If you don’t smoke, how do you know which way the wind is blowing?

Funny how the coverage of people losing their SNAP benefits doesn’t juxtapose that with how much tax those same people pay to the government that’s screwing them.

Notifying people that you’re doing a covert operation is not a covert operation. Unless you’re exceptionally devious.

Argentina edition of Libertarian bible

For those of you keeping score, 18-22 year-old students calling for an end to slaughter in Gaza are so racist they need to be expelled or deported, but 24-35 year-olds celebrating Hitler, rape, and, um, racism are just kids being kids so chill. Also, racism is over so no need for Voting Right Act.

The State of the Union is Grim open.substack.com/pub/duckofmi...

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/

Magical Thinking 101 www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/w...

Moldova’s pro-Western ruling party decisively wins a tense parliamentary election fraught with Russian interference claims.

Call me naive but I think Spencer Cox is doing the right thing on 60 Minutes tonight.

What percentage of our GDP is now based on hate-generation?

“Periodic reviews of the central bank” isnt exactly a potent rallying cry, but still… www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/o...

Looked at my data collections for state-backed activity. If the report were a picture:

A short rant about culture wars; of course no paywalls. medium.com/@mladabee/wh...

While the spark for the fiery protests in Nepal was a social media ban, a long-standing problem of corruption, inequality, and elite indifference are catalyzing mechanisms. As @mladabee.bsky.social and I have argued, such protests cascade very quickly because of shared grievances.

Below, a video I’ve shared on TikTok showing the scale of unrest unleashed in Kathmandu over the last 2 days. Anger at government corruption turned into a revolution when all social media apps were banned. The government has been figuratively and literally burnt to the ground. (Take notes 🇺🇸)

Culture wars are lose-lose. Cultural collaboration is win-win. Both by definition, if you think about it.

I know which one I prefer.

How do you spell “extortion”?https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/technology/us-government-nvidia-amd-chips-china.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

What could possibly go wrong when you arm teenagers?

weird how the guy born into obscene wealth, bailed out repeatedly, allowed to fail upwards forever until he fell ass-backwards into the presidency, and then was declared by the Supreme Court to be a Very Special Boy Who Can Crime Forever never stops whining about how everything is rigged against him

Active Measures Series: Laying the Groundwork (2008–2012) open.substack.com/pub/olgalaut...

Elites might normalize it but the street knows that systemic corruption requires replacing the system. A small plug for my article with @mladabee.bsky.social

The biggest leap of faith right now is believing in democracy.

In my latest column, I explored how power appears to be flowing in Trump 2.0 and how we're likely to see rotating "acting presidents" seizing the national agenda. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/who-actual...

So, how do we taxpayers feel about funding concentration camps and a private army for the Trump organization? I realize this question is too basic for the refined discourse here, but I feel the urge to scream.

"Though there's nothing glacial about it, Trump is ushering in America’s ICE age. He's catapulted it into America’s best-funded law enforcement agency, increasingly beyond accountability.That makes it Trump’s private army — his security state within the state." My column www.ft.com/content/b6a5...

“A republic, if you can keep it.”

A critical investigation of the private DeSantis donor reaping the most reward from helping build the Everglades concentration camp. Incredible independent journalism from @floridatrident.bsky.social.

Next they’ll come for your welcome doormat.

I wrote something short. medium.com/@mladabee/tr...

We should all be disgusted by the flood of anti-Muslim remarks spewed in the aftermath of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the NYC mayoral primary — some blatant, others latent. Shame on the members of Congress who have engaged in such bigotry and anyone who doesn’t challenge it.

Why aren't there more Michael Roths in higher ed? danieldrezner.substack.com/p/where-are-...

they want to force UVA’s president to resign because he thinks it would be bad if the university reverted to being a lily-white finishing school for the failsons of the old guard southern elite www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/u...

I guess “no kings” doesn’t mean “no aristocrats” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/14/u...

Another good reminder from today is that to win this we all need to get used to cooperating with people we sometimes find highly annoying

Donald Trump does NOT want you to share this footage of his pathetically tiny birthday parade crowd.

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/

Senior officers of the United States military have an obligation to speak up and be leaders. Where is the Army chief of staff? Will he or others speak truth to the commander in chief and put a stop to the assault on the integrity of his troops? www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

“When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”

Friday's NY Post cover doesn't disappoint:

No. Way. www.politico.com/news/2025/06...

Yeah but they poked the bear.

Remarkable scenes at Belaya airfield in Irkutsk, Russia. Ukraine has launched a devastating attack on Russia’s fleet of strategic bombers. The base is over 4000 km from Ukraine, but $500 drones are currently wiping out $100 million planes. Russia’s Pearl Harbor.

Stunning. May was brutal for Trump in federal court: 96% loss rate ⚖️. Even GOP-appointed judges have ruled against the admin 72% of the time. District courts are doing their job defending the Constitution. Soon the Supreme Court may be the only court unwilling to defend the rule of law.

This is how much Congress, in a bill the House passed this morning, proposes to spend _just to hold migrants in detention_ over the next 4 1/2 years. From this new WOLA explainer: bit.ly/2025-05-wola...