Well, that’s a cautionary tale on multiple levels about “surveillance systems can have very unexpected and unwanted consequences.”

the republican justices are as pickled in MAGA slop as any pardoned jan 6er

ICE deployed to airports will likely make some airport staff stay home out of fear—for example, legal residents who for good reason don’t trust that ICE will respect it—thereby further hindering airport functionality.

If the Supreme Court changes mail-in ballot rules—striking down state laws that say count them if they're postmarked by Election Day—it'll be interesting to see a close Democratic win that Republicans reject because some older GOP voters sent mail-in ballots that would've counted under old rules.

Basically, Trump sees the ayatollah as an unruly pro wrestler who is off script doing a shoot and the ayatollah sees Trump as the guy who killed his family.

A useful reminder that you *want* 'your side' to be losing military war games a lot. The whole point is to ask, 'how will this go in unfavorable circumstances' or 'what is the worst, most effective way my enemy can come at me?' If your military wins all their war games...those are bad war games.

The thing about millennium challenge is that much of the counter-counter-revisionism seems driven by this popular narrative (one almost entirely driven by Van Riper) that frames the episode as some massive DOD cover-up. In reality, participants in the game itself were largely fine with what he did

So - astonishingly - Iran has been paying attention to history, notably the Millennium Challenge exercise, which was originally an Iran war game, and in which US Marine Col. Paul van Riper, playing the baddies, handed an invading US force its hat with both its ears in it BY DOING THIS.

“Trump’s decision to go to war… is less an Israel lobby story and more of a story in which a handful of elites—including Benjamin Netanyahu—had Trump’s ear and nudged him in the direction he wanted to go without any pushback from anyone in the current administration.” Yes, @dandrezner.bsky.social.

A picture says 1000 words...

Let me be clear. I don’t support AIPAC. Quite the opposite. But I also have major issues with Track AIPAC. It’s a shady project.   Track AIPAC isn’t a neutral watchdog. It’s a political operation with its own PAC and a very clear agenda. 🧵

Iran denies communication. (No reason to take this denial or Trump’s statement at face value. Both Iran and the US are engaged in psychological as much as kinetic warfare.)

“Leftists and Muslims and apolitical people love Tucker Carlson and will vote for him for president” because of what he says about Israel-Palestine is one of the most X-brained things I’ve ever seen.

War can have big environmental impacts in addition to human and economic impacts. I’ve recently been highlighting environmental damage caused by the US-Israel-Iran war, but here’s another from the Russia-Ukraine war. Oil revenue fuels the Russia’s war effort; Ukraine hinders it where they can.

Stocks don’t primarily trade based on predictions about the economy, but on traders’ predictions of other traders’ short-term decisions. The prevailing Wall St. attitude isn’t “this war will hurt the economy, I fear losses,” it’s “when this stops, there’ll be a big rally, I don’t want to miss out.”

You know this post many dunk on, especially now that Trump has started another war in the Middle East? He defends it as correct—yes, still—saying he wasn’t promoting Trump, he was merely explaining young men’s perspective, and how Harris/Dems had seriously erred by letting Trump claim that ground.

Project Hail Mary was a good time at the movies. I liked the book, thought it read as cinematic, and they adapted it well. The one character the movie really had to nail is Rocky, and did. Looks fantastic—space in IMAX! practical effects!—and with a real movie star performance from Ryan Gosling.

what are we doing here

Everybody and their mothers waiting for the development of cheap and effective directed energy systems:

What’s that hissing sound? It’s the soft power vacuum filling up.

Ukraine destroys expensive Russian air defense assets from the air with relatively cheap drones. Iran hits very expensive American air defense assets from the air with relatively cheap drones. Air defense looks like it needs a rethink.

One of the major problems we face is that people don't understand the things/processes/structures that allow them to live lives of plenty that would have been unimaginable in the past, and as such think we can just abolish them for basically aesthetic reasons

you have to understand that shitty Ezra Klein take in this context too; he was attempting to climb onboard what he believed to be a cultural bandwagon.

I think it is really important for us to understand just how big of a defeat the We Are All Charlie Kirk thing was, because I don't feel like there has been much writing about the larger meaning of it

The lesson Trump and a lot of the American right took from the invasion of Ukraine is that mighty victimized Putin would’ve had the easy victory he deserved if it weren’t for weak woke Joe Biden tricking the Ukrainians into thinking they had a chance. It’s as stupid as it sounds. But here we are.

Trump messing with air travel got Congressional Democrats to fold in the government shutdown, so why wouldn’t he mess with air travel now that there’s a standoff over DHS funding?

No we aren’t, we’re at the “Trump is throwing out unrealistic plans” part of negotiations not going well in Congress. Don’t make the guy bigger or stronger than he is when you’ve got him on his back foot.

Starting the work now to prosecute and civilly sue ICE for its abuses as soon as the Trump presidency ends and they lose federal protection. Others should follow this lead. Lay the basis to hit the ground running on accountability, on all the many crimes and abuses imposed by the Trump regime.

The Gulf Arab states' deal with the US is basing rights, flowing energy resources, and suppression of anti-US (and to some extent anti-Israel) domestic elements for protection and relative regional stability. Unless US defeats Iran decisively, this war will leave them questioning that arrangement.

I think this is what the cool kids call an escalation spiral

Russia failed to defeat Ukraine for six months before it started targeting civilian electricity generation in an effort to get Ukraine to capitulate. It didn’t work.

RIP Robert Mueller, he was preceded in death by the Rule of Law.

Sanity-washing Trump admin policy—no matter how things progress, it’s always some grand 12-D chess strategy—is popular for the same reason conspiracy theories are popular: It’s more reassuring to believe that it’s all some grand convoluted plan than thoughtless ad-hoc chaos.

He’s got one* move, and he’ll keep doing it no matter how many times it doesn’t work. *OK, two moves. The other is lying to the American people, expecting most media to parrot the lies, and hoping enough Americans don’t realize what’s actually happening

Dear Some Arab States (namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE), I'm sorry your bribes haven't worked out how you hoped. Maybe an American president with integrity and credibility who's interested in upholding the "rules-based order" was more in your interest. Whoops. Signed, Anti-corruption Americans

Professors & university staff were targeted & fired for less than this just a few months ago.

Huh. Glad to see NYT finally admitting to this.

Iranian missiles pounded Dimona, home of Israel’s nuclear program, today and interceptors failed to stop one. That’s as dangerous as it sounds. www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...

This isn't losing Fox News. Notice how the criticism is about tactics, not principle. Hume's objection is like a sports fan critiquing a coaching call because he thinks it didn't help the team win. A principled one would go "this highlights Trump's awful character and unfitness to lead the nation."

This is a classic case of groupthink aka "children playing soccer" where they all run to where the ball (seems to be) NOW instead of wisely projecting where the ball *will be* in the near future.

“Ideology-free populist who can’t be trusted” is one problem. Handing Republicans a giant whatabout that will resonate with both media and less engaged voters is another. It’s not tattoo proves devout Nazi. It’s why would Dems want to muddy the picture on who’s pro- or anti-fascism in this moment?

"nobody is doing anything" remains a lie meant to soothe the person saying the words. It's not true. YOU may not be doing anything but a lot of people are.

I keep seeing this framing like Bremmer's. It is wrong. Instead: 1. Iran was developing an ICBM when Khamenei imposed a 2,000-km range limit. 3. The programs shifted to space launch. 4. Khamenei lifted the restriction in October 2025 after the June attacks. 5. Now he's dead, and here we are.

As a touch-the-stove-ist, I think deploying ICE to do airport security lines sounds just fine. And as someone very concerned about ICE officers’ violence, rights violations, and other abuses, I think reducing the agency’s on-the-street capacity would be a plus. By all means, do it.

Serial Liar Says Words To Make Himself Look Good With No Actual Commitment, Media Outlet Parrots Words As If Follow-Through Doesn’t Matter

Americans' sympathy for Palestinians is higher than Americans' sympathy for Israelis for the first time ever. Is that because of big spending by the Palestine lobby? Or is it possible that money isn't everything in politics, and millions of Americans form opinions based on reaction to events?

AIPAC was never the reason for the bipartisan pro-Israeli stance and it’s bad vulgar Marxism to take it as the explanation. You can tell that this is the case because they’ve still got money yet now the best evidence we have is that their contribution hurts people’s prospects rather than helps it

Mamdani trying to both sides Nas and Jay-Z? SMH.

Trump is stuck, trying to absolve himself of the consequences of a war he started, and pass some on to allies he denigrated, whose help he insisted the US doesn't need but is now asking for. Good read by @gregsargent.bsky.social, weaving together the international stakes and US domestic politics.