Craig Kafura
@ckafura.bsky.social
Director, foreign policy and public opinion @Chicago Council; Fellow @Truman National Security Project; old Young Leader @Pacific Forum. Dad, husband, and hockey player. Via Columbia, Yale, and Appalachia.
We just hosted BeaverCON, had a Beaver Day Parade, and now this? Beavers really having a moment in Minneapolis.
Becky Hammer@beckyhammer.bsky.social · yesterdayIn Minneapolis for the next couple days talking about deploying beavers to restore freshwater ecosystems Currently learning about BRAT (beaver restoration assessment tool) Don't get me wrong I still love wastewater infrastructure but this is a fun change of pace
The people are the heroes now / Behemoth pulls a peasant’s plow
Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller@byzantienne.bsky.social · 24h ago... I'm going to have to go to DC. washnatopera.org/nixon-in-china (Kathleen Kim is singing Chiang Ch'ing/Madame Mao! ... okay yeah most of you all are here for Renee Fleming and I am also here for Renee Fleming but KATHLEEN KIM SINGING CHIANG CH'ING)
My Trade Secrets today. Unfair Chinese competition may exist but it’s not the main reason the EU’s car industry is screwed, and tariffs won’t fix it on their own. Companies need to move faster and leave the internal combustion era behind.
How not to revive Europe’s auto industry
The electric vehicle market shows how legacy EU companies continue to fail when it comes to countering Chinese competition
as.ft.com
🚨 New publication alert: Do Americans change their attitudes toward "culture war" groups when these groups shift how they vote in presidential elections? In a word, 𝐧𝐨. 👎 An important case of null results, we find no clear shift in attitudes, either for better or for worse.
NEW: I wrote about why so many people wanted to believe that Ukrainian airstrikes on a Russian data center reduced troll and bot activity online, even though it's almost certainly not true. Featuring @noupside.bsky.social: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Drone strikes didn't take out a Russian bot farm, but we were primed to believe It
A viral rumor illustrates people’s hunger to make sense of the division we see online.
motherjones.com
Book is out!!!
Columbia Global Reports@columbiagr.bsky.social · yesterdayHappy pub day to OUR HEARTS BURNED FOR HOME: Uyghur Militants in Syria’s Civil War, by NPR correspondent @emilyzfeng.bsky.social “An important story meticulously told.” —Barbara Demick, author of Daughters of the Bamboo Grove ⭐ globalreports.columbia.edu/books/our-he...
Here’s LL Cool J trying to explain Clausewitz’s “remarkable trinity” to an uncomprehending Joe Rogan
Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your CV? Byzantinist: The primary source material for that period has not survived.
samuel mehr@mehr.nz · 3d agoInterviewer: Can you explain this gap in your CV? Scientist: I made it in TeX and can't figure out how to remove the gap but I also don't want to get yelled at if I post a question on stackexchange, so I have instead decided to appreciate the gap, which is still there
treat your body like a data center. consume as much water, art and literature as possible. upset local municipalities with your existence.
Congressional oversight is fundamental to civilian control of the US military. It is not what it used to be, and now, because of Trump and Hegseth and a military that seems to forget that Congress is a principal, we have far less of it.
Chris Murphy@chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 5d agoI just got back from the Middle East. What I saw made clear that Trump and Hegseth aren’t telling the American people the full story about the cost and damage of this war. Here are my four biggest takeaways.
The start of the Obama admin is as far from today as the first Gulf War was for them. The start of the Clinton admin is as far from today as the last days of Eisenhower were for them. The start of the Reagan admin is as far from today as the Berlin Olympics were for them.
Kind of a buried lede in the results of this Supreme Court approval rating poll from Marquette: Overall support for Supreme Court expansion, which even Democratic politicians were dismissing as "radical" just a few years ago, is now at 53 percent today.marquette.edu/2026/09/marq...
It's not quite Dow 50K, but we had our own milestone at @pewresearch.org recently with the 200th survey on our nationally representative American Trends Panel (March 2014-present). We got stickers, not baseball hats like the Wall Streeters might wear.
the funny thing about this of course is that "athenian democracy" was a cautionary tale to the framers, who saw it as unstable and prone to demagogues and tyrants like the one rubio works for
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.this Rubio speech feels a lot like a 2028 soft launch
So it was the US State Department all along! Maybe Shellenberger should be emailing them about censorship instead of conference participants. #disinfo26 www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
EU drops sponsorship of disinformation conference at Trump officials’ request
Lithuania and Canada were also pressured to withdraw, and days before #Disinfo2026, logos were wiped off website
theguardian.com
This is possibly the worst thing I have ever read. It should be the only headline on every news source. It won't be. If you've experienced sexual assault, maybe don't read the details.
public health guy@publichealthguy1.bsky.social · last wk.oh my GOD
Sometimes my wife and I like to send each other text messages as though they’re democratic fundraising messages, and I believe she has produced the jewel of the form.
We've probably learned more about American politics from the ANES than any other single data source. The same is true for the GSS and sociology. Both of these are gone if Congress acquiesces to these NSF cuts.
Dan Garisto@dangaristo.bsky.social · last wk.NEW: In March the White House released an FY27 budget request that zeroed out the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). For months it was unclear what would happen. Now, with FY26 over, the damage to SBE is coming to light. My reporting:
This is good, but there’s a long way to executing successfully: US and China discussing reciprocal nuclear site visits amid concerns about a new arms race www.cnn.com/2026/10/06/p...
US and China discussing reciprocal nuclear site visits amid concerns about a new arms race | CNN Politics
The Trump administration has discussed beginning reciprocal nuclear site visits with China and plans to continue pushing for that possibility during in-person meetings in the coming months, according ...
cnn.com
I really like this question. KFF asked voters who said they were more motivated than usual for this election to explain why they felt that way -- top answers to bring change, or anti-Trump sentiment www.kff.org/public-opini...
The shift in the generic ballot against the president's party continues. Although consistent with the historic pace & direction, this should be close to the largest 2-year shift in generic ballot polling on record; see below for the averages since the 30s www.natesilver.net/p/generic-ba...
Matt Grossmann@mattgrossmann.bsky.social · 6mo agoMajority parties of the president lose generic ballot support as midterms approach, especially at the end. It responds to falling prez approval & thermostatic public opinion. Backlash to the Iran War & immigration crackdowns will help Dems, but are consistent with normal cycle
Last week, the Council held a roundtable on the relationship between three powers defined by strategic competition and necessary cooperation—the US, Europe, and China—led by Council China expert Evan Medeiros, Royal United Services Institute's Rachel Ellehuus, and Council President Leslie Vinjamuri.
That might be part of it, though another part is that, in the end, Trump has not been tough on China.
David Burbach 🇺🇸@dburbach.bsky.social · last wk.More seriously, I suspect association with Trump and with the unpopular trade policy in particular has really hurt public support for 'tough on China' in general.
In rural western Wisconsin, campaigning is all about meeting voters and shaking hands at parades. Online, it’s getting weird. My dispatch from a weekend reporting from La Crosse & Gays Mills on the race in Wisconsin’s 3rd District 19thnews.org/2026/10/rebe...
In rural Wisconsin, politics is still about meeting voters. Online, it’s getting weird.
Rebecca Cooke is taking her campaign directly to rural Wisconsin communities, all while an AI-fueled online fight with her Republican opponent adds a distinctly 2026 twist to the race.
19thnews.org
Taiwan's local elections are not about China, Lai, the US, Trump, or war. Whatever the outcome, do not read the results as a national referendum. But, these races do matter for Taiwan's future. Here's why: My latest with @brianhioe.bsky.social for The Diplomat: thediplomat.com/2026/10/taiw...
Taiwan’s Local Elections Are Not About China, President Lai, or the United States
Candidates across Taiwan are campaigning on local issues that vary by city – not topics like cross-strait relations. What can we learn from these elections?
thediplomat.com
i just want to note that as soon as i posted this i did think "oh yeah, this is just fukuyama's last man"
jamelle@jamellebouie.net · last wk.feels like at least part of what is happening is that a lot of people want politics to solve the "my life feels empty" problem and the populist right is directly appealing to them
However happy the polls make you now you must remind yourself that
Schnorkles O'Bork@schnorkles.bsky.social · last wk.I think the data suggests we are in for quite the period of thermostatic opinion causing significant political instability in most democracies. And probably some non democracies too.
NBC News/Telemundo poll: Latino voters overwhelmingly disapprove of the president’s handling of the cost of living (78%), the economy (74%), foreign policy (68%) and immigration (69%). Trump’s best issue of the five tested is border security — where 58% disapprove. www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...
