Odds and Ends — 5 December 2022
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:
Apple Accelerates Plans To Shift Production Out Of China
Inflation Begins to Ease its Grip
After more than a year of high inflation, many consumers are finally starting to catch a break. Even apartment rents and car prices, two items that hammered millions of household budgets this year, are no longer spiraling out of control.
Global supply chains are finally operating normally, as more consumers spend more on in-person services like restaurant meals and less on goods like furniture and computers that come from an ocean away. The cost of sending a standard 40-foot container from China to the U.S. West Coast is $1,935 — down more than 90 percent from its September 2021 peak of $20,586, according to the online freight marketplace Freightos.
Sam Bankman-Fried's Self-Incrimination Tour
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
China may announce 10 new COVID easing steps on Wednesday
No, vaccinated people are not more likely to die from COVID-19 than unvaccinated people
Politics:
Trump’s Anti-Democratic Call Draws Rebukes
An extraordinary antidemocratic statement from former President Donald Trump, suggesting the ‘termination’ of the Constitution to overturn the 2020 election, drew a degree of bipartisan condemnation over the weekend, with a flood from Democrats and a trickle from Republicans.
But it did not appear to do any more than similar past actions in prompting Republican officials to rule out supporting Mr. Trump in 2024.
Inaccurately describing the contents of a just-released report about Twitter’s moderation decisions during the 2020 campaign, Mr. Trump again demanded that the 2020 election be overturned or rerun, for the first time explicitly calling to set aside the supreme law of the land.
China Operating More Than 100 Police Stations Abroad
Beijing has set up more than 100 so-called overseas police stations across the globe to monitor, harass and in some cases repatriate Chinese citizens living in exile, using bilateral security arrangements struck with countries in Europe and Africa to gain a widespread presence internationally.
Texas man charged with threatening Boston doctor who provides transgender care
“I hate to inform the former president, the constitution is not like a spouse and you can't just get rid of it when it no longer suits your purposes” pic.twitter.com/BZdR6Jqz4v
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 4, 2022
Georgia is a bona fide purple state. Biden’s Georgia win was the breakthrough Peach State Democrats had been heralding for years, and the twin victories in the subsequent Senate runoffs only cemented that claim.
But states typically transform over multiple election cycles, and a Warnock victory Tuesday would confirm Georgia’s trajectory as the state’s demographic picture only gets more favorable for Democrats. Could we be looking at Virginia circa 2008?
There’s a blueprint for flipping red states. Democratic organizers in conservative states have pleaded for years for more national investment, and if Warnock pulls it out, they believe they will have irrefutable proof of concept.
Trump’s call for “termination” of the Constitution is solid evidence of intent if he is charged for crimes related to the Jan 6 attacks on the schedule.
— Dwight Holton (@RogueDew) December 4, 2022
Here’s what Special Counsel Jack Smith might argue to the jury: 1/
Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson Don’t Understand the First Amendment
Why SCOTUS Could Be About to Unleash Frankenstein’s Monster
If the Constitution is terminated, like Donald Trump suggests, there will be no more Second Amendment.
— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) December 4, 2022
Republicans are coming for your guns.
Serendipity:
With one dose, new drug may cure sleeping sickness. Could it also wipe it out?
