Odds and Ends — 28 September 2021
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, and Debt:
ETH developer pleads guilty for conspiracy to violate sanctions laws
‘Solcial’ Raises $2.9M to Build Censorship-Free Social Media on Solana
Inside a Mysterious Digital Media Company
The latest wisdom from Captain Obvious: Fed Chair Powell to warn Congress that inflation pressures could last longer than expected. Gosh, nobody could have predicted that creating trillions in currency would fuel inflation. Such a thought would have been
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
Staten Island crowd defies vaccine mandate by storming mall food court
A Michigan doctor said 6 out of 8 patients who questioned his medical advice on COVID-19 have died
Covid’s Partisan Pattern Grows More Extreme
The political divide over vaccinations is so large that almost every reliably blue state now has a higher vaccination rate than almost every reliably red state.
Oh, come on, tell us what you really think: It’s time to start firing unvaccinated people: Trump fans are overdue for a lesson in consequences
Politics:
How the GOP Came to Embrace ‘Replacement Theory’
The story of the Republican Party in the Trump era is, by and large, one of a boiled frog.
Trump constantly pushed the envelope in ways that made his allies uncomfortable. They sometimes spoke out, especially early on, only to have the base stand by the president and rebuke them. That meant that when Trump pushed even further, his duly chastened allies increasingly responded accordingly: with silence. It’s how we got from a guy carping about supposed voter fraud in an election he won, in 2016, to a guy spurring a harebrained effort to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost.
The boiled frog (the proverbial tale of a frog that is boiled too slowly to realize what’s happening to it) is now returning, in the form of replacement theory. The GOP seems either unconscious of what’s happening — or doesn’t care.
Greitens Calls on Missouri to Decertify Election Results
Greitens and other Missouri Republican candidates are courting hard-right primary voters and have all played some role in either perpetuating baseless claims of voter fraud or indulging those who believe Trump won the election. But Greitens has been the most aggressive, traveling to Arizona and securing the endorsement of a far-right Arizona state senator close to the review.
Um, Trump won Missouri. By a comfortable margin.
Trump Sparks Midterms Fear from Georgia Republicans
Donald Trump is escalating his fight against Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, and state Republicans fear it will give Democrats a stronger foothold in the key swing state as next year’s midterm elections loom.
The former President’s criticism of Kemp now includes hyping Democrat Stacey Abrams as a preferable alternative to the GOP governor, whose crime against Trump was staying out of his attempt to overturn the Georgia 2020 election returns.
Arizona Auditors Give GOP What It Needs For Democracy Attacks
Serendipity:
“We Get to Hear Them Training to Kill Us”
It would be interesting to see the social media of Solana