reverse pyromania

Like Giving Teenagers the Keys to a Tank

mister mix — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Politico published a story yesterday about the Trump Administration finally figuring out that starting a war in the Persian Gulf was gonna fuck oil prices, and now they’re casting about for things to do. They can’t tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve because Trump hasn’t filled it back up after Biden used it. So the guy who looks like the product of Scrooge McDuck fucking the Monopoly man has an idea:

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday ‌said the United States could remove sanctions from more Russian oil, a day after Washington issued a ⁠30-day waiver allowing the sale of Russian crude currently stranded at sea to continue to India.
"We may unsanction other Russian oil," Bessent told Fox Business' "Kudlow" program.
"There ‌are ⁠hundreds of millions of sanctioned barrels of sanctioned crude on the water and in essence, ⁠by unsanctioning them, Treasury can create supply, and we are ⁠looking at that," he added.
Reuters

Wanting to help Russia is even more insane given the help we’re expecting from Ukraine:

A week into the U.S.'s war in Iran, American drone expert Brett Velicovich joined Fox News anchor Jesse Watters to tout the role of advanced American drone defense technology used in the operation. In the split-screen beside him, footage of air defenses downing Iranian Shahed drones appeared to underscore his point.
Except they weren't American air defenses.
"Hi @FoxNews — small clarification," Wild Hornets, a Ukrainian drone company, wrote on X. "The footage shown in this segment features STING — a Ukrainian interceptor drone developed by engineers at Wild Hornets and used by Ukrainian air defense units to destroy Shahed-type drones."
The mixup drew renewed attention to both Ukraine's drone expertise and to America's lack of drone defense preparedness, as Iran's aerial bombardment depletes interceptor stockpiles across the Middle East.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that Ukraine will work with the Pentagon and Gulf allies to share what it has learned during four years of drone warfare. And a spokesman for Wild Hornets, the Ukrainian drone company, confirmed to CBS News that it is "ready to help Ukraine's strategic partners if called upon to do so."
CBS News

I assume Bari Weiss will fire the reporter who wrote that piece tomorrow. Also, love to see that we’re way behind in combatting drones, which are obviously central to the way that modern war is waged, while at the same time we’re spending billions to re-engine B-52s, bombers designed to fight a kind of war we’ll never wage.

Anyway, I don’t know if we can make enough noise about how terrible the Trump Administration’s lack of preparedness was when they decided to go to war, coupled with their terrible execution, etc., etc. And we certainly can couple that with gas prices, which are going to go up no matter what Trump’s dumb dumbs do about it.

This is Really Kind of The Whole Ball of Wax

Joe is Wypoxic — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 18:18:37 +0000

Not something I usually do, but I’m patting myself on the back today in a disgustingly smarmy way (feel free to razz me) because I beat Krugman to the punch for probably the first - and last - time ever.

Here he is:

Renewable Energy and National Security

The wind and the sun don’t need to transit the Strait of Hormuz

paulkrugman.substack.com/p/renewable-energy-and-national-security

I wrote about this the other day:

It Always Comes Back to Oil...

and the need for true energy independence

heymistermix.com/p/it-always-comes-back-to-oil

The sub-title of Krugman’s post really says it all: “The wind and the sun don’t need to transit the Strait of Hormuz”. It is truly stunning from a national security perspective that our current “leaders” don’t get - or don’t care - how vulnerable we are from an energy perspective.

“Drill Baby Drill” might be an effective catchphrase or soundbite, but it is truly meaningless in terms of actual policy, whereas Krugman’s sub-title referenced above actually has strong policy applicability. Oil and LNG are worldwide commodities. Their price in the U.S. is subject to whatever happens with regard to supply, demand, politics, wars, transportation and manipulation everywhere else in the world. Not so for renewable energy (which also includes hydro, wave and geothermal) which cannot be monopolized or manipulated nearly to the level that fossil fuels can.

We have spent trillions of dollars aligning ourselves with countries whose cultures do not share our (supposed) values - freedom, equality of sexes, opportunity for all - because we do not have the political will to truly gain energy independence. We fight wars over this. It. Is. Insane.

This needs to be top of our action list when we are rid of the buffoons running our country.

Worth the Krugman read:

“The usual argument for promoting solar and wind power is that relying on renewable energy avoids the environmental damage caused by burning fossil fuels. This environmental damage includes, but isn’t limited to, climate change. In addition, air pollution imposes shockingly large direct and immediate costs by harming our health and reducing our life expectancy.

But now we know that there is another reason for nations to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels: security. In a dangerous world, it’s infinitely safer to rely on the sun and the wind than to depend on fossil fuels that must be transported long distances, from nations that are untrustworthy, often exploitative and located in regions that frequently devolve into war zones.

…

Donald Trump may say that he will reopen the strait. But short of regime change in Iran, it’s very hard to see how he can.Oil tankers are extremely vulnerable targets while drones, anti-ship missiles and mines are cheap. Moreover, the Iranian regime surely still has thousands of them in stock, in readiness for an attack just like this.

…

Now, Trump hates renewable energy, especially wind power. He has tried to destroy hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of investment in offshore wind turbines and sought to block land-based projects as well, although in some cases he has been stopped by the courts. He has also put pressure on other countries to go back to fossil fuels. On Tuesday he lashed out at the UK, calling the British “very uncooperative” and attacking them for having “windmills all over the place that are ruining the country.” But Britain would be in much worse shape right now if wind power weren’t supplying about 30 percent of its electricity.

…

Writing in the Financial Times, Alan Beattie puts energy policy in the context of geopolitical rivalry:

The competing economic superpower offers are now as follows. From the US you get forced into trade deals promising a future of burning fossil fuels whose price is subject to wildly destructive US adventurism. From China you get reliably cheap EVs and green tech to generate renewables.

That may be a bit hyperbolic, but he has a point. I’d add that the problem with U.S. demands that nations burn, baby, burn isn’t just American adventurism. It’s also the fact that relying on the United States for LNG, which is what doing things Trump’s way would amount to, is itself unsafe. Are you sure that Trump or a Trump-like future president won’t cut off energy supplies to nations that annoy him? I’m not.

So the U.S. war against Iran is making a strong case for nations around the world to seek energy independence. And for those nations that don’t have large fossil fuel reserves, that means wind and solar (and, yes, nuclear.)

Donald Trump, hero of renewable energy? Who knew?”

PS - Krugman does add in nuclear to the list of desired energy sources. I wrote my grad school thesis on “The Social Accountability of Nuclear Power”. It was a while ago, but my view hasn’t changed. We need to make sure we have safe long-term (and I mean looooong term) storage for spent nuclear fuel and better security and protection from nuclear accidents before I’ll get behind nuclear power. It may seem trite to say it, but a nuclear accident like Chernobyl leaves wide swaths of places uninhabitable for thousands of years. That is a risk I am not yet willing to endorse.

Insurers Might Save the World

Joe is Wypoxic — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

It seems pretty clear that the geniuses who “planned” the Iran War (JK - they really don’t know how to actually plan, well, anything) overlooked a totally inconsequential factor: insurers.

Maritime insurers cancel war risk cover in Gulf as Iran conflict disrupts shipping

Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed and vessels rerouted, sending some freight costs surging

www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/02/maritime-insurers-war-risk-cover-gulf-iran-shipping-strait-of-hormuz?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Also:

The Invisible Siege: How Insurance Markets, Not Missiles, Closed the Strait of Hormuz

And Why the Disruption Will Last Four to Sixteen Months Longer Than Any Model on Wall Street Currently Prices

shanakaanslemperera.substack.com/p/the-invisible-siege-how-insurance?r=6p7b5o&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true

Hmmm. So they didn’t think through that the Strait of Hormuz might be closed because of a war and that Iran might use its geography and positioning to wreak havoc on the world economy?

It’s actually pretty amazing. When you listen to “President Hegseth” (in the words of our likely next DHS Secretary, plumber turned Okie Senator Markwayne Mullin), he’s all about the “warrior ethos” and “no stupid rules of engagement”. Not a lot of talk about strategy or tactics or the fact that the enemy might actually have some agency in this war and fight back in asymmetrical ways that don’t involve bombs, bombs and more bombs (yes, Hegseth and Trump have bombs on the brain).

I tend to agree with the title of JV Last’s column over at the Bulwark (it’s worth the read):

What If the Mullahs Are Smarter Than Trump?

True victory through air power has never been tried!

www.thebulwark.com/p/what-if-the-mullahs-are-smarter-than?utm_campaign=email-post&r=2235n&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozNDU2NjM1LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxODk3ODc4NTcsImlhdCI6MTc3MjczMjQ1NiwiZXhwIjoxNzc1MzI0NDU2LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItODcyODEiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.a4_hSh38ebwKZCBoT19mvPTXe6aXjMgW1bo04Y_0sPE&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

But the Iranians have been highly successful in creating second- and third-order effects.

Gas prices have spiked.
- As recently as two weeks ago Trump’s entire “affordability” argument was based around low gas prices, so he is vulnerable here.
- Worse: Elevated energy costs will contribute to overall inflation, which will make it harder for the Fed to cut rates and boost Trump’s slowing economy.
American war planners seemed to think they could prevent Iran from militarily closing the Strait of Hormuz.
- The Iranians understood that the insurance industry could functionally close the Strait for them.
Closing the strait is also raising the prices of fertilizer components, which will put upward pressure on food prices—another political vulnerability for Trump.
Not to mention commodity prices. For example:
- The supply of liquid natural gas is being disrupted.
- A major aluminum smelter in Qatar has shut down operations because it does not anticipate being able to get LNG supplies.
- It takes months to bring a facility like this back online.
- In the meantime, aluminum prices will rise.
Iraq has suffered a nation-wide power outage because of the war. The entire country is in the dark. Fixing this problem will take days and could endanger the stability of the Iraqi regime.
- It does not seem to have occurred to anyone in the Trump administration that war in Iran would put democracy in Iraq at risk.
- The Iranian regime does seem to have understood that vulnerability.²
The NATO coalition continues to splinter—America is now at odds with Spain.
The war is straining America’s already worsening relationship with India.

As I said: America’s leaders are playing checkers while the theocrats hiding in underground bunkers are playing chess.

Trump and gang are scrambling to play catch up, but it won’t be easy:

Trump has a plan to open the Strait of Hormuz. Here are the obstacles it faces.

“Too small for the risk”: The plan to have the U.S. government provide an insurance solution for ships trapped in the Persian Gulf may be impractical, analysts said.

www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-has-a-plan-to-open-the-strait-of-hormuz-here-are-the-obstacles-it-faces-eeb196c8?mod=home_lead

Industry doubts Trump plan to insure Gulf oil tankers as Iran war halts transit

US lacks firepower to provide $350bn in coverage needed to revive Strait of Hormuz transits, JPMorgan says

www.ft.com/content/6ddeb488-0d6f-4b6a-b419-2a2ba7437a25

Maybe it would have made sense to consider this before they started dropping bombs?

We have a clear military advantage over the Iranians. We can bomb the sh*t out of them. But as JV Last writes in the article linked above, history shows air campaigns alone generally don’t result in the desired results.

The underreported issue here is the utter incompetence of the people in charge. We should have little to no confidence that the end result of their adventurism will be a positive one - or even whatever it was they “planned on (because, seriously, I don’t think they thought though what a real end goal/vision might look like).

That puts the insurers in the catbird seat. Their decisions can wreak havoc on the world economy or end an illegal and not-well-thought-thru war.

Time will tell.

Noem Gets Taken to the Gravel Pit

mister mix — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 19:13:19 +0000

This is full of loser energy:

The transparent face-saving of pushing an incredibly unpopular and corrupt Homeland Security Secretary into a made-up bullshit position is some pretty fucking weak sauce. Mullin will be just as horrible as Noem, plus or minus the corruption, marital infidelity and jet fetishism.

The confirmation vote for Mullin better not include any Democratic votes (even fucking Fetterman), and he better get a grilling of a lifetime, centering on how he’s going to make sure that no more innocent people are killed by ICE, whether he thinks they should take off their masks, and how many jets he’s going to need to fly around. Democrats need to show that they’ve learned their lesson after the 99-0 Rubio vote.

But, that’s for another day. Democrats got a scalp here and we should be proud.

Playing the Long Game

Joe is Wypoxic — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 16:54:47 +0000

I’ve been mulling over a key question. Why (and how) have Republicans been able to keep getting elected - and hold federal majorities in congress - when their policy positions are actually relatively unpopular (especially when they are actually implemented).

It’s a complex issue touching on education, messaging, and public understanding of complex issues, among other factors.

But more and more, I’ve come to believe that a major problem for Democrats is their lack of ability/willingness to build a communications ecosystem that approaches politics and policy in such a way that (I hate to be so repetitive) enters into voters Circle of Trust.

Let’s face it - most Democrats believe that presenting a rational and logical 10-point healthcare plan or dryly reporting on positive economic data buttressing Dem policies is somehow enough to get people to vote for them This is utterly false.

I’ll say it again - policy is politics and politics is policy. In order to get the policies we want - say universal and affordable healthcare, reducing inequality in a growing economy, protecting the environment - we need to elect people who will pass laws to that effect. In order for those people to get elected, they need to engage in politics. And politics is not about being logical and rational and dry. Politics entails presenting one’s case in such a way that engages, connects, captivates, and convinces.

Where have Democrats failed? Dems have failed to play the long game, to build a sustainable and culturally engaging ecosystem that encompasses education, think tanks, news, legal, media, opinion, and more. Republicans, on the other hand, have invested years and money into building such an ecosystem: education (Young Republicans, Liberty University and Hillsdale College), think tanks (Heritage Foundation), news (Fox News, Newsmax, Breitbart, even Drudge back in the day), legal (The Federalist Society), media (Sinclair, Fox, Rupert Murdoch newspapers), opinion (Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, ad infinitum). One could even add religion into this mix.

Quick Story:

I experienced this lack of institutional support first-hand during my time as a federal candidate.

I ran for office several times in one of - if not the - reddest states and districts in the country. In my first race, as a political rookie, I nearly pulled off the biggest upset in the country against a six-term incumbent. While doing so, my campaign helped revive a moribund state party by bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars (above and beyond what we raised directly for my campaign) for voter registration, field and GOTV efforts. It was almost enough.

[SIDE NOTE: The DCCC had pretty much ignored me my entire race until polls showed me neck and neck with my opponent in the waning days of October. One night I received a phone call from the Chair of the DCCC essentially telling me they would support me with $$$ if I would run extremely negative ads about my opponent. I’m talking dirty. I tried to explain to him that - if he had been paying attention, my entire campaign had been predicated on three things: authenticity, accountability for my opponent and positivity about how things could be different. I explained my view that if I came across late as just another mud-slinging DC wannabe who was no different than my opponent, people would hold their nose and vote for their party candidate (which they had done 6 tines before). And in deep red, that wasn’t going to be me. The DCCC Chair insisted. I told him thank you but no thank you.

Would I have won if I had listened to him? We’ll never know. I do know, however, that what they wanted wasn’t who I was. On election night, I had been leading in the vote tally until it started to turn late in the night (near midnight). I received a call from the public radio reporter in my state who covered elections, and he asked me a simple question. “You’re currently down by 100 or so votes. Do you think if you had gone negative you wouldn’t be in this position?” I was tired and fried from over a year of hardcore door-to-door campaigning. Without thinking about my answer, I simply replied “That’s not me. If that’s what I had to do to win, I don’t want to win.”]

After my first race, I was overwhelmed with people who told me that I had given them their first ray of political hope in a long time (this comprised both Ds and Rs BTW - after all I had gotten nearly 40% of Rs to vote for me in that first race. After a period of time, I realized that I would probably be running again in the next cycle.

As I set about exploring support and figuring out the logistics for another run (including talking to the DCCC who eventually named me first wave “Red-to-Blue”), I realized something that stunned me: I essentially had to rebuild not just my campaign, but the supporting infrastructure - field, GOTV, issue identification, communications, you-name-it - from scratch. In mountaineering terms, I had climbed Mt. Everest and reached the forbidding “Hillary Step” where I was stymied just meters from the summit. But my next climb wouldn’t start there or even at Camp 4 (the highest overnight Camp before attempting a summit push). I would be starting over all the way back at Everest Base Camp, with no porters - only myself to carry the load. Simply put, there was no foundational Democratic institutional ecosystem upon which to build my campaign.

Here is a post from Oliver Willis:

"we are announcing today our new investments in green energy, providing a solid foundation for the future in which massive reductions in pollutants are the norm"
vs
"BOOM: Green tech wizards just saved THE FUTURE"
ill take the second one every day
— Oliver Willis (@owillis.bsky.social)
5:42 PM • Mar 4, 2026

And a follow up:

the news can be factual and accurate without being boring. and it should be.
— Oliver Willis (@owillis.bsky.social)
5:38 PM • Mar 4, 2026

And another:

its so weird to me that people think theres no need to sell a liberal pov and that somehow liberal aligned voters have some unique psychological buildup that we dont need to see our pov reflected in the press. its a very incorrect view.
we're humans. we need this. we're not special.
— Oliver Willis (@owillis.bsky.social)
2:40 PM • Mar 4, 2026

I’m with Oliver. His point is that Dems think that just stating the truth or facts in a dry manner is enough. It isn’t!

Democrats need three things: we need to build the foundational, sustainable ecosystem like the Republicans did, we need an “echo chamber” and we need to be more performative. Why on earth are Democrats not holding unofficial hearings on any - or all - of the unconstitutional and illegal things this Admin is doing? We need our own Benghazi hearings every single day. This isn’t unethical or immoral or illegal. Yes - it’s performative and its politics and it’s not how we do things, but it’s also effective and how you start to engage/educate the country about all the crap these guys are doing.

We tried Air America radio network as a counter-balance to Rush Limbaugh and gang. It lasted 6 years and then we just… gave up. A group of big donors founded the Democracy Alliance as a counter-balance to Republican fund-raising organizations but its effect has been… underwhelming (how many Democrats or voters know it even exists?).

Reality has a liberal bias. It’s okay to report news and facts and policies in such a way that may appear somewhat slanted but that actually pushes a more progressive/liberal view of the world. We need to get off our high horse and engage.

If we don’t, well, look at where we are today…

Sarampión Update

mister mix — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Sarampión is measles in Spanish, and we should be discussing this in Spanish because Los Estados Unidos is fucking the pooch:

Spartanburg County, where more than 95% of South Carolina’s recent measles cases have been reported, experienced an even greater drop. The fast-growing manufacturing hub has long had lower vaccination rates than most of the state, but has seen its population become especially vaccine hesitant since the pandemic, data shows.
Over the past four years, Spartanburg’s immunization rate has declined more than twice as fast as the state’s has, shrinking from 93.9% in 2021-2022 to 88.9% this school year. During the same period, the number of Spartanburg County children with religious exemptions from vaccine requirements has more than doubled to 5,490, or nearly 10% of all enrolled students.
Today, Spartanburg has the lowest childhood vaccination rate and the highest rate of vaccine exemptions of any county in the state. With that in mind, it’s not surprising that a measles outbreak in South Carolina would be centered there. Of the 928 South Carolinians infected with measles during the current outbreak whose vaccination status is known, 883, or 95%, were unvaccinated, according to S.C. Department of Health data. Another 19 were partially vaccinated (2%) and 26 were fully vaccinated (2.8%).
The State

Our idiot HHS secretary is doing his part:

As South Carolina grapples with a measles outbreak that has infected nearly 1,000 people, groups with ties to the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, are pushing to eliminate immunization requirements that protect children.
Activists are targeting vaccine mandates in states trying to tamp down measles as communities across the country struggle to stop the worst spread of the illness since the early 1990s. The Guardian found anti-vaccine groups are encouraging their followers to organize opposition to vaccine mandates in more than 20 states, including at least six with current measles outbreaks.
The Guardian

Let’s look at the country that MAGA likes to shit on, Mexico, and see what they’re doing. I watched the press conference on Tuesday where representatives from the Department of Health reported that they had put 9 million shots in arms in 3 weeks. That’s country-wide, and it’s the amount of measles vaccination that would be put in arms in two normal years. Here’s what’s happening in Mexico City:

Vaccination to prevent measles in Mexico City will continue intensively and herd immunity is expected to be achieved by the end of this month, said Nadine Gasman, the local Secretary of Health.
In a press conference, the official reported that during Shakira ‘s concert, three vaccination stations were set up where 1,916 people received their dose.
The head of the Health Secretariat reminded everyone that the goal for Mexico City is to vaccinate 2.04 million people against the disease in order to achieve herd immunity; once that goal is reached, the administration will continue the campaign to encourage people to go to the 150 vaccination centers to get vaccinated.
To date, health personnel have administered 1,614,915 doses; since the campaign reinforcement began on February 8, 693,829 doses have been administered, and 17,291 were administered on Sunday.
Mexico Solidarity Media

Mexico City expects to hit herd immunity by the end of this month. (Shakira had a free concert on the Zocalo, the massive square in the middle of Mexico City.)

This is what happens when you give a shit. This is what happens when the guy running your healthcare system is an MD/PhD research scientist instead of a shithead failson.

Here’s Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum at yet another event celebrating the beginning of construction of a new hospital. At the press conference where they announced the massive number of measles vaccinations in the past month, Claudia said that by the end of her term (in 5 years) every Mexican will have an identification card which will allow their medical record to be pulled up in any public hospital in the country. Will that happen? Yes, because instead of fucking around, Mexico gets things done. That used to be true here, but MAGA killed that. Now a bunch of ignorant rubes are running the show, killing kids and spreading lies about one of the greatest health advances of the last 100 years, the simple, effective vaccinations for childhood illnesses.

War Update

mister mix — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 17:32:11 +0000

Last night social media was full of Democrats who had been briefed on the war and were appalled. Elizabeth Warren is one example:

I just left a classified briefing with the Trump Administration about the war in Iran.

I was worried before, but I’m more worried now.
— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov)
10:58 PM • Mar 3, 2026

Today it looks like every Democrat but Fetterman is going to vote for an anti-war resolution in the Senate, but it will almost certainly fail. I’d characterize this as an “engineered vote” because there are at least a few Democrats who are fine with the war, and I’m assuming Thune has picked some designated anti-war caucus members who can make a symbolic vote. (Who knows, that number might well be zero.)

In the “Mom, Mom he hit me back” category, Trump said this the other night:

So far, the president said, “the biggest surprise” has been Iran’s attacks against Arab countries in the region: Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
CNN

Iran claims that that multiple radar installations in those countries have been damaged or destroyed. Without radar, you can’t aim the multi-million dollar missiles that you need to shoot down the multi-thousand dollar drones.

Iran has planned for this scenario for over 40 years. Only a bunch of idiots would think that they wouldn’t fight back. And only a bunch of idiots would think a deeply entrenched regime could be “decapitated”. The next leader of Iran will probably be the son of the octegenarian that we killed (along with his daughter and granddaughter).

I needed some gas yesterday and it turns out that two of the gas stations in town had prices that were 35 cents per gallon different — one of them apparently gotten the memo that oil prices are going up. Here’s why:

The cost of insuring a ship sailing through the Strait of Hormuz has soared 12-fold, even after Donald Trump vowed to backstop trade through the key oil chokepoint. Shipowners have been quoted millions of dollars for cover to cross the Strait or sail in nearby high-risk waters, brokers said, as premiums jumped as high as 3 per cent of the cost of a ship on Wednesday, up from about 0.25 per cent before the war.
FT - Gift Link

My timeline is full of insecure weak Republican men shit talking about war, but at some point they’re going to have to declare victory and walk away, because we’re running out of munitions. The surest indication of that is Trump’s insistence that we aren’t.

After-Primary Morning

mister mix — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 14:15:27 +0000

James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett are two good politicians who are trying to solve the riddle of winning in Texas in their own way. Talarico won, but I hope we see Crockett again in our politics. She was treated with the usual disrespect that any talented Democratic politician under the age of 60 is treated in the hierarchical gerontocracy of the House, and that’s a god damned shame.

The most important race for Democrats in Texas is the Republican Senate primary, and that’s going to run off. Republicans have spent infinity millions of dollars on that race to try to prop up Cornyn. I’m no expert on Texas politics, but Paxton seems like a better opponent, so fingers crossed on that one.

I was listening to the Down Ballot (formerly Daily Kos elections) pre-primary podcast and they made the point that Texas isn’t a Republican or Democratic state, it’s a low turnout state. So this was interesting (Walker County’s county seat is Huntsville, total population 76,000):

This is a county we always watch with curiosity, because it's 25% black, 25% Hispanic, has a state university with 20,000ish students, and just never fuckin' votes. One would think if Democrats ever found the "real deal" (TM) Walker County would get off its ass to vote. -OS
— Lyndon Baines Johnson (@lyndonbajohnson.bsky.social)
5:50 AM • Mar 4, 2026

The other interesting Republican Texas race that’s going to a runoff is the House seat in TX-23, which is a rural district encompassing Big Bend. Tony Gonzales, a horrible human being whose affair with an aide led to her suicide by self-immolation, is being challenged by “gunfluencer” Brandon Herrera in a district that Trump took by 57-42 in 2024. I guess the MAGAts in that district were spoiled for choice and couldn’t decide which piece of shit they wanted to run in the Fall.

The Down Ballot has the rest of the results. One notable example of “primaries are hard” is NC-4, a D+23 election. The incumbent is Valerie Foushee, who got AIPAC money last cycle, also got bitcoin money, and apparently can’t bring herself to oppose data centers in the district. She seems to be a pretty good example of someone who’s not as liberal as the district, but she’s current leading her more progressive challenger Nida Allam in a race that might go to recount.

War at the Expense of, Well, Everything

Joe is Wypoxic — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 16:27:59 +0000

So, the markets are finally realizing how the Trump Admin is following the arc of the Trump Organization - fail at every actual business they’ve run except for a fake reality TV show and just being corrupt:

This feels like the Covid wakeup call in March 2020. Everyone is getting he's the maniac that he seems to be, and this mess will last YEARS.
— 🗽LOLGOP🗽 (@thefarce.org)
3:25 PM • Mar 3, 2026

On a related note, let’s remember all the way back to the ancient history of the Iraq War when the Bush Admin cut taxes in a time of war for the first time ever in the history of our country. We are going to debt finance this war as well while billionaires coast on the tax cuts of the OBBBA.

Also, let’s not take our eye of the ball on the state of jobs/employment:

‘Functional Unemployment’ Hits Highest Level Since 2021, Says Ludwig Institute

www.lisep.org/content/functional-unemployment-hits-highest-level-since-2021-says-ludwig-institute

The report states that roughly 25% of workers are unable to find full-time jobs that pay above poverty wages. This is a major weak point for Trump and gang and should be heavily repeated. This jives well with the message that the Epstein Class of billionaires are sucking the economy dry at the expense of hard-working, salt-of-the-earth Americans.

I’ll write about this in more detail soon, but some of the key culprits in this massive upwards redistribution of wealth are not just lower tax rates on the wealthy, but also the lowering of the estate tax and the creation of perpetual Generation Skipping Trusts (that allow wealthy people to transfer their wealth to grandkids with minimal taxation).

From a tactical perspective, I think Greg Sargent gets it right this morning. Sargent is essentially arguing that the opposition should make everything Trump and his minions do/say a political argument instead of a “process” argument. That Trump is acting as an unconstitutional despot at the expense of people’s lives, our economy, our rule of law and our standing in the world.

“But that can’t be the end of the story. This can’t simply be about Trump’s procedural failures. It also has to be linked to a larger argument that he’s functioning as a maliciously unhinged, out-of-control despot, and thus is wrecking our system of self-rule at a foundational level. As David French argues, one can view Iran as a serious long-term problem while insisting that Trump operate within his constitutional powers, and that fundamental principles are at stake:

Perhaps the most important aspect of this constitutional structure is that it creates a presumption of peace. Our nation cannot go to war until its leaders persuade a majority of Congress that war is in our national interest.

It’s precisely because Trump has no meaningfully articulated objectives for this war—and because American officials privately admit his Iran claims are false—that he’s launching it illegally without congressional authorization. The same Republicans who insist Trump needn’t seek congressional approval are doing so precisely because this liberates them from having to vote on the underlying proposition that this war is in our country’s interests.

Hegseth’s absurdities illustrate how big an opening Democrats really have here. It’s not enough to demand that officials be forthcoming and transparent. Democrats should argue that Trump has launched what is essentially a vanity war and nothing more—and that, as Smith put it to me, he’s “ruling like a king instead of the elected president of a constitutional republic.”'“

____________________________________

Finally, somewhat unrelated but connected by the love affair this Admin has with billionaire AI tech bros, this guy may be the worst person in the world:

Sam Altman gets defensive about AI’s massive electricity usage: ‘It takes a lot of energy to train a human’ | Fortune

Altman said data centers have moved past water-intensive cooling, but 56% globally still use evaporative systems.

fortune.com/2026/02/24/sam-altman-open-ai-electricity-usage-water-usage-data-centers-ceo-tech/?utm_source=search&utm_medium=suggested_search&utm_campaign=search_link_clicks

“But he pointed out that comparing AI’s power needs to humans isn’t exactly apples to apples.

“It also takes a lot of energy to train a human,” he said, prompting some in the crowd to laugh. “It takes, like, 20 years of life, and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart.”

Altman expanded even further by noting that today’s humans wouldn’t even be here were it not for their ancestors dating back hundreds of thousands of years to when modern humans first emerged.

“Not only that, it took, like, the very widespread evolution of the 100 billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to, like, figure out science or whatever to produce you,” he added.

When comparing humans to ChatGPT’s potential, you have to take this context into account, he argued. A fair comparison would be to pit the energy a human uses to answer a query with an AI after it is trained. On that measure “probably, AI has already caught up on an energy efficiency basis measured that way.””

We are now looking at people as merely “entities that consume energy”. These tech “visionaries” will lead us to our doom as they enrich themselves while jockeying to take over the world.

Just a Wee Smol Bean of a Country

mister mix — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

The latest dumbshittery:

Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that US troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said, in a new explanation for Washington’s surprise entry into the conflict.
The Guardian

In other words, hurry up and fuck up:

The first US service members to die in the conflict between the US and Iran were killed by a direct Iranian strike on a makeshift operations center at a civilian port in Kuwait on Sunday morning local time, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.
[…]
Earlier Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the strike that killed the service members hit a “tactical operation center that was fortified,” but there was “one” projectile that made it through air defenses. CNN previously reported the event was a suspected drone strike.
The source familiar said it was a direct hit just after 9 a.m. local time, on the center of the building they described as a triple-wide trailer with office space inside. The attack came quickly and with no warning or sirens to alert troops to evacuate or get into a bunker, the source said. Hours after the strike, fire was still smoldering in some parts of the building, the source described – the inside of the makeshift operations center blackened and the walls blown outwards from the blast, some parts peeling away from the building.
CNN

Since we are weak and beholden to Israel, we had to rush things, so we had troops in a trailer with no air raid sirens, a.k.a. a “makeshift” operations center.

This might not be directly related, but it is a pretty strong indicator of how little our allies think of us:

French President Emmanuel Macron announced Monday that France will increase its nuclear arsenal and, for the first time, allow the temporary deployment of its nuclear-armed aircraft to allied countries, in a new strategy aimed at strengthening Europe’s independence.
[…]
Talks about such deterrence cooperation have started with Britain, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark, Macron said.
France also will allow partners to participate in deterrence exercises and allow allies’ non-nuclear forces to participate in France’s nuclear activities, said Macron, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces under the French constitution.
AP

Since our timeline is a river of sewage, this little turd won’t make much of an impression. If Macron had done this on Biden or Obama’s watch, the mainstream press, rightwing media and Republicans would be yelling about “weakness” at the top of their lungs. The same is true for the trailer house ops center.

Also, as I mentioned yesterday, drones are inexpensive compared to our anti-aircraft missiles. Two of them hit the US embassy in Riyadh yesterday.

War Notes

mister mix — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 16:51:46 +0000

Yesterday the Pentagon announced that three service members were killed in action in the Iranian war. Today they announced that three F-15s had been shot down in a friendly fire incident over Kuwait. This war will continue to be more unpopular as stuff like this inevitably happens.

Sal Mercogliano, who runs the “What’s Going On With Shipping” YouTube channel, believes that the soldiers were killed in an Iranian attack on Bahrain. Sal’s a former member of the Merchant Marine and an expert on shipping logistics. In one of his recent videos, he noted that the US sure isn’t acting like they’re going to put significant troops on the ground, because all of the ships that would be used to transport troops are sitting in port with little or no indication that they’re going to be leaving soon. That’s the good news, I guess.

James Joyner at the OG Outside the Beltway blog has a good round up of the issues that the US and allies will have with a prolonged war. In short, we’re going to run out of expensive missiles. The economics of shooting down cheap drones with expensive missiles are stacked on Iran’s side. Here’s one of the sources James quotes:

The drones are where it gets truly punishing.
Iran spent ~$11–27M on 541 Shahed drones. The UAE fired interceptors averaging $500K–$1.5M per drone kill against 506 of them. UAE drone defense cost: ~$253M–$759M.
UAE spent:
Ballistic missile defense: ~$1.2–1.52B
Drone defense: ~$253–759M
*Total: ~$1.45–2.28B
The UAE spent 5–10x more defending than Iran spent attacking.
The drone ratio is the sharpest edge of this problem.
For every $1 Iran spent on drones, the UAE spent roughly $20–28 shooting them down.
James Joyner OTB

The US has the same problem as the UAE — we’re quickly burning through missile stockpiles that will take years to build back up.

Our whole incredibly expensive military industrial complex is, like the rest of our institutions, corrupt, and it shows in our procurement failures. Instead of finding cheap ways to down cheap drones, we have a built-in 20-1 cost disadvantage in air defense. We also can’t build ships — 82% of the Navy’s shipbuilding is behind schedule.

When we had a Department of Defense, even though our whole defense procurement process was corrupt, it really didn’t matter because we would be more than able to defend ourselves and our NATO allies against any conceivable threat. But now that we have a Department of War, we’ll soon find out that lobbing bombs around indiscriminately is expensive and unsustainable. Hopefully someone will try to hang that around Trump’s neck.

It Always Comes Back to Oil...

Joe is Wypoxic — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

FYI, that’s a picture of the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia, the largest in the world.

________________

In so many ways, our attack on Iran is not just about taking out “bad actors” (the Ayatollah and the IRGC ARE bad actors) without knowing what will follow, or anti-Muslim pseudo-Christian white supremacy, or whatever rationale Trump and his minions have not been able to articulate (likely because there isn’t a coherent one).

So let me postulate a theory on what it is likely at least partly about: it all comes back around to energy, and therefore, oil.

To start, let’s remember that one of the two people “negotiating” with Iran was Jared Kushner, who received $2 billion from Iran’s regional arch enemy Saudi Arabia - even though their own financial advisers recommended against it.

As I write this, this is happening (apologies, I don’t have a subscription to Bloomberg but the headline tells you all you need to know):

🚨 LIVE BLOG: Oil jumped the most in four years as uncertainty looms over the conflict in the Middle East. Follow the latest news and analysis.
— Bloomberg News (@bloomberg.com)
11:53 PM • Mar 1, 2026

This graph might help:

Trump's war sends oil and gas prices soaring.
— Scott Horton (@robertscotthorton.bsky.social)
11:50 PM • Mar 1, 2026

But Thomas Massie (of all people) gets to the crux of all of this (via the Tennessee Holler since I don’t go to or link to that other place):

👇🏽 🎯 🇺🇸 😕
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social)
10:29 PM • Mar 1, 2026

We share absolutely zero cultural and societal values with the Saudis, UAE, and other Middle Eastern countries we’ve chummied up to over the years. As Massie points out, the national security costs of protecting “oil” worldwide are a massive hidden cost (and transfer of wealth to countries that are our adversaries) that is a HUGE drain on our economy and also a HUGE factor in warping our priorities. One of Bin Laden’s goals was to bankrupt our country (links: Al-Qaida is bleeding US to bankruptcy, Bin Laden claims | World news | The Guardian, and Osama bin Laden didn’t win, but he was ‘enormously successful’ - The Washington Post). Not only has he - posthumously - been more than partially successful economically, he’s also been more wildly successful than I believe even he imagined at transforming our society into a security state, with the ultimate result being what we are seeing on the streets of our cities and communities today in the form of DHS and ICE.

I’ve been shouting this from the rooftops since I first became involved in politics.

What we do share with Middle Eastern countries is one thing: oil. We need it and they have it. Not only do they have it, they wield it as a weapon when they want to. “Energy independence” is an oxymoron as it pertains to oil because oil is a global commodity, and no matter how much we pump here in the U.S., we are subject to - and vulnerable to - other providers (read: OPEC+, Russia, etc.) manipulating prices to suit their needs, not ours. Also, let’s remember that the United States doesn’t pump oil - corporations like ExxonMobil do. Their allegiance is not to the U.S. as a country or to consumers within the U.S. - it’s to their profit margins and shareholders, who tend to care more about returns on investment than the price at the pump our national security. In essence, the U.S. taxpayer has been subsidizing the profits of these companies by spending trillions over the years on our military - projecting power worldwide and providing cover - so oil corporations can safely go about their business without absorbing those necessary costs.

This was on my campaign website for a race that took place many years ago:

Oil is hovering around $100 per barrel. Most of the oil we use to fuel our cars and our economy comes from countries that are either our adversaries, like Iran and Venezuela, or from areas of the world that are unstable, such as the Middle East and Nigeria. With increasing demand from the two most populated countries on earth, India and China, prices for oil are likely to remain high.

The result of this dynamic is problematic and predictable. As long as we are dependent on oil, we will never be able to be completely secure and the financial well-being of our children and their children will be at risk.

I believe that our future economic prosperity, our national security, and the health and well-being of our citizens depends on our country finding sources of energy that are less polluting and less dependent on the beneficence of foreign governments in volatile regions of the world. Does anyone think for one minute that we would be as involved in the Middle East if there was no oil there (think sub-Saharan Africa)?

Simply put, we are placing our national security at stake. Currently, we are funding both sides in the “war on terror”: we use oil to fuel our own military and economy, while at the same time pouring billions and billions of dollars into the very countries that are producing the extreme views, conditions and values that are necessary for terrorists to be able to thrive.

In addition, the longer we remain dependent on fossil fuels, the more we are putting our economic well-being at risk. In today’s world, volatile countries can hold our economy hostage, as they did with the oil shocks in the 1970s. Middle Eastern countries are using the obscene wealth they are accumulating from petrodollars to form what are called “Sovereign Wealth Funds”. These government-controlled funds are buying up, and investing in, American assets and some of our biggest companies, including Citibank, Bear Stearns and JP Morgan.

_______________________

What’s the answer?

Hmmmm. If only there were energy sources that don’t cost billions of dollars to defend, are economically competitive, less easily monopolized and widely available, less capital intensive, less susceptible to price manipulation by unscrupulous economic actors and/or unfriendly state actors, less polluting and actually job creating herein the U.S. instead of in foreign countries far away.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could get something like that from the sun, or the air in our atmosphere, or the oceans? Wouldn’t it be cool if that energy source and technology was available on a small scale to ranchers and farmers and even individual homeowners?

Oh, wait…

I get it. Powerful financial interests have controlled our historical energy sources (oil, coal, natural gas). They’ve also been able to co-opt our politicians and elected officials using their financial clout.

There needs to be a reckoning.

Much like how the actions of the unassuming people of Minnesota have led to an unexpected change in public opinion regarding ICE and immigration, we need to step up to do the same regarding fossil fuel-based energy sources and the powerful interests that result in illegal “wars of choice” against countries that are thousands of miles away and that pose no “imminent threat”.

_______________________

PS - Trump is basically imploring the IRGC to just put in with the street protestors and give up the ideology they’ve followed over the past 40+years. Yeah, that’ll work:

Exclusive: Prior to Iran attacks, CIA assessed Khamenei would be replaced by hardline IRGC elements if killed, sources say reut.rs/4l9SCAs
— Reuters (@reuters.com)
4:05 PM • Feb 28, 2026

And then there’s this mind boggling post:

complete insanity
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)
3:10 AM • Mar 2, 2026

Guess What? War is Unpopular

mister mix — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 16:50:59 +0000

The initial polling is in on the Iran killing spree, and it ain’t good for the guy who blundered us into it:

21%
@nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/u...
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social)
1:04 PM • Mar 1, 2026

Apologies for the NYT link, but YouGov finds the same thing (that’s a link to a G Elliott Morris piece on Iran polling).

Standard polling disclaimers apply (early days, timing, etc). That said, while a few “police action” military strikes might be popular at some times (Grenada was somewhat popular, as I remember, and perhaps the first Gulf War), in general a broad spectrum of Americans hate war. There’s a lot of isolationism in the American character. And people aren’t dumb: they know that even low casualty counts come with a lot of PTSD.

And, since Vietnam, most of the warring has been done by Republicans. Talk about fucking up a ham sandwich after 9/11: going to Afghanistan and hunting down Bin Laden was the biggest no-brainer of all time, and they fucked that up royally by lying us into a totally different quagmire. They paid for their fuckup at the polls, eventually. Hell, we even elected a black President on the back of it.

A healthy party would have ejected every single member who voted for the Iraq War. Instead, we made one of them our leader in the Senate. It isn’t popular to bomb a school full of girls, no matter how Muslim they are. It isn’t popular to kill the daughter and grandchild of the leader of a country. If we’re supposedly doing what’s popular, it’s opposing this war, no matter what bullshit the incredibly unpopular President and his politburo dream up to support it.

Fighter vs Non-Fighter Is It

mister mix — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

I had this scheduled to go out yesterday morning, but then the Iran attack happened. I still think it’s relevant, and I have some Iran-related content at the end:

Kay dropped this in the comments yesterday, and others on Bluesky (including Cole) have referenced it:

Americans are unhappy with the way things are going in the country, and don’t feel particularly well represented by either major political party. In our new February Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll, 53% of U.S. adults say the Democratic Party is out of touch with the concerns of most Americans. An identical percentage — 53% — say the same about Republicans.
The conventional reading of numbers like these — especially after Kamala Harris’s loss in 2024 — is that when voters say a party is “out of touch,” they mean so in terms of ideology. For the Democrats, for example, “out of touch” gets mapped onto “too progressive” — with the implication that to become “in touch,” the party needs to tack to the ideological center.
Our February poll tested this assumption directly, and the assumption is simply wrong. When Americans say Democrats are “out of touch” they don’t only — or even primarily — mean “too progressive.” This type of thinking is another example of people committing the Strategist’s Fallacy instead of thinking about what is really being measured by the poll question being asked.
Whether a party is “in touch” or “out of touch,” we found, is a product of more than just ideological perceptions. In our survey, U.S. adults call Democrats weak (48%), ineffective (47%), and out of touch — but also empathetic (54%) and principled (49%). They call Republicans extreme (60%), elitist (57%), and cruel (51%). Both parties have brand problems. But the kind of problem is fundamentally different from what most people are assuming — and that difference matters enormously for 2026.
Today’s Chart of the Week: Americans — including swing voters — say Democrats should fight harder, not moderate. Republicans, in contrast, have a major extremism and cruelty problem. I sit down and actually do the math on how many votes Democrats could flip by messaging on ideology versus fighting for what members believe in.
G Elliott Morris Substack

Read the whole thing. It reinforces what a lot of observers have been saying for the last year or so.

I want to add one observation: if you’re trying to convince someone to vote for you because of your policy positions, your policy positions don’t really matter if people don’t believe that you can get them enacted. It’s like the some old guy who can barely take a walk around the block telling you he’s going to run a marathon. There’s a fundamental credibility issue that needs to be addressed before any further conversation is possible.

In other words, fixing the branding problem comes first before policy. And that means getting something done when we gain a slim majority (if we even get that done). We need Democrats who have the mentality of Tim Walz and the Minnesota DFL, who enacted progressive legislation with a one-vote majority. What we don’t need is a bunch of fucking excuses and lumpy mashed potato messaging.

With that in mind, let’s look at three examples of Democratic messaging on Iran. First, short, sweet and right, from Ilhan Omar:

The American people are sick and tired of endless wars built on false promises and paid for with innocent lives.
Congress must immediately pass Khanna-Massie War Powers Resolution.
— Ilhan Omar (@ilhanmn.bsky.social)
10:16 PM • Feb 28, 2026

Does anything more need to be said? I think not. Mamdani did well:

Now, the “leaders” of the party:

What do these guys want to do? Does Schumer want to pass a resolution to stop the war? Or just one that has “clarity”? I honestly don’t understand their position. The first rule of fighting is that you need to fight for something, and I don’t even understand the thing they’re fighting for.

Ignorance Will Destroy Us

Joe is Wypoxic — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 15:20:02 +0000

So, the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize President (and “winner” of the more highly esteemed and more widely recognized FIFA Peace Prize) is bombing Iran because we “obliterated” (a direct quote from the Peace President) their nuclear program a few months ago. Or something, something, something (part of the “something” that POTUS made clear was that this was a war for regime change. Those always end well for us, right? I wonder if there’s an example of this not working out according to plan. Like maybe… Iran?

Let me be clear, IMHO, Iran is a bad actor. They should be contained. But as far was we can tell, this incredibly incompetent administration entered into this war without any debate, without any consultation with erstwhile allies (fellow leader “let’s-start-a-war-to-distract-from-our-other-corrupt-problems” Netanyahu doesn’t count), and without any attempt to prepare the people of the U.S. for war while decimating our intelligence/national security/terrorist tracking capabilities in order to deport hard-working undocumented people with jobs. My guess is that we will soon enter the “no one could have known this would be the consequence of our actions” phase.

BTW, there’s always a tweet:

— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social)
1:37 PM • Feb 28, 2026

I want to focus on Congressional Republican’s abdication of their constitutional duties. The Constitution allocates to the legislative branch the sole authority to a) levy tariffs, and b) declare war. The “Commander in Chief” role assigned to the Executive Branch (i.e., the President) is, in theory, only operative after Congress has done its job be formally declaring war.

Both parties have been culpable in ceding constitutional powers - unconstitutionally in my view - from the legislative branch (Article I) to the Executive branch (Article II). But the Republican Party in the MAGA years has literally made Congress irrelevant.

To me, this ultimately comes down to education and Thomas Jefferson’s admonition that “The best defense of democracy is an informed electorate.” Low info (i.e., ignorant) voters gave us an ignoramus President who then hired completely unqualified ignoramus people to run his Administration. The results are horrific and utterly predictable.

Here’s an example of what we get when ignorant voters elect ignorant people:

Lauren Boebert is asked to define “inflation.” It does not go well.
— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com)
4:29 PM • Feb 27, 2026

This is… mind-boggling scary. A person who took multiple attempts to pass her High School GED exam has absolutely no f*^kng clue what inflation actually means. None. And she’s not alone in Congress. I spent a fair amount of time on the Hill as a federal candidate. The level of ignorance in our electeds (several Dems included, but Republicans clearly held a large lead in this area) was staggering. I know we eliminated literacy tests for voting with passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (which is being dismantled by the current SCOTUS piece by piece), but Lauren Boebert and her ilk make a very strong case for a “No Idiots” Act. I’m being facetious but also… I’m not.

The simple truth is we are currently “governed” (I put that term in quotes because this Admin literally has no interest in the hard work of actually “governing” with the “consent of the people”) by completely unqualified and voluntarily ignorant people.

This is as disheartened as I’ve ever been about the state of our country. Now is not the time to give up, but I need to take some really deep breaths to reenergize.

Fuck.

More Pointless Death

mister mix — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 13:31:47 +0000

We’re all waking up to find that Israel and the US have launched a joint attack on Iran for whatever reason. I mean, the overall reason is that Iran is our enemy, just as Venezuela was. But, despite whatever Trump says in either case, there was no imminent threat from those countries.

Trump has released a video where he said that there’s a good chance that some of our military will die, so I guess he thinks this will go on for a few days. Trump never really gave a shit about war one way or another — he just knows that coffins coming home are bad for the ratings of the Donald Trump show, so it’s an interesting peek into his current violent whim to hear him say that.

It will be interesting to see whether he’ll get the usual DC media tongue bath for blowing shit up. I’m guessing it will be a little restrained since this is so obviously a war on a whim by two leaders who are in big legal and political trouble in their home countries.

Congress, who once again had one of their powers usurped by Trump, won’t do anything because Republicans are fine with this, and a certain group of Democrats don’t mind it either. I believe those Democrats are led by Schumer.

The Epstein files will still be here after this is done. Obligatory:

The Blame Game

Joe is Wypoxic — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 16:43:54 +0000

Editorial Note: Posting may be light for the next week or so - one of the Wypoxic boys is coming into town with 9 friends for a week of winter play. And for those of you wondering, no - our house cannot comfortably accommodate 10 30-year olds.

We have an unfinished attic that can be entered via a pull-down ladder in the entrance to our main bedroom. I noticed Mrs. Wypoxic pulling down the ladder the other day and making several trips up into the attic. When I asked her what she was doing, she said she was preparing a bed up there for our son to sleep in while he's here. 😬

Wish us luck 😇😆

_______________________________________________

Now, on to the blame game and how to respond. I’m with Kevin Kruse on this one:

They spent 2025 making a huge show of how "disruptive" and "transformative" they were being, with sweeping cuts at DOGE, massive changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill, and so much more.
Now that the costs are becoming clear, they're pretending they did nothing at all. It's all Biden's fault!
— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social)
10:21 PM • Feb 26, 2026

BTW, the harm to rural hospitals was absolutely in the forefront of the discussion when the OBBBA was being debated:

Analysis: Rural hospitals at risk due to cuts in OBBBA | AHA News

Data from the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows that health care cuts under consideration in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1) could place over 300 rural hospitals across the U.S. at risk of closure, conversion or service reductions.

www.aha.org/news/headline/2025-06-12-analysis-rural-hospitals-risk-due-cuts-obba

Opponents of this regime (and that is the word to use, not “Administration”. They are truly “administering” nothing; “regime connotes a government that tends to be authoritarian. Words matter!) should seize on the Biden-blaming. Again, use ridicule, derision and /or humor before pivoting. Messaging should be a combination of the following”

“Don’t we teach our kids to take responsibility for their actions? Those who refuse to ever take responsibility should not be responsible for leading our country.”
These jokers cut nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid and Medicare - and screwed rural hospitals - to give a tax cut to the billionaire Epstein Class”
“Look at this guy [JD Vance]. He’s changed his name multiple times. Do you really trust him to take responsibility for screwing the American people?”

Today’s challenge in the comments: try to come up with a simple, easy to understand, message that pushes back on these a**holes for never taking responsibility and always blaming Biden. Winner gets a Reverse Pyromania t-shirt (if Mister Mix ever decides to get t-shirts; if he never prints t-shirts, then the winner gets… nothing other than deep internal satisfaction 🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♀️)

A Data Center Story

mister mix — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Scott H attended a meeting about a possible AI data center in Denver, and sent a report. I’ve added a couple of comments at the end, including a link to why nobody should ever believe a poll from David Shor.

Our weasily city councilman, Darrell Watson, convened a community meeting last night
ostensibly to “address concerns” about a data center that’s under construction in the Globeville Elyria-Swansea (GES) neighborhood in Denver:

Data center developer skips out on Denver town hall amid Globeville community concerns

During a town hall on Tuesday night, residents of Denver's Globeville and Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods demanded answers from city leaders, state officials, and business representatives.

www.denver7.com/follow-up/data-center-developer-skips-out-on-town-hall-amid-globeville-community-concerns

For those of you unfamiliar with GES, 120-140 years ago, it was the area where all the smelters, drill-making factories, etc., associated with Colorado’s extractive industries during the First Gilded Age, were located. As you have guessed, it’s residents were the day’s minorities: Irish, Eastern Europeans, etc., who lived in a shit area doing shit work. Even as they were replaced starting in the 30s and 40s with a predominately Hispanic community, the pollution and industrial activities Denver’s elites wanted were put there. It remains one of the most polluted zip codes in the US.

As you can imagine, when word got out that an extractive industry associated with the SecondGilded Age was under construction there, a data center, longtime residents started making it known until it reached a level where their city councilman, the aforementioned weasel (who none of them voted for—his constituency are the entitled white colonizer/gentrifiers who’ve flocked here in the last decade) decided he needed to appear responsive to his district and convened this community meeting.

He had a host of people on a panel, most representing various City departments but also one rep from our hated utility company, Xcel. Most notably absent was the company building the data center, CoreSite, and anybody from Mayo Mikey’s [Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s] office.

The crowd was probably at least 300 people, so many that they had some in an overflow room and as many outside looking thru the windows into the meeting room. Darrell made sure there were cops and fire department people there for “crowd control”. It sent a message to a community that was overwhelmingly Hispanic.

Darrell opened the meeting by going into detail about how CoreSite was able to purchase the land and basically do what they wanted with it because of “old” zoning that provided “by right” rights to build something like a data center. As he put it “This never came before City Council” with a strong inference that City Council never actually knew about it.

He repeated that litany constantly; he’s clearly a proud graduate of the Lando Calirissian School of Management. [Star Wars reference: Lando says “they told me they fixed it” when the hyperdrive didn’t work.]

The crowd had questions about health, water and utility costs and the amount of bureaucratic weasel-speak, particularly by the Xcel rep, was really impressive. And that’s coming from a Club Fed employee of 38+ years, I knoweth what I see.

He proudly announced that because of CC’s “tied hands”, ie., no regulations, thus we can’t stop anything, that morning they’d implemented a ‘moratorium’:

Denver Mayor Wants to Pull the Plug on New Data Centers...for Now

According to a tracking map, 47 of Colorado's 57 data centers are in the Denver area.

www.westword.com/news/denver-mayor-wants-moratorium-new-data-centers-40848561

Darrell Lando then explained that CC simply needed time to craft all this great regulation that would take care of everybody’s concerns. When Q&A started, however, it was clear that nobody up there was either going to provide specific answers to questions (like electricity rates) or talk in anything but generalities.

It also became clear when discussion got down into the local electric sub-station level, that developments of one that had originally been stated to be for affordable housing projects (that have never come to fruition) were all along slated for this data center that supposedly CC never knew about.

But then they slipped. Somebody asked why wasn’t some kind of zoning something-or-other wasn’t considered when the property was being offered for sale to CoreSite because that notification would have gone to CC. That’s when another CC person (and another of my neighbors like Darrell Lando) got up and admitted that they’d seen it but being swamped with work, didn’t act on it. To her credit, she said “That’s on me”, really the only elected official who’s taken even a scrap of ownership on this political clusterfuck.

Finally, the former CC person that Darrell Lando ousted in the last election pointed out the circular logic of what was being said, how saying CoreSite would share proprietary corporate data was a laughable concept and then stated what everybody wanted to hear: “What will trigger CC to ban future data center builds?”

No answer was ever given but we were told repeatedly how this ‘moratorium’ would allow CC to craft the greatest regulations to assuage everybody’s concerns.

The man either couldn’t or wouldn’t read the room. Again, it’s the area of his district that
overwhelmingly didn’t vote for him in 2023. As more Q&A became pissed-off statements from residents, the ‘fucks’ began to be used like commas. And when he tried to make some closing statements, the assembled masses would have none of it and started chanting “SHUT IT DOWN! SHUT IT DOWN!”

To be honest, a lot of the more nuanced aspects of the negatives surrounding data centers weren’t discussed. Instead, it was a neighborhood that for 140 years has born the brunt of the shit that Denver’s economic elites benefit from and were letting one of our more odious CC people have it with both barrels, the optics just from that perspective were awful.

How it plays out city-wide remains to be seen. My hope is somebody picks up on the massive spike in electricity bills associated with data centers. Hell, Goldman Sachs posted just last week an economic note on this and it wasn’t pretty.

Clearly, the data center advocates are working hard in Denver, and everywhere else, to bullshit about the consequences of having a data center. And guess who’s helping: David Shor, the pollster to the consultant class. Here’s a piece on him juking a poll to advocate for data centers.

News from the Police State

mister mix — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 17:54:39 +0000

This seems like the encapsulation of all of the gross police incompetence and misconduct that we’ve seen in the last few decades rolled into one. First, bad cops:

[Burmese refugee] Shah Alam had been in the Erie County Holding Center since February 2025 after being arrested by Buffalo police. On February 15 last year, he had been out for a walk in his neighborhood and had been using a curtain rod he purchased as a walking stick.
Nearly blind and with no ability to speak English, Shah Alam got lost and ended up on the porch of a woman’s home as she was letting her dog out, according to Macaluso. Shah Alam is completely blind in one eye and can only see with blurry vision for several feet in the other, according to Macaluso.
The woman called police, Macaluso said. When Shah Alam did not follow police commands to drop his curtain rod, they Tasered and beat him, then arrested him, Macaluso said. The officers suffered minor injuries in the scuffle, he said.
Shah Alam was charged with offenses including assault, trespassing and possession of a weapon. Macaluso said Shah Alam’s family opted to not bail him out of the Holding Center for fear he would end up detained by ICE out of state.
Investigative Post

Then Border Patrol got involved, because they’ve got a quota to fill:

Shah Alam, a Rohingya refugee, had been missing since February 19. He was released that afternoon from custody at the Erie County Holding Center after posting bail. In response to an immigration detainer that had been placed on him, the Erie County Sheriff’s Office contacted U.S. Border Patrol prior to his release, according to spokesperson Christopher Horvatits.
Benjamin Macaluso, a Legal Aid Bureau attorney representing Shah Alam, said Border Patrol agents picked him up at the Holding Center at 4:39 p.m. Thursday.
[…] After taking custody of Shah Alam, Border Patrol agents dropped him off at a Tim Hortons on Niagara Street in the Black Rock neighborhood, Macaluso said, shortly after 8 p.m. Shah Alam and his family live in the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood on the East Side, according to Fazal.
Investigative Post

He’s dead — his body was found Tuesday evening.

The Tim Hortons where he was allegedly dropped off and his house are five miles apart. Pardon my skepticism about Border Patrol’s story. His attorney believed that Shah Alam would be taken to a facility in Batavia, around 30 miles from Buffalo. Since they have a quota to fill, I sure don’t think they normally just drop people off at Timmy’s instead of putting them into one of their concentration camps.

We’ll probably never know what happened to this person. Our version of the cartels disappeared him.

Nurul Amin Shah Alam - RIP

Mexico Guest Post

mister mix — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 13:49:10 +0000

Reader R Po sent in this piece with his take on Mexico. I agree with him, and I like his perspective. Thanks to R for sending it in.

The game is afoot. It's been inevitable that the two most powerful MX social "movements" would violently clash. Morena is like if AOC was president and the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) controlled all branches of the government with a 70% approval level. Morena is actually doing not cynically what the wiki page says:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morena_(political_party)

Big changes for the better for most of MX society, focused on the bottom, emphasis on development (jobs, minimum wage) at the bottom, healthcare for the bottom.

"por el bien de todos, primero los pobres" [For the benefit of all - the poor first]

But also: security for the bottom. Except in a still weak federal system security for the bottom is near non existent outside of the big cities because: cartels.

The cartels are analogous to the oligarchs in the US. By historically providing "prosperity" for the bottom they effectively control a big chunk of the rural part of the country, and the only way to survive is to join them. Otherwise you're dead: "plato o plumo" [Silver or lead, meaning accept a bribe or be killed]. Morena threatens the basic architecture of that predatory system.

The oligarchs in the US have essentially bought near invincible control of the country because they control nearly all of the legitimate state apparatus. The cartels have no such luxury. The only way they keep control is through violence. Morena, especially during the AMLO years, consolidated its power over the branches of the MX government by a voluntary policy of disengagement with the cartels: "abrazos, no balazos". [Hugs not bullets] AMLO was also a very kooky populist. I had my doubts he would give up power but it is an astoundingly good thing he did. Because Sheinbaum is the real deal. AMLO is like a commie non-senile Trump. Sheinbaum is like FDR, but better educated. She's Jewish btw, and was mayor of Mexico City. Got the Mamdani vibes. You should go and gawk at her publication list:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6Dn91MwAAAAJ&hl=en

So you can see the conflict coming. Morena wants the bottom to have 1st world lives. The cartels can't have that. Lots of politicians and hopefully a shit ton of the cartels' leadership cadres are going to die, because this is going to be like Ukr/Rus.

And here's the part that will blow your mind: neither Morena nor the cartels want the violence to disrupt the tourist industry. The cartels have billions in investments in the
tourist industry, so it would hurt them pretty bad to say, fuck up Puerto Vallarta, which suffered some on Sunday, but not in the tourist sections. The cartels burned some
vehicles on the very road we drove on to get to and from Ensenada last month, but nothing happened in Ensenada. I'd have no qualms at all about carrying on just as before.

But, I'm pretty worried about Sheinbaum.

The latest news from Mexico is that it’s pretty much business as usual in Jalisco, with no more cars burning or other issues like that. Obligatory Claudia with cute kids pic: