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

European Gas Shortages Hinge on Winter Weather

Early forecasts point to mild, dry weather during heating season, which could limit risk of fuel rationing due to Russian supply curbs.

When people can’t pay their energy bills any longer, society is at risk

Gov’s understand, so they will print and pay (Truss me 😀)

By printing more they will feed the inflation-feedback-loop

The road to Weimar isn’t a very long one ..

— Willem Middelkoop (@wmiddelkoop) September 6, 2022

A Florida woman touted as a ‘Mother Theresa’ ran a $196 million Ponzi scheme, feds say

The Fed Wants You to Lose Money in Stocks and Probably Crypto, Too

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

White House Signals Most Will Need Annual Booster

As part of its push to encourage vaccine-weary Americans to get the updated Covid shot, the White House put forth a new selling point Tuesday: to view it as a first annual shot, akin to the annual flu shot.

Yet Another Curveball in the COVID Mutation Nightmare

Politics:

Trump Had Docs on Foreign Nation’s Nuclear Capabilities

A document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and private club last month.
Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs.
Documents about such highly classified operations require special clearances on a need-to-know basis, not just top-secret clearance. Some special-access programs can have as few as a couple dozen government personnel authorized to know of an operation’s existence. Records that deal with such programs are kept under lock and key, almost always in a secure compartmented information facility, with a designated control officer to keep careful tabs on their location.

Bill Barr Rips ‘Deeply Flawed’ Ruling by Trump-Appointed Judge, Says the Law ‘Is Pretty Clear’

When your sycophant lapdog turns on you, you might be in really deep shit.

Former Pentagon Leaders Warn of a Dangerous Era

The challenge to a peaceful transfer of power after President Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election has worsened “an extremely adverse environment” for the U.S. military, according to an open letter signed by several top generals and former defense secretaries.
The letter does not mention Mr. Trump by name. But in 16 points on the principles that are supposed to define civil-military relations, the signatories issued a thinly veiled indictment of Mr. Trump and the legions of his followers who called on the military to support his false claim that the election was stolen from him.

Oath Keepers' founder Rhodes fires lawyers, seeks delay in Capitol riot trial

Dude, speaking from experience, if you’re blind in one eye, you get a prosthetic. You don’t wear an eyepatch like you’re an 18th Century pirate.

Cowboys for Trump Founder Barred from Public Office

A New Mexico judge on Tuesday disqualified Couy Griffin, a county commissioner who founded Cowboys for Trump, from serving in public office ever again because of his participation in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The judge ruled that Griffin is ‘barred for life’ from serving as an elected official, effective immediately, under the Fourteenth Amendment because he took part in the ‘insurrection after taking his oath.’

Trump Promises His Candidate Will ‘Rule With an Iron Fist’

’Deeply Problematic’: Experts Question Judge's Intervention in Trump Inquiry

Biden Puts Defense of Democracy at Center of Agenda

It is the element of President Biden’s foreign policy that overlaps most significantly with his domestic agenda: defending democracy.
His drive to buttress democracy at home and abroad has taken on more urgency as Russia wages war in Ukraine, China expands its power and former President Donald Trump and his Republican supporters attack American democratic norms and fair elections.

Biden was right to ring the alarm for democracy

The beliefs of Donald Trump add up to “semi-fascism”, says the US president. Much of the Republican party is a menace to the “foundations of our republic”. “Whose side are you on?”, asks Biden, with the stark dualism that he used to avoid in favour of cross-partisan bonhomie. Here — say the scandalised, some of whom are liberals— is a president in divisive mood.
No, just a realistic one. True, the mise-en-scène of his Philadelphia speech last week, with its flanking US Marines, was weird. He too often conflated anti-Democrats with anti-democrats. But the speech did not create a divide. It acknowledged one that already exists. The alternative — exhorting national unity — has been tested to destruction. “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America”, said Barack Obama in 2004. Yes, there is. “Let us listen to one another,” said Biden himself at his inauguration, as though no one had thought of that before. This stuff won’t do anymore. A fact of American life since the 1990s is that a large minority of voters struggles to accept the legitimacy of any Democratic president. Appealing to a phoney togetherness while this goes on is untenable.

Fruit of the Poison Federalist Society Tree

A Ruling Untethered to the Law

I'm old enough to remember when Republican politicians could denounce fascists without alienating their base.

— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) September 6, 2022

Germany Extends Life of Two Nuclear Reactors

Germany will keep two of its three remaining nuclear power plants operational as an emergency reserve for its electricity supply, delaying the country’s plans to become the first industrial power to go nuclear-free for its energy.
The latest decision is aimed at giving the government more room to cushion the blow of a deepening energy crisis spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to which the European Union has responded with a string of sanctions against Moscow. Soaring energy costs have thrown the bloc into an economic tailspin — especially Germany, Europe’s largest economy.

NOT from The Onion: Trump Tried To Pay His Legal Bills With A Horse

YES, from The Onion: Clarence Thomas Annoyed After Getting Another Text From Wife Nagging Him To Overthrow Government Before He Gets Home From Work

Rich Democrats Are Buying Second Citizenships

So-called ‘golden visas’ have become a white-hot status symbol among the ultra-rich in recent years. Some 30 countries now offer citizenship or residency by investment, which allows individuals to live and work in a foreign country simply by spending a lot of money there—a second citizenship starts at several hundred thousand dollars and stretches to several million.
For a time, the clientele was also fairly conservative, driven by fears of a pending liberal ‘wealth tax’ or—for the tech bros—a pending IPO that would result in a massive taxation event. Now, however, the demographics have begun to shift dramatically.

Why (and How) Biden Should Decline to Run Again

Republican Campaigns Silent on Health Care

Republicans in tight congressional races are going silent on health care, scrubbing campaign websites of anti-abortion language and in some cases distancing themselves from past criticisms of the Affordable Care Act.
It’s a marked contrast to vulnerable Democrats, who’ve been campaigning nonstop on enshrining abortion rights and the Inflation Reduction Act’s health care provisions.

Stop tweeting @liztruss your congratulatory messages. That’s not Britain’s new PM

Fox Producer Warned Against Jeanine Pirro

The November 2020 email from an anguished Fox News news producer to colleagues sent up a flare amid a fusillade of false claims. The producer warned: Fox cannot let host Jeanine Pirro back on the air. She is pulling conspiracy theories from dark corners of the Web to justify then-President Donald Trump’s lies that the election had been stolen from him.
The producer’s email is among the voluminous correspondence acquired by Dominion’s attorneys as part of its discovery of evidence in a $1.6 billion defamation suit it filed against Fox News and its parent company.

Chinese couple arrested and accused of trying to establish mini-state in the US-defended Marshall Islands

Capitol Rioter Turned In by Ex-Girlfriend Gets 9 Months

A Jan. 6 rioter turned in by his ex after he called her a "moron" because she didn't believe Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election was sentenced to nine months in federal prison Tuesday.

Ukraine launches surprise attack near Kharkiv in bid to push back Russians

Serendipity:

Mastermind of Navy Bribery Scheme Escapes House Arrest

Leonard Francis, the former military contractor known as ‘Fat Leonard’ who orchestrated the largest corruption scandal in US Navy history, is on the run after escaping house arrest in San Diego by cutting off his GPS monitoring ankle bracelet.
The escape comes just three weeks before his sentencing.

When tragedy becomes banal: Why news consumers experience crisis fatigue

Antarctica’s “doomsday glacier” could raise global sea levels by 10 feet. Scientists say it’s “holding on today by its fingernails.”

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