Will Acworth

[⚽️ Kyle Sheldon @kylesheldon]

Is this the best World Cup team photo of all time?

Bravo, Norway 🇳🇴⚔️

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

This is so insanely corrupt, I can’t even believe it.

More than half the donors to Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom just won over $50 billion in new federal contracts in six months.

And here’s the part that should make your blood boil.

Sixteen of these 27 donors were facing federal enforcement actions, antitrust reviews, labor cases, securities charges. Many of those cases have been quietly dropped or scaled back since Trump took office. You write a check, your legal problems disappear. That’s not a coincidence.

The White House won’t even release the full donor list. They’re hiding it on purpose, because daylight is the one thing pay-to-play can’t survive. A federal judge already ruled ballroom construction has to stop until Congress authorizes it.

Government is supposed to serve the people, not auction itself off to the highest bidder. When access goes to whoever pays the most, working families always end up paying the price.

We either end the corruption, or the corruption will end us.

https://t.co/4MGFzSseFl

[Mick Bransfield @MickBransfield]

Semafor: A top-tier Spanish soccer team was on the verge of being relegated, which would have cost them millions. For the last game of the season, the owners took a multimillion-dollar position against themselves on Kalshi in case they lost.
https://t.co/6z4jMK7E2k

[Dan Bernstein @dan_bernstein_]

Fascinating quote from CME Group CEO Terry Duffy, whose own company operates a prediction market exchange.

Duffy is unhappy with Kalshi getting a green light on perps.

Via @business: https://t.co/zmRukl2OnI

[John Arnold @johnarnold]

Between stock trading by federal officials, insider trading in prediction markets, fixed sporting events, and suspicious moves in energy, integrity in markets feels lower today than at any point in the modern era.

[Omar @TheOneandOmsy]

Jeff Sprecher, founder and CEO of $ICE (owns the NYSE) on Hyperliquid:
"This Hyperliquid that we're talking -- if you haven't heard about it, it's bigger than NASDAQ, okay? It's 11 people. You look at it, you're like, wow, that's pretty something."

If it wasn't clear before, hyperliquid:native has grown far beyond crypto. The incumbents have noticed, are paying close attention, and even spending time with the team

Bernstein excerpt below and worth the read imo:

[Javier Blas @JavierBlas]

If would be really fitting of 2026 if Tehran ends labelling a toll on the Strait of Hormuz as an “environmental fee.” But, just for fun, Iran should take the plunge and call it a “carbon tax.”

[The Husky @Mr_Husky1]

"Circa early 2018, somewhere in the quiet of his beloved Cornville, Arizona ranch, John McCain — living with the knowledge that his days were growing shorter — made a decision that was so perfectly, mischievously, achingly him that it made the whole country smile through their tears when they finally heard about it: he picked up the phone and called Barack Obama, the man who had defeated him for the presidency a decade earlier, and asked him to speak at his funeral. Obama later said that when that call came, he felt 'sadness and also a certain surprise' — and then, with the warmth that defined him, he recognized exactly what McCain was doing, telling mourners at the Washington National Cathedral on September 1, 2018 that the invitation showed McCain's 'irreverence, his sense of humor, a little bit of a mischievous streak' — because, as Obama put it to a cathedral that erupted in laughter through their grief, 'what better way to get a last laugh than to make George and I say nice things about him to a national audience?' It was John McCain's final act of political theater, and it was genius — choosing the two men who had each defeated him for the presidency to stand before the nation and celebrate his life, sending a message louder than any speech he could have given himself: that in America, rivalry and respect are not opposites, that the man you run against can still be the man you trust with your legacy, and that decency is not weakness but the most durable form of strength. Obama stood at that altar and told the packed cathedral that McCain had 'made this country better,' that he had made Obama a better president, and that when all was said and done, despite every disagreement, 'we never doubted the other man's sincerity or the other man's patriotism' — and in the front pew, Cindy McCain wept, because her husband had arranged, from the very edge of his life, one last beautiful lesson in what it means to be an American.

[Jack @Jackkk]

Mark Cuban explains how he pulled off one of Wall Street’s greatest trades

“When Yahoo offered us $5.7B in stock, I couldn’t sell it for six months”

“So what I did was I took every penny that I had and shorted the internet index as protection, basically taking insurance out in case the internet bubble popped”

“When I was allowed to sell it, because I couldn’t sell it all at once, it would just crater the market, so I did something called a hedge”

“What the hedge is, you can sell options. So I sold call options, which gave somebody else the right to buy my shares at a higher price in the future”

“I took that money and used it to buy puts, which protected me in case the price of my stock went down”

“When it popped, I actually made more money. It was called one of the top 10 trades in Wall Street history”

[Craig Fuller 🛩🚛🚂⚓️ @FreightAlley]

Truckload spot rates hit an all-time high, topping the COVID peak.

Today's rate is $3.69/mile. We expect truckload rates to rally through the rest of the summer.

How soon until $4/mile?

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

The secret payment network that’s funneling billions to Iran’s military https://t.co/LvTjMMVpuF

[The New York Times @nytimes]

Breaking News: House Republicans abruptly canceled a vote on a resolution directing President Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from Iran or win approval from Congress to continue the war, after it became clear they lacked the votes to defeat the measure. https://t.co/2YCMl8GIbj

[Henrik Dahl @SociologenHD]

As a Danish and European politician, I am not accustomed to deliberate public falsehood as a political method. But it is probably something we will have to get used to.

Take, for example, Jeff Landry’s blatant falsehood that Donald Trump was the first major politician to truly place Greenland on the world map.

If we confine ourselves to this century alone, Colin Powell was co-signatory of the Igaliku Agreement in 2004 while serving as Secretary of State. John Negroponte, then Deputy Secretary of State, represented the United States when the Ilulissat Declaration was signed in 2008. John Kerry visited Greenland in 2016 while serving as Secretary of State. And Antony Blinken visited the island in 2021.

Greenland was also visited by Angela Merkel in 2007, when the purpose was to study climate change.

And the island has continuously received visits from American politicians who genuinely take an interest in Arctic affairs. The foremost among them is undoubtedly Lisa Murkowski.

So Greenland has long been on the world map - partly because of climate change, and partly because of the question of Arctic security. And Greenland has continuously been integrated into Arctic cooperation, not least as a consequence of the Igaliku Agreement.

There was a time when I read a great deal of Jürgen Habermas and believed that the norm of truth was an unbreakable norm among civilized people. I believed that, as Habermas put it, the better argument exercised a kind of “forceless force.”

What we lack today is a new Habermas for the twenty-first century - someone capable of describing the performative role of the lie.

Because the reality is this: to someone who knows nothing about Greenland, Jeff Landry’s statements sound perfectly plausible. But they are simply a fabrication. A good story. Something designed to generate support without any ambition toward truth. Harry Frankfurt argued that this is the very essence of what he called “bullshit.”

We no longer merely disagree about values. Increasingly, we disagree about reality itself.

Jeff Landry is part of the post-truth culture that permeates American politics. But it is also something we in Europe will increasingly have to adapt to, simply because of the influence the United States possesses.

It is difficult to say where this post-truth strategy will lead the Western world. But I will be honest: I have reached an age where I preferred the world shaped by the ideals of the Enlightenment - by truth as a moral norm and obligation.

That world is gone. Perhaps permanently. I understand that. But I cannot pretend to admire the replacement.

[SK Tedeschi @skedeschi]

I'm a middle eastern historian. My own family were made refugees. And this is my honest view of the Nakba (“catastrophe”) - the displacement of around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs during the 1947–49 war surrounding the creation of Israel.

A thread. 🧵

[Jo @JoJoFromJerz]

For as long as I live, I will never understand how January 6th wasn’t the end of Donald Trump.

I will never, ever understand it.

[Rep. Don Beyer @RepDonBeyer]

Outright lies.

Trump's assets aren't in a blind trust, and he bought and sold individual Nvidia stock in 15 separate transactions totaling millions of dollars.

That's what Trump's financial disclosure - which has his signature - says.

See for yourself: https://t.co/04UEfkKbBW

[Jamie Bonkiewicz @JamieBonkiewicz]

Seriously guys, whatever happened to:

• the DOGE checks
• tariff checks
• the Greenland hospital boat
• 10% APR on credit cards
• my meds being 1500% cheaper
• $2 gas
• the Epstein files
• reopening the Strait of Hormuz that was already open
• cheaper groceries
• ending wars in 24 hours
• the “privately funded” ballroom

Any updates?

[Mike Netter @nettermike]

September 11, 2001. 9:37 a.m.
Lt. Col. Marilyn Wills was in a Pentagon conference room when American Airlines Flight 77 struck.
The fireball threw her across the table. Her hair caught fire. The room went black with smoke.
Crawling, she felt a hand grab her belt.
"My name is Lois," a voice said. Lois Stevens, a civilian employee, injured and choking.
"Stay with me. Where I go, you go."
Wills pressed her Army sweater into Lois's hands. "Breathe through this." When Lois collapsed, her nylons melted to her legs, Wills lifted her onto her back and carried her.
Six others followed the sound of her voice through the wreckage.
They reached a sealed second-floor window. They broke it. Cool air rushed in. Wills stayed inside.
"I'll go last," she said, and helped lower every person out before she fell into rescuers' arms below.
Lois Stevens lived 23 more years because of that decision.
Wills received the Soldier's Medal and Purple Heart for her burns, smoke inhalation, and traumatic brain injury. Thirteen days later, she returned to the Pentagon. She later deployed to Afghanistan.
She never called herself a hero.
"We lost so many that day," she said quietly. "They were my friends."
Some leaders give orders. Others carry people through the fire.
God bless Lt. Col. Marilyn Wills — and all who served on 9/11.

[Ryan Glasspiegel @sportsrapport]

I have said this a few times but think this is going to pose a very interesting threat to Kalshi and Polymarket. Susquehanna does a lot of market-making on the prediction market platforms, and a lot of Kalshi's order flow has come through Robinhood. How this all plays out will be fascinating.

[CME Group Interest Rates @Interest_Rates]

Higher for longer, visualized.

In the past month, SR3 traders have moved from targeting cuts to positioning for more elevated rates well into 2027.