Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

COVID-19 deaths in Latin America surpass 1 million as outbreak worsens

White House says no plans to require vaccines for foreign visitors

Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, and Debt:

#bitcoin oscilates in the dark blue band around S2F model value. Buying opportunities like today are rare (Q1 2019 when I wrote the S2F article, March 2020 due to covid, and now). Life is all about choices. https://t.co/rlb5dsIFSg pic.twitter.com/rQpTvzR3eW

— PlanB (@100trillionUSD) May 22, 2021

The FUD marches on: Greenpeace Stops Accepting Bitcoin Donations, Cite High Energy Use

Politics:

Holy crap.

Perhaps a U.S. Senator shouldn't suggest that the *Russian* military is better than the American military that protected him from an insurrection he helped foment? https://t.co/Ja3P78wnrv

— Tammy Duckworth (@TammyDuckworth) May 20, 2021

Capitol Rioters Not Willing to Take Plea Deals

Nearly four months after the U.S. Capitol attack, just one of more than 440 people charged has pleaded guilty, a sign of tough conditions set by prosecutors for plea deals and resistance by defense lawyers to their demands.
Lawyers for more than a dozen defendants said plea talks so far have foundered because prosecutors demanded their clients turn over social media data, cell phones and other evidence, while also pushing for prison sentences they would not accept.

Matt Gaetz’s Ex-Girlfriend to Cooperate With Feds

What’s Behind the New York Attorney General’s Criminal Probe of the Trump Organization: There’s a strong likelihood that evidence has been established of intent to commit fraud.

Wednesday’s announcement didn’t materially change the liability Trump faces given that the DA’s office already had a criminal investigation underway. But James’ recent moves (including her decision to publicly join the criminal probe) are a sign that the evidence amassed by prosecutors is substantial and will likely result in charges. James wouldn’t rush to embrace a weak case. That should make Trump very concerned.

Just Benghazi this thing and call it a day.

If Senate Republicans do filibuster the bipartisan deal on an independent Jan. 6 commission, House Democrats have another option, one perfected by House Republicans in the run-up to the 2016 election: creation of a select committee, in which the majority allots itself more seats, to investigate the issue. Republicans’ Benghazi committee, while substantively a joke, was a smashing political success: It kept a general aura of scandal around Hillary Clinton for the entirety of her presidential campaign, and it unearthed that she had sent some government emails from a private server, the greatest scandal in American history.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Compares Mask Mandates to Holocaust

Ex-Trump Campaign Staffers File Lawsuit As Ohio County Continues To Grapple With The Big Lie

Trump Slides Toward Online Irrelevance

On the Internet, former president Donald Trump is sliding toward something he has fought his entire life: irrelevance.
Online talk about him has plunged to a five-year low. He’s banned or ignored on pretty much every major social media venue. In the last week, Trump’s website — including his new blog, fundraising page and online storefront ­— attracted fewer estimated visitors than the pet-adoption service Petfinder and the recipe site Delish.
Social engagement around Trump — a measure of likes, reactions, comments or shares on content about him across Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Pinterest — has nosedived 95 percent since January, to its lowest level since 2016.

Serendipity:

How Putin became a spy

Amazon Shuts Down Construction Site in Connecticut After Several Nooses Found

94-year-old gets Medal of Honor 70 years after Korean War heroism

^{Badge thanks to @arcange}

^{Meme credit: ARCTIC-OCEAN (source)}