Folks, my apologies. Philip is out, and I got stuck in traffic. So I have an abridged Show Notes for you today and I’ll just open it to everybody.
Welcome! The Not Safe For Radio show is tomorrow night at the Gas South Theater in Duluth. If you still want to come, text SHOW to 33777.
🚨 BREAKING: The Pentagon says it will livestream the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan. - 𝕏AP
⚖️ NEWS: The Justice Department is seeking to indict former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson. - 𝕏NBC News
❌ STUNNING: Vice President Vance says Microsoft is being suspended from a program that lets it apply for green cards for its H-1B workers. - 𝕏AP
🇮🇷 INFLUENCE OP: Iranian operatives used OpenAI models and fake personas to plant articles critical of the war in American media outlets. - 𝕏CNN
🚜 PROBLEM: American farm debt is at a record, and the official data may be undercounting it. - Reuters
🏈 SCOTUS: The NFL is urging the Supreme Court to let states regulate prediction apps like gambling, breaking with the other leagues. - ESPN
📱 WATCHING: SpaceX is buying a nationwide low-band spectrum portfolio so Starlink can become a major mobile carrier in the United States. - 𝕏SpaceX
THE ICE SHOOTING
👂 The Show Notes is my blueprint for radio but is only for subscribers except on a day like today when I got stuck in traffic and nearly forgot to get it done.
Fort Hood, 17 Years Later
Nidal Hasan murdered 13 people at Fort Hood in November 2009, and he has sat on military death row ever since. President Trump approved his execution by Army firing squad this week, which will be the first American military execution since 1961. Now the Pentagon says it will 𝕏livestream it.
I support the sentence. I am far less comfortable with the livestream. Justice should be done in public, but an execution is not content, and putting it on a feed turns a solemn act of the state into one more thing for the algorithm to monetize. The families of the 13 deserve justice, not a spectacle.
Cassidy Hutchinson
𝕏NBC News reports the Justice Department wants to indict Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Mark Meadows aide whose testimony became the centerpiece of the January 6th Committee hearings. If she lied under oath, prosecutors should lay out the evidence and make their case in court. That is how the system is supposed to work.
The problem is the timing and the pattern. Starting this up at this time looks like revenge, whether or not it is, and it hands every Democrat on the ballot a talking point they did not have yesterday.
Microsoft and the H-1B Program
Vice President Vance 𝕏announced that Microsoft is being suspended from the program that lets it sponsor its H-1B workers for green cards. If Microsoft broke the law, charge Microsoft. If it did not, the Vice President owes the country an explanation for why one of America’s most important AI companies is being kneecapped in the middle of a race with China.
This administration took a stake in Intel, a golden share in U.S. Steel, and handed out tariff exemptions to companies with the right lobbyists. Now it is deciding which American companies may keep their engineers. Conservatives spent decades warning that a government powerful enough to reward its friends is powerful enough to punish everyone else, and that warning applies to a Republican government too.
Tariffs, Prices, and the Farm
CNBC has the latest on tariffs working their way into consumer prices, and Reuters reports farm debt has hit a record that official data may be undercounting. I see it in Macon, where farmers walk into bankruptcy court every week. They do not want subsidies. They want markets, cheaper diesel, and an end to a trade war that closed their export markets while raising the cost of every piece of equipment they buy.
President Trump could do more for Republicans in November by taking every tariff to zero than any ad campaign will do.
The NFL vs. Kalshi
The NFL is asking the Supreme Court to let states regulate prediction apps as the gambling they are. 𝕏Football drives more trading volume on these apps than anything else, so the league is effectively telling the Court that its own product is being turned into a casino.
The NFL is right, and so is federalism. States have regulated gambling for two centuries, and calling a sports bet an “event contract” does not turn it into a commodity. I have turned down sports betting and prediction market money for this show. LeBron James making nearly four times more promoting these apps than playing basketball tells you why so few people turn it down.
Iran’s Newsroom Strategy
𝕏CNN reports Iranian operatives used OpenAI models and fake personas to place articles critical of the war in American outlets. There are two lessons here. The regime knows it cannot win the war, so it is trying to win the argument in our newsrooms. Our press also made it easy. The outlets that ran these pieces without checking who wrote them are the same outlets that spent three years telling Americans there was a genocide in Gaza. An editor who wanted the story to be true was not looking very hard at the byline.
Odds & Ends
SpaceX is buying spectrum to turn Starlink into a nationwide mobile carrier, which is what competition looks like when a company builds something better than the incumbents.
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli 𝕏says federal agents are arresting the Skid Row drug dealers in Los Angeles. Compassion for the people living on those sidewalks starts with removing the people selling them poison.
The Washington Post 𝕏reports young teenagers are less likely to identify as lesbian, which fits what I said last week about social contagions burning out once the cool kids move on.
Major League Baseball 𝕏proposed cutting the season from 162 games to 154 and letting higher seeds choose their playoff opponents. As a Braves fan still recovering from the Dodgers series, I have opinions. But I’ll save them for later. Also, I owe Austin Riley a beer after that homer.
The New York Post 𝕏reports sexually transmitted diarrhea is on the rise and becoming a drug-resistant superbug. I will say nothing more about it except that you are welcome.
