Just a small account trying to see The Big Picture
Manhattan, NY
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The Big Picture retweeted
Charlie Kirk was murdered for his beliefs and conservative values. Senator Slotkin wants that to be a message of deterrence for young people.
Tell me again who the fascists are...
ON UCHICAGO CAMPUS: U.S. Senator from Michigan Elissa Slotkin hopes planned political prosecutions of republican leaders will scare young conservatives from getting involved in politics.
@ElissaSlotkin
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The Big Picture retweeted
I’ve spent a few days thinking about the Tesla Roadster reveal and landed somewhere I haven’t seen much discussion. I’m neither a Tesla fanboy nor a Tesla hater. And I couldn’t care less whether what we saw technically qualifies as a flying car. Three takeaways: (1) The risk of that live demonstration going horribly wrong was real. Almost no CEO would willingly expose their company to that kind of public humiliation for a product with so little financial upside. Elon did. (2) That willingness to attempt the seemingly impossible is what makes Tesla special. It’s also arguably Elon’s greatest contribution to America. He’s helped bring back something we’ve lost. The American spirit of chasing big scary ideas that most people think are impossible. That mindset is spreading across a new generation of founders and its long term impact on America’s future could dwarf anything Tesla ever sells. I think this is deeply underappreciated. (3) Can we just acknowledge how insanely cool that moment was? We’ve reached a strange place culturally where even extraordinary feats of human ingenuity immediately become arguments about why they don’t count. Not everything needs to be a debate. Sometimes we should just be able to stand back together and marvel at what humans are capable of. I’ve been both bullish and critical of Tesla’s ambitions over the years. But watching Elon and his team push the boundaries of what’s possible reminds me why I’m glad we have him. Whether the Roadster ever makes Tesla a dollar or impacts $TSLA stock price is almost beside the point. We need more people willing to risk failure in pursuit of things the rest of us think are impossible. Because when they succeed we all win.
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RT @thirtythree: This clip has more innovation than all of Europe has produced in 100 years
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The Big Picture retweeted
The most vomit-inducing subspecies of professional victimhood crusaders is the privileged PoC woke brigade.
You've seen some familiar archetypes. The Brahmin Indian transplant, born at the literal top of the caste pyramid where they’ve been stepping on untouchables for generations, who parachutes into the West and immediately starts cosplaying as some brown skinned underdog railing against “systemic oppression." Meanwhile, their family still runs half the tech visas and corner store empires back home.
Or the Gucci-clad son of a Turkish multi-millionaire, living off generational wealth from blood money LARPing as a revolutionary firebrand against capitalism.
And now, lo and behold, that New Yorker writer who pens glowing essays about “micro-looting” Whole Foods. Of course she grew up in a goddamn mansion. Of course her parents were running a full-scale human trafficking operation that turned Filipino teachers into indentured servants - predatory loans at 60% interest, deportation threats, the works. $2.8 million in stolen visa fees, luxury resort bribes for school admins, the whole predatory grift. DHS literally ruled it was “a severe form of trafficking in persons.” Her family got caught and had to forfeit the mansion and the Mercedes fleet, pled to conspiracy, and got off with 3 months’ probation and a slap on the wrist.
Remember also Lydia Mugambe, that UN judge with an Oxford law doctorate, the “human rights” warrior who spent her days pontificating about protecting the vulnerable… who was caught literally enslaving her own housekeeper in a modern slavery racket? LOL
These people are the worst kind of frauds. Loudly protesting their “oppression” while perched on piles of unearned privilege and family exploitation. It’s the exact same energy as the rapey male feminist. The lady doth protest too much, methinks - Shakespeare nailed it centuries ago. That over-the-top virtue signaling is always a cover for the skeletons in their own closets.
Never trust them, not for a second. The louder they cosplay the oppressed, the harder you should look at the mansion, the trust fund, the parents, the FRAUD, and the housekeeper they’re probably underpaying in cash.
This is the mansion that New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino grew up in before her parents were indicted for a massive human trafficking scheme that basically involved forcing Filipino migrants into slavery.
Her parents trafficked hundreds of immigrants into the US, then threatened them with deportation if they spoke out against abusive living conditions and extremely predatory loans that basically forced the migrants into a form of indentured servitude or modern day slavery.
Her parents ultimately stole almost $2.8 million USD in fraudulent visa fees before being indicted on 40 counts of money laundering, conspiracy to smuggle immigrants, and visa fraud.
According to court records, the fraud worked like this:
The Tolentino family took school administrators on free trips to luxury beach resorts in the Philippines.
In exhange for the luxury holiday, school administrators would then ''interview'' Filipino teachers and agree to hire them to their school district.
At first, the school district promised to employ 55 teachers.
With this preliminary order, the Tolentino family charged each of the teachers $10,000 for a non-refundable deposit and extracted a promise to pay up to 50% of their US salaries for their first few years of employment.
Before even making it to the US, most teachers were therefore placed in debt roughly equivalent to two years of median family income in the Philippines.
This debt quickly became crushing because the Tolentino family business Omni Consortium worked with a predatory loan shark company called Blue Pacific to deliver loans at an annual interest rate of 60%.
Blue Pacific required that each “recruit” have a co-signer in the Phillipines: co-signers were threatened with jail-time if “recruits” were unable to make monthly payments.
The Tolentino family failed to secure employment for many of the teachers once they arrived in the US, so many of them failed to make their monthly payments.
If "recruits" failed to make a payment the Tolentinos would charge an additional 10% penalty to the loan payment, plus an additional five-percent 5% interest.
At least one victim of the Tolentinos filed for ''T nonimmigrant status'' which is a temporary immigration benefit for victims of human trafficking.
While ultimately unsuccessful in their overall ''T nonimmigrant status'' appeal, US Citizenship and Immigration Services DID determine that the victim had been a victim of human trafficking at the hands of the Tolentinos: ''Upon review, the applicant has established that she has been a victim of a severe form of trafficking in persons, and and that her physical presence in the United States is on account of a severe form of human trafficking in persons.''
So a DHS agency determined that the Tolentino family engaged in a severe form of human trafficking that basically involved forcing migrants into a kind of modern slavery.
After a lengthy trial, lawyers hired by the Tolentinos secured a ruling of mistrial on a technicality because two of the jurors read some newspaper articles about the case.
They ultimately pleaded to conspiracy to defraud the US government and received 3 months' probation each, not prison.
According to the El Paso Times reporting on the August 2008 sentencing, the Tolentinos ultimately forfeited:
- A $1.75 million house in Houston
- $80,000 from five different bank accounts held under the names of parents and grandparents
- A 1996 Mercedes Benz
- A 1999 BMW
- Real estate properties in Houston and McAllen
Her mother Angelica Tolentino had her charges dismissed in August 2008 specifically in exchange for agreeing not to contest the forfeiture order.
Jia's mother avoided prosecution by letting the assets go, which suggests the family treated the forfeiture as the real cost of the case rather than the criminal sentence (which was just 3 months' probation each for father Noel and grandmother Florita).
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The Big Picture retweeted
🚨 Students Supporting Israel at Catholic University wanted to hold an event on ending antisemitism.
The administration said fine.
Only if you also include
the other side.
The other side.
Of ending antisemitism.
SSI proposed:
“Ending Antisemitism in America.”
Submitted: January 19
Denied: February 25
The university’s Center for Student Engagement said the event required another speaker for a “balanced presentation” representing “both sides of this issue.”
Both sides?
Of whether Jew-hatred should be confronted?
Other student groups get to hold one-sided events without a problem.
But when pro-Israel students want to confront antisemitism, suddenly Jew-hatred becomes a viewpoint that needs representation.
Disgusting.
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The Big Picture retweeted
Y’all know I have my disagreements with Bibi. Budget priorities, haredi welfare spending, import reforms, judicial reform, information war, avoidance of accountability, Gaza war - okay, a lot of disagreements, including on big, critical things that affect our lives and the lives of our neighbors.
But the man has been planning the ayatollahs’ fall for two decades. He believes it’s why God (inasmuch as he believes in God) put him on this Earth.
And damned if he isn’t seeing through this thing he has always believed was his destiny.
I’ll keep criticizing the bad stuff. I’m a citizen. He works for me. That’s how the system is supposed to work.
And I’ll keep praising and being grateful for this one great big huge thing.
I don’t know if he’ll succeed. I can’t think of anyone else who would have been so grimly single-minded and so specifically competent in the specific skillset required to bring us to this point.
Succeed in this one big thing, Bibi, and you will have earned your place in the annals of this people.
And then get serious about the import reforms. We’re dying here.
הבוקר חיסלנו את עלי לאריג'אני. עלי לאריג'אני זה הבוס של משמרות המהפכה, שזה חבורת הגנגסטרים שמנהלת בפועל את איראן. אנחנו חיסלנו לצידו גם את מפקד הבסיג' - זה העוזרים של הגנגסטרים, שהם מפיצים טרור ברחובות טהרן וערים אחרות של איראן נגד האוכלוסייה. גם שם אנחנו פועלים; פועלים מהאוויר עם מטוסים של חיל האוויר, עם כטב"מים.
אנחנו מערערים את המשטר הזה בתקווה לתת לעם האיראני הזדמנות לסלק אותו. זה לא יקרה בפעם אחת, זה לא יקרה בקלות. אבל אם נתמיד בזה - אנחנו ניתן להם הזדמנות שהם יוכלו לקחת את גורלם בידיהם.
במקביל, אנחנו עוזרים לידידינו האמריקנים במפרץ. אני שוחחתי ארוכות עם הנשיא טראמפ אתמול בנושא הזה. יש שיתוף פעולה בין חילות האוויר וחילות הים שלנו, ביני לבין הנשיא טראמפ ואנשיו. אנחנו נעזור גם בהתקפות עקיפות, שמייצרות לחץ אדיר על המשטר האיראני, וגם בפעולות ישירות. יש עוד הרבה הפתעות. בתחבולות נעשה מלחמה. אנחנו לא נחשוף את כל התחבולות כאן, אבל אמרתי לכם: רבות המה.
עכשיו, ביחס לדבר נוסף: הדבר החשוב ביותר לנצח במלחמה זה נחישות. נחישות, נחישות, נחישות. נחישות של המנהיגים, נחישות של המפקדים, נחישות של העם. אנחנו נחושים לנצח, ואנחנו נשיג את הדברים האלה.
אני מבקש מכם פשוט להתעלם מערוצי הדכדוך. אנחנו בהישגים היסטוריים. אנחנו, בעזרת השם, הגענו למצב שאחרי ה-7 באוקטובר, שהיינו על עברי פי פחת, אנחנו עכשיו מעצמה אדירה, כמעט עולמית, עם הידידה שהיא ה-מעצמה העולמית, נלחמים שכם אל שכם. זה כבר הישג אדיר מול כל האיומים שיבואו עלינו. לאיזו מדינה עוד יש את היכולות הללו? כולן מותקפות כאן. למי יש את העוצמות האלה שלנו, של הבריתות, של צה"ל, של חיל האוויר ושל עם חזק? אז הישארו חזקים.
אני רוצה להגיד לכם: אנחנו גם נעזור לכם. כל מה שקשור בפיצויים - הנחיתי להציג לכם את המתווה וגם להגדיל את המתווה. גם לעזור לצפון, וגם לעזור לכל מי שצריך, כפי שעשינו כבר בעבר ב'עם כלביא', כפי שעשינו קודם לכן בקורונה. נעשה את זה ביתר-שאת הפעם״.
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The Big Picture retweeted
@RoKhanna is an idiot. But when you arrogantly assume your seat is a lock, you think you can get away with being an idiot.
He deserves to lose this upcoming election.
He’s a terrible representative of Silicon Valley.
What the hell is wrong with you?
48 hours ago two men were beaten in your district for speaking Hebrew.
Earlier today there was a shooting at a Jewish school in Michigan.
Is it politics? Lack of empathy? Are you actually racist?
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The Big Picture retweeted
CNN's Paul Begala falsely claims Pete Hegseth purchased ribeye steaks and lobster tails for himself, not the troops.
Scott Jennings, "Internet do something."
Here are the receipts:
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The Big Picture retweeted
Signals indicate the Regime Change phase of the 2026 Gulf War is about to begin.
The Velayat-e Faqih is built on three pillars: clerical legitimacy, bazaar merchant wealth, and a robust and redundant security apparatus.
The clerical legitimacy was already in serious question due to the numerous waves of protests over the years and especially this last wave.
The opening salvo of Epic Fury was a decapitation strike on the clerical establishment. There is a decent chance that Mojtaba Khamenei is incapacitated such that he doesn't even know that he is the Supreme Leader. This pillar is extremely weak.
The disruption of Iranian oil flow and the bombing of stored oil in Iran was a "shot across the bow," so to speak, on the bazaar merchants. They'll be spared if they cooperate with what comes—and this is important because they will have some of the most important functions in the future of Iran. This pillar will lean whichever way the wind blows.
The final pillar is the security apparatus.
Remember: Iran has two parallel militaries—Artesh (Regular Army) and Sepah (IRGC). Under the IRGC is a subsidiary of sorts called the Basij—a gendarmerie / national guard / police force entity.
The Basij are the primary branch that puts down protests and uprisings. All indications (that aren't obvious enemy propaganda) are that the IRGC and Artesh's war-making ability has been at least 92% degraded (objectively measurable by the rate of ballistic missiles launched). Both Artesh and Sepah Air Forces and Navies have been destroyed. All they have left are ground forces and *maybe* some mines that were already laid in the Strait.
Monday, the IDF launched a series of sorties on Tehran apparently targeting Basij muster points, equipment depots, and C2 nodes. With Iran's ability to fight back effectively neutralized, the war now shifts to lifting the boot off of the Persian neck and putting the initiative into their hands.
The exact course of events over the next week are going to be critical for the future of Iran.
Its still pretty early, but so far my February 19 assessment is holding strong.
My biggest question remains the ability of any successor to consolidate power. I would think, and hope, with the brilliance that went into setting the stage for this war that this was prioritized.
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The Big Picture retweeted
The Mt. Rushmore of great CNN moments. What am I missing
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The Big Picture retweeted
Marco Rubio realizing he has to step in as the new Supreme Leader of Iran.
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The Big Picture retweeted
Marco Rubio sits down with the new supreme leader of Iran 😭
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RT @NarimanGharib: This morning, hundreds of thousands of Iranians woke up to frozen bank accounts. Customers of Bank Sepah and Bank Melli…
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The Big Picture retweeted
People of Iran,
We are waging a historic war for liberty.
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for you to remove the Ayatollah regime and gain your freedom.
Together with the United States, we are hitting the Tyrants of Teheran harder than ever.
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The Big Picture retweeted
Many people, even self-described conservatives, think socialism would work if human nature were different.
No. Socialism cannot work, even in a hypothetical society of selfless genius saints.
Why not?
Because socialism centralizes economic choices. How much lumber do we produce? How much wheat? What should the hourly wage of a garbage collector be? How much should insulin cost? How about bread?
Socialists think that if you elect the right people, they will make these decisions intelligently and altruistically, and everything will be great.
But it doesn't matter how smart and benevolent you are... you can't make a good decision without the right information. The Socialist Central Planning Committee, however wise or benevolent, doesn't know what's wanted, or what's available, because that information is conveyed in prices, and accurate pricing is the very thing that socialist governments wipe away with the bureaucratic pen.
Capitalist networks are decentralized. They distribute decision making to where the information is.
A man selling metal doesn't know anything about desks, or lumber. He doesn't know how many desks people want, or whether they should be made out of oak, or folded metal.
But he does know how much it costs him to smelt iron ore into steel, and roll it into sheets. So he sets a price, and others decide whether, and how much, to buy.
That price contains the information others need to decide whether steel is plentiful, and should be folded into anything you can make out of sheet metal, or is scarce, and should be saved for things that can only be done with steel, and furniture should be made out of oak, or pine, instead.
Socialism works, or rather doesn't, by using the threat of force to set the prices of things, or take money from one person and give it to another.
But every time this happens, critical data on supply or demand is erased... data that you need to make decisions.
Individual prices are a decision, a guess at where supply and demand cross paths. But since free markets reward those who guess correctly, or copy a correct guess, aggregate prices are data on supply and demand.
For a socialist central planning committee to order the manufacture of the correct number of cars, or to correctly set the price of a car, they need to know a thousand thousand thousand things about steel and aluminium, welders and assembly robots, rubber and glass and lithium batteries and copper wire, which they must gather, along with trillions of other pieces of data, from literally everyone in their entire civilization.
Tesla only needs to know how much people charge them for the stuff they need.
At every transaction in a captialist society, vital data is compressed into its most compact and useful form, then passed along to the adjacent step, where abundant brainpower is waiting to make decisions with it.
Any defective node in the web that fails to make good decisions receives swift and automatic feedback, and either heeds that feedback or goes out of business, to be replaced by someone who will.
Yes, in a capitalist system, there are many undesirable results. But capitalism doesn't create these results. It discovers them. They are inevitable consequences of the state of technology, and will persist until something is invented that changes the terrain.
In socialism, no such solution is possible, because all the inherent problems you need to solve with progress are hidden from view by the far worse problems you created for yourself by separating the place where decisions are made from the place where information is known.
Mises obliterated the entire socialist project in 1920 with one devastating insight: "Where there is no free market, there is no pricing mechanism; without a pricing mechanism, there is no economic calculation." The socialists spent the next century pretending this problem didn't exist while their economies collapsed around them.
And yet here we are, watching politicians promise they can "fix" healthcare, housing, and energy markets through central planning. They can't even calculate the cost of their own programs correctly — how exactly are they going to allocate resources across an entire economy?
Every Venezuelan breadline, every Soviet grain shortage, every Chinese famine was just Mises being proven right in the most brutal way possible. But sure, let's try democratic socialism this time. What could go wrong?
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