David Ghilotinescu

Nu vă fie frică, Ceaușescu pică.
Vom muri şi vom fi liberi.

[Chuck Ross @ChuckRossDC]

Funny story: In 2020, after the Hunter laptop came out, journos at Daily Caller, the site Tucker Carlosn-founded site where I worked, came across emails that showed Tucker asking Hunter Biden to write a letter of recommendation for his son to get into Georgetown.

Us Caller reporters thought this would be a great way to refute Bidenworld's claims at that time that the laptop emails were fake or illegitimate.

Someone who emailed with Hunter could verify their authenticity! We thought Tucker would be more than happy to help, and no ill will was intended.

But no. Tucker lashed out at the Daily Caller employee who was tasked with contacting him about this, saying that a story on that would be an "attack on my family," or something along those lines.

https://t.co/tAvODCDsZq

[Phil Magness @PhilWMagness]

Last year I submitted a FOIA request to the US Trade Representative with a simple purpose: to figure out where the Trump admin's infamous "Liberation Day" reciprocal tariff formula came from.

This formula, posted on the USTR's website, was the basis of the charts at the April 2025 tariff press conference. It was also mathematically incoherent. Its denominator terms canceled each other out, yielding an nonsensical result that simply spat out an economically meaningless percentage based on bilateral trade volume.

The formula became a target of ridicule for good cause, but nobody could explain where it came from. Some speculated that Peter Navarro dreamt it up, likely because it just felt like a crazy and economically incompetent Navarro product. Others suggested that it looked like something hallucinated by ChatGPT.

So I submitted the FOIA request in an attempt to find out.

My simple request turned into a full year of unexplained delays, stonewalling, missed deadlines that they had previously communicated for delivery, and general non-responsiveness.

The USTR, which officially published the formula, is subject to FOIA as a federal agency and does not enjoy the exemptions afforded directly to White House staff. Nonetheless they claimed legal review privileges since the formula's documentation apparently involved correspondence with unnamed White House officials. After a year of waiting, I finally got the answer this morning.

The USTR located 31 pages of records pertaining to the "Liberation Day" tariff formula. But it was invoking an exemption from FOIA under a "presidential communications" privilege and therefore denying access to all 31 pages.

That said, the email did provide a clue confirming one of my long-held suspicions about the origin of the formula. The specific party they claimed privilege to protect was not Peter Navarro - it was the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

This in turn suggests what I have long suspected. The formula either came from or had substantial input from somebody at the CEA, as presumably documented in the 31 pages of excluded correspondence.

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

As I always say, enjoy talking about socialism now, because once you have it your opinion won’t matter anymore.

[Billy Binion @billybinion]

Bill Gates helped make personal computing mainstream. Sergey Brin dramatically expanded access to information. Jeff Bezos gave the world quick & cheap access to goods.

AOC gets a taxpayer-funded salary to do political theater.

Yes, it is possible to earn a billion dollars.

[Rep. Don Bacon 🇺🇸✈️🏍️⭐️🎖️ @RepDonBacon]

Doing more to support Ukraine would improve these numbers. 70% of Americans support Ukraine.

[Tom Malinowski @Malinowski]

Every single day, US forces in the Gulf depend on logistics, support, and equipment from US bases in the UK, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, etc. If we brought our troops home from Europe, we couldn't fight Iran.

As Rubio knows perfectly well.

[Mike Pompeo @mikepompeo]

NATO has been a key instrument in securing America's superpower status.

We have every right to insist that our NATO allies pull their weight, but should always remember the principal reason we've invested so heavily in the alliance to begin with: advancing our own interests.

[Mike Konczal @mtkonczal]

The tariffs are impacting more than just manufacturing, and the blue-collar job loss has been notable across sectors compared to trend growth.

If you use different trendlines in any specific sector it looks better no doubt, but the overall difference is striking.

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

Trump threatened to cut off the economy’s hand (Liberation Day) and then people freaked out, and then he said “fine fine I’ll just chop off the economy’s pinkie above the knuckle” (the adjusted exempted tariffs) and then the economy got worse at everything involving the full use of five fingers (manufacturing etc), and Oren Cass is triumphant that this is a victory for all advocates of digital amputation.

[Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker ♟ @pelositracker]

This is tough to defend

Joseph Schwartz was convicted of a $39M healthcare fraud and sentenced to 36-months in prison

His nursing home empire collapsed and he didn't pay over 15,000 employees

After serving 3 months in prison, Schwartz was pardon by President Trump and his obligation to pay $5 million in restitution to the government was erased

It's reported that Schwartz paid $1M to lobby the White House to influence their decision

[Rep. Don Bacon 🇺🇸✈️🏍️⭐️🎖️ @RepDonBacon]

Ukraine has been winning back territory the last 3 months. It is wrong for the Administration to push Ukraine to give land not in Russian control to Russia as part of a peace agreement. This is appeasement and rewards the invader. What happened at Sudetenland in 1938?

[Daniel Friedman @DanFriedman81]

People were outraged at the $500k couple, but the underappreciated aspect of the story is that the woman making $36k lives in the same neighborhood and leads a similar lifestyle, minus saving $10k per month, because she is a beneficiary of various subsidies, including a rent stabilized apartment.

New York is unaffordable for some people, because the state and city are bleeding those people to give free stuff to other people, for whom New York is free.

[David Ghilotinescu @ghilotinescu]

@RepDonBacon @RepStenyHoyer @CongressmanKean there are many Ukrainians in your district. You will lose in the midterms anyway. Do a small act of courage and add your signature. Do the right thing.

[مملکته @mamlekate]

A single, unverified source says Mojtaba Khamenei was in a coma at Loghman Hospital and is now dead.

پیام از یک سورس و طبیعتا تایید نشده: «دوستم از ایران آنلاین شد و گفت از کادر بیمارستان لقمان خبردار شده که مجتبی تو کما بوده و امروز سقط شده!!»

[ دیتای خامِ کمای مجتبی به الو رسیده بود (شنبه ۲۳ اسفند). بستری شدنش توی بیمارستان هم همین‌طور (شنبه ۱۶ اسفند) ]

[مملکته @mamlekate]

A second (unverified) source adds: "Today, the 29th of Esfand (March 20), at around 11 a.m. Iran time, Mojtaba’s ventilator was turned off. In the past few days, the ventilator tubes had been filling with blood, meaning his lungs had completely failed. The earlier news of his death was correct, and today the machine was turned off."

A third (verified) source adds: "On the 9th of Esfand, when Mojtaba was severely injured, he underwent surgery at Sina Hospital (one of his legs was amputated; his condition was critical, with brain edema, and he was intubated with a Glasgow Coma Scale score of at most 5). After the operation, he was transferred to Baqiyatollah Hospital. Until the following Monday, his level of consciousness was around 9, and he was still intubated.

That means for up to ten days after the injury, he remained in critical condition: unconscious, breathing with a ventilator, and hospitalized in the ICU. So this patient didn’t only have bleeding or limb amputation; he had also suffered brain injury, and his condition was not stable. I don’t know how severe the head injury was, but even if he was alive, his state wouldn’t have been good.

The amputation is certain.

But the rest of his body was not unharmed either, and he had other injuries. If the drop in consciousness had been only due to blood loss, then within a day or two, with surgery, care, and hemodynamic stabilization, he should have improved. However, even after 10 days (19 Esfand), his level of consciousness remained low. That’s why I strongly suspect he also had brain injury and was likely in a coma.

There have been multiple reports about where he was taken, making it unclear. From the 19th of Esfand until now, with the New Year, I didn’t follow up closely and only saw your message about his death in a coma, which is consistent with his condition."

[OSINTdefender @sentdefender]

Senior officials in the Trump Administration tell Fox News that Joe Kent was “a known leaker” - and was cut out of intelligence briefings with President Trump months ago. Adding that he had not been part of any Iran planning discussions or briefings at all. An official says the White House also told the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that she should fire Kent for suspected leaks, but she never had him removed as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).

[David Ghilotinescu @ghilotinescu]

@RpsAgainstTrump Great news.

[Rep. Don Bacon 🇺🇸✈️🏍️⭐️🎖️ @RepDonBacon]

@mr_pumphouse We are one signature short to forcing a sanctions vote in the House. I continue to speak up to add public pressure.

[David Ghilotinescu @ghilotinescu]

@SBlake2000 @DrDiGiorgio @SchillerLeanne Your explanation of benefits definitely has both billed and contracted rate.

[Jason, @jasonc_nc]

This is a bad chart designed to mislead and look scary.

The ratio in 2005 was 5.1x. In 2015 it was 5.3x.

The average new home size is 2,200 sq ft today, vs 1,500 in 1975.

From 1975 to today houses increased 43% and the ratio increased 47%.