“Are we going to war?” Senate Majority Leader: “I don’t know the answer to that.” The Article I Crisis, wearing a suit and tie.

my take on the state of the union was that a) it didn't warrant any alerts on my phone and b) the u.s. didn't attack iran but this is bad

“Blue City Crime” is their effort to replicate the “Black crime” sections of other sites with a patina of plausible deniability, and it’ll really be up to y’all if that works...

China hawkery is too prominent in elite circles to disown. CENTCOM's magical ride has no breaks. Nobody is allowed to admit failure or defeat. The only recourse is "It's all Asia, technically speaking." It's inevitable.

When Russian hockey players do fundraisers for drone units killing civilians, it’s not political, because they’re athletes, or something

The pace of leaks here is 75% of the story imo

What a weird anniversary.

So it reads to me as if Hegseth is bluffing with absolutely no cards and it's chud dominance politics versus genuine principal and the nerds have a straight flush.

Leonnig: "The whistleblower says in Dec. 2025, when there was a mass shooting at Brown U, Kash was on his FBI director jet in FL & there was only one other available jet, but Patel ordered it to be put on standby for another team. That meant an evidence review team had to drive through the night..."

SOTU outbursts (notably Joe Wilson and MTG) are not remembered fondly by either party. They do nothing but draw attention to the heckler. There are legitimate ways to to demonstrate disapproval without looking like clowns.

US elites simply do not believe anything could REALLY change about their privileged, affluent, safe lives. Trump launching a coup is, like everything else, ultimately so much weightless fluff, adorning a fundamental normalcy that can never break or end. The idea of “emergency” is foreign to them.

I know everyone rightly hates Twitter, and they are right to, but if you want to watch my feature length documentary on the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, filmed in Kyiv during the first weeks of the war, I have uploaded it here entirely free for the next 48 hours. x.com/OzKaterji/st...

Weird how this keeps happening in countries not named the United States of America.

One of the first things we were taught at Quantico was that there is never a moment in which you are not representing the Bureau; but, then again, we earned our place there, and weren’t granted its directorship as a sinecure for partisan malfeasance and a willingness to disregard the constitution.

eternally true, sadly for my profession

One of the genuinely revealing things about l’Affaire Stancil is not just the wagon circling, but the way that the group chat participants evolved a plethora of contradictory defenses. “Yes the article was contemptuous just not enough” vs “the article was sweet but you’re reacting badly!”

US: “Can we use your airbases to bomb Iran?” UK: “Why do you want to bomb Iran?” US: “POTUS hasn’t decided.” UK: “What is your int’l law justification?” US: “lol. Int’l law is fake & woke. POTUS is god emperor.” UK: “Terribly sorry, but we need more than that.” US: POTUS tweets a silly tirade.

Wild contrast: Bush had a textbook rally-round-the-flag after 9/11. For all their faults, they knew Iraq would cost major capital and tried to build a coalition, get Congressional auth, and sell their case (lies) at the UN. Trump isn’t bothering: 1) no plan 2) captured media 3) L’État, c’est moi

Many are saying

I honestly think one reason Millennials are so angry about all this is that many of us grew up during the brief period in American history where the official line was that we had won history *because* of our values, and most of us actually internalized that.

100%. You’re a real dog faced-pony solider if you don’t and frankly, I question if you even believe that OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD AND GM IS ALIVE!

frankly asserting that conservative justices of the supreme court are slimeballs under malign foreign interest is an accusation that even the hardest partisan warriors wouldn't make, and trump's doing it about two justices he, himself, appointed

I’m sure this is news to ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Ba’athists! al-Sharaa has been working for Trump since 2012? 😆

¿¡no tiene jugo?!

These are Republican appointees under very different political circumstances and that is why this. It is a political body that does not enact present but past hegemonic priorities.

there is no such thing as "xitter randos" anymore, the national security leadership of the united states views what they see on the CSAM nazi bar as verified reality

This is right: I think you will rein in Trump's bullshit best by destroying the unlawful businesses that the sons sold the Presidency on.

Trump tariff presser scheduled for 12:45. Who shows up? Defeated and juiceless or emotional and self-destructive? Tune in to the next episode of “The Whims of a Madman”

literally doing the downfall scene

Unless it's an election year in which case this gets reversed.

The extent to which Justice Kavanaugh has become the most reliable third vote for the Trump administration says quite a lot about both him and the other three candidates.

Hegemony survives on stability and predictability. You throw those things away, you throw it all away.

Why should the Court have to figure it out. You make stupid power grabs, you have to clean up the mess you made. This is Trump & Lutnick’s problem.

Wild contrast: Bush had a textbook rally-round-the-flag after 9/11. For all their faults, they knew Iraq would cost major capital and tried to build a coalition, get Congressional auth, and sell their case (lies) at the UN. Trump isn’t bothering: 1) no plan 2) captured media 3) L’État, c’est moi

The most masculine moment in that film:

Ngl, all this has more of a “late stage Assad” vibe to me more than “Mussolini on the rise.” Desperate and pathetic.

“hasn’t yet decided what the purpose of an attack would be” Might be a reason that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t leave decisions on the use of force to the erratic whims of one man.

To be fair Brazil and South Korea cracked down on Yoon and Bolsonaro *precisely because* they have been dictatorships in living memory, and the UK monarchy let itself be investigated like this *because* other monarchies collapsed. Assuming your institutions are unimpregnable per se... not so smart

“ICE told OMB that it would be used for deportations”

Far from the biggest point here but you’d have to be within the Treasury Department campus to even see this view. Why, in even Trump’s warped mind, he thinks the American people will reward this self-moment is beyond me.

If Warner, a member of the Gang of Eight, genuinely doesn’t know whether the Gulf states are aligned with Trump and CENTCOM’s plans for Iran, then the system has truly broken down. This is uncharted territory and a big ole flashing warning sign.

It is notable that Andrew has been arrested for "misconduct in public office", which is precisely what the US Supreme Court decided no American president can ever be charged with.

People underestimate how CENTCOM and JSOC, the commands designed and built for one purpose, fighting Iran, just want to fight Iran.

Omnipresent surveillance requirements on digital platforms by autocratic states allow for 4th party collection by foreign spy services, you say?

closing the strait of hormuz is kinda a "welps that was a mess, we got it reopened (dragged out that wreckage...), stuff is moving again" problem. abqaiq is a facility in saudi that ~85% of their oil has to pass through. it's a complex desulfurization plant. How long would it take to rebuild that.

i really do not think the average elected Republicans realizes that the Supreme Leader is currently a break on the IRGC's ambition

i really do not think the WH has gamed out what a prolonged Iran campaign looks like