u/NeuroMrNiceGuy

Summary:

The White House defended President Trump’s use of a mail-in ballot in Florida’s Republican primary after Politico reported that he had voted by mail despite repeatedly attacking mail voting and calling it susceptible to cheating. The administration argues there is no contradiction because Trump supports exceptions for people who are traveling, ill, disabled, or serving in the military, and said that although Trump is a Florida resident, he primarily lives in Washington while serving as president.

My take:

More Republican hypocrisy, but I think the recurring theme is more interesting than this particular ballot. There always seems to be one set of warnings for everyone else and another set of perfectly reasonable exceptions once the people issuing those warnings need them.

Don't trust mail-in voting because crooked politicians will abuse it. Unless I need to vote by mail, obviously. Don't trust the vaccines or the people telling you to take them, while Trump himself got vaccinated, got boosted, and at one point was literally booed by his own supporters for admitting it. Don't send your children to these elite universities that are supposedly poisoning America, while Trump went to Penn, three of his children went to Penn, another went to Georgetown, and his youngest went to NYU (this is mirrored for nearly every Republican member of congress). Hire American and protect American workers, while Trump's own businesses have repeatedly employed foreign guest workers and his social media company applied for an H-1B visa.

It is this constant politics of rules for thee, not for me that drives me insane. The institutions are corrupt. The experts are lying. The universities are indoctrinating you. The elections can't be trusted. The government is rigged. Everyone with money or power is screwing you over.

Except for me, I am the billionaire you should trust.

Summary:

Former CIA officer Julia Curlee recounts serving in senior intelligence roles under four presidents, including briefing Donald Trump and Mike Pence during Trump’s first term and later remaining on the National Security Council as Trump returned to office. Curlee says her being transgender was known inside government and generally treated as irrelevant to her work, including by Pence, until the second Trump administration began implementing policies targeting transgender federal employees and service members. Despite being considered indispensable by some incoming officials, she was ultimately removed from the White House shortly after right-wing activist Laura Loomer publicly called attention to a transgender Biden holdover working at the NSC.

Curlee eventually resigned from the CIA, arguing that the political environment had made openly supporting LGBTQ colleagues potentially career-ending and that ideological loyalty was increasingly being placed above professional expertise. She frames her experience as part of a broader warning about politicizing the intelligence community, arguing that institutions designed to tell presidents uncomfortable truths become less effective when employees fear punishment for either their identities or their conclusions.

My take:

The part that sticks with me is how completely ordinary Curlee’s career appears to have been until her identity became politically useful as a target. She briefed Trump, spent a year briefing Mike Pence, served under Republican and Democratic administrations, went into war zones, and apparently did her job well enough that the second Trump administration still needed her after removing her.

More importantly, though, I think the intelligence piece is bigger than the trans piece. You absolutely do not want intelligence officers wondering whether telling the president something he dislikes, belonging to the wrong political tribe, or simply becoming the target of an online campaign could end their career. The entire point of an intelligence service is to tell policymakers what is actually happening, especially when they do not want to hear it. Once personal loyalty and ideological conformity start becoming qualifications for that work, the country is intentionally putting on blinders.

Aside from the obvious problem of politicizing identity and replacing competence with ideological zealotry, I would also just like to say: Laura Loomer is legitimately an evil, cold, horrible person, and I cannot wait until this entire populist movement eventually spits her out and she becomes as irrelevant as she deserves to be. Doxxing people is wrong. Full stop.

And I can already hear the hypocrisy of our hidden-profile crowd cracking their knuckles, getting ready to ignore that part so they can retreat into some vague appeal to common sense about why this particular instance was somehow justified.

Summary:

Reuters reports that Iran and the United States remain deadlocked over the war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, with no sign that peace talks are resuming. Iranian officials said the strait will remain under Tehran’s control until the U.S. accepts Iran’s conditions, while President Trump told Americans to expect continued high gasoline prices as part of the cost of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The economic effects are increasingly visible on both sides. U.S. gasoline prices averaged about $4.08 per gallon on Friday, up 29% from a year earlier, while oil futures continued rising. In Iran, President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged that sanctions and the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports are contributing to high inflation and economic strain.

My take

Simply declaring the conflict over and Iran defeated feels completely disconnected from reality. A war does not end because the president announces that we won. Iran is still there. Its government is still there. It can still threaten shipping, attack American interests through proxies, destabilize the region, and create problems that could follow us for decades.

Context:

You can watch the full garden city speech where Trump made these remarks from yesterday here. The section from the article starts at 1h:25s or can be viewed on Reuters directly.

>So, I just say this: for you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember you're doing it so that a very evil country cannot really have a country. It's the number one state sponsor of terror in the world. We don't want to have them have a nuclear weapon. So remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, you're at $4, it's okay. I mean, I will never apologize. I did the right thing. But you could, you know, if you didn't have this, you'd be at, I mean, I had it down to below $2 in many states. California I can't include because they keep taxing, taxing, taxing. You lower the oil price and they end up taxing you more than what you lower it. But you just have to remember that what we're doing is a great service for the world, not only for ourselves, for the world. And we're really doing a great job. Our military is unbelievable. The blockade is unstoppable. It's a wall of steel. The blockade is a wall of steel.

Summary:

AP reports that the Department of Defense is introducing a new high school course in its military base school system centered on Western civilization and Christianity. The course, called Western Civilization to 1500, will use a textbook from Encounter Books with lesson plans created in partnership with Hillsdale College. The Pentagon says it is part of a broader effort to emphasize patriotic values and classical learning. Historians and educators who reviewed excerpts of the textbook raised concerns that it presents Western civilization and Christianity as closely intertwined, downplays Christian violence, and portrays Islam as a threat. The Department of Defense Education Activity runs about 160 schools in 11 countries for roughly 70,000 students from military and civilian service families.

My take:

Stop betraying America by trying to reshape it around your own narrow, corrupt understanding of what this country is.

I do not care what religion people practice. The problem is the federal government using military base schools to launder one preferred religious and cultural worldview into public education.

Teaching Western civilization is fine. Teaching Christianity’s role in Western history is fine. But when the Pentagon starts blending Christianity, patriotism, and Western civilization into one preferred narrative, piss right off.

This country is not supposed to belong more to Christian kids than Muslim kids, Jewish kids, atheist kids, Hindu kids, Buddhist kids, or anyone else.

The military serves the United States. All Americans. Not Pete Hegseth. Not Trump. Not the Heritage Foundation. And certainly not one deity from one religion in a tapestry woven from many.

Edit: for the bots who only activate when they see the right keywords: DSA, trans sports, socialism, woke military, drag brunch, and whatever else summons you from the group chat.

Summary

Reuters reports that a federal judge dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit accusing Harvard of failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment. The judge said the complaint did not plausibly show an ongoing violation of federal civil rights law, noting that most of the allegations centered on the 2023/24 school year and that later incidents were too isolated to support the claim. Harvard denied the allegations and called the lawsuit pretextual and retaliatory, while the administration had sought to recover billions in taxpayer subsidies from the university.

Summary:

The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration plans to spend at least $900 million on White House construction projects, including a gilded East Wing ballroom, upgrades to Lafayette Square, a helipad, a visitor screening facility, and other work on the White House grounds. According to records reviewed by the Post, the administration has routed money through the Executive Residence’s White House repair and restoration account, which historically held only a few million dollars for routine maintenance.

The article says the administration assembled the money through agency transfers and private donations, including $500 million from the Secret Service and White House Military Office, $305 million from private donors, and another $70 million from an unidentified source. The White House says the spending is consistent with Congress’s intent and necessary for security and modernization, while critics argue the administration is sidestepping Congress and reducing transparency. A federal appeals court has ruled that the administration needs congressional approval to continue building the East Wing ballroom, setting up a possible Supreme Court fight.

My take:

So you thought the court stopped Trump? Nope. A federal appeals court said the administration needs congressional approval to keep building the East Wing ballroom, but Trump’s team has been routing hundreds of millions of dollars for White House construction through a previously unknown maintenance account instead of going through the normal congressional process. Very normal monarch behavior of course. The White House may need repairs or whatever. Fine. Then go to Congress, disclose the cost, explain the need, identify the funding, and let the public see what is being done with public money and donor money. Instead, the administration has assembled funding through nefarious private donors and legal trickery.

It is almost like Trump does not care about you, me, the office of the presidency, or anything beyond whatever simple-minded, ego-driven vanity project feels kingly enough in the moment.

Stuff like this is already hurting them politically, so honestly, have at it. What is that phrase? Never interrupt your opponent when they are making a blundering mistake.

Summary:

The AP reports that President Trump is expected to sign an executive order calling for changes to childhood vaccine recommendations, including spacing shots out across separate medical visits and recommending that the MMR vaccine be split into separate measles, mumps, and rubella shots. AP notes that separate measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines are not currently available in the U.S., and that public health experts warn spacing out shots can leave children vulnerable to vaccine-preventable disease before they return for later visits.

My take:

This is exactly the kind of thing people were worried about with RFK Jr. running HHS. This is such an ignorant waste of time. Even setting aside the ideology, the logistics are awful. Separate measles, mumps, and rubella shots are not currently available in the United States, and spacing vaccines out means more appointments, more co-pays, more chances for families to miss doses, and more time where kids are left vulnerable to preventable disease.

And the timing makes it even worse. If you are changing vaccine guidance in the middle of a measles outbreak, the burden should be incredibly high. You should have strong evidence!

Summary:

The BBC reports that President Trump denied reports of a US munitions shortage and said officials suspected of leaking information about weapons stockpiles are being hunted down, with possible long-term jail sentences sought. The article says the administration is facing questions about missile supplies after months of war with Iran and continued weapons demands from Ukraine. CBS News reported that the US has used much of its global stockpile of long-range precision missiles, while the Washington Post reported that Trump confronted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over a possible shortfall. The BBC says it has not independently confirmed that report.

The article also cites CSIS estimates suggesting that USA Patriot and THAAD missile supplies have fallen substantially during the conflict, while noting that precise stockpile data is classified. Trump and Hegseth have publicly rejected the shortage narrative, but the administration has also requested emergency funding to replenish equipment and munitions.

My take:

It's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off for 'em. This is another one of those stories where the reaction tells you almost as much as the underlying facts. Maybe the US has enough munitions. Maybe the reporting is incomplete because stockpile numbers are classified and difficult to verify from the outside. Fine. But if the response from the president is not calm reassurance, clear strategy, or serious discussion about production capacity, but instead accusing the press of treason and threatening to hunt down leakers, that does not exactly project confidence. This was all so totally avoidable which is just more salt on the wound.

As a thought experiment, put Trump in charge of a country with fewer advantages than the United States. Less money, less military depth, less industrial capacity, fewer allies, and less room for error. Do any of his decisions, leadership instincts, or strategy make sense? Or would this style of leadership lead to collapse and defeat?

The ambiguous legal issues with attempting to prosecute people he does not like as "leakers" rather than people that violate laws governing releasing classified information is also troubling.

Summary:

Reuters reports that the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 8-7 along party lines to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during a subpoenaed hearing about the COVID-19 response. The referral was pushed by Republican Chair Rand Paul, who has spent years investigating Fauci and alleging a cover-up over COVID’s origins. Democrats tried five times to delay the vote, arguing the process was rushed and politically motivated, but each motion failed along party lines. The article says Fauci’s attorney called the vote a political stunt meant to punish him for exercising his constitutional rights. Republicans argue Fauci had no valid Fifth Amendment claim because President Biden had already pardoned him for COVID-related federal prosecutions, though that pardon does not cover later conduct. The contempt referral may still face procedural hurdles, since a full Senate vote would likely require Democratic support, but Paul has suggested he may try to send the matter directly to the Justice Department.

My take:

We are holding the wrong 80-year-old in contempt. I wish Republicans would put even half this energy into rebuilding public health capacity, preparing for the next pandemic, or holding actual elected leaders accountable for the decisions they made. If you read the work notes Rand Paul is waving around as evidence and do not already live inside the right-wing Fauci cinematic universe, I do not know how you come away anything but confused. And then people wonder why the DSA is seeing a sharp rise.

This is why. When voters watch Congress spend its time relitigating culture wars instead of solving visible problems like affordability, they stop believing the system is capable of reforming itself.

Watch Fauci be the catalyst that ignites everything. I would not be surprised.

Summary:

Reuters reports that U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta granted the Justice Department’s request to dismiss cases against Oath Keepers members convicted for their roles in the January 6 attack, including vacating seditious conspiracy convictions tied to Stewart Rhodes and other defendants. The defendants had already been released under Trump’s clemency order, but several convictions would have remained without DOJ intervention. Mehta wrote that he strongly disagreed with the decision, saying it diminished the gravity of January 6 and the work of prosecutors and law enforcement, but concluded that prosecutors had the legal authority to drop the cases.

My take:

The most generous explanation is that Trump’s DOJ wants to treat January 6 cases consistently after the clemency order. But the more obvious political effect is that this helps rewrite the story of January 6. Seditious conspiracy convictions are hard to square with the idea that these were just mistreated protesters or confused people who got swept up in the moment. They are the official record of an organized effort to use force against the transfer of power. Maybe a story like that works for the Q Shaman, but not these other groups.

Getting rid of those convictions helps Trump’s narrative. It also sends a very clear signal to the fringe elements of his coalition that their actions will be minimized, excused, or forgiven if they are done in service of the movement. Trump’s credibility is not what it was, the right is visibly fracturing, and moves like this look like an attempt to keep the most committed parts of the base emotionally invested. I am not sure that works anymore.

Context:

For background, here are DOJ’s own releases on the Oath Keepers indictment and convictions. I had to use archive links because the justice.gov website scrubbed them clean at some point under Trump.

https://archive.is/A35PE

>The defendants also, collectively, employed a variety of manners and means, including: organizing into teams that were prepared and willing to use force and to transport firearms and ammunition into Washington, D.C.; recruiting members and affiliates; organizing trainings to teach and learn paramilitary combat tactics; bringing and contributing paramilitary gear, weapons, and supplies – including knives, batons, camouflaged combat uniforms, tactical vests with plates, helmets, eye protection, and radio equipment – to the Capitol grounds; breaching and attempting to take control of the Capitol grounds and building on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent, hinder and delay the certification of the electoral college vote; using force against law enforcement officers while inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; continuing to plot, after Jan. 6, 2021, to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power, and using websites, social media, text messaging and encrypted messaging applications to communicate with each other and others.

Summary:

Reuters reports that Michigan has recorded the first known U.S. deaths linked to the country’s largest cyclosporiasis outbreak on record, with two deaths, 11,234 outbreak-linked cases, and 193 hospitalizations in the state. The FDA has linked part of the multistate outbreak to recalled iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms operations in central Mexico served at Taco Bell, though officials say that source does not explain all cases and investigators are still looking for other possible sources. The article also notes that local health officials and experts say federal health agency cuts, mixed messaging from HHS, and the difficulty of tracing Cyclospora have complicated the public health response.

My take:

This ties directly into the RFK Jr. CNN interview. The issue is not just that Kennedy says questionable things on television. It is that he is now running HHS while outbreaks are happening in real time. Michigan is reporting more than 11,000 cases tied to this cyclosporiasis outbreak, nearly 200 hospitalizations, and now two deaths (cyclosporiasis deaths have not historically been common in the U.S). That should make everyone pause, regardless of party. Public health infrastructure only becomes visible to most people when it starts failing, and this is exactly why leadership matters. If Fauci is still being dragged years later for advisory roles during Covid, then RFK Jr. and Trump should also be judged by what happens under their leadership now. Accountability cannot only apply to the people one side already dislikes.

"Leadership is saying things that don't really fit with what the data is telling us, and that's very, very problematic," Ringler Cerniglia said. "The secretary is saying this is under control and it's all good while you have case counts exploding."

Summary:

CNN reports that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. used a CNN interview to blame Dr. Anthony Fauci for the Covid-era lockdowns while defending President Trump’s role in the pandemic response and repeating several disputed or false claims about public health. Kennedy pushed back on criticism of his handling of measles outbreaks, claimed he has never questioned the MMR vaccine’s effectiveness, linked RSV to gain-of-function research, raised concerns about acetaminophen and autism, and challenged the value of Covid vaccines for children. Public health experts in the article, including Dr. Ashish Jha, pushed back by arguing that political leaders bear responsibility for pandemic decisions and that Kennedy’s claims about vaccines, measles, RSV, and Covid were misleading or unsupported.

My take:

The interview speaks for itself. I encourage you to watch it. It is only twenty minutes.

Summary:

The New York Times reports that cyberattacks targeting U.S. water systems have widened to at least seven states, including Minnesota and Michigan, with some activity degrading water operations but no indication so far that drinking water was made unsafe. Officials have not definitively attributed the attacks to Iran, but federal and local officials reportedly view Iran-affiliated actors as the leading suspect, especially given increased Iranian cyber activity since the U.S. and Israel launched war against Iran. President Trump publicly dismissed that possibility and instead suggested Minnesota was responsible, even as federal officials privately continued to treat Iran as the top suspect. The attacks appear to have targeted vulnerable internet connected systems used by water utilities, forcing some facilities into boil-water notices and manual operations.

My take:

Trump’s comments here are genuinely awful, for all of us, regardless of where you land on the political spectrum.

Questions:

1. When cyberattacks hit local infrastructure, how much should the public trust preliminary attribution before investigators have definitive proof?

2. What standard should we use to judge whether a cyberattack on local infrastructure is a national security event, a local preparedness failure, or both?

Summary:

Reuters reports that the Trump administration has aggressively charged people accused of assaulting, resisting, or impeding federal officers, especially around immigration protests, but that many of those cases have later been dropped. Its review found at least 851 such prosecutions, with 31% of completed cases ending in dismissal, compared with about 8% of federal criminal cases generally, and about 45% of completed immigration-protest cases being dropped. The article says some defendants still suffered lost jobs, legal bills, public exposure, and threats, while DHS and DOJ officials defended prosecution of assaults on law enforcement and said charges may be dropped when mitigating facts emerge.

My take:

Obviously, actual assaults on federal officers should be prosecuted, everyone agrees with that, but the example Reuters leads with is pretty damning. What I personally take issue with is the large and often confusing obsession with punishing people. It does not put dissent to bed, as if such a thing is compatible with our constitution. If anything it just inflames people more. Interestingly enough, the Trump administration’s obsession with flooding the zone while making its own government less capable of handling the chaos has been catching up to it for months. I wonder how long it will be before the government is rendered inert by its own self-inflicted wounds. This news comes on the heels of Bill Pulte completing a fourth round of layoffs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, along with every other Trump cabinet department experiencing major policy and leadership changes, layoffs, or both. Anyway, the message is pretty clear. Protest too closely to the administration’s priorities, and even if they cannot convict you, they will engage in lawfare and intimidation. I know critics of Democrats say they do the exact same thing, but there is a clear difference in scope and scale between the two parties, and that disparity has been growing a lot larger lately.

Questions:

• How should prosecutors distinguish between genuinely dangerous interference with federal officers and protest conduct that is disruptive but not worthy of a federal criminal case? Should officers in the field?
• If a clear pattern emerges of people being arrested and charged in weak cases that are later dropped, should there be a federal mechanism to compensate affected defendants or penalize the agencies and prosecutors responsible?

Summary:

NPR reports that Wisconsin election officials warned voters that state law bars them from betting on an election in which they also cast a ballot, and that doing so could disqualify their vote or lead to prosecution. Kalshi pushed back, calling the warning illegal and a form of voter suppression, arguing that some users who placed election wagers might be scared away from voting. The article places the dispute in the broader fight over prediction markets, with states treating them as gambling platforms and Kalshi, Polymarket, and the CFTC arguing they are federally regulated financial products. It also highlights concerns from election experts about financial incentives, insider trading, foreign influence, and additional fuel for election conspiracy claims.

My take:

Prediction markets seem harmful in practice, especially when they move into elections. At best, they dress gambling up as a sophisticated financial product. At worst, they create another way for people with better information, better tools, or closer access to politics to make money off everyone else. This is gambling with extra steps. Every argument I have seen from prediction markets and aligned regulators boils down to putting a financial label on election betting and insisting it is not gambling. But from the public’s perspective, the practical effect is still simple. People are being encouraged to put money on political outcomes. That seems silly at best and corrosive at worst. Democracy already has a money in politics problem. I do not see how turning elections into tradable events makes that better.

Questions:

1. If those in office, voters, campaign staff, or election workers can profit from an election outcome, where should the legal line be drawn between harmless forecasting and a conflict of interest?

2. If election betting gets more people engaged because they have money riding on the outcome, do the risks of abuse and conflicts of interest outweigh that increased engagement?

Summary:

The interview brings Hunter Biden and Nick Fuentes together for a long conversation moderated by Channel 5 about extremism, deplatforming, race, antisemitism, Israel, Trump, political alienation, addiction, AI, and the collapse of community. Fuentes argues that he has been misrepresented and says some of his past rhetoric was edge-lording rather than hatred, while Hunter repeatedly presses him on Holocaust jokes, racism, blaming minorities, and the real harm of cruelty disguised as humor. The discussion becomes tense at points, especially around white identity, crime, Jewish identity, and Israel, but it also finds areas of overlap on tech platforms, oligarchy, Trump’s lack of ideological core, the need for oversight, and the importance of seeing each other’s humanity despite deep disagreement.

My take:

I am still not very familiar with Nick Fuentes beyond the things I have heard about him, but after watching this interview, it is not hard to understand why he has an audience. He seems to hold some pretty abhorrent views, but he also has enough charisma and media literacy to play up or down depending on the room. That makes him dangerous in a more complicated way than just being some cartoon villain. He can say things that are obviously ugly, then pivot into legitimate frustrations about deplatforming, alienation, oligarchy, Trump, and institutional failure in a way that makes him appealing to politically frustrated people.

On the other hand, Hunter Biden has now done several long form interviews with Channel 5 and others, and I have become more interested in his story, especially his recovery and the way he talks about shame, addiction, politics, and public humiliation. I also just find him interesting to listen to, and I share many of his views.

What stood out most in this interview is that both people seemed willing to have a real conversation instead of just performing a mud fight for views a la Fox News or other pundit streams. I strongly disagree with Fuentes, but I think content like this shows that anti-partisan politics is not dead. There is still room for uncomfortable conversations, humanizing people without excusing them, and maybe even a little good-faith centrism in everyone’s day.

Strongly recommend you give it a listen and check out other Channel 5 content.

Summary:

The House passed a Democratic-backed war powers resolution intended to limit President Trump’s military action in Iran. The vote was 214 to 208, with all Democrats joined by four Republicans: Tom Barrett, Warren Davidson, Thomas Massie, and Brian Fitzpatrick. In response to the recent deaths of the following service members in recent attacks, Trump has said:

>"“From this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by Missile, Rocket, Drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran,”"

• Pvt. Isabella Gonzales: Age 19, of Carrollton, Texas; killed in Jordan.
• 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan: Age 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii; killed in Jordan.
• Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad: Age 28, of New York; died following the attack in Jordan.
• Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton: Age 30; killed in Iraq during a drone ordnance detonation.

My take:

Stuff like this shows how dysfunctional our democracy has become. Congress is supposed to have war powers. In practice the president can keep expanding a conflict while most of Congress either complains from the sidelines or falls in line. Democrats do not have many tools here.

What I do not understand is why so many Republicans are still toeing the party line. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at its lowest level since 1983. Hormuz is still the central oil chokepoint. But it is not the only one. Saudi Arabia has been using the East West Pipeline, to move oil on the Red Sea and bypass the Strait of Hormuz but can only move around 80% of their normal volume. That only helps so much if the Bab el-Mandeb strait in the Red Sea is under threat too. Northbound routes through the Suez Canal and the SUMED Pipeline can help. They do not cleanly solve the problem for Asian exports. Other Gulf exporters have even fewer options because of the geography of the Gulf. Voters in the US are already angry about affordability. If this keeps dragging on and prices rise further, the current administration is going to own it hard, and a blue wave will sweep the nation.

Steelman:

The strongest defense is that Trump is trying to restore deterrence after Iran and Iranian backed groups tested US limits. We cannot allow attacks on American troops or commercial shipping to become normal. If Iran can threaten Hormuz, pressure the Red Sea, and absorb limited strikes without changing course, then the administration looks weak abroad and boxed in at home.

Context:

Republicans in Congress continue to back Iran war despite the political risk

Yemen’s Houthis attack Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, threatening to widen Iran war

Edit: Since posting this, the senate has blocked the resolution from the house:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-senate-blocks-resolution-curbing-trumps-iran-war-powers-2026-07-23/

Summary:

The article reports that U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly dismissed the remaining Proud Boys Jan. 6 case after the Justice Department asked him to vacate the convictions and drop the prosecution. Kelly said he was bound by separation-of-powers principles and lacked authority to second-guess the executive branch’s prosecutorial decision, even though he made clear he did not agree with it.

Steelman:

The Constitution gives prosecution power to the executive branch, not the judiciary. Courts can review legal questions, sentences, trial procedure, and constitutional violations, but they generally cannot force prosecutors to continue a criminal case once the government decides to abandon it. If the DOJ believes a prosecution is no longer justified, has become politically tainted, rests on an overbroad theory, or no longer serves the national interest, the proper legal result is dismissal.

My take:

The legal point does not make the decision defensible on the merits. These were not marginal trespassing cases or unresolved charges. These were jury convictions for serious crimes tied to an attack on the peaceful transfer of power. The government won the case, the judge imposed major sentences, and then Trump’s DOJ came back and effectively erased it because it conflicts with Trump’s preferred story about January

Questions:

1. Did the judge have any realistic legal alternative once DOJ moved to dismiss the case, or was his role effectively procedural at that point?

2. If the executive branch can abandon a prosecution after conviction, what role, if any, should courts have in scrutinizing the stated reasons?

Summary:

A federal judge approved the SEC’s $1.5 million settlement with Elon Musk’s trust over Musk’s delayed disclosure of Twitter share purchases in 2022, even while expressing serious concerns that the deal may have been too lenient. The SEC said Musk’s late disclosure saved him about $150 million, while Musk has said the delay was inadvertent. The judge questioned why the SEC dropped its demand for alleged ill-gotten gains, why the settlement was with Musk’s trust rather than Musk personally, and whether Musk received unusually favorable treatment from the Trump admin, but said her role in reviewing the settlement was limited.

My take:

This is the kind of story that leave people feeling like the rules are for thee and not for me and contributes toward the general degradation of our ability to maintain a functioning society. The SEC said Elon Musk saved roughly $150 million by delaying disclosure of his Twitter stock purchases, and the settlement ends with a $1.5 million payment from a trust in his name. Maybe that sounds like a lot to normal people, but for the world’s richest man currently worth 927 billion, that is 0.00016% of the wealth he controls. The judge approved the deal, but still raised serious concerns about why the SEC dropped its demand, why the settlement ran through Musk’s trust instead of Musk personally, and whether he got special treatment. She even questioned whether the SEC lawyers litigating the case were meaningfully involved in the settlement talks.

The world’s richest man does not need creative penalty reduction from Trump and company.

Steelman:

The best argument for the settlement is that the SEC is not supposed to invent a special harsher penalty just because the defendant is Elon Musk. If similar delayed-disclosure cases usually result in civil penalties rather than disgorgement, then the agency may have been trying to stay consistent with prior enforcement practice. A $1.5 million penalty can look ridiculous next to Musk’s net worth, but securities penalties are usually tied to the violation and precedent, not to making the defendant feel financial pain.

Questions:

1. If the SEC believed Musk saved roughly $150 million by delaying disclosure, how is a $1.5 million settlement supposed to deter anything?

2. Is this equal enforcement, or is it another example of powerful people negotiating a different justice system for themselves?

Summary:

Reuters reports that U.S. Central Command said the U.S. military launched a series of strikes against Iran on Tuesday in response to alleged Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. CENTCOM described the strikes as an effort to impose costs on Iran for targeting commercial shipping and said Iran’s actions violated the ceasefire. The article says it was not immediately clear what the U.S. struck, though Iranian media reported that six projectiles hit the Taheroui pier area in Sirik, southern Iran. Reuters also notes that this appears to be the first known U.S. strike against Iran since late last month, when the two sides exchanged several days of strikes and counterstrikes.

My take:

Seven days. That is how long it has been since the peace talks in Qatar, and we are already back to U.S. strikes on Iran. Details are still thin, so I do not want to overstate what happened yet.

edit: from https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/ship-hit-hormuz-millions-march-ayatollah-iran-says-no-talks-unless-trump-halts-2026-07-07/

>Iranian media reported explosions early Wednesday local time in the southern port city of Sirik, on Qeshm Island, and in Bandar Abbas. No civilian deaths were reported, but several people were injured by shrapnel from an "enemy projectile" that hit a commercial pier in Sirik, according to an Iranian state TV reporter. The reports said strikes also hit ​fishing piers in Sirik and in Bandar Abbas, where several fishing boats were set ablaze.

>A U.S. official told Reuters that strikes targeted Iranian air defense systems, coastal surveillance systems, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles and drone launch ​sites.