Odds and Ends — 24 March 2025


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

Michael Saylor’s Strategy surpasses 500,000 Bitcoin with latest purchase

Bitcoin Has Been Trading Like a Tech Stock: Standard Chartered

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

A Clearer Picture of Covid’s Lasting Effects on the Body

Politics:

Snap Election Pits Canada Against Trump

Prime Minister Mark Carney called a snap election on Sunday, saying he needs a mandate from Canadians to take on U.S. President Donald Trump.
The federal campaign kicks off days ahead of a new slate of Trump tariffs, and at a time when Canadians are increasingly worried the president will make good on his threats of economic and cultural takeover.


Turkey Lurches Toward Outright Autocracy

Turkey took a sharp turn toward full autocracy on Sunday when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main political rival, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, was jailed amid a major crackdown on the opposition.
İmamoğlu, a highly popular secularist who was widely seen as the most likely next president to succeed the Islamist Erdoğan, responded with an impassioned call for mass demonstrations to save democracy in the NATO heavyweight of 86 million.

The Disappeared: Trump’s Mass Deportation Machine and the Shadow Prison in El Salvador


Trump's Domestic War on Terrorism

From Tesla vandals to college protesters, Americans are the new target


Palestinian deaths in Gaza rise above 50,000 as Israel expands its military campaign

‘Deport every person under the sun’: ICE detains Cubans during immigration appointments


———— Melon Husk ————

Elon Musk’s Cuts Leave a Vacuum That China Can Fill

As the Department of Government Efficiency roars through agencies across government, its targets have included some of the organizations that Beijing worried about most, or actively sought to subvert.
And, as with much that Elon Musk’s DOGE has dismembered, there has been no published study of the costs and benefits of losing those capabilities — and no discussion of how the roles, arguably as important as a manned fighter, might be replaced.

Pam Bondi warns Jasmine Crockett to ‘tread very carefully’ in what she says about Elon Musk

Call it a guess, but Jasmine Crockett doesn’t give a rat’s ass about what Pam Bondi has to say.

‘Lawsuit Inbound’: Musk Threatens He’s ‘Had Enough’ After Jamaal Bowman Calls Him ‘Nazi’ and ‘Thief’

If this evolves from a mere threat into an actual lawsuit, discovery could be a hoot.

———— Attacks on the Rule of Law ————

Emboldened Trump Signals Long Court Fight to Expand Power


What the Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador Experienced

Trump’s Legal Hit List Grows

The Trump administration’s efforts to chill opposition among the elite legal class are working. Even before the Paul, Weiss deal, lawyers at major law firms in New York and Washington were struggling to find ways to collectively push back against the Trump administration’s efforts to punish disfavored law firms, which began with Covington & Burling and Perkins Coie.
Trump’s deal with the firm spurred phone calls and text messages across the elite legal class — many expressing shock and concern, and a relative few taking modest pleasure in the public blowback (which could prove to be a business opportunity for competitors looking to poach clients). Democratic legal strategist David Axelrod also posited that the deal could have more direct political effects on the Democratic Party by deterring lawyers at large firms from campaign fundraising.
…Virtually no one with any long-term standing in the private legal community is willing to speak publicly about it, partly out of fear that they or their firms could wind up in Trump’s crosshairs.

———— Krasnov/Putin/Ukraine ————



———— Jessica Aber ————

Jessica Aber, US attorney found dead at 43, was in charge of high-profile cases targeting CIA leaks, Russian fraud



———— Grifters Gonna Grift ————



Serendipity:

TIL that the silver medalist in that race was another Black man, Ralph Metcalfe, who went on to serve in WW2 and in America’s Congress. And that the bronze medalist was a Dutch asshat who later joined the SS and helped to deport Jews to concentration camps.

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It is unrelentingly miserable at times, fair play for keeping at it!

An article I came across today...

https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/six-short-thoughts-on-the-most-insane-trump-story-of-all-time
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