I like how British people call everything a scheme. Like a headline will be “London launches scheme to provide low cost baby formula to new moms” and you’ll momentarily be like what are they doing, are they smuggling dog milk in?

another wonderful thursday night football game

cannot stress enough how the leading quality i want in 2028 dem primary fronteunnwr is “vengeful”

There's a Hill bubble narrative, posing as savvy realism, in treating impeachment as some radioactive poison and so Democrats must squash any talk of it. But there's zero evidence for that. No polls back it up, nor recent history. It's all just pundit-brained conventional wisdom eating its own tail.

Scoop: US official tells me F-35As from VTANG 158th FW are heading down to Caribbean to take part in Operation Southern Spear. This brings a lot of extra capabilities to that mission.

When I’m done writing my book I may take a crack at a “corruption is a first-order counterintelligence threat” story. And US spies know it: CIA has used rampant corruption in places like China in the past to go on recruiting sprees. Mutatis mutandis.

Exclusive: Ivory Coast pushes for US spy planes to tackle al Qaeda-linked jihadists in Sahel reut.rs/3MppHet

This is exactly the problem. You can't go on... accurately!... about how he's a lawless wannabe dictator who wants to destroy democracy and is leading a floridly corrupt kleptocracy, but then squirm and dodge when asked if he should be removed from office any time sooner than 2029.

SCOOP I spoke to the leader of a doxing-for-hire group who showed me how it took just minutes for them to get sensitive personal data from Big Tech companies—with virtually no pushback www.wired.com/story/doxers...

MAGAZINER: How many veterans have you deported? NOEM: We haven't deported veterans MAGAZINER: We are now joined on Zoom by a combat veteran you deported to Korea

This isn't a bad idea, but given recent history I have strong concerns that if the Navy couldn't take an existing design which was built for VLS / missiles armament and put it into service, that taking a design that needs mods to be more lethal will be just as difficult www.usni.org/magazines/pr...

This is a primer for how all of 2027 & 2028 will be like in the House Dumb statements forced by absurd executive driven culture war podcast mandates seeping into the bureaucracy - getting slapped down like whac-a-mole over and over It'll be a social media goldmine for the 2028 election for dems

Party of fiscal responsibility strikes again

Probably the most salient of the NYTs defense editorials The Constellation frigate is a prime example of procurement failure, taking an off the shelf option and frankensteining it until it dies Huge black eye for the Navy and a sign of internal dysfunction imo www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

16 hours ago we published an episode in which we expressed surprise at having done 23 bonus episodes since August. Well, here's another one: www.patreon.com/posts/emerge...

Time to wallow in the muck that is the craziest college football story this month (year?) www.patreon.com/posts/145571...

Yikes

BREAKING: The House passes a sweeping defense policy bill that raises troop pay and sets military priorities, sending the measure to the Senate.

bob's java jive, route 99, tacoma, washington, 1980

Michigan announces that Sherrone Moore has been fired for cause & school found “credible evidence was found that Coach Moore engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.”

Michigan Head Coach Brian Kelly

The Houthis:

I see this more as a combination of rear base complacency exploited by a well planned & executed special operation than a watershed moment for warfare The lesson for the US: (Air) Bases need always on short range air defenses www.wsj.com/world/europe...

Yassssss I am incredibly excited about this

I’ve been playing Outer Worlds 2 since it came out and I gotta say it’s the best Fallout since Fallout New Vegas Just a really fun, interestingly written, dyed in the wool RPG Yeah some of the bits and writing are a bit on the nose, but darn if I’m not sinking time into it

I don't believe the moral arc is inevitable Whiggish progress or anything like that, everything is contingent on our choices. But I am firmly convinced these people will be damned on the wrong side of history, and that will arrive sooner and in greater force than our current elites can comprehend.

The decline of democracy in the US means you can’t visit the US if you commented on the decline of democracy in the US

Had a laugh reading this "It’s amazing how many of our problems today could be solved by a Congress that was willing and able to legislate in response to national problems" An ineffective legislature is exactly what some people want, and that is the underlying problem

There was a passage in "Ghost Fleet" that stuck with me years ago how when faced with a real war suddenly the ethical issues with autonomous weapons melt away Ukraine has proved this to be true-as such the US should not handicap itself w/ a autonomous weapons treaty www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I say this as someone who has bylines floating around TNI from years ago, I would not, if I were the NYTimes editorial board, link out to a TNI article to help cement my point There are so many better resources for this specific topic to cite, namely the use of diesel subs in modern conflict...

The NDAA requires DOD to hand over unedited videos of all the boat strikes, and also the OLC justification memo, and imposes a 25% cut to Hegseth's travel budget if he doesn't comply. Could go harder, but a good example of how appropriations can and should be used to force executive compliance.

i read stuff like this and can genuinely angry at guys like jd vance who insist that this country belongs to some narrow vision of the "native born"

Welcome to Britain, a country so short of dentists that an MP's 87-year-old mum pulled her teeth out with pliers. Also a country with thousands of foreign-qualified dentists who can’t work until they pass an exam so oversubscribed it’s like trying to book Glasto tickets. www.ft.com/content/f4e5...

Justin Herbert’s annoyance about a quick interview was chefs kiss*

What a stupid way to lose a game eagles That one Hurts as they say

This was a really botched oral argument and brief strategy but if it's any consolation, all nine justices came into this having totally made up their mind regardless. None of them were ever going to be moved by anything either side said.

Pass a law for court packing (and yes, that's what it is) in a way triggered only if they don't individually resign, make it that explicit. Impeach them, of course. Defund everything except their salaries. Use every congressional tool to make their lives miserable and hound them from the bench.

During today's oral argument, the Trump admin and the Court’s conservatives treated agencies as some kind of headless, out-of-control fourth branch of government, accountable to no one But the real problem isn't about a lack of reins It's about who holds them ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/trump...

I don't think this can get five votes but it'd be kind of hilarious if we got a split plurality decision over it.

Notre Dame is like your rooommate's boyfriend who stays over all the time but does not pay rent vis a vis ACC football. I would love to have them gone in all sports. It's a bad fit.

Australian government announces they intend to order another six MQ-28A Ghost Bat in an effort to bring the design to operational capability. thewest.com.au/politics/fed...

I don’t think we are ever going to get rid of the USMC but I do think it makes more sense as a much smaller operation ala the Royal Marines - and make the size ratio about the same so about 16% the size of the U.S. navy (more or less) So 50,000 or 1/3rd of todays USMC thehill.com/opinion/nati...

The French military in 1940 is the worst possible example of this. They did adapt. They built a conventional military force based on lessons of WWI. They incorporated new technologies. They built new doctrines. They just learned all the wrong lessons and as a result they fucking sucked.

Also, if your disruptor Silicon Valley firm doesn't pan out, some VCs lose a bunch of money and you have to change jobs. Whereas if your doctrine doesn't pan out, 85,000 men are dead, 100,000+ are maimed and 1,500,000 are being held captive by literal Nazis. The stakes are a bit higher.

Which is something that these disrupter Silicon Valley people never seem to consider. You can fuck up reforming a military force horribly. You can add new technology, doctrine, and equipment and if you systematically do it wrong you’ll get the dogshit kicked out of you.

Not great that we have an executive and a judiciary in eager agreement that the legislature should be a vestigial organ with no real influence over what the government does and how it operates.

Whoa … this is really strange. Federal law enforcement managed to confiscate almost two tons of cocaine, and arrest 3 suspects, without blowing the boat out of the water or killing anyone. 🎁 link ⤵️ www.miamiherald.com/news/local/c...

In 2018, we flagged Humphrey's Executor as a restraint on presidential power SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh was determined to overrule. He gets his chance today, when the Court hears Trump v. Slaughter www.wsj.com/articles/the...

Just read through the new National Defense Authorization Act text to see what provisions are in for Ukraine. I’ll have a thread up later with the full breakdown but TL;DR is Congress is poised to pass some rather good legislation to assist Ukraine.