Trump is trying to force US oil companies to rebuild Venezuelan oil fields that are too expensive to invest in at current crude prices while a full blown energy revolution is happening with cheap solar and electrification growing exponentially. This is a dying empire shit.

Fascinating 1. Admin may not have informed Congress but has been talking regime change w US oil industry 2. Oil at $60, US firms not excited about major capex to get VZ heavy sour crude 3. Sounds like WH wants to prod oil firms to make their vision happen, more than WH doing US oil's bidding

None are on bluesky but had a great day discussing these articles on my intro classes yesterday Kieun Lee & Harry Mottram's "American Immigration Attitudes & NIMBYism" Kira Sanbonmatsu "Understanding Black Women & Latina's Perspectives on Political Giving." #politicalsciencesky

Chairing this #IUS2025 panel on Military Civilian transitions in veterans. #civmilsky #veteransky

The richest man on earth owns X. The second richest man on earth is about to acquire TikTok and his family could soon own both Paramount and Warner Bros. The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post. See the problem here?

Judging by the audience, @heidiurben.bsky.social & @proflupton.bsky.social panel is going to be 🔥 #civmilsky #IUS2025

Post-lunch #IUS2025 panel on applying gender analysis #gendersky #civmilsky

Saturday morning #IUS2025 #civmilsky Kicking off with Patrick Finnegan comparing airish v UK military recruitment. Military instit viewed as passive, they'll let (recruitment) problem continue on till govt dictates method.

Doing some TV hits tonight to keep banging the drum: —US maritime strikes against alleged smugglers are still very much illegal —US military regime change ops against Venezuela would be illegal and foolish

And now (1 of) the panels on politicization of the military #IUS2025

And now #gender and the military #IUS2025 We only have Amit Ahuja today unfortunately :(

Post lunch #IUS2025 Artificial intelligence and the military Chaired by @dburbach.bsky.social

im sorry but if you think “normies” dont care about the white house being demolished for a half billion dollar golden vanity ballroom as the economy implodes then you just arent as plugged in as you think you are

IUS Attendees! If you are at the IUS conference (civil-military relations and military sociology scholarship) in Reston, I'll be part of a "Meet the Editors" panel on behalf of Texas National Security Review @tnsr.org at 2:45 today (I'm an Assoc Ed, in charge is @sheenagreitens.bsky.social )

Session 2 of #IUS2025 Starting off strong with @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social "posse comitatus and the end of reconstruction" Public understanding is so different than the legal understanding of posse comitatus

It's easy to see this speech as just weirdly performative, but there's a lot more—and a lot worse—going on here. The meeting & speeches are part of a larger project aimed at promoting the military leadership’s partisan alignment with the administration. How? 1/

“Within a seminar series, women are interrupted more than men. This holds when controlling for characteristics of the presenter, paper, and audience. Interruptions that are negative in tenor or tone, or cutoff the presenter mid-sentence, increase for women presenters.”

8am panel starting off #IUS2025 strong A little late but starting with Jacklyn Buhrmann on Military Spouse Employment & retention 1 interesting difference in their work is taking the earned household income and subtracting an average bundle of goods to estimate disposable income

one of the reasons they're so mad at "no kings" is that they thought they were going to get a different kind of protest. they *want* the black bloc to be out there fighting with the cops. those are the images they've been trying to generate from "go." instead-- newrepublic.com/article/2016...

Another instance where comparativists have an advantage over Americanists wrt Trump II. This is a classic example of the "mano dura" militarized policing adopted by many Latin American countries over the past few decades. They fail to reduce crime but do lead to abuses and democratic erosion.

Once I got into civ-mil, I always found the contradiction between Huntington and Clausewitz to be so very striking. But militaries around the world love Huntington because he says they are the only professionals, that they should have near total autonomy. Too bad Carl was right.

I’m quoted in this story and would like to expand on what I’m talking about in terms of this not being how the NG has been used, historically. Though first I should note that Joe Nunn is right on all counts. I’m just adding a little historical context. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

When discussing the use of the military in law enforcement, I really don't like the "soldiers are only trained to kill" argument - it's much more complicated than that, but still a very bad idea* (*Sad when old research becomes timely) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #CivMilSky

We need more of this

Some thoughts about the military parade in my hometown of Washington DC today -- specifically, the route. Military parades in DC are quite rare. But when they happen, they have always begun, symbolically and geographically, at the Capitol and moved outward. 1/

This is such a thoughtful piece.

Instructing soldiers not to hoot and clap like they are at a political rally when a president gives a speech is civil-military relations 101. Any officer should know this without even thinking about it.

I just have to say, as a historian of the Reconstruction-era Klan, that masked paramilitaries are very bad and masked vigilantes are even worse and there are causal links between the two and none of this is good for democracy.

Basically they found that the facts (violence/attacks on LE/attacks on fed bldgs) were sufficient to justify federal interest in a response and seem to have bought the govt’s arg that going thru the adjutant gen was sufficient apnews.com/article/los-...

I will be curious to see what legal authority the administration cites for this unauthorized act of war. Crazy stretch of the facts to fit some existing AUMF or just Article 2 Section LEEROY JENKINS

Well, I, for one, am glad that unlike in all previous wars of choice this time, we finally have a clear end goal, an exit strategy and meaningful Congressional oversight to make sure our elected leaders don't do some crazy shit

That says it all right there. GWB'S team gamed the Intel. These guys just dont care.

The bottom line is that people saying it would be hard for Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz for a lengthy period are correct. But that doesn’t mean it would be easy for the US to reopen it. 8/8

So proud of this article with bestie Rick. No one in grad school thought it was a good idea, but look at it go 💙 #religiouspolitics #popefrancis #politicalsciencesky

now on kickstarter (no clue what the book HT are here) tinyurl.com/4cuhpvjx urban fantasy, think The Covenant meets Practical Magic

Wrapping up Political economy today: Me: What is on gen z's recession pop playlist? Students:

In this article, I talk about a new “bargain” the Pentagon’s civilian leadership is imposing on the U.S. military. Here’s why we should all be worried about it. 🧵 1/ www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

Due to harrowing things happening Sunday, I only wrote 1 version of my test for today but labeled them version 1 and version 3. So far 1 version is finishing much faster than the other. It's has been a different version in either class, too (v1 in 1 class, v3 in another). #academicsky

Totally agree with this. Flying a person to a third country that they may never have been to, directly into a prison where they are going to be forced to do hard labor, is not a deportation; it's something else entirely.

One thing I intend to do tomorrow while studiously not consuming anything from big corporations, is to send messages to these companies letting them know they will not be getting my business until they stop bending the knee to Trump's bigoted agenda. www.advocate.com/news/compani...

Absolutely overwhelmed to be in the presence of the first-ever printed book to use the Cherokee syllabary, the Cherokee Constitution of 1827. At the American Antiquarian Society.

1st class discussion for Intro to American govt is in the bag. #politicalsciencesky #governmentsky #Ineedtolearnallthedifferentskysstill💀 @stellarouse.bsky.social

Anyone putting together a workshop panel for BISA-ISA? Currently working on veterans (gender & comparative in nature) #BISA #civmilsky

Any chance the preppy Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies could make the meeting with Zoltan Barany on zoom? 🙏 #Reppy #pacs (will it be on YT after?) #civmilsky

1 minute in and all the women (myself and other with PhD) referred to as Ms. and the men with PhD as Doctor 🙄😒

Sad I won't be @ West Point for the security seminar in person but I have a grad student who is there presenting a project (his idea he asked me to join--#ProudProfessor) side note: I have never been confused over a schedule before, but I am lost. I just search for my name at this point #CivMilSky

The students in my civ-mil class asked for a list of movies to watch on their own (yes, they are amazing) that are related in some way to the course. Here's the list I gave them, in no particular order: #CivMilsky #Pedagogy #AcademicSky #PoliSciSky #IThoughtYoudNeverAsk

2025 was off to a rough start gofund.me/51727bd7

Approximately 20 members of Elon Musk’s staff have begun working within the Education Department. They have gained access to multiple sensitive internal systems, including a financial aid dataset containing the personal information of millions of students enrolled in the federal student aid program.

See a black cat in a sunbeam? You're obligated to post a photo of her. Sorry, but those are the rules.