Odds and Ends — 25 October 2024

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

A bizarre cult is growing around AI-created memecoin ‘religions’: AI Eye

A fresh push to hobble Russia’s war economy

Microsoft Asks Shareholders to Vote Against Investing in Bitcoin: SEC Filing

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

Many deaths attributed to natural causes during the COVID-19 pandemic may have instead been due to the virus

Politics:

https://twitter.com/middleageriot/status/1849461729870086314
- middleageriot

Elon Musk’s Secret Talks With Vladimir Putin

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a linchpin of U.S. space efforts, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022.
The discussions, confirmed by several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials, touch on personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions.
At one point, Putin asked the billionaire to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, said two people briefed on the request.

https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/1849641330118721597
- Kasparov63

Trump Alumni Say He Would Use Military Against Citizens

Now, with less than two weeks until Election Day, some of Trump’s most senior former advisers are warning Americans to take his militaristic impulses seriously. His longest-serving chief of staff, John Kelly, told the New York Times that he feels Trump meets the definition of ‘fascist,’ expected personal loyalty from military leaders and spoke admiringly of Adolf Hitler.
In running to retake the White House, Trump has named his unfulfilled demands to deploy the military against civil unrest as one of his top regrets — and one he aims not to repeat. His allies have laid plans for him to do so by invoking emergency authority under the Insurrection Act of 1807.
Said Trump, in a campaign speech: “The next time I’m not waiting.”

Donald Trump Is Not Adolf Hitler. Mussolini Is More His Style

I’ve long thought that. It’s the buffoon factor.

https://twitter.com/theliamnissan/status/1849480369168376254
- theliamnissan

https://twitter.com/mrbenwexler/status/1849477776241545343
- mrbenwexler

Trump Goes All In on Anti-Trans

In the past five weeks, Trump’s operation has spent more than $29 million on TV ads criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris for supporting transgender surgeries for inmates and illegal immigrants in detention, according to data from the media tracking firm AdImpact. That makes the topic, by far, the biggest focal point when it comes to Trump’s ad spending—one of the best barometers of messaging priority there is. By contrast, the campaign has spent $5 million over that same time period on TV ads on the economy, making that topic their fifth-most emphasized.
The campaign’s elevation of transgender issues above the economy constitutes one of the biggest bets in presidential politics. The former rates as among the least important to voters according to public opinion polls; the latter their top concern. The trans-heavy focus also seems to conflict with months of insistence—from the Trump campaign to the pundit class—that the ex-president will win because of inflation and jobs.

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1849476195752067498
- joshtpm

Dark Money Group Created Fake Kamala Harris ‘Manifesto’

A Republican organization with ties to Elon Musk has produced an apparently fake manifesto meant to look like Vice President Kamala Harris’ version of the conservative policy initiative Project 2025.
The document, called Progress 2028, contains contradictions and distortions of Harris’ positions on issues such as gun control, fracking, and immigration.

https://twitter.com/glennkirschner2/status/1849507511293886482
- glennkirschner2

Montana Senate candidate says he was 'medically discharged' from the Navy. Records say otherwise.

Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL running for the Senate in Montana, has said he was discharged from the military for medical reasons because of injuries he sustained on duty, but his discharge paperwork tells a different story.
The heavily redacted, two-page document obtained by NBC News indicates that Sheehy voluntarily resigned his commission and does not list any medical condition that forced him out of uniform.

https://twitter.com/VetsForRL/status/1849293331496341537
- VetsForRL

Trump Praised General John Kelly Multiple Times, Even When He Left

Trump is now attacking Kelly for exposing his admiration of Hitler’s generals and disrespect for soldiers

https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1849508474809385141
- TheRickWilson

Melania Trump Faces Uproar After Being Caught in Fake Charity Scandal

It turns out Melania Trump is a grifter just like her husband.

https://twitter.com/Ronxyz00/status/1849503730313367560
- Ronxyz00

Please, don’t throw me in that briar patch!

https://twitter.com/CheryleRPh2/status/1849533890030870824
- CheryleRPh2

Satellite Images Show Major Expansion of Russian Site

A few months after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, satellite imagery captured unusual activity at a restricted military research facility nestled among the birch forests northeast of Moscow.
The Russian site, called Sergiev Posad-6, had been quiet for decades, but it had a notorious Cold War past: It had once been a major research center for biological weapons, with a history of experiments with the viruses that cause smallpox, Ebola and hemorrhagic fevers.
Satellite imagery over the next two years — collected by Google Earth and commercial imaging firms MAXAR and Planet Labs — shows construction vehicles renovating the old Soviet-era laboratory and breaking ground on 10 new buildings, totaling more than 250,000 square feet, with several of them bearing hallmarks of biological labs designed to handle extremely dangerous pathogens.