"Take Him Seriously, but Not Literally" they said. Turns out, his words are still horrifying.

"Non-traditional policy coordination"? No plan, no strategy, no process. A bunch of amateurs cosplaying high-level diplomacy. In a sane world they would have been laughed out the room a long time ago. It's not "non-traditional policy coordination." It's a clown show. www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

In honour of its proponents, I suggest that the Dmitriev-Witkoff proposal should henceforth be called the Dim-Wit Plan

Difficult to overstate how profound a failure DOGE was. Spending in FY2025 was not only than in FY2024 – but higher than it was projected to be when Trump first took office.* The little bit of spending DOGE cut has already killed hundreds of thousands and will eventually lead to millions of deaths.

Republican Senator Mike Rounds said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a call to senators, confirmed the so-called 28-point “peace plan” was actually a Russian wishlist and is “not the administration’s position”. Nor is there any threat to cut off weapons or intelligence to Ukraine.

Things you can buy for a Rolex watch and an engraved gold bar at the duty free shop in the US these days. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Frankenstein is a metaphor for the dangers of reanimating corpses with electricity

Again, I know Vance is a convert and who knows what the customs of the savage Scots-Irish are but someone needs to explain to him that it’s unusual for the Bishop of Rome to criticize your personal behavior this frequently

No no no begs every archivist. You are never going to be able to find anything. Please don’t start using emojis in file names. Who asked for this? What fresh hell is next?

Have (Western) Europe's radical right-wingers finally found religion ⛪? Political Psychology says no #PolRel

God creating Adam:

easy to miss in the punditry about Musk's pay package: he only becomes a trillionaire if he meets *a bunch* of milestones payouts begin at $2 trillion market cap + other conditions here's a handy graphic www.wsj.com/business/aut...

# of graphs with completely made up numbers in the year 2050: 0 📉 +2% ➖ 10^100 📈

Stardate 14254.7. Bridge of the USS NYT Opinion. Dr. Leonard McCoy is hunched over the body of our good friend Irony. He lifts his head and looks at his captain. "She's dead, Jim."

This is your periodical reminder that the projected warming due to climate change practically always refers to the year 2100. The full temperature increase will likely be higher. At #COP30, people will claim something like we avoided a truly apocalyptic amount of warming. This is probably not true.

Some people are very excited about the new "economic and national security" provisions in Trump's trade deals, but I'm more skeptical. Here's a blog post where I push back a bit.

This is like a birdwatching guide. Only in the US the birds watch you now.

Headache? CO₂ 🤦

Being held responsible is the price you pay when you control all three branches of the US government. ... Wait? Could hit whom hard?

Updating my LEGO White House

This is a tremendous piece of work. Very satisfying neal.fun/space-elevat...

The other day a student asked me about the prevalence of insider trading in prediction markets. I now have an answer.

Huh. Gonna be an awkward day for Secretary of State-National Security Advisor-Acting Archivist Marco Rubio. www.rickscott.senate.gov/services/fil...

The elimination of USAID is a moral atrocity and all involved made a choice to enable, and then lie about, ending the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

There is probably causality. Just in the wrong direction.

just going to point out that this would in fact be an incredibly bad idea

Trumpland is full of idiots who believe that economic & military capabilities fall from coconut trees. They're ignorant & arrogant people who obsess over branding & aesthetics. They think they're about hard power & machtpolitik, but they're actually doing the dumbest possible version of soft power.

The real generational divide is people who refuse to watch a video if it could be an article versus people who refuse to read an article if it could be a video

Sometimes direct democracy delivers. Not always, but sometimes it really does. www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-de...

A moment of appreciation for @mattpolprof.bsky.social and @nathanjrobinson.bsky.social for reading Ben Shapiro's latest book so we don't have to www.currentaffairs.org/news/ben-sha...

Don’t let anyone tell you there’s no art on Bluesky.

Obama photographer Pete Souza posted this pic of Obama on that UN escalator… www.instagram.com/p/DO9GFjUEZi...

It might be a high time to point out to the emperor that he is naked. Please. Anyone?

Trump to the UN: "I'm really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell."

Speech is over. I guess it is time to post this again. (excerpt from Thomas Mann's 1939 essay "That Man Is My Brother" or in German: "Bruder Hitler")

It is quite a contrast to listen to the POTUS speech before UNGA while reading the live feed from CNN. Incoherent ramblings turned into semi-reasonable political points in real time.

My God, this UN speech.

I’ve been working on this for a while. (I tried to find Bobbie more than a decade ago and failed.) Please do give it a read.

This. But with Think Tanks.

Quoting a bigot = Hate speech Declaring people inferior based on race = free speech Refusing to print a flyer for a vigil for bigot = discrimination Refusing to bake cake for a same-sex wedding = Liberty Cancelling student loans = overreach Ignoring congress = Presidential prerogative Questions?

Sometimes it's nice to remember that even Marcus Aurelius was like "you don't have to comment on everything bro"

You’re think *you’re* depressed? Try being at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association right now with 5,000 political scientists presenting their work on the state of democracy, public opinion, and media. They are also drinking heavily.

It is like when the measuring devices in Chernobyl maxed out and they decided that that number is not too bad.

Did an American Robotaxi write this?

"The White House has quietly dropped the World Trade Organization from a list of $4.9 billion in foreign aid cuts announced last Friday after the move sparked concern among lawmakers, trade groups and the head of the global trade body."

A brilliant run. I hope they keep the show going