Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

“This time it’s different” is supposed to be the dumbest phrase in investing.

It’s the phrase people use right before they get obliterated. It was the rallying cry of dot-com lunatics buying companies with no revenue in 1999. It was the intellectual foundation of housing perma-bulls in 2006 who believed home prices could only go up because, apparently, Americans had collectively decided real estate was immune mathematical reality.

It’s typically what people say when they’re trying to justify paying absurd prices for dogshit assets while pretending the laws of valuation have been permanently repealed: “this time it’s different”.

Which is why it’s deeply annoying and borderline humiliating for me to admit that this time, it actually may be different.

As someone who has spent years living in the world of fundamentals, valuation discipline, and the radical idea that cash flows should matter at least a little when valuing businesses, I hate where the evidence keeps leading me. I’ve spent years mocking the market as distorted.

Everyone in Austrian economics circles loves that word: distorted. Markets are distorted by central banks, distorted by artificially low interest rates, distorted by endless intervention. Distorted, distorted, distorted. Fine. But at some point, if a distortion lasts long enough, survives every crisis, and becomes embedded in how markets function, is it still a distortion? Or is it just the market now?

Look at this chart of the NASDAQ tripling off Covid lows just 5 years ago before you answer. An index. Tripling.

And in ten years, the index (read it again, index) is up 534%.

And now, back to the question: “if a distortion lasts long enough, survives every crisis, and becomes embedded in how markets function, is it still a distortion?”

That’s the uncomfortable question fundamental investors increasingly refuse to confront. We continue dragging out valuation charts that go back to 1900 as if they’re sacred scripture. We point to historical average P/E ratios and the Buffett Indicator and say things like “the market has always reverted.”

I’ve said such things on this blog for years.

But the market that existed in (throw a dart) 1952 has almost nothing in common with the one we have today. Back then there were no ETFs mechanically absorbing retirement contributions every two weeks regardless of valuation. There was no passive investing machine blindly funneling trillions into the largest companies simply because they’re already the largest companies. There were no options markets large enough to create absurd gamma-driven price movements detached from fundamentals. There were no retail armies weaponizing leverage from their phones while posting rocket ship emojis.

And there sure as hell was no widely accepted assumption that if markets fall hard enough (3%, give or take a percent?), the Federal Reserve will eventually arrive with fresh liquidity and soothing words about financial stability.

For fifteen years, investors have been trained like goddamn lab rats to expect intervention whenever things get ugly enough. In 2008, the financial system nearly collapsed and the response was unprecedented monetary intervention. In 2020, the world shut down and trillions appeared almost overnight. Every time markets experience genuine pain, policymakers magically “discover” yet another reason why extraordinary intervention is necessary.

The lab rats participating in this market have learned a very simple lesson: the adults will not tolerate prolonged asset deflation. They may talk tough about inflation. They may posture about financial discipline. But when enough things start breaking, they fold. They always fold.

Markets now operate with the deeply embedded belief that liquidity will always return when things get sufficiently bad. That belief alone changes behavior. It encourages risk-taking. It compresses risk premiums. It makes traditional valuation frameworks feel increasingly obsolete because those frameworks were built during periods when markets still had to fully purge excesses. Today, excesses are often interrupted, softened, or reflated before true cleansing can occur.

Meanwhile, people love pretending the stock market’s relentless rise is purely a reflection of corporate innovation and productivity gains. Some of it absolutely is. But a meaningful portion of what investors celebrate as “wealth creation” is simply the declining purchasing power of the currency in which those assets are priced. If you continually debase the measuring stick, asset prices are going to look fantastic. Stocks haven’t always become more valuable. Dollars have become less valuable.

If your denominator is quietly melting, your numerator tends to look heroic. It can even make the performance of an ex-bartender from Philadelphia writing a finance blog look great.

This forces an almost heretical conclusion I’ve been toying with for a year or two: maybe what we consider “expensive” is anchored to a market regime that no longer exists. Maybe 20x earnings is not expensive anymore because 20 years of future earnings are guaranteed in a way they weren’t 50 years ago. Maybe for dominant, cash-generating businesses, 20x is the new bargain bin. Maybe historical comparisons to decades that lacked passive flows, algorithmic trading, derivatives-fueled volatility, trillion-dollar buybacks, and perpetual monetary intervention are becoming less useful by the year.

🔥 50% OFF FOR LIFE: Using this coupon entitles you to 50% off an annual subscription to Fringe Finance for life: Get 50% off forever

I can already hear the response. Shit like “this article really must mean the top is in” and “QTR has caved, we can crash now!” Look, of course valuation still matters. Gravity still exists too. But if central banks keep dropping trampolines underneath the market every time gravity starts doing its job, people should stop acting shocked when assets bounce higher than historical models suggest they should.

This doesn’t mean crashes disappear. Something will absolutely break eventually, and probably the moves lower will be sharper and faster, before they aren’t, because that’s what leveraged systems do. But each break seems to justify larger interventions, which creates even bigger distortions, which produce even larger asset bubbles, which eventually require even more intervention. It’s a magnificent ouroboros of financial engineering and moral hazard.

And that’s the truly infuriating part for people like me. I want old valuation frameworks to still work cleanly. I want patient fundamental analysis to feel like an advantage rather than a history hobby. I want “cheap” and “expensive” to retain actual meaning. But markets increasingly feel like they’re operating under a new regime where liquidity overwhelms nearly everything else over long enough time horizons.

“This time it’s different” remains a dangerous phrase because human beings are still perfectly capable of creating idiotic bubbles. But pretending this market functions like the one our grandparents invested in may be its own form of delusion.

If the Fed has effectively made permanent distortion the foundation of modern markets—and if it cannot stop until something truly catastrophic breaks—then maybe we need to admit the obvious: the market is no longer broken. It’s functioning exactly as designed: rigged.

But of course, now that I’ve penned and published this piece, a medieval-style return to the investing dark ages is probably right around the corner.

Now read:

• Congrats, Elizabeth Warren, On The Death Of Spirit Airlines
• Buying One Staple Stock That’s Been Crushed
• Stocks Now In “The Biggest Bubble Of Modern Times”
• Glowing Numbers…With Glaring Omissions

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author.

This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and do own things. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. If I’m long I could quickly be short and vice versa. I won’t update my positions. All positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice and at any point I can be long, short or neutral on any position. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. If you see numbers and calculations of any sort, assume they are wrong and double check them. I failed Algebra in 8th grade and topped off my high school math accolades by getting a D- in remedial Calculus my senior year, before becoming an English major in college so I could bullshit my way through things easier.

The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

Historically speaking, crawling to communists for help has never been a good idea; there’s always a catch.  By extension, making trade deals with China and the CCP from a position of weakness usually ends with diplomatic concessions instead of mere economic concessions.  That is to say, the Chinese are less interested in economic benefits, and more interested in political submission. 

Canadians are about to speed run this lesson after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “new strategic partnership” formed with China early this year.   The announcement has been heralded as a pragmatic reset in Canada-China relations after years of tensions, aimed at diversifying Canada’s trade amid U.S. tariffs under Trump.  The goals of the deal include increased bilateral trade, agricultural agreements, currency swaps and energy exports. 

The problem is, Carney also wants Canada to maintain its relationship with Taiwan, which the CCP views as a violation of their “One China” policy.  Not surprisingly, China is already using their newfound economic leverage to pressure Canada to submit to their demands on Taiwan.

Chinese Ambassador to Canada, Wang Di, has warned that the new strategic partnership between Canada and China could be damaged if Canada continues sending parliamentarians (MPs and senators) to Taiwan, or if they continue transiting warships through the Taiwan Strait. 

Wang emphasized the One China principle, stating there is “only one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory.” He described Taiwan as a core interest and political foundation for bilateral relations, warning that official engagements by Canadian parliamentarians with Taiwanese officials would be “hurtful.”

🚨CHINA ISSUES ULTIMATUM🚨

First, Carney pulls MPs out of Taiwan.

Now China is warning Canada not to go back – and not to send ships either.

Carney told Canadians he was dealing with China because the U.S. was “unreliable”.

So much for a “strategic partnership.” pic.twitter.com/HkxF0YFMrP

— Northern Perspective (@NorthrnPrspectv) May 1, 2026

Canadian MPs and senators have long visited Taiwan, including numerous meetings with the president and foreign minister.  But, this year their trips to Taiwan have been cut short, with Canada showing a quiet willingness to “de-conflict” high-profile visits when they overlap with China diplomacy. 

Taiwan’s envoy to Ottawa warned that Canada’s burgeoning attachment to China could put them in a vulnerable position and lead to “trade weaponization” by the CCP. 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has led his country into economic chaos as one of the few leaders unwilling to negotiate a basic trade deal with the Trump Administration.  He should have been the first to make a deal, given that around 75% of Canada’s export economy relies on US markets and there is no viable alternative that will bring anywhere close to the same trade revenues.

Canada’s housing market is currently in shambles with prices still skyrocketing.  Jobs losses are climbing.  Factories are shutting down.  Food prices are inflating.    

It’s a matter of simple math and basic geography:  The US is the largest consumer market by far with 30% of total global buying power.  China is around 12% of the global total and their consumer spending is far less liquid (and spread out over a much larger population).  Furthermore, shipping goods 6000 miles to China is a lot more expensive and inefficient than shipping goods right across the border to the US.  It’s not complicated – making a deal with the US is the superior option. 

However, Carney and his globalist ilk are not interested in common sense trade policies, they are engaged in an ideological war with the Trump Administration.  This is about an increasingly “woke” and socialist Canadian regime vs an increasingly nationalist and anti-woke US government.   

Carney has consistently painted the situation between the US and Canada as a war, and he has made it clear he intends to “win”.  This means cutting deals with traditional enemies like China; not because it makes sense financially, but because it’s a way to spite Trump and conservatives in America. 

In the end, it is a foolish plan which will only end up costing Canadians billions in export revenues and possibly enslave them to eastern geopolitical interests; further inflaming tensions with the US.       

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been hospitalized and is in critical condition, according to The New York Times, citing his spokesman, Ted Goodman.

“Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength, and he’s fighting with that same level of strength as we speak,” Goodman said, before asking “that you join us in prayer” for the former NYC mayor.

Goodman did not disclose what medical emergency sent Giuliani to a Florida hospital Sunday afternoon.

President Trump also released a statement on Giuliani’s medical emergency, telling those on Truth Social, “Our fabulous Rudy Giuliani, a True Warrior, and the Best Mayor in the History of New York City, BY FAR, has been hospitalized, and is in critical condition.”

“What a tragedy that he was treated so badly by the Radical Left Lunatics, Democrats ALL — AND HE WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING! They cheated in the Elections, fabricated hundreds of stories, did everything possible to destroy our Nation, and now, look at Rudy. So sad!” the president said.

Giuliani is a former federal prosecutor, NYC mayor, and longtime Trump supporter.

He first rose to national prominence as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in the 1980s, where he prosecuted organized crime, Wall Street corruption, drug trafficking, and public corruption.

One of his most defining legal wins was helping break the power grip of NY’s Mafia families through RICO prosecutions.

From the mid-1990s through 2001, Giuliani served as mayor of NYC, where his administration became known for its tough-on-crime posture. He later ran unsuccessfully for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination before re-emerging as a major political figure and Donald Trump’s personal attorney, particularly during the Russia hoax investigation and the post-2020 election fight.

*This is a developing story.

Jane Street Group has evolved from a niche trading shop into one of Wall Street’s most profitable firms and employees are reaping the rewards. The firm paid roughly $9.4 billion in compensation last year, more than twice what it distributed a year earlier, according to Bloomberg.

On average, that translated to about $2.7 million per employee, far ahead of traditional banks like Goldman Sachs. The massive payouts followed a record year in which Jane Street generated nearly $40 billion in trading revenue, outpacing major banks and rivals in the market-making business.

Bloomberg writes that the firm started in 2000 trading American depositary receipts before expanding into ETFs and other electronically traded assets. As more markets became automated, Jane Street scaled aggressively and now handles trading across equities, bonds, ETFs, and other products.

Its financial resources have grown just as dramatically. The firm’s internal capital base has climbed to roughly $45 billion, up nearly twentyfold over the past decade, giving it significant flexibility to capitalize on market swings without relying heavily on outside funding. It has also raised additional cash through debt markets.

That war chest has allowed Jane Street to move beyond day-to-day trading. The firm has built positions in high-growth tech companies, including Anthropic, and has also backed CoreWeave while exploring deals involving Fluidstack.

Jane Street also operates differently from most major financial firms. It doesn’t have a traditional CEO hierarchy and is instead overseen by a group of partners. The firm is well known for recruiting mathematicians, engineers, and problem-solvers to sharpen its trading systems.

Despite regulatory and legal challenges — including scrutiny in India and litigation tied to the collapse of Terraform Labs — Jane Street continues to widen its lead. It outperformed Citadel Securities last year and is continuing to expand, including plans for a larger office in London.

Recall, we wrote just days ago that Jane Street reeled in a Wall Street record $39.6 billion of trading revenue last year, more than any Wall Street bank. According to the report, the firm beat out all global investment banks after reaping $15.5 billion in the year’s final quarter, and with only 3,500 employees, it beat nearest rival JPMorgan by 11% during the year. The company’s adjusted ETBIDA for the full year was a stunning $31.2 billion. 

While Jane Street’s profits were lifted by surging valuations of its stakes in privately held companies, the firm’s main business matching buyers and sellers across assets thrived on bouts of market volatility. The new annual record – which includes gains on long-term investments – shows “how the balance of power has shifted in one of the most lucrative arenas of global finance.”

While it has kept a remarkable low profile, its recent public appearances have been less than laudatory: The company’s record haul is confirmation that Jane Street, long known for its secrecy, was able to keep growing after getting thrust into the spotlight in mid-2025 when authorities in India accused of manipulating markets while running what had once been one of the firm’s most lucrative trading strategies.

Jane Street has denied those allegations and is fighting them in court. In February, Jane Street was sued by the bankrupt Terraform Labs estate, accusing it of engaging in insider trading that precipitated the $40 billion crash of cryptocurrencies associated with Terraform; this week the HFT firm also urged a judge to throw out that lawsuit.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent joined Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss how the Trump administration is “suffocating” Iran with economic and financial pressure amid an ongoing U.S. military blockade of the Hormuz chokepoint.

“We are running a marathon over the past 12 months, and now we are sprinting toward the finish line”” Bessent told Bartiromo earlier this morning. 

Bessent explained how the U.S. maximum pressure campaign on Tehran has become “a real economic blockade,” claiming the regime is “not able to pay their soldiers” and that oil infrastructure is quickly deteriorating, as crude oil storage quickly rises while export channels remain shuttered.

Bessent warned that Iran may have to start shutting in oil wells within the next week as exports remain constrained.

Bessent on Iran:

“We are suffocating the regime. They are not able to pay their soldiers.” https://t.co/dX3LvhAPtl pic.twitter.com/3rICBw9nzL

— Adam Scott (@chefcascottccc) May 3, 2026

“Their oil infrastructure is starting to creak,” he said. “It hasn’t been maintained, again because of our decades-long sanctions against them.”

Bessent said no tankers are transiting the critical waterway from the Iranian side, “and we have increased the pressure on anyone trying to remit money into Iran to help the IRGC,” referring to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Amid the impact of Economic Fury, Iran’s currency has hit an all-time low.

The Iranian people deserve a new era, which the corrupt and shambolic Iranian regime cannot provide.

With their oil industry closing and their currency plummeting, it is past time for the Iranian regime… pic.twitter.com/k7QvKoWbl2

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) April 30, 2026

Late last week, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on Chinese independent “teapot” refineries, particularly those in Shandong Province, for their continued purchase and refining of Iranian crude.

By Saturday morning, Beijing announced that companies in the country should ignore and not comply with U.S. sanctions targeting five domestic refineries.

“The Chinese government has consistently opposed unilateral sanctions that lack authorization from the United Nations and a basis in international law,” Beijing’s Commerce Ministry wrote in a statement. 

President Trump’s maximum pressure campaign on Tehran comes as the latest U.S. national average for 87-octane gasoline at the pump has topped $4.446 per gallon. Demand destruction starts around $5 per gallon, with numerous Goldman notes indicating that working-poor consumers are already dialing back purchases or trading down at gas stations and convenience stores due to the recent fuel price shock.

On Saturday, President Trump stated that he “can’t imagine” a new peace plan from Tehran that he will review would be acceptable. He added that Iran has not yet paid “a big enough price for what they have done.”

Axios reported earlier that the U.S. and Iran are “still exchanging drafts of a framework agreement to end the war.”

Last week, Iran delivered an updated 14-point proposal to the U.S. for a framework agreement. Sources told the outlet that the proposal sets a one-month deadline for reopening of the Hormuz chokepoint.

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

Elizabeth Warren has built an entire political career on presenting herself as the righteous defender of ordinary Americans against powerful corporations.

Every speech is some variation of the same script: she’s fighting for workers, fighting for consumers, fighting for families, and standing up to greedy executives and monopolistic corporations that are supposedly rigging the system against everyone else. It is a message carefully designed to make her sound like a populist champion of the middle class while putting a polish on inherently broken socialist ideas.

When her flawed ideology collides with reality, it repeatedly produces outcomes that hurt the exact people she claims to represent. Spirit Airlines may be one of the clearest examples yet.

When JetBlue moved to acquire Spirit in 2022, Warren treated the deal like it was Apple, Netflix, Meta, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and the Third Reich all merging into one new authoritarian Orwellian company called Dystopian Evil Holdings, LLC.

She aggressively pushed regulators to block it, warning that the merger would reduce competition and raise ticket prices. The Biden administration’s Department of Justice embraced that argument and sued to stop the acquisition, ultimately succeeding when a federal judge blocked the deal.

Warren and her allies framed the decision as a victory for competition, arguing they had protected budget-conscious travelers from corporate consolidation. It was a neat political story: another giant corporation had been stopped before it could crush the little guy. Spirit Airlines and JetBlue have had their boot on the neck of John Q. Consumer for just too damn long.

The problem was that Spirit itself was never some stable, healthy company that simply needed to remain independent for the good of consumers. It was a deeply troubled airline with serious structural problems, mounting financial pressure, operational issues, and a business model that had become increasingly difficult to sustain. Investors knew it. Employees knew it. Executives knew it. That is precisely why a sale made sense.

JetBlue wasn’t trying to acquire a thriving competitor at the height of its strength—it was purchasing a distressed company that many people believed would struggle to survive on its own. There is an enormous difference between stopping anti-competitive monopoly behavior and preventing a struggling business from being absorbed by a company willing to keep its assets operational.

That distinction appears to be completely lost on Warren because her worldview requires every transaction to be bourgeoisie vs. proletariat. This corporate merger, to her, fit into the same simplistic narrative. In that worldview, corporations are almost always villains, regulators are almost always heroes, and any transaction involving large sums of money must be treated with suspicion. It is an ideology built for campaign speeches and social media clips only — not for reality.

Markets are not morality plays. Companies fail, industries consolidate, assets change hands, and stronger operators often absorb weaker ones. That process is not inherently exploitative, it is often what prevents total collapse.

And that is what makes this situation so politically revealing. Warren constantly brands herself as a defender of workers, yet her preferred outcome here appears to have been the complete destruction of a company rather than allowing a private-sector solution that may have preserved jobs, routes, and infrastructure.

What exactly is pro-worker about that? What kind of politician claims to care deeply about labor while helping create an outcome that leaves thousands of workers unemployed? Pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, baggage handlers, gate agents, airport vendors, hotel workers, rental car companies, and countless businesses connected to Spirit’s network all now face the consequences of a collapse that regulators helped accelerate. These are not abstract numbers on an antitrust white paper. These are actual people whose livelihoods depend on functioning businesses.

Or, as Warren put it: “This is a Biden win for flyers!”

And consumers were supposedly the people being protected. That argument looks even weaker now. Spirit may not have been beloved, but it played an important role in many markets by forcing larger airlines to compete on price. Millions of travelers tolerated the stripped-down experience because the fares were significantly cheaper than alternatives. That pressure matters. When low-cost carriers disappear from routes, prices frequently rise because legacy airlines face less pressure to offer aggressive pricing. Warren blocked a merger over the fear of hypothetical future price increases while helping create a scenario where an entire low-cost competitor disappears altogether. Consumers now get fewer choices, less competition, and likely higher prices—the exact outcome regulators claimed they were preventing.

This reflects a broader flaw in modern progressive economic thinking: an almost religious belief that government officials are uniquely qualified to outsmart markets.

🔥 50% OFF FOR LIFE: Using this coupon entitles you to 50% off an annual subscription to Fringe Finance for life: Get 50% off forever

The assumption is always that regulators can better allocate resources, predict outcomes, and manage industries than investors, executives, workers, and consumers operating within those markets. That belief has repeatedly failed in practice because markets are dynamic and often messy. Politicians frequently intervene with enormous confidence and then act surprised when unintended consequences emerge. The people making those decisions rarely bear the cost of being wrong.

That may be the most frustrating part of this story. Elizabeth Warren will not suffer from Spirit’s collapse. She will not lose a paycheck. She will not be explaining layoffs to families. She will not be dealing with reduced travel options in underserved markets. She will not face higher airfare costs. She will continue appearing on television and telling voters she fought greed and protected consumers. The workers and travelers dealing with the consequences of her policies are the ones who will absorb the damage.

To be clear, Spirit was not a perfect company. It had major flaws and serious operational challenges. Bad business models fail all the time, and capitalism requires that poorly run companies face consequences. But capitalism also includes mergers, acquisitions, restructurings, and private-sector rescue attempts. If another company sees value in preserving assets and maintaining operations, that is part of how markets correct themselves. Preventing that process simply because it conflicts with an ideological hostility toward corporate transactions is not economic justice. It is performative politics masquerading as consumer advocacy.

Elizabeth Warren wanted to stop a merger because it allowed her to posture as a warrior against corporate power. She got her headline. She got her applause from anti-corporate activists. She got to claim another victory over big business. What she did not get was a better outcome for workers or consumers. Instead, she helped create a scenario where an already struggling airline disappeared entirely, leaving employees without jobs and consumers with fewer affordable options.

For someone who constantly claims to fight for working Americans, that is a remarkable record of harming them in the name of helping them.

Now read:

• Buying One Staple Stock That’s Been Crushed
• Stocks Now In “The Biggest Bubble Of Modern Times”
• Glowing Numbers…With Glaring Omissions
• A Quick, Intersting Bull Case Worth Reading
• The Day The Memecoin Dies
• Did A $1.5 Trillion Pin Just Pop The Entire AI Bubble?
• How One Fund Manager Is Taking Advantage Of Wartime Volatility
• A Proven Skeptic Raises Another Red Flag

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author.

This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and do own things. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. If I’m long I could quickly be short and vice versa. I won’t update my positions. All positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice and at any point I can be long, short or neutral on any position. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. If you see numbers and calculations of any sort, assume they are wrong and double check them. I failed Algebra in 8th grade and topped off my high school math accolades by getting a D- in remedial Calculus my senior year, before becoming an English major in college so I could bullshit my way through things easier.

The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

A large cargo ship near the Strait of Hormuz has reported being attacked by multiple small craft, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said Sunday, marking at least two dozen attacks in and around the strait since the Iran war began.

All crew on the unidentified northbound carrier, which could be the Pasargad 11 General Cargo Ship with a destination of Dubai after it reversed…

… were safe after the attack off Sirik, Iran, east of the strait, the monitor said. Iranian officials have asserted that they control the strait and that ships not affiliated with the United States or Israel can pass if they pay a toll.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the first reported in the area since April 22, when a cargo ship reported being fired upon, the monitor said. The threat level in the area remains critical. Tehran effectively closed the strait by attacking and threatening ships.

Iranian patrol boats, some powered only by twin outboard motors, are small, nimble and hard to detect and have attacked several ships. President Donald Trump last month ordered the U.S. military to “shoot and kill” small Iranian boats that deploy mines in the strait.

The fragile three-week ceasefire appears to be holding, though Trump on Saturday told journalists that further strikes remained a possibility

Nearly 18,000 left-wing activists on BlueSky are in panic mode this weekend after an anti-ICE activist website launched by a fired Trump official exposed their personal details due to a vulnerable connection (an unprotected API).

The website – “GTFO ICE” – was created by former DHS Chief of Staff and Google security executive, Miles Taylor, as a rapid response network that allows people to sign up for alerts about proposed ICE facilities in their area, HRR reports. Taylor, who launched the site in partnership with Project Salt Box, appeared last week on The Rachel Maddow show to announce their “rapid response network to stop ICE prison camps before they start.” 

The breach exposed sign-up records, may have been forwarded to federal investigators. As Hagerstown Rapid Response writes of their experience: 

Three days ago, we signed up on the platform using multiple email addresses and phone numbers across several locations listed on the site, including Hagerstown and Williamsport, Maryland, as well as Salt Lake City. No confirmation emails or texts were received at the time of signup.

That changed this morning.

One of the phone numbers used during signup received a text message claiming that user data submitted to GTFOICE.org had been forwarded to federal authorities, including the FBI, HSI, and ICE. The message also included inflammatory claims about the individuals behind the project. We responded to the message but received no reply.

Shortly after, the GTFOICE.org website appeared to acknowledge an issue. Around 6 p.m. Eastern, the site displayed a notice stating that signups were temporarily paused while a security review was completed. Within roughly twenty minutes, that message was removed and replaced with a generic “under construction” page.

It remains unclear whether the message received was the result of a confirmed breach, a malicious spoof, or another form of compromise. However, the sequence of events raises serious questions about how user data was handled and whether it may have been exposed.

Taylor’s security clearance was notably suspended in April 2025 for “treasonous conduct” after he allegedly “stoked dissension by manufacturing sensationalist reports on the existence of a supposed “resistance” within the Federal Government.” Now, it appears he may have unintentionally honey-potted his left-wing comrades, many of whom reportedly plotted revolution on BlueSky.

Thousands signed up. In fact, a total of 17,662 users were exposed through a public REST API with no real authentication or rate limiting, leaving full records accessible, including timestamps, according to DOGE-aligned investigative journalist, DataRepublican. 

The man who ran the third-largest federal department (250,000 employees, $60 billion budget) who oversaw election security architecture and led counterterrorism operations, then served as Google’s Head of National Security Policy…

…can’t secure a sign-up form. But he does milk hundreds of thousands of NGO dollars on these credentials. While freeloading off his fame as the person who wrote the infamous NYT article “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” -DataRepublican

🧵🚨 BREAKING: Miles Taylor: “Anonymous,” former DHS Chief of Staff, Google security executive launched a website called GTFO ICE that collects your full name, email, phone number, and zip code to join an anti-ICE “rapid response network.” And publishes the user infromation via… pic.twitter.com/zDKVIePntM

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) May 2, 2026

DataRepublican did her typical deep dive on the organizational structure of GTFO ICE, which only suggests it’s linked to the protest industrial complex that is funded by dark money via left-wing billionaire kings and queens and their NGOs. She also notes that he launched DEFIANCE.org five months after his clearances were suspended, and five months after that, GTFO ICE. 

Taylor’s security clearance was suspended by presidential memorandum in April 2025. Trump called his conduct “treasonous.” Five months later, Taylor launched DEFIANCE dot org. Five months after that… GTFO ICE. pic.twitter.com/EL3kpWF8GX

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) May 2, 2026

GTFO ICE is a coalition of three orgs: 1. DEFIANCE dot org : Miles Taylor + Xander Schultz 2. Save America Movement : Steve Schmidt (yes, of the Lincoln Project) 3. Project Salt Box

GTFO ICE is a coalition of three orgs:

1. DEFIANCE dot org : Miles Taylor + Xander Schultz
2. Save America Movement : Steve Schmidt (yes, of the Lincoln Project)
3. Project Salt Box pic.twitter.com/D5TivYRYTO

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) May 2, 2026

Steve Schmidt co-founded the Lincoln Project. Raised ~$65M. Finances called under question when the money went to founders’ consulting firms. AOC called it “scam territory.” Co-founder John Weaver allegedly soliciting young men. Schmidt now runs Save America Movement … same structure.

Steve Schmidt co-founded the Lincoln Project. Raised ~$65M. Finances called under question when the money went to founders’ consulting firms. AOC called it “scam territory.” Co-founder John Weaver allegedly soliciting young men. Schmidt now runs Save America Movement … same… pic.twitter.com/uBiS0vJSDR

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) May 2, 2026

Scott Goodstein — GTFO ICE’s “media contact” — was Obama’s 2008 external digital director and led Bernie Sanders’ 2016 digital fundraising ($218 million raised). His advisory board ties connect directly to the Arabella Advisors dark money network. “Grassroots.”

Scott Goodstein — GTFO ICE’s “media contact” — was Obama’s 2008 external digital director and led Bernie Sanders’ 2016 digital fundraising ($218 million raised). His advisory board ties connect directly to the Arabella Advisors dark money network. “Grassroots.” pic.twitter.com/NVSpi7LR63

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) May 2, 2026

$625,000+ in confirmed Arabella/Sixteen Thirty Fund dark money flows to GTFO ICE coalition principals: • $300K → Lincoln Project (Schmidt) • $250K → One for Democracy (Schultz) • $75K → Defeat by Tweet (Schultz)

$625,000+ in confirmed Arabella/Sixteen Thirty Fund dark money flows to GTFO ICE coalition principals:

• $300K → Lincoln Project (Schmidt)
• $250K → One for Democracy (Schultz)
• $75K → Defeat by Tweet (Schultz) pic.twitter.com/VGUk44P02L

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) May 2, 2026

DEFIANCE.org calls itself a “nonprofit.” I could not find IRS registration. It solicits monthly “memberships” up to $1,000/month… $12,000/year… with no known accountability.

https://t.co/APCLu52iVu calls itself a “nonprofit.” I could not find IRS registration. It solicits monthly “memberships” up to $1,000/month… $12,000/year… with no known accountability. pic.twitter.com/3NxLemT4k3

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) May 2, 2026

The “bipartisan grassroots movement” is an unknown “nonprofit” run by Obama’s digital director, Lincoln Project’s co-founder, with hundreds of thousands in Arabella dark money… whose sign-up form was built by a former DHS Chief of Staff and Google security executive who left everyone’s data exposed on an open API. The man who ran homeland security couldn’t secure a sign-up form. And we wonder why the government is such a mess.

The “bipartisan grassroots movement” is an unknown “nonprofit” run by Obama’s digital director, Lincoln Project’s co-founder, with hundreds of thousands in Arabella dark money… whose sign-up form was built by a former DHS Chief of Staff and Google security executive who left…

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) May 2, 2026

DataRepublican continued… 

Please follow @astrarce and @bitchuneedsoap , who also helped to break the data breaches of STOP ICE and DEICER. pic.twitter.com/kTLBvfGWkh

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) May 2, 2026

Needless to say – “Bluesky is in full panic. A full on exposed API has revealed thousands of people who signed up for the GTFO Ice site. Full names, phone, and zip codes,” one X user noted.

Bluesky is in full panic.

A full on exposed API has revealed thousands of people who signed up for the GTFO Ice site.

Full names, phone, and zip codes. https://t.co/HxjrLydHdE pic.twitter.com/zti8CTrC0N

— Grummz (@Grummz) May 2, 2026

To sum up, the same people who wanted to doxx ICE agents may have just doxxed themselves, thanks to sloppy website work by anti-Trump operative Miles Taylor, who should have known better.

The obvious question now: did Taylor accidentally honey-pot his own comrades?

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais took 36 pages to explain why Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is about combating intentional racial discrimination, not allowing racial gerrymandering. However, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrapped it up in one word: “illegitimate.”

Jeffries was not speaking of the case, but the Court. The man who would become the next Speaker of the House if Democrats retake power in November has joined other radicals in denying the legitimacy of the nation’s highest court.

Just for the record, the Supreme Court did not strike down Section 2, but said that neither the law nor the Constitution allows legislators to manipulate district lines to guarantee that candidates of a particular race will be elected. It was written not to give any race an advantage, but to prevent a state from creating a disadvantage to voters based on their race. The Act prevents any State from intentionally drawing districts “to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race.”

This is a matter upon which people of good faith can disagree. Many of the justices have been long opposed to racial criteria in areas ranging from college admissions to voting districts. Chief Justice John Roberts stated it bluntly in 2006 that “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.” Like others, Roberts abhors racial discrimination but declared in another case that “way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

You will find no such distinctions in much of the press where experts declared the death of equal voting laws in America. UCLA Law Professor Richard Hasen dispenses with any nuance and simply ran a Slate column titled “The Slaying of the Voting Rights Act by the Coward Alito.”

For years, liberal law professors have been trashing conservative justices, including Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, who called them  “partisan hacks.”

However, the name-calling has mutated into a movement to scrap the Court or the Constitution, or both. Chemerinsky wrote a book recently titled “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) joined Jeffries in calling for changing the Supreme Court after the decision: “we’re going to have to try to transform the way the Supreme Court has been gerrymandered itself and stacked and packed with MAGA appointees.”

There was, of course, no such movement during the decades with a liberal majority that set aside an array of long-standing cases. It was only when a stable conservative majority emerged that law professors declared the Court illegitimate or dangerous, with many calling for packing the Court with an instant liberal majority once Democrats retake power.

I discuss some of these voices as the “new Jacobins” in my book Rage and the Republic, figures echoing the radical concepts or means used in France before what became known as “The Terror.”

Law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale have called for the nation to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.” Last December, they published a column titled “It’s Time to Accept that the US Supreme Court is Illegitimate and Must be Replaced.”

They insist that citizens must be rid of this meddlesome court: “remaking institutions like the US supreme court so that Americans don’t have to suffer future decades of oligarchy-facilitating rule that makes a parody of the democracy they were promised.”

Many Democrats realize that the public is rather attached to both the Constitution and its core institutions. That is why various Democratic politicians and pundits have been pledging to pack the Court once they are back in power.  Some have suggested that, if they are going to change the political system and retain power, they will have to do it with the help of a compliant Court.

Democratic strategist James Carville stated matter-of-factly, “They’re going to recommend that the number of Supreme Court justices go from nine to 13. That’s going to happen, people.” He added recently, “Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”

To do that, you must first delegitimate the Court. You must attack both the individual justices and the institution itself. You need true rage to get a people to tear apart the core institution of a Republic on its 250th anniversary.

Now you have the next possible Speaker of the United States declaring the Supreme Court illegitimate because he disagrees with its interpretation of the law.

What these figures do not mention is that the majority of opinions by the Supreme Court are unanimous or nearly unanimous.  A comparably few cases break along strict ideological 6-3 lines. Indeed, just last week, it was President Donald Trump who was denouncing the conservative justices as disloyal and weak for, again, ruling against his Administration.

It is not the voting record nor the underlying interpretations that are motivating this campaign of delegitimation. It is power. Former Attorney General Eric Holder explained it most clearly recently in pushing the packing plan after the Democrats retake power: “[We’re] talking about the acquisition and the use of power, if there is a Democratic trifecta in 2028.”

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

Three months ago, billionaire Ryan Cohen, the CEO of GameStop, told The Wall Street Journal he was eyeing a major acquisition. Fast forward to late last week, and in what appears to be an intentional leak to the same outlet, Cohen’s next move may now be coming into focus: preparing an offer to buy eBay.

The WSJ cites sources who say that Cohen’s GameStop has built a $12 billion position in eBay ahead of a potential offer. Notably, eBay has a market capitalization 3.8 times larger than that of the video game retailer.

Sources said Cohen could announce the offer as early as this month, and if eBay rejects it, he may take the bid directly to shareholders.

In late January, Cohen told WSJ that he was eyeing a major transaction and searching for deals in the consumer and retail space, as part of a plan to expand the business far beyond video games and collectibles. 

WSJ’s Lauren Thomas noted, “GameStop had around $9 billion in cash on hand at the end of March, up from $4.8 billion a year earlier. Cohen would likely enlist his legions of online followers to rally behind a deal, too.”

The report comes as GameStop shares are up about 32% this year on hopes for dealmaking, while eBay shares are up nearly 20% this year.

However, one week ago, we penned a note covering AI startup Anthropic, which quietly released a report titled “Project Deal” suggesting the company may be preparing to take on eBay.