the real answer

it is the *elite* who have forgotten why the liberal project is a revolutionary one--witness their total implosion and capitulation in the face of caudillo trump, even as americans turn out in increasing millions to fight against him

Saja in the morning glow.

I will repost this forever.

Polina finds that bad use of data included many nondemocracies. That real democracies have coup proofing stuff. So, we only have 2 coups ending the real democracies. Don't blame the military for most demises of democracies 2/2

At a great panel at IUS. @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social presents the origins of Posse Comitatus and how its passage only changed military intervention in the former confederacy. @polinabeliakova.bsky.social has a great paper exploding the 3/4s of democracies that backslid were due to coups line 1/x

It’s like the Osprey books I had as a kid

Oh wow — this appears to be footage of the incident from yesterday, in which Rev. Jorge Bautista, a United Church of Christ minister, was shot in the face with a pepper ball — which may have exploded before impact? Or is a slightly different munition? — by an apparent DHS agent while protesting ICE.

Consider how few anecdotes it took for the media to declare a Free Speech on Campus crisis. Every day we get more evidence that the Republican Party is teeming with white supremacists yet elite institutions refuse to frame this as a crisis that needs the nation’s attention.

Old Soviet joke: Why do ICE agents travel in groups of three? One can read, one can write, and the third keeps an eye on the two intellectuals

This is the systematic normalisation of the use of US military assets as death squads

Tell your normie friends that it’s fucked up that the US government is building concentration camps and that if we don’t stop this now it only ends in one place.

Ed Luce watching democracy die in the United States of America

Is the big tent approach to strengthening US democracy working? Yes! Check out how The Horizons Project approaches the task--in the latest Democracy Without Exception piece ⬇️ democracywithoutexception.substack.com/p/the-big-te...

he’s doing your performance review. what is he asking about?

why you didn't do more to stop the east german super bunnies

I think about this old Doonesbury a lot, now that we are ruled by a Mad King

In a way, the Trump admin has a resolved a fundamental problem of US foreign policy: the perennial gulf between high-minded rhetoric and amoral operations. Just killing, power, and transactions now. www.bbc.com/news/article...

The dialogue is a whole other thing but the bit about "fuck you shoot me I'll die for this shit" and the reaction is the crux here, from Gandhi's time on down, no authoritarian in history ever knows how to respond to this and it's why it beats them whenever deployed

Thrilled to have an opportunity to revisit Wheat and Strategic Competition for @warontherocks.bsky.social w/ Justin Gilpin CEO Kansas Wheat Commission. We talk a lot about Russia and China and their most recent attempts to use wheat as a tool of statecraft. warontherocks.com/2025/10/how-...

choose wisely

Update: The Chicago clergy letter decrying ICE's actions and voicing a willingness on the part of clergy to put their "bodies on the line" to protest ICE has reached 250 signatures — and now includes multiple evangelical pastors/leaders of evangelical institutions in the area.

birthright citizenship simplifies and solved for many issues w citizenship basically boiling it down “born here? boom! you’re a citizen” - without birthright citizenship things would become weird (negative) very quickly not just for people of color, 2nd gen immigrants, but also white folks

Today's the 24th anniversary of the iPod. I still have my first one.

this is a pretty lovely defense of pluralism and the right to disagree, made in perhaps not the easiest framework for a gentle reply--not necessarily because this temple might have been hostile, but because the question asks about giving ground to famously hostile hindu nationalists

Roblox is better than Homicide: Life on the Streets.

Reminder if you are not sapphic do not say sloppy toppy

Cursed amulets are fucking disgusting and won't exist under Luxemburgism

Barney and Friends is better than Europa Universalis IV.

jesus christ

So given that context, when I see people trying to excuse SS Tattoos, Nazi Iconography, or trying to make "cute" jokes like "oh that's my totenkopf!" I remember those soldiers and I get that blinding white-hot rage. People excusing that kind of behavior undermine the very fabric of civilization 10/

So, given the current BS, and all of the apologists going out and making fools of themselves like @commondefense.bsky.social I think it's time I tell a Concentration Camp story. this is not going to be fun. But please gather around. 1/13

One of her students became so overwhelmed that he had a panic attack. “It’s very scary because this is their normal,”...”You start forming your memories more solidly around 4 or 5 years old, so they have some happy kindergarten memories. But now all of sudden, this is going to take over…”

"it seems reasonable to conclude that the administration, through Miller and his team, is selecting boats more or less at random, and intentionally killing people who could be captured, because they think it’s fun." prospect.org/2025/10/23/p...

All of this. I’m surprised by how hurt I feel when I see photos of the demolition.

If you are arresting someone for playing the Imperial March you are literally a stormtrooper!

another catalogue in the Big Book of Chodes Who Sign Up to "Defend the Constitution" But Don't Know What That Means

"war crimes" are not moral transgression within the context of warfare, of which there are many, any more than crimes equal evil acts. War crimes are acts that violate the normalized rules for how states can lay waste to each other's armies, land and cities and to some degree the people within them.

Not beat the Dirlewanger Brigade allegations. "one recruit had previously been charged with strong-arm robbery and battery stemming from a domestic violence incident, the current DHS official said" www.nbcnews.com/politics/imm...

The GOP has thus far attacked and vandalized the US Capitol, tried to overthrow the government, and now destroying the White House. The fucking British didn't do this much damage when they invaded the city

This speaks to the fact that war is inherently a human endeavor and is, therefore, waged and fought by people. That defense and military leaders are so quick to suddenly unlearn that because you can get a case of water delivered by a drone doesn’t speak well for their own reputations

had to put this one together from the archives but: called it again

to anyone interested in this, "Chinese Political Negotiating Behavior, 1967-1984" remains a classic and not much has changed - www.rand.org/pubs/monogra...