“Let them eat liver” is a good slogan. They should run with that. 🙄

Some people see “those who forget history are bound to repeat it” as an opportunity.

When academia's stars mistreat people, they're "punished" with relief from teaching, mentoring, and service responsibilities. This frees them to spend more time on the more valued work of research. And dumps less valued responsibilities onto colleagues, making it harder for them to become stars.

www.anthropic.com/news/stateme... gut

Specifying a limit to the punishment the US is willing to dish out makes it much easier for Tehran to decide if it's worth making the concessions or taking the (limited) blows

If you want to make a national security argument, maybe don’t send the Secretary of the Interior, whose job includes managing resource extraction on public lands.

Three angles on the statue of Carlos III in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol. 📷

The tariffs were obviously blatantly unconstitutional from the moment that they were imposed. If the Supreme Court is going to have a shadow docket and make emergency orders, it's absurd that they let these tariffs stand for a year.

Reminder that if Trump thinks tariffs are so important, he could work with Congress to pass legislation authorizing him to impose them.

Keep in mind: 1. You're not getting your money back. The corporations that made you pay tariffs will pocket any refunds. 2. The Supreme Court did not (and cannot) invalidate other countries' tariffs on US products, which they can continue to use. Trump has unequivocally screwed Americans.

This sounds like the graduated pressure logic that guided the initial U.S. air campaign in Vietnam, Operation Rolling Thunder. It was tactically impressive, lasted three years, and totally failed to achieve U.S. strategic objectives. www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Bet a bunch of countries are kicking themselves right now for not shelling out $1 billion to be on the Board of Peace. 🙄

A belli in search of a casus.

US-Iran war(?)🧵 Over the last few hours there are so many signs of iminnent US strike in Iran that one would be forgiven to think someone in DC wants us to think it's coming. There's already more aerial capabilities in the area than back in the 12 day war in June (see INSS map). 1/

This makes perfect sense. The current crisis started with Trump threatening Iran not to shoot protesters and telling protesters that “help is on the way.” Why wouldn’t Tehran think that disarming will only make it more vulnerable to US intervention?

One nice thing about living in Switzerland right now is that I can watch Swiss, British, German, French, and Italian Olympics coverage. Turns out that curling is incomprehensible in any language.

Good Authority's Erik Voeten used country-level UN vote data to create ideal points, similar to how political ideology is measured. It shows the massive shift in U.S. foreign policy in 2025, relative to the rest of the world. goodauthority.org/news/the-wor...

Regulating the media consumption of minors would seem to be a legitimate exercise of sovereignty, something the US has demanded Europe do more of.

The other batsh*t insane thing is that we *had* an informal confederation built around "western civilization," one made through the defeat of Nazism and the containment of Marxist-Leninism. It worked! What made it durable was the liberal internationalist ideas and institutions, *not* the racism.

Trump threatened to strike Iran if it killed protestors but then was told the forces weren't in place to do that, so Iran killed protestors and now that forces are in place, Trump is threatening to strike unless Iran gives up its nuclear program which we obliterated last year. Do I have that right?

The last 500 years of European history, according to Rubio

After getting up this morning, reading Rubio’s speech, and getting angry, I took a much needed walk in the woods. I heartily recommend it.

“Stop, or I’ll yell stop another 4,400 times again” is not (only) a legal/judicial/Article III problem. It’s the total failure of Article I. The constitutional order is completely non-functional right now.

A US Secretary of State saying the European empires never contracted before 1945 is, um, curious.

The ruins of Pompeii. 📷

Applications for the 2026 Journeys in World Politics workshop (10/1-10/3) in San Diego are being accepted (due 6/1). The workshop features Kathleen Cunningham & Leah Windsor as senior mentors. Christina Schneider is our local host! Visit the site below to apply. www.saramitchell.org/journeys.html

Ivo Daalder: NATO is a strategic bargain that ensures the US remains the world’s most powerful and economically secure nation at a fraction of the cost of going it alone—statement by US Ambassadors and Supreme Allied Commanders who served at NATO this century.

Good, but in our current political system, a bare majority is sufficient to cede power to the president but not to take it back.

Drama on the streets of Napoli

Are Americans polarized in their attitudes toward higher education? 🤔 Using some @electionstudies.bsky.social data, the answer seems to be: Yes, but not dramatically so, and there's a tendency for more experience with higher ed. to be associated w/ more positive ratings. 👍

Taking the train from Zurich to Florence, you can tell your progress by the order of languages used in announcing stops. It starts German, Italian, English, changes to Italian, German, English when you enter Ticino, and then Italian, English, German after you cross into Italy.

Ponte Vecchio, Florence 📷

I happen to be in Italy too right now, but I didn’t think to bring my own food. I feel like such an idiot.

Just saw a story about how kids today don’t have the attention span to watch videos all the way to the end.

Wow, I bet whichever country is currently number 1 is really worried!

Luzern lit up for LiLu (Lichtfestival Luzern) 📷

Shame.

hegemonic suicide. just absolutely gutting

Immigrants to America are great. They enrich communities and make us stronger, safer, and more prosperous than society would be otherwise. Just saying this out loud because I’ve not seen much articulation of a positive case for immigration, lately, even as opposition to mass deportation grows.

Trump genuinely doesn't see the point in cooperative institutions in which you some times take a hit, but the pie grows enough that so does your slice. The Board of Peace is a golf club. You pay membership to be allowed in, you get invited to parties, and you don't violate the terms. Or else.

Axis of Access

I don't want to brag, but I was using Claude AI to help me with some code, and it told me the paper I was working on sounded very interesting. 🏆

It's a bargaining strategy that burns long-term relationships, creates a reputation for backing down (TACOs anyone?), and doesn't achieve concessions that could not have been obtained other ways. The "trademark" is as valuable as Trump Steaks™ and Trump University™.

Let's assume that the skeptics were right and that Trump's threats toward Greenland were never serious. Allies are still noticing that Congress was willing to let the executive threaten a NATO ally. "Aren't you guys going to do anything about this?" remains the underlying trust problem.

So Lutnick would be cool with China taking Guam?

Cool new project by the wonderful @profsaunders.bsky.social and @goodauth.bsky.social

Please take this seriously. For me, this has been a deep truth: Writing is thinking.