Odds and Ends — 23 February 2025

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

Binance Research Survey Shows 95% of Latin American Crypto Users Plan to Buy More in 2025

Ethereum rollback deemed ‘technically intractable’ amid Bybit hack pressure

AI's Premium Price Tags Are Creating a New Digital Divide

Politics:

https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1893403657124630706
- davidfrum

Trump Uses Lies and Distortions to Drive Radical Change

Condoms for Gaza? Ukraine started the war with Russia? The president’s manipulations of the truth lay the groundwork for radical change…
Mr. Trump has long been unfettered by truth when it comes to boasting about his record and tearing down his enemies. But what were dubbed ‘alternative facts’ in his first term have quickly become a whole alternative reality in his second to lay the groundwork for radical change as he moves to aggressively reshape America and the world.

https://twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/status/1893369213558964517
- KeithOlbermann

https://twitter.com/segalmr/status/1893070884086206966
- segalmr

Israel delays Palestinian prisoner release; moves tanks into West Bank

https://twitter.com/ChrisDJackson/status/1893140834045870517
- ChrisDJackson

https://twitter.com/mccaffreyr3/status/1893171271418159340
- mccaffreyr3

https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/1893149681804283916
- HeerJeet

A Friday-Night Massacre at the Pentagon

Now that Trump has captured the intelligence services, the Justice Department, and the FBI, the military is the last piece he needs to establish the foundations for authoritarian control of the U.S. government. None of this has anything to do with effectiveness, or “lethality,” or promoting “warfighters," or any other buzzwords. It is praetorianism, plain and simple.

https://twitter.com/AVindman/status/1893114192699195757
- AVindman

https://twitter.com/AmyMcGrathKY/status/1893127031845449837
- AmyMcGrathKY

https://x.com/FPWellman/status/1893370402614706379

The Death of Competition in American Elections

After decades of gerrymandering and political polarization, a vast majority of members of Congress and state legislatures did not face competitive general elections last year.
Instead, they were effectively elected through low-turnout or otherwise meaningless primary contests. Vanishingly few voters cast a ballot in those races, according to a New York Times analysis of more than 9,000 congressional and state legislative primary elections held last year. On average, just 57,000 people voted for politicians in U.S. House primaries who went on to win the general election — a small fraction of the more than 700,000 Americans each of those winners now represents.

https://twitter.com/WalshFreedom/status/1893280171311952312
- WalshFreedom

Kennedy Center Ticket Sales Plummet

In the week following Trump’s announcement, ticket sales dropped by roughly 50 percent compared to the previous week, a stunning aberration.

https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/1893008277924974722
- YourAnonNews

https://twitter.com/Strandjunker/status/1893365932300411304
- Strandjunker

https://twitter.com/anthony7andrews/status/1893303762422206758
- anthony7andrews

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1893394525009150318
- SethAbramson

Trump Moves with Light Speed and Brute Force

…Donald Trump is moving with light speed and brute force to break the existing order and reshape America at home and abroad. He likes the ring of calling himself king.
No one can absorb it all. By the time you try to process one big thing — he covets Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal and Gaza; he turns away from historic alliances and Ukraine; fires many thousands of federal workers, then brings some right back; raises doubts whether he will obey laws he doesn’t like; orders an about-face in the missions of department after department; declares there are only two genders, which federal documents will henceforth call sexes; announces heavy tariffs, suspends them, then imposes some — three more big things have happened…