Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• The deadliest branch of al-Qaeda on earth runs the ground the United States walked away from. You’ve probably never heard its name: JAMA’AT NUSRAT AL-ISLAM WAL-MUSLIMIN A detailed open-source profile of the Sahel’s most potent jihadist coalition. Niche, sober, and a useful primer on a conflict that rarely makes the front page. ( (The Omission)
• A Generational Collapse in Reading: Reading in America has become deeply polarized. Most books are now read by a small minority of heavy readers, while a large share of Americans reads none at all. Neil Howe’s shop charts the steady disappearance of the habit. Pairs grimly with everything else competing for our attention spans. (Demography Unplugged)
• They Looked Like They Were Getting Rich on Polymarket—but None of It Was Real. WSJ on the influencer ecosystem fabricating Polymarket P&L screenshots to sell betting subscriptions. The Polymarket-content economy is its own scam category now. The prediction market has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation (Wall Street Journal)
• Visa and Mastercard: The Original Gangsters of Electronic Collusion: A pointed antitrust argument against the payments duopoly that taxes every swipe. The swipe-fee fight, made readable. Pending legislation would force Visa and Mastercard to compete for merchant business and crack the cartel they’ve formed with banks. (The Sling)
• The Deadly Rise of Giant Trucks and S.U.V.s. In the early 2000s, more than half of the passenger vehicles on American roads were traditional cars like sedans. Their hoods were low to the ground. NYT’s interactive on the pedestrian-fatality consequence of the ever-larger U.S. light-truck fleet. The visualizations do the heavy lifting. (New York Times)
• Tulsi Gabbard, her guru and the mysterious messages that helped shape her political career: I obtained hundreds of confidential memos detailing politics and policy guidance for Gabbard from her years in Congress, then embarked on a quest to identify who was behind them. (Washington Post)
• A Citizen’s Guide to Ken Paxton: Paxton’s victory was even more impressive considering the ethical controversies that have plagued his tenure as an elected official. As Attorney General, Paxton has been indicted on felony securities fraud charges, investigated by the SEC, impeached by the Texas House, and sued by the State Bar of Texas for professional misconduct. He was repeatedly accused of using his government position for personal gain — including by members of his staff. Judd Legum assembles the rap sheet on the Texas AG turned Senate hopeful. Dense, sourced, and the kind of accountability reporting that travels. (Popular Information)
• A Definitive History of Tucker Carlson’s Shapeshifting Politics: Carlson’s latest anti-Israel pivot is born out of a three-decades-long track record of shapeshifting and lying in accordance with one highest purpose: doing what is best for Tucker Carlson. From bow-tied pundit to populist firebrand, charted in full. A useful map of a man who has been many things to many audiences. (Talking Points Memo)
• Supreme Court rules against Rastafarian man over religious rights claim against prison officials: Officials at a Louisiana prison cut off Damon Landor’s dreadlocks in violation of his religious beliefs. The case centered on whether he could seek damages. Guards shaved his dreadlocks; the Court narrowed his path to damages. A quietly consequential religious-liberty ruling that didn’t get the coverage it deserved. SCOTUS supports religion, just so long as it’s THEIR religion… (NBC News)
Video of the day: What We Know About Billionaire Peter Thiel’s Secret ‘Dialog’ Society
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Carl Richards, a financial advisor who is also the creator of the Sketch Guy column, which ran weekly in New York Times for a decade. He hosts Behavior Gap Radio (1,300+ episodes) He co-hosts “Kitces & Carl — Real Talk for Real Financial Advisors” with Michael Kitces.” Richards latest book is Your Money: Reimagining Wealth in 101 Simple Sketches.”
The media business favors content provoking outrage, anger and/or fear, giving the audience a disproportionate sense of risk and reality
Source: Bruce Mehlman’s Age of Disruption
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