I just can't tell what's a throwaway line, what's a joke, and what's a policy announcement these days. Is the President serious about an embargo on Spain?

@markhertling.bsky.social tells @stephruhle.bsky.social why the mixed messages coming out of the Trump administration could cause real problems for the U.S. military in the Middle East.

@stephruhle.bsky.social reviews how long it took Trump speak live to the American people about war with Iran

CNN put together a montage of the regime's incoherent talking points about Trump's war on Iran

Here's my talking head -- armed with charts, macro models and financial market movements -- trying to help you make sense of the possible economic fallout from the war with Iran. youtu.be/deeGtvlUtaI

Trump’s war is messing with the fallout from Trump’s tariffs, which is messing from the fallout from Trump’s war on clean energy

Also, almost everything he says is a lie. The US gave Ukraine far less than he claims, and has not given anything for a year. Biden did restart weapons manufacturing all over the country. There are still shortages of air defense ammunition, everywhere, because it takes a long time to make.

Translation: he didn't have enough weapons to fight his war of choice and so he is blaming Ukraine

I'm sorry, if you're going to make a big show about how you've got a Department of WAR helmed by a Secretary of WAR and staffed by WARfighters, it's totally inane to then claim that your massive bombing of a foreign country constitutes something other than a war.

New working paper: Prosperity within Limits? Planetary Habitability, Global Convergence & Structural Transformation 2026-2100 wid.world/news-article... More to come in the Global Justice Report to be released at the World Inequality Conference Paris June 4-6 2026 inequalitylab.world/en/event/wor...

"Iran has had coherent opposition movements over the decades that have managed to create nationwide movements and strikes. Almost all of them have been systematically destroyed: people arrested; people killed; people exiled." www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/202...

I thought this was the kind of thing that only happens on TV shows: "Nearly all the traffic cameras in Tehran had been hacked for years, their images encrypted and transmitted to servers in Tel Aviv and southern Israel, according to two people familiar with the matter." www.ft.com/content/bf99...

Everything else aside....the aesthetics

Ukrainian long-range drone strikes continue

Viktor Orban is now 20 points behind in the polls - and so he has ordered the military to guard “key energy facilities” against a possible Ukrainian “attack.” Hungarians fear he plans a fake national security emergency or false-flag incident before the April 12 election apnews.com/article/hung...

Russian embassy, Washington DC. To mark the fourth anniversary of the full scale invasion

Putin could end the war tomorrow

@anneapplebaum.bsky.social and @lynseyaddario.bsky.social traveled to Sudan last year to report from the front lines of a brutal civil war. Addario’s photographs have been nominated for a National Magazine Award. Revisit the cover story:

Sarah Rogers, the State Department official who hectored Europeans about free speech, is seen here with a far-right German AfD deputy, Markus Frohnmaier, whom two Kremlin documents obtained by @spiegel.de described as "a parliamentarian under our absolute control." spiegel.de/politik/ausl...

November 2024

You can just say things.

“A pro-Russian aide to a far-right German legislator who attempted to scuttle Berlin’s shipment of main battle tanks to Ukraine is an agent of Russian intelligence, The Insider can now reveal. Vladimir Sergienko, 52, is the Ukrainian-born adviser to Eugen Schmidt, a Bundestag deputy with the AfD.“

To justify his bombing of Iran, Trump posts this conspiracy theory on his social media.

Listen to @anneapplebaum.bsky.social (who hosts the podcast "Autocracy in America") talk about how Pres. Trump seeks to control elections...and culture: www.wnyc.org/story/its-al...

Trump wants to use Anthropic's AI to spy on American citizens and to direct robotic warfare without human judgments. Anthropic says the use must be consistent with law. Trump then announces that he will destroy Anthropic. More evidence that Trump's America is not a rule-of-law state.

The American bombardment of Iran has been launched without explanation, without Congress, without public support. Above all it has been launched without a coherent strategy for the Iranian people, and without a plan to let them build a legitimate Iranian state. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

"A stable, law-abiding Iran will help build a stable, law-abiding Middle East. But in order to achieve that, Iran needs not a new dictatorship but self-determination and a pluralist government that respects basic rights. Right now, the Trump administration is not trying to build one."

BREAKING: Credible whistleblower discloses that FBI forensic experts were ordered to stand down from processing the scene where Renee Good was killed, because Kash Patel did not want Good referenced as a “victim” in the warrant.

Sen. @warren.senate.gov and Sen. Josh Hawley have introduced a bill to break up companies that own health insurers and medical providers. "Love it," says @mcuban.bsky.social. "They control everything. Literally what those companies do defines the cost of healthcare in this country."

Nearly a year ago, I managed to change the subtitle of my new book to add the phrase-- "the New Global Disorder." Especially given recent events, glad I did. www.amazon.com/Autocrats-vs...

I don’t remember Trump talking about military action against Iran on the campaign trail. Or Venezuela. Or Greenland.

All Americans I know want to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. All Americans I know would like to see theocracy fall and democracy emerge in Iran. The debate is not about these objectives but about the most effective means of achieving them. Is war the best means? I'm skeptical.

Starting a war so you could invoke emergency war powers

Medical experiments on prisoners? Where have we seen this before?

from a standpoint epistemological view you have to take this view particularly seriously

Imagine how bad it’s going to be if this guy is already worried

I was told trump would make things cheaper

Come for @therickwilson.bsky.social and stay for Archie hall from the economist podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f...

You cannot talk like this about any other minority in America. And if it was any other president’s adviser who said something like this about any other minority, it’d be the instant end of their presidency.

Bush split the NATO alliance over the war in Iraq, but dozens of allies and partners supported his invasion. Trump only has one partner so far -- Israel. 5/ END

Bush convinced a giant majority of Americans of the need for war. Trump did not. 4/

On the comparison between Bush's war against Iraq in 2003 and Trump's war against Iran this week, there are some important differences. THREAD 1/

American troops are dying in the Middle East for Trump's illegal war against Iran, but the president is more concerned with promoting his gold-encrusted ballroom.

Um

I still believe he’s trying to distract from Epstein

As a former diplomat working in Russia, I can tell you that negotiating with adversaries is hard. They take time and patience. To be successful , one needs to understand your interlocutors. The public evidence on the Iranian negotiations suggests that we didn’t try very hard.

NEW Uncommon Knowledge: Former US ambassador to Russia @mcfaulmike.bsky.social discusses his book, Autocrats vs. Democrats. McFaul explains why today’s autocrats fundamentally do not think like we do and why he remains convinced that democracy is still the West’s greatest strategic advantage.

Trump and Republicans keep getting asked what’s next in Iran. Their answers are “hopefully” this or “we hope” that.  Hope is not a strategy, and a plan built on hope alone is how we end up in decades-long wars that cost thousands of American lives.