Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:
Bad blockchain forensics convict the user of a Bitcoin mixer — as its operator
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
As Covid Spread, a Strain of Flu Disappeared. Now Scientists Say a Second Could Go Too
Politics:
Democracy dies in Trumpian boredom
Trump Makes a Huge Mistake on Social Security
On issues that Trump is naive about — which includes everything other than what was said on Fox News in the previous hour — Donald Trump tends to vomit up incomprehensible word salad. When Trump says something this politically unwise, many of his apologists in the media portray comments more as a misstatement than a policy pronouncement. But that is very wrong.
In 2016, Trump repeatedly pledged to protect Medicare and Social Security, but then included budget cuts to Social Security and Medicare every year of his presidency. Monday’s comment was also not the first time that he expressed interest in cutting Social Security and Medicare.
Trump Is Guaranteeing Himself a New Defamation Lawsuit
The fact that Trump libeled E. Jean Carroll on CNBC is highly significant for a procedural reason in addition to a substantive one. Were she to sue Trump just for the speech he gave in northwest Georgia the other day, she probably would have had to sue in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. But now that he libeled her on Squawk Box, which is anchored in Manhattan, she likely may now sue in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
If she does that, the case would be assigned to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan as a case related to the earlier two cases that produced $88.3 million in damages awards.
Top Navalny Aide Attacked With Hammer Outside Home in Lithuania
The chief of staff to Aleksei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died last month in an Arctic penal colony, was attacked with a hammer and tear gas outside his home in Lithuania’s capital late Tuesday, according to Mr. Navalny’s press secretary, who said the police and an ambulance had been called to the scene.
Polish Rivals Unite In Push for Ukraine Aid
President Joe Biden’s meeting with Poland’s two leaders at the White House on Tuesday is both about getting more aid to Kyiv, and an attempt to show that even political rivals can come together for the defense of Ukraine.
Conservative Polish President Andrzej Duda will join the man who replaced him as prime minister, center-right Donald Tusk, on Tuesday for a discussion about sending more weapons to Kyiv. They have an intense political feud at home, but they’re putting differences aside to convince Congress and Biden to ensure Ukraine doesn’t lose more ground to Russia.
Ken Buck to retire next week, narrowing House GOP majority
Trump’s Promises Are Worthless
Other than admiring dictators in general and Russian dictators in particular, Trump has almost no consistent policy principles. He’s repeatedly reversed his positions even after using them to great political effect. In 2016, he promised to raise taxes on the rich and expand health-care coverage to everybody, and then in office he pursued the opposite of both goals.
More recently, Trump supported a boycott of Bud Light and tried to force China to sell TikTok, and then he reversed both positions when vested financial interests made it lucrative for him to change his mind. What’s more, the pseudo-populist wing of the Republican party has currently stood behind maintaining retirement spending, but this is obviously them backfilling justifications for supporting Trump. The party’s self-styled populism is actually a Trump personality cult that will reliably follow any position he takes, and therefore not an impediment if he decides to attack the position they’ve been defending.
Trump will advance any position that seems it would help him politically or financially.
Kate, Katie, and our losing war on disinformation
There’ve been maybe a dozen true “holy you-know-what” moments in my lifetime, and Monday marked the fourth anniversary of one of them: the night when Tom Hanks announced he had the novel coronavirus (the name “COVID-19″ was still unborn), the NBA suspended all its games, and Donald Trump gave a typically muddled speech that made me wonder if a family member traveling in Iceland would ever be allowed to come home. Remember what March 11, 2020, felt like the next time a politician asks if you were better off four years ago…
It feels like no accident that Kate Middleton’s photo doctoring unraveled on the same day that Alabama Sen. Katie Britt’s widely watched — and widely mocked — response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address also fell apart, in equally spectacular fashion. Indeed, all the hullabaloo about Britt’s bizarre horror-movie delivery from a creepy kitchen backdrop obscured, for a time, the more salient fact that the centerpiece of her speech to the nation was a lie.
Fewer Than 100 House Republicans to Attend Retreat
The House GOP is in turmoil ahead of its policy retreat in West Virginia on Wednesday, with attendance expected to be sparse and a keynote speaker dropping out.
Fewer than 100 GOP lawmakers are expected to be in attendance at the three-day event, which is aimed at unifying the conference and crafting policy goals outside of the Capitol grounds.
One GOP member argued that moving their conference discussions from the Capitol to a resort with alcohol could exacerbate infighting between members.
He added: “I’d rather sit down with Hannibal Lecter and eat my own liver.”
Legal experts: Trump witness has “startling evidence” for jury — unless Judge Cannon “stalls” trial
Serendipity:
Leprosy cases are rising in the US – what is the ancient disease and why is it spreading now?
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