Odds and Ends — 19 February 2024
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:
https://twitter.com/middleageriot/status/1759336354616332425
Cathie Wood’s ARK Offloads $90M Coinbase Shares Amid Slew of Analyst Upgrades
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
Review of COVID death stats finds likely undercount in official numbers
Politics:
Indictment of FBI informant could spell trouble for key GOP impeachment claim
https://twitter.com/MarkJacob16/status/1759235668343996648
Fraud Ruling Threatens to Handcuff Trump’s Business
Justice Arthur Engoron in his decision Friday banned the former president from serving as an executive of the Trump Organization or any other New York company for three years, and his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. for two. Trump and his business are also barred for three years from applying for loans from financial institutions registered with or chartered in New York state.
Collectively, the restrictions will force Trump’s real-estate conglomerate to reimagine how it does business inside and out of New York, all under the heavy oversight of a court appointed monitor. The judge ordered the installation of an independent compliance director at the Trump Organization.
The ban on borrowing could have the greatest impact, lawyers said, because most large U.S. banks are registered or have charters with New York.
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1759153006019326452
Truckers for Trump are refusing to drive to New York City after $350m fraud ruling
Call it a guess, but this is bigly unlikely to have any measurable effect. But of course ”…Trump supports their efforts.”
https://twitter.com/dcpetterson/status/1759243720585883649
Trump Ranks Dead Last Among the Presidents
Presidents Day occurs at a crucial moment this year, with the presidency on the cusp of crisis as we inexorably shuffle toward a rematch between the incumbent and his predecessor. It’s the sort of contest we haven’t seen since the 19th century, and judging by public opinion of President Biden and former President Trump, most Americans would have preferred to keep it that way.
But the third installment of our Presidential Greatness Project, a poll of presidential experts released this weekend, shows that scholars don’t share American voters’ roughly equal distaste for both candidates.
Biden, in fact, makes his debut in our rankings at No. 14, putting him in the top third of American presidents. Trump, meanwhile, maintains the position he held six years ago: dead last, trailing such historically calamitous chief executives as James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.
https://twitter.com/AWeissmann_/status/1759337617294836131
The GOP Has Crossed an Ominous Threshold on Foreign Policy
Since Donald Trump emerged as the GOP’s dominant figure in 2016, he has championed an isolationist and nationalist agenda that is dubious of international alliances, scornful of free trade, and hostile to not only illegal but also legal immigration. His four years in the White House marked a shift in the party’s internal balance of power away from the internationalist perspective that had dominated every Republican presidency from Dwight Eisenhower through George W. Bush.
But even so, during Trump’s four years in office, a substantial remnant of traditionally internationalist Republicans in Congress and in the key national-security positions of his own administration resisted his efforts to unravel America’s traditional alliances.
Now though, evidence is rapidly accumulating on multiple fronts that the internal GOP resistance is crumbling to Trump’s determination to steer America away from its traditional role as a global leader.
https://twitter.com/fritzie4art/status/1757911704137343274
Mexico is suing US gun-makers for arming its gangs − and a US court could award billions in damages
https://twitter.com/KatiePhang/status/1759362759198740511
Every year, local television news stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting conduct short surveys among viewers to help guide the year’s coverage.
A key question in each poll, according to David Smith, the company’s executive chairman: “What are you most afraid of?”
The answers are evident in Sinclair’s programming. Crime, homelessness, illegal drug use, failing schools and other societal ills have long been core elements of local TV news coverage. But on Sinclair’s growing nationwide roster of stations, the editorial focus reflects Smith’s conservative views and plays on its audience’s fears that America’s cities are falling apart.
Serendipity:
https://twitter.com/SeamusBlackley/status/1759273622328475862
DNA From Beethoven’s Hair Reveals Surprise Some 200 Years Later
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