For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/u...

The latter part of this tweet has gone under the radar but it's an alarming escalation. The Trump admin has already detained dozens of people with full refugee status, seemingly those who had not yet adjusted to green cards, and is detaining them in Texas and seeking to strip them of their status.

Another interesting line: “We were further assured that there is no contingency plan that would involve using U.S. forces occupying Venezuela should the removal of Maduro result in civil unrest in that country.”

And here it is: they don’t resolve whether the operation is illegal as a matter of international law because … they claim it does not bind the President. At least “when it comes to extraordinary rendition.”

If McConnell had wanted to convict, Senate would have convicted. McConnell decided to pass the buck. His reasons were pure power politics: he knew a vote to convict would blow up the party. I suspect he also thought court prosecution would end T but also mobilize T supporters against Ds: a "win-win"

Goldman is notably facing a primary from Brad Lander, who has made a name for himself defending immigrants in person

An interesting circumstance is recent illiberal comebacks in PL, SK & CZ. Fidesz is even more entrenched, making an election loss less risky for party politicians & supporters, but potentially riskier for Orbán who'd face internal opposition, hence, I think, his more aggressive rhetoric recently.

Folks outside the circles that watch this have been sleeping on how Orban’s support has collapsed. He’s going to pull out all the stops

💥It’s official: Hungary’s parliamentary election will be held on April 12, just three months from now. Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz is trailing the opposition by 10–18 points, yet few believe he wouldn’t do whatever it takes to cling to power. Now he has backing from both Putin and Trump. A dangerous mix.

Over the weekend I used Zentropi to build a labeler that blocks requests to use AI to undress or sexualize real people. The labeler itself took maybe 30 minutes to a first solid draft, with another 30 minutes of tweaking. In my testing it's got an F1 of .98 on real examples pulled from X. 🧵 1/6

I love my soap opera

If the figures we're getting out of Iran are in the right league, this weekend was, I think, one of the bloodiest state crackdowns of all time. People are talking 12,000-20,000 dead; for comparison Hungary in 1956 was about 2,500, Tiananmen - across country, in multiple cities - probably 1000+

What's there to say about this? We are beset by a violent tyranny.

Constitutional crises everywhere you look

This point also struck me, and it's disheartening that as it seems likely to become more valuable, we're investing less in it

"Good quant work is becoming cheap and plentiful; good theory remains hard. Perhaps ethnographic work will become more valuable..." Always has been 🧑‍🚀

"We were just chanting Javid Shah [Long live the king] and plain clothes killers infiltrated the people a few lines ahead and shot point blank, from behind, with guns directly at their head. We ran away and we don’t even know if they picked up the dead bodies"

I have good news, which is that the kids still do this, and bad news, which is that they are mostly reading Big Nate

If we really want to cut down on traffic congestion, then extend the SAS past 125 and deep into NJ. This would easily serve 150k-200k daily riders and eliminate 100k+ car trips. NJ Gov elect Sherrill should call Kathy this week! ☎️🚜🚇

This is worse than immoral: it is behavior unbecoming of an editor.

Can't stop won't stop Engaging in corruption

Thread on Iranian developments for Tuesday January 13, 2026. There are wide estimates for fatalities related to the crackdown. Anywhere from 2000-3000 by unnamed Iranian govt officials (NYT) to 12000 (Iran International [news]). 1/

I just finished a three-year term as an editor at an international relations journal. I began at the start of the LLM era but ended right in the middle of it. Our volume of submissions tripled and our desk reject rate rose to 75%. I have some thoughts. open.substack.com/pub/hegemon/...

If you’re not an insider on these obvious scams, why do you participate?

There was also a lot of fear, even before 2024. Reflecting on my own experiences, going back to the 2016 campaign there were people internally trying to prevent us talking about what was obvious to everyone

Being right about trump was boring, tedious, partisan, ideological. Being wrong about trump? Heterodox, contrarian, free thinking.

The K-shaped economy is everywhere.

My question is couldn’t they be buying this data from brokers?

This is like the tariffs argument—we may have done an illegal thing, but if you make us reverse it, it will damage our interests

Trump: “We are in charge of Venezuela.” Rubio: “It’s way too hard for us to convince what’s left of the Venezuelan regime to send these guys back.” www.politico.com/news/2026/01...

Looking forward to speaking at this meeting on Venezuela tomorrow morning convened by @meeks.house.gov. Should be streaming at 8:30am EST tomorrow. democrats-foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-releas...

Just because we don’t want to contribute public goods doesn’t mean there is no demand for them. Countries will seek them elsewhere

"The world until recently believed that US-China decoupling was on the way. It turns out that most countries are now scrambling to de-risk from America." My column. as.ft.com/r/83099001-d...

About 2,000 killed in Iran protests, official says

A group of scholars among whom I played a modest part has been trying to sound the alarm bell since at least a decade: the most likely alternative to liberal peacemaking and peacebuilding is authoritarian conflict management and support for military victory. 5/11

At least in the UK (less so Germany) there was always a current highly critical of Western interventionism. The problem is that many critical scholars made two faulty assumptions - that Western hegemony was a given, and that the root of the problem was 'liberal hubris', not bare power politics. 4/11

this format is how 75% of Americans now get their news

Surely the most embarrassing statistic visualization in sports broadcasting is the Cavaliers’ “The Diff”, which is just the difference in the two teams’ scores

I just realized this trope is Soviet

He actually said six seven

JUST IN: Judge Mehta rules that Trump/Russ Vought's termination of environmental grants during the shutdown — targeted solely at states that voted for Kamala Harris — violated the 5th Amendment's Equal Protection clause and orders them restored. www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

Good writeup of the massive changes in Kyrgyzstan in the last five years by @aigiturgunbaeva.bsky.social thediplomat.com/2026/01/kyrg...

Vladimir Solovyov, one of the Kremlin’s most prominent propagandists, has suggested that Russia would be justified to begin a ‘special military operation’ — the term Russia uses for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine — against Armenia. 🔗 Read more: oc-media.org/kremlin-prop...

Quite a few of the bills are more than training! There’s “no masks”, and banning qualified immunity, and no detentions at courthouses… those are just ones I’ve seen casually going around

Every living former Fed Chair, many former Treasury Secretaries, many former CEA Chairs…defending Powell after the Justice Department opened up a criminal investigation him, likening the move to what happens in emerging markets. 🇺🇸 jointstatement.substack.com/p/statement-...

Eric Adams is going to be Jake Paul’s tune-up fight on his comeback tour

I know I shouldn't but I laughed at the photo

I know it's more popular here to say Democrats aren't interested in doing anything about ICE, but there's now a bunch of bills that have been introduced to do a bunch of stuff to change how it operates.

BIG FLAG: Trump said during his interview with The New York Times that he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in swing states after his loss in the 2020 election. He doubted whether the Guard was "sophisticated enough" to carry out the order effectively.