Jared Holt

You cannot make billions dollars with hurting, exploiting, and crushing other people on the way there. If there's an ethical way to do it, we haven't seen it manifest yet. That level of personal wealth should viewed with fear, not admiration.

An article claiming US troops were told the Iran War is meant "to cause Armageddon" and usher in a return of Jesus Christ made waves on Bluesky yesterday. We saw at least 2,250 posts that repeated its core claims.

The story could be legit, but this article raises some reasons to be skeptical.

Before you share that story about how troops were told the Iran War is for "Armageddon," read this The narrative is dramatic. The sourcing is thin. And skepticism matters, especially on something this serious.

Before you share that story about how troops were told the Iran War is for "Armageddon," read this. Please.

open.substack.com/pub/friendly...

Right-wing pundits want Trump to heal the MAGA rift over the Iran war via the mass deportation of American Muslims

Influential right-wing voices are trying to heal the divide in MAGA media over Trump's war in Iran by urging the president to target American Muslims for denaturalization and removal.

085: A Nuclear Arsenal of Iran Takes | Posting Through It Get more from Posting Through It on Patreon

If you're not already signed up for the podcast Patreon and listening to our weekly premium episodes, maybe I can change your mind by telling you I asked my wife to parody Colin Powell's 2003 speech to the UN about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" on this one.

www.patreon.com/posts/085-nu...

ICE under Trump 2.0 built an unprecedented media operation - deploying videographers to raids, pumping out edgy social posts, swiping pop music for hype videos - and the main metric for evaluating its impact shows that Americans now hate ICE more than ever

www.washingtonpost.com/technology/i...

055: How Olivia Nuzzi Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Worm | Posting Through It Get more from Posting Through It on Patreon

People who have been with us for a while will remember Andrea's cold reading of excerpts from Olivia Nuzzi's borderline-unreadable memoir

www.patreon.com/posts/055-ho...

085: A Nuclear Arsenal of Iran Takes | Posting Through It Get more from Posting Through It on Patreon

If you're not already signed up for the podcast Patreon and listening to our weekly premium episodes, maybe I can change your mind by telling you I asked my wife to parody Colin Powell's 2003 speech to the UN about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" on this one.

www.patreon.com/posts/085-nu...

Yes. And she crushed it.

Iran can't hit back over Soleimani's killing because America has only fictional heroes like SpongeBob SquarePants, a prominent cleric said The US assassinated Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani late Thursday in an airstrike at the airport in Baghdad, Iraq.

ok he might have had a point
www.businessinsider.com/soleimani-de...

not if you want to land esteemed clients like Mr. Taibbi!

I have always considered one of my top strengths as a journalist/researcher to be that I never hesitate to say “I don’t know.” Not gonna waste your time or mine, or insult your intelligence by blabbering platitudes and bullshit.

I could not survive as a lawyer.

When your lawyer starts letting it loose in the prose, you should know your case is on its death bed. This is what people do when they don’t have any evidence to back themselves up, they just start repeating themselves and trying to dress it up

Anti-Abortion ‘Bounty Hunter’ Laws Spread from Texas Across U.S. Analysis: Several GOP towns and states now allow residents to sue each other for getting abortion care. The reward: money. In February, Kansas passed a similarly designed trans bathroom ban.

“Bounty hunter” laws designed to incentivize people to sue their neighbors for getting an abortion are spreading throughout the country. @queenmab.bsky.social reports:

“Bombs will fall Everywhere”: The American, Israeli and Iranian Weapons Being Deployed in Middle East - bellingcat Bellingcat has been monitoring strikes across the Middle East and has identified a wide variety of weapons that have been used in the conflict so far, including missiles and drones.

Israel used 2,000+ bombs in the first 30 hours of the Iran war; the US struck 1,000+ targets in the first 24 hours. Iran responded with at least 390 missiles and 830 drones in the first two days. Bellingcat has tracked the munitions used by all sides so far: www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Saturdays are for Forever Wars

Jack Posobiec, Jan 28. 2024: Nikki Haley is now calling for full war with Iran This isn't vague She is the WW3 candidate, she stating it openly

Wesley Hunt, Oct. 1 2024: "FLASHBACK: 2020 Joe Biden claimed President Trump will get us into a war with Iran. Do you think this aged well?"

Cory Mills, Feb. 2 2024: "We must get President Trump back in the White House in 2024. Biden is driving us to WWIII and full regional destabilization. Under Trump we had adversaries at bay, allies strengthened, Abram Accords pushing towards Middle East stability, Israel safe, Russia not advancing in Ukraine, crippling sanctions against Iran, elimination of Abu Bakr (ISIS), Qasim Solamani (Quds Force), and Abu Mehdi (Iraq militia leader), shipping lanes clear of Houthi attacks/ disruption, China was not threatening Taiwan. The border was secured. America and the world was safer!"

Kari Lake, Jan. 28 2024: "Last night, three American service members were killed in a drone attack by Iranian forces. My heart and deepest condolences go out to their families. This is a consequence of the current Administration destabilizing the Middle East. President Trump proposed peace through strength and was working to bring peace to the Middle East and beyond. We must return to that peace through strength."

We checked back in our datasets to see what some of the most-popular Truth Social posts discussing US military conflict with Iran were like when Trump was running for president in 2024.

The tone sure has changed over there in the last few days.

Out now on all the podcast apps!

Perth man arrested for alleged plot to carry out mass casualty terrorist attack motivated by white supremacy - SSBCrack News A significant terrorist plot targeting public landmarks in Perth has been thwarted following the arrest of a 20-year-old man, Jayson Joseph Michaels.

Perth man arrested for alleged plot to carry out mass casualty terrorist attack motivated by white supremacy

Reading this, again, you get the sense that someone at Anthropic knows how the intel community misleads by using definitions of words that are different than everyone else believes. And the people at OpenAI simply don't know or don't care about that.

They don't *need* AI to make these decisions. But they *want* AI to make these decisions. Because the tech gives them plausible deniability--something to blame (other than themselves) when things go wrong.

there are a lot of people working in the government right now who want to intentionally trigger an apocalypse to create the conditions for the return of jesus christ and I know how crazy that sounds but its absolutely true

You can just say things.

Anthropic gets booted from the Pentagon for not wanting to power mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, then OpenAI gets a Pentagon contract that bans mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. Someone is obviously leaving something significant out.

084: Contrarian Freaks Are Lining Up to Downplay the Epstein Files feat. Ileana Justine | Posting Through It Get more from Posting Through It on Patreon

On Monday's PTI, @michaelehayden.bsky.social and I are sitting down to unpack the growing number of contrarian freaks investing running defense for Jeffrey Epstein and his famous friends.

Then we're joined by Ileana Justine to talk about the story's impact on women.

www.patreon.com/posts/084-co...

I’ve got a really gnarly one coming next week that is heavy. Good time to follow @openmeasures.bsky.social if youre not already

‘He Needs to Go Die’: MAGA Communities Fume at Senate Republicans Over SAVE Act Delays - Open Measures Open Measures builds accessible and transparent products to contextualize the spread of harmful online information that impacts public discourse and global events.

Wrote about the SAVE Act this week. As the bill stalls in the Senate, pro-Trump communities are increasingly furious. But they’re not mad at Democratic lawmakers — they’re fuming at Republican Senate leaders

openmeasures.io/save-act-mag...

It’s genuinely heartbreaking that Bari is too stupid to understand that she was brought in to kill CBS News by sheer force of how unlikeable she is. “Fredo, let’s go fishing” stuff. Lennie and George at the secret meeting place stuff. Giving the dog a Big Mac before its final trip to the vet stuff.

It's a nerve-wrecking time to be doing this kind of work right now. Government leaders and their allies have threatened to retaliate (and in some cases have followed through) against the people who do it, and it's so important we support those who are taking those risks to fight for what's right.

GPAHE has to be one of the most under-rated research orgs in the game right now. So many groups have been skittish in the second Trump era, afraid of criticism or partisan attacks, but this team keeps calling balls and strikes without fear of ruffling feathers.