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Biden's Failed First Two Years

Related to this, the big untold story of the Biden administration is how he enraged a bunch of B-listers who believed it was their turn to have status and clout in the White House and were enraged when they didn't get it in his first term.  With a bunch of crypto/EA funding, they promoted a narrative of failure, convinced everyone the midterms would be a disaster, and then when they weren't, kept on pretending that they had been.

So we went from Klain (good) to Zients (fucking disaster).

There was a notable shift pre-/post- midterms all based on the idea that the (pretty good!) first two years had been a big mistake! The midterm results proved the opposite (politically), but the path had been set.

Centrism can only be failed.

Sure Why Not

Real Americans love fake gold and model airplanes, only out of touch coastal elitists would dislike this.

Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino posted this video of the Oval Office and it somehow looks even more embarrassing than I realized

[image or embed]

— Dom Ervolina (@dominicervolina.com) July 30, 2026 at 6:13 AM

It Gets Funnier

Ah this is the good stuff.

Situational Awareness, the $20bn hedge fund founded by former OpenAI employee Leopold Aschenbrenner, has sought to raise fresh capital from investors after suffering heavy losses during the recent rout in AI stocks.

...

In a letter sent to investors on July 24 presenting the fund’s half-year results, Aschenbrenner acknowledged that the fund had “not been immune” to the market ructions, particularly in Asia, but argued that the tech sell-off had created some of the most attractive investment opportunities since early 2025.

“PS. At times we call out opportunities that seem like a particularly good time to add funds, if you have been waiting for one,” he said in the investor letter, seen by the FT, which was sent in recent days and offered the ability to invest new cash on August 1.

...

Early investors include Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison, former GitHub chief executive Nat Friedman and technology investor Daniel Gross. The fund has also received backing from trading firm Jane Street.

The hedge fund has operated with a skeleton staff, with only four investment professionals and a total of eight employees, according to its most recent regulatory filing. Aschenbrenner, who had no prior trading experience before starting the fund, has amassed a huge following on social media, with more than 250,000 followers on X.

.

When You're A Star

Ruh-roh.

The $24 billion hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner is unwinding many of its trades after big losses on artificial intelligence stocks and a bad bet against software stocks left it scrambling to raise cash, according to people familiar with the matter.

Situational Awareness has sustained significant losses in recent weeks as its portfolio of AI infrastructure investments such as SK Hynix declined while short positions in software companies such as Adobe moved sharply against it, the people said.

Several of the firm’s prime brokers — including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase —have been working with the fund as it seeks to meet margin requirements or reduce positions in an orderly fashion, according to people familiar with the discussions. The brokers have been marketing a group of the firm’s holdings on both the long and short side for sale prior to today’s start of trading, according to people familiar with the situation.

...lol:

Leopold Aschenbrenner’s hedge fund has sold all of its public stock holdings, according to people familiar with the matter.

Competing Clans

I don't think all disagreement in politics lacks greater substance, but a lot of what is presented as "centrists nobly fighting the left" is really about one faction of people, and their outriders in the broader political-media-consulting industrial complex, being worried about being displaced by people aren't supposed to be there.

It's not their place. They might trash it!

It's about their pals losing their status and power and all that comes with that (including the friends and family jobs networks).

This is most obvious in the reaction to Mamdani.  Sure a lot of it is racism and generally insane pro-Israel people, but nobody not insane or bigoted thinks he's going to install full communism and Sharia Law. He doesn't even have the power to do those things even if he wanted to, given the powers of the NYC mayor.

Did all those people who supported Cuomo think he would be a good mayor? Of course not. But they thought he would keep the party going for their professional networks. They thought he would, mostly, keep the right people in positions of power, keep the pecking order at parties the same.

I don't think everyone is purely cynical. I think many people in their upper echelons of the US cannot fathom that anyone outside their little networks is competent. That's bad, but not precisely the same as calculated corrupt cynicism. It has the same result, though.

Morning

Thirsty Thursday

Happy Hour

Oh no stonks

100% Of People Who Love Trump Still Love Him Though

We'd better interview some of them.

Trump’s overall approval rating, 34%, matches the career low he last saw at the close of his first term, following the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Half of Americans now strongly disapprove of him, a high across his terms, with a record-low 15% strongly approving.

All My Stonks Gone

Another round of the cycle.

US President Donald Trump promised retribution for an Iranian missile attack that was intercepted by US forces.

“We are going to beat the f**king sh*t out of them,” Trump told Fox News Wednesday morning.

America's Worst Human

Elon Musk.

The ideas, images and language of “The Turner Diaries” have long since entered the gestalt of far-right ideology. The book hovers there even when it isn’t mentioned. In his manifesto, for example, Dylann Roof — who murdered nine people at the Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, S.C. — frames himself as a martyr and calls on white Americans to fight a race war against Black people.

Today, you don’t have to look far or dig deep to see the ambient influence of “The Turner Diaries” on the far right. You need just to spend a little time in the online world of the richest man on the planet, Elon Musk (although to be clear there is no direct evidence that Musk has read the book).

Kudos to Bouie for going where few in journalism do. As he says:

If there is a question to ask, then, it is this: Why does Musk get a pass? Why do politicians, journalists and commentators treat his far-right racist radicalism as a sideshow rather than the core of his political, ideological and industrial project, seen in everything from his deep support for Donald Trump in the United States and Restore Britain in Britain to his decision to construct a massive pollution-generating data center in predominantly Black Memphis, Tenn.

Musk spends a large part of his free time fomenting violence and spreading the same hateful ideology that motivated some of the deadliest shootings and attacks ever to happen on American soil. It is that fact, and not the cars he builds or the rockets he launches, that ought to define his place in public life.

And They Came To That Conclusion All By Themselves

Almost the entire political establishment, the media, and the armed state forcefully telling people the opposite.

The July 25 - 27 Economist / YouGov Poll finds that 47% of Americans think that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is guilty of war crimes in Gaza; half as many (24%) think he is not guilty. Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to believe Netanyahu is guilty (71% vs. 20%).

About half (49%) of Americans think the U.S. should arrest Netanyahu if he comes to the U.S., based on an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court; 27% think the U.S. should not arrest him. Two-thirds (68%) of Democrats want the U.S. to arrest Netanyahu, compared to only 24% of Republicans.

It seems like suburban soccer moms want to arrest Netanyahu! No choice but to obey!

An Attack On His Core Business Model

And you thought it was cars and rockets.

Elon Musk’s xAI, now owned by SpaceX, sued Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to challenge a law that would ban so-called nudify apps in the state.

In their complaint, filed in a federal court in Minnesota on Monday, attorneys for xAI wrote that the statute “imposes an overbroad, content-based ban on free speech and the tools of visual expression in a clumsy attempt to prohibit ‘nudification.’”

The Minnesota law, which goes into effect on Saturday, targets apps and websites that give people the ability to generate non-consensual sexualized imagery, levying $500,000 fines each time a user creates explicit deepfakes. The law, passed in April, was spearheaded by Minnesota state Sen. Erin Maye Quade after she learned about a man who created sexualized images and videos of of over 80 women he knew using their social media photos without their consent.

Lawyers for xAI argued that the law violates First Amendment protections and said the penalties are too steep, potentially costing a business whose users created 100,000 prohibited images “an eye-popping $50 billion dollars.”

Though, being honest and not just snarky, he might even be right (I have no idea) about it being overbroad. The new internet censorship (age verification) is getting ugly. Neither Musk nor nudify apps inspire much sympathy, but doesn't mean this precise legislation is good (again, I have no idea!).

Happy Hour

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LOL

Scoop: I’m told that Ross Douthat is exiting The NYT and is expected to take a role at “60 Minutes.” News expected to be announced soon.

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy.bsky.social) 28 July 2026 at 20:45

Fauci Hate

I was never a Fauci superfan for various reasons, but I have never really understood precisely why The Right turned him into an object of hate. Six years later!

2 Planes

I really don't have any idea why this project would cost so much.

Boeing’s money pit of an Air Force One project just sank a little deeper.

The company said it’s making a substantial effort to get the first of two presidential planes out the door – four years later and for billions of dollars more than initially promised.

CEO Kelly Ortberg on Tuesday told employees via an internal email that the company is adding “significant resources” to deliver the heavily modified 747-8 jets by 2028. That ramp-up in production and certification resources in the Air Force One program cost Boeing an additional $280 million last quarter, the company announced in its quarterly financial statement.

The program’s cost overruns have now surpassed $3.1 billion. Boeing has agreed to foot that bill.

Thought controlled missile interceptors? 

Sure Why Not

Just checking in with the Harry Potter lady.

Transphobic billionaire author J.K. Rowling has encouraged random people in the United Kingdom to photograph people in women’s restrooms just in case they are transgender. Her advice is likely to result in the public harassment of cisgender women who don’t fit people’s preconceived notions of how a cis woman “should” look — such harassment has occurred many times in the past.

In a Saturday post on X, Rowling noted that someone asked her, “How are you planning to police public toilets” in light of the recent U.K. Supreme Court ruling that the legal definition of men and women in the country’s anti-discrimination law is based on biological sex. After the ruling, the U.K.’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said trans women and men “should not be permitted to use” the public restroom facilities that align with their gender.

In response, Rowling said that policing trans people in public toilets can be handled, “Quite easily, really. Decent men will stay out, as they always have, so we can assume all who don’t are a threat, given their disregard for women’s and girls’ safety, privacy and dignity. Photographing, reporting and disseminating such men’s images online will be a piece of cake.”

Moaning Myrtle was a sign of... something. 

Already Signed Up

As an extremely important influencer - and renowned Musk superfan - I have had this for months and I encourage all of you to join too.

X Money, a core part of Elon Musk’s mission to turn X into an “everything app,” is rolling out starting today, 9to5Mac reports. The payment platform offers a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payments similar to Venmo, along with a metal Visa card users can emblazon with their X username. Other perks include Apple Wallet support and free money transfers on X. It also advertises “up to” a 6 percent APY, but only Premium Plus subscribers are eligible for it — standard Premium subscribers have to deposit a certain amount of money to get a “boosted” 6 percent APY.

Everyone is very impressed by my metal Visa card with my emblazoned X username.

Dealing With Our Own

The Dems are of course not perfect in dealing with bad actors in their midst, but they are, without a doubt, much much better.

Though Dems tend not to get "credit" for dealing with these things. If anything, dealing with them is an admission that is used against them.

I guarantee we'll be hearing about Platner and Swalwell - problems the Dems "dealt with," if not perfectly, forever - while, whether or not he faces any consequences, most people will never even hear of the Miller issues.

I'll leave why that is as an exercise for the reader.