Thoughts expressed are my own, not employers.
Joined December 2017
- Tweets6.9K
- Following2.7K
- Followers417
- Likes72.2K
Closer and closer to Idiocracy every day!
According to U.S. President Donald J. Trump he has offered the position of White House Press Secretary to UFC president Dana White. According to President Trump, they have also requested that he bring “assistants” in the form of actual UFC fighters, saying “we need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left.”
Big fan of $NET, bought some yesterday and a little on the drawdown, own some from IPO — wish I had more after today’s earnings
TrevorCarrithers.com retweeted
"The reason we lost is the war." Mostly true, but @JDVance is ignoring the bigger picture: the Trump administration imposed universal tariffs (without Congressional approval) on the whole world, inflicting higher prices on consumers, and then launched a war of choice (again, without Congressional approval) that spiked fuel prices, all amidst a cost-of-living crisis, which is what the GOP was elected in 2024 to solve. Meanwhile, President Trump erected monuments to himself as he and his family enriched themselves from crypto scams. This wasn't only about the war—it was a wholesale rejection of MAGA, or at least what MAGA has become.
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.
TrevorCarrithers.com retweeted
All of this recrimination about whether it was tariffs, or iran, or ICE, or the ballroom or the kennedy center or whatever is missing the point that the problem is just Trump. He has to go first, then you can start worrying about the policy issues.
What a collapse of the Republican Party
Trump is a retard who would love to “drop the big one”
His whole political ideology can be summed up by the Randy Newman song from decades ago
Underestimate his stupidity at your own peril
(Not saying this is a guarantee obviously, but he’s ego driven enough to do it)
Under pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran. The target would be Pickax Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program. No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike. Netanyahu has been pushing hard for one. “Bibi calls Trump about it every day,” says an informed observer.
Netanyahu is cornered and desperate. After last week’s election results, he can’t form a government unless Trump intervenes directly in Israeli politics and brokers a deal with other parties that gives Netanyahu 61 seats in the Knesset. Otherwise, he is out as prime minister and on his way to ignominy, investigations and possibly jail. Netanyahu must stay close to Trump. He needs this war.
To that end, he’s applied maximum pressure to his closest allies in the administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper. Both oppose a negotiated settlement to the war they’ve so grievously mismanaged; both are pushing to restart major combat operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe are also following Netanyahu’s lead, as are leaders of the Democratic Party. In a recent meeting on the subject, former president Barack Obama said he opposes the current Iran peace deal being drafted in Doha.
The rest of America’s longtime allies in the Middle East are terrified by the prospect of more war. On September 27th, Netanyahu flew secretly to Abu Dhabi to enlist the UAE in his lobbying effort for a final attack on Iran. The Emiratis refused. After eight months of conflict, Gulf economies are teetering. So are global energy and fertilizer markets. They won’t recover soon. Globally, there are a total of about 850 supertankers used to transport oil from producers to the rest of the world. In October alone, 11 of them were badly damaged in Hormuz. At this pace, a global depression is imminent. A nuclear strike would radically accelerate the destruction. Fallout from a ground explosion at Pickax Mountain would contaminate the Persian Gulf, poisoning the water supply for 100 million people.
And those are just some of the immediate consequences for the region. The rest of the world is every bit as exposed. No country other than the United States has ever used a nuclear weapon in war. Some would like to. An American nuclear attack on Iran would set a new precedent. The Russians have already told at least two other governments that an American nuclear strike on Iran would free them to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Pakistan and India would be tempted to do the same against each other, as would North Korea against Seoul. After the first nuclear strike, World War Three is inevitable. That war would be short and final.
We’ve been sleepwalking toward this moment for months. Since February, the administration has quietly rewritten America’s nuclear doctrine to make first use of so-called “battlefield nukes” easier and therefore more likely. No one in Washington in either party seems bothered by this. Now we’re on the brink of it.
Close observers say Trump is likely to decide by next weekend whether or not to use nuclear weapons. That would be November 7, six days from now. To his credit, he’s hesitating. At the moment, Trump is listening to his vice president, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made.
They’re right, though it won’t be simple. The Iranians are famously frustrating to negotiate with under any circumstances, and elements of that government have become more radical since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family were killed in February. After decades of isolation, even relatively moderate Iranian leaders seem confused by how decisions are made in the West. (There is a widespread belief in Tehran, for example, that the United States government controls Israel.) But overall, people who have spoken to decision-makers in Iran say there is consensus there that more war is bad for everyone and a deal is worth making.
One group that hasn’t been consulted so far is the global population — the hundreds of millions of people who will be killed along with their children if Trump is pushed by Netanyahu into launching a nuclear strike next week. Now would be the time for them to speak up.
Not sure why the algorithm is pushing so much disaster slop near the midterms but it’s starting to get downright braindead stupid in its content
GROK predicting that there will be a WWIII before 2030 and this will be the map. @grok trying to start shhhiii
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The map does not represent a prediction by Grok. The image itself contains a disclaimer stating it is a "fictional, speculative map created for illustrative and discussion purposes only" and "does not represent real-world borders, policies, or predictions." pbs.twimg.com/media/HV2O8hPa…
TrevorCarrithers.com retweeted
This is a very textbook phenomenon in the market called “rotation out of all the names you specifically own and into names you don’t”. This happens when all the market participants have a meeting you aren’t invited to and decide they hate you.
“Fire your top guys before a major escalation in an ongoing conflict” is sure to workout really well
The Atlantic is reporting that Army Lt.Gen. Brett Sylvia, the director for strategy, plans and policy for the Joint Staff, known as the J5, was fired this week. No reason has been given publicly, however his biography has been removed from the public website for the J5.
A Joint Staff spokesperson thanked him for 32 years of service. Unnamed defense officials told the Atlantic Secretary of War Pete Hegseth lost confidence in him and that he did not get along with Under Secretary Elbridge Colby. He is the second J5 director pushed out in the past year, per the Atlantic.
The J5 is the Joint Staff’s strategy and plans directorate. In general it helps turn presidential and civilian guidance into military plans and links the combatant commands, the Pentagon’s civilian leadership and the White House.
Source: theatlantic.com/national-sec…
