Mortgage Fraud for Thee but Not for Me
Plus: Thailand is burning through prime ministers, a secret SEAL Team mission in North Korea goes awry & RFK is giving the GOP a few regrets.
Recently, President Donald Trump has accused political opponents—Lisa Cook, Adam Schiff, and Letitia James—of falsifying information on home loan applications to get better mortgage rates. Leave it to none other than ProPublica to uncover the fact that at least three of his own Cabinet members have done the same thing.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin all have multiple homes marked as primary residences. For all you non-multiple homeowners out there, home loan companies usually give more favorable rates on mortgages for a primary residence, so misrepresenting that is fraud. That said a lot of people do it, for instance a fifth of the cabinet and a twelfth of the Fed’s board of Governors, apparently.
Who knows, maybe all those important government officials consider themselves to be a primary resident of their first homes, but primarily an artist-in-residence of their vacation homes. I always wanted to be an artist-in-residence, but then, when you take a vacation, it all becomes a huge lie.
Welcome to the Gist List—the primary residence of my news roundup, things you should know, and my thoughts leading up to today’s podcast episode.
Here’s what’s on my mind:
🇰🇵 How a SEAL team mission in North Korea fell apart.
💉 Breaking news: Vaccine mandates and slavery are NOT the same.
😵💫 Republican senators might have a few regrets about RFK Jr.
📺 WATCH THIS: A small city made for cats.
🇹🇭 Thailand is on its third prime minister in two years.
🇮🇶 Iraq’s economy is booming (figuratively)!
The Gist List
How a Top Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission Into North Korea Fell Apart (NYT)
In 2019, as Trump wooed Kim Jong-un with letters and summits, he also greenlit one of the riskiest covert ops imaginable: SEAL Team 6 swimming ashore in North Korea to plant an eavesdropping device on Kim himself. The plan fell apart spectacularly when the operatives opened fire on what they thought was a military patrol boat, killing everyone aboard. When the Seals boarded the vessel, they discovered it was probably a civilian fishing ship, so they dumped the bodies and left the scene.
Internal Pentagon reports called the killings justified under rules of engagement. But Trump never told Congress—a likely violation of oversight laws. Biden’s Defense Secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, ordered an independent probe in 2021 and briefed lawmakers. Trump’s summit with Kim collapsed, though not as badly as those poor fishermen. North Korea resumed testing, and by all estimates, they now have around 50 nuclear warheads.
School Vaccine Rules Are Not Like Slavery. Fact-Checking Florida's Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo (NBC 6 Florida)
On Wednesday, Florida’s Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced plans to end all school vaccine mandates—including routine childhood immunizations such as polio, MMR, chickenpox, and hepatitis B—comparing the mandates to slavery. Politifact wasted no time jumping in and bringing to bear their skills and training in evaluating the veracity of claims to weigh in on the assertion that vaccinated children are like slaves. Politifact notes that, “Florida has exemptions from vaccine participation. Enslaved people had no exemptions.” It turns out there are A LOT of differences between the slave trade and vaccine mandates. A “pants on fire” level of difference in fact.
In case you, as a news consumer, were in need of adjudication, just know the analogy turns out to have been inapt. Repeat: inapt.
Regrets, Republican Senators Have a Few (Bloomberg)
Republican senators who once backed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now seem to be regretting their choices. At a Senate Finance hearing, Senators Bill Cassidy, John Barrasso (both physicians) and Thom Tillis pushed RFK on his contradictions—notably, he praised Trump’s Operation Warp Speed when he called the COVID vaccine the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” Kennedy reacted by rasping whisper-shouting down the committee members.
Watch This: MeowDonald's is Now Open in Cat Town!
YouTuber Xing's World is creating "Cat Town" in China by 3D-printing a miniature city scaled for his pets. The feline metropolis features a MeowDonald's, subway system, movie theater, and everything else a cat on the town may need. The main cat’s friend seems to be some kind of rodent, however. Not sure how those two get along when the cameras aren't rolling.
Thailand Names Third Prime Minister in Two Years (BBC)
Thailand is on a roll, or as the Thais might put it, a Po Pia Sod / ปอเปี๊ยะสด. After Paetongtarn Shinawatra was ousted by the Constitutional Court for ethics violations, the parliament has picked business tycoon Anutin Charnvirakul as prime minister. Over the last 100 years, however, Thailand hasn’t had great luck with prime ministers. A lot of them have been ousted and either have been or are now living in exile. One of them, Samak Sundaravej, was removed by the Constitutional Court for continuing to host his cooking show on ITV called Tasting, Ranting. Was the food really that bad? He should try the Po Pia Sod / ปอเปี๊ยะสด.
The World's Surprise Boomtown: Baghdad (The Economist)
Ever since the Iraq War, Baghdad has been booming (in the non-IED sense). Under Prime Minister Muhammad al-Sudani, construction on new bridges, hospitals, schools, hotels, and foreign oil investments has surged, leaving Iraq in great economic shape, and they have even more than doubled their population.
One problem: Militias.
Yeah, I know, you thought I was going to say supply chain bottlenecks. Nope. It's militias.
Iraq is now facing problems with Iranian-backed militias who are finding that owning businesses and competing for government contracts is a much better gig than launching attacks. Sudani’s strategy thus far has been to avoid direct conflict, hoping that the “cats [get] too fat to fight.” Maybe if they offer them some MeowDonald's, they will!
On The Show: Trump’s Plans for Power—and Why His Revenge Got Personal
An interview with Miles Taylor—former DHS Chief of Staff and author of Blowback—about the April 2025 White House memo labeling him “treasonous,” the threats that followed, alleged blacklisting, and how executive power can be bent to punish speech.
This newsletter was put together in collaboration with Kathleen Sykes. The artist in residence is Mike Pesca.
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Does that absolve Adam Schiff from being a corrupt politician? Gross as fuck that this asshole is our California senator.