Odds and Ends — 3 March 2026

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

Visa and Stripe’s Bridge plan stablecoin card expansion to over 100 countries

It's no longer a matter of if major banks will custody crypto but a matter of when, with Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Barclays all lining up.

Flash Fiction:

”I have to discourage you from giving your money to that charlatan. Just because he’s skilled at spouting garbage doesn’t mean you should break down and give him what he wants. His pitch is simply not representative of the facts.”

”But he’s on our side. You’ve seen the photo. It’s proof that he’s right.”

”What I’ve seen is that he knows how to use Photoshop.”

Written for this prompt.

Coronavirus and Public Health:

New research ties COVID-19 to a recent increase in heart failure deaths

Politics:

Minnesota launches investigation that could lead to charges against immigration officers

https://twitter.com/TheWorthyHouse/status/2028628978429292878
- TheWorthyHouse

———— Iran ————

https://twitter.com/SohrabAhmari/status/2028427597105774914
- SohrabAhmari

https://twitter.com/esaagar/status/2028469156916371622
- esaagar

https://twitter.com/JamesWebb_16/status/2028486734993088683
- JamesWebb_16

https://twitter.com/RenzTom/status/2028474262110003627
- RenzTom

A War No One Wants, Started by a Man No One Trusts

There have been a bunch of polls done since the first bombs dropped on Friday night/Saturday morning. They all ask the question a little differently, and wording affects the results, but they paint a similar picture. The majority of Americans don’t want war with Iran…
Trump has made basically zero effort to sell this war to the American people, before or after the strikes — and even if he had, it likely wouldn’t work. Voters do not trust Trump on national security…
People don’t like the war, they don’t like the person who started it, and they don’t trust him to see it through.

https://twitter.com/SKMorefield/status/2028488488782348763
- SKMorefield

https://twitter.com/TheMaineWonk/status/2028511226255348209
- TheMaineWonk

https://twitter.com/calvinfroedge/status/2028509205687083253
- calvinfroedge

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/2028736708099866701
- ChrisO_wiki

https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/2028620437890945213
- kenklippenstein

https://twitter.com/Haqiqatjou/status/2028611198036414633
- Haqiqatjou

There Is No U.S. Plan on Iran

Maybe, just maybe, the Trump Administration does not know what it is doing in Iran.

An Unplanned War

The main thing I’d want to get across to people about Donald Trump and his administration right now is that however unprepared you might think they are for war, the chances are very good that it’s much worse. Much, much worse.

https://twitter.com/sbg1/status/2028515409662448078
- sbg1

https://twitter.com/lrozen/status/2028515723195150734
- lrozen

https://twitter.com/TheMaineWonk/status/2028519289712496873
- TheMaineWonk

US 'stonewalling' requests by Gulf states to replenish interceptors, sources say

https://twitter.com/glcarlstrom/status/2028345531798364571
- glcarlstrom

https://twitter.com/JoePostingg/status/2028512228744265919
- JoePostingg

https://twitter.com/Jesse_Brenneman/status/2028473233679536417
- Jesse_Brenneman

US embassy in Riyadh targeted by two drones, Saudi defense ministry says

https://twitter.com/yaboynyp/status/2028348215461106142
- yaboynyp

Can Donald Trump Win a War with Iran If He Can’t Explain Why He Started It?

In the two and a half days since Donald Trump unleashed a new war in the Middle East, the President and his Administration have come up with an astonishing array of different, even contradictory, rationales for the American military attack on Iran.
By my count, and I’m sure I’ve missed a few, these include outright regime change, assistance to the oppressed peoples of the Islamic Republic, stripping Iran of ‘the ability to project power outside its borders,’ stopping future Iranian-sponsored terrorist attacks while exacting revenge for past ones, preëmptive action against an imminent Iranian threat to attack U.S. forces, preëmptive action to block Iran from building ballistic missiles that could hit the U.S. mainland, and preëmptive action to stop the Iranian nuclear program that Trump had, as recently as last week, claimed was ‘obliterated.’
Many of these explanations are based on false premises; some already seem to have been abandoned.

https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/2028579108070817939
- mehdirhasan

https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/2028599032063644093
- McFaul

US strikes on Iran triggered by Israel’s plan to launch attack, Rubio says

Secretary of state says Trump ordered pre-emptive strikes out of concern about Tehran retaliation after Israeli attack

https://twitter.com/RyanMcCubbinTX/status/2028637085297516881
- RyanMcCubbinTX

Rubio’s War Remarks Blow Open MAGA’s Israel Divide

MAGA’s ascendant ‘America First’ wing erupted after Secretary of State Marco Rubio effectively blamed Israel for drawing the U.S. into war with Iran.
Rubio’s remarks were the first time a Trump official had so explicitly acknowledged Israel as a driving force behind the war — landing at a moment when Americans’ public support for Israel has hit historic lows.

What goes around comes around: