Odds and Ends — 3 August 2024

about 2 months ago

“So many books, so little time.” — Frank Zappa

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

FOIA Files obtained a series of memos from the Justice Department that show a “large denomination platinum coin” was discussed at the highest levels of government.

"Intellectually very high level": Watch Trump's hilarious attempt to understand Bitcoin

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

Driving deaths have been happening more since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic

Politics:

https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1819164471056912487

He is scared. Very, very scared:

https://twitter.com/UrbanAchievr/status/1819580308791914792

Children of undercover Russian spy couple only learned their nationality on flight to Moscow

Trump Uses Old Tactic to Sow Suspicion About Harris

It is a tactic that has long been part of the underside of American politics: presenting an opponent as somehow ‘other’ or ‘not one of us’ — someone who cannot be trusted or truly known.
But while this has been a recurrent theme in American campaigns for at least a century, Mr. Trump has taken it to a new level, historians and analysts said. What has often been a subtext or a whisper campaign driven by surrogates is, in Mr. Trump’s hands, a central message of his campaign — projected on screens at a rally, promoted on social media and reinforced by his running mate.
Mr. Trump has personally led the effort, explicitly falsifying the biography of his opponent and invoking race and gender in ways no modern major-party leader has done before.

https://twitter.com/DrGJackBrown/status/1819219118110699789

Defense Secretary Revokes Plea Deal for 9/11 Plotters

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday relieved the overseer of the war court at Guantánamo Bay and revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week with the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two alleged accomplices.
The Pentagon announced the decision with the release of a memorandum relieving the senior official at the Defense Department responsible for military commissions of her oversight of the capital case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his alleged accomplices for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.

https://twitter.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1819311424990073230

Obviously, a weird thing to say…

https://twitter.com/Out5p0ken/status/1819375464382857505

Biden warns Netanyahu against escalation as risk of regional war grows

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1819574101612093728

Yeah, not going to happen:

https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1819517535873556577

https://twitter.com/preparedwombat/status/1819398264380084524

Netanyahu Appears to Have Gone Rogue

As the Biden administration and its allies try to secure an elusive cease-fire in Gaza, Israel appears to have gone rogue.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, came to Washington last week to give a defiant speech. Despite international condemnation, he vowed to continue the war against Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, where Israel is killing and imprisoning scores of Palestinians each week, without any clear idea of its endgame.
The assassinations of senior Hezbollah and Hamas figures abroad have now sharply raised the risks of a larger regional war as Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah prepare retaliation, analysts say.

https://twitter.com/schwartzbCNBC/status/1819374704488013844

Trump’s Election Subversion Case Revs Back to Life

There appears to be no real prospect of a trial in the Jan. 6-focused case before the November election, but some Trump critics have been eagerly awaiting the ministerial action from the high court, hoping that it results in a series of swift decisions from Chutkan that could again put Trump on the defensive. Some have urged the judge to consider holding a hearing to assess the effect of the high court’s immunity ruling on the evidence Smith intends to present. That proceeding could feature witness testimony from key figures in the case.
Trump opponents hope this ‘mini-trial’ would showcase Trump’s ties to the violence that unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021 and remind voters of the most chaotic day of Trump’s presidency, even if it doesn’t carry the same stakes as a jury trial.

https://twitter.com/sjdemas/status/1818814956906692944

https://twitter.com/garykoepnick/status/1819398597672317105

Trump Is Suddenly Running Scared