Odds and Ends — 15 November 2024

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

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

Americans have been too quick to condemn the field of public health, overlooking its massive achievements in the 1900s and, yes, during the recent pandemic, too.

Politics:

https://twitter.com/JYSexton/status/1856806661928718609

The Sanewashing of RFK Jr.

https://twitter.com/irishrygirl/status/1857185787894256013

At least 15 rescue workers killed in Israeli strike in Lebanon

https://twitter.com/Ike_Saul/status/1857127950082085232

https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/1856798502484910130

https://twitter.com/TaylorMatthewD/status/1856785877403361524

Those Poor, Poor Vichy Republicans

What a 24 hours! The lightest of lightweights, Pete Hegseth, is nominated for secretary of defense. A leading Assad and Putin apologist, Tulsi Gabbard, is announced as director of national intelligence. The poster child of moral degradation, Matt Gaetz, is selected for attorney general.
If you’re surprised, you’re a dupe. President Trump is going to do in his second term what he said he’d do on the campaign trail, and what he tried fitfully to do in his first term. He’s going to turn the federal government into an instrument of MAGA policy and grievance. He’s going to pursue retribution against enemies. He’s going to destroy what remains of the older norms that guide the operations of the government, and of the institutional checks that constrain the abuse of power.
He told us this was his plan. The only surprise is how quickly he’s acting on it.

https://twitter.com/WintersPolitics/status/1856953189779869941

A different camera angle:

https://twitter.com/StrayDogNZ/status/1856899136978923657/

Clown Shoes Are Preferable to Jackboots

If this is a sincere appointment—in other words, if it isn’t a head-fake to get the Senate to accept another candidate later, or a ruse to let Gaetz resign from Congress and avoid a damaging ethics report—it’s an example of self-indulgence thwarting malign intent. Gaetz is a buffoon. He has absolutely no qualifications to run the Department of Justice. Can he wander around firing everyone? Yes. Does he understand how the Department of Justice works in a way that would allow him to maximize its potential for abuse? No. Is he smart enough to figure it out? Also no. Is he charismatic enough to persuade insiders to help him use it effectively? Very much no.
Gaetz as attorney general will do petty, flamboyant, stupid things in clumsy ways. Some of those things will be very bad. But clown shoes are preferable to jackboots. We’d be in much more trouble if someone evil in a smart and competent way who understands how the machine works—say, Jeff Clark or Ken Paxton—took over.

https://twitter.com/theblatt/status/1856910629551985142

Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination Is a National-Security Risk

To make Tulsi Gabbard the DNI, however, is not merely handing a bouquet to a political gadfly. Her appointment would be a threat to the security of the United States.
Gabbard ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, attempting to position herself as something like a peace candidate. But she’s no peacemaker: She’s been an apologist for both the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Her politics, which are otherwise incoherent, tend to be sympathetic to these two strongmen, painting America as the problem and the dictators as misunderstood…
A person with Gabbard’s views should not be allowed anywhere near the crown jewels of American intelligence.

https://twitter.com/TeaPainUSA/status/1857063042732749271

Trump Looks to Bypass Senate for Polarizing Picks

As Donald Trump moves to fill his administration with polarizing figures like former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz and onetime presidential rival Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he may need Congress to heed his demand to allow him to bypass the traditional confirmation process and appoint his picks without Senate approval.
The president-elect has insisted that rather than put his nominees through an extended public vetting process, the GOP-led Senate should take extended breaks that would allow him to make recess appointments.
Experts in American democracy say Trump’s call is the first major post-election test for Republicans in Congress of whether they will stand up for traditional checks and balances or bend to Trump’s desire not to have his choices questioned.

https://twitter.com/KatiePhang/status/1857208849729478902
https://twitter.com/mattmfm/status/1857201229648064999

https://twitter.com/svdate/status/1857175795875164241

Trump’s Extreme Hires Are About Showing Republicans Who’s Boss

“He wants to bend them to his will until they snap in half and then thank him for the privilege.” — A Trump transition team member

https://twitter.com/JoJoFromJerz/status/1856814863315587574
https://twitter.com/johnastoehr/status/1857164090730291369

Tony Blair’s ‘Prince of Darkness’ tipped to be UK’s man in DC

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1857236537488114033

COP29 hosts accused of detaining climate defenders

https://twitter.com/MichaelJStern1/status/1856843233856196926

Serendipity:

'A film that only Japan could have made': Seventy years on, why Godzilla is the darkest monster movie of them all

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