Monday: Three Morning Takes

Why pay Satan?

Late last week, notorious geriatric anti-tech crusader Kara Swisher captured the imagination of the internet with a horrifying admission of her autocratic wishes for our country. Former DOGE staffer and current engineering lead for America dot Gov, Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, should be persecuted when the Democrats take power, she explained on a panel of hateful losers. Karen mentioned no crime, because there is no crime to mention. And it doesn’t matter either way. Her purpose, as was the purpose of Senator Slotkin when she demanded similar acts of lawfare, is only to terrify young tech people away from working with Republicans. Now, a question I’ve been mulling for founders advertising on her podcast: why are you paying this woman to spew her horrifying toxic bullshit? I get it, fun new sponsorship deal! (it’s a vicious feminazi who wants me in jail). But imagine… a world where we didn’t feed our would-be executioners.

Diamond hands (fr, just buy diamonds)

Hackers linked to North Korea stole $6.3 billion out of cryptocurrency platform Binance in just 20 minutes last Thursday. Co-founder Changpeng Zhao assured users Binance has enough money to cover users’ losses… but unfortunately for him, crypto enthusiasts have a memory that exceeds a goldfish (not by much) and immediately remembered SBF saying the same thing when FTX imploded. Although Binance appears to have this under control, this hack does seem like a worrying sign of things to come. We don’t know the exact methods yet, but it seems AI is turbocharging foreign adversaries’ ability to wreak havoc in cyberspace. So with the hacking apocalypse looming nearer, let me impart some financial wisdom my pops told me: don’t put all your fartcoin in one basket. And though they may be uncomfortable to sleep on, at least the gold bars stuffed inside your mattress can’t be stolen by a DeepSeek troll army in Pyongyang.

Becerra’s winning message: “F*ck you, pay me.”

A Sacramento local news station recently conducted an interview with California gubernatorial frontrunner Xavier Becerra: asked whether he’d tax EV drivers (many of whom switched to escape high gas prices / save the environment) Becerra answered, “Absolutely!” adding that “everything,” including a mileage tax, “should be on the table.” Never mind that a mileage tax means annual mileage checks or tracking tech (hello, surveillance state). Never mind

also

that Californians already pay the country’s highest gas tax while our highways rank 49th nationally. Arguably the craziest part is Becerra’s sheer audacity — advertising exciting new ways to torture Californians DAYS before the midterms. Politicians used to at least hide their evil tax regimes until after the election, or at least dodge questions / pinky-promise only the rich would pay. Becerra doesn’t even bother, because he knows his uniparty will win in California regardless. Elon, please work faster on those flying cars… before this mofo tries to tax compressed air.