January 20, 2025

Bill Gates Becomes the Latest Billionaire to Bow Down to Trump

Add the Microsoft CEO to the long list of billionaires trying to land in Trump’s good graces.

https://newrepublic.com/post/190402/bill-gates-trump-meeting

https://archive.ph/2iyVB



Another billionaire chooses Trump. This time, it’s the historically liberal Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Gates told The Wall Street Journal that he was “impressed” by the president-elect. “I had a chance to go have a long, and actually quite intriguing dinner with him,” Gates said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. He noted that he talked to Trump for three hours, along with Trump aide Susie Wiles and Gates’s aide Larry Cohen.

“I spoke a lot about HIV, and that the foundation’s literally working on a cure for that. We’re at an early stage, and so he, in the Covid days accelerated vaccine innovation, so I was asking him if maybe the same kind of thing could be done here, and we both got … pretty excited about that,” said Gates. He also noted that they got excited talking about a cure to polio. “I felt like he was energized and looking forward to helping to drive innovation.… I was frankly impressed with how well he showed a lot of interest in the issues I brought up.”

It’s a stunning remark from Gates, one of the richest people in the world, who previously said he donated more than $50 million to Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. The news of the meeting comes after Trump claimed last month that the billionaire was begging to have a meeting with him.

It also comes after Elon Musk has entered Trump’s inner circle, and other billionaires trail closely behind. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos are expected to sit together with Musk on the dais at Trump’s inauguration on Monday, as is TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. This rallying of tech heavyweights around the incoming president, even in the face of his right-wing base, only reaffirms what Trump has been saying over and over again: Everybody does want to be his friend.



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January 20, 2025

Mind-boggling that the 2 Trump shit-coins are named SMelania and STrump (yes I know the 'S's are $'s but it's still FAF)

before anyone asks, FAF = funny as fuck

January 19, 2025

Trump meme coin doubles again, stake worth $58 billion or more

https://www.axios.com/2025/01/18/trump-meme-coin-25-billion



President-elect Trump launched his own cryptocurrency Friday night, and as of Sunday morning appeared to have made more than $50 billion on paper for himself and his companies.

Why it matters: The stunning launch of $TRUMP caught the entire industry off-guard, and speaks to both his personal influence and the ascendancy of cryptocurrency in his administration.

It also speaks to the nature of the crypto industry that someone could have more than $50 billion worth of something that literally did not exist 48 hours previously.

Combined with the value of his social media business and his real estate holdings, it nominally makes Trump one of the world's 25 wealthiest people.

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January 19, 2025

Good Riddance - No More System To Believe In (Official Video) 2024

Label: Fat Wreck Chords – none
Format: File, AAC, Single, 256 kbps
Country: US
Released: 22 Oct 2024
Genre: Rock
Style: Punk





Good Riddance say there's "No More System To Believe In" on new protest song

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/good-riddance-say-theres-no-more-system-to-believe-in-on-new-protest-song/

Santa Cruz punk/melodic hardcore vets Good Riddance are back with a new protest single, “No More System To Believe In,” that their label Fat Wreck Chords says reflects “a deeper disillusionment, questioning a global society that seems to fuel the very struggles it should work to resolve.” Vocalist Russ Rankin adds:

To believe in this society as a vast, interconnected body, and that the voiceless suffering and malaise of our neighbors are ours as well to bear. Actioned by lifting each other up in the small, nascent moments when there is no immediate glory or brilliant reward in it. And by reimagining the breathless vigor and star-crossed hope with which this grand experiment was originally conceived. For no machination of government, nor whip of authority, may succeed in stifling our capacity to care for, and support one another in what must ultimately be a unified struggle for vitality, liberty, and a more equitable distribution of life’s blessings.

The song comes with a lyric video (by J Sek of backyardgraffix.com) that splices together live footage and clips of war and political corruption, and you can watch that below. The band also has an accompanying new t-shirt available, with 100% of proceeds going to the Fair Elections Center.

January 19, 2025

The MAGA-verse's Clash of Titans

Steve Bannon’s attack on Elon Musk exposes one of the biggest fault lines running through Donald Trump’s second term.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/the-maga-verses-clash-of-titans

https://archive.ph/jJwMt





In order to catapult himself back to the White House, Donald Trump has grown his Make America Great Again party into a very big tent. That tent includes many uncomfortable alliances, like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the oil companies he used to fight when he was an environmental lawyer. But perhaps the most tenuous of bedfellows are right-wing techno-oligarchs like Elon Musk and populist nationalists like Steve Bannon, who want to do away with Big Tech’s undue influence over government. And after Inauguration Day, the strength of this unlikely alliance is going to be put to the test.

The math of the situation is pretty simple: Trump’s campaign and other Republican candidates got about $277 million from Musk, the world’s richest man, who, like so many wealthy donors, now wants his seat at the table. And like it or not (personally I do not), the system is set up to reward donors like him. While many have already been appointed to plum gigs like ambassadorships and Cabinet posts, Musk, who is slated to co-run the Department of Government Efficiency, has other ideas for his role in Trump 2.0. The billionaire CEO wants to drastically cut the federal budget, and he wants to do it with some help from his friends (other millionaire and billionaire tech bros). Musk’s plan to gut the federal bureaucracy does not run contrary to MAGA; in fact, it’s exactly what the folks behind Project 2025 want to do. But his quest to take over the administrative state does set him in direct opposition with Bannon—one of Trumpworld’s loudest voices, who has repeatedly railed against globalism and corporate America’s “ruling elites” while pushing for “populist revolt.”

“The two are pro-Trump, but that might be all they have in common,” Oliver Darcy, who writes the Status media newsletter, texted me over the weekend. “Bannon is a populist and has taken a tough stance on billionaires trying to use their wealth to purchase political influence. My suspicion is that Bannon believes Elon is primarily interested in exploiting the MAGA coalition to benefit his companies and bottom line versus being a real believer in the movement itself. Consequently, Bannon has spent years focusing harsh criticism on Elon.”

Musk and Bannon’s feuding has already spilled out into public view. Last month, after the Tesla CEO praised H-1B foreign worker visas for helping make America “strong,” Bannon told Musk to “sit in the back and study” because he was a recent MAGA convert. Trump’s former White House chief strategist went even further last week, telling an Italian newspaper that Musk “is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down. Before, because he put money in, I was prepared to tolerate it. I’m not prepared to tolerate it anymore.” Bannon has also criticized the billionaire’s upbringing in apartheid South Africa. “Peter Thiel, David Sachs, Elon Musk, are all white South Africans,” he said, arguing that Musk “should go back to South Africa,” and asking, “Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans…making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”

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January 18, 2025

Andrew Cuomo Is Making All the Moves for a Mayoral Run

The former governor appears primed to enter the race for City Hall, as polling suggests he has a good chance of toppling embattled incumbent Eric Adams. Still, allies say Cuomo hasn’t completely given up on a return to Albany.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/andrew-cuomo-mayor-eric-adams

https://archive.ph/Uzsuh



Andrew Cuomo walked into a conference room inside a Manhattan corporate office wearing a suit and tie and spoke for 30 minutes straight. “We are at a critical point in the city’s history. The city goes through cycles, but this one is different. People are leaving,” he said at the private event, according to a source familiar with the meeting. “They’re afraid.”

Officially, Cuomo is not running for mayor. Unofficially, he is doing just about everything someone running for mayor would do. His allies have conducted polling; they’re contacting possible staff; they’re lining up the signature-gathering operation needed to put his name on the ballot. Perhaps most important and intriguing, though, Cuomo has for months been traveling throughout the city, speaking to Jewish groups and at Black churches, from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side, road-testing the ideas and messaging he’d use to mount one of the most audacious comeback attempts in New York political history.

Audacious because Cuomo left his last job, as the state’s three-term governor, early and under heavy fire. New York state attorney general Letitia James released a 165-page report that she said substantiated complaints that Cuomo had sexually harassed multiple women. A separate controversy was also swirling over whether Cuomo’s office manipulated reports of the number of COVID deaths in New York and had issued an order that increased the pandemic’s danger in nursing homes. Cuomo has strenuously denied all of the allegations, then and since, attacking James’s investigation as politically motivated, and he and several of his top aides have burned through at least $25 million in state taxpayer money for aggressive and ongoing defense against both controversies. But in August 2021 he quit in disgrace.

And then Cuomo almost immediately began looking for a path to electoral redemption. In 2022, he came close to running against his gubernatorial replacement, Kathy Hochul, before deciding it was too soon to subject his daughters to the fray again, according to one of his top aides. Three years later, though, the city’s incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, has opened the door to a Cuomo resurrection bid. Seven of the mayor’s former top aides have resigned and are under investigation; Adams himself was indicted last September and faces a federal trial in April. A recent poll shows Adams to be one of the least-preferred candidates and Cuomo trouncing him in a prospective Democratic primary match this June.

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January 18, 2025

The best whiskies for Burns Night

From a bargain supermarket single malt to boutique blends, Jane MacQuitty picks her top bottles

https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/food-drink/article/best-whiskies-burns-night-9phlztf0k

https://archive.ph/8zu5Q

A warming smoke, fire and peat dram to celebrate Robbie Burns’s birthday next Saturday is just what this cold, dreary month needs. What amazes me is the flood of new blends, casks, ages, strengths and wood regimes that wash up here every year. Scotland has about 150 distilleries but its whisky blenders are hellbent on creating not just the signature styles that made them famous but hundreds of different expressions. Getting to grips with Scotland’s five leading whisky regions — smoky, peaty Islay, soft Lowland, fruity Speyside, the silky fudge of Campbeltown and heathery Highland — is not enough. There’s an explosion of complex new flavours to digest, from citrus and floral, through butterscotch and spicy Dundee cake, right up to the medicinal, tarry whack of an aged Islay.

Unlike gin and vodka, which can be distilled in a day, good whisky takes at least ten years to show its true class. Still, even at the Aldi and Lidl single malt level, where the oldest whisky won’t be much more than the statutory minimum of three years, there are some decent drams here for less than £20 — see star buys. Spend twice that, if you can, on the tasty Kilchoman 46 per cent Islay blend at Marks & Spencer. It’s from a family-run field-to-bottle distillery that does the lot, including growing and malting its own barley. Or plump for Johnnie Walker’s brilliant Green Label 15-Year-Old blended malt (43 per cent, Waitrose, £49). It’s an elegant, ginger biscuit snap mix of four different distilleries’ malts, with the woodsmoke and fruit of Skye’s Talisker at its heart. Talisker’s own 10 Year Old is a sparky, sea spray and richly fruited 45.8 per cent wonder, well worth splashing out £51 for at Sainsbury’s.

Each whisky cask is unique, regardless of the same water, air, still and malt used in its creation, and batches do vary despite distillers’ determination to maintain consistency in big brands. If that’s not difficult enough, I am in awe of the skill required by boutique whisky makers such as Compass Box and Woven to create their showstopping blends. Check out Compass Box’s amazing 46 per cent Nectarosity, thewhiskyexchange.com, £52.25, with its glorious, silky, cinnamon-spiced stone fruit and tingly, salt lick finish care of sherry, bourbon and American oak butts. Woven goes a step further, combining whisky aged in Scottish, Irish and even English casks, plus American bourbon barrels, to create an aptly named but very unusual 46.1 per cent Superblend, thewhiskyexchange.com, £48.50, bursting with toffee, smoke, spice and all things nice.


From left: Ben Bracken Islay Single Malt; Kilchoman Single Malt; Ledaig Aged 10 Years Single Malt; Glen Marnoch Single Malt



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January 18, 2025

Nature Notes: HippoPotus

January 17, 2025

Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) on Biden's farewell plea: 'Now he tells us'

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5090419-sheldon-whitehouse-joe-biden-farewell-address/

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said statements in President Biden’s farewell speech came much too late in a Thursday statement, raising question with the commander in chief’s parting remarks.

“Now he tells us. Biden speaks out against dark money, for climate action, and for SCOTUS term limits. I pressed four years for this speech,” Whitehouse posted on social platform X.



“That was a great speech. Had that speech launched the reelection campaign, we’d have won. Had that speech launched his presidency, we’d have saved America. Now we fight on,” he wrote in a subsequent post.

Whitehouse’s comments criticizing Biden emphasize party sentiments after Democrats not only lost the White House but also the majority in the Senate, delivering the GOP a trifecta. Some have criticized Biden for not suspending his presidential campaign early enough, which resulted in a stunted bid for the presidency by Vice President Harris.

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January 17, 2025

Don't be afraid of mixing your single malt whisky -- try it in this cocktail

Blend your malt whisky with grapefruit for this unusual drink

https://www.themanual.com/food-and-drink/the-macallan-garden-of-legacy-cocktail/



While it’s common to find cheap and cheerful whisky cocktails, many enthusiasts of high-end single malts would say that these should only be drunk neat to appreciate their flavors fully. However, not everyone agrees, and the counter argument to that is that the very best spirits you own will make for the very best mixed drinks. Now, it’s true that it would be a shame to mix a great whisky with a cheap mixer like a low-quality ginger beer, and you wouldn’t want to cover up the nuances of the whisky by adding too many sweeteners or tons of ingredients.

But you can make interesting, complex drinks by blending a great whisky with just a few carefully chosen, simple ingredients. The Macallan is known not only for its great whiskies, but also for encouraging its drinkers to enjoy unusual whisky cocktails. And now the brand has shared a new cocktail, mixing one of its popular single malts with the sharp and distinctive flavor of pink grapefruit juice. At under $100, The Macallan Double Cask 12 Years Old is one of the brand’s more affordable offerings so it’s a great way to sample high-end single malt without having to drop a huge amount of cash. And you can use it to make this unusual cocktail as well.

The Macallan Garden of Legacy