Matt Case

Real Estate brokerage geek, dad joke aficionado. Taller in real life.

[Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump]

New statement from Scott Pelley:

“Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.”

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

🚨🚨 A new report from The New York Times reveals FDA officials blocked publication of taxpayer-funded studies showing COVID-19 and shingles vaccines are SAFE, with serious side effects extremely rare.

Health experts are calling this an act of censorship. Calls for investigations are already growing.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

The MAGA crowd in Washington has decided that since Europeans don’t sufficiently appreciate Trump, the American bases on the continent must go. This is the strategic reasoning of a man who burns down his own kitchen.

American bases in Europe were never a favour. They are the logistical spine of every war the United States fights east of Gibraltar. Ramstein moves the cargo, Aviano launches the jets, Rota services the ships. Without them the Pentagon does not project power into the Middle East. It projects PowerPoint.

The fantasy assumes the alternative is aircraft carriers gliding majestically into the Persian Gulf. That era is ending. A modern carrier is a thirteen-billion-dollar trophy that can be reduced to scrap by a couple of hundred cheap missiles fired from the Iranian coast. China noticed.

The other fantasy is that America simply fights from home. Picture the alternative: twenty thousand transatlantic sorties shuttling spare parts, munitions, fuel bladders, mechanics and replacement pilots from Norfolk and Dover to wherever the war happens to be. A C-17 burns through roughly 35,000 dollars of fuel every hour it flies, and the round trip from the American east coast to the Gulf is the better part of a day. Multiply that by every bolt, every missile, every spare engine. The war becomes a sustained airborne traffic jam with the bill arriving by the second.

So you need land, specifically land near the war. Modern combat aircraft are not Spitfires you fuel up and send off with a wave. An F-35 demands an entire Walmart of spare parts, a small city of technicians, climate-controlled hangars and a supply chain stretching halfway round the planet. Drones need operators, networks, satellites and a steady diet of components no carrier can store. Modern war arrives by container ship and lives in a warehouse.

Close the bases, and Washington loses the warehouses. Lose the warehouses, and the next confrontation with Iran is either fought by phone or fought from Kansas with a flight schedule that bankrupts the Treasury before the first missile lands.

MAGA thinks shutting Ramstein punishes Europe. It punishes America. Europe will be inconvenienced. America will be unarmed.

And so, after a thousand insults, a thousand sneers, a thousand late-night posts about freeloading allies, Europe is quietly drafting the politest letter in diplomatic history. It thanks America for its service. It wishes the troops a safe journey home. It suggests, with great warmth, that Washington might now turn its attention to its neighbours in Latin America, where a fading superpower can busy itself with whatever a fading superpower busies itself with.

Spain had its century. Britain had its empire. The Soviets had their parades. Each ended the same way: as a shadow of itself, with the historians left to argue, volume after volume, about precisely when the rot set in and why nobody noticed in time. America is welcome to join them on the shelf.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

If you like what you read, please follow Gandalv on Substack:
https://t.co/2TO5x2O8nI

[Matt Case @mattcase]

Chart of the Day: How Using LLMs is Like Driving Drunk https://t.co/Tgpu3VnKPg

[Acyn @Acyn]

Ossoff: Well, let's call it what it would be, which is a bailout for the United Arab Emirates.The way that Emirati money from Emirati Royals has compromised this WH is astonishing. It may be one of the most significant scandals in American history. 

Who are the president's two chief negotiators in the Middle East? Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. Witkoff’s son is the key partner in the Trump family crypto business, which has received vast sums of money from Emirati royalty. The national security advisor in the United Arab Emirates, acquired a 49% stake in that business before the United States agreed to grant the UAE access to our most sensitive AI chips. 

Then you have Jared Kushner, his private equity firm, affinity partners, which in addition to receiving billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, has received a lot of Emirati money. 

The people doing our diplomacy are at the same time doing personal business across the region that's enriching the first family. And meanwhile, my constituents in Georgia are paying $4 for gas, paying more for groceries, rent, power and a meal out at a restaurant than ever before in American history. At the same time, the first family is raking in billions of dollars

[Radu Hossu 🇹🇩🇺🇦 @RaduHossu]

Taking the ceasefire at face value, I’ll give a brief overview of what happened during these 40 days of war and how Trump won—and won so big it blew all of us away:

- The war isn’t over. A ceasefire doesn’t mean peace;

- Ayatollah Khamenei has been eliminated, along with a few dozen other leaders of the Revolutionary Guards—the Islamic Revolution’s terrorist group. All of them are despicable criminals. No one is mourning them or feeling sorry for them;

- Iran now controls the Strait of Hormuz. It did not before February 28 (when the war began). It used this leverage in negotiations with Trump and secured acceptance of their 10-point plan (you will see these terms are very favorable to Iran) to be the basis of 2 weeks negociations;

- The U.S. has used between 10 and 55% (depending on the weaponry) of its stockpiles of stand-off munitions, which are essential for deterring China, and (it is estimated) even more of the interceptor missiles that are exceptionally important for protecting civilians in Ukraine. China is laughing;

- Russia benefits from the lifting of sanctions on oil transported by sea. Putin is more than happy;

- Iran benefits from the lifting of sanctions on its oil transported by sea. The regime’s new leaders are delighted;

- The theocratic regime of the Islamic Revolution has NOT been changed. In fact, the terrorist, criminal leaders who were removed have been replaced by others whom experts there tell us are even more radical (if that’s even possible) and even tougher and crueler;

- The Iranian people are not free. Right? I want us to focus on this fact. The Iranian people, who should have been placed at the center of this conflict as the top priority, have been abandoned. Moreover, they feel betrayed by Trump;

- The crisis caused by this war, which, as you can see from the points above, has brought no significant benefits, will be felt for many months to come, most likely throughout the year—and here I am referring to the IT industry, agriculture, and the energy sector.

China is the long-term winner in the energy sector because it will weather this shock, because it is investing heavily in green energy, and because the IT industries in South Korea and Taiwan will be hit by the helium crisis, which gives them time to further narrow the technological gap with the West. Europe is the big loser due to its energy dependencies and the stalling of green energy investment programs in recent years.

- The 400-odd kilograms of enriched uranium are exactly where they were before the war began;

- NATO is going through the biggest internal crisis in its history due to the start of this war and Trump’s insults and threats. It’s also facing a crisis of confidence in its very essence, Article 5, which I don’t see how it will overcome in the near future, if ever;

- The economies of the Gulf states have been disrupted and—in part—damaged over the medium and long term;

----
Don’t you feel like winners? Especially when we’re pumping 2 euro+/litre worth of diesel into the tank and we’ll see the fall announcements with inflation at 12–14% or who knows how much.

If this is a Trump victory, I don’t want to know what a defeat looks like. If you’ve made it this far, I don’t want to let you forget that the war isn’t over yet.

[Bark @barkmeta]

Let me explain what just happened 👇

5 minutes before the President announced a halt to attacks on Iran… someone placed a $1.5 BILLION bet on stocks going up and dumped $192 million in oil.

5 minutes…

These trades were 4 to 6 times larger than anything else in the entire market. Whoever did this wasn’t guessing. You don’t risk $1.5 billion on a hunch.

There was zero public indication this announcement was coming. No leaks. No press. Nothing. The only people who knew were in the room when the decision was made.

Someone in that room picked up a phone.
And within minutes they made more money than most Americans will earn in a thousand lifetimes. In a single trade. On a war that cost you $4+ a gallon gas and $16 billion in tax dollars.

American citizens funded this war. Politicians are profiting from it.

This is not the first time. Every major announcement from this administration has had massive suspicious trades right before it dropped. Tariff reversals. Policy shifts. War decisions.

This is the most blatant insider trading operation in the history of American politics. It’s not even close. And it’s happening over and over in broad daylight.

You would go to federal prison for trading on a tip from your cousin. These people are front running war decisions with billion dollar bets and nobody will ever ask a single question.

Nobody will be investigated. Nobody will be charged. By tomorrow this will be buried under the next satisfying headline. Just like last time. And the time before that.

The game is rigged. And they’re not even trying to hide it anymore…

[The New American @NewAmericanMag]

President Trump keeps calling @RepThomasMassie a RINO. But if the Republican platform still advocates limited government, fiscal responsibility, and Constitutional fidelity, then Massie is not only far from a RINO, but among the few true Republicans.

We create the Freedom Index so citizens don't have to depend on the rhetoric and slogans of politicians to know who they really are as legislators. You can access the Freedom Index for free. Check for link in the comments.

[Joe Walsh @WalshFreedom]

Trump launches a war against Iran, Russia then sides with Iran and helps Iran locate & kill American service members, Trump then rewards Russia by lifting sanctions on Russian oil.

Tell me again Trump doesn’t work for Putin. Tell me again Trump isn’t a traitor to America.

[Trung Phan @TrungTPhan]

My favourite LEGO designer detail: to reduce manufacturing complexity, LEGO limits amount of new pieces that an employee can make.

To enforce this policy, LEGO has an internal currency called “frames” that designers have to spend for new pieces or colors.

Since “frames” are a scarce resource, designers try to find creative ways to use old pieces or they will pool their “frames” with other designers and aim to make new pieces that can be used across many new sets.

At its peak — and during a near bankruptcy crisis — LEGO made 12,000 different parts at its peak but got too confusing. It’s down to ~7,000 now.

***

More details on “frames” from The Verge: https://t.co/Qul1KbPPXu

[Science girl @sciencegirl]

Research shows that regularly practicing gratitude can lead to measurable changes in the brain. This effect is driven by neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to reorganize itself based on repeated thoughts and behaviors. When people intentionally focus on appreciation, neural pathways involved in emotional control and coping become stronger.

Grateful thinking also stimulates the release of dopamine and serotonin, chemicals linked to pleasure and motivation, while helping reduce cortisol, the hormone associated with stress. Brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex and hypothalamus become more active, supporting improved mood regulation and overall mental health.

Over time, gratitude does more than provide short-term emotional relief. It gradually shifts the brain away from its natural bias toward threat detection and toward noticing positive experiences instead. Simple habits like writing down what you’re thankful for or expressing appreciation aloud reinforce these patterns, making optimistic thinking more automatic.

Studies indicate that this repeated practice builds lasting neural connections, promoting emotional balance, resilience, and well-being. In essence, regularly acknowledging what’s going well can retrain the brain showing that small daily moments of gratitude can produce meaningful, long-term psychological benefits.

[Libertarian Party @LPNational]

@Scuds93 @charliekirk11 The organization Charlie started is calling Massie a RINO and a hater

Charlie called Massie “one of my favorite congressmen” not once, several times

You don’t see how inappropriate that is?

[Libertarian Party @LPNational]

50,000 U.S. Troops have been deployed in an undeclared War on Iran. The people have had no say in this, Congress has been too cowardly to act, and American blood has already been shed. We must take the power over our government back.

[Ricardo @Ric_RTP]

The Pentagon just threatened to BLACKLIST one of America's most valuable AI companies.

Not Huawei or some Chinese chip maker...

It's ANTHROPIC. The company behind Claude. $380 billion valuation.

And the reason is genuinely insane:

For months, the Pentagon has been pushing every major AI lab to remove their safety restrictions for military use.

The ask is simple: let us use your models for anything that's technically legal.

Weapons development, intelligence collection, battlefield operations, mass surveillance of American citizens.

OpenAI said yes.

Google said yes.

xAI said yes.

Anthropic said no.

Not to everything tho. They were willing to negotiate.

But they held firm on two things:

They don't want Claude used to build fully autonomous weapons that fire without a human in the loop, and they don't want it used to mass surveil American citizens.

That's it. That's the line they drew.

But Pete Hegseth's response was to threaten to designate Anthropic a "supply chain risk."

Here's why that matters:

That label isn't a contract cancellation. It's not a fine. It's not a strongly worded letter...

It means every single company that wants to do business with the US military has to certify they don't use Claude anywhere in their operations.

8 of the 10 largest companies in America use Claude.

Defense contractors, government suppliers, enterprise companies with any federal exposure...

ALL of them would have to cut ties with Anthropic overnight or lose their government contracts.

A senior Pentagon official told Axios:

"It will be an enormous pain in the ass to disentangle, and we are going to make sure they pay a price for forcing our hand like this."

That's a US government official threatening to financially destroy an American company because it doesn't want its AI used to spy on American people.

And it gets WORSE.

Last week, Anthropic's head of safeguards research resigned.

His parting message: "the world is in peril."

Elon Musk - whose xAI already handed the Pentagon a blank check - is now publicly attacking Anthropic calling Claude anti-human.

And the Pentagon official told Axios they're "confident" OpenAI, Google, and xAI will all agree to the "all lawful purposes" standard.

So what you're actually watching right now is every major AI company in America quietly handing the government unlimited access to the most powerful technology ever built.

With no guardrails.

No limits.

No company-imposed restrictions on what it can be used for.

One company tried to hold a line.

But the government is about to make an example out of them.

If Anthropic folds, it's over.

Every lab just learned what happens when you push back.

And every restriction, every safety policy, every ethical guardrail these companies spent years building gets negotiated away behind closed doors the second the government asks.

If they don't fold, a $380 billion company gets made radioactive in its OWN country.

Watch what happens next.

Because whatever Anthropic decides in the next few weeks, it sets the precedent for how much control AI companies actually have over their own technology.

Turns out the answer might be: none.

[𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝟑𝟒𝟒 𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 @Section344Lions]

Full Justin Verlander Press Conference Recap:

• Justin said he called Scott Harris, Chris Ilitch & AJ Hinch immediately after the season to express his intentions of wanting to come back.
• JV clearly REALLY wanted to be back. He straight-up said things didn’t look good for a return when he initially reached out, but injuries changed the equation. Without saying it — Reese Olson getting hurt is likely why it came to fruition. So JV basically waited out the entire offseason hoping things would change, & they did.
• Says the one thing he still wants to accomplish is winning a World Series in Detroit. Says the previous era gave it everything they had, and they just needed one bounce to change the course of history. Calls the playoffs a crapshoot.
• JV says the Tigers have a great ball club and should not shy away from the fact that they can win a title.
• Calls his return surreal. Said Tarik Skubal showed him around the club house & he had a laugh when Skubal was pointing out pictures of him around the facility.
• Refers to Tarik Skubal as “Scoob”
• Says he wanted to introduce himself to Skubal last year & did when Tigers came to SF. Says their names will always be linked together in Tigers history.
• He can’t wait to watch Skubal every 5th day, and hopes he can learn from him & vice versa.
• Wants to play until he’s 45. Has talked to Tom Brady & Tiger Woods about how to extend his career.
• Answers “Absolutely” when asked if he had doubts a return would ever work out. Talks about the Tigers rebuild & his injuries, but also said he had the idea even when he was first traded that he wanted to come back when the team was competitive again.
• Said he has felt Detroit’s presence in his life since he left. Says he got just as many texts/calls when the news broke that he was returning than he did when he won a World Series or Cy Young. Says that made him feel great.
• “That really meant a lot to me” he says in reference to his early years in Detroit when the city was going through tough times & people would spend money to watch the Tigers play.
• He’s really looking forward to being in the city now that he’s been married for years & is a dad. Says he’s a different person now than when he was in his young 20’s & didn’t have anything figured out.
• Says his daughter has changed him to his core. He was a horse with blinders on, but now he’s more present & has learned to remove those blinders & take in the bigger picture.
• Laughs his 7-year-old daughter doesn’t know anything about his days in Detroit since she wasn’t alive yet & says she wore a Verlander Mets jersey to school the other day. He hopes she can have some Detroit memories now.
• Laughs & says the video of his brother taking him deep is an old story, but maybe not an old story for Ben. Says he’s sure Ben will be around in Detroit.
• Pro-actively has worked on & made it a point to share things, mentor guys & communicate better as a teammate. Wants people to know he’s available & not scary to talk to. He relishes the role, whereas early in his career he admits he wasn’t great at it due to his drive/focus, which he says he needed at the time, but is happy now to fully embrace that role.
• Says Leyland & Hinch have many similarities. Calls it a great question. They are both great at connecting with players, but still being leaders.
• Says the pitching staff has a chance to be one of the best he’s been a part of.
• He doesn’t want to be a mercenary. Wants to play somewhere that means something to him.
• Says Brad Ausmus opened his eyes to analytics in 2017 & then when he went to Houston he dove head first into it all & was mind blown. It helped him tremendously & he acknowledges Detroit has improved in that regard since he was last here.
• Stopped eating Taco Bell in 2017.

[AnthroVet50 @spooked75]

I grew up Republican. Still am in many ways. But MAGA pushed the party so far right that I get called a liberal now.

Let me explain the difference:

Traditional Republicans believe in:

• Fiscal responsibility (balanced budgets, not exploding deficits for tax cuts)
• Limited government (actual small government, not big government that punishes your enemies)
• Strong institutions (courts, elections, constitutional norms matter)
• Personal responsibility (your actions have consequences)
• Free markets (not tariffs and trade wars)
• Strong alliances (NATO, international partnerships)
• Rule of law (no one is above it, including the president)
MAGA Republicans believe in:

• Whatever Trump says today (even if it contradicts yesterday)
• Loyalty tests (agree 100% or you're a traitor/RINO)
• Conspiracy theories over facts (stolen election, deep state, QAnon adjacent stuff)
• Grievance politics (owning the libs > actual policy)
• Personality cult (Trump loyalty above party, above country, above truth)
• Performative outrage (culture war theater instead of governance)
• Ends justify means (storm the Capitol, ignore election results, whatever it takes)
I didn't move left. The party moved off a cliff.

I still believe in conservative principles. But when you say "maybe we should respect election results" or "fiscal responsibility matters" or "rule of law applies to everyone," you get called a liberal.

That's not conservatism. That's a cult.

[Interesting things @awkwardgoogle]

Tom Morello plays Killing in the Name Of at Minneapolis benefit concert, and the entire crowd absolutely loses it.
https://t.co/v4ssEJ8spW

[Matthew Cappucci @MatthewCappucci]

Wild. The reliable, hi-res HRRR model now suggests isolated SNOW SQUALLS possible near the Tampa metro on Sunday morning. A few ocean-effect snow showers are likely near Pinellas, Manatee, Hillsborough, Polk, Sarasota, Pasco and/or Hernando Counties, and an isolated brief moderate squall can’t be ruled out.

This is the result of very cold air — the coldest since 2018 — passing over warmer Gulf waters.

There’s even a potential for Tampa to see its first mensurable snowfall since 1977 (measureable means 0.1 inches or more). There has only ever been one other documented snowfall — February 13, 1899!

If you encounter a snow shower, turn on your low beam headlights, drive slowly, plan for brief reductions in visibility and don’t be surprised for up to a dusting on grassy surfaces.

[P a u l ◉ @SkylineReport]

Fun fact:

If you’re standing on a public sidewalk filming ICE operations, you’re usually more legally protected than the agents yelling at you. Every federal appeals court that’s ruled on it says Americans have a First Amendment right to record government officials in public. Meanwhile, ICE has no authority to order bystanders to disperse, create exclusion zones, or boss citizens around unless you’re committing an actual federal crime.

In plain terms: an ICE agent telling you to “move along” has about as much legal force as a random stranger doing the same thing. Physics, statutes, and the Constitution all agree.

The Receipts

[1] U.S. Courts of Appeals (1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th Cir.) — All recognize a First Amendment right to record police and government officials in public spaces
Fields v. City of Philadelphia, 862 F.3d 353 (3d Cir. 2017)
https://t.co/JioUZDbcrz

[2] ACLU — “Taking photographs and video of things plainly visible in public spaces is a constitutional right”
https://t.co/ueDCqPO65p

[3] 8 U.S.C. § 1357 — ICE statutory authority (limited to immigration enforcement and specific federal crimes; no general police powers)
https://t.co/G7XUikz2ZG)

[4] Code of Federal Regulations, 8 C.F.R. § 287.8(b)(1) — ICE officers may not restrain individuals not under arrest from walking away
https://t.co/BvXCCJC3CO

[5] U.S. Marshals vs. ICE authority comparison — ICE lacks authority to issue dispersal orders or establish exclusion zones
https://t.co/TI8qyCuUrl

[Dylan Allman @dylanmallman]

If the Second Amendment does not apply to this exact kind of moment, what do people think it is for?

A citizen can lawfully carry, see masked federal agents beating someone in public, move toward the scene to help, and then get erased with a hail of bullets because “he had a gun.”

That excuse is an insult in a country where possession is legal by design, where the whole point is that the public never becomes a disarmed audience watching state power operate with impunity.

I’m not interested in arguing frame-by-frame footage. I’m interested in the principle that a free people cannot accept a standard where lawful carry becomes a death sentence the second authority feels threatened.

If that is the standard, then the 2nd Amendment has been reduced to a vibe. The founders did not write it so Republicans could do militia cosplay on weekends.