Odds and Ends — 3 October 2024
Caprese salad with fresh basil and heirloom tomato from our garden (olive oil not yet added).
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:
U.S. economy is on the cusp of another Roaring ’20s, says UBS
https://twitter.com/ProfBillMcGuire/status/1841036462751355385
SEC files appeal in Ripple lawsuit
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
Study: COVID-19 vaccination protects against serious cardiovascular disease
Politics:
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1841562765388832910
Judge Unseals Special Counsel Filing
One interesting item: Smith says he plans to prove at trial that Trump and his allies completely made up claims about non-citizens voting.
Another item: Mike Pence repeatedly told Trump he saw no evidence of election fruad.
"When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office," the filing said. "With private co-conspirators, the defendant launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost."
When Trump's effort to overturn the election through lawsuits and fraudulent electors failed to change the outcome of the election, prosecutors allege that the former president fomented violence, with prosecutors describing Trump as directly responsible for "the tinderbox that he purposely ignited on January 6."
"The defendant also knew that he had only one last hope to prevent Biden's certification as President: the large and angry crowd standing in front of him. So for more than an hour, the defendant delivered a speech designed to inflame his supporters and motivate them to march to the Capitol," Smith wrote.
https://twitter.com/mmpadellan/status/1841574503144686026
https://twitter.com/DogginTrump/status/1841572163318628586
https://twitter.com/ArtCandee/status/1841644460767113226
A useful list of the redacted names:
https://twitter.com/Opinion_Skinny/status/1841666960393711810
Health Care Is on the Ballot Again
Vance’s evasive response to the questions about health care, on a night when he took the offensive on most other subjects, exposed how fraught most Republicans still consider the issue, seven years after Trump’s attempt to repeal the ACA died in the Senate. But Vance’s equivocations should not obscure the magnitude of the changes in the program that he has signaled could be coming in a second Trump presidency, particularly in how the law treats people with significant health problems.
The ACA provisions that mandate risk-sharing between the healthy and sick underpin what polls show has become its most popular feature: the requirement that insurance companies offer coverage, at comparable prices, to people with preexisting conditions.
In numerous appearances, Vance has indicated that he wants to change the law to restore to insurance companies the ability to segregate healthy people from those with greater health needs. This was a point that Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, accurately stressed during the debate.
https://twitter.com/mrbenwexler/status/1840874081555791943
A Storm, a Strike and War Abroad
Vice President Kamala Harris has cast herself as a candidate of the future, but she has been yanked back by the problems of the present as the Middle East lurches toward a wider war, a longshoremen’s strike threatens to undermine the country’s economy and Americans across the Southeast struggle to recover from a deadly hurricane.
The confluence of domestic and global traumas combined to knock Ms. Harris off a message that has been carefully calibrated since she took over for President Biden to showcase her as the avatar of ‘a new way forward,’ as her slogan puts it.
https://twitter.com/TheRealThelmaJ1/status/1841430112534925716
https://twitter.com/NYinLA2121/status/1841302025239400945
https://twitter.com/TheSGTJoker/status/1841327486564545021
Heritage Foundation Lays Groundwork for a Purge
The conservative think tank has filed thousands of public-information requests, clogging the pipeline at federal agencies in an apparent attempt to find employees a potential Trump administration would want to purge.
https://twitter.com/chrisjollyhale/status/1841310615274734006
https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1841346121433526666
https://twitter.com/StephenKing/status/1841437146432799042
Internal Emails Reveal How Hate Overwhelmed Springfield
A cache of internal emails obtained by 404 Media using a public records request show the chaos caused by the unfounded racist conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants are ‘eating the pets’ of residents in Springfield, Ohio.
The emails show city officials scrambling to deal with bomb threats, hateful and threatening emails and phone calls, a media bonanza, and confused residents in the immediate aftermath of the presidential debate, in which Donald Trump said ‘in Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.’
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1841352405767565437
The Christian Radicals Are Coming
Every day, internet prophets are describing dreams of churches under attack, Christians rising up, and the start of World War III, acclimating followers to the prospect of real-world violence. And this is what awaits people under the tent at the ‘Courage Tour’: leaders waging an intentional effort to move them from passivity to action and into ‘God’s army.’
https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/1841507299271053622
Iran’s Khamenei Warned Nasrallah of Plot to Kill Him
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Hezbollah leader Syyed Hassan Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike and is now deeply worried about Israeli infiltration of senior government ranks in Tehran.
Iran’s fears for the safety of Khamenei and the loss of trust, within both Hezbollah and Iran’s establishment and between them, emerged in the conversations with 10 sources for this story, who described a situation that could complicate the effective functioning of Iran’s Axis of Resistance alliance of anti-Israel irregular armed groups.
https://twitter.com/TrueFactsStated/status/1841493560400519528
https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1841470857064911172
https://twitter.com/cooltxchick/status/1841222710992515072
Georgia Republicans Sow Doubt About Voting Machines
Just weeks before early voting begins in Georgia, Republican Party officials and Donald Trump allies are trying to preemptively sow doubt about the viability of Dominion systems used across the key swing state, arguing in court that the machines should not be used because they are not safe or secure.
In a replay of 2020 tactics, Republicans have continued to claim without proof that Dominion voting systems are susceptible to mass manipulation and vote-flipping by a nefarious actor.
https://twitter.com/alex_shephard/status/1841279803900506399
https://twitter.com/AriDrennen/status/1841336889846235406
Trump Spent More Than He Raised Again
Donald Trump’s campaign spent more than it raised for the second month in a row as the Republican nominee struggles to keep pace with Democrat Kamala Harris’ robust fundraising operation.
https://twitter.com/DGComedy/status/1841520294772801655
https://twitter.com/BFriedmanDC/status/1841521885093494832
Eight Israeli troops killed in fighting with Hezbollah inside Lebanon
https://twitter.com/thejackhopkins/status/1841356885565284603
Serendipity:
As the Nazis performed executions deep in the Lithuanian woods, one local man took detailed, dispassionate notes. He was unwittingly creating one of the most unusual documents in history.
https://twitter.com/Kierkegaarddd/status/1841175582404395302
Centuries ago, the Maya storm god Huracán taught that when we damage nature, we damage ourselves
https://twitter.com/PopBase/status/1841515157509611792
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