Odds and Ends — 8 September 2024

@preparedwombat 77

2 months ago

oddsandends

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

Crypto for Advisors: Bitcoin and Gold, Stores of Value

Russia’s strategy to rely more China’s yuan is backfiring

Durov announces disabling personal geolocation on Telegram

I’m more and more thinking that Durov’s “arrest” was staged.

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

Tory health reforms left UK open to Covid calamity, says top doctor’s report

Politics:

https://twitter.com/FPWellman/status/1832183257682866669

Judge Opens Door to Betting on Elections

A federal judge on Friday cleared the way for Americans to place bets on the outcome of congressional elections via a prediction-market startup, a victory that opens the door to legalized wagers on U.S. elections.

https://x.com/MontyBoa99/status/1832024522553200864

The Movie Trump Doesn’t Want You to See

Donald Trump doesn’t want Americans to see The Apprentice, and with good reason—it’s a bona fide supervillain origin story.
It’s an incisive primer on the relationship with Roy Cohn that made the 45th President of the United States who he is today. Which is to say, it lays out the gory details regarding the source of his egomania, greed, ambition, vanity, sociopathy, and heartless rapey-ness, the last of which comes to the fore in a brutal assault of his first wife Ivana.

https://twitter.com/JoyceWhiteVance/status/1831710296399810595

A Compromised Party

The degree of Russian compromise of the Republican party is one of the great stories of American political history. Those of us who worked within the party saw it happen, accompanied by a right-wing media industry that found it profitable to label Russian influence a ‘hoax.’
There’s nothing like it in American history.

https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1831710154406162588

GOP Candidates Distort Records on Women’s Issues

For months, vulnerable House Republicans have been toiling to appeal to women turned off by their support for policies that would limit reproductive rights.
With just nine weeks to go until the election, many appear to have settled on a strategy: airbrushing or at times flatly misrepresenting their records in gauzy, family-focused television ads apparently aimed at those voters.
Some Republicans are claiming that they support protections for in vitro fertilization that they voted against, or that are at odds with legislation they have backed in the past. Others are vowing they would never ban abortion, though they previously said they would support doing so. One states that he cosponsored pro-woman legislation that he actually opposed.

https://twitter.com/MarkJacob16/status/1831751279510745384

Details of Matt Gaetz’s Sex Scandal May Soon Be Public

Rep. Matt Gaetz may soon face a document dump in federal court that could expose — for the first time — details about the alleged sex parties tied to the accusations that Gaetz had sex with an underage teen.
The trove of information — which is expected to include sworn testimony from a number of people involved in the alleged sex parties — is the ironic result of the congressman’s friend, Florida lobbyist Chris Dorworth, dropping a civil lawsuit that sought to bury the scandal.
A federal judge will now decide whether the accounts of several key witnesses should be made public by Sept. 19, including a ‘declaration’ from Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend that one source familiar with the matter described as ‘candid,’ as well as the never-before-seen deposition of the woman who claims she was sex-trafficked when she was 17.

https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1831611002447647133

How the Media Sanitizes Trump’s Insanity

This ‘sanewashing’ of Trump’s statements isn’t just poor journalism; it’s a form of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy. By continually reframing Trump’s incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former—and potentially future—president.
The consequences of this journalistic malpractice extend far beyond misleading headlines. By laundering Trump’s words in this fashion, the media is actively participating in the erosion of our shared reality. When major news outlets consistently present a polished version of Trump’s statements, they create an alternate narrative that exists alongside the unfiltered truth available on social media and in unedited footage.

https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1831820919167488470

https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/1832137456801526094

Michel Barnier named French prime minister: ‘Emmanuel Macron just gave the National Rally the keys to the truck’

https://twitter.com/marlene4719/status/1832137542440718794

https://twitter.com/johnpavlovitz/status/1832210612799021451