Odds and Ends — 13 June 2025
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, AI, and Debt:
'Attack of the Clones': Coinbase Raises Alarm on Risks With Bitcoin Treasury Model
GameStop shares tank 22% after boosting raise to $2.25B for Bitcoin strategy
Coinbase unveils an American Express-powered credit card offering up to 4% in BTC rewards
Coronavirus and Public Health:
https://twitter.com/DrNeilStone/status/1932902274726039654
Politics:
Israel strikes Iran nuclear sites and military leadership, as Middle East braces for retaliation
https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1933360209596199356
US slams UN conference on Israel-Palestinian issue, warns of consequences
Northern Ireland leisure centre hosting immigrants attacked on third night of violence
———— Autocracy R Us ————
Judge says Trump illegally deployed National Guard to help with LA protests, must return control but the ruling only lasted a few hours until an appeals court temporarily stayed the order.
Troops in LA can detain individuals, official says, as protests spread across US
Um, I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure the Posse Comitatus Act says otherwise.
https://twitter.com/DWUhlfelderLaw/status/1933292393920663592
There are two disastrously wrong ways to read the news from Los Angeles right now, and the rest of America over the next few days. The first is to believe that there is actually anything resembling an insurrection underway. The second is to believe that the Trump administration’s response to the nonexistent insurrection is simply cynical politics, an attempt to gain Donald Trump a few points in the polls.
What we’re actually seeing is much worse: An attempt to end politics as we know it, to deploy force to suppress dissent. Not eventually, but right now.
https://twitter.com/girlsreallyrule/status/1933141980269437421
If Trump gets away with this, he will absolutely do the same thing during the 2026 and 2028 elections. He will manufacture unrest just like in LA and send federal troops to every major city as a way to intimidate voters and decrease turnout. A functional end to fair elections.
https://twitter.com/TimHannan/status/1933268974751318418
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1933232345223414054
https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1933239547183181899
https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1933261013652279691
This is truly the darkest, dumbest timeline
https://twitter.com/sw_holocron/status/1932467593379446797
We Finally Know What ‘American Carnage’ Was About
It was a peculiar and disturbing speech, in part because it bore no relationship to reality. Then as now, America had many problems. But runaway urban crime wasn’t one of them. In fact, Trump chose to proclaim urban carnage after a remarkable generation-long run of plunging crime in our major cities. New York, for example, had only 335 murders in 2016, down from 2,262 in 1990.
So what was that about?
At the time, I thought it was mostly about sadism. Trump clearly loves punishing people, so he was eager to portray a nation full of people who needed punishing. And it remains true, as Adam Serwer pointed out back in 2018, that for Trump and many of his supporters cruelty is a goal in itself, that they rejoice in the suffering of those they hate and fear.
But the events unfolding in Los Angeles as you read this and, I fear, the events likely to unfold across much of America soon, quite possibly this weekend, suggest that the motivations of Trump and his cronies go deeper than mere (mere!) sadism. They want to use false claims of chaos to justify a power grab that, if successful, would mark the end of the American experiment.
https://twitter.com/KellDA/status/1932596315768435015
President Trump resurrects lie about 2020 Minneapolis riots as he criticizes Walz
Trump wants to 'liberate' Los Angeles, residents say 'no thanks'
https://twitter.com/alanfeuer/status/1932909562694172898
The White House Is Delighted With Events in Los Angeles
But Trump aides know there are real risks for the president if troops are involved in violence.
https://twitter.com/RollingStone/status/1932895364576661610
Trump’s Birthday Parade Isn’t a Harmless Military Spectacle
Don’t let the president’s party distract from the blunt force he is more than eager to deploy in cities like Los Angeles.
https://twitter.com/middleageriot/status/1933146640807772322
https://twitter.com/BTnewsroom/status/1933269694515196180
———— Om wit te wees is nuttig. ————
‘No food, job or phones’: Afrikaner ‘refugee’ family ‘stranded’ in US
———— Blatant In-Your-Face Corruption ————
Pete Hegseth Sold Stock Just Before Tariff Announcement
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sold off 23 stocks ahead of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement and the ensuing stock market plunge in early April.
Hegseth reported selling between $100,000 and $550,000 in stocks on March 24. Those stocks included Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Walmart, Lowe’s and about 20 other companies — almost all of which saw stock prices plummet after Trump’s April 2 announcement.
———— Putin&Krasnov vs. Ukraine ————
https://twitter.com/DarthPutinKGB/status/1933060569017266378
https://twitter.com/markomihkelson/status/1933060099221737625
Russia is amplifying conspiracy theories about the L.A. protests
Protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles have triggered a flood of falsehoods and conspiracy theories online, and Russia has sought to exploit and amplify them.
Russian media and pro-Russian voices have embraced right-wing conspiracy theories about the protests, including one that alleged the Mexican government was encouraging the demonstrations against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
———— Smoot-Hawley 2.0 ————
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1933176538322682323
Supply Chains Become New Battleground in Trade War
A key lesson from the latest skirmish in the U.S.-China trade war: The era of weaponized supply chains has arrived.
Earlier this week, Washington and Beijing ended a standoff involving the most potent new tool in superpower statecraft—export controls. As part of a monthslong trade fight, the two sides choked off the supply of such exports as rare earths or semiconductor technology in a bid to gain an edge.
So when Chinese and American negotiators finally met in London to discuss a truce, the talk focused far more on dialing back supply-chain curbs than they did on tariffs, market access and other standard trade-negotiation topics.
———— Hegseth on the Rocks ————
Hegseth All but Confirms Trump Plans to Take Greenland by Force
The defense secretary made some troubling remarks before Congress—even as a Republican representative tried to save him from himself.
https://twitter.com/FPWellman/status/1932543436131066086
https://twitter.com/JacquieTeo1/status/1932542137314501041
Hegseth won’t commit to obeying courts on Marines in Los Angeles
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refused to say whether he would follow the courts if they ruled against President Donald Trump’s deployment of active-duty Marines to Los Angeles.
———— Mors Imperii ————
https://twitter.com/UAPJames/status/1933157104002400752
Fulbright Board Quits Over Trump Meddling
The entire membership of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board resigned over what it said was meddling by the Trump administration in the board’s authority to award scholarships.
https://twitter.com/cafedujord/status/1932473357699854484
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he plans to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency after this year’s hurricane season, offering the clearest timeline yet for his administration’s long-term plans to dismantle the disaster relief agency and shift responsibility for response and recovery onto states.
Said Trump: “We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down to the state level. A governor should be able to handle it, and frankly, if they can’t handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn’t be governor.”
https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1933153196471451863
Serendipity:
https://twitter.com/EricIdle/status/1932522905260417140
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