Odds and Ends — 15 July 2024

10 months ago

My wife usually has time to eat before going to her desk for her WFH job but, when she doesn’t, I try to make her a nice breakfast.

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

Bitcoin and Ether lead $17.8B crypto inflows

Founder's Gambling 'Struggles' Spur Crippling Loss at Crypto Casino Backed by Galaxy

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

About 7 percent of U.S. adults have had long covid

Politics:

Judge dismisses classified documents case against Donald Trump

https://twitter.com/PaulRudnickNY/status/1812864533184086469

https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1812854554481864773

America Is Staring Into the Abyss

It is far too soon to speculate — as some were quick to do — that Trump’s already-good election prospects are not now inevitable. In 1981, Ronald Reagan got a huge ratings surge after he was shot by a lone gunman. That boost evaporated within a few weeks.
But it is fair to say that an already existential election is now considerably more fraught than before. Violence was already implicit in much of the rhetoric. Now it is explicit.
It is always tempting to point out that guns and political murder are a staple of the U.S. republic. That is true compared with other democracies. But the conditions in 2024 are unique. A bullet almost killed the man who is vowing retribution if he is returned to the White House. A spirit of vengeance is haunting America.

https://twitter.com/smalls2672/status/1812483103211860106

The Gunman and the Would-Be Dictator

When a madman hammered nearly to death the husband of then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Donald Trump jeered and mocked. One of Trump’s sons and other close Trump supporters avidly promoted false claims that Paul Pelosi had somehow brought the onslaught upon himself through a sexual misadventure.
After authorities apprehended a right-wing-extremist plot to abduct Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Trump belittled the threat at a rally. He disparaged Whitmer as a political enemy. His supporters chanted “Lock her up.” Trump laughed and replied, “Lock them all up.”
Fascism feasts on violence…Now the bloodshed that Trump has done so much to incite against others has touched him as well.

A Legendary American Photograph

Donald Trump raises a fist. Blood streaks his face. The sky is high, blue, and empty except for an American flag caught in a hard wind. A Secret Service agent has her arms around his waist. The former president’s mouth is open, in the middle of a snarled shout. We know from video footage that he is yelling “Fight!,” that the crowd is chanting “USA!”
The photograph, by the Associated Press’s Evan Vucci, became immediately legendary. However you feel about the man at its center, it is undeniably one of the great compositions in U.S. photographic history.

Winston Churchill and King Canute

The Republican Convention will provide the Democrats an opportunity to proceed quietly with the task at hand: Convincing Joe Biden to stand down. From what I’m hearing, the process has gone subterranean but is increasing in its intensity.
There is a sense that Democrats want this to be a surgical procedure—Biden gone, Kamala installed, no blitz primary. They will, after the quasi-martyrdom and the GOP convention, need something, to bring them back to life. If the Dems had a Trumpian sense of drama, Biden would choose the night of Agent Orange’s convention speech to announce his withdrawal from the race…
The presidential campaign languished in a vast, unusual stasis for the past year. That is highly irregular in American politics. And now, with the debate and the shooting, the curtain rises on the ultimate drama. The next weeks will be amazing, perhaps horrible, perhaps Biblical.

https://twitter.com/Angry_Staffer/status/1812347698063794315

Poland mulls shooting down Russian missiles over Ukraine amid wave of deadly attacks

Poland is weighing up whether it can intercept Russian rockets on course to strike Ukrainian cities, Warsaw has said, as Western allies step up shipments of air defenses to help protect civilians and critical energy infrastructure.

https://twitter.com/TheSGTJoker/status/1812372583255273522
https://twitter.com/writer_gillis/status/1812552245080445113

A single poll doesn’t mean all that much, but since it’s from Fox News, Biden is up by 2 points today: 50%-48%.

https://twitter.com/AesPolitics1/status/1812348831532453989

The West finally allowed Ukraine to strike back at Russia — and it seems to be working

https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1812543831889313897

Fake parts for Russia’s stolen airliners

https://twitter.com/AoDespair/status/1812478971168387204

Far-Right Extremists Call for Violence and War After Trump Shooting

https://twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/status/1812440504446939213
https://twitter.com/RepJackKimble/status/1812292445880590677

Don’t Make Assumptions on Political Violence

If a radical-right politician such as Donald Trump is the victim of an assassination attempt, should we not presume that the perpetrator is on the radical left?
No, we should not.
That sort of presumption, based on us-and-them thinking, is dangerous. It begins a chain of thinking that can lead to more violence. We are the victims, and they are the aggressors. We have been hurt, so it must have been them. No one thinking this way ever asks about the violence on one’s own side.
And this way of thinking is also very often erroneous. The history of the far right tells a different story, one in which violence often refracts within and around a political movement that endorses it.

https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1812575984672968901
https://twitter.com/RedHibiscus23/status/1812614703425745153

Diplomats See an Era of Political Violence in the U.S.

Foreign diplomats have long watched America’s increasingly toxic politics with intrigue if not outright dread. The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has some of them now predicting that he will likely win the presidential race this November — and that more U.S. political violence is on the way.
These assessments, no doubt being rapidly typed into classified cables to send to superiors back home, are not made willy-nilly. For diplomats from countries friendly with the United States, the conclusions are especially unnerving, because instability in America could mean instability everywhere.

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1812458480676081960

EU’s biggest losers hold Ursula von der Leyen’s fate in their hands

Commission president could be forced to rely on Greens and liberals to secure a second term, weeks after they were rejected by voters in the European election.

https://twitter.com/MarkJacob16/status/1812520053637632267

Dozens of Indian workers freed from 'slavery' in Italy

https://twitter.com/denisegi/status/1812334408310862261