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Joined August 2010
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MasterFeeds retweeted
I’ve had this weight on me for a while and felt the need to share it once and for all.
Years ago, the CEO and co-founder of Semafor, a media publication, approached me. He presumably wanted me to consider investing, because he spent a significant amount of time boasting about all of his supplemental sources of revenue.
I was stunned when he bragged about getting an enormous amount of money from the government of Qatar. The pretense was that he was receiving these funds to “train journalists.” I don’t recall the precise amounts, but recall that he acknowledged that the cost to conduct this “training” was a tiny fraction of what he was getting paid - directionally it was something like getting paid $2mm to conduct a “media training” boot camp that would cost Semafor $50,000 to execute. I pointed out that it sounded like he was being bribed - that nobody with proper intentions would offer to pay something that was 20-100X off market - and no entity pretending to be a journalism outfit should accept stuff like that, as it would compromise him.
He insisted that wouldn’t happen. But over the course of many years, I’ve observed how Semafor continues to receive government sponsorships and perform all sorts of “trainings” and “conferences” in partnership with Qatar, while providing very complementary coverage to the government of Qatar. This is downright unethical - and particularly unbecoming of an outfit pretending to be “training journalists”! The problem doesn’t end with Semafor.
The government of Qatar has been buying off media, education and other groups, with reports of how it deployed billions of dollars in the US higher education system. All of us who care about ethics should demand an investigation into these practices. Regardless of whether legal authorities choose to look into this, we as the people and the consumers should admonish such egregious behavior and ensure we avoid “media” publications that are so compromised.
Countless journalists risk their lives every day to expose abuses in power. Semafor does a disservice to the profession by undermining trust.
@buildersmideast @BuildersMvt
MasterFeeds retweeted
This Palestinian estate in Mukhmas, in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), is one of 100 luxury properties featured in Regavim’s new photo book, Real Estate Under Occupation.
Pools, marble staircases, landscaped gardens and gated compounds feature throughout. The Israeli land-use advocacy group says its team photographed the properties in a single day.
Regavim argues that this private wealth is often missing from international coverage. The selection documents an affluent slice of Palestinian society; the report also examines the broader economic context and the homes’ American connections.
Nachum Perry reports in The Jerusalem Post.
Photo: Courtesy/Regavim.
jpost.com/israel-news/articl…
MasterFeeds retweeted
You are the first UN expert in history condemned for antisemitism and Holocaust inversion by France, Germany, Canada & many others: unwatch.org/condemnations-ag…
In nearly every one of your interviews, you insist you are not antisemitic.
Now you say you don't even know what it means?
MasterFeeds retweeted
Sind jene, die einen israelischen Dokumentarfilm 25 Minuten lang mit Standing Ovations feiern, auch bereit, die 47-minütige Dokumentation aus den Bodycams der Hamas-Terroristen anzusehen?
MasterFeeds retweeted
It is rather amazing how many widely accepted narratives about the Gaza war and Israel have been completely debunked in recent weeks. Especially after terror groups started announcing death notices for their commanders.
You will note that the media extensively ran with all these narratives without hesitation, despite there being clear evidence of them being unsupported by the facts even at the time.
3 key examples:
1) Israel targeted journalists:
This claim was highly reliant on the CPJ list of killed "journalists". Then the death notices exposed that many on that list were militants. CPJ started secretly removing names and has since announced a full review of their list, but a new analysis shows a majority remaining on the list had terror ties, and dozens are confirmed militants.
Source: freebeacon.com/israel/exclus…
2) Israel intentionally starved Palestinians in Gaza as part of a war strategy.
This was always an absurd claim, given Gaza received more aid per capita than any war zone in recent history with Israel's active support.
But the recent report showing Gaza has malnutrition levels below most of the region and that the expected famine deaths never developed really killed this narrative, which highly relied on data manipulation by the UN and willing dupes in the media.
Source: thefp.com/p/unicef-data-unde…
3) Israel targeted healthcare workers.
Recent death notices have clearly shown that many of the healthcare worker fatalities had dual roles as militants.
Here is a thread with 96 examples: teapaw.org/aizenberg55/status/207…
MasterFeeds retweeted
Orbiting over wavy green auroras! Moments like these are some of the most surreal in spaceflight. What a view!
MasterFeeds retweeted
What Bessent Is Doing and Why Most Commentators Misread It
His decision to at least double the size of long-end liquidity-support buybacks is one of the clearest recent signals of how the Treasury under his leadership intends to manage the bond market.
After the 30-year yield reached levels last seen in 2007, the Treasury announced it would raise the size of operations in the 10–20 and 20–30 year sectors from a $2 billion maximum to at least $4 billion, beginning in early September. The long end rallied immediately. Commentators quickly filled the vacuum with labels: “QE,” “yield curve control,” “Treasury blinked,” “desperation,” or pure political theater ahead of the midterms.
None of those descriptions are accurate.
What actually happened is narrower and more technical. The Treasury is buying back older, longer-dated securities and will fund the activity by issuing further in on the curve. The total stock of debt does not change. No new money is created. No reserves are injected by the central bank. This is debt management — the deliberate reshaping of the maturity profile of the government’s own liabilities.
Andreas Steno put it cleanly: it is the sovereign equivalent of a homeowner refinancing a fixed-rate mortgage into a floating-rate one because the shape of the curve makes that trade attractive. It is opportunistic, not monetization.
I reckon that is a brilliant description because that’s what it essentially is
The move does reveal a threshold. Long-term yields high enough to push government interest costs and mortgage rates into politically and fiscally uncomfortable territory will be met with the tools the Treasury already possesses.
Bessent has long treated the 10-year yield as a key barometer of affordability. The expansion of buybacks is the practical expression of that view. It is also consistent with a broader preference for a steeper curve over time , one in which the front end can eventually decline while the long end is prevented from running away. That is a cycle-friendly configuration, not a hard peg.
IMO the misread is because most commentary collapses distinct concepts. Yield curve control is a hard commitment by a central bank to a specific long-term rate, usually backed by unlimited purchases. Quantitative easing expands the central bank’s balance sheet and injects reserves. Neither is occurring here. Calling the operation “blinking” treats any use of the debt-management toolkit as evidence of weakness rather than evidence that the toolkit exists and will be used.
Bessent is an active style of treasury sec
Whatever you think of Trump you have to recognise that Bessent is one of the most competent Sec in the modern era
Treating it as pure midterm politics ignores the mechanical reality that higher long rates raise the cost of the existing debt stock in real time.
The action is successful financial-ledger management. It preserves the ability to finance , keeping long yields from spiking, protecting market functioning, and supporting the affordability metrics that matter for households and the budget. In the language of the Tindale Trap, it stabilizes the financial side of the dual-ledger system. What it ignores is the Material Ledger: the industrial complexity and conversion efficiency that determine whether financing can still be turned into real output under stress.
That distinction is almost entirely absent from the immediate reaction.
Bessent is therefore doing two things at once. He is using the instruments available to a Treasury secretary to keep the long end from becoming a binding constraint, and he is buying time for the larger set of policies , growth, energy, fiscal trajectory, and industrial capacity that will ultimately determine whether the financing advantage remains sustainable.
The U.S. must revert to a traditional Hamiltonian capitalism , in an era of great rivalry we need to rehabilitate the concept and rich tradition of protectionist economics .
MasterFeeds retweeted
First known US case: American charged for using a “duress” password
Samuel Tunick, an Atlanta resident, is being prosecuted for allegedly giving border agents a passcode that wiped his phone.
The feature comes from GrapheneOS, a privacy-focused Android OS. Entering the duress code triggers a full factory reset.
This is believed to be the first time federal prosecutors have brought such charges.
The incident happened in January 2025 at Atlanta airport. Agents demanded access to his phone without a warrant, saying he hadn’t yet officially entered the US. When they entered the code, the phone wiped itself.
Tunick has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers argue the seizure was unlawful and that agents were investigating his activism against “Cop City.”
The case raises big questions about digital rights at the US border.
What do you think?
Article: techcrunch.com/2026/07/24/us…
#Privacy #GrapheneOS #DigitalRights
MasterFeeds retweeted
In 1995, an American president needed two Hebrew words to bury an Israeli prime minister. In 2026, Israel needs the same two for a Baptist son of a South Carolina pool hall:
Shalom, chaver.
Israel has lost its greatest friend on Capitol Hill, Senator Lindsey Graham.
That isn’t an exaggeration; it’s the consensus of the Israeli opposition and coalition, who rose in unison this morning to eulogize the beloved senator.
Born and raised in his beloved South Carolina, Graham grew up living in a cramped room behind his parents’ combined pool hall, bar and liquor store. Later becoming a lawyer and enlisting in the U.S. military, he entered Congress in 1995, becoming the first Republican to represent South Carolina’s 3rd District since Reconstruction. In 2003, he moved up to the Senate, where he and John McCain became a trio with Joe Lieberman—dubbed the “Three Amigos” by Gen. David Petraeus on one of their endless trips to Iraq and Afghanistan. Hawks, travelers and crossers of aisles for wars worth fighting. Especially Israel’s.
Sander Gerber, his partner on the Taylor Force Act, once quipped that the senator was “more pro-Israel than AIPAC,” while Christians United for Israel counted him among Israel’s most stalwart allies in Congress. His evangelical base—a pillar of both South Carolina politics and American Zionism—wasn’t a constituency he courted so much as one he belonged to.
Addressing AIPAC’s annual dinner on March 22, 2010, he told the room the evening was about “our best friend in the world, the State of Israel”—and had every member of Congress present stand while he pledged that Congress had Israel’s back and would not let it down. In the same speech, he declared Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel and the eternal home of the Jewish faith, said it was sometimes better to go to war than to allow a second Holocaust to develop, and closed with “never again.”
He more than lived up to the commitment. From Obama’s JCPOA—which he fought—to Donald Trump’s short-lived rapprochement with Tehran this past month, through the Taylor Force Act, the anti-BDS legislation, the embassy move and the Golan recognition he personally championed, Graham operated on a single axiom, the one the Hebrew press identified this morning as his signature line: Israel’s security is America’s security. He applied it without exception. In 2013, he threatened to sink Chuck Hagel’s nomination as the most anti-Israel defense secretary in American history; in December 2014, standing in Jerusalem beside Netanyahu, he promised on Iran sanctions that “the Congress will follow your lead”—a sentence no other American senator would say to a foreign leader, and Graham said it on camera.
Just 15 days after the October 7 massacre, Graham was in Tel Aviv leading a bipartisan delegation—noting that “10 percent of the United States Senate is in Israel.” Destroying Hamas, he made clear, was nonnegotiable, and he had stark words for Tehran: “We’re here today to tell Iran, we’re watching you”—if the war grew, it was coming to their backyard: “There won’t be two fronts, there will be three.” He told the room exactly why it had happened, insisting no one would ever convince him the massacre was about anything but stopping reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Israel—the very normalization project he had spent the preceding months building.
He wasn’t shy about Biden’s flip-flopping either. When the administration threatened to withhold weapons over Rafah, Graham hauled Lloyd Austin before the Armed Services Committee and asked whether he’d have supported Hiroshima and Nagasaki—then demanded to know how Washington could dictate terms to a country whose neighbors want to kill all the Jews. He called Biden’s approach “ass-backwards.” When the ICC prosecutor moved on Israeli leaders, his warning was five words of pure Graham: “If they do this to Israel, we’re next.”
When Israel launched Operation Rising Lion on June 13, 2025, his reaction was five words: “Game on. Pray for Israel.” The tweet drew fury from all directions—including from Meghan McCain, his late best friend’s daughter, who informed him it was not a game—but it was, in its way, the most honest sentence of the war: the fight he had demanded since at least 2010 had finally arrived, and he was not going to pretend otherwise. By August, he was telling South Carolina Republicans that if America pulls the plug on Israel, God will pull the plug on us. By 2026, per The Wall Street Journal, he was shuttling to Jerusalem to coach Netanyahu on making the case for war to Trump.
In January, no sooner had he disembarked than he posted: “I just landed in Israel, the one and only Jewish State, and America’s strongest ally and friend since its founding.” He returned once more in February 2026—Netanyahu, Defense Minister Katz, the General Staff—the final visit of several dozen across the decades. In March, amid the MAGA backlash over the Iran war, he gave the line that now reads as a valediction: “I will be with Israel until our dying day.”
Far too soon, that day arrived. It found him the same as always: back from an ally’s capital, stalwartly defending a country’s right to freedom and safety, and scheduled for Sunday television to explain why.
MasterFeeds retweeted
Apple just sued OpenAI, and the wildest part is how they got caught: one candidate screenshotted confidential Apple files on his Apple work laptop hours before his OpenAI interview. Apple reads its own server logs. The recruiting pipeline generated its own evidence trail.
The complaint says OpenAI's hardware chief Tang Tan, a 24-year Apple veteran, directed candidates still employed at Apple to bring "actual parts" (batteries, logic boards) to interviews for show and tell sessions. One candidate was surprised, saying he didn't even know you could take those out of the office.
Apple also alleges Tan circulated an internal Apple offboarding document to coach new hires on dodging exit security checks, and that a departing engineer kept his Apple laptop, found a bug that still gave him access to Apple's cloud storage, and downloaded dozens of confidential hardware files after joining OpenAI.
Then the supplier: OpenAI allegedly got one of Apple's manufacturing partners to demonstrate a proprietary metal finishing technique by letting the partner believe Apple had approved it.
Over 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI. Apple says it flagged all of this to OpenAI in February and never got a response. Five months later, it filed.
The ask reveals the strategy. Apple wants an injunction barring OpenAI from using the secrets, the return of every file, and full discovery into io, right as OpenAI preps its first device launch and an IPO. If a judge grants it, OpenAI may have to prove the device was built clean, component by component, before it ships.
The device was supposed to run on the world's best hardware talent. Now its bill of materials is evidence.
MasterFeeds retweeted
Great report on the falsehood that 🇺🇸 sanctions on 🇻🇪 led to its economic collapse:
By the time sanctions hit in August 2017, “Venezuela had already suffered most of its economic devastation: roughly 52% of GDP losses and 98% of import declines occurred before those sanctions.”
1/ We are very pleased to share our new @CambridgeUP Element: "From Collective Punishment to Constraints on Authority: Rethinking the Impact of US Sanctions on Venezuela". Co-authored with @miguelsantos12 and @zp2903. Thread Below! Download: cambridge.org/core/services/…
MasterFeeds retweeted
🫓 Ten days after Venezuelan authorities declared that her son, Víctor Hugo Quero Navas, died in July 2025, 83-year-old Carmen Navas passed away today.
She spent the past 15 months searching for her son, while the State repeatedly misled her, even claiming Víctor Quero was alive.
#Atención A las 7 de la noche de este domingo 17 de mayo, acaba de fallecer Carmen Teresa Navas, madre del preso político Víctor Hugo Quero Navas
MasterFeeds retweeted
@Meta has blocked the accounts of practically the last Venezuelan outlet doing original reporting. After @ArmandoInfo exposed how Maduro cronies are taking over banks, anonymous complaints flooded Meta, claiming the stories violated "author rights." How power in Venezuela works.
📣Nuestra cuenta @ArmandoInfo en Instagram fue suspendida ante el reclamo de una supuesta violación de copyright. Eso ocurre luego de la publicación en esa plataforma de un video resumen y un carrusel del reportaje "Programa para hacerse banquero en dos meses"🧶
MasterFeeds retweeted
There is a claim that keeps circulating, presented as sophisticated analysis: antisemitic violence is caused by Israel’s actions. If Israel behaved differently, Jewish communities around the world would somehow be safer. This argument is not analysis. It is a moral inversion. And it collapses the moment you apply it consistently.
When China imprisons Uyghurs, does anyone warn Muslim communities in Paris to expect attacks? When Russia invaded Ukraine, did anyone tell Russian restaurants to brace for violence? No. Never. The causal chain between a government’s actions and violence against a diaspora is only ever constructed for Jews. Every other minority is extended the basic moral courtesy of being treated as individuals rather than proxies.
Now look at what the data actually shows. The SPCJ, which tracks antisemitic incidents in France in coordination with the Interior Ministry, has documented a consistent and damning pattern: it is antisemitic violence that inspires more antisemitic violence, not Israeli policy. After Mohamed Merah murdered Jewish children at point-blank range at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse in 2012, antisemitic acts surged by 200%. There was no Gaza operation. No Israeli military action. The massacre of Jews in France produced more attacks on Jews in France.
The same logic held after the Hypercacher attack in January 2015: antisemitic acts increased by nearly 300%. Massacres of Jews do not shock antisemites into restraint. They embolden them. They signal impunity. They normalize hatred. And everyone in a position of responsibility knows it.
Which brings us to October 7. From the day of the Hamas attack, antisemitic acts in France increased by over 1,000%. A daily average of approximately 25 antisemitic acts was recorded in the 30 days that followed, reaching nearly 40 on some days. In the three months after the attack, the number of antisemitic acts equaled those recorded over the previous three years combined.
And here is another detail that makes the “Israel causes antisemitism” argument impossible to sustain: the spike began on October 7 itself, the very day of the attack. Israel had not yet responded. Not a single soldier had entered Gaza. Interior Minister Darmanin sent an urgent message to prefects that same day asking them to immediately reinforce protection of Jewish community sites. Synagogues. Schools. Community centers. By October 10, 10,000 police officers had been deployed to protect 500 Jewish sites across the country.
Before any Israeli response existed, the French government already knew that Jewish communities needed protecting. Not because of what Israel was about to do. Because of what had just been done to Jews.
Antisemitic violence has one cause. Antisemitism.
MasterFeeds retweeted
According to @BarakRavid the U.S. and Iran are at the closest point to an agreement since the war began. The framework includes:
• The U.S. and Iranian naval blockade will be gradually lifted during the detailed negotiation period.
• The United States will commit, in the memorandum of understanding, to gradually lift sanctions and release tens of billions of dollars from frozen assets.
• Negotiations are still underway on the duration of the uranium enrichment freeze. Three sources said the freeze would last at least 12 years, and one source estimated the final outcome would be 15 years. In addition, the U.S. wants to include in the agreement a clause stating that any Iranian violation regarding uranium enrichment will extend the freeze period.
• Two sources claimed that Iran would agree to transfer the highly enriched uranium it possesses out of the country.
• The United States expects to receive Iran’s response within 48 hours regarding several key points in the draft framework agreement.
MasterFeeds retweeted
So, per all available evidence, corrupt ICC prosecutor Karim Khan is alleged to have sexually harassed and assaulted a female Muslim colleague.
He then tried to keep his victim from coming forward by leveraging arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.
Finally, it now appears, based on the latest reporting in the WSJ and audio recording, that he had Qatar hire 2 private investigation firms to try to dig up dirt on his accuser.
This is the same prosecutor who wouldn't bring any charges against Maudro while his sister-in-law served as a lawyer for that regime.
The levels of corruption are insane.
MasterFeeds retweeted
Earthset.
The Artemis II crew captured this view of an Earthset on April 6, 2026, as they flew around the Moon. The image is reminiscent of the iconic Earthrise image taken by astronaut Bill Anders 58 years earlier as the Apollo 8 crew flew around the Moon.
ALT Earthset captured through the Orion spacecraft window at 6:41 p.m. EDT, April 6, 2026, during the Artemis II crew\u2019s flyby of the Moon. A muted blue Earth with bright white clouds sets behind the cratered lunar surface. The dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime. On Earth\u2019s day side, swirling clouds are visible over the Australia and Oceania region.\nIn the foreground, Ohm crater has terraced edges and a flat floor interrupted by central peaks. Central peaks form in complex craters when the lunar surface, liquefied on impact, splashes upwards during the crater\u2019s formation. Credit: NASA
MasterFeeds retweeted
"Our head count in Manhattan when I got to JPMorgan was 35,000 and now is 26,000. Our head count in Texas started at 11,000, now it's 33,000. That's what happens."
Jamie Dimon on why companies are leaving New York:
"Highest individual taxes, highest estate taxes, highest corporate taxes, anti-business sentiment."
"When I grew up as a kid in New York City, there were 120 of the Fortune 500 headquarters there. In the 1970s, 60 of the 120 left, including Exxon, GE, IBM, Union Carbide. They're all going to Texas."
The Hill & Valley Forum 2026
@HillValleyForum @jpmorgan @ChairmanG
MasterFeeds retweeted
“We estimate between 20 to 25 percent of all phone lines in Venezuela have been subject to data extraction or interception by authorities, including geolocation,” says @conexionsegura’s Andrés Azpurúa.
MasterFeeds retweeted
In 1507-15, the Portuguese crown built the fort of Our Lady of the Conception in Hormuz, to control trade from India and charge hefty tolls to passing ships. From the outset, holding the fort and controlling the Strait of Hormuz required constant fighting with local emirs; by 1662 the Shah of Persia (backed by British forces) took it for good. After a detailed account of the back-and-forth in a fierce and bloody seven‑month naval battle in 1521–22 in the Strait of Hormuz, Commander Saturnino Monteiro, in the first volume of his treatise "Batalhas e Combates da Marinha Portuguesa,” concluded: "...and thus ended this stupid and useless war of Hormuz, with everything remaining as it had been before."