"Today is August 4, 2026" There Will Come Soft Rains By: Ray Bradbury
Jason Dempsey
@jkdemp.bsky.social
Keep trying to be a 'former' scholar of civilian-military relations ... Author of Our Army: Soldiers, Politics, and American Civil-Military Relations. Former Army infantry officer. Into bikes-beer-coffee.
Ignoring press releases and letting journalists sort through them to decide which were actually newsworthy has always been the right thing to do. But now I guess we just read AI summaries of press releases and consider it news?
Josh Sternberg@joshsternberg.com · 2d agoThere are 7 PR people for every journalist in the US. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
So September will be 25 years since 9/11 25 years from Pearl Harbor was 1966 which had…Massive civil unrest over racial discrimination/violence and police brutality, and an escalating war with no clear end in sight.
Jolly Green Giant as my personal bodyguard Mr. Peanut's vast wealth to maintain control of the Burger King and his state power, plus Little Caesar's legions
Discontinued Foods!@discontinuedfoods.bsky.social · 2w agoThings aren't great, let's have some fun
Worth reading and sitting with. TM has set an example for all of us. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/23/w...
Why I Sought Out a Taliban Commander I Had Fought (Gift Article)
First as a Marine and then as a journalist, I spent years tied to Afghanistan. I returned one last time to speak to a former enemy in search of answers, and perhaps closure.
nytimes.com
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." -Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953
One quick hack for avoiding accountability for a war: Hide behind the soldiers you sent to war.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w agoRAJU: Trump said the war would last just a handful of weeks. Now it's been several months and 3 more service members have died. The administration is asking for $67b. Do you think the public believes it's going well? THUNE: Most of us believe that we oughta support our men & women in uniform
If we ever need a new Trojan Horse myth, might I suggest The Baby From The Photo Shoot?
Once again, the American people got madder that we withdrew from a war they swore they wanted to see end than they have that we are committing ourselves to an illegal war we've already lost. A war that is nothing but warcrimes and grift stacked in a trenchcoat.
Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social · 2w agoA U.S. official said that the United States is planning for a wider war.-WaPo
it just occurred to me that there is a layer of military leadership that thinks beard regs are more important than flight regs, and that's pretty mind blowing
![3-panel comic. (1) PERSON 1 behind podium on stage: We all hate springing forward. But we love falling back. (2) [Audience pictured listening] PERSON 1: Therefore, we are abolishing the *spring* time change *only*. We’ll gain an hour every year, but never lose one. (3) PERSON OFF-PANEL: Won’t that cause the clocks to spiral out of sync with the sun? PERSON 1 holding up a fist: *Then we will meet the chaos clear-eyed and well-rested!*](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreidl5ovrvqzuhtr6ygqwtdjes2qraloyxtxqrvjwu7xxxersawskde)
We tend to gloss over the unconditional surrender of Congress to do its constitutional duties because we never had a fancy surrender ceremony. Just endless soundbites of cowardice
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w agoSen. Husted has voted 10 times to support the war in Iran. Asked today if he was okay with not knowing how long the war will last or how many taxpayer dollars will be spent, he replied, "It's not really up to us"
The long term damage to good order and discipline these actions will have is really hard to quantify. But we’ll feel the tail effects for years to come
Nicholas Slayton@nslayton.bsky.social · 4w ago'For the second time in five months, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to wade into an internal Army flight safety investigation late Thursday, tweeting support for eight AH-64 Apache pilots and crew who were suspended'
“…I believe that not one above whom it then waved but blessed his God that he was loyal to it, and whose heart did not swell with pride towards it, as the emblem of the Republic before that treason’s flaunting rag in front.” I will never not feel a catch in my throat when I read those words.
…there amidst smoke and sweat, they gave back, without grudge, or loss of time in the sending, in kind whatever the enemy sent, globe, and cone, and bolt, hollow or solid, an iron greeting to the rebellion, the compliments of the wrathful Republic.”
With this ruling, the birthright issue is not going away. The right hasn't really begun *organizing* around getting rid of the citizenship clause. Like Roe, this will be their fight for a generation. And if the Democrats just say "we won" and ignore it, like Roe, the Republicans will eventually win.
Turned in the final proofs for my book! To celebrate, here’s an endorsement from the great @kschake.bsky.social 👇
Wildly underestimating the military’s ability to spin itself in circles and declare it is moving the world.
Airbuilder7@airbuilder7.bsky.social · last mo.At least four.
So you’re saying we’ve lost … and the only question is just how many corners we might turn in the reflecting pool on our way to defeat.
James@gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social · last mo.Fear not. The U.S. Army has begun implementing a COIN strategy to combat the unchecked growth of algae. We need to separate the radical algae from the broader population of water through targeted raids on algae blooms and civil construction projects to build up the reflecting pool’s capacity.
Did DoD just admit in a court filing that it used xAI's Grok Gov Model to hit the girls' school on the first day of the Iran war? Based on some passages flagged by @rgoodlaw.bsky.social in DoD's recent filing in NAACP's case against X, it looks like it did 1/
Hegseth is exactly why the US military needed DEI programs www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/u... Because the long history of white dudes taking care of their own. Where is the GOP yelling about the 3rd best person getting the job because of the color of their skin?
Reminder: the number of people directly involved in the chain of command from pete down to the trigger puller/aircraft commander for all these strikes is less than 100 and so is eminently prosecutable
Stars and Stripes@starsandstripes.bsky.social · 2mo agoVIDEO: A U.S. strike on suspected drug smugglers on Thursday has killed three people in the Eastern Pacific. The attack raises the death toll from the U.S. strikes to least 211 since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.
1/ In the aftermath of yesterday's Ukrainian attack on Moscow, many Russian warbloggers are calling for Russia to "start fighting for real" and are blaming the Kremlin for not prosecuting the war with sufficient ferocity. One warblogger explains why this is a fantasy. ⬇️
Let’s adopt “we’re knee deep in canary carcasses“ as our national motto
Liesbeth Corens@onslies.bsky.social · 2mo agoAlways a bit amused when I see a "this is the canary in the coal mine" take about universities or the humanities. My dude, we're knee deep in canary carcasses. Glad've cottoned on, but the eery silence of ceased chirping has long since engulfed us.
My issue isn't with SecDefs form and performative workouts. Its that those show he doesn't understand his role in the #OrgCulture. There's no excuse for that.