This is such a refreshing corrective to that Quantico trainwreck. @piie.com www.piie.com/events/2025/...

This is a really revealing look at just how awful things got at Zaporizhzhia NPP, and at Rosatom's complicity in the violent takeover of Europe's largest nuclear power station. www.greenpeace.org/ukraine/en/n...

I may be slower than most, but it has taken me near 50 years to understand Merle Haggard when he says "pitching woo." I always thought it was "wool," which for Oklahoma seemed out of place. But it is just old fashioned for "courting."

@fisherdanar.bsky.social: “The only other time that we’ve had such a heightened period of political violence, if you think about all the things that have happened from [January] 2021 through now, is in the 1960s"

This is so cool - and an example of good scientific-historical work.

This is an actual exchange from a VP who took an oath to defend the constitution and, as a citizen, is expected to abide by the law. May we one day have accountability for the grotesque lawlessness of this regime.

It's interesting that people are actually debating whether an illiterate hillbilly is better qualified to lead the free world rather than a dementia-ridden felon.

It is kind of amazing that Trump's broad tariffs have been repeatedly, repeatedly ruled illegal by courts high and low, and yet they persist.

This entire article can be summed up as, “Steve Witkoff is an ignorant motherfucker.” www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

Since we're apparently re-litigating the Mercator Projection again, I can't resist reposting this: foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/14/t...

GIven the existence of Stephen Miller, and his continued efforts to speak English (attaboy), I think the rails came off when Republicans eschewed grammar and decided to use a noun as an adjective and started calling the Democratic Party the Democrat Party. Still not pejorative, though. All the odder

Just saying. foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/16/t...

I don't see eye to eye with Amb. John Bolton on every little thing, and he'd be the first, second, and third person to say that, and pointedly, too. But this is some serious horseshit.

One of the things I do to cope is read books. Just today, i got another copy of Cien Años de Soledad. I´d recommend reading shit rather than getting worked up over it.

This is a few years old, but serves as a very good explainer on the mechanics of Iranian nuclear breakout, which I am told is in the news. foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/10/i...

For 160+ years, we've been told that flying a foreign and/or insurrectionist flag is all about heritage, and is good, and is innocent. Why are Mexican eagles more inflammatory than stars, bars, and slavery?

There are people who hate Shelby Foote’s trilogy on the Civil War, which is the sequel to the above. Maybe I’m partial, but i’d read that thing a third time. My dad swears by A Savage War, which next to Bruce Catton, is just the very best. www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Vo...

I thought, perhaps it's time for a reprise of Jill Lepore and the Whites of their Eyes. www.amazon.com/Whites-Their...

I was almost tempted to go back to A Brilliant Solution, by Carol Berkin, but I have my limits. A man can only take so much Senate. www.amazon.com/Brilliant-So...

Then I reached up and got Ratification by Pauline Meier off the top shelf. That was good stuff. The fight over the US Constitution was just the pure gin. I still have my doubts about NC and Rhode Island, but whatever. www.amazon.com/Ratification...

So, as one does does, I started my new foibles with H.W. Brand’s’ Founding Partisans. Uneven book, but a very even look at the turn of that century. www.amazon.com/Founding-Par... 3/

Oddly enough, what triggered me was a book about Cuba: An American History. Great book, but also a gateway drug. I thought, let’s dust off the other tomes. I got some on the upper shelf been there for years. www.amazon.com/Cuba-America... 2/

I don’t indulge much in U.S. history. My degrees weren’t in it, and I always found it kind of simplistic. I’ve toured all the battlefields—my coffee cup this am was from Morristown, and I have a Minie ball from Gettysburg on the shelf. I have a piece of Omaha, too. But recently…1/

But Marco Rubio assured us yesterday that China neither knows how, nor has the capacity, to do aid. bsky.app/profile/jami...

As various stable geniuses continue to confuse who pays import duties, it's worth recalling what James Madison-'father of the Constitution'-wrote when running for Congress. "Now who is it that pays duties on imports? Those only who consume them." He went on: "trade should not be overburdened."

"Literally speechless. 1/"

This is genuinely one of the best things I've ever read. (h/t @beijingpalmer.bsky.social) slate.com/culture/2025...

Look, 'uniformly' may be incorrect. But I have lived in three places: the US South, Mexico, and Spain. I am gonna have to say that the food goodness curve goes directly to the right, and this is coming from a person who complains that European KFC don't have biscuits. bsky.app/profile/simo...

I cannot believe that I am the second most useless thing Florida spawned. Thanks, Little Marco.

There is an alternative, which is to pay for what you consume. The same way that filet mignon doesn't come out the store for free, or vegan waffles, whatever, news consumption requires a little bit of outlay. It's your own nutrition. bsky.app/profile/radi...

Howard Luttnick cannot possibly be a real person.

With the fate of British Steel in the news, good idea (as always) to read what @edconway.bsky.social has to say. (Also, buy his book. It is amazingly good.) edconway.substack.com/p/the-strang...

When I was a kid, and granted, this may have been on DC-3s, and yes, I have flown on them, but we had to wear suits. I was 8 years old. (Never did fly on a Pan-Am across the Pacific, though.) bsky.app/profile/radi...

Kind of wild that government debt, per the market, is more attractive in Greece, Spain, and Italy than in the US right now. (Not even going to start on Bunds.)

Now this is a useful and constructive way to leverage U.S. coal mining and exports, subbing out for lost inputs for Ukraine's beleaguered steel industry stedda building obsolete power plants. www.coalage.com/departments/...

I don't normally promote stuff by idiots, but in this case I will make an exception. foreignpolicy.com/2025/04/07/t...

Apropos of nothing, this is a very good book. www.goodreads.com/book/show/41...

Nothing says winning like blowing up all your own markets. Farmers must be thrilled. Great piece from @christinalu.bsky.social foreignpolicy.com/2025/04/04/t...

If Donald Trump had been a pharaoh, he would have stopped the Bronze Age in its tracks. Can't have those pesky imports of vital goods not produced at home. "Cornwall has been RIPPING US OFF for too long."

"Mr Trump is a 20th-century man presiding over a 21st-century economy who wants to take it back to the 19th century," writes @douglasirwin.bsky.social in the Economist. www.economist.com/by-invitatio...

I’ll say it again. If you - and I’m looking at you 5D chess players in the City and on the Street - still believe this administration will not blow up the IMF and World Bank, let alone roll back the Feds swap and repo lines - think again.

WHY IS THIS IN ALL CAPS? IT HAS BEEN FLAGGED FOR WEEKS. bsky.app/profile/weis...

I am not, and we can both testify to this, Alan Beattie's press secretary, but c'mon. Willie Mays level here. (Alan, that is baseball, not cricket or rounders.) www.ft.com/content/406a...

As of Friday, there have been 46 cases in which federal judges have blocked Trump policies. The rulings in those cases have come from 39 different judges appointed by 5 different presidents (of both parties) to 11 different district courts across 7 different circuits. Maybe it's not the judges?

I don't know who needs to hear this other than JD Vance, but the United States is already an Arctic nation, thanks to Alaska, and I would offer the modest proposal that building icebreakers (ICE PACT ftw) and securing an actual U.S. state and its waters takes precedence over grabbing someone else's.

Tariffs are on/off/paused, and are targeted/universal, applied to our friends/foes/everyone, starting sooner/later. They'll be in place for the short/long run because they are a useful policy/bargaining chip, and will solve our problem with fentanyl/trade deficits/manufacturing/revenue.

I wouldn't normally cross the street to read somebody else's take on trade crap—not true—but since there is no finer writer and expert on the matter than @alanbeattie.bsky.social, have at it. www.ft.com/content/acee...

Holy shit I miss Sean Spicer.

Please clap. (Jeb Bush staffers, hit me up.) bsky.app/profile/junl...