k hatch

@RealJamesWoods Bill of Rights is the most liberalizing document in history of mankind. It prevents government. It frees we, the people. I love suggested BOR as inspirational reading for my lib friends!

@dissidentwest $ backed financial system

Name one single way in which American lives have improved from all of the wars we’ve fought in the Middle East. Good luck

@aakashgupta @SharylAttkisson Entrepreneur

In 1999, David Phillips bought 12,150 cups of chocolate pudding and turned them into 1.25 million free airline miles. Adam Sandler later made a movie about it. He was a 35-year-old civil engineer at UC Davis when he spotted a Healthy Choice promotion offering 500 frequent flyer miles for every 10 product barcodes mailed in. Double the miles if you sent them in by May 31. Three weeks away. Phillips ran the math nobody else did. The cheapest qualifying product was Healthy Choice individual pudding cups at Grocery Outlet. 25 cents each. That meant $2.50 of pudding bought 1,000 airline miles. The airlines themselves valued those miles at $20. He drove a van across California with his mother-in-law, cleaned out 10 different Grocery Outlets around Sacramento, and stacked 12,150 pudding cups from his garage to his living room. When cashiers got suspicious, he told them he was stocking up for Y2K. There was no way he could peel that many barcodes alone before the deadline. So he called the Salvation Army and proposed a trade. He'd donate every cup if their volunteers peeled the labels first. They agreed. Phillips kept the barcodes. The Salvation Army fed people with $3,000 worth of pudding. And he claimed an $815 federal tax deduction on the donation. He mailed the barcodes by May 31 and waited. Two months of silence. His friends told him corporations always renege on these promotions. His own kids asked if he got scammed. Then a giant package arrived. Paper certificates worth 1,253,000 frequent flyer miles. Lifetime AAdvantage Gold status at American Airlines. $150,000 worth of flights. The Wall Street Journal put him on the front page in January 2000. The London Times followed a week later. Paul Thomas Anderson read the coverage and built Punch Drunk Love around him in 2002. Phillips paid for his movie ticket with pudding. Over the next five years he flew his entire family to 43 countries. Net cost after the tax write-off: $2,325. That's $54 per country.

@Chicago1Ray He stored them at his parents house and got them when arrived

Cole Allen traveled from LA to DC by train, stopping in Chgo to change trains Had a (12) gauge - shotgun, a (38) caliber Semi-Auto handgun & several knives on him There's no way he traveled with all those weapons on him, someone planted those weapons in that Hotel INSIDE JOB

@stats_feed Moulin Rouge. American Psycho.

What movie do you dislike that everyone else seems to like?

@markkaplan20 @BillAckman Scanning thread: Better diagnosis now - yes; uncommon medical knowledge as recent as 1970s; perhaps fad medicine …

My Alzheimer's thread hit 604,000 views this weekend. Bill Ackman shared it. Doctors debated it. People sent it to their cardiologists. But a lot of people asked me the same question. Show me the data. Here it is. Alzheimer's deaths, Type 2 Diabetes, and obesity. All indexed to 1960. Alzheimer's deaths have exploded 134x. Type 2 Diabetes. 8x. Obesity. 3.2x. Same timeline. Same inflection point. Same curve. This is not genetics. Genetics do not change in 60 years. This is a man-made disease. The chart is the proof.

@engineers_feed Red. Any tone.

Whats the best looking color for a car?

@TimothyEveland Maybe. How’s acoustics?

This medieval shipping container home is actually pretty sick. Would you live in one of these?

@Osinttechnical The mullahs are aware??

Iranian negotiators have passed messages to the US asking Trump to tone down his threats -WSJ Iranian diplomats reportedly believe that the hardliners will be more open to negotiations if Trump stops threatening them so much.

@spectatorindex Eggs?

Price increase since 1st of January, 2026. Gasoline: +102% Heating oil: +82% Brent crude oil: +73% Crude oil: +64% European gas: +59%

@brim006 Also in CA see filthy redwood hot tubs, Craziest pols, draconian coastal zone controls, filthy sidewalks, scarce u-haul inventory…

The lowest point in North America (Death Valley, CA) and the highest peak in the lower 48 (mt Whitney, CA) are only 85 miles apart. Pains me to say California has everything. You can see the tallest tree in the world, the largest tree in the world, tallest peak in lower 48 and the lowest point in NA all in one day…

@WarMonitor3 Javier math might update that preference

In 2013 there was a referendum of independence in the Falkland Islands whether to be part of Britain, the vote concluded with a 92 percent turnout 98 percent voting to stay as a British Island.

@thyphoidjack @k9_reaper She also liked to slap the hired help

Winnie Mandela At her father's advice, Winnie left the Transkei for Johannesburg in 1953 to pursue a career in social work. Here, she attended the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work. In 1955 she graduated at the top of her class and was offered a scholarship to study further in the USA. She declined, choosing instead to do social work in her home country. Winnie took up a medical social work post in Johannesburg's Baragwanath Hospital, becoming the first qualified black person to fill the post. She went on to make a name for herself at the hospital, appearing in newspapers that told the story of her humble beginnings and her successful career.

I have two stacks on my desk. The left stack is financial disclosure forms from members of Congress. The right stack is waivers for members who filed their financial disclosures late. The right stack is always taller. On Wednesday morning, I watched a soldier get arrested on CNN. I am a Disclosure Analyst for the House Ethics Committee. I have held this position for eleven years. My job is to receive the forms, verify their completeness, and file them. I do not investigate. I do not flag. I do not refer. I file. I have a lanyard. The lanyard says ETHICS. The soldier's name is Gannon Ken Van Dyke. He is thirty-eight years old. He was stationed at Fort Bragg. He was Special Forces. In December, he created an account on a prediction market called Polymarket. On January 2nd, he bet $32,500 that the president of Venezuela would be removed from power. On January 3rd, he helped remove the president of Venezuela from power. He collected $409,881. He has been charged with five federal crimes. Commodities fraud. Wire fraud. Unlawful use of confidential government information. Theft of nonpublic government information. Unlawful monetary transaction. The Department of Justice called it "the first-ever insider trading prosecution on event contracts." I watched this on the television in our break room. Then I walked back to my desk and processed a late financial disclosure from a member of the House Financial Services Committee who purchased $250,000 in bank stocks eleven days before his subcommittee held a closed-door hearing on proposed capital reserve changes. The filing was forty-seven days late. The STOCK Act requires disclosure within forty-five days. The penalty for late filing is $200. I waived it. I waive most of them. In 2021, fifty-four members of Congress and senior staff violated the reporting rules. The fines were minimal. Most were waived. I have a form for the waiver. The form has a box that says "Reason." I write "administrative delay." In ethics, "administrative delay" means the member's office forgot and then remembered when a reporter called. My approval rate is one hundred percent. In any other field, that number would trigger an audit. In mine, it is called thoroughness. Let me show you what I processed this year. January. A senator on the Armed Services Committee sold defense contractor shares worth $1.2 million. Three days later, his committee received a classified briefing that the Iran campaign had exceeded its projected cost by 340%. The stock dropped 8%. He filed the disclosure sixty-one days late. I calculated the fine. $200. His chief of staff asked if it could be waived. He did not ask what the senator traded on. Nobody asks that. The form does not have a field for it. I waived the fine. The senator's portfolio returned 23.4% in 2025. The S&P 500 returned 16.8%. February. A representative on the Energy and Commerce Committee bought pharmaceutical stocks worth $400,000. Two weeks later, her committee advanced a bill that would extend patent exclusivity for the exact drug class she purchased. The stocks rose 14%. She filed on time. There was no fine. There was no investigation. There was nothing to investigate because buying stocks in companies regulated by your own committee is not illegal. It is legal. The STOCK Act made it legal by making it disclosed. In Congress, disclosed means legal. In my office, legal means filed. March. A member whose spouse manages a portfolio worth $9.2 million reported forty-three separate transactions in a single quarter. Twelve of them were in sectors directly affected by legislation the member co-sponsored. The timing on eight of those twelve was within a two-week window of committee action. I logged all forty-three. None were flagged. We do not flag. We file. I asked my supervisor once what would happen if I flagged a filing. She said we do not have a form for that. I never asked again. In 2020, I processed 847 disclosures. In 2023, 1,211. In 2025, 1,614. The number of enforcement actions in each of those years was zero. The numerator changes. The denominator does not. I want to tell you about the soldier again. He made $409,881. He tried to delete his Polymarket account by calling customer service and saying he lost access to his email. He moved his profits into a foreign cryptocurrency vault and then into a new brokerage account. He used his real identity. He placed thirteen bets. Every single one was connected to an operation he personally participated in. In my eleven years, I have processed disclosures from members of Congress who traded on: Pending FDA approvals they learned about in committee. Defense appropriations they voted on. Trade policy they negotiated. Pandemic response measures they drafted. Interest rate decisions they were briefed on before the public. None of them have been charged. None of them have been investigated by the Department of Justice. None of them have been referred to the SEC. The STOCK Act has produced zero prosecutions since it was signed on April 4th, 2012. Fourteen years. Five hundred and thirty-five members. $635 million in trades last year alone. Zero cases. My daughter asked me once what happens when someone breaks the rules. I told her we write it down. She asked what happens after that. I said it depends. She was nine. She is twenty now. It does not depend. Nothing happens after that. The soldier made $409,881 and faces decades in prison. Nancy Pelosi entered Congress in 1987 with a portfolio worth approximately $785,000. It is now worth $133.7 million. That is a return of 16,930%. The Dow Jones returned 2,300% over the same period. Professional fund managers who beat the market for three consecutive years are considered exceptional. She has beaten it for thirty-seven. If a hedge fund produced those returns, the SEC would subpoena the records on a Thursday. She produced them from a building with a chapel and a gift shop. She announced her retirement last year. No investigation was opened. No disclosure was flagged. Her filings were on time. In my office, on time means compliant. Compliant means closed. I want to tell you about the fine. $200. That is the maximum penalty for violating the STOCK Act's disclosure requirements. $200 for a member of Congress whose portfolio gained $4.7 million in a single quarter. I calculated what $200 represents as a percentage of $4.7 million. It is 0.004%. I could not find a comparison that made it meaningful. It is less than the price of the parking pass in the Rayburn garage. It is less than lunch at the members' dining room if you order the crab cakes, which I am told are excellent though I eat at my desk. Since 2012, thirty-one bills have been introduced to restrict congressional trading. I keep a list. The list is longer than the STOCK Act itself. On March 5th, 2026, a representative from Michigan introduced the thirty-second. He called it the "No Getting Rich in Congress Act." The bill would prohibit the President, Vice President, members of Congress, and their spouses from trading individual stocks, cryptocurrency, futures, and commodities while in office. The bill was referred to committee. The committee has not scheduled a hearing. The committee is chaired by a member whose spouse executed $2.1 million in trades last year. The bill will be reviewed. In my office, reviewed means read. Read means acknowledged. Acknowledged means a status has been assigned. A status is the absence of an action that has been given a name so it looks like one. The soldier used classified information to make $409,881 on a prediction market. He has been charged with five federal crimes. The Department of Justice announced the case on the same day I processed three disclosures from members who traded on committee knowledge worth a combined $3.8 million. The difference between the soldier and the members is not what they did. It is the building they did it in. He did it from Fort Bragg. They did it from the Capitol. He used a prediction market. They used the New York Stock Exchange. He bet on a military operation. They bet on the legislation they write. He did not write the law. They did. They wrote the STOCK Act. Then they funded its enforcement at zero dollars. Then they set its maximum penalty at $200. Then they gave my office the authority to waive it. Then they traded $635 million. The soldier flew to Caracas. He breached a compound. He put his body between a mission and a bullet. The people who ordered the operation were in a building with a credenza and sparkling water. They did not go to Caracas. They went to their brokerage accounts. The soldier made $409,881 and is now in federal custody. The people who knew what he was going to do before he did it made more and filed less. His prosecution is not a failure of the system. It is the system. One conviction per decade, at the lowest level, so the briefing slides can say enforcement exists. The $409,881 is not the crime. It is the cost of making $635 million look supervised. In my field, we call this self-regulation. The soldier's Polymarket account has been frozen. His military career is over. He will spend years in federal prison. My office will process every congressional disclosure filed this year. Every trade logged. Every $200 fine calculated and waived. The system is immaculate. Fourteen years. Zero prosecutions. $635 million a year. A 16,930% return. I have not leaked a document. I have not filed a complaint. I have not deviated from the process one single time. The process was written by the people whose forms I process. As long as the disclosures go up and the cases don't, my performance review says I am meeting expectations. My lanyard still says ETHICS. In eleven years, nobody has asked me to define the word.

@BrianRoemmele Painstaking. Something a computer will never know.

The amazing art of James Cook!

@shanaka86 We can see it now. A catastrophic oil spill is coming. And who will get blamed for taking out pariah terror state?

JUST IN: Iran just pulled a thirty-year-old empty supertanker out of retirement and began towing it toward Kharg Island. She is moving so slowly that a voyage that should take a day and a half is taking four days. Her name is NASHA. IMO 9079107. Built 1996. A two-million-barrel very large crude carrier that has been anchored empty off Kharg for years. TankerTrackers confirmed her reactivation yesterday. Gulf News, Iran International, and Fox News all picked it up within hours. The reason she is moving at all is that Iran is running out of places to put the oil. Kharg Island handles roughly ninety percent of Iran’s crude exports. Its onshore tanks had about thirteen million barrels of spare capacity when the US blockade began on April 13. Net inflow since has been running at one million to one point one million barrels per day because exports have collapsed to single digits of vessels while upstream production continues. The math is mechanical. Roughly twelve days of spare capacity. The calendar says that window closes this week. NASHA is not a strategy. NASHA is what you do when you have run out of strategy. A two-million-barrel floating storage vessel buys Iran approximately forty-eight hours of continued upstream production. After that, either the wells get shut in or the crude goes somewhere else. The parallel options being pursued, ship-to-ship transfers in the Riau Archipelago, AIS-dark transits, sanctioned VLCCs returning home through the blockade line, are not enough. Lloyd’s List Intelligence has tracked roughly twenty-six Iran-linked vessels evading since April 13. That cannot absorb a million barrels a day. The wells will shut in. The question is which wells, for how long, and whether they come back. The Asmari and Bangestan carbonate formations that sit under most of Iran’s giant southern fields are high-permeability, strong-water-drive systems. The Society of Petroleum Engineers literature on this specific reservoir class is unambiguous. Remove continuous pressure support for a prolonged shut-in and four damage mechanisms activate simultaneously: water coning upward through the fracture network, fines migration into pore throats, formation compaction under increased effective stress, and clay swelling under altered salinity and pH. The damage is not theoretical. It is documented. And it is measured in months to years of recoverable production capacity, not days. Maleki and Gordon estimate three hundred to five hundred thousand barrels per day of permanent capacity loss if the current shut-in trajectory completes. That is a directional estimate, not a lab measurement, but the direction is not in dispute. NASHA is the archaeological signature of the clock. When a country with the world’s third-largest oil reserves reactivates a thirty-year-old retired tanker to float on top of its main export terminal and buy forty-eight hours of time, the institutional systems designed to absorb shocks have already failed. The insurance market, the shadow fleet, the diplomatic channels, and the reservoir physics are all converging on the same conclusion at different speeds, and NASHA is the one that shows up on satellite. The market is pricing a ceasefire. The Pentagon is pricing six months of mine clearance. Iran just pulled a corpse out of the Persian Gulf and asked it to buy two days. That is not how a reversible crisis looks. That is how a regime tells you, operationally, that it has run out of options between the blockade and the shut-in. The reservoir does not negotiate. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

@FrankBr05713205 Systems engineering failure ‘spensive!

It Took GM More Than 28,000 Failed V8s And Three Internal Investigations Before Recalling Its L87 Engines, the standard engine in Escalades, High Country Silverados, full-size Denalis, the trucks that people spend the big bucks on. Seems these engines have defective crankshafts causing catastrophic engine failure. Over the past six or so years, owners of high-trim half-ton GM trucks and SUVs have reported engines conking out, sometimes at alarmingly low mileage. Glad to hear these engines are finally getting recalled, but its going to take quite a while to get all those engines replaced

The CBS News segment on SPLC defrauding its donors and paying hate groups is wild. “The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose.” Great reporting!

@N0tThatSimple @TRHLofficial @JDVance And Unions.

@TRHLofficial @JDVance Nope. The only bad monopolies are those enabled or mandated by government. All the real monopolies are either beneficial or lose competition.

.@JDVance: “I really worry about concentration in the corporate sector. I worry about big corporate monopolies. When you have only one or two companies dominating an entire sector, it’s bad for liberty and it’s bad for prosperity.” That’s exactly what the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern railroad merger would do, create a coast-to-coast monopoly controlling nearly half of all U.S. rail freight.

“The guard of a tyrant is composed of foreigners; he trusts them rather than citizens, for the one are enemies, while the others offer no rivalry.” — Aristotle

@Noahpinion @sethjlevy No! China knows how to write off bad loans plenty good.

LOLLLLLLLLLLL Belt and Road failed so hard. Xi Jinping is incompetent.