Welcome to the deep dive. Our mission is always
the same. We take these really disparate, high
-stakes sources, everything from congressional
gridlock and global diplomacy to dark military
history and predictive election markets, and
we pull out the key insights you need to be informed.
And we have a powerful set of sources today.
They really, they illuminate the friction points
in U .S. policy, both at home and abroad. We're
going to get into the policy fights, grinding
legislation to a halt, the long -term fallout
of past military actions, and some very quiet
moves by major global leaders. Okay, let's jump
right in then. Let's start with that legislative
chaos. The National Defense Authorization Act,
the NDAA, this is a bill that is usually a landmark
of bipartisanship. it's just stuck. So for anyone
who might confuse this with other spending bills,
what is the NDAA and why is that distinction
from an appropriations bill so important? That
is the critical distinction. So the NDAA, and
this is amazing, it's passed every year since
1961. It's a policy framework. The rule book.
The rule book, exactly. It says what the Department
of Defense can and can't do, what its policies
are. The appropriations bill, that's the checkbook.
That's the actual money. Got it. And because
the NDAA is this mandatory must pass Bill. Well...
It becomes a magnet for everyone trying to attach
completely unrelated stuff to it. And that's
exactly the snag this year, isn't it? GOP leaders
are scrambling over these last -minute intra
-party fights that have really nothing to do
with defense. Nothing at all. It's pushing the
whole thing way past its deadline. So if these
things aren't about the military, why are they
even being allowed to hijack the process? It's
pure political calculation. It's expediency.
Look, the NDA is the only train leaving the station
that's strong enough to carry these other— controversial
policies. Right. So leadership is using it to
appease different wings of the party and frankly
to address some big political vulnerabilities
before the midterms next year. OK. And those
vulnerabilities are driving these sticking points.
First one. Housing legislation. I'm seeing White
House officials are pushing hard for some version
of the Senate's road to housing legislation.
Yeah. And that push is a direct response to some
very pointed political advice. Oh, really? The
top Republican pollster, Tony Fabrizio, he told
House members in a closed door meeting that the
GOP has to focus on housing affordability. It's
a huge inflation pressure point with voters.
But this is where the mechanics get messy. The
House Financial Services Chair, French Hill,
he opposes parts of it. He's basically saying,
hey, you can't just jam a housing bill through
on the NDAA without my committee's buy -in. It's
a total turf war. So you have political necessity
clashing with these institutional turf wars.
OK. And beyond housing, they're also looking
at expanding IVF coverage in vitro fertilization
for military families under TRICARE. Now that
seems like a no -brainer, a way to support military
families, but it's another point of friction,
isn't it? It absolutely is. I mean, the provision
was in both the House and Senate versions of
the bill, but it was specifically left out last
year. Why? Because of really strong concerns
from some conservatives about, you know, pro
-life protections. Speaker Johnson's comment
on it was very telling. He said he supports access
when sufficient pro -life protections are in
place. So he's threading a needle. an extremely
tight needle. They have to pass the bill, but
they absolutely cannot afford to alienate a key
part of their base. And on top of all that, they're
still trying to figure out whether to add new
restrictions on U .S. investments in China. Which
is a debate happening on like every piece of
major legislation right now. It seems like it.
But just to see how fast priorities can shift
when the whole bill is at risk, look at the AI
moratorium. Right, that failed. It failed completely.
Lawmakers had to back away from this contentious
moratorium on state AI regulations, even though
a major figure, Steve Scalise, was backing it.
He basically admitted, yeah, the NDA wasn't the
best place for this. So there are limits. There
are limits to how much you can bolt onto this
thing before it just collapses under its own
weight. So the big insight here is that the NDA's
traditional smooth passage is under threat because
of these short -term political wins being prioritized
over, you know, stable long -term defense policy.
It's that constant fight, isn't it? Principle
versus expediency. And if you want to see the
truly devastating consequences of choosing expediency
in military policy, we have to shift focus. We
need to look at the dark legacy. of the US -backed
Afghan Zero Units. Yeah, this story with the
DC shooter, Luckenwall, it really brought this
whole history roaring back. So who exactly were
these Zero Units? They were essentially the CIA's
Afghan equivalent of US special operations, think
Navy SEALs or Army Rangers. OK. But, and this
is the crucial part, they had much less oversight
and far, far looser rules of engagement. Their
missions were called night raids, which is just...
sanitized jargon for kill capture operations.
And the sources show this whole model was based
on a flawed blueprint from the past. That's the
shocking part, the lineage. These units, they
were stood up in 2008 and they were modeled directly
on the Vietnam era Phoenix program. Wow. That
program neutralized over 81 ,000 people. But
here's the data point that was just ignored.
A 1971 Pentagon study found that only 3 % of
those people were actually high -ranking Viet
Cong. 97 % were either low -level or just innocent
civilians. And they recycled that blueprint anyway.
They recycled it in Afghanistan. It's unbelievable.
And predictably, the lack of oversight. led to
just horrific, documented atrocities with zero
accountability. It did. Zero units committed
war crimes, extrajudicial executions of prisoners,
often found hooded, zip -tied. Some reports suggest
they'd murder every military -aged male in an
area. That's war. Human Rights Watch cited these
chilling examples. Five civilians in one family,
including an elderly woman and a child, killed
in a raid. A 60 -year -old tribal elder shot
in the eye. It's just brutal stuff. So if these
were US backed, how was the US government not
held directly accountable? That was the loophole.
That was the whole point of the expediency. By
using CIA -led partner forces, the U .S. could
sidestep its own laws. It avoided congressional
oversight. It avoided accountability. Because
they weren't technically U .S. forces. Exactly.
And that created this huge intelligence problem,
too. Sometimes the units were basically used
as enforcers for local warlords or to kill landowners
to steal their property. The whole mission was
corrupted. And now we're seeing the fallout.
Around 10 ,000 former Zero Unit members were
relocated here to the U .S. But the stress on
someone like Lakenwall, who was recruited at
15, can you imagine? 15. A child. And he served
for a decade. The stress was just extreme. He
went from being a critical asset to just being
abandoned. And that abandonment was systemic.
Lakenwall lost his job because his work authorization
card didn't come through. Even though his asylum
was approved, he was literally in tears, unable
to feed his wife and five kids. And he reached
out for help. He sent a desperate message to
a CIA program group chat, went completely unanswered,
a total cut off of support. So this is the cruel
twist for them. They were promised protection,
but they're stuck in this legal limbo. If they
were so essential, why can't the U .S. government
just give them basic veteran support like VA
health care? Why are these programs being cut?
Because they're not legally considered U .S.
veterans. They're treated as foreign nationals
who assisted the U .S. That's a fine line. It's
a devastating line. As of July. About 3 ,000
of them still didn't have work permits. And unlike
U .S. vets, they're completely ineligible for
VA health care, for mental health treatment,
for disability pensions, all of it, despite seeing
the same, if not more, intense combat. And now
the support that does exist is being cut off.
It is. The 2026 budget proposal recommends terminating
Operation Enduring Welcome. That's the program
that helped relocate them. One group, AfghaniVac,
called it a profound betrayal. This is the human
cost of that short -term military expediency.
A staggering human cost. How do we pivot from
the cost of military failure abroad to the early
signals of political trouble at home? Let's turn
domestic forecasting to the cold math of prediction
markets. We're zooming in on a special election
in Tennessee's seventh congressional district,
TNO7. a very deep red district. And this is a
perfect example of why you have to look past
the headline. The Republican, Matt Van Epps,
he won. Everyone knew he would. The markets had
him at 99 percent. So no surprise there. No.
But the key insight isn't who won. It's the margin
of victory. And that margin has huge implications
for the 2026 midterms. And here's the data that
jumped out at me. Traders were pricing in a 98
% chance that Van Epps would win by a margin
of 5 to 9 .99%. Which sounds solid enough. Right,
but you have to compare it. Just one year ago,
Donald Trump won that same district by 22 points.
That is a massive swing. A 12 to 17 percentage
point swing toward the Democrat. In a deep red
district. in one year. What does that signal?
It's a huge warning sign for the GOP. If a Democrat
can close the gap that much in Trump country,
it means moderate Democrats running in actual
swing districts just became a whole lot more
competitive. And the usual excuse of, oh, it
was a special election, low turnout doesn't work
here, does it? It doesn't fly at all. Turnout
in TNO7 was high, very comparable to the 2022
midterms. So you can't just dismiss the swing.
It seems real. And the markets reacted instantly.
Instantly. This is why prediction markets are
so clarifying. It's not opinion. It's people
putting their money where their mouth is. The
2026 House market was already shifting toward
the Democrats. But after this result, it accelerated.
Democrat odds of taking back the House jumped
from 72 percent to 78 percent. And the Senate
market got a little shaky, too. It really did.
For a moment there. When the early results made
the margin look even smaller, like under 5%,
Republican odds of holding the Senate just plummeted
to 60%. Wow. They rebounded a bit, but they still
settled at 68 % for the GOP to keep the Senate.
That's a measurable 4 % drop post -election.
The markets are reacting to a perceived fragility
in the Republican hold. OK, from the volatility
of elections, let's go to the quiet diplomacy
of the global stage. Pope Leo IV's debut international
trip. six days in Turkey and Lebanon. And the
big question was, what would the style of this
mild -mannered American pope be like? Well, he
came back from a very highly scripted tour that
pretty much confirmed his character. Stolid,
quiet, what you see is what you get. So a real
contrast to his predecessor. A huge contrast
to Pope Francis, who was known for being spontaneous,
you know, the famous, who am I to judge, line.
Leo's most surprising disclosure was that he
was thinking about retiring before the conclave.
That's about as spicy as it got. But in terms
of his actual message, Hugh was really following
in Francis' footsteps, protecting migrants, the
environment, support for a two -state solution.
It was all about continuity. Absolutely. And
you see that continuity in his style of quiet
diplomacy. In Turkey, his goal was to soothe
the centuries -old tensions between the Catholic
and Orthodox churches. And how did he do it?
He sat through two hours of chanting at the Church
of St. George. Two hours? Yeah. just showing
a capacity for a respectful presence, not trying
to make some grand statement. And his visit to
Lebanon must have had some powerful timing, given
everything going on in the region. Incredibly
sensitive timing. He held a mass right at the
site of the 2020 Beirut port blast, spoke with
victims' families, and all this was happening
on the anniversary of a ceasefire while Israeli
airstrikes were still happening in the South.
He also had a warning about technology. He did.
He warned about AI saying that rapidly advancing
tech could exacerbate injustice. But the thing
he really emphasized was that his most important
work is done behind the scenes. He even said
he met with religious leaders in Lebanon who
represent in reality political authorities involved
in the conflicts. So quiet diplomacy. He prefers
discretion over headlines. We have covered an
incredible amount of ground in this deep dive
from the specific, you know, non -defense fights
holding up the NDAA to the deep historical roots
and human cost of these unaccountable military
actions and the political signals pointing to
next year's elections. And the thread that connects
all of it. really, is this negotiation between
principle and expediency. Whether it's lawmakers
tacking on writers for political leverage, or
the CIA using a loophole to avoid oversight,
or a world leader like the pope choosing quiet
discretion over a big splash. It's all about
these constant strategic tradeoffs. Which raises
an important final question for you, the listener,
to think about. When you consider the NDAA's
reliance on those unrelated writers for political
game, and you think about the documented intelligence
failures, civilian murders by the zero units
and then you see the unexpected volatility in
that Tennessee election margin. What is the true
cost in both legislative stability and in human
lives when political actors prioritize these
short -term strategic wins over long -term accountability
or clarity? What critical information are you
missing in the daily political noise?