Odds and Ends — 30 January 2024
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:
GBTC outflows drop 70% from peak as Bitcoin exchanges shed BTC
The Real Evergrande Reckoning Is for China’s Foreign Creditors
Fintech Provider Portal Raises $34M Seed Round for Bitcoin-Based Decentralized Exchange
India set to be world’s third largest economy by 2027, finance ministry says
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
Why are 1,500 Americans still dying from COVID every week?
Politics:
Where Is Hamas Getting Its Weapons? Increasingly, From Israel.
Trump’s Lawyers Made Some Very Odd Strategic Choices
Trump or his lawyers must have calculated that a technical argument would be more appealing to the conservative majority than his other ones, such as an argument that Trump had the constitutional right to encourage his supporters to invade the Capitol. Deciding matters on a technicality would allow the Supreme Court to hide behind legal jargon and avoid weighing in on Trump’s conduct. And it would allow Trump to claim a victory (I can imagine him crowing about a ‘complete and total vindication’) that would shut down disqualification efforts across the country and that could inure to his political benefit.
Further, Trump’s lawyer probably does not want to get up in front of the justices at oral argument and parse Trump’s comments made in the speech before the Capitol invasion about why his supporters need to ‘fight like hell.’
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1752117638019293389
Trump Changes His Message on the Stock Market
https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1752049022184120489
The Trump White House was hopped up on Air Force “go pills” because of course it was
https://twitter.com/WalshFreedom/status/1751254253505781885
Republicans Push to Keep Abortion Off the Ballot
Legislative efforts in Missouri and Mississippi are attempting to prevent voters from having a say over abortion rights, building on anti-abortion strategies seen in other states, including last year in Ohio.
Democrats and abortion rights advocates say the efforts are evidence that Republican lawmakers and abortion opponents are trying to undercut democratic processes meant to give voters a direct role in forming state laws.
https://twitter.com/middleageriot/status/1752122632420614594
Pro-Trump News Network May Have Engaged in Crimes
In the wake of the 2020 election, the president of the far-right network One America News sent a potentially explosive email to former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, with a spreadsheet claiming to contain passwords of employees from the voting technology company Smartmatic.
The existence of the spreadsheet was recently disclosed by Smartmatic, which is suing OAN for defamation. CNN pieced together who was involved in the email exchanges by examining court records from three separate cases stemming from the 2020 election.
Trump lashes out at financial monitor in business fraud case after she reports errors
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1751999161971495179
Amy Coney Barrett’s Father Promoted Inside Christian Sect
Survivors of alleged childhood abuse inside the People of Praise, a secretive Christian sect that counts Amy Coney Barrett as a member, are voicing concerns that the supreme court justice’s father, who was recently promoted to a new role, may seek to block information about the group’s historic handling of sexual abuse becoming public.
Barrett has never publicly disclosed her participation in the covenant Christian community, which some former members have compared to a cult.
https://twitter.com/OlgaNYC1211/status/1751833903868850687
The Supreme Court Has Itself to Blame for Texas Defying Its Orders
https://twitter.com/MayoIsSpicyy/status/1752149750877749663
Europe Chafes at America’s Protectionist Tilt
President Biden’s 2021 declaration that ‘America is back’ was welcomed by European officials eager to move past their trade troubles with the Trump administration.
Yet instead of reversing policies driven by Donald Trump’s protectionist view, Biden has advanced many of them. The president has kept trade barriers in place, left European companies out of subsidies designed to bolster U.S. manufacturing and surprised allies with tighter restrictions on Chinese access to American technology.
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1751377767654953423
Serendipity:
Inside the grisly birth of Jaws: ‘It’s a novel about a fish, who cares?’
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