Brain Geniuses

It's funny how much Rubio was pushed as The Next Great (And Good) Republican once upon a time.

SECRETARY RUBIO: You know what’s an act of war? Iran putting mines in the water. Why doesn’t Congress complain about that? pic.twitter.com/WJOIjkh30W

— Department of State (@StateDept) May 5, 2026

Yes Iran should get Congressional authoriztion for its minelaying operations.

Too Much Fucking Context, Barry

 Too much.

At Least We Cured Woke Cancel Culture

I'm not saying this particular reporter deserves it, but it is "funny" that the magazine which spent years documenting every time a college student violated the constitution by objecting to the presence of a highly paid campus speaker is experiencing this.

The FBI has launched a criminal leak investigation focusing on an Atlantic magazine journalist who wrote a deeply unflattering account last month of Director Kash Patel’s work habits, two people familiar with the matter told MS NOW.

Is That Good

He thinks that's good.

Hassett on American consumers: "Credit card spending is through the roof. They're spending more on gasoline, but they're spending more on everything else too."

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) May 6, 2026 at 2:19 PM

Seems Bad

I think having kids makes a lot of people crazy (I don't mean this derogatorily, I just mean it is a big fucking deal that breaks their brains a bit, understandably), and part of coping with that is convincing themselves they've found the secret tricks to parenting which have eluded other people.

Sadly, sometimes that includes potentially fatal crackpot health care choices.

Their autopsies, which took place over the last several years, all came to the same conclusion: The deaths were caused, in whole or in part, by a rare but potentially fatal condition known as vitamin K deficiency bleeding.

In almost every case, the babies’ deaths could have been prevented with a long-standard vitamin K shot. But across the country, families — first in smatterings, now in droves — are declining the single, inexpensive injection given at birth to newborns to help their blood clot.

Many of them are doing so out of a well-meaning but ill-informed abundance of caution. In the hopes of safeguarding their newborns from what they see as unnecessary medical intervention, they have shunned fundamental and scientifically sound pharmaceutical intervention. The trend is also fueled by a contradictory pairing: families’ fierce desire to protect their babies and a cascade of false information infused into their social media algorithms.

Much Shorter Than A Scaramucci

But I was told that the US had control.

The US operation to guide stranded vessels through the Strait of Hormuz will be paused for a "short period of time", President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday evening.

Trump said that "Project Freedom", which began days earlier, would be halted by "mutual agreement" because "great progress" had been made toward a deal with Iran.

Project Freedom is over already.  The writers are getting too cute.

Good chance something not great happened that we aren't being told about. Could be related to this!

or maybe this:

Trump humiliated Rubio by having him defend Project Freedom to the hilt at a presser today, only to unilaterally suspend the “project” this evening

Per the Eurasia Group, Trump pulled the plug on it because 1) Iran sank a South Korean tanker and nearly took out two other ships despite US naval protection, and 2) Trump was informed by a liaison to the international shipping insurance consortium that none of their members would support it without Iran agreeing not to shoot.

I think they disabled the Korean tanker and didn't sink it but... 

They're floating another deal that no one has agreed to. Stock market goes zoom!

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Wacky Wednesday

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My Clanker Buddy

How many hours per day do we think Egghead Andreessen spends talking to his computer God?

"Competing Claims"

 Determining the truth, or close to it, is an exercise for you, dear reader, as so much journalism is today.

The United States and Iran made competing claims over which side controlled the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, adding pressure to their shaky cease-fire after the U.S. Navy launched an effort to protect vessels through the vital oil shipping route.

The strait itself remains effectively closed: Only two ships were known to have passed through the waterway on Monday, and none had made the trip on Tuesday. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the U.S. effort to free trapped vessels is ongoing, adding “We’re ensuring that we have control of that strait, which we do.” Iran’s state broadcaster dismissed the U.S. effort as a failure and said Iranian control over the strait had “intensified.”

We Will Always Be 2 Weeks Away From The End Of The War

I don't know when the supply chains snap.

 

US President Donald Trump indicates that if he decides to return to war against Iran, it would take 2-3 weeks to achieve his goals in the war.

“We’ve taken out much of what we’d have to do, probably another two weeks, two weeks, maybe three weeks,” he tells conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

“We either make the right deal, or we win very easily from the military standpoint,” says Trump.

Our Tech Overlords

Much can be said, but I think this shows that he both wants to believe spicy chatbot is God, and that he can control God.

That's The Way

A lot of the problems with political journalism are a bit subtle and hard to quantify, so you can sound like a bit of a crank if you complain about them. 

One example is whether the adjectives "unpopular" or "scandal-plagued" are regularly adjacent to Trump's name, or not. More generally, whether he is talked about as if he is unpopular, or whether the focus is on whether the people who love Trump love Trump, which is often the case.

Trump is historically unpopular! More than that, he was never historically popular, though you would not have known that from the press coverage/beat sweeteners from the beginning of his second term.

President Donald Trump appears to be more unpopular than he’s ever been – including after the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

In fact, his 35% average approval rating in the CNN Poll of Polls means he’s now flirting with George W. Bush territory. Bush is the only president since Jimmy Carter to spend a sustained period of time in the mid-30s or lower.

Again, it was hard to quantify, but it took a long time for the press to talk about George Bush as if he was unpopular. 

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Nacho Tuesday. 

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But I Thought He Was So Competent

A problem with insider stories about Hegseth is that, as with Kash Patel, nothing would be surprising.  Yah he's a stupid racist asshole who sucks.

Since Trump returned to office in January last year, Pete Hegseth, the rumbustious defense secretary who has made it his mission to remake a military ethos he denounced as “woke”, has fired or forcibly retired 24 generals and senior commanders, with no performance-related reason given.

About 60% have been Black or female, an approach seemingly driven by the administration’s proclaimed onslaught against “DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hires”.

OK this, from the self-proclaimed Alpha Male, is funny though:

Pentagon staff have been surprised to see him accompanied to official meetings by his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer who frequently sits at the back during such encounters.

Somewhere After Midnight In My Wildest Fantasy

Rudy Giuliani is in critical condition.

It will probably be illegal to say mean things about him when he dies, so now is a good moment to remember that not only was he one of the most loathsome individuals in public life at the time, but all of the details of that were fully known to every relevant American journalist then.

But after 9/11, they needed a hero, so they created the character of Rudy 9/11, something which required deliberately ignoring all of his 9/11-related unheroic deeds.  Great job, everybody.

Oh No The Capital Allocation System Allocated Capital Badly Again

You can hear the sound of chanting growing:

Banks are hunting for new ways to offload risks tied to a glut of data centre debt as the race to build AI infrastructure stretches financing limits among the largest global lenders. 

Groups including JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and SMBC are trying to find ways to distribute portions of data centre-related deals to a broader range of investors, according to people familiar with the matter. 

bailout Bailout BAILOUT BAILOUT

Just put wafer thin bits of shit in with the good stuff and no one will notice.

"Distributing":

“The sizes we’re talking about . . . they’re out of scale to anything we’ve thought about, ever,” said Matthew Moniot, co-head of credit risk sharing at Man Group. “Banks very quickly start choking.” Lenders, including JPMorgan and MUFG, have spent more than six months distributing $38bn of construction debt tied to a data centre project leased to Oracle in Texas and Wisconsin, people familiar with the matter said.

Lenders, including JPMorgan and MUFG, have spent more than six months distributing $38bn of construction debt tied to a data centre project leased to Oracle in Texas and Wisconsin, people familiar with the matter said. 

The First Casualty of War

No idea who is telling the truth, but we already know Hegseth's Pentagon is less trustworthy than usual.

The U.S. military on Monday rejected Iranian claims to have struck an American warship, as Tehran signaled an aggressive response to President Donald Trump's new mission to "guide" stranded vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.

🚫 CLAIM: Iranian state media claims that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hit a U.S. warship with two missiles.

✅ TRUTH: No U.S. Navy ships have been struck. U.S. forces are supporting Project Freedom and enforcing the naval blockade on Iranian ports. pic.twitter.com/VFxovxLU6G

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) May 4, 2026

Though the Pentagon being not very concerned with telling the truth is not a Hegseth invention! 

 

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