Naval Gazing

“He relies heavily on the advice and guidance of the board members, and they collectively make all the decisions … The generals are the board members.” There’s been a regime change of sorts in Iran. The question is how the new regime differs from the old one. It’s being led by a new Khamenei, who has a very different leadership style than his father. That could be because of his current predicament. He has almost no direct contact with advisors because of fears that Israel “may trace them to him and kill him.” And his health is bad. “One leg was operated on three times, and he is awaiting a prosthetic. He had surgery on one hand and is slowly regaining function. His face and lips have been burned severely, making it difficult for him to speak, the officials said, adding that, eventually, he will need plastic surgery.” The NYT (Gift Article): A New Era and New Leadership: The Generals Who Are Running Iran. “President Trump has said that the war, along with the killings of layers of Iran’s leaders and security establishment, has ushered in ‘regime change’ and that the new leaders are ‘much more reasonable.’ In reality, the Islamic republic has not been toppled. Power is now in the hands of an entrenched, hard-line military, and the broad influence of the clerics is waning.” (This makes negotiations difficult. It also doesn’t bode well for the Iranian people who may be left with an even harsher political environment.)

+ Maybe Trump is right when he says: “Iran is having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is! They just don’t know! The infighting is between the ‘Hardliners,’ who have been losing BADLY on the battlefield, and the ‘Moderates,’ who are not very moderate at all (but gaining respect!), is CRAZY!” (In America, by contrast, we get conflicting signals, different stories, changing negotiating positions, and contradictory updates … but it’s all coming from the same person.) Here’s the latest from The Guardian, NBC, and BBC.

“To help care for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, Dr. Jack uses an array of high-tech tools, some of which didn’t exist just a few years ago. She manages her mother’s medications with a smart pill box. She changes her television channels with an app, sends appointment reminders through a digital message board — and, with her mother’s blessing, uses cameras for communication and monitoring.” NYT (Gift Article): How ‘Age Tech’ Might Help You Grow Old at Home. “America is aging rapidly. Roughly 11,000 people are turning 65 each day in the United States. And many of them — 75 percent of people over 50, according to AARP’s most recent survey, from 2024 — hope to spend their remaining years in the comfort of their homes, rather than in assisted-living or other care facilities.” (Doordash, Netflix, and televised Giants games are all the age tech I really need.)

“What Virginia Democrats did by redrawing the congressional maps was antidemocratic, and it should be illegal. But, for those who care about ensuring the future of democracy, it was the least bad option of those available.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Virginia Gerrymander Disenfranchises Republicans.

+ I made the same basic argument yesterday, but I put it in a slightly different way. The GerryMandalorian: “There were two elements the Empire didn’t expect: First, the Force (here, the voting public) would be with the rebels. And second, Vader’s poll numbers would be historically low.”

Joint Venture “President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general on Thursday signed an order reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug, a major policy shift long sought by advocates who said cannabis should never have been treated like heroin by the federal government.” (I inhaled at some point in the eighties and I didn’t exhale until about 2019, so I’m hardly opposed to more reasonable marijuana classifications. But I’d be willing to bet this has more to do with blazing a trail for a new cash grab than anything else.) It is amazing how much has changed when it comes to our legal relationship with weed. Jimmy Kimmel and Scott Lonker just released a set of short docs on Hulu: 4×20 Quick Hits. Watch the Harold & Kumar one for the nostalgia and the one about the bong industry to get a reminder of just how different the latest attorney general announcement is from the paraphernalia arrests of yore.

+ Drunk on Power: “The F.B.I. began investigating a New York Times reporter last month after she wrote about the bureau’s director, Kash Patel, using bureau personnel to provide his girlfriend with government security and transportation, according to a person briefed on the matter.”

+ Afford Focus: “Republicans pushed through the plan on a nearly party-line vote of 50 to 48. It came after an overnight marathon of rapid-fire votes, known as a vote-a-rama, in which the G.O.P. beat back a series of Democratic proposals aimed at addressing the high cost of health care, housing, food and energy. The debate put the two parties’ dueling messages on vivid display six months before the midterm elections.” Senate Adopts G.O.P. Budget, Defeating Democrats’ Affordability Proposals.

+ RSVP Brains: Margaret Sullivan on this weekend’s White House correspondents’ dinner. Why are White House journalists partying with Trump? (Spoiler alert: There’s no good answer.)

+ It’s the Corruption, Stupid: Eric Trump Brags About $24 Million Pentagon Deal His Company Landed. (The amount alone indicates corruption. The Pentagon spends more than $24 million on a set of pens.)

+ Separate Lives: “It captures a harrowing moment: a family separated by the state.” World Press Photo announces Photo of the Year 2026.

+ Everything Means Less Than Zero: “President Trump has claimed that he has secured discounts of 400 to 1,500 percent on prescription drugs. A price discount cannot be more than 100 percent because that would lower the price to zero.” (In fairness, plenty of his businesses have achieved these numbers.) NYT: RFK Jr. Defends Trump’s Mathematically Impossible Drug Discount Claims. “Eventually, Mr. Trump began to insert some uncertainty into his claims, saying that the discount depended ‘on how you want to calculate it.’ ‘You could say it’s an 80 percent reduction,’ Mr. Trump said in January. ‘Or you could say it’s a 1,000 percent reduction. You could say whatever you want.'” (Words and images have lost all meaning. Why shouldn’t numbers be down for the count?)

Imagine having to explain this when your cellmate asks what you’re in for: “A California man pilfered thousands of dollars in Lego toy sets from the retailer Target in a return-based scam, sometimes swapping valuable figurines with dried pasta pieces and before returning the construction-centric toys, authorities recently alleged.” (Even in the age of Ozempic, I’d rather have the pasta than the Lego.)

+ “The set made it 114,790 feet above Gwynedd County in the United Kingdom. That’s almost 22 miles straight up. According to Guinness, the set then stayed up in the air for over eight hours before coming back to Earth, hence the record for ‘Highest Altitude Launch and Retrieval of a Lego Set.'”