It really cannot be overstated how much this can't ever fucking happen. If I'm a foreign leader, I'm now asking if I feel entirely safe making state visits to the United States. This is beyond sacrosanct shit, and it is sacrosanct for extremely good reasons.

The joke here is that Putin made considerable effort to provide some (flimsy and entirely wrong) veneer of legality for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Outright kidnapping the leader of a foreign state, even one with as questionable legitimacy as Maduro has, without so much as a declaration of war or even a fig leaf of legal authority... we're in a new and far more dangerous world now.

The Putinization of US foreign policy continues apace.

If there is to be war in Venezuela, it'll be fought for the same reason as the Caribbean murderfest: neither ideology nor resources, and certainly not drugs. It is for the content. The thrill of violence and domination against those who are deemed deserving targets, which means brown people. (1/5)

I remember Iraq, I grew up on Iraq, I cannot believe we’re doing this again and this time they are more bloodthirsty, more incompetent, and less interested in even pretending to justify it more than twenty years later and somehow we went backwards

4 games that defined my 2025

Second watch of Avatar: Fire and Ash today - it's such a dense and often confronting film, but it flowed so beautifully on the second watch - all the thematic threads with each major character were so well drawn and intensely emotional. Incredible experience, can't wait to go see it again!

FIRE AND ASH plays so much better on a second watch it’s almost a different movie; the messiness turns to coherence, the pacing smooths out, and arcs that felt a bit scattered (like Lo’ak’s) suddenly clarify. It’s as dense, rich and wild as any movie Cameron’s made. A major work.

An initial analysis of the Trump-class battleships from ⁦‪@MarkCancian‬⁩ at ⁦‪@CSIS‬⁩. www.csis.org/analysis/gol...

I'm trying to stay blind as possible for Spielberg's DISCLOSURE (rumored title) but this is much edgier and dark than I expected for his UFO project rumored to feel like his early career:

Until the end of my days I will harbor a burning rage toward anyone who entertained the slightest inkling of defunding American aid programs

Kingdom Come Deliverance II can still win if Mike Pence has the courage to do the right thing

Now this is pod racing!

40k TOTAL WAR LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOO

40k TOTAL WAR! HUZZAH!

Milla!

Well deserved French Cultural Victory at the Game Awards.

The Girls Make Games highlight at the Game Awards is wonderful. Glad they're taking some time to spotlight this.

i cant fucking believe this casey lets fucking go star wars

The Kremlin likes to exercise rhetorical dominance over Trump and they say this in the safe knowledge that we won’t invade or that if we do it will be a disaster. Trump might think of Putin as a friend but that’s not how Russia sees the US. The US is to be humiliated, fragmented, and weakened.

The Spielberg Disclosure movie is now my most anticipated film for 2026, ahead of The Oddysey and Dune. The new teaser billboard is gorgeous! The references here are real deep cuts in UAP lore. He's going all in with this.

Solving corruption charges with More Corruption. The FIFA way!

BORING: Assigning "levels of canon" to Star Wars media. NOT BORING: Construing all Star Wars media as variously motivated propaganda which actually exists in some notional Star Wars universe, often only tenuously related to real events, and loudly speculating about what "really happened".

really good essay from @joestieb.bsky.social on what the just-released national security strategy says about MAGA--and the authoritarian internationale. they believe the foundation of america is white christian patriarchy, and they are writing that into defense policy.

This channel and Clivical's ongoing Cyberpunk play through has been a total delight after I played through the game myself for the first time this year. Highly recommend it!

As someone who has been playing their games for 25 years since Shogun, the Total War showcase was awesome. Medieval 3! Warhammer End Times! NAGASH!!! New engine! Next TW game announcement at the Game Awards! Plus Tides of Torment release today - cannot wait to dive into the Aislinn campaign!

When Admiral Alvin Holsey abruptly resigned in October, everyone suspected it was a purge. Now we know why: Hegseth had asked the top Admiral to resign after months of discord over the legality of the boat strikes in the Caribbean. www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

a fun thing from a class I'm guest teaching tomorrow: which of these will turn out OK for you, and which will be a disaster? (they're all from a single Chinese city between 2010 and 2022)

Warden & Leliana Hawke & Isabela Inquisitor & Cassandra Rook & Taash

Coming up at 6pm ET on MSNBC to talk about this complete crapstorm about illegal orders in the Caribbean: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

City Elf HoF: Revenge. Hawke: Not religious. Believes in the 3 Fs - family, friendship and financial security. Inquisitor Trevelyan: Fervently devout Andrastian. Completely believes herself to be the Herald of Andraste. Doubles down after the Fade. Human LoF Rook: Andrastian, not very observant.

you should support liberal currents!

Half way through Death by Lightning and it's gloriously entertaining. The characters are all wonderfully drawn, the writing is funny and poignant, the editing is so sharp! Already dying to dive into the history of the period and figures like Garfield and Arthur.

Ok this is a must read, couldn't put it down.

The “deal” deprives Ukraine of everything it has won by withstanding Russian aggression and defending the borders of Europe. It rewards Russian lawlessness—and makes America complicit in the lawlessness. It’s the end of post WWII American power. www.greatpower.us/p/28-points-...

XCOM but make it a KPOP Demon Hunters

When the top JAG at Southern Command told the Pentagon that their plans to blow up fishing boats based on suspicions that they might have drugs in the cargo hold was certainly illegal, Hegseth simply ignored him, while others told him his career was over. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

They like Trump and want to help him

Glad to see @sarahkendzior.bsky.social back. But READ her Thread.

"Never talk to outsiders about what insiders say or do" Summers treated Epstein as a fellow insider, even sharing views he did not want spread outside the relationship. He's absolutely guilty af.

It's not hard to figure out what the @nytimes.com ownership and editors care about and believe, we're just all supposed to pretend otherwise because they've convinced you that being willfully stupid is an important journalistic norm.

This might even be true of this specific team but it’s obviously not true of the NYT at large. Trump’s extensive involvement with Epstein has been known for years and has always been downplayed by this newspaper

More than anything else, powerful men - like the ones who run the NYT - believe in the legitimacy of power itself. Because if it isn’t legitimate, they have to start asking hard questions about the world and themselves.

Jesus Christ, how is this SOB (Thomas Chatterton Williams) not in prison for this?

Oh, look! What have we here?

The America First solution to the housing crunch isn’t a 50-year mortgage. It’s 100+ million deportations. I wrote about the nativist dream of an idyllic, white, Christian America for @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/dont-build-h...

Take some time to read this thread if you can. The depravity and explicit racism of removing this memorial can't be overstated.

been doing some light reading about the aftermath of the korean dictatorship and I think it's really important that we repeat this to ourselves, to our friends, to our neighbors, to our politicians