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Really? Democrats to blame? How? For losing the 2024 election so they could not be in power to stop it? Is that how? 7. 😡 Who's getting blamed for prices

Happy now, Supreme Court? Getting what you wanted? 5. 🚔 Prediction market hammers drop A trio of headlines captures the rapid-fire crackdown on prediction market insider trading after a series of controversial trades: An Army special forces soldier, who was part of the Nicolás Maduro raid, was charged with making $400,000 by betting on the leader's downfall. The 38-year-old, stationed at Fort Bragg, was involved in planning and executing the Jan. 3 raid, beginning Dec. 8. The indictment says the soldier made 13 bets related to Maduro being toppled by Jan. 31. Read the indictment. Kalshi fined and suspended three political candidates for trading related to their own election races. Go deeper. "State employees are the latest targets of prediction market insider trading bans." — Business Insider 💬 President Trump lamented yesterday that "the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino." 🎬 Go deeper: Kalshi founders told "The Axios Show" they expect the feds to probe bad actors on their platform. Watch the clip.

You can probably guess why.

California’s Population Split Into 4 Parts

Map of International Telephone Country Codes By Country Just Europe

Forgot it? I never even knew it! Canada’s Forgotten Prohibition Plebiscite of 1898 Read all about it if you're interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1898_Canadian_prohibition_plebiscite

The most surprising this here is how close England is to Spain, given the Moorish invasion and 700-plus-year occupation of the latter.

@oblong Map of the Moon If Its “Seas” Were Really Seas

Final Map Of The Republics of the Soviet Union Published By The CIA In 1991

These are all the states that have voted the same way for the last nine elections: Push it back to the last eleven elections, and something has changed. I think that something is Newt Gingrich.

And Louisiana's was in 1872!

Too bad for those guys that land doesn't vote.

This is fun!

Which version of Germany existed when each US state became a state:

Reigning British Monarch when each US state became a state:

The Korean War in four parts.

good lord, we're gonna get run out in round 1, aren't we?

Meanwhile ...

Oh, the flailing ... MAGA Republicans want Trump to annex Arlington for D.C. The plan for Washington from 1972, with territory from Virginia and Maryland. Image: Courtesy of Maryland Center for History and Culture/366 It's been a fringe fantasy for D.C. die-hards, but now it's finding common cause among MAGA: taking back Arlington. Why it matters: A Trump ally wants to weaken Virginia Democrats by removing the blue NoVA suburb. What's happening: For some very-online urbanists, "Recreate the Diamond" has been an irredentist dream (D.C. was originally 100 square miles — almost 50% larger than it is today) and seizing more city (hello, 400,000 new Washingtonians). For Republicans, it's a counterattack. It would blow up the congressional map Democrats just redrew 10-1 in their favor. That's the thinking advanced by Chad Mizelle, a former Trump DOJ official. Mizelle thinks the president should sign an executive order declaring Virginia's 1847 retrocession unconstitutional, forcing the Supreme Court to decide for the first time whether Arlington and Alexandria (yes, Old Town, too) are rightfully the District's. "Residents of this region should feel right at home as part of D.C.," he wrote in a Fox News op-ed, telling Trump to "fight fire with fire." Would Trump do it? The White House didn't comment. Mizelle — an ally of Stephen Miller — tells me it's "worth a shot." State of play: Taking it further, Republican Georgia congressman Rich McCormick introduced a bill Thursday, under the banner of "Make D.C. Square Again." Democratic Virginia Rep. Don Beyer called it a "stupid waste of time." The intrigue: Politics aside, would being reunited feel so good? D.C. would get skyscrapers, rich taxpayers, Clarendon bar fights, double the number of Cheesecake Factories, car dealerships (the lack of which has spawned anti-statehood arguments). Amazing Vietnamese food! Plus an airport and strategic control of the Potomac. The bottom line: Some conservatives call it the "People's Republic of Arlington," but even liberal Virginians might not stand going back to Taxation Without Representation.

Then I will no longer waste my time telling agent anything about it, if all it gets me is a doubling of my effort. It's so much faster and easier to just say "agent" until I get a human—unless you can tell me that just makes it worse, and why.