether to modify its position opposing all partisan redistricting, a remarkable development in response to a gerrymandering war that has broken out across the nation.
It’s a sign that after two decades of hard-won progress against partisan line-drawing, the movement is facing an existential crisis.
Common Cause has fought to bar gerrymandering through laws, referenda, and constitutional amendments for decades, battling both Democrats and Republicans in red and blue states to adopt measures to restrain lawmakers from drawing district lines that advantage their own party.

Texas Democrats Evacuated After Bomb Threat

Democratic state lawmakers who left Texas to block a Republican plan to redraw the congressional map, were evacuated from a suburban Chicago hotel Wednesday morning…

https://twitter.com/TimHannan/status/1953073603165008259

GOP Lawmaker Escalates Feud with Post of Naked Man

It’s well known that Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) and Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) do not like each other.
!But Van Orden took their very public feud to a new level this week when he posted a blurred photo on X of a naked man wearing a ski mask and carrying a sex toy tied to a walking stick and told his 74,000 followers that it was Pocan. (It wasn’t.)
The post prompted Pocan to swing back with accusations of alcoholism, asking Van Orden if he was drunk again.

———— The Epstein Coverup ————

Trump Says Focus on Epstein is ‘Total Bullshit’

Said Trump: “The whole thing is a hoax. It’s just a way to divert attention to something that is total bullshit.”

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

https://twitter.com/BlackKnight10k/status/1953143942045728909

https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1953175972095901763

Trumpworld Knows Epstein Is a Problem

Privately, some of President Donald Trump’s most loyal allies have come to a sobering conclusion. There’s simply nothing that can be done, they’ve come to believe, to salvage the ongoing catastrophe that is the MAGA base fraying over the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein.
People aren’t jumping off the Trump train yet—at least not in significant numbers, though polling shows at least 60 percent of Americans disapprove of his handling of the Epstein case in recent weeks—but the damage has been done with supporters.
Said one Trumpworld source: “Honestly, like, fuck Trump. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but there’s obviously something nefarious that went on.

https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1953182686304178326

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1953134346568671514

https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1953187587021259046

J.D. Vance Meeting to Discuss Epstein Fallout Canceled

A dinner for senior administration officials at Vice President JD Vance’s residence to discuss topics including the Trump administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case has been canceled after news of it leaked.

Nothing shady about that. No, not at all.

https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1952759778297381314

———— Theresienstadt in the Everglades ————

Former 'Alligator Alcatraz' worker describes 'inhumane' conditions inside

———— Autocracy R Us ————

Justice Department Official Urged Rioters to ‘Kill’ Cops

Less than five years after urging rioters to ‘kill’ police at the Capitol, a former Jan. 6 defendant is working as a senior adviser for the Department of Justice, which has been dramatically remade under the second Trump administration.

The Emperor’s New Trade Deal

On Tuesday Donald Trump went on CNBC to explain why the European Union is facing a tariff of ‘only’ 15 percent. But what he said was simply delusional — and the delusion should be even more concerning than the tariffs.
The Europeans, Trump asserted, had agreed to cough up $600 billion, which he described as a ‘gift,’ not a loan. And he emphasized that this is ‘$600 billion to invest in anything I want. Anything. I can do anything I want with it.’
So Trump apparently believes that the European Union has agreed to provide him with a personal $600 billion slush fund.
In fact, as I pointed out after the ‘deal’ was announced, the EU agreed to no such thing. In fact, it literally couldn’t have made such an agreement. European nations aren’t command economies in which government can tell the private sector where to invest, and in any case the European Commission, which negotiated with Trump, can’t tell the governments of member states what to do.
So think of it as the emperor’s new trade deal: Trump is strutting around, feeling very impressed with himself, but in substantive terms he’s stark naked.

President Donald Trump boasts that his tariffs have raked in billions. There’s a chance his government will have to pay a lot of it back.
Several companies and states have challenged Trump’s use of an emergency law to impose some of his duties on individual countries, in a legal dispute that is likely to work its way up to the Supreme Court. As part of the case, companies have demanded the federal government pay them back for the tariff fees they’ve already paid out.
That, trade and customs experts say, would be a logistical nightmare — both for the Trump administration and the companies seeking compensation. Perhaps more damaging for the president, it would also undercut one of the core arguments he’s made to justify his trade agenda: that his tariffs are bringing in unprecedented revenue that can help pay for his tax cuts and, one day, could replace the income tax altogether.

What could possibly go wrong? Trump Plans 100% Tariff on Computer Chips

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he will impose a 100% tariff on computer chips, likely raising the cost of electronics, autos, household appliances and other goods deemed essential for the digital age.

———— DOGE ————

https://twitter.com/CantEverDie/status/1952994561300517121

———— Mors Imperii ————

Should art be ‘patriotic’? Artist pulls her Smithsonian show, citing censorship.

https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1952963520951402797

U.S. to Ease Human Rights Criticism

Leaked drafts of the State Department’s long-delayed annual human rights reports indicate that the Trump administration intends to dramatically scale back U.S. government criticism of certain foreign nations with extensive records of abuse.
The draft human rights reports for El Salvador, Israel and Russia are significantly shorter than the ones prepared last year by the Biden administration. They strike all references to LGBTQ+ individuals or crimes against them, and the descriptions of government abuses that do remain have been softened.

Chris Cuomo Tricked by Deepfake

Newsnation anchor Chris Cuomo fell for an obviously fake video of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle jeans ad “blatant Nazi propaganda.”
Said Ocasio-Cortez, in response: “This is a deepfake dude. Please use your critical thinking skills. At this point you’re just reposting Facebook memes and calling it journalism.”