Gene Cook

[☭ Chesapeake Bae 🇱🇧🇮🇹 Lezbollahmothra @JarJarDrinx]

Oh my god this is my new favorite video on the internet

[Crystal Palace F.C. @CPFC]

Crystal Palace. 26/27 squad.

[Gene Cook @wild_catG]

@BroncRox190 A ton! Thought the same thing! He patted people on the back as they ran around him

[Jessica Tarlov @JessicaTarlov]

Are we going to talk about Elon putting his hand on the scales of our midterms with this blatant misinformation?

[Barstool Sports @barstoolsports]

Rest in Peace, Mike Ditka

An all time legend

[theleahfiles @leahfiles]

People keep saying Trump term II is the most corrupt administration ever, so I built a model to find out if it was true.

I took the UN's definition of corruption, turned it into eight criteria and 100 points, and scored the leaders history remembers for looting their countries: Marcos, Suharto, Mobutu, Abacha, Obiang, Putin.

Then I put every president since Eisenhower on the same scale, both parties, with every exoneration counted right alongside the convictions.

Nixon scored 41 and no other American President scored over a 25.

Trump's second term scored a 91, which ties him with Suharto and Mobutu and puts him above Marcos and Abacha.

So he is not only the most corrupt president in American history. At this pace he finishes his term level with the most corrupt rulers of the last hundred years.

PSA: don't come in my comments arguing about the results if you haven't read the full article, because ignorance is a choice.

Full article is up now on my Substack (link in bio) and it's free.

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

We all knew he was lying about the Reflecting Pool. The problem is that he lies so often that it’s almost impossible to keep up.

So I asked AI to compile claims from just the past twenty-four months and then checked them against official data, contemporaneous reporting and independent fact-checks.

Here is a partial list of 86 lies:
1. He promised to bring prices down “starting on Day One.” Grocery prices remained high and continued rising.
2. After winning, he admitted that prices are very hard to bring down once they have gone up.
3. He said egg prices had fallen 93 percent. They had not fallen remotely close to 93 percent.
4. He said he inherited the highest inflation in American history. He inherited an annual inflation rate of 2.9 percent.
5. When corrected, he changed the claim to the worst inflation in 49 years. That was also false. Annual inflation reached 23.7 percent in 1920.
6. He said there was virtually no inflation during his first term. Consumer prices rose approximately 8 percent.
7. He repeatedly claimed he had already brought inflation down, including during periods when the annual inflation rate was higher than the 2.9 percent reported shortly before he took office.
8. He told Congress inflation was “plummeting.” Prices were still rising overall, including major household expenses such as housing, electricity and medical care.
9. He claimed to have secured $18 trillion in new investment.
10. He then raised the figure to $19.2 trillion.
11. Even the White House’s own tracker listed far less, and its total included multiyear pledges, purchasing agreements, previously announced projects and commitments that might never become actual US investment.
12. He said America was building more factories than ever.
13. He said factory construction was rising.
14. He said the country had achieved its highest growth ever. Manufacturing employment declined, factory-construction claims depended on cherry-picked categories, and economic growth was nowhere near a historical record.
15. He called the country he inherited a dead country. The US economy grew 2.8 percent in 2024, faster than every other major wealthy economy except Spain.
16. He says foreign countries pay his tariffs. American importers pay them and frequently pass the cost on to American consumers.
17. He said the evidence overwhelmingly showed consumers did not pay his tariffs. Economic studies found that American consumers and businesses absorbed nearly all their cost.
18. He said tariff revenue came with “no inflation.” Prices continued rising, and economic research found that the tariffs themselves increased costs for American consumers and businesses.
19. He repeatedly said drug prices were down 70, 80 or 90 percent. No broad measure of prescription-drug prices showed anything close to those reductions.
20. He said Medicaid was “left the same.” The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the legislation would reduce federal Medicaid spending by roughly $930 billion over ten years.
21. He said Americans were “not going to feel any of it.” The Congressional Budget Office projected that the legislation would leave approximately 11.8 million more people uninsured.
22. He said the Medicaid changes touched only waste, fraud and abuse. Independent analyses found that the legislation reduced coverage and federal spending far beyond fraudulent claims.
23. He said he had eliminated taxes on Social Security. The law created a temporary deduction, unavailable to many beneficiaries, that expires after 2028. It did not abolish taxation of Social Security benefits.
24. He said taxes would rise 68 percent without his bill. No credible independent estimate came close to supporting that figure.
25. He then declared, “I’ve kept all my promises and much more.”
26. He publicly promised at least 53 times to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours, or even before taking office.
Continued in replies…

[Mark Cuban @mcuban]

The city of Denver makes it’s PBM contract available online. So I grabbed it and had Claude look at it and answer a simple question “Where are they getting ripped off”

Here is it’s response:

Denver is getting hit in six places, and the contract says so out loud. This is a self-funded City & County of Denver plan (4,051 employees / 8,554 participants, 1/1/2023–12/31/2025, $80M max) where the only stated pharmacy fee is… nothing. The medical admin fee is $45.13 PEPM. There is no PBM admin fee. That’s your first tell — the pharmacy program is priced entirely in the dark.
1. Spread pricing, written into the contract three separate times. Section A7 (Claims Processing): on mail, specialty and retail, United retains the difference between what it reimburses the network pharmacy and what Denver pays. It’s repeated in the General Conditions of the Pharmacy Financials exhibit and again in the Specialty Pharmacy Discount Guarantee conditions. So the AWP-discount guarantees describe what Denver pays — not what the pharmacy receives. The delta is Optum’s revenue, uncapped and unreported. For a public entity, that’s the whole ballgame. FTC found the Big 3 generated an estimated $1.4 billion of spread income on specialty generics alone.

2. Rebates: 100% retained, replaced with a fixed per-script number. Section A8: United keeps 100% of pharmacy rebates and pays Denver a fixed brand-script guarantee instead — $740.43 retail / $1,020.22 mail in 2023, rising to $885.02 / $1,105.10 by 2025. The contract then says explicitly that any rebates above the fixed amount are United’s to keep. Manufacturer rebate administration fees are folded into the guarantee, meaning they’re netted against what Denver was already owed rather than paid over. Denver has no idea what the actual rebate yield is, and no contractual right to find out.

3. The Rebate Credit clause is the biosimilar killer. If Denver moves to a biosimilar, an authorized alternative, or a lower-WAC brand, United gets credited toward its rebate guarantee for the manufacturer revenue it would have earned had Denver stayed on the high-rebate originator. Translation: United is financially indifferent to Denver buying the cheaper drug. Denver’s savings on ingredient cost get clawed back through the rebate math.

4. Your five clauses — all present, all in United’s favor. Specialty Drugs are defined as “Prescription Drugs available at United’s Specialty Pharmacy.” That’s a circular definition: whatever Optum stocks is specialty. Then: “United reserves the right to change the designation of a drug from specialty to non-specialty based on market conditions.” Then: specialty dispensed inside United’s specialty network is excluded from the retail and mail guarantees. Specialty dispensed outside it gets swept into the retail guarantee. Specialty rebates are “included in retail.” The specialty guarantee itself is 20.7% off AWP composite — and any specialty drug not on United’s list is guaranteed at only 14.0%. United controls the list. Every new high-cost launch defaults to the 14% bucket. And spread is retained on top of the discount either way.

5. Medical-benefit specialty has no guarantee at all. “Specialty drugs typically covered under the medical benefit (physician’s office, ambulatory, home infusion), and/or transitioned to the pharmacy benefit, are excluded from all guarantees.” That’s the buy-and-bill oncology and infusion book — the most expensive spend in the plan — with zero pricing accountability. On medical drug rebates Denver gets 80%, United keeps 20% plus float interest, and an unnamed subcontractor takes an undisclosed cut on top.

6. The lock-in clauses, which are the reason you can’t fix any of the above. Denver may not negotiate with any manufacturer for rebates or direct purchase — doing so forfeits earned-but-unpaid rebates. All pricing guarantees require United as exclusive mail provider. Terminating pharmacy services early means United keeps every pending and future rebate.

[Ben Grounds @Ben_Islington]

Messi’s reaction to seeing Pickford knew where to go priceless. Like a “how the hell did he know”. Enzo points to the skies grateful it didn’t go to pens. A lot needs to change if England are to win the World Cup in four years. Pickford is not one of them.

[Players Sayings @PlayersSayings]

Zlatan Ibrahimovic reaction to every country eliminated from the World Cup is killing me 😭

[Kevin Van Valkenburg @KVanValkenburg]

This is a good read.

[FanDuel @FanDuel]

PLEASE LISTEN TO THE TELEMUNDO CALL OF MESSI'S GAME-TYING GOAL 🗣️

#FIFAWorldCup | #Argentina

[WeGotitBack 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇺🇸 @NotFarLeftAtAll]

Harry Kane will never live this down .. from his team mates… did you see Wayne Rooney trying to hold it in 🤣

British humour is the best in the world !!

[Eric Italiano @ericitaIiano]

one of my favorite subplots of the World Cup has been Zlatan letting his arrogance shtick slip and showing incredible emotional intelligence and empathy

[Travis Flynn @NDRedEagle]

@shaeeflatt The same people who say "intent doesn't matter" for Balogun's red card say that this guy didn't deserve a red because "he didn't mean to run into Adams and deck him."

Which one is it?

[AspiringCandidate @Backwoodsherpa]

@thenonblondedon @ScottHanson

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Donald Trump told you the ballroom would not cost taxpayers a dime. He told you donors were covering it. He even claimed the builders offered to do it for free.

None of that was true.

New reporting shows the White House secretly handed out a no-bid contract worth up to $500 million.

They routed the deal through the Executive Residence office, the one that normally buys White House furniture and art, because it is exempt from the competitive bidding rules every other federal agency has to follow. They even claimed disclosing the project would compromise national security.

The cost estimate has already tripled, from $200 million to $600 million, with half of it landing on taxpayers. The contractor stands to clear tens of millions in profit.

A federal judge already ruled the president has no authority to demolish the East Wing and build this thing. He is doing it anyway.

This is your money, spent in secret, on a vanity project, with the rules deliberately dodged.

More corruption, plain and simple.

https://t.co/ESgm65Trde

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

🚨 TRUMP’S FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE JUST DROPPED…AND IT’S WORSE THAN YOU THOUGHT.

The U.S. Office of Government Ethics released Donald Trump’s 927-page financial disclosure today. Here’s what a sitting U.S. President made in 2025:

💰 $635 MILLION from the TRUMP memecoin, while retail investors watched it crash from $74 to $1.68

💰 $594 MILLION from World Liberty Financial token and stablecoin sales, a crypto venture co-founded with his own sons

💰 $65 MILLION from selling equity in that same company

💰 $80+ MILLION in media settlements from ABC, CBS, Meta, and YouTube, paid to his own presidential library

Total crypto haul: over $1.4 BILLION. In one year. While serving as President of the United States.

His net worth has nearly TRIPLED, from $2.4 billion to $6.3 billion, since taking office.

And while Trump pocketed $1.4 billion from crypto, the everyday Americans who bought his memecoin? They lost. 764,000 wallets ended up in the red.

This is the most corrupt presidency in American history. Period.