Happy Wednesday Everyone! Today’s newsletter: 1,040 words…4 mins
🗞 Today’s Edition: Iran’s Cardboard Ayatollah, The US Just Blew Up Iran's Mine Game, Mastercard launches Crypto Partner Program, Pentagon Is Deploying Gemini AI Agents, Spain Builds A Hate Speech Scoreboard, The World Just Cracked Open Its Emergency Oil Piggy Bank… & much more!
💬 What historic first message kicked off the telegraph era in 1844? Scroll down to find out!
📜THE HIGHLIGHT
One killer insight to stash in your back pocket
Left: Original Mojtaba cutout; Right: Memes
📦 Iran's New Supreme Leader Is… Literally Cardboard
Iran just produced the most unintentionally meme-able moment in modern geopolitics.
On March 9, supporters gathered in Tehran’s Enqelab Square to pledge allegiance to Iran’s newly appointed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.
The twist: Mojtaba didn’t show up.
Instead, the regime rolled out a life-size cardboard cutout of the 56-year-old cleric while IRGC commanders and loyalists chanted slogans and waved flags.
💥 Why the stand-in? Rumors say Mojtaba may have been injured in the same strike that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the ongoing U.S.–Israel conflict with Iran.
📺 State media framed the rallies as proof of regime unity. The internet… did not.
Within hours, social media crowned him the “Two-Dimensional Ayatollah.”
🎭 Viral memes placed the cardboard leader:
Sitting in the Oval Office with Trump
Aboard the Titanic
Hanging out with Marco Rubio
An AI clip with Trump revealing a cardboard Ayatollah picture frame to Fox News host Laura Ingraham, has racked up millions of views.
In other words: He’s Ayatollah Flat Stanley. And the internet’s only just getting started.
💡 Why it matters: The optics are brutal. As the war rages on, Iran’s regime projects its power on the world stage with a cardboard Supreme Leader.
♟️THE CHESSBOARD
Geopolitics Decoded In 3 Moves
Still from footage showing the destruction of Iranian mine-laying vessels Source: X.com/@CENTCOM
💥 The US Just Blew Up Iran's Mine Game — Literally
The U.S. just destroyed 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels near the Strait of Hormuz after intelligence showed Tehran deploying dozens of naval mines in the world’s most critical oil chokepoint carrying 20% of global oil supply.
Trump warned Iran to remove the mines or face severe consequences. Tehran responded by vowing retaliation.
The math: Iran still holds 80–90% of its mine-laying fleet. 16 vessels down. Hundreds potentially still in play.
💡 Why it matters: The US took out the mine-layers — but the mines are already there. US underwater clearance drones are now working the strait. The harder problem just got started.
🛢️ The World Just Cracked Open Its Emergency Oil Piggy Bank
The IEA is proposing a release of 400 million barrels of emergency reserves — the largest in its 52-year history. Bigger than 2022's Russia response. Bigger than anything they've tried before.
Why now: Oil prices surged as much as 40% since late Feb, briefly topping $100/barrel as the Hormuz crisis choked off roughly one-fifth of global supply.
The catch: Not all IEA members agree the situation is yet urgent enough to pull the trigger. India has opted out entirely.
Energy traders whipsawed all week — prices spiked, then dropped 11% on the reserve release news alone. The volatility is the story.
💡Bottom line: Strategic reserves buy time — they don't fix a closed strait. These stockpiles are a short-term stabilizing tool, not a long-term solution. The clock is ticking.
🤖 Spain Built a Hate Speech Scoreboard — And Big Tech Is Not Happy
Spain launched HODIO — the Footprint of Hatred and Polarisation — a government tool to systematically track hate speech presence, amplification and impact across social media platforms.
Think Rotten Tomatoes, but for algorithmic toxicity.
Every six months, HODIO publishes a ranked table of platforms — publicly exposing who stops hate, who looks away, and who profits from it.
PM Pedro Sánchez: Sunlight equals accountability.
💡 Bottom line: Critics call it Orwell with Wi-Fi, warning government “scorecards” could pressure platforms into censorship.
🗽THE EMPIRE FILES
Political Drama From DC To NYC
🗳️ Trump’s SAVE Act Gambit: Shutdown Politics, Voter Edition
President Trump says he won’t sign any legislation until Congress passes the SAVE Act, a bill requiring proof of U.S. citizenship (passport or birth certificate) to register for federal elections.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) fired back: Zero Democratic support, calling it voter suppression theater.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD)— said plainly: "The votes aren't there." Neither for the bill, nor for filibuster reform.
⚡Context: the House passed the bill 220–208 in 2025, but the Senate filibuster still blocks it. Republicans are stuck between a demanding base and a Senate that can't deliver — with midterms closing in.
👮 NYPD Cops Go Full Action Movie Heroes
Chaos outside Gracie Mansion turned into a viral hero moment when NYPD Chief Aaron Edwards vaulted barricades and tackled a suspect who tossed an IED at anti-Muslim protesters.
Sgt. Luis Navarro simultaneously rushed toward a lit explosive device.
The alleged attackers — two teens inspired by ISIS — were arrested on terrorism charges.
⚡The footage exploded online with 13M+ views, turning the courageous cops into overnight social media heroes.
🤖 CODES & POWER
Tech Wars, Crypto Chaos, and AI’s Black Mirror Moments
🪖 The Pentagon Gets AI Coworkers
The Pentagon is deploying Google’s Gemini AI agents across its 3M-person workforce, starting on unclassified systems.
Through the GenAI.mil portal, staff can create no-code agents that summarize meetings, draft budgets, and handle paperwork using a “Think → Act → Observe” loop.
Since December: 1.2M users have already run 40M prompts.
⚡Classified-network expansion is under review.
💳 Mastercard’s Crypto Avengers Assemble
Mastercard just launched a Crypto Partner Program bringing together 85+ crypto firms — including Circle, Ripple, PayPal, Binance, Gemini, and Paxos — to plug blockchain payments directly into global banking rails.
Goal: make stablecoins and crypto-spending work like regular card payments, enabling faster cross-border transfers and settlements.
The prize: the $300B stablecoin market.
⚡Big Finance isn’t fighting crypto anymore — it’s building the plumbing for it.
📺 FUN FACTS & TRIVIA
Samuel Morse
Morse Code
The very first message ever sent by Morse code on May 24, 1844 was:
“What hath God wrought?”
It was transmitted by Samuel Morse himself from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore — a biblical quote that launched the era of instant long-distance communication!