microcapbiotech retweeted
Mr. Vice-President,
Please allow me to present a different perspective.
The problem was not the Iran War. It was the cease fire.
If you start a war, you need to win it and finish it – otherwise don’t start it.
This war should have been over six months ago, with the Strait of Hormuz wide open and oil flowing. The second and third tiers of Iranian leadership should have been destroyed, and we should have supported the pro-western forces who could have taken leadership. We stood on the brink of a new, more peaceful Middle East - and then we blinked. We had a chance not only to deny Iran nuclear weapons, but to get rid of the world’s biggest supporter of terrorism.
Instead, we had a cease fire, which was followed by months of will we or won’t we finish the job. Every day was a different message. There still is. Is the war over? Is it about to begin? No one knows. There is confusion and inconsistency.
In June 2025, America was not involved. This was an Israel vs Iran issue.
No one forced the United States to attack Iran then, or in February of 2026. It was a decision made by President Trump. In my opinion, it was the right decision.
Once the decision was made, we should not have stopped until the regime fell. But instead, you negotiated a cease fire that didn’t last, didn’t work and left us in no man’s land, with higher prices and our troops still deployed.
Our troops could have been home, the Navy returned to its bases, a peaceful regime in place , new alliances forged, and gas prices below $3.00 a gallon.
No, Mr. Vice President. It’s not the war. It’s the so-called cease fire.
One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
microcapbiotech retweeted
Many of the loser children of my wealthy friends who see no way to emulate the success of their parents, have gravitated toward Mamdani-ism and found community and a sense of purpose by rejecting capitalism as a way to cope with their own failure. Please note they have nor however rejected their trust funds or living subsidies while pursuing their “passions” in NGOs, dabbling in the arts or trying to invest their parents money in “VC”.
The DSA has become more than a political organization—it functions as a community-building institution that gives lonely, nonreligious downwardly mobile young people from elite backgrounds purpose, identity, friendships, and practical political training.
That social infrastructure produces highly committed activists who can be deployed across the country to help elect candidates and gradually normalize hard-left politics.
The movement's objective is not merely to elect self-described socialists in the short term, but to build a durable political infrastructure capable of advancing a truly Marxist agenda over time.
Figures like Zohran Mamdani help legitimize the ideology, while allied candidates in more moderate or conservative states adapt the same agenda to local political realities—downplaying labels, emphasizing populist themes, or even running as independents—to make those ideas electorally viable where an explicit socialist would struggle.
microcapbiotech retweeted
We need a bit more shame.
People used to avoid certain self-interested behaviors to avoid shame, private and public. Law and customs assumed this.
Now, 38% of Stanford students claim to be disabled. 40% of young women (under 35) claim mental illness, and SSI disability payments have gone up 400% in a single generation.
It isn't good for anyone, least of all people who are actually disabled, when everyone looks the other way as friends and family and peers con the system with a level of shamelessness no architect of our safety net ever imagined could be possible in America. When everyone is disabled, nobody is.
Anyone else feel like bankers are printers these deals just to make sure market participants know how to read and do basic math?
-Asking for a friend
1
49
microcapbiotech retweeted
This is what’s causing Anthropic to aggressively beg for govt protection (see below). Customers are finding cheaper alternatives. Keeping employees requires continuing ultra-rich secondaries ($$$) that are dependent on revenue growth. When you can’t win on the field go to DC.
UBS says 60% of companies now watching AI budgets are moving to cheaper models and open-source Chinese models
The pressure is coming from extreme bills, including users spending up to $35K/month, teams exceeding quotas by 200%, and companies cutting internal AI tools from 5 to 2.
Companies are not abandoning AI, they are using model routing, which sends easy tasks to cheaper models and saves premium models for hard reasoning, code, and long-context work.
Chinese open-source models such as Qwen, DeepSeek, MiniMax, GLM, and Kimi now fit the enterprise cost curve because they can be run locally or used through cloud catalogs.
---
news .futunn.com/en/post/75068082/ubs-group-finds-60-have-already-started-curbing-ai-spending?level=2&data_ticket=1780870170397383
microcapbiotech retweeted
I’m at the bottom of a multi-layer SPV and am looking forward to the SpaceX IPO in much the same way a golden retriever looks forward to a car ride:
- thrilled to be involved
- no clue how cars work
- unsure if going to the park or getting neutered
microcapbiotech retweeted
Had a few laughs randomly thinking about Aswath Damodaran reading the SpaceX IPO S-1
microcapbiotech retweeted
In The Parasitic Mind, I told the story of how I faced an astoundingly hostile audience back in 2008 (discussing my first book The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption).
Nice to see that @UMich has continued on its glorious path of lunacy.
microcapbiotech retweeted
It took me 43 years to realize there are no adult. Just kids in adult bodies trying to figure it things out the best they can.
microcapbiotech retweeted
it's either filet mignon for dinner or ramen. @potus ball is in your court
Hey @WhiteHouse @POTUS @PressSec can we not have mega #MAGA announcements while Jews everywhere will be sitting down for the #passover #seder?
Feeling left out. Thoughts @BillAckman @jaredkushner @IvankaTrump @DavidSacks ?
1
29