I think there are a lot of people right now who are in positions of power and are clearly out of their depth. This is what happens in that situation. Zero savings to the government (cruises pay for their own inspectors) and meaningful costs to the public. Exactly the opposite of efficiency.

horrible. this country’s turn away from science based medicine in the name of “wellness” is killing children and will kill a lot more. www.propublica.org/article/more...

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Absolutely accurate: “If Trump had not pulled out of the JCPOA, Iran’s stockpile of HEU—its shortest path to the bomb—would not exist. Trump’s claim that if he had not pulled out, Iran would now have nuclear weapons is simply a lie,” @matthew-bunn.bsky.social. www.armscontrol.org/act/2026-05/...

LBJ on signing the Voting Rights Act into law in August 1965: "Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory won on any battlefield."

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“No place for violence in a Democracy” say people you may remember recently encouraging drivers to run over protestors for being in the way

As we watch fake diplomats try fake diplomacy in the pursuit of a fake deal, a reminder about what happened with North Korea in Trump 1.0.

Polish PM Donald Tusk on the meeting of EU Heads of State or Government: “You could feel a huge relief among leaders because, for the first time in years, there were no Russians in the room, if you know what I'm talking about.” #Orban

“If you ask tobacco companies to help write your school’s policy on cigarettes…you’re going to end up with guidance on how to smoke responsibly in school.”

My colleague @ericlevitz.bsky.social has Hasan Piker dead to rights www.vox.com/politics/486...

When Einstein developed general relativity the closest thing to a practical application that could even be imagined at the time was a slightly more precise description of where to look for the planet Mercury in the sky, and yet now we’d all be literally lost without it. Anyway: fund basic research.

Absolutely fascinating history of Egypt’s covert intervention in Nigeria 1967-70 by Hossam el-Hamalawy barracks.substack.com/p/nassers-fo...

👇🎯 If only the SPLC, like universities before it, hadn’t worn such a short skirt 🤦‍♂️

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Reminder that analysts thought there was a deal to be struck with North Korea in 2017-2018, not to denuclearize (they won't), but to count/verify nukes, stabilize situation. Trump didn't order any diplomatic work for that and instead did a photo op with Kim. His diplomacy and his deals are fake.

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Ossoff: "How does American politics really work? It's coin operated. Money goes in, favors come out. It's been running on secret money, corporate money, billionaire money ... all of this gave rise to a depraved president who exploits this rot to empower and enrich himself"

This is a boringly accurate, purely factual description of events. And again, this is simply not receiving the same breathless BIDEN FAILED IN AFGHANISTAN type of coverage, even though this is orders of magnitude worse on every dimension. The two parties simply are not held to the same standards.

A four-hour documentary from 1969 about life in Nazi-occupied France chronicles the way that many ordinary citizens simply lived their lives as if nothing had changed, @dgraham.bsky.social writes. "The Sorrow and the Pity" is more relevant than ever:

@tompepinsky.com was right back in 2017 about the banality & ordinariness of authoritarian politics. We have normalized concentration camps, government murder on the high seas & our streets, & unprecedented daily corruption. It is maddening & stupid & also most have pretended nothing has changed.

"China is dumping US Treasuries" No, they're not:

The Art of the Self-Deal

Important 🧵 on the shoddy Yale report. Pairs nicely with this annotated reading from @chadtopaz.bsky.social

I think it’s bad epistemology in certain pockets. There are a bunch of people doing legit research. There are also researchers wiling to claim banning 8th graders taking algebra is good, even when the evidence for that is super weak, and a community of education scholars willingly to go along

This is one of the most important things to take away from the Atlantic story. (It’s less surprising that this guy is paranoid and drinking to excess.)

The reporter defends her reporting as you’d expect but also makes the most important point: why are people leaking at a moment when leadership is polygraphing agents to find leakers? Because they’re scared of what might happen if Patel stays in charge. youtu.be/QpOD12q81cY?...

And here’s a gift link to the remarkable story about the FBI Director from @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

Now with issue, volume, and page numbers, "Shifting power, interstate war, and domestic politics" with @yujimasumura.bsky.social at @ajpseditor.bsky.social (where we dig into leaders' incentives to lie about why they send their countries to war...) doi.org/10.1111/ajps...

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Orban made grand appeals to “Christianity” and “Western Civilization,” but his “illiberal democracy” was just a scam, a way to make him and his buddies rich while subjecting Hungarians to stagnation and robbing them of their freedom. Sound familiar? (Gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

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In which we emphasize that operational definitions are different from almost every other kind of definition...

COW on @factcheck.org discussing when a war is (and isn't) a "war". www.factcheck.org/2026/03/is-t...

i can't help but think about 10 or 11 years ago when conservatives insisted that obama was uniquely anti-catholic because his administration thought that catholic-led orgs could just fill out a form if they didn't want to cover contraceptives in their health plans for employees.

I study racism for a living and can still manage to be shocked by how institutionalized it is. What do you mean they were giving tax-breaks to white supremacists celebrating treason? just a wild country

I’m old enough to remember when the JCPOA was an existential threat to US national security because it had a sunset clause.

As good a guide to the current state of US foreign policy as you will find

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If you're a civil servant who has been given illegal orders, document them in a way where your boss can't shred them in Dec. 2028

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I'm expecting a wheelbarrow-full of pardons for insider trading on January 19, 2029. Note that the prospect of those pardons helps to keep subordinates in line. Corrupt-cop style, make sure that lots of people get a little taste, then make clear that the pardon depends on continued loyalty.

They spent a decade complaining about safe spaces and then made a robot to give you compliments and tell you your mp3 of farting noises is Brian Eno

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