Arjun H. Patel

Lucky Husband, Fun Dad, Lazy Son, Physician, American by choice.

[Emma Camp @emmma_camp_]

If you want evidence that capitalism is a force for good, just visit a grocery store.

My ode to the humble American supermarket, for @WSJFreeEx

[Hindu American Foundation @HinduAmerican]

Hello @NYCMayor, we have some questions.

A Mayor commenting on a private Hindu community event is a rare occurrence. But your unusual intervention came after sustained lobbying by one of your campaign’s prominent financial bundlers. Her organization, @Hindus4HR, even received a grant from your office.

Is New York City taxpayer funding allied with the Mayor engaging in grassroots organizing and lobbying to oppose a private event acceptable?

Are NYC taxpayer dollars being used for political advocacy, lobbying, or protests targeting the Hindu American community?

https://t.co/rBpGkBPwQP

[Rajeev Sharma @RajeevSharma00]

A mom hugs an American candidate of Indian origin after realizing that no one had come to congratulate him or place the ceremonial cord on him.

This was his Army graduation ceremony. And this kind of simple, genuine kindness is the real heart and soul of America. Something the anti-immigrant hate narrative of the GOP is trying to drown out, but it’s beginning to backfire.

[SriSathya @sathyashrii]

Hakenkreuz ≠ Swastika.......

🚨 10th grader Mira Trivedi just won a curriculum fight in New Jersey!

Western schools still confuse the ancient Swastika - sacred symbol of peace & cosmic order for Hindus, Buddhists & Jains - with the Nazi Hakenkreuz.

She organized testimonies. Forced 35 educators to correct it.

Not erasing history. Correcting it.
Dharmic heritage matters. End the mix-up. 🇮🇳

Thoughts? 👇

[mike bski @BskiMike22802]

Bernie. Bernie, Bernie, Bernie.

Let me get this straight, because I want to make sure I am reading your economics homework correctly, and I did not eat a bowl of alphabet soup this morning so bear with me. You just listed UnitedHealth's $5.48 billion quarterly profit as proof of corporate greed. Cute. Except that profit happened WHILE the Affordable Care Act — the law that guarantees these insurers a captive, subsidized, taxpayer-fed customer base — has been the law of the land for fifteen years. You are not exposing corporate greed, Senator. You are reading me the receipt for your own bill. The ACA did not shrink the insurance industry. It turned it into a government-guaranteed cash cow, and now you are shocked, SHOCKED, that the cow got fat. Eats soup with a fork, this one.

And here is the part that should really sting. Your own party just finished a 43-day shutdown demanding MORE money be poured into that exact system, because the temporary COVID subsidies YOUR PARTY wrote into the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — zero Republican votes on either bill, by the way — expired right on schedule, exactly as YOU designed them to. Not a single Republican voted to end those subsidies. You did. Then you shut down the government to admit, out loud, on the record, that a law literally named the AFFORDABLE Care Act cannot survive without emergency pandemic cash. That is not an insult from me. That is a confession from you.

So now the solution is Medicare for All. Naturally. Because when a fifteen-year-old government program made the insurance companies richer, the answer is obviously MORE government program, just bigger. If ignorance is bliss you must be the happiest man in the Senate. Independent estimates put full single-payer implementation at somewhere between forty and sixty percent of the ENTIRE federal budget. Forty to sixty percent, Senator. Larger than Social Security. Larger than defense. You want me to hand over half the country's checkbook to the same apparatus that just admitted its last healthcare experiment doesn't work without a subsidy IV drip.

Let's talk about who's asking. You have served in the United States government for something like forty years between the House and Senate, and by my count the bills you personally got across the finish line as lead sponsor could be counted on one hand, mostly involving the naming of federal buildings. Somewhere out there is a tree tirelessly producing oxygen for you, Senator, and it owes itself an apology for the return on investment. This is also the same man who, as a young idealist, tried out communal living on a hippie commune and did not exactly stick around long enough to collect a pension from it. Now you want the reins to fifty percent of the national budget. I keep hearing "tax the rich" out of a man worth several million dollars who charters private jets on his "Fighting Oligarchy" tour because, in his own words, he isn't waiting in line at United with the rest of us peasants. Bless your heart. That is rich even by Congressional standards. Couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel, but sure, hand him the checkbook.

And before you tell me capitalism failed and it's finally socialism's turn — how's that working out for your ideological younger brother in New York? Zohran Mamdani just announced a THIRTY MILLION DOLLAR government grocery store in a city his own comptroller says is worse than broke. Kansas City tried this. Erie, Kansas tried this. That is not a hunch, Senator, that is a lab result, and I am a science teacher, so let me walk you through the peer review.

An experiment only counts as science if it has been REPLICATED. Not run once. Run again. And again. Under different conditions, different continents, different decades, different "well THIS time we'll do it right" true believers standing at the podium. So let's replicate it together, shall we, because apparently nobody handed you the lab notes.

Trial one: the USSR, 1920s and 1930s. Stalin seized the farms, collectivized the kulaks, and centrally planned the harvest. Result: the Holodomor, a man-made famine in Ukraine that starved somewhere between five and ten million people to death while grain was actively being EXPORTED past their starving bodies. That is not a rounding error. That is a control group that died.

Trial two: Cuba, 1959 onward. Castro nationalized every business, every farm, every bank on the island. Sugar production, once the envy of the hemisphere, collapsed. The economy shrank thirty-five percent in a single decade when the Soviet training wheels came off. Extreme poverty today sits near eighty-eight percent. Same experiment. Same result.

Trial three: Venezuela, sitting on some of the largest oil reserves on the PLANET, nationalized its oil industry and ran the socialist playbook to the letter. Production collapsed from three and a half million barrels a day to under one million. Hyperinflation peaked past sixty-three THOUSAND percent. Nine million people fled. You cannot bribe your way out of the results with oil money. We tried. It's in the data.

Trial four, and this one should make every teacher in America wince: China's Great Leap Forward, 1958 to 1962. Mao abolished private farming, herded peasants into communes, melted down their pots and pans for backyard steel that was too low-grade to use for anything. Somewhere between fifteen and forty-five million people starved. Some regions saw cannibalism. That is not a typo. That is what happens when central planners replace the price system with a five-year plan and a slogan.

Trial five: North Korea, present day, running the same command economy with the Juche twist. Famine in the 1990s killed hundreds of thousands to over a million. Markets are technically illegal and thrive anyway in the shadows, because human beings will trade even when their government threatens to shoot them for it.

Trial six is my personal favorite because it is the cleanest natural experiment in the history of economics: East versus West Germany. Same people. Same language. Same culture. Same starting point in 1945. One half got markets, one half got the Stasi and collectivized industry. East German productivity settled at roughly thirty to seventy-five percent of the West's, and the population had to build a WALL to stop its own citizens from swimming, tunneling, and hot-air-ballooning their way out. Nobody builds a wall to keep people from fleeing prosperity, Senator.

Trial seven: Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975 to 1979. They abolished money entirely. No markets. No private property. Total state control, straight out of the textbook you apparently keep on your nightstand. One point seven to three million people, roughly a quarter of the country, died of starvation, overwork, and execution in FOUR YEARS.

And for the extra credit column: Ethiopia's Derg collectivization, Tanzania's Ujamaa villages, Yugoslavia's market-socialism ceiling, Vietnam before it finally abandoned the model, India's decades of License Raj stagnation, and Poland and the rest of the Eastern Bloc running factories that burned three times the steel per unit of output compared to the free market next door. Every single trial, same hypothesis, same result. I have seen middle schoolers design better controlled experiments during a volcano science fair.

That is not one anecdote, Bernie. That is a stack of peer-reviewed, historically documented, independently verified trials spanning four continents and a full century, and the conclusion section reads the same every time: shortages, queues, corruption, and a body count north of a hundred million people once you tally every collectivized farm, every purged kulak, and every commune that ran out of rice. If an experiment fails this many times in this many labs, a real scientist stops blaming the equipment and starts questioning the hypothesis. You, apparently, would rather run trial number eight on 340 million Americans and call it "finally getting it right." Trying to reason with some folks really is like trying to baptize a cat.

Quinn's First Law of Liberalism: liberalism always generates the exact opposite of its stated intent. You want cheaper healthcare, you get record insurer profits. You want affordable food, you get a thirty-million-dollar failed grocery store. You want to fight the oligarchy, you fly private. Every single time. Set your watch by it.

I keep asking Democrats this question and I never get an answer: what have YOU actually done to help people, versus just handing out someone else's money? Because handouts without a ladder out is not compassion. It is a leash. And I think deep down you know that, Senator, or you wouldn't need the private jet to get away from the people you claim to be fighting for. You're about as useful as a screen door on a submarine when it comes to actually running anything, but boy can you point fingers.

You are the human version of period cramps on this topic, Bernie, and I mean that with the utmost respect for a man who has spent forty years discovering new ways to spend money he didn't earn. Has a leak in the think tank if he genuinely believes THIS is the moment socialism finally works. Unless your name is Google, Senator, you need to stop acting like you know everything about running an economy you have personally never had to run.

But what do I know. I am only a medically retired Army combat medic and a science teacher who actually reads the Congressional Budget Office numbers before I open my mouth about a trillion-dollar healthcare takeover.

@JoJoFromJerz @atrupar @TheYoungTurks #MAGA #Veterans #Trump

[Jeanne Ives @JeanneIves]

Governor DeSantis and Governor Pritzker each just signed their 8th state budgets. The contrast couldn't be starker. And the lesson is that who you elect matters. Change out the politicians and you get different policies.
For reference, Florida is 1.8x more populous than IL, 23.37m people compared to 12.71m people. Now consider these points:
1. FL general revenue budget is $52B, IL is $56B. Because state's have different ways of budgeting, lookimg at the total FY27 budgets, FL =$117B, IL=$130B. This doesn't make sense.
2. Pritzker advocated for and signed the largest budget in state history this year and in previous years. DeSantis has lowered the amount spent every year for the last four years and vetoed over $10B in spending during his time in office. Pritzker's budget is up $16B since he took office.
3. Pritzker brags about his credit upgrades, but IL has the worst state credit rating, FL has the best credit rating.
4. FL has a rainy day fund of $18B. IL rainy day fund is $2B.
5. FL is pushing $78B in road programs and moving planned projects ahead 5-15 years. IL can't even get projects planned, permitted and built in a timely manner, so many projects are left undone and money sits in an account collecting interest. And now that surplus interest is being sent to the CTA to bail them out.
6. DeSantis has given back over $9B in taxes. Pritzker has raised taxes every year for a total of over $77B according to IPI.
9. FL is giving $5,000 signing bonuses for police officers. IL politicians want to defund the police.
10. FL is on the cusp of eliminating property taxes for 60% of home owners and they have no state income tax. IL has the highest property taxes, plus individial income and estate taxes, high corporate taxes, and there's been no attempt to meaningfully lower property taxes.
Yes, elections have consequences. But, it can all ve reversed. DeSantis barely got elected 8 years ago. Your vote matters.

[Merriam-Webster @MerriamWebster]

Why is it ‘cancelled’ in the U.K. but ‘canceled’ in the U.S.?

Because we gave them that L in 1776.

[Arjun H. Patel @ArjunPatel80]

@HOVERCRAFT50167 Root

[1776 Live @250YearsAgoLive]

Thomas Jefferson submits the final draft of his Declaration of Independence to Continental Congress.

[Arjun H. Patel @ArjunPatel80]

@Prithvi10_ I was shocked when they forced him to retire. He was still pretty good to play Ashes early this year

[Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump]

Iran was on its last legs and ready to collapse until the U.S. came along and gave it a life-line in the form of the Iran Deal: $150 billion

[U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. @SenBillCassidy]

Reagan is rolling over in his grave. Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal.

Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped. This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.

[Arjun H. Patel @ArjunPatel80]

@VivekGRamaswamy Congratulations 🎊

[Arjun H. Patel @ArjunPatel80]

@sushantsareen Hahaha, Trump might start charging $2 million for US Navy escorting the commercial ships and might give a big discount to allies. Country with bare minimum Navy and no Air Force asking $2 million extortion fee is delusion of highest level

[Shivam Vahia @ShivamVahia]

The most embarrassing part of the WaPo layoffs isn't that journalists lost their jobs. It's that they still believe they mattered. Lol.

Let's be clear: this wasn't a funding problem. Jeff Bezos isn't short on cash. If he wanted to subsidise indefinitely as a vanity project, he could. The layoffs happened for one simple reason -- the market decided these people are worthless.

Not controversial. Not ideological. Just economics.

The product under-performed. Readers don't care. Subscriptions didn't justify the payroll. And when an organisation is bloated, ideologically rigid, and increasingly disconnected from reality, the only rational solution is to cut fat. One-third of it apparently.

That's the part these farewell threads avoid confronting.

For years, western correspondents in India confused moral grandstanding with journalism. They believed their role wasn't to report India, but to lecture it from a pedestal built on outdated colonial assumptions and a nauseating superiority complex. They never served the readers...simply serviced their own sense of righteousness.

The market saw through it globally. That these foreign bureaus are "vacation postings". Sit in elite clubs, speak to a few dozen diplomats and think tanks...and keep recycling the same things over and over again. You can even "generate" beautiful stories...ask Rukmini Callimachi.

In Indian context, their favourite delusion is still Narendra Modi. Modi isn't a dictator clinging to power -- he keeps winning elections. Repeatedly. Decisively. That single fact collapses the entire narrative, so it is ignored. Instead, democracy is declared "under threat" every time Indian voters reject elite-approved outcomes. Apparently, democracy only works when it produces governments western newsrooms prefer.

Covid coverage sealed their irrelevance. India's second wave was brutal, but instead of proportion, context, or nuances, readers were fed relentless imagery of Hindu funeral pyres, curated for maximum shock value. This wasn't reporting. It was panic production. Readers don't pay for civilisational death porn masquerading as news. They switch off.

Kashmir? Misreported with utmost laziness. Terrorism softened, Pakistan backgrounded, Indian sovereignty framed as a disease. Delhi riots flattened into one-sided morality tales. Farmer protests romanticised while economic illiteracy and political capture conveniently ignored. CAA-NRC sold as genocide fan fiction. Every issue filtered through the same sneering lens: India bad, state evil, society dangerous.

Here's the uncomfortable truth they refuse to acknowledge: this framing doesn't sell anymore. Not in India. Not globally. Readers aren't stupid. They can smell ideological assembly lines. When every story sounds the same, outrage fatigue sets in.

That's what really happened here. Not censorship. Not fascism. Not silencing. Market correction.

The hypocrisy is almost comic. These journalists love lecturing India about moral failure while the West is still unearthing the Epstein files -- decades of institutional rot, elite protection, and media complicity in shielding a predator network. Maybe introspection should precede instruction.

The real reason India Inc's growth story irritates them is personal. It breaks the hierarchy and monotony. A country they were trained to view as permanently broken is growing, voting, building, and asserting itself without seeking western approval. That makes their role redundant. Nothing angers an auditor more than being ignored.

Journalism that mistakes ideology for insight, and superiority for substance, doesn't deserve infinite subsidy even from a billionaire.

The market spoke.
The product failed.
And the pedestal finally collapsed.

[Sidharth @Cloudwatch199]

Dear my fellow Hindus ,

History shows one thing clearly: silence costs us.
The media won’t carry our pain.
The institutions won’t amplify our truth.
The powerful won’t stand up for us.

So we stand up for each other.
We speak. We shout.
We make ourselves impossible to ignore.

[FalconUpdatesHQ @FalconUpdatesHQ]

All eyes on Bangladeshi Hindus !!!

[Arjun H. Patel @ArjunPatel80]

@FarOutAkhtar Thanks for making the movie and bringing to life the story of 13th Kumon and Maj Shaitan Singh. Pretty sure that Indian masses likely didn’t know of Battle of Rezang La till now

[Arjun H. Patel @ArjunPatel80]

@RoshanKrRaii 10

[Senator Ted Cruz @SenTedCruz]

Heidi and I are wishing a very happy #Diwali to our Indian friends in Texas, America, and across the world. May the new year be filled with light, truth, and peace.