Pete Vander Meulen

@MichaelVancePem @BalboaPark Welcome to the hotel. California. Check it out. Any time you like. But those are palms. They never leave. -your fronds, The Eagles

Balboa Park, San Diego, California. @BalboaPark

@ViewFromShikhar 1,000 yard stare

Photographers, show us some of your Black&White shots (can be anything) 📸

Photographers, Show me your best Golden hour shots!! ✨

@MilkRoadMacro Do you think they're paying Iran the $2M toll per, discounted by their "friendly toward" policies?

AROUND 15-18 SHIPS PASSED HORMUZ IN THE LAST 24 HOURS This is largest amount of traffic we've seen through the Strait of Hormuz since March 1st. Here are the previous numbers for context: Before the war, the Strait handled 130+ ships per day. Right now, we’re at roughly 10% of normal flow. But here’s the shift: Throughout most of March, traffic averaged just 2 ships/day. But now we’re consistently seeing double digits. So yes, it’s still low but it’s a meaningful improvement. That said, this won’t ease pressure on oil just yet. For that, the Strait needs to fully reopen at scale. We track the Strait of Hormuz traffic daily. Follow along if you want to stay ahead of this trend.

@jennyrozelle ...oh no, you just did. :-)

Jenny’s #1 holiday rule: Don’t bring up estate planning at holiday gatherings!

Share your beach photographs.

So much power in this. You honor him well. My best friend is a Marine Doc, combat 'Nam. I've taken a fist in the face from him thanks to PTSD. Horror from war is a hell known only to the eyes who see it. "Glad" that you at least had some insight into the s**t he endured. Semper Fi, "kid".

This is my father, John Hardy Fish. He did two tours of duty in Vietnam. He suffered 3 gunshot wounds and was left with PSTD that didn't leave him until his death on 2/14/2016. I was aware he had served in the Vietnam War but he wasn't willing to talk about it with me until I was well into my thirties.  He came face to face with two men he killed and watched die.  One came up on him in the jungle and Dad’s aim was better than his.  The other one aimed to shoot him from an airplane.  Dad's aim was better and he watched the man drop to his death and fall close to him.   He always wondered whose child he killed, whose brother he killed, whose uncle and possibly father he killed.  He said he knew it was much more but those were the only two that were up close.  From the time he was brought up in church as a small child he was taught Thou Shall Not Kill, but at the age of 18 he was commanded to kill. He said my generation could never comprehend what all soldiers went through over there.  He said he would wake up and have to walk past dead bodies stacked up.  He said he would oftentimes have to lay down in the jungle and not know if he would wake up getting shot at or a snake slithering over him.   #the50grandfinale VietnamWar #Military #Easter

@AndrewYang Now is likely the best time to tackle it. If you say no, the reinforcements emotionally and psychologically will keep layering on top of your resistance to the idea. Green light it, Andrew. So it doesn't work out. Your paradigms will change. By choice. That's good.

Was asked to do something out of my comfort zone. Will probably say yes. 😀

Factoid: we fought a little longer than that. Kennedy sent "advisors" in '62 or '63. The last helicopter lifted off the embassy on April 30, '75. Either way, both dates are much less than stated by the Podium Polluter in his 19 minute speech last week. His writers said it lasted 19 years +.

The US sent 543,000 troops to Vietnam. They fought for eight years and lost. Iran is a bigger challenge. More money. Deadlier weapons. Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

The EO, as others, succeeds by elevating narrative and debate even if the President opines that it's his way or the highway. As one of my employees consistently told me after offering alternatives to our internal practices or customer relationship management: "just planting a seed. You know, Pete, one might grow."

The enforcement mechanism tells you everything about how this actually works. The executive order doesn't change a single rule. It asks the NCAA to change its own rules by August 1. The same NCAA whose transfer restrictions were struck down by courts in 2024. The same courts that have granted 70+ athletes eligibility extensions in the last year alone, costing the NCAA $16 million in litigation. So the lever is federal funding. Schools that don't comply risk losing grants and contracts. This is the same playbook the administration used on DEI policies at universities, on Harvard's federal funding, on campus speech rules. Mixed results across the board. A federal judge blocked the Harvard funding cut in September. Here's the timing that matters: the basketball transfer portal opens Tuesday. Thousands of players are already planning to enter. 25% of FBS football players used the portal in the 2026 cycle. In the Group of Six, 70% of all-conference players left their teams. The portal isn't a loophole. It's the entire labor market. The order wants to put the toothpaste back in the tube while the tube is being squeezed harder than ever. Multiple lawyers have already said the transfer restrictions won't survive court challenges. The president himself predicted lawsuits at the March roundtable and said he "hoped" for a favorable judge. Congress has had five years to pass legislation. The House has delayed voting on the SCORE Act twice since September. The Senate is still negotiating. An executive order is a pressure signal, not a rulebook. The real question is whether schools will risk their federal funding to test it, or whether they'll comply first and litigate later.

@Microinteracti1 I wish MS NOW would follow up with the "almost obvious" question: How then would you and your team of strategists manage this war? Why is that better?

A retired U.S. Army general is calling the Iran war the greatest geopolitical disaster in American history. Brigadier General Steve Anderson told MSNBC that the Trump administration has “completely mismanaged this war” and warned that any ground operation would be “an absolute disaster.” He said the IRGC are 200,000 committed fighters in what they see as a holy war. Americans will die, he said. It is not a question of if. It is a question of how many. The warning landed alongside a sweeping leadership purge at the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth forced out Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, ordering him to retire immediately, while also removing the head of Army Transformation and Training Command and the Army’s chief of chaplains.  It is the latest in a string of more than a dozen firings of top generals and admirals by Hegseth since taking office, with no reason given for any of them.  One congressional observer put it plainly: experienced generals are telling Hegseth his Iran war plans are unworkable, disastrous, and deadly.  The response from Hegseth was to fire them. Anderson cited Sun Tzu: know the enemy as yourself. His conclusion was blunt. The U.S. does not know this enemy.  Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

@anneapplebaum My belief is that these things still count, and will, for something in America, by the majority of Americans. That still won't matter to this man, our representative to the world. Never forget.

"This isn’t cowardice. It’s a calculation: If allied leaders thought that their sacrifice might count for something in Washington, they might choose differently." But most of them know that Trump will not even remember that it happened. theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/…

Welcome to the Colors Photo Challenge! QP or share a photo with the day's color. Easy peasy. Day 1 - RED 🔴

@Scaramucci Fueled by addiction. Fooled by power to think it's not one.

Disgraces us in every way. . . I would say he knows better but he doesn’t.

@DocumentingBTC @blocks @jack Using the plural bitcoin"s" is like someone saying they're giving away saats. 8d o's. This is an ID 10 T special.

₿REAKING: Jack Dorsey’s technology company @Blocks announced today a new ‘bitcoin faucet’ website btc.day that goes live on April 6. The original in 2010, gave away five bitcoins to every site visitor promoting education, that would be $350,000 today.

@WLH1972 Daring.

Mighty Mono 🙌 Small flower | Big picture 1-william-hulbert.pixels.com/featured/black…

@PamphletsY America's Pompous Pilate. Roman golden eagle & all. He washes his hands of every responsibility.

🚨🇺🇸 BREAKING — Trump says he's like Jesus: "They Called us both Kings!"

@hookskat Waiting for some magical resurrection re-direction on Sunday. As for this statement: Pompous Pilate.

Luke 23:21 But they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

@Iam_RITHIN_KV Clouds shaped like an island; mountains shaped like clouds. Mirror, Mirror in the sky. Glad you caught my eye. Rosario Beach, Anacortes, Washington, USA

Nature never repeats itself… 🌿 Today felt like witnessing a small moment of magic. Where did you capture your latest nature shot? Drop your photos below!

@Microinteracti1 NATO is obliterating Trump. Might is well just be a fly-over continent. Air superiority. It's Europe's safe place.

NATO just told America: not through our skies. A furious US general went on Fox News and confirmed it. Italy. Germany. Spain. France. Every single one of them. Airspace closed. Bases locked. Go find another way. The empire built 75 years of alliances for exactly this moment. And when the moment came, the allies watched from the window. Fighting alone. In the Middle East, nobody cares. Gandalv / @Microinteracti1