Jeff Werner

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

THEORY:

The reason we Olds don't give a crap about the food struggles of the Youngs, and the reason why the Youngs don't get why the Olds don't feel sorry for them, is as follows:

We Olds grew up eating Swanson TV Dinners and a bland, dried out pot roast and canned green beans on Sundays, so when we moved out of the house and had to live on ramen and microwave burritos for weeks at a time, it was no big deal.

The Youngs, OTOH, grew up in the Golden Age of take out of all kinds, with their parents buying high quality meals of all kinds of cuisines, and with all-natural cooking options of incredible quality from places like Whole Foods in abundance, so ramen and microwave burritos feel like a HUGE step down.

My theory. It could be right, it could be wrong, but it's mine.

[Jeff Werner @JWerner417]

@TheLastRefuge2 Thank God!!

[End3of6Days9 (Helen) 🇺🇸 @end3of6days9]

Reverse sear is hands-down the best way to cook a thick steak… if you do it right.

Salt it heavily the night before and leave it uncovered in the fridge so the outside dries out. Next day, bring it to room temp, season again with just salt and coarse black pepper, then slow-cook it in a 250° oven until it hits about 115° inside.

Then hit a medium-high cast iron for 60-90 seconds per side, baste with butter, garlic, and herbs, and rest.

You end up with an even medium-rare edge to edge and a crust that actually lives up to the hype.

[Krzysztof Szczawinski 🇵🇱 @Kristof_Poland]

The Left and the Right are not two different ideologies. They have grown apart to become two different civilizations.

What characterizes a civilization is its relation to morality, to truth, to beauty, to wealth – and the relation of people to power and to reality itself. By this measure, the division is not political. It is civilizational. And Feliks Koneczny — the Polish scholar who mapped civilizational systems with greater precision than anyone before or since — described exactly this architecture a century ago.

The Right represents what remains of Western Latin civilization – the tradition that inherits Roman law, Greek philosophy, and Christian morality, and from that inheritance builds: individual liberty, equality before the law, orderly competition between individuals, free speech, private property, subsidiarity, classical beauty, monogamous marriage, the dual system of private and public law, and — most fundamentally — the primacy of morality over law. Not that law is the codification of morality, but that law must be consistent with morality. Power is not above ethics. What is wrong for the individual is wrong for the state.

The Left represents an amalgamation of what Koneczny called Byzantine, Turanian, and other eastern civilizational systems – characterized by centralism, the omnipotent state, the fusion of law and morality into a single power, and the subordination of the individual to the collective. In these systems, whatever power decrees becomes moral by definition. There is no external moral standard against which power can be judged. Hence the centralism, the bureaucracy, the etatism, the social justice that replaces individual justice, the family defined by the state rather than preceding it. And hence the violence, the lies, the censorship – because in a system where power is morality, opposition is not merely wrong. It is evil.

The most fundamental difference: in the Latin civilization, morality stands above law. In the Byzantine-Turanian systems of the left, there is only one law — which is simultaneously the moral code — and it is whatever the ruler decides. This is not a difference of policy. It is a difference of civilizational architecture. It runs all the way down.

Some will say a balance is needed – a yin-yang between order and creative destruction, between conservatism and progress. This was once true. It is no longer. The Left has ceased to be a force of renewal within Western civilization and has become a force for its demolition – operating not within our civilizational framework but against it, with incompatible rules and incompatible values. Different civilizations do not compete like tennis players who accept the same rules. They fight for power with no rules and all available means – violence, lies, and morally incompatible systems. Bringing a gun to a tennis match is not competition. It is conquest.

The good news: most people are not ideologically committed to either side. They are attached to prosperity, to safety, to beauty, to the life that Western civilization actually produces – and they can be brought back to it, once they understand what they are being asked to abandon. The civilizational argument, clearly made, is the most powerful argument available. Not left versus right. Not conservative versus progressive. Latin civilization versus its opponents. Freedom, morality above power, and the individual who cannot be reduced to a subject – versus the state that decides everything, including what is moral.

The good life versus the state oppression.

Once you see the civilizational map, the political map becomes legible. And once the political map is legible, the choice is not difficult.

[Teslaconomics @Teslaconomics]

I did my homework.

When Elon and Tesla give me the thumbs up, I’m going all in to own my own fleet of Tesla Robotaxis.

Owning your own Tesla Robotaxi fleet could become one of the most powerful cash flow generating assets ever available to everyday investors.

A $30,000 Cybercab could generate roughly $58,500 in annual revenue and around $19,800 in net income after Tesla’s fee and operating expenses.

At that rate, a fleet of 50 vehicles could produce approximately $1 million in annual net income, requiring about $1.5 million in vehicle capital.

To generate the same income from Bay Area rentals, you would need around 50 homes with a combined value of roughly $75 million, and leveraged cash flow could still be negative fyi.

That is the power of autonomy… one vehicle can operate for most of the day, serve thousands of customers, relocate to stronger markets, and scale without needing tenants, mortgages, or decades of appreciation.

However, the trade-off is risk.

Private-owner access is not broadly available yet, and the final economics will depend on utilization, regulation, insurance, operating costs, and Tesla’s Network fee.

But if Tesla delivers the technology and opens the Robotaxi network to owners, Robotaxi fleets could become one of the most capital-efficient ways to generate serious cash flow.

I’m going to prove this to the world on 𝕏.

[Ken Gardner @KenGardner11]

One of Ayn Rand's very best observations, which has aged like fine wine:

"Socialism is not a movement of the people. It is a movement of the intellectuals, originated, led and controlled by the intellectuals, carried by them out of their stuffy ivory towers into those bloody fields of practice where they unite with their allies and executors: the thugs."

[Nashville Tea Party @NashvilleTea]

BOOM!!

[Justin Hart @justin_hart]

🤔 funny how hospitalization deaths from Covid dropped off a cliff in March 2022.

I'm sure it was a coincidence that March 22, 2022, was the final submission period for hospitals to get reimbursement for uninsured and underinsured individuals from HHRS.

The government shut down the most profitable parts of their businesses - a number of hospitals didn't survive - those that did probably had administrators who tried to get every dollar of reimbursement they could. It was nothing nefarious, but many of them had a very wide latitude of counting deaths.

[Thierry from arvy 🇨🇭 @ThierryBorgeat]

Imagine you spent 40 years doing the boring, responsible thing.

You opened a 401k at 23. You contributed every paycheck. You ignored the noise. You bought the index, because Bogle told you to, because Buffett told you to, because every honest piece of financial advice for 30 years said the index was the safest, most diversified, most rules-based way to own America.

You bought it for one reason above all others.

Diversification.

Five hundred companies. If any one of them blew up, you owned 499 others.

Here is what you own today.

Semiconductors are 19.7% of the S&P 500.

At the peak of the dot-com bubble they were about 8.5%. You hold more than twice the concentration that preceded the worst technology drawdown in living memory.

One fifth of your retirement account now moves 6% in a day.

Everything else is 80.3%. Every bank, every railroad, every utility, every hospital, every insurer, every energy company, every consumer brand you have ever bought from. All of them together. Down from over 98% a decade ago.

Now look at what the other side of your index is doing with its money.

Alphabet spent $32.3 billion on capital expenditure in 2023. It has guided 2026 to roughly $200 billion. Its entire operating cash flow last year was $164.7 billion. The spending now consumes everything the business produces.

Amazon is spending close to $200 billion this year. Its free cash flow fell 66% last year, to $11.2 billion.

Meta has guided to $115 to $135 billion, aimed at superintelligence.

The five largest are spending roughly $700 billion in 2026, up about 65% in a single year. Goldman puts the 2025 to 2027 total at $1.15 trillion, more than double the $477 billion of the three years before it.

Not one of them can tell you what the return on it will be.

Now add it up.

19.7% in semiconductors. Roughly another 30% in the five mega caps pouring their entire cash generation into the same buildout. Then the software being repriced on the same story, the utilities being rebuilt to power it, the industrials selling into it.

Two thirds of the S&P 500 is now one trade.

And here is the part that should bother you most.

Nobody decided this.

There was no committee vote. No announcement. No rule change. Market cap weighting did it automatically, every day, raising your exposure in exact proportion to how well the bet was already working. The better it worked, the more of it you owned. The more of it you owned, the more you needed it to keep working.

That mechanism has no brakes. It took semiconductors from 2% to nearly 20% in eleven years and never once asked you.

The businesses may be fine. The chips are sold out. The orders are real. This is not a prediction that any of it ends badly.

It is a simpler point than that.

You bought the index so you would never have to be right about one thing.

Two thirds of it is now one thing.

[zerohedge @zerohedge]

The SPV bubble is batshit insane

GOOGL is $826BN and now Meta said it has already committed almost $700 billion in future AI spending (BBG).

Across all hypers, off BS commitments are now $3+ trillion, double in one quarter.
GLTA

[Died Suddenly @DiedSuddenly_]

Never forget the American who looked Fauci in the eye, refused the COVID vaccine, and called him out on camera.

Still one of the ballsiest moments of the entire pandemic.

[Sawyer Merritt @SawyerMerritt]

The Trump Administration today announced a series of actions to "cut red tape and accelerate American automated vehicle innovation."

Secretary Sean Duffy has directed NHTSA to implement the following AV policy changes:
1) Accelerate development of first-ever AV performance standards through a partnership with SAE Industry Technologies Consortia (ITC): This partnership will fund a three-year, $5 million “A2SCEND” consortium, bringing together experts to gather data and accelerate creation of the first-ever AV performance standards. This project will inform a single national standard for AV safety to eliminate the patchwork regulatory landscape that has stifled innovation for years.

2) Allow Zoox to commercially deploy its robotaxis through a temporary exemption: This temporary exemption will allow the commercial deployment of up to 2,500 vehicles annually for two years, subject to an enhanced, adaptable oversight structure that can evolve as Zoox’s technology advances.

3) Publish an interim final rule that allows vehicles manufactured prior to an exemption to be eligible for a commercial deployment exemption:
This rule will modernize the application process and improve access to exemptions for innovators, including AV developers, by granting the NHTSA Administrator the discretion to apply temporary exemptions to vehicles manufactured prior to the effective date of an exemption grant.

4) Establish a new Federal Docket for public feedback on NHTSA’s updated safe AV development and deployment guidance:
NHTSA is updating its technical guidance for AVs for the first time since 2017—focusing on key safety areas like emergency responder interactions, safety management systems, remote assistance, and post-crash behavior to help the industry scale up driverless deployments safely.

5) Streamline the application process for Part 555 exemptions by updating guidance and soliciting feedback from the public:
By updating the Part 555 exemption process—which allows automakers to temporarily sell a limited number of non-compliant vehicles, primarily to test new technologies—NHTSA is aiming to create a more flexible oversight structure for exemptions and summarize recent AV framework activities, including expanded exemption pathways, streamlined crash reporting, and ongoing efforts to modernize Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

https://t.co/2EWJ6U4czp

[The Vigilant Fox 🦊 @VigilantFox]

Josh Hawley brings the receipts and exposes Dr. Fauci for using 8 different federal employees on federal time to chase over $1,000,000 in cash prizes for himself.

"You got RICH while people were dying."

"You were using federal employees with TAXPAYER MONEY to apply for and solicit cash prizes for you personally. Cash prizes totaling over a million dollars."

"And what were these individuals doing in the depth of the pandemic in November of 2020 when millions of Americans were suffering from COVID? What were they doing? I tell you what they're doing. Folkers was on your behalf soliciting and gathering information for a cash award."

"Let's look at it. We've got his email right here. Right over my shoulder. Folkers says, 'I'm working on this nomination for the Dan David award for Fauci. We need to beef up the COVID part. Do you have language in the that you could share that delineates how we responded in new ways to Covid.'"

"He sends this to multiple federal employees. What was the Dan David award? Do you remember, doc?"

FAUCI: "On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution."

HAWLEY: "It was a $900,000 cash award. $900,000 cash award. And he got it because he used federal employees to get it. And this wasn't the only award, was it, Dr. Fauci? In fact, you applied for and received at least eight other federal cash prizes on federal time using federal employees and federal resources.

"Here they are over my shoulder. Besides the Dan David award, you've got the Partnership for Public Service. You've got the Adelson prize, you've got the Smithsonian award, you've got the National Academy of Medicines award, you've got the CDC Foundation. In fact, you turn your staff into a full-time application machine."

"You actually wrote to people and said, 'Do you think maybe I'd qualify?' And you got cash for all of this. And it wasn't just one or two employees, was it? In fact, you used eight separate federal employees on federal time using federal resources to solicit cash awards. Isn't that true?"

FAUCI: "On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution."

HAWLEY: "Here they are, right over my shoulder. Here's all of them. The people that you use federal employees so that you could go and get cash money."

[Names listed on board]

– Greg Folkers
– Lawrence Tabak
– Holli Jaffe
– Patricia Conrad
– Courtney Billet
– Louis Miller
– Katherine Miller
– Hugh Auchincloss

"And the most hilarious part is that you weren't content to even dragoon them into applying for all of these cash awards. You then had them go out to the ethics agencies and ethics watchdogs and demand that you be able to get the money. That's right."

"We've got it in your emails. Your staff and employees on federal time using federal resources, being paid with federal dollars, are soliciting cash for you. And then they're turning around and saying to the agency, 'We don't want just an answer. We want to get to yes.'

"Because Fauci wants the money."

[Nurse Lioness @CardioFixer]

Do you know why Fauci had such a problem with early treatments like ivermectin?

Because, if a 40 year old antiparasitic that costs less than a Starbucks run started working, the entire “trust the science” industrial complex would’ve had to explain why they spent two years treating a respiratory virus like it was a rare tropical disease that only responded to novel pharmaceuticals, emergency authorizations, and powerpoints.

Ivermectin was the medical equivalent of your grandma fixing the Wi-Fi by unplugging the router and plugging it back in.

Simple.

Cheap.

Already sitting in the cabinet. And that was the real problem for him.

[jem is looking for a job @sheherenow_]

oh my godddddd i can't believe cooking has just been solved like this?

[C3 @C_3C_3]

John Thune is lying.

He needs 50 votes and VP Vance to pass the Save America Act.

He needs to force a “Talking Filibuster”.

No rule changes.
No nuking Filibusters.

He isn’t powerless.
He doesn’t need to find votes.

He needs to want it.
He needs to not be a traitor.

Facts.

[Jeff Werner @JWerner417]

Amen!!!

[Sean Davis @seanmdav]

He should rename the airport as well, preferably after a family that didn’t sell out the country.

[Jeff Werner @JWerner417]

@Eric_Schmitt There’s a bill waiting to pass the Senate that can do just that.

[Jeff Werner @JWerner417]

@SenEricSchmitt How about stick around on the Senate floor and actually filibuster the SAVE act (a real talking filibuster).