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Odds and Ends — 19 November 2022

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My first battle against Lux Vega (29 mana, Explosive Weaponry rule set, all splinters except Water available).

Elon Musk Is On The Verge Of Successfully Breaking Twitter

Dystopian late capitalism has a mordant sense of humor.

Credit card balances jump 15%, highest annual leap in over 20 years, as Americans fall deeper in debt

Not adjusted for inflation, but nevertheless not a cheery indicator of things to come.

‘Grayscale Discount’ Widens to Record 43% as FTX Contagion Spreads

The added pressure comes after Genesis Global Capital – a corporate sibling to bitcoin trust manager Grayscale Investments – halted customer withdrawals from its lending unit this week.

Guangzhou to build 250,000 quarantine beds as China COVID cases rise

Many Covid Boosters Are Going Unused

Outreach is limited in part because Congress hasn’t approved additional Covid-19 funding, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Covid-19 response. Health officials and experts say that the recent easing of the pandemic has also played a role in public outreach and messaging.

It’s not great for Trump when his own Attorney General thinks he should be indicted. — Taegan Goddard

Benghazi Times Infinity

Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio and James Comer of Kentucky, the top Republicans on the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, respectively, have not hidden the fact that they intend to use the power of the gavel to launch successive probes targeting, among others, the Justice Department and the FBI, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and the president’s family, notably his son Hunter. Remember Benghazi? Get ready for more of the same—a lot more of the same. They’re banking on the fact that as the media chronicle their fishing expeditions masquerading as investigations, they won’t provide that context for the American people. That’s not a bad bet.

Iran protests: Social media videos show flames at home of late leader Khomeini

Putin’s ‘Hunky-Dory’ Act Flops as Frantic Russians Flee Crimea

Moscow is desperately trying to signal that Crimea will remain under Russian control after a slew of recent retreats in Ukraine. But some aren’t buying it.

U.S. Justice Department appoints special prosecutor for Trump probes

FWIW, I think this is a mistake. Just go ahead and indict. Appointing a special counsel seems like a CYA move that will just drag things out. Arguing more succinctly than I can, Chuck Rosenberg lays out the reasons to not have a special counsel.

Trump Says He ‘Won’t Partake’ in Special Counsel Probe

Yeah, well, it’s not as if the DOJ or the special counsel are planning to ask politely. If he gets a subpoena, he better comply. Maybe Congressional committees can’t enforce subpoenas, but the DOJ can.

GOP plans to punish ‘woke’ Wall Street

GOP lawmakers are singling out major asset managers as likely targets because of climate investing practices they see as hostile to oil, gas and coal.

Yeah, good luck with that. Tenuous control of the House isn’t enough of a cudgel.

$1.4 Million Unaccounted for in Florida’s Migrant Flights

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has so far paid more than $1.5 million to a politically connected contractor for a program to fly migrants from Texas to northeastern states — but the private jets chartered by the contractor cost only a fraction of that sum. That leaves about $1.4 million in Florida taxpayer funds unaccounted for.

Green outside, red inside: Brazil's army irked by communist ‘watermelon’ jabs

Brazil’s army, which is facing calls from President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters to stage a coup after his election loss, is unhappy its generals are being derided as “watermelons” - green on the outside, communist red on the inside - by his fans. Since Bolsonaro lost the Oct. 30 vote against his leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, small but committed groups of his supporters across Brazil have camped out by army bases, begging the armed forces to overrule the election result.

Democracy’s Dunkirk

November has been a good month for democracy. Brazil’s autocratic president, Jair Bolsonaro, authorized the transfer of power after losing in national elections to a left-wing challenger. Russia’s murderous army is literally on the run in Ukraine. And American voters went to the polls and defied both history and expectation: They left the Senate in the hands of Democrats, gave the House to the Republicans by only a tiny majority, and crushed the electoral aspirations of a ragtag coalition of election deniers, Christian nationalists, and general weirdos… Think of last week as American democracy’s Dunkirk: an improvised but crucial escape from disaster.

Judge Allows Saturday Early Voting in Senate Runoff

A Fulton County judge ruled Friday that the Georgia Secretary of State cannot prohibit counties from voting on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a victory for the state Democratic Party and Sen. Raphael Warnock’s campaign. The order comes after a brief legal battle between Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office and the Democratic Party of Georgia over the Dec. 6 Senate runoff between Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker. Raffensperger, a Republican, had maintained that changes to Georgia voting laws meant that there could be no early voting on Nov. 26, the only Saturday when it would have been possible for Georgians to cast an early vote in the hotly contested race.

Raffensperger will certainly appeal but the clock is ticking.

How Colombia plans to keep its oil and coal in the ground

Alcohol sales banned at World Cup stadiums in Qatar

Budweiser posted a message on Twitter on Friday saying, “Well, this is awkward” before the post was later deleted.

Fossils of car-sized dinosaur-era sea turtle unearthed in Spain

Badge thanks to @arcange

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