Anti-tax slopulism is gonna have to be replaced with a flinty fiscal realism in which taxes will be raised, military expectations lowered, and certain third rails firmly grasped.

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux@bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 7h ago

I fundamentally do not know how to square the politics whereby Democrats will essentially have to tell the American people that because they (the voters) made an extremely stupid decision, they need to lower their expectations substantially for the foreseeable future, but here we are.

Something about Amir Hassan in MI is that he seems to have undergone a religious conversion right in time for the primary — his profile for Allen West’s PAC calls him “a proud Muslim [who] respects all faiths,” but his campaign site claims “Christ is his Lord and Savior.” Was Saginaw worth a mass?

The modern GOP in a nutshell is a politician whose only discernible political position is hating trans folks, who then loses to a dropped-out primary rival because his own voting base hates him being a black guy with an Arab name even more.

Waiting for the first 13D investor who realizes SpaceX is just a profitable wireless communications company with a vertically-integrated space launch division, and should be led accordingly.

The Associated Press@apnews.com · 2d ago

SpaceX shares are down by half from their June peak as investors worry Musk may have oversold them on its future prospects.

This isn’t even thinly-veiled antisemitism, this is the real thing, straight-up and literally decorated with crosses and paeans to Christian “faith.”

Kyle Clark@kylec.bsky.social · yesterday

Depicting Jewish people with horns is a centuries-old, dehumanizing, antisemitic trope. Democratic Gov nominee Phil Weiser is outspoken about his mother’s birth in a Nazi concentration camp, his family members killed in the Holocaust, and the threat posed by antisemitism today.

Interesting timing given the allegations of disinformation warfare by Morocco against Spain over the Saharawi issue.

JonZoidberg@jonzoidberg.xyz · 2d ago

A country that is 99% Muslim has renamed a billion dollar highway for Donald Trump. Guess what, Repubs? You like Islam now. www.jpost.com/internationa...

Cuba's national electric grid collapses, plunging island into darkness reut.rs/4fKWwgK

Cuba's national electric grid collapses, plunging island into darkness

Cuba's national electricity ​grid collapsed late on ‌Sunday, the state-owned national electric utility ​said, plunging the ​island of about 10 ⁠million people into ​darkness as blackouts are ​becoming ever more frequent.

reut.rs

Shaboozey, ... Tales (****1/2): Rather than taking a victory lap for what he'd accomplished with his prior album, 'boozey digs *real* deep into genre iconography on a concept album that impresses equally for his command of so many forms and for the scope of his world-building. While Music Row...

Country Universe@countryuniverse.net · 4d ago

J. McRae, ... Again! (****): She completes her song cycle about two back-to-back heartbreaks by adding a full second disc to her 2025 album, giving even greater depth to what was already a thoughtful collection. As a whole, these songs capture her singular gifts: An idiosyncratic syntax...

Interesting breadcrumbs for a Dem House to follow.

Reuters Legal@legal.reuters.com · 4d ago

The disclosure marks the first time a bank has formally tied money laundering concerns to Trump's family business.

If you watch anything on #Moroccans coming to #Ceuta, make it this report. CBS News have interviewed some of them & they confirm that social media posts on Facebook & Instagram told them Spain had opened its borders. They're playing with people's hopes & lives. It's awful. We must combat fake news.

To paraphrase Churchill, when you’ve bombed so much that the only thing left is to bounce the rubble, but the enemy carries on nonetheless, then “decisive” doesn’t really carry a lot of meaning.

Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social · 5d ago

US Central Command (CENTCOM) has prepared a large-scale operation in the form of a decisive two-week bombing campaign should Trump choose escalation to break the deadlock in the Middle East, two sources confirmed.-NYP

The US military gets to live through Hegseth and his band of social media lackeys working out their resentments and insecurities by razing the entire professional military corps to the ground.

Matt Novak@paleofuture.bsky.social · 6d ago

Pentagon weighs eliminating civilian tenure at military academies and reviewing all curriculum

Chainsaw robot but make it English folk horror, why the fuck not.

Cameron 🇺🇸🗽🦅@cameroncorduroy.bsky.social · 7d ago

we cannot allow this technology to fall into furry hands

The wild details here include a mysterious “Person-1” at the center of the warrant who seems to be nursing a veiled vendetta against Comey, and former Gambino underboss Sammy “The Bull” Gravano ingratiating himself with the administration by testifying that Comey was explicitly threatening Trump.

The New York Times@nytimes.com · last wk.

Breaking News: President Trump demanded details of a Secret Service interview with James Comey, according to a filing by Comey’s lawyers.

“I don’t want to do the assignment, so I’m going to do a second, far more complex thing that will eventually satisfice the primary ask” is very relatable programmer behavior.

🐔 Brian Bucklew 🐔 ₑͤ＞∿＜ₑͤ ∞🌮@unormal.bsky.social · last wk.

we invented the unaligned paperclip maximizer from the sci fi theme dont invent the unaligned paperclip maximizer

There is a legitimately non-zero chance that a decrepit, barely ambulatory Trump really does run in ‘28, the GOP is incapable of stopping him or putting someone out in front of him, and they end up forfeiting the entire election as a result.

Aaron Grote@aarongrote.com · last wk.

Trump has posted about Trump 2028 at least 8 times in the last few hours, including this:

This is one degree where I, quite sincerely, do not want to see taxpayer dollars providing any tuition support at all for it. (Also, the most ASU major imaginable, yes.)

Joe Russo@joerusso.bsky.social · 2w ago

We all died during COVID and this is Hell.

“Trump and Miller are sending pro-democracy Chinese political refugees back into the jaws of Beijing” is one of many things that should send GOP Senators and the media into a frenzy, but the Beltway is a failed state.

ICE Goons Tracker@icegoons.bsky.social · 2w ago

Alaska state attorney and asylum applicant Shucheng “Charlie” Yang was snatched by ICE and shipped to a Tacoma detention center over a routine speeding ticket because federal immigration enforcement prioritizes cruel political stunts over actual public safety. The cruelty is the point.

I say, posting from my phone to social media my AI-generated cartoon of the same man fruitlessly chopping the face of a stump, tapping on a generator with a hammer in violation of safety and common sense, and assembling a poorly-made miniature A-frame despite having a serviceable cabin behind them.

Lyse@lyse.myatproto.social · 2w ago

Men? You guys okay?

“.. the Trump administration decided to remove four service members killed this past weekend from the list .. because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire ..” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/07/23/u...

A terrifying game of hide-and-seek is playing out in this deadly corridor that snakes along the 750-mile front line in Ukraine reut.rs/4vHJAOs

Inside Ukraine’s Kill Zone

Drones now dominate the war in Ukraine. Fly through the front line’s deadly “kill zone” and discover how surveillance, kamikaze drones and new tactics are reshaping modern warfare. An immersive Reuter...

reut.rs

Linguistic hell is a meeting between Big Strategy partners throwing out consulting jargon and a defense industry client coming back with Pentagonese on the one hand and NCO malapropisms on the other.

Stilgherrian@stilgherrian.com · 2w ago

I don’t care whether this actually happened or not. I want it to be true.

The Kremlin marshaling its useful idiots in Germany for some track 1.5 propaganda efforts.

Meduza in English@meduza.io · 2w ago

Azerbaijan's president says former German and Russian officials traveled to Baku this month, reportedly to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. He says his country wasn't notified in advance. meduza.io/en/news/2026...

This is amazing repurposed 1950s/‘60s content, real classic Bircher nonsense.

Seth Cotlar@sethcotlar.bsky.social · 2w ago

Rubio’s State Department just published a 100-page report identifying Cuba as the locus of Communist infiltration in the US since the 1960s. Absolutely bonkers shit. www.state.gov/wp-content/u...

There’s nothing more American than a guy with a German-Jewish name attacking recent immigrants using the exact same rhetoric and rationales Henry Cabot Lodge used a century ago against the immigration of his own ancestors.

Will Stancil@whstancil.bsky.social · 3w ago

Does Professor Wurman want to delineate which of the law students he teaches are from unassimilated groups that lack the habits of mind that make constitutional government possible?

So we’re basically Crassus’ fire brigade now, but for the whole world.

FinTwitter@fintwitter.bsky.social · 3w ago

TRUMP SAYS U.S. WILL DEFEND STRAIT, EXPECTS PAYMENT IN RETURN

Not commenting on this guy’s behavior at all, but worth considering to what degree this looks like OSD pushing a story that somehow makes a Reserve sustainment O-7 the bad guy for a bunch of stuff that was well above his pay grade.

I get folks’ immediate response to this, but it’s also telling that Schiff’s specific fond memories of Graham don’t extend past 2018.

Sen. Adam Schiff@schiff.senate.gov · 3w ago

What I’ll remember most about Senator Graham was his sense of humor and how he deployed it to move his policy positions forward. Though we did not often agree, Senator Graham was never disagreeable.

Iran is not a major power, it’s a largely failed regional power, but they can practice A2AD from onshore while we have to project naval and air assets at great expense to counter them. Hormuz is basically the training level for China/Taiwan, and we aren’t doing well at it.

Albert Pinto@70sbachchan.bsky.social · 3w ago

As War restarts, I keep hearing "tactical success, strategic failure" as a summary of US-Israel war on Iran because of enormous destruction of Iran's military and economic capacity & regime decapitation. But its better described as "tactical failure, strategic failure". Good note by @policytensor

There are a great many Republicans, of whom Graham was one, who believe that, having sold their souls to appease and feed Trump, there will be time after Trump for them to reclaim those desiccated remains and some measure of dignity.

Max Berger@maxberger.bsky.social · 3w ago

In some ways, the harshest thing you could say about Lindsay Graham is that he once seemed to be a person of integrity and conviction.