i get that people want to rip herr miller's racist rhetoric. so do i. but the thing is: we also need to fight his information war & explain how the global postwar institutions the u.s. built gave americans great wealth, power, prestige & security. if you have that platform, use it for good.

Careful silence when the US started killing people in international waters. Careful silence when a Canadian ICC justice was sanctioned by the US. Now we mumble vague things about international law and Venezuela. We’re losing more than just our voice.

i am really happy to see this statement from the ED of the most important professional organization of international lawyers/academics in the united states. very proud to be associated with it and i hope it gets wide attention, b/c there is no question: the attack on venezuela violates int'l law.

this may be the first time i express agreement with john bolton, and i def agree with @kschake.bsky.social

is mette frederiksen our contemporary joseph welch? a european leader finally willing to say to trump, have you no sense of decency?

FT captures what is almost certainly the common global attitude (among our democratic allies at least) toward trump giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

What we know for sure: vaccines are safe, effective, and one of the best inventions to come from science and medicine the collateral benefits are intriguing & potentially significant, but because of medical ethics, we can't be as sure about cause-and-effect: vaccines are too good as primary Rx

Our concluding thoughts:

i may be late to the party, but i cannot recommend strongly enough jad abumrad's phenomenal podcast about fela kuti. rich & complex portrait, fabulous interviews, amazing music. best podcast i listened to in 2025 by far. new yorker wrote it up here 👇

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen made her most significant rebuff of the US following the American president’s comments about the vast Arctic island. ft.trib.al/GfKL9ch

there is not a zero chance of this by any means. i've said many times that the 12-day war was more like a 12-day battle in a multi-year war. The Venezuela attack + ongoing protests may only make the next battle with Iran more likely.

it just dawned on me that next saturday marks a decade since bowie left us. his last track on his last album, blackstar, always hits me, b/c it's true, & he knew he would be dead within days of its release. what he did give was a total gift.

It's wild that the PM of a NATO member feels compelled to put out a statement like this vis-à-vis the US government.

a handful of dems are saying and doing the right thing. clarity is everything. they need a vehicle to capture the conversation imo. try this: bsky.app/profile/davi...

TWZ is pretty good. The War Zone share.google/yT1bXYPMxVK0...

my sense is this: not only are trump and rubio and hegseth lying to the public about the purposes, impact, planning, etc of the attack on venezuela. they are lying to each other. they have no idea what they're doing or where this ends.

this is an alarming statement that fails to grapple at all with the aggressive use of force by the us govt and how that alone constitutes a human rights violation. contrast this with amnesty’s statement.

It wasn't about drug trafficking or "forced migration." It was always about oil: "You know they stole our oil. We built that whole industry and they just took it over like we were nothing. So we did something about it.... We'll be selling large amounts of oil [from Venezuela] to other countries."

democrats need to introduce a resolution disapproving trump's aggression and directing him to withdraw US forces. here's a draft. it's not rocket science.

so the united states not only launched an illegal war, it will now also be an occupying power?

Trump is quite definitive that the US will stay in Venezuela. This is the man who said we won't have forever wars.

you can do this right now, @tedlieu.bsky.social @daveminca.bsky.social. own this. do the right thing.

this isn't like some magic wand that legalizes an illegal war and extrajudicial kidnapping. it's a weaponized DoJ deepening the propaganda.

you think this is a one-off? don’t be deluded. we are firmly in the zone of lawlessness & impunity. repression at home and aggression abroad. and a sleeping congress.

every single story needs to be clear: this was illegal. illegal domestically. illegal internationally. textbook rogue.

democrats can file a resolution immediately calling for an end to aggression against boats in the caribbean and ag venezuela. force republicans to side with warmongering. but either way stand for something and act.

nobody from the trump admin will be hauled to the hague at least for this, but (a) that doesn't make the act any less criminal and (b) the whole notion of combating aggression was at the center of the creation of the UN Charter. congress has an int'l responsibility to stop illegal war.

rome statute of the international criminal court, article 8bis: crime of aggression

Full article in @economist.com here:

there are many things wrong with cbs’ embarrassing fatuous pandering claim to love america - and the implication that other outlets do not plays right into trump’s authoritarian ‘enemy of the people’ assault on independent media.

when i think about independent journalism, there is one word that dominates: accountability. holding the powerful in public and private sectors to account. and it doesn't show up once in this 5-point drivel.

"Greg Brockman, the president and co-founder of OpenAI, donated $25 million to a super PAC controlled by allies of President Donald Trump in September, according to a new filing with the Federal Elections Commission."

the algiers accords - the US-Iran agreement negotiated by the Carter admin in 1980 that got the hostages out of Iran in early 1981 - provides the following, just seems relevant at the moment iusct.com/wp-content/u...

Six years later failed approaches of the past are on repeat, with added threats of military force in the aftermath of the June war and likely emboldened voices backing regime change. This will not end well for the Iranian people or the US.

A US government that was serious about protecting Iranian people would not be deporting Iranians back to Iran against their will. www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...

If you are a resident of California, the state now has a portal where you can demand deletion of your personal data from 500+ registered data brokers with a single request form, for free. consumer.drop.privacy.ca.gov

waiting for 2026

most of the 'wins' of the past year depended on people fighting for what's right. protest, litigate, organize, speak, write, argue, persuade. 2026 will be better than 2025 the more we do these things. happy new year everyone. 🥂

you are not legit gen x if this isn’t rattling around your brain

all of my favorites are from mtv’s glory years. like this.

this is pretty amazing. mamdani is building quite a team. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/n...

Most people especially the media dont understand the difference between spin v lies v bullshit and treat everything that isn't undeniable lie as benign... they way the game is played. No idea how corrosive it is to public discourse

we don't use the word enough, but the trump administration governs through propaganda. manipulation, falsification, distortion are not "spin" and they're not one-offs. it's more direct and systematic, and it's 100% at odds with democratic deliberation. let's see if the media can get it in 2026.

we also don’t talk enough about how their own wealth, subsidized in part by public investment, depends on extracting everyone’s personal data. it’s super high level hypocrisy and greed for power.

leaving a hotel event in LA, elvis costello rushed by me. having seen him live +/- 20 times, i was flummoxed so left him a kind note (for "declan mcmanus") at the desk and still wonder why he never called.

trump "bombing" venezuela like the military or intel agencies are his toys, his playthings to use at his whim, all the while congress is quiescent in this & murders on the seas, fully complicit in whatever is (or isn't?) happening. this too is democracy degraded before our eyes.

"Although Trump’s plan explicitly states that Israel will progressively withdraw and hand over territory in Gaza to the International Stabilization Force, on the ground Israel is consolidating what appears to be a permanent military presence across more than half of Gaza."

i had been wondering about this. afaik the usg has offered ZERO evidence that it has followed up its attacks with any form of evidence collection - boats, bodies, contraband - to verify its assertions. why? b/c it's all built on lies, politics and aggression. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/29/w...

this was probably the first time i heard the name brigitte bardot

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden or Alice In Chains.