Just Don't Call It a War

Plus: AOC says you can't earn a billion dollars, Mythos, hantavirus, and more...

U.S. and Iran exchange fire, but the official line is that it's not a resumption of the war.

This is obviously in the eye of the beholder, but it is probably good that war has rhetorically fallen out of favor to such a degree that the Trump administration is at least making noises in the direction of restraint.

Of course, reality matters more than rhetoric. Here's what's happening: Iran struck three American destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz, so the U.S. struck Iran's military facilities that had carried out the destroyer attacks. "U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) eliminated inbound threats and targeted Iranian military facilities responsible for attacking U.S. forces including missile and drone launch sites; command and control locations; and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance nodes," reads their statement. "CENTCOM does not seek escalation but remains positioned and ready to protect American forces."

Project Freedom—President Donald Trump's plan to ensure safe passage for ships stuck in the strait, which safely got two ships out before provoking more Iranian ire—was stopped soon after it started. It's not clear what the fate of the mission will be, or how the U.S. military can work to help ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

"The U.S. military began quietly laying the groundwork for an operation to roll back Iran's influence over the strait in April, sending uncrewed sea drones into the area to scan for mines to help eventually establish a new safe shipping lane along the southern edge of the strait, according to defense officials," reports The Wall Street Journal. But there were critical problems with Trump's plan "for the destroyers to provide an antimissile umbrella, while U.S. helicopters would protect against Iranian attack boats." He may not have had sufficient firepower, given the ongoing blockade of Iranian ports. It doesn't seem like the operation ultimately made much of a dent, and Iran seems hellbent on continuing to reassert its dominance in the strait.

Tariff update: "A three-judge panel at the U.S Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled Thursday evening that Trump's 10 percent 'global tariff' is unlawful," writes Reason's Eric Boehm. "The president imposed those tariffs in February, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked Trump's attempt to use emergency powers to impose a sweeping set of tariffs on most imports." Trump attempted to use an obscure section of the Trade Act of 1974 that allows for the imposition of temporary tariffs if there are "large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits," which the U.S., crucially, does not have.

"That view was vindicated by the CIT," continues Boehm, "which ruled Thursday that the president cannot impose tariffs under Section 122 without that prerequisite."

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Scenes from New York: I don't know what this means: "you can't earn a billion dollars." (I'm putting this in SFNY because the "I'm rich but I refuse to acknowledge it" shtick feels endemic to this place in particular and the people who come from it, as noted before.) I can think of plenty of ways to earn a billion dollars: Making something many millions of people want and are willing to pay for, that massively enriches (or extends, in the case of pharmaceuticals) their lives. And, logically speaking, how could one justly earn a few million dollars but not a billion? Where does the line get drawn and who gets to draw it? Is there any tier of judgment, decision making, or responsibility that warrants vastly more pay than any other?

AOC: "There's a certain level of wealth and accumulation that is unearned. You can't earn a billion dollars. You just can't earn that. You can get market power, you can break rules, you can abuse labor laws, you can pay people less than what they're worth, but you can't earn… pic.twitter.com/tUi9xTlQ2B

— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) May 7, 2026

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QUICK HITS

• Seems bad: "Salvadoran investigative outlet El Faro announced Thursday that two of its members' assets, including a bank account and property, were frozen, in what it denounced as an escalation of political persecution for its work exposing corruption in the government of President Nayib Bukele," reports the Associated Press.
• "It feels so much like early COVID, particularly with public health authorities making very complacent remarks that 'it's not that transmissible, contact tracing will work, quarantine will work,'" writes software engineer Fernando Borretti on the hantavirus that's spreading, which originated on a cruise ship. "Complacency at the start, and severity at the end, is exactly why COVID was such a fuckup." It's interesting how many of the countries are handling their hanta cases: expecting self-isolation for up to 45 days, which seems like something nobody will actually follow through on, while other places like Singapore are way more intense about it. (The virus' long incubation period is part of what makes it so challenging.)
• How do we feel about Mythos? (More here.)

Not a good day for team "Claude Mythos is just marketing hype." pic.twitter.com/bOP52VzAfw

— Timothy B. Lee (@binarybits) May 7, 2026

• Relatedly, I would love to see someone excellent get hired by my friend Mike Solana to delve into what the people crafting these large language models (LLMs) actually believe.