Spencer Mullins

Iranian Debates Over U.S. Blockade Strategy 🔹The Wall Street Journal has reported that Donald Trump has instructed his aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran, aimed at further restricting Iran’s oil exports and broader economic activity in order to increase pressure over its nuclear program. 🔹As such, Trump has apparently opted to rely on economic pressure – specifically squeezing Iran’s oil exports – rather than returning to direct military strikes or disengaging from the conflict altogether. 🔸However, these and similar reports have been interpreted differently in Iran. Some pro-government experts and commentators argue that such reporting is intended to shape public perception by suggesting that the active phase of the war has ended, thereby encouraging a relaxation of security protocols. In this view, this could create conditions for the United States and Israel to prepare a new surprise attack. 🔹In the same vein, others argue that the continued deployment of U.S. naval assets in the region may not be solely about intensifying the blockade. Instead, they suggest it reflects lessons learned during the 40 days of war, when the vulnerability of U.S. bases in Gulf countries became apparent, prompting preparations to use alternative platforms, e.g., aircraft carriers, as primary launch points for future operations. 🔸Some commentators go further, suggesting that the United States may be considering combining a naval blockade with additional measures, including an air blockade or even the establishment of a no-fly zone, viewing these steps as part of preparations for a new phase of the war. 🔹At the same time, there are voices expressing concern about the blockade itself, particularly if it becomes entrenched. They argue that Iran must take the initiative to break the blockade – whether through diplomatic or other means – before it solidifies as a new reality. According to this perspective, once established, the cost of reversing such a measure could exceed simply reopening the Strait of Hormuz. 🔹These critics also stress that, unlike sanctions regimes, where Iran has historically found ways to circumvent restrictions, a naval blockade represents a fundamentally different challenge. In their view, it constitutes a form of warfare by other means and cannot be treated as comparable to sanctions. ➡️Overall, the perception in Iran is that the war is far from over; rather, the naval blockade is seen either as a prelude to further escalation or as a trigger that could bring about a new round of conflict sooner rather than later.

The thing that Democrats say never happens is happening again:

“Threatening the life of the President of the United States will never be tolerated by the Department of Justice.” -Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche

The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank. It just published a 30-year study showing immigrants paid 14.5 trillion dollars more in taxes than they received in government benefits. Every single year. For thirty years. Without exception. The country was lied to. Here is what the study found.🧵

King Charles: "The U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances."

You check your Apple Watch in the morning. Sleep score: 62. You decide it's going to be a foggy day. And then it is. A 2014 Colorado College study suggests the score itself causes the fog. 164 people walked into a lab. Researchers hooked them up to fake EEG equipment and told them the readout would show their REM percentage from the night before. Then they fabricated a number. Half the room was told 28.7%. Half was told 16.2%. The machine wasn't measuring anything. Participants took four cognitive tests. The Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test, where you add numbers spoken at increasing speed and hold your last sum in working memory while computing the next. And the Controlled Oral Word Association Task, where you generate as many words as you can starting with a single letter under time pressure. Both are gold-standard measures of attention and executive function used in clinical neurology. The 28.7% group outperformed the 16.2% group on both. Significantly. How rested participants actually felt that morning predicted nothing. The mechanism is mindset priming an executive resource. When you believe you slept well, you allocate cognitive effort more aggressively. You don't conserve. You don't pre-disengage. Belief about the resource changes how you spend it. Two control conditions ruled out demand characteristics. Participants weren't trying harder because they thought they should. Real measurable cognitive performance shifted with the number on the readout. The Apple Watch sleep score. The Oura ring readiness number. The morning ritual of checking either one is taxing the resource you're about to need. The performance gap from a fabricated REM percentage was larger than the gap from how rested participants actually felt. The number was louder than the night.