Frederick Deknatel
@freddydeknatel.bsky.social
Journalist, non-resident fellow at CIP @cipolicy.bsky.social, editor of @Hidden-Cities.com Previously: Founding executive editor, Democracy in Exile @dawnmenaorg.bsky.social; managing editor @wpr.bsky.social; staff editor @foreignaffairs.com
The prominence the NYT is giving this story, the weekend before the midterms, is something to behold.
Bill Grueskin@bgrueskin.bsky.social · 4h agoSo, the Haley-Stevens-meltdown-over-El-Sayed story is much more prominently played on the NY Times' homepage than that of the Detroit News or Detroit Free Press.
Forever war fever still grips DC. Take @nahaltoosi.bsky.social's column in Politico on why opposition to this war could put Democrats "on the wrong side of history"—based only on magical thinking and Mark Dubowitz's view that Dems are "trying to save the regime." www.politico.com/news/magazin...
Thanassis Cambanis@tcambanis.bsky.social · 20h agoThe Iran war disaster might finally be enough to push voters to dissolve the foreign policy blob and elect US lawmakers who won't fall for forever war. internationalpolicy.org/publications...
“For Trump there are only two kinds of election; ones that he wins and ones that are stolen,” says Larry Tribe, a Harvard constitutional scholar. “If people think they are going to wake up with clarity about a new world on November 4, they are deluding themselves.”
Donald Trump’s endgame
What will the US president’s last two years in Washington look like?
ft.com
In what is currently the third-most important story in the NYT app, Steven’s statement gets no adjective, while El-Sayed’s is “blistering.” Wonder why?
Frederick Deknatel@freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 19h agoFunny, I don’t remember drumbeat coverage in the Times about damning reports that Susan Collins took bribes (and that Trump then shut down the FBI anti-corruption unit investigating her). www.propublica.org/article/fbi-...
“Iran was also hitting smaller buildings, one sign of the precision that has increasingly alarmed US officials. Structures damaged after the ceasefire collapsed were less than half of the size of the ones hit earlier. Base housing—often converted shipping containers or even tents—tends to be small.”
How Iran Battered U.S. Bases and Caused Billions in Damage
Satellite imagery shows damage at more than two dozen installations, in the fullest accounting of the destruction yet.
wsj.com
Funny, I don’t remember drumbeat coverage in the Times about damning reports that Susan Collins took bribes (and that Trump then shut down the FBI anti-corruption unit investigating her). www.propublica.org/article/fbi-...
The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way
After the FBI caught a defense contractor’s CEO making illegal campaign contributions, it sought to launch a sweeping political bribery probe involving Collins and others. Then the second Trump admini...
propublica.org
mtsw@mtsw.bsky.social · yesterdayThey are doing "drumbeat" coverage on Alaska. "Politician denies thing but we imply the denial is bullshit" is a classic way to keep a story in the news, absurd here since even if she knew, so what?:
Not a new forever war, only an "open-ended mission," with "an unrelenting pace of flight operations" involving two aircraft carriers and air bases across the Middle East, just to keep oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz. www.wsj.com/politics/nat...
Exclusive | Inside the U.S. Military’s Open-Ended Mission to Keep Gulf Oil Flowing
The near-daily missions to protect ships have allowed the U.S. to hold the line in a conflict that has dragged on since February and threatened access to the world’s oil supplies.
wsj.com
"She echoed what many people said: There are no phone numbers to call, no publicly accessible hiring managers to charm with a personalized email. Instead, there is what feels like a wall of tech that needs to be pierced in order to reach a human being." www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Searching for Jobs, Gen Z Feels Like It’s Staring Into ‘the Void’
Hundreds of applications later, even being rejected by an actual human being counts as a victory.
nytimes.com
Frederick Deknatel@freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 2d agoAI will change the world, huh? www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
"What we have, then, is an incomplete and contested account of those dealings. The question that arises from the book is whether Cole has done enough to warrant a major congressional investigation into his allegations. The answer is an emphatic yes." www.nytimes.com/2026/10/26/b...
A Damning Account Alleges Jared Kushner Conducted Diplomacy for Profit
The new book by the reporter Matthew Cole connects $2 billion in slush funds from Gulf state leaders to Trump’s son-in-law in an effort to influence U.S. policy.
nytimes.com
Your “we are a democracy but Arab parties can’t be in a ruling coalition” t-shirt is raising a lot of questions already answered by your t-shirt 
I wonder if it is going to rankle people at the Times that this story only really takes off in Trumpworld and is cited in the next crackpot DOJ lawsuit to nullify the election in Alaska.
Asawin Suebsaeng@swin24.bsky.social · 3d agoI understand why some people are upset about this or the framing esp in the context of trump admin really trying to steal the election BUT I’m sorry this is objectively hilarious
A little too on the nose that the anti-Netanyahu opposition is at 48 seats, but with the Arab parties, they expand to 67.
They're running out of euphemisms for Trump's abuses of power and weaponization of the DOJ.
🎶 Where in the world are Eric and Don Jr? 🎶 The Trump sons openly cashing in on Trump's second term, but of course they are just "private citizens," per a spokesperson, with "the same First Amendment rights" of any American — to meet with foreign govt officials and make deals for the Trump family.
The Trump sons’ global network: money, influence and the family business
The president’s sons Donald Jr and Eric have met world leaders and foreign officials while building a lucrative web of financial interests
ft.com
“The U.S. has told several Gulf Arab countries to be prepared for a short, intense military campaign after the U.S. midterm elections.” Another “short” war “in hopes of degrading Tehran’s strength and pushing it toward negotiations” — what could go wrong. 😑 www.wsj.com/world/middle...
U.S. Warns Gulf of Possible Short, Intense Renewal of Iran War After Midterms
There are new signs that the American and Israeli militaries are preparing a potential wave of strikes to muscle Tehran to the negotiating table.
wsj.com
"Most people would not speak as they do if their lives had widened just enough to complicate what they take for granted, if familiarity had been allowed to interrogate fear." An excerpt from Yahia's new book out now in @hidden-cities.com, a meditation on the decency that survives. @ysl.bsky.social
Even in Trump’s America, Some Decency Survives
I meet it on the street, in ordinary people who speak plainly and want no part in the ugliness of the headlines.
hidden-cities.com
New Village Press@newvillagepress.bsky.social · 4d agoIf You Cannot Say GENOCIDE: Essays on Conscience and Witness is available now! Thank you to everyone who helped bring this work into the world. We hope you’ll sit with it, share it, and carry its questions with you. To order, visit the official webpage: www.newvillagepress.org/ifyoucannots...
Nathan Thrall on Israel's election and the consensus that endures: "The question of whether millions of Palestinians should continue to live under Israeli domination has been effectively removed from the range of legitimate political choices." @equatormag.bsky.social www.equator.org/articles/isr...
The U.S. military’s withdrawal “changes sovereignty in Iraq from a long-standing political claim into a practical test,” Firmesk Rahim writes in @hidden-cities.com “What remains are the preexisting security and political issues that have long divided Iraq.” @us.theconversation.com
The U.S. Has Finally Left Iraq. What Does It Mean for Iraqi Kurds?
The end of an American military presence changes sovereignty in Iraq from a long-standing political claim into a practical test.
hidden-cities.com
We’ve gone back to the fanatical anti-Muslim hysteria after 9/11 — except now it’s distinctly Trump, that is, gleefully racist and exulting in hate.
The Bulwark@thebulwark.com · 5d agoRFK: "There's five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don't produce science. They don't win the Nobel Prize. They don't win the Fields Prize. They don't win the Wolf Prize. They don't produce literature."
The U.S. military’s withdrawal “changes sovereignty in Iraq from a long-standing political claim into a practical test,” Firmesk Rahim writes in @hidden-cities.com “What remains are the preexisting security and political issues that have long divided Iraq.” @us.theconversation.com
The U.S. Has Finally Left Iraq. What Does It Mean for Iraqi Kurds?
The end of an American military presence changes sovereignty in Iraq from a long-standing political claim into a practical test.
hidden-cities.com
A two-day-old story that all but banked on Lula losing, framing one town’s rightward shift as a mirror for Brazil, is all the Times has for “know more” election context on… Lula‘s win.
lorem ipsum 🇧🇷🇺🇸@whiskeynachos.bsky.social · 6d agoI’m very pleased that the NYT, which had ordered up stories to contextualize the return of right wing rule to Brazil, was caught flat footed and now has to talk about Lula’s comeback. See what they had to offer as “see more.”
I’m very pleased that the NYT, which had ordered up stories to contextualize the return of right wing rule to Brazil, was caught flat footed and now has to talk about Lula’s comeback. See what they had to offer as “see more.”
look, nothing is simple and i have no parsimonious explanation for anything here, but a student protest movement, focused on corruption & authoritarianism, just won a major european election. a big deal.
David Kaye@davidakaye.bsky.social · 6d agowow, really, vucic concedes
"From the beginning, the United States did not understand the country it was storming into. Twenty-three years later, as it pulls the last of its forces out, it probably still does not." Alissa J. Rubin looks back on one disastrous US misstep after another in Iraq. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/w...
What I Saw as the U.S. Debacle in Iraq Unfurled
The Americans did not understand the country when they invaded in 2003. From the earliest days, there were signs of the trouble ahead, our correspondent recalls.
nytimes.com
“History teaches us to worry when any form of credit, especially a new one, grows this fast.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/b...
The latest photos of Trump's ballroom-bunker, hastily being built, show how much it dwarfs the White House and evokes a gaudy late Soviet-era palace airdropped on DC. Or, as @ollywainwright.bsky.social put it, "a decadently wrapped panic room, where a besieged dictator might hole themselves up."
Trump's Roy Cohn playbook to a tee -- never admit wrong, always attack, and always make the story about something else.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.😳 WOMAN REPORTER: Do sexual abuse allegations mean nothing to you, sir? TRUMP: Wait. Wait! Wait wait wait. Slow down. Who are you with? REPORTER: NBC, sir. But they are very serious sex abuse allegations TRUMP: Quiet! Isn't she a fresh person? You're a horrible little reporter, aren't you?