Odds and Ends — 4 March 2023
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:
Binance USD Stablecoin Market Cap Falls Below $10B After Coinbase Delisting
Liquidity is deteriorating for Binance USD as crypto investors have redeemed some $7 billion of tokens from issuer Paxos since regulators ramped up pressure on the stablecoin.
Home Prices Fell for First Time in a Decade
It finally happened. Median home sale prices are lower than they were a year ago for the first time since 2012.
High mortgage rates have been clobbering the real estate market but prices haven’t budged much, as homeowners are reluctant to sell and give up the low rates they nabbed in an earlier era.
Just what’s needed, more FUD: US legislators renew call for EPA investigation of crypto mining emissions data
Democrats, Republicans aim to block Biden admin’s action protecting Chinese solar companies
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
COVID call centers and testing sites close in further sign US is moving past the pandemic
The Lab-Leak and Mask Debates Are a Disaster
The elites got everything perfectly backwards; the lab-leak conspiracy theory was true, and the mask mandates were a fraud!
Well, not quite. The deeper you dig into the details of each case, the murkier the story becomes. In fact, the deeper you dig, the more you realize that murkiness is the story.
Politics:
Special Counsel Focuses on Trump Lawyers
Federal prosecutors investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election have asked witnesses extensive questions about the actions of Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for former president Donald Trump — including where he got his information about alleged fraud, what he did in the days around Jan. 6, 2021, and what he knew about the actions coming that day, people who have appeared in front of the grand jury say.
Investigators looking into classified documents taken to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home and private club, have sought to force testimony from another Trump lawyer, Evan Corcoran, by saying there is evidence that the former president used the attorney’s legal services in furtherance of a crime.
And prosecutors have repeatedly sought information on the actions of yet another Trump lawyer, Boris Epshteyn, in connection with both classified documents and Trump’s false electors scheme.
The Litigants Trying to Ban the Abortion Pill Have Some Truly Wild Legal Claims
They are seriously proposing that ending a pregnancy robs an OB-GYN of a financial opportunity.
EPA to make states evaluate public water systems’ cybersecurity
Speaking in India, whose government has been sympathetic to Putin’s claims on Ukraine and helped Moscow mitigate the effect of western sanctions, Lavrov says “the war we are trying to stop was launched against us.”
— max seddon (@maxseddon) March 3, 2023
The audience laughs at him.
pic.twitter.com/7ia9YVZGP6
Jim Jordan’s GOP ‘Weaponization’ Panel Is A Sham
Since the new year, three of the GOP witnesses — George Hill, a retired FBI supervisory intelligence analyst from the Boston field office, Stephen Friend, a former special agent who worked in the Daytona Beach office, and Garret O’Boyle, a suspended special agent from the field office in Wichita, Kansas — have testified behind closed doors.
But the report from Democrats suggests that instead of legitimate whistleblowers the trio appears to be a group of conspiracy theorizing, embattled former FBI agents who were compensated and supported by allies of former President Donald Trump.
U.S. intel on China considering lethal aid for Putin's war was gleaned from Russian officials
Garland makes surprise visit to Ukraine
Garland traveled to Lviv, Ukraine, at the invitation of Zelenskyy to join him and international partners at the “United for Justice Conference.” The trip was not previously announced for security reasons, the official said.
“Just over twelve months ago, invading Russian forces began committing atrocities at the largest scale in any armed conflict since the Second World War,” Garland said at the conference, according to a readout provided by the Justice Department. “We are here today in Ukraine to speak clearly, and with one voice: the perpetrators of those crimes will not get away with them.”
Serendipity:
The retention problem: Women are going into tech but are also being driven out
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