Odds and Ends — 23 July 2025

@preparedwombat 78

8 days ago

oddsandends

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

Altcoin Season Takes Breather With SOL, XRP, TON Among Those Posting Heavy Losses

Denver Pastor, Wife Indicted in Alleged $3.4 Million Crypto Scam

Coronavirus and Public Health:

Accelerated brain ageing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Politics:

Presidential Pettiness

Presidents are, like the rest of us, flawed human beings. Many of them had volcanic tempers: Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Joe Biden, among others, reportedly could sling Anglo-Saxonisms with gusto. In public, most of them managed to convey an image of geniality. (Nixon might be the exception there, but he embraced being an uptight square and his admirers found it endearing.) But all of them, regardless of their personality, had at least some notion about government, some sense of what they wanted to accomplish in the most powerful office in the world.
Donald Trump exhibits no such guiding belief. From his first day as a candidate, Trump has appeared animated by anger, fear, and, most of all, pettiness, a small-minded vengefulness that takes the place of actual policy making. It taints the air in the executive branch like a forgotten bag of trash in a warm house on a summer day—even when you can’t see it, you know it’s there.

https://twitter.com/babadookspinoza/status/1947685613903241292

Why Trump’s Lawsuit Against Murdoch and the Journal Is a Sure Loser

Yes, his base rallied to him after the big story broke. But this lawsuit is stupid on several levels and will come back to bite him.

Trump Pulls Out of UNESCO

Mass starvation spreading across Gaza, aid agencies warn, as Israeli government says it is not responsible

———— Theresienstadt in the Everglades ————

https://twitter.com/BedoyaUSA/status/1947652348513300757

Detention of two Italians at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ sparks backlash at home

———— The Epstein Coverup ————

https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1947641142297645507

Johnson Shutting Down House to Block Epstein Vote

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he would shut the House down early for its summer recess to head off Democratic demands for votes on calling for the release of files from the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
In order to avoid what he called “political games,” Johnson said the House would adjourn until September after votes scheduled for Wednesday night.

“The only thing to conclude is that there’s something really bad in the Epstein files that President Trump doesn’t want made public.” — Taegan Goddard

https://twitter.com/meiselasb/status/1947709926866096575

https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1947627656843018522

https://twitter.com/cmclymer/status/1947678887665930335

https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1947661022598430830

https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1947654339935207580

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1947678560967397699

Trump Can’t Quiet Supporters Over Jeffrey Epstein

The White House’s attempts to mollify President Donald Trump’s supporters’ growing outrage over the investigation into disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein appears to be falling on deaf ears.
Since Trump last week announced that he directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin the process of trying to unseal grand jury testimony in Epstein’s criminal case, Republicans and MAGA stalwarts have publicly pushed the administration to release more documents related to Epstein.

Trump says Obama ‘guilty’ of ‘treason’ for ordering 2016 Russia investigation: ‘Time to go after people’

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1947742352778662276

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1947680672874660287

Ever since he launched his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump has fulminated against ‘the fake news.’ But only in his second term has Trump gone beyond such rhetoric to wage a multifront war on media freedom with all of the tools at his disposal: executive actions, lawsuits, a loyal regulatory bureaucracy, a compliant Republican majority in Congress and a sympathetic Supreme Court. Each of his actions has been extraordinary in its own right; collectively, they represent a slow-motion demolition of the Fourth Estate.
The principal question isn’t just whether anyone can stop Trump, but whether anyone in power really wants to.

https://twitter.com/RepJackKimble/status/1947689540883517591

What Trump’s Feud With Powell Is Really About

Donald Trump has been bullying Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell—calling him ‘too late,’ insulting his intelligence, and trying to gin up a case that Powell spent too much on renovations of the agency’s headquarters as a pretext for firing him. The New York Times recently observed that the two men have a ‘toxic relationship,’ which is true, as far as it goes.
But the actual reason for the president’s hostility is neither alleged cost overruns nor Powell’s ability to manage the business cycle. Trump doesn’t think Powell is bad at his job. He objects to the job itself.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1947726256088183296

EPA Drafts Plan to End Its Ability to Fight Climate Change

The Trump administration has drafted a plan to repeal a fundamental scientific finding that gives the United States government its authority to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions and fight climate change.
The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule rescinds a 2009 declaration known as the ‘endangerment finding,’ which scientifically established that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane endanger human lives.