Odds and Ends — 24 July 2025

@preparedwombat 78

7 days ago

oddsandends

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

Crypto Inflows Surge to $60B Year-to-Date, Outpacing Private Equity: JPMorgan

Bitcoin inheritances: A guide for heirs and the not-yet-dead

Ripple CEO Warns of YouTube XRP Scams Following All-Time High Surge

Coronavirus and Public Health:

COVID-19 May Trigger Alzheimer's-Like Protein Buildup In Brain And Eyes, Study Finds

Politics:

https://twitter.com/wmhuo168/status/1947770690234396713

YouTube wipes out thousands of propaganda channels linked to China, Russia, others

Thailand launches airstrikes on Cambodian military targets as deadly border dispute escalates

———— The Epstein Coverup ————

Justice Department Told Trump in May That His Name Is Among Many in the Epstein Files

When Justice Department officials reviewed what Attorney General Pam Bondi called a ‘truckload’ of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump’s name appeared multiple times.
They told the president at the meeting that the files contained what officials felt was unverified hearsay about many people, including Trump, who had socialized with Epstein in the past… One of the officials familiar with the documents said they contain hundreds of other names.
They also told Trump that senior Justice Department officials didn’t plan to release any more documents related to the investigation of the convicted sex offender because the material contained child pornography and victims’ personal information…
The meeting set the stage for the high-profile review to come to an end.

https://twitter.com/hissgoescobra/status/1948120354901373072

https://twitter.com/jefftimmer/status/1948167475818045586

The Sick Joke of Jeffrey Epstein

The whole operation was designed to normalize the depravity. To lure powerful men with the promise of sex and secrecy. To make it funny. To make it cool. And then to hold them hostage with it.

https://twitter.com/MaxwellFrostFL/status/1948108830388466069

Cry me a river: White House Furious at All-Consuming Epstein Coverage

…Donald Trump is angry. His team is exasperated. The Republican-controlled House is in near rebellion.
Trump and his closest allies thought they’d spend the summer taking a well-earned victory lap, having coaxed Congress into passing the megabill, bullied foreign governments into a slew of new trade arrangements, convinced NATO allies to spend billions more on collective defense and pressed world leaders to bow to various other demands from Doha to The Hague.
Instead, questions surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, who was found dead in his jail cell by suicide nearly six years ago, are overshadowing almost everything else.
Said one person close to the White House: “POTUS is clearly furious. It’s the first time I’ve seen them sort of paralyzed.”

https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1947665435744407609

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1947720931717070979

Trump’s Epstein Denials Are Unconvincing

Imagine you were an elected official who discovered that an old friend had been running a sex-trafficking operation without your knowledge. You’d probably try very hard to make your innocence in the matter clear. You’d demand full transparency and answer any questions about your own involvement straightforwardly.
Donald Trump’s behavior regarding the Jeffrey Epstein case is… not that…
Perhaps Trump is simply so habituated to lying that he has no playbook for handling a matter in which he has nothing to hide. Or maybe, as seems more plausible by the day, he is acting guilty because he is.

https://twitter.com/JasonKander/status/1948136432574304625

Release All the Files

The Epstein affair is a genuine scandal that reaches beyond Trump. It’s the story of a shameful coverup of horrible crimes on behalf of our political, social, and financial elites. The worst sexual predator of recent decades was close to two U.S. presidents—and to countless others in positions of power, wealth, and celebrity.
In the face of such corruption and elite self-protection, the principled opposition must favor releasing all the files, exposing all the facts, without regard to who benefits.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1948087939293991315

https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1948081080080138337

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1948197483789815869

———— Autocracy R Us ————

Trump's birthright citizenship order is unconstitutional, appeals court says

A federal appeals court said Wednesday that President Trump’s executive order curtailing birthright citizenship is unconstitutional.
The policy, which has been the subject of a complicated monthslong legal back-and-forth, is currently on hold. But Wednesday’s decision appears to mark the first time that an appellate court has weighed in on the merits of Mr. Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship for many children of undocumented immigrants by executive order.

———— Melon Husk ————

SpaceX Warns Investors Musk Could Return to Politics

There’s a new warning tucked into the tender offer for Elon Musk’s SpaceX: The billionaire may not be done with politics just yet.
The company added the language laying out such “risk factors” in paperwork sent to investors discussing the transaction. It was the first time this language is believed to have appeared in these tender offers, some of these people said.

———— Signalgate ————

Hegseth’s Signal Chats Were Based on Classified Info

The Pentagon’s independent watchdog has received evidence that messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Signal account previewing a U.S. bombing campaign in Yemen derived from a classified email labeled ‘SECRET/NOFORN.’
The revelation appears to contradict longstanding claims by the Trump administration that no classified information was divulged in unclassified group chats that critics have called a significant security breach.