Odds and Ends — 6 May 2024

Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:
Coinbase faces new lawsuit over alleged investor deception
The Recentralization Of Bitcoin Can Be Traced Back To Its Design
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
US shared intel with UK showing 'high likelihood' of COVID-19 lab leak: report
Politics:
https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1787134138283155963
The Real “Outside Agitators” of These Protests Are Members of Congress
There’s blame to go around here, but this started because a showboating GOP congresswoman lit the match that started this fire.
https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1787169387859873847
U.S. put a hold on an ammunition shipment to Israel
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1787137740900913154
China is now engaged in open hybrid warfare against the West
https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1787117911729225940
Ron DeSantis, I am sorry to tell you, has signed a law banning lab-grown beef in his state. “Florida is fighting back against the global elite’s plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals,” he said in a statement, gesturing toward the shadowy, unnamed cabal (The UN, perhaps? The World Economic Forum?) that will one day surely force us to eat bugs for its sick satisfaction…
…spring has arrived in much of the U.S. Get out there and grill some meat — real, lab-grown, plant-based, or made-from-bugs. Whatever you want.
https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/1787117727179489681
Trump’s victory would touch off the most dramatic reshuffling of K Street’s pecking order since the conservative revolution of 1980. The Democratic lobbyists who’d expected to flourish under a Hillary Clinton administration were now out in the cold, and the Republican lobbying establishment had almost no relationship with Trump.
Suddenly every wheeler-dealer in the city was racing to make friends in Trump’s orbit, portraying themselves as longtime backers of the MAGA movement, even if they weren’t, and creating new strategies for getting what they wanted out of the president-elect. Washington’s entire lobbying industry, it seemed, was reinventing itself overnight.
https://twitter.com/berlin_bridge/status/1787091982759706674
Russia plotting sabotage across Europe, intelligence agencies warn
https://twitter.com/DanielMillerEsq/status/1786496714494316974
Trump Team Says Minnesota and Virginia Are In Play
Top officials for former President Donald Trump’s campaign believe they can flip Democratic strongholds Minnesota and Virginia into his column in November, they told donors behind closed doors at a Republican National Committee retreat Saturday.
Both beliefs seem delusional to me. In 2020, Biden topped Trump by 7% in Minnesota and 10% in Virginia. In both states, Democrats did well in recent legislative elections, Minnesota in 2022 and Virginia in 2023. If either state’s experiencing a Republican groundswell, it’s well hidden.
https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1787181521226379440
GOP: Noem up in smoke; Scott, Burgum rise in Trump VP race
https://twitter.com/Roshan_Rinaldi/status/1786905989343564168
Candidates Can Raise Unlimited Funds for Ballot Measures
The Federal Election Commission quietly issued an advisory opinion last week allowing candidates to raise unlimited money for issue-advocacy groups working on ballot measures in elections in which those candidates are on the ballot.
The opinion, issued in response to a request from a Nevada-based abortion rights group, could significantly alter the landscape in the fall in terms of the capacity that candidates aligned with these groups have to help them raise money.
The decision applies to all federal candidates, but with a presidential election taking place in six months, the biggest attention will fall to that race. If Mr. Biden can solicit money for abortion-rights ballot measures, he can add to an already-existing fund-raising advantage that his team currently has over Mr. Trump.
https://twitter.com/pietrospina/status/1787133659570401425
Serendipity:
Houston area’s flood problems offer lessons for cities trying to adapt to a changing climate


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