Odds and Ends — 12 June 2025

3 days ago

Truth Be Told:

I once knew a woman who said she’d been trading at a store for more than 40 years. As if she went in with a basket of eggs and left carrying a bolt of gingham.

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

Older investors are risking everything for a crypto-funded retirement

https://twitter.com/TheLincoln/status/1931819412752916792

Alleged NYC Bitcoin Kidnappers Plead Not Guilty, Claim Accuser Was 'Laughing and Smiling'

The two men charged with kidnapping a Bitcoin investor in NYC have pleaded not guilty as wild new details emerge in a court appearance.

Coronavirus and Public Health:

US Health Secretary Kennedy guts vaccine advisory committee

https://twitter.com/Fernand46357857/status/1930806758743724232

https://twitter.com/GeauxGabrielle/status/1932430368960876709

Politics:

https://twitter.com/TimInHonolulu/status/1932867010217877625

Inside Trump’s Mass Deportation Operation

The prospect of the U.S. sending migrants to a foreign prison notorious for alleged human-rights violations would have been unimaginable less than a year ago. But it is only one dramatic component of Trump’s unprecedented deportation project…
Its ambition goes beyond anything attempted in the U.S. since the Eisenhower-era Operation Wetback…
Removing that many undocumented immigrants, as Trump has promised, would eliminate a key source of labor. It would end a decades-long wave of migration that has made the country progressively more multiethnic. And it would change how the U.S. has treated those seeking refuge from violence and oppression since before the end of the Cold War…
As the Administration escalates its efforts, critics are asking how we got here. Others wonder what took so long. But all Americans have a stake in understanding how Trump is trying to transform the country by deporting millions of its inhabitants—and what it will mean for their communities.

https://twitter.com/KevanYoung2/status/1932549075519586711

Trump’s top general contradicts his assessment of Putin, L.A. unrest

Gen. Dan Caine, who since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in April has assiduously avoided the public spotlight, on Wednesday broke with President Donald Trump’s assessment of the threat posed by Russia and the ongoing protests and violence in Los Angeles.
Caine’s comments during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing were restrained but significant, coming from the nation’s top military officer who Democrats and moderate Republicans had feared might show little appetite for going against a president prone to pushing falsehoods in pursuit of his political agenda.

Again with falsehoods when lies is available.

https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1932892064607273139

———— Autocracy R Us ————

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1932493965523140703

The White House Marching Orders That Sparked the L.A. Migrant Crackdown

Trump is coming for the ‘enemy within’

https://twitter.com/Scott_Wiener/status/1931718710584021400

Trump’s Troop Deployment Is a Warning Sign

Trump, for now, has given the troops a limited mission: protecting federal immigration agents and buildings amid a wave of street protests against the administration’s mass deportation policies. To justify the deployment, Trump cited a provision of federal law that allows the president to use the National Guard to quell domestic unrest.
But Trump’s stated rationale, legal scholars say, appears to be a flimsy and even contrived basis for such a rare and dramatic step. The real purpose, they worry, may be to amass more power over blue states that have resisted Trump’s deportation agenda. And the effect, whether intentional or not, may be to inflame the tension in L.A., potentially leading to a vicious cycle in which Trump calls up even more troops or broadens their mission.

https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1932109055327400399

Trump’s De-legalization Campaign

After a Supreme Court decision, hundreds of thousands of immigrants who followed the law are among the easiest to deport.

https://twitter.com/HeathMayo/status/1931107879978991904

https://twitter.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1931161734472999276

The Biden Investigation Is a Path to Even Greater Lawlessness

https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1931043385386659980

Will military officers have to sign a “loyalty oath” to Trump? Senior officer says it’s “imminent.”

https://twitter.com/KToropin/status/1932857579396354325

Immigration Raid Leaves Company Officials Puzzled

Immigration authorities raided an Omaha meat production plant Tuesday morning and took dozens of workers away in buses, leaving company officials bewildered because they said they had followed the law.
Said company president Chad Hartmann: “My biggest issue is: Why us? We do everything by the book.”
The plant uses E-Verify, the federal database used to check the immigration status of employees. When he said as much to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who carried out the raid, they told him the E-Verify system ‘is broken.’

https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1932067920831545401

https://twitter.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1931184384410800570

Trump Means to Provoke, Not Pacify

Don’t give him the pretext he wants.

https://twitter.com/WUTangKids/status/1931809723063669181

Heh:

https://twitter.com/constans/status/1932069445142282310

———— Everybody Loves a Parade ————

This is quite possibly a spoof, but it’s getting harder and harder to tell:

https://twitter.com/JamesTate121/status/1932830320040071608

The Way Trump Speaks About the Military Is Awfully Revealing

The Trump administration is preparing to begin the transfer of potentially thousands of foreigners who are in the United States illegally to the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, starting as early as this week.
The foreign nationals under consideration hail from a range of countries. They include hundreds from friendly European nations, including Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey and Ukraine, but also other parts of the world, including many from Haiti.

The last time they announced this, it was a fiasco. The cost per prisoner was very high and most of them were held at Guantánamo for a few weeks before being returned to the mainland. Were any of them actually deported/renditioned?

https://twitter.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1932829192724398372

Hegseth Can’t Explain Why Troop Deployment Is Legal

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday insisted the Pentagon’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles was lawful. He just couldn’t cite the law he was following.
The Pentagon chief clashed with several lawmakers at a Senate budget hearing as he sought to defend President Donald Trump’s decision to send thousands of troops, including 700 active-duty Marines, to California in response to mass deportation protests.