Jeffrey Carson

Old high school friend randomly sends me this text today: "I have historically poked fun at your libertarian views simply because they were different. After being in commercial and gov business, as a vendor, I realize I too am a full blown libertarian. Thank you"

@dianabutsko Great reporting 👍

I worked in southern Ukraine. Here are a few key takeaways from the 2026 ‘counteroffensive.’ 1/ “We advanced roughly 10 kilometers into enemy defenses,” says “Lawyer,” deputy commander of the 3rd battalion of the 82nd Air Assault Brigade.

The United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East. Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE.....

Left: "Much of Beijing's current strategy toward the US was laid down in 2002, when the CCP concluded China faced an unprecedented 20-year 'period of strategic opportunity' [due to] the GWOT distracting US leaders." Right: Cover of this week's The Economist magazine.

@dim0kq So incredibly prescient, especially given what's transpired over the past month in the Gulf region.

About a year ago, I wrote an article with my friend, Prof. Schultz, about how saving Ukraine will make America stronger. Ukraine is so advanced in the warfighting that USA must learn from it ASAP, partner with Ukraine strategically and become stronger. intpolicydigest.org/how-saving-ukr…

@scottlincicome Had to

It's a mess, folks.

@MorgenRochard 💯

Before you hit submit on your taxes, did you only move bitcoin to cold storage? Then leave the digital assets box unchecked!

Ukraine isn't just surviving - it's rewriting the rules of modern warfare. The grandson of Gen. Patton went to the front lines and came back stunned by what he saw. I really recommend you read this. History in the making. kyivindependent.com/inside-ukraine…

@dim0kq 💯

@AdamBLiv Thanks for sharing this— good stuff Adam 👍

I suppose I could have learned this lesson four months sooner when Trump alluded to Rand Paul being ugly on a national debate stage before he surged in the polls. Sometimes reality needs to punch you in the face for you to learn.

I love the Paul family. Ron + Rand are awesome. I read End the Fed by Ron Paul as a young high school student and it blew my mind. His 2012 presidential campaign was really when I first got interested in politics and the libertarian faction of the right wing was very appealing to me at the time. I caucused for Rand Paul in 2015. I was a 19 year old kid in rural Iowa and I will never forget what that experience was like. It was me in a section of the public library with about 70 boomers. I was the youngest person there, by far. Grinnell, Iowa is very interesting because of Grinnell College... it is a farm town in the middle of nowhere with an uppity, prestigious private university with a bunch of hippie communist college students. When Bernie Sanders came to town hundreds of young people flocked to the public park to hear him speak, and yet here I was wanting to champion small government in a room full of boomers and there wasn't anybody there even remotely close to my age. I spotted one man who was young, at least on a relative basis. Probably in his late 30's. We were all given time to go up and speak the case for our candidate of choice. That gentleman proceeded to go up in front of the room and give an extremely eloquent plea for a peaceful foreign policy and major economic reform. He was a military veteran who served multiple tours in the middle east. The only other person to say a word out loud in front of everyone was me. Two people spoke up about their desire for who the GOP nominee should be. Plenty of people chatted casually from their seats, but only two of us were willing to stand up and make a case. Libertarian idealism versus mass populist gravity. College town leftism outside, aging conservative energy inside. I'll never forget what happened next. The votes were read back to everyone in the room. I don't remember the exact numbers, but around 75 votes were cast, and Trump received about 70. Rand Paul received 2. From the only 2 people who spoke up. Nobody's minds were changed. That night stuck with me because it taught me something I didn’t want to learn at 19. Principle alone does not win. Eloquence alone does not win. The people with the most coherent philosophy are often just spectators while the crowd moves toward power, force, and whoever seems capable of imposing their will. That was probably the night I started to understand that politics is much less about truth than about organized power.

@JuliaDuzon @BitPaine y'all are crushing it Julia

+1 what @BitPaine said

@JoinCrowdHealth Y'all rock

Ok, so you find a billing error…what do you do? We might be idiots but…we are giving away our data for free. We will soon launch a tool that allows people to evaluate their ER bill: Our analysis will be based upon our internal data. Not ChatGPT data or Claude. Real data collected over 40,000 bills with real hospitals. For example, if we know that hospital A typically will negotiate to $ X we will tell you that. We will scan for potential billing errors or upcodes and if we know that certain hospitals tend to upcode, we will tell you that We will tell you what price we would try to negotiate it to. We will give you the right questions to ask. (Does the CT scan price include the radiologist fee or is it just for the scan/facility fee?) We will give you the right number to call if you want to try and negotiate it. Why would we do this for free? Full transparency, if we can provide you value, we hope this will be a catalyst for you to try our core product: Peer to peer healthcare funding. If not, we will reassess. And of course, there will be no changes to how it works with our current members. We will continue to go to war for you to negotiate these bills. 🙏🏻 Stay tuned. Q2 launch expected.

Why does it cost less to build a base on the moon than high speed rail from sf to la

@JohnCleese @nbcsnl

Hard to believe this isn't a Monty Python sketch

@RKelanic @saifedean Thanks for this. Solid analysis

Wars reveal information about countries' relative military capabilities and interests. That's one of the most important insights from the bargaining model of war. Iran believed before the war that fighting the U.S. would strengthen its bargaining position -- and Iran was correct. This war has revealed that Iran wouldn't topple after Khamenei's death, that Iran is highly resolved, and it can inflict damage across the Gulf at low cost, indefinitely. It revealed that Iran can gain massive leverage -- and perhaps even collect "tolls" -- from controlling shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. By contrast, the war has *hurt* U.S. & Israeli bargaining power compared to where it was before the Geneva talks in February. That means we'll get worse terms now than if we'd accepted Iran's proposal then. Why is the U.S./Israel position worse? Decapitation strikes failed to induce Iran to surrender (always an unlikely prospect), nullifying the U.S./Israeli theory of victory by day 3. No new plausible theory of victory has emerged, and it's doubtful one will. That hurts the U.S. position. Trump has proven highly sensitive to oil market swings, and even *removed sanctions* on Iranian oil. As @edwardfishman noted, Iran gained more sanctions relief from closing Hormuz than through any diplomatic means, including the JCPOA. The disruption to oil markets, and Trump's concern about them, also hurts the U.S. position. Now that the war has bogged down into an attrition battle, where Iran can impose costs with cheap means like drones and missiles and Israeli interceptors seem to be running low, the U.S. and Israel are on the losing end of the damage and casualties curve. Costs and casualties will get worse, not better, over time, and that further hurts U.S./Israeli bargaining leverage. Trump is now considering, frankly, foolhardy military gambits, potentially to seize Kharg, islands in Hormuz, or perhaps the highly enriched uranium trapped somewhere under rubble in Iran. These would be significant escalations putting U.S. troops on the ground. None are likely to end the war, and all would likely cause U.S. casualties. In the business lingo, Trump's BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) is way worse -- not least because of the shadow of Afghanistan. The U.S. forces being surged to the Middle East (2 MEUs plus some airborne units) are comparable to what George W. Bush used to invade Afghanistan in the autumn 2001. What started out as a limited mission to topple the Taliban and capture Osama bin Laden, who instead escaped through the Tora Bora mountains, evolved into a ground campaign that eventually ballooned to over 100k U.S. troops in 2011. The clear imperative here is for Trump to deescalate, credibility costs be damned. This war is existential for Iran but not for the United States, Iran will keep fighting with cheap means like drones, and it will eventually outlast the U.S. just like the Taliban did in Afghanistan. That, or Iran could fracture into chaos, creating refugee flows and breeding terrorism for decades to come. (Terrorism isn't an existential threat to the U.S., but we shouldn't be creating the conditions for it.) Trump doesn't like backing down, but that is what needs to happen here, and stat, before ill-fated escalation leads to more needless deaths. @defpriorities

@EricBoehm87 obligatory

those crazy libertarians. what's next? buying bananas not grown in America? totally unserious ideology smdh

Fighting a second-rate military power while vicariously and indirectly militarily and economically strengthening two first-order ones, which you may have to confront at a later stage, through your actions, and the sequencing problems it creates, may perhaps not be sound military strategy.

@luanalopeslara @mansourtarek_ tell'em

@mansourtarek_ marketsovermonopolies.com

All this screenshot shows is that Kalshi payouts are better for the consumer. Thanks for the free marketing though. marketsovermonopolies.com

90 minutes left to attempt generational wealth. The odds are not zero. And it's free. You owe it to your grandchildren.

Every year my wife and I take PTO for the first 2 days of March Madness. We go to the spa before the Thursday games start then we park ourselves on the couch with a 3 tv set up, hangout, watch basketball and eat. It’s my favorite weekend of the year!

@Kpaxs So true

The asymmetry can be brutal. It takes 1000 days to build a reputation, 1 bad day to destroy it. 100 good decisions to gain trust, 1 catastrophically stupid one to lose it forever. And you don't get points for averaging out.