Odds and Ends — 7 February 2026

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Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, AI, and Debt:

Three signs that Bitcoin price could be near ‘full capitulation’

South Korean Crypto Exchange Accidentally Gave Away $95 Billion in Bitcoin

The error was quickly corrected, but not before Bithumb users sold off billions in Bitcoin, temporarily crashing its listed price.

Coronavirus and Public Health:

How COVID and H1N1 swept through U.S. cities in just weeks

Politics:

Trump Officials Push Citizenship Question for Census

The Trump administration is moving forward with a field test of a citizenship question as part of early 2030 U.S. Census planning, raising fresh alarm that the question could make a comeback after being blocked in 2019.

Pardoned Capitol Rioter Pleads Guilty

A New York man accused of threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries pleaded guilty Thursday, a year after President Donald Trump pardoned him for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Summing Up the Redistricting Wars

When Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called the newly-proposed Virginia congressional map “a brazen abuse of power and an insult to democracy” because it would flip four seats to Democrats, Virginia state Senate Pro Tempore Louis Lucas (D) responded: “You all started it and we fucking finished it.”

———— Minnesota Under Siege ————

———— Racist-in-Chief ————

Trump Won’t Apologize for Racist Post

“No, I didn’t make a mistake. I look at a lot of — thousands of things. And I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine.”

———— The Epstein Coverup ————

Lutnick and Epstein Were in Business Together

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said he had ‘limited interactions’ with Jeffrey Epstein, but documents show they were in business together as recently as 2014.
Lutnick and Epstein each signed on behalf of limited liability companies that agreed on Dec. 28, 2012, to acquire stakes in a now-shuttered advertising technology company called Adfin, documents released among the so-called Epstein files show.

The Truth Is Out There: How the Epstein files turned everyone into conspiracists.

QAnon is premised on the idea that a global cabal is engaged in the rampant sex-trafficking of minors, and one takeaway from the never-ending Epstein blowback is that we really are governed by an overclass of degenerate elites.
What’s more, the crude underlying logic of QAnon is being reinforced with every new screen-grab of a terse missive from [email protected], making the universe of conspiracy thinking increasingly legible to the rest of us and creating a cycle of perpetual astonishment at the discovery of previously unsuspected webs of influence and intrigue.
In other words, the Epstein files are making us more like Marjorie Taylor Greene.

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———— Tulsi Gabbard ————

———— Autocracy R Us ————

Elections Officials Brace for Possible Trump Interference

Top bipartisan election officials from around the country are growing increasingly alarmed by what they see as President Donald Trump’s unprecedented push to interfere in the midterm elections.
A series of recent moves — from his administration’s requests for access to state voter rolls to a surprise FBI raid at a Fulton County election office — have solidified those concerns, with more than a dozen election officials from both parties telling Politico they fear Trump is laying the groundwork to undermine results still months away.

DHS’s account of two Venezuelans shot by border patrol falls apart in court: ‘a smear campaign’

Immigration officials said agent shot two ‘vicious gang members’ in Portland, but records obtained by the Guardian reveal US prosecutor contradicted claims


———— Putin&Krasnov vs. Ukraine ————

Don’t mention ‘Article 5,’ Finland warns US on Ukraine

———— Mors Imperii ————

American Decency Still Lives

For much of Trump’s first year in office many Democrats were reluctant to challenge his immigration policies, because their defeat in 2024 was widely seen as in part a response to surging immigration during the Biden years. Until recently, Democrats tried to keep the national conversation focused on affordability and Trump’s obvious failure to deliver on his promises to bring grocery prices way down.
While the Democratic strategy was an understandable response to a shattering electoral defeat, it rested on a cynical and nihilistic view of American voters: that they couldn’t be trusted to vote against a party that reveled in inflicting cruelty and injustice as long as the price of gasoline fell.
But recent events refute this nihilistic cynicism. Yes, Americans still name the economy as the most important political issue. But moral outrage over the Trump administration’s brutality (and its corruption, but that’s a subject for another post) has exploded as a political force over the past two months.

The Intellectual Edgelords of the GOP

Macho displays and transgressive memes mark a significant shift in how the federal government sees and promotes its mission—and sanctions state violence. It may be tempting to see this change as an organic or bottom-up phenomenon, as if federal agencies are appealing to Proud Boys to lure more ICE recruits.
But the reality is that this transformation is the culmination of years of work by niche groups of conservative intellectuals who have long rejected America’s liberal traditions—and now dominate the halls of power.

Serendipity:

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