Bad Bromance

Plus: Organ donation goes bad, DOGE fired people on incorrect performance reviews & the Supreme Court isn’t as divided as you may think.

Jun 06, 2025

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk—or Trusk, or Mump, whichever you like best—have undergone a clownish uncoupling. The media coverage of the breakup has been remarkably amusing, with the news like Trump getting rid of his Tesla, Musk calling for Trump’s impeachment, and trying to figure out who gets the friends in the divorce.

It’s a good time all around, but what I find interesting is watching Musk holding The Dragon hostage. Musk threatened to mothball the Dragon—the only active American spacecraft that can ferry humans and significant cargo to the ISS. Yes, SpaceX is on the line in the divorce settlement, and while Musk’s “to the stars” vehicle isn’t the only way up there, it is the contractor for the majoity of space flights (SpaceX 28 launches, ULA getting 19 launches, Blue Origin 7.)

As far as the Elon half of Elonald goes, if you’re worried about him having to eat Hamburger Helper instead of a real hamburger, don’t be. Neuralink is already valued at $9 billion, and Starlink is growing as a percentage of the SpaceX business.

Welcome to the Gist List—a news roundup, interesting things you should know, and my thoughts leading up to today’s podcast episode.

Here’s what’s on my mind:

🫀 A Kentucky organ donation scheme becomes a nightmare.

💥 Iran’s missiles and dependence on China.

🔥 DOGE fired thousands of federal workers based on inaccurate performance reviews. Oops?

🧤 The TSA is building VR gloves that can grope you remotely. Feeling safer yet?

💩 Will Discord enshittify like the rest, or are Orbs just a phase?

⚖️ SCOTUS isn’t as divided as you think—unless you're counting the vibes.

The Gist List

Doctors Were Preparing to Remove Their Organs. Then They Woke Up (NYT)

In what is probably every organ donation truther’s worst nightmare, federal investigation has found that a Kentucky-based organ donation organization repeatedly ignored signs that patients were regaining consciousness—and still moved toward removing their organs. The investigation examined 350 halted donation attempts over a four-year period, and in 73 cases, staff should have intervened earlier due to signs of consciousness.

The investigation focused on “donation after circulatory death,” where the patients are in comas but not strictly brain-dead, an increasingly common method that makes a selfless act look more like an episode of Squid Game. Even more terrifying, the investigation discovered former staff who said they witnessed these cases and felt pressured to proceed despite ethical red flags.

Iran Orders Material From China for Hundreds of Ballistic Missiles (WSJ)

Iran is importing large quantities of ammonium perchlorate from China, a missile propellant, in deals that could fuel hundreds of ballistic missiles. This is cause for concern, and the U.S. has already sanctioned a bunch of people over it, but I can’t help but notice how the 21st Century axis of evil is so interdependent. With sanctions, Iran and North Korea are seeking alternative trade and financial networks. Iran sells oil to China. North Korea supplies surplus soldiers to Russia. Russia sells missile tech to North Korea and Iran. And Iran gets its raw materials from China.

However daunting the situation is, I still don’t know how far Iran can get in their plans when truckers are not going to get the missiles to where they need to go, and the economy has Iranians scrambling for gold.

Trump Races to Fix a Big Mistake: DOGE Fired Too Many People (Washington Post)

In a stunning twist of fate that no one could have predicted, DOGE fired too many people. As we’ve discussed before, we know the National Weather Service had to rehire 100 of the 600 people they cut, and the State Department is now rehiring former staff after absorbing USAID’s responsibilities.

This, of course, has spurred on a bunch of lawsuits for firing 10,000 people on bad information (which no doubt is sitting somewhere on Musk’s wall of receipts). One of which the Pittsburgh Mining Research Division of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health alleges that these decisions were made based on “hopelessly error-ridden” records, and performance scores were artificially low. As a result, the entire division appeared to be low-performing, even though it wasn’t.

TSA Working on Haptic Tech To 'Feel' Your Body in Virtual Reality (404 Media)

The DHS and TSA are developing a virtual reality-based pat-down system that would let agents feel up passengers during security screenings without touching them physically. The idea is that they will use haptic gloves that can map your body and let the TSA agent feel around for weapons, and the system will then generate a biometric “token” tied to each scanned passenger. Remember all of that hysteria when airports got the full body scanners, and people were panicking about pervy TSA agents in a room somewhere getting a show of random passengers’ scanned bodies? Even though it’s intended to be less invasive, I doubt it will go over much better than that, because if an officer can feel it, is it really less invasive?

Discord CTO Says He's "Constantly Bringing Up Enshittification" During Meetings (Ars Technica)

Every now and then, I catch myself saying, “They just don’t make things like they used to,” and then I feel old. Of course, with how much the development of technology has sped up, even youthful Discord users are finding themselves talking about “enshittification”—the gradual decline of a platform that always seems to coincide with an IPO, ultimately rendering it useless and expensive.

Discord’s CTO, Stanislav Vishnevskiy, is reassuring users that the company is approaching its IPO carefully, even as users are going to start seeing ads and earning “Orbs” for engaging with them. Experts worry that enshittification won’t just end in what’s known as a turdening, but could lead to full-blown Diarrheavolution.

Is the Supreme Court Really That Divided? The Facts Say No (Reason)

If you listened to my interview with Leah Litman over the last few days, you may have noted my qualms with her assertions that SCOTUS is resting on 6-3 rulings. While the media—and even The New Yorker cover art—often cast the Court’s conservatives as lockstep Trump proxies, the justices are more ideologically varied and legally consistent than they're given credit for.

Exhibits A-C: Yesterday, the court handed down unanimous decisions on these cases:

Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services. Jackson wrote the opinion.
Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc., et al. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos. The opinion was written by Kagan.
Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission. The opinion was written by Sotomayor.

There you have it. Three cases about discrimination against a straight woman, guns, and religious institutions, with opinions all penned by the liberal justices.

Think also about last year’s Fischer v. United States. True, it was 6-3, but WHAT A WEIRD 6-3. The ruling tossed obstruction charges against some January 6 defendants. The majority, including Justice Jackson, held that the law was too broadly applied. Barrett dissented.

Of course, there have been some decisions that do look remarkably partisan, and they are worth a good discussion, but under “strict scrutiny,” it’s impossible to say that the justices are truly THAT partisan. You can watch the interview below and let me know what you think.

Yesterday on the Show: What's Really Going on Behind the Supreme Court's Doors?

I spoke with Law Professor Leah Litman, author of Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes. She argues that the current Supreme Court operates as a vessel for conservative grievance, with its most consequential 6–3 rulings forming the true shape of its ideological project. She insists those rulings matter more than any others—but I had to ask: is that because they affect more lives, or because non-6–3 decisions muddy the thesis? Along the way, she's not afraid to indulge in snark and overstatement, defending her "vibes-forward" tone as capturing a kind of deeper reality. I subjected this vibes-nalysis to a bit of strict scrutiny.

There’s more where that came from. Listen to The Gist, and upgrade to Pesca Plus for the ad-free version.

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