Odds and Ends — 9 May 2023
What’s with all the ding accounts? ding832, ding2450, ding2990, ding2992, ding2963, ding2964, ding3009, ding 3011, ding3044, ding3068, ding3071, ding3079, the list goes on and on. Lately, easily 30% of my battles have been against ding, including a recent four out of five. One guy with hundreds or thousands of bot accounts?
Road Trip!
My wife and I are heading down to Viroqua, Wisconsin in The Driftless Area today. Seeing David Sedaris at the Temple Theatre this evening, staying with friends for two days. I’ll try to find time for a post or two and maybe a bit of curating.
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:
U.S. Crypto Exchange Bittrex Files for Bankruptcy in Delaware
Bittrex already announced its intention to exit the U.S., but also faces an SEC enforcement action.
US banks plan to tighten lending standards amid loan loss fears
Trader spends $120K on gas buying $155K worth of a memecoin
Nearly half of baby boomers have no retirement savings
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
There’s no disputing that the virus’s threat has ebbed since the pandemic’s worst days. By and large, “we are in our recovery phase now”—not perfectly stabilized, but no longer in chaotic flux, says René Najera, the director of public health at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Still, ending the emergency doesn’t mean that the world has fully addressed the problems that made this an emergency. Global vaccine distribution remains wildly inequitable, leaving many people susceptible to the virus’s worst effects; deaths are still concentrated among those most vulnerable; the virus’s evolutionary and transmission patterns are far from predictable or seasonal. Now, ending the emergency is less an epidemiological decision than a political one: Our tolerance for these dangers has grown to the extent that most people are doing their best to look away from the remaining risk, and will continue to until the virus forces us to turn back.
Politics:
‘We Need to Take Away Children’
Caitlin Dickerson has won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for her definitive account of the secret Trump-administration policy that separated migrant children from their parents.
The New York state judge presiding over the criminal hush money case against Donald Trump issued an order Monday restricting the former president from posting about some evidence in the case on social media.
In his order, Judge Juan Merchan largely sided with the Manhattan district attorney by limiting what Trump can publicly disclose about new evidence from the prosecution before the case goes to trial.
Trump Won’t Testify in Rape Trial
Donald Trump will not testify in the E. Jean Carroll civil battery and defamation trial after his attorney did not inform the court of any change in strategy before a judge-imposed deadline of 5 p.m. Sunday.
The judge said he had ordered the precautionary measure in light of Trump’s public comments suggesting he would make an appearance in court before the trial ended.
Basically, the judge called Trump’s bluff.
Quite a read: The DOJ sentencing memo for the Oath Keepers case
Here, the need to deter others is especially strong because these defendants engaged in acts that were intended to influence the government through intimidation or coercion—in other words, terrorism. And they were leaders of such efforts. Because these defendants not only contributed to the attack on the Capitol but helped to organize it, their sentences will be noted by those who would foment such political violence in the future.
Yeah, good luck with that: Oath Keepers Leader Wants Leniency for ‘Public Service’
…Rhodes is arguing he should get a lenient sentence of ‘time served’ out of respect for his history of ‘good works,’ by which he means — and we swear we’re not making this up — creating the Oath Keepers in the first place.
Chris Christie Looks Like He’s Running (podcast)
Did GOP Vote To Raise Debt Ceiling 3 Times with No Preconditions During Trump Era?
Serendipity:
People are trying to claim real videos are deepfakes. The courts are not amused
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