This is the correct take. USBC in general. The EU exists for stuff like this.

Exaggerating the importance and impact of advisory memos is a key part of the cult of authority. Don’t join it.

What Trump Is Really Doing With His Boat Strikes www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/o...

Moving the goalposts into an alternate dimension is certainly one response to a country that filmed itself showing no quarter to drowning civilians. www.nationalreview.com/2025/12/the-...

I don’t care what Maj. Cotton says. I’d like to decide for myself. Release the video.

American school kids should read about Heinz-Wilhelm Eck.

"The requirement to refuse to comply with orders to commit law of war violations applies to orders to perform conduct that is clearly illegal or orders that the subordinate knows...are illegal. For example, 𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐮𝐩𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐰𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐥." -DoD Law of War manual

Killing drowning men at sea not because it was necessary but because it was ordered.

🎯

Shooting the wounded as a matter of policy. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

"The Framers intended for juries—composed of ordinary citizens—to adjudicate disputes between citizens and their gov't. Assessing whether a police officer’s use of force was reasonable under the totality of the circumstances" is precisely the sort of thing they had in mind. [@foxmike90.bsky.social]

What Nigel Farage did to Britain. Brexit has caused almost twice as much damage to the UK economy than estimated by official forecasts, according to new paper from a group of experts including a senior Bank of England economist. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Preserve your records, folks.

New: Reuters has tallied job losses, suspensions and investigations stemming from the reaction to Charlie Kirk's Sept. 10 assassination. Its findings: More than 600 Americans have been punished, and the figure is likely to be an under-count. www.reuters.com/investigatio...

I look forward to the national gun registry. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/u...

👀

“If Trump’s impulsive, short-horizon leadership style is what finally does the filibuster in, then Democrats should help make it so,” @jonathanbchait.bsky.social argues: “Its demise would benefit the whole country.”

the big winner last night? @errollouis.bsky.social youtube.com/watch?v=FWSM...

Imagine canceling federal aid if schools pay coaches more than professors. www.wsj.com/sports/footb...

Are We Losing Our Democracy? www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

This is a beautiful paragraph:

So I’m hearing that AI is kind of a big deal. Here’s some stuff worth reading about it. open.substack.com/pub/danieldr...

One option that is available to people everywhere is looking to Black history for a model of what it is possible for people facing oppression to achieve.

One of my favorite tunes. youtube.com/watch?v=R53r...

Updating my LEGO White House

Seems like a great moment for some magazine to do a big spread of photos of the East Wing throughout its history, driving home exactly what kinds of spaces have been taken from the people.

Those excerpts are from a book that was published in 2021. Wood was the professor from whom I learned early American history when I was an undergrad. His almost complete silence about current events over the past 10 years has been quite notable, esp. given how much weight his opinion would carry.

This is a really lovely piece of writing by @chaykak.bsky.social about the tech that lives well with us.

Why isn’t there a livestream of Donald Trump unilaterally bulldozing the White House? That won’t play well in lots of places.

A smart thief would now go public, turn themselves in and become a French folk hero with screenplays to follow….

If you’re talking about a social media post by Trump and not the protests, Trump won the attention battle. Don’t do it.

The right has declared that although Trump’s political prosecutions are regrettable, the “Democrats brought it on themselves,” @jonathanbchait.bsky.social writes. But “Trump was no victim of the legal system. If anything, he received preferential treatment”:

This insight is key to understanding the profound weakness of Trump’s political project.

Maybe the next president should withhold funds from any school that spends this much money on sports. You know, to make sure spending aligns with the next administration’s “priorities.”

I think we really should stop using antifa and just fully say anti-fascist and get them saying they are against anti fascism. Using antifa is giving them some distance and I genuinely think some of their base don’t even know that’s what it stands for.

Effective propaganda is really only possible with a critical mass of propagandists to prime the pump. The right has that in spades. The left has policy people.

I think the reason it FEELS like it’s a complicated explanation is that we liberals have thoroughly cooked our brains on postgraduate seminars and it seems obvious to us that there must be some underlying political economy explanation for vote choice. But that itself is a complex, contestable claim!

Presidential power of the purse is a heck of a drug.

💯

WATCH: Trump’s lawless Ice goons shoot an unarmed priest in the head with a pepper ball. Completely out of control.

I spoke with this pastor and other clergy and faith leaders who have been protesting at the Chicago ICE facility. All told me they've been shot by pepper balls or targeted by other non-lethal rounds. religionnews.com/2025/10/07/i...

You do not need a warrant to dump phone logs. This is horseshit by someone comfortable operating in the post-fact world of manufactured outrage and hype. A simple subpoena gets basic call info and it is rote procedure for an investigator looking into any criminal or potential criminal activity.

NEW: In May, a Texas police department said they used the powerful Flock surveillance network against a woman who had an abortion "for her safety" Newly obtained court records show it was a 'death investigation,' and they considered charging her with a crime www.404media.co/police-said-...

I wrote about Jade Helm, and Greg Abbott's decision to legitimize crank stuff, in July, the ten year anniversary came and I really thought people should have made more hubub about it www.chron.com/culture/arti...

2025 is so bleak.

Legal Flaws in the Trump Administration’s Notice to Congress on “Armed Conflict” with Drug Cartels By @martylederman.bsky.social www.justsecurity.org/121844/trump...

Memorizing this