Lower profile election, but nothing better encapsulates the trend in the Democratic Party of the outsiders becoming the insiders

#StupidSuez@diplomatofnight.com · yesterday

Under-discussed Michigan politics story is that a co-founder of Uncommitted is about to become the Democratic nominee for a seat to the State Senate with the backing of Governor Whitmer

3 things I think going on here: 1. Negative polarization 2. "Free trade with other countries" being read as internationalism. Neither party is actively pursuing FTAs, so trade not seen as a live threat 3. Continued shift of both Dem and DSA base from manufacturing to service and knowledge sectors

Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈@josephpolitano.bsky.social · yesterday

DSA-aligned Democrats are now the most pro-free-trade voting bloc in the United States, in an incredible turn of events www.theargumentmag.com/p/who-suppor...

Even if involved in narcotrafficking, this would be illegal. Due process.

CNN@cnn.com · 2d ago

The US military’s strikes on alleged drug boats have likely illegally killed “individuals who are not involved in narcotrafficking,” Sen. Tim Kaine told the White House, following “a careful review” of classified information he has seen so far.

It kind of makes you question your music tastes to listen to an interview of a band you like and learn that their music was used to flush out Taliban fighters with sound blasters

What I think is wrong about the Vanderbilt declaration (as in both biased and counterproductive) is its assumption that scholarship would only be shoddy for political reasons. Why not just say “faculty have a duty to maintain scholarly standards,” period? And take action if they fall for any reason?

Not the main point, but doing actual research involves collecting original data and testing hypotheses against it to make causal predictions, often by building statistical models. “Do your own research” as it’s commonly used means looking up things on YouTube or ChatGPT.

ryan cooper@ryanlcooper.com · 2d ago

when people say "do your own research" they generally mean "do not trust anyone with any relevant training or experience"

Much like 9/11 conspiracy theorists are the only people who believe the US government works as perfectly as it claims, Rubio is the only person who believes the Cuban government is as all powerful and influential as it claims.

Scott Horton@robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 3d ago

Marco Rubio says that Cuba is an "espionage super power" which poses a grave threat to the national security of the US. Actually no rational national security analyst believes this, and I doubt Rubio does either.

One of the more interesting passages of the Time interview with Delcy Rodriguez time.com/article/2026...

I wonder if those critical of AAUP’s endorsement of El-Sayed feel the same way about police unions endorsing Republicans…

Relevant to the AAUP endorsement controversy: the value of union endorsements to candidates isn't so much delivering member votes but boots on the ground, and value to unions isn't so much changing candidates' minds but having access to them in office.

There are many arguments for why AAUP shouldn’t endorse candidates. But the debate reflects a confusion over what it is: is it a professional association, or a union? Unions endorse candidates. The pushback reflects that it isn’t seen as one, including by its prospective members.

The Pentagon is pushing the same line to Latin America that it gives to Europe: spend more on defense. But unlike in Latin America, there's an active war happening in Europe, and the US has a military alliance with those countries.

Elbridge Colby on the Opportunities of the “Donroe Doctrine”

The greater U.S. focus on the Western Hemisphere signals a “fundamental change” in the region, writes the U.S. Under Secretary of War for Policy in a guest op-ed.

americasquarterly.org

This (right wing party losing the domestic vote but winning thanks to the overseas vote) had previously only happened in Eastern Europe (Romania 2009, Moldova 2024). Now Latin America joins the phenomenon of unpopular politicians being saved by their anti communist diaspora.

Sanho Tree@sanho.bsky.social · last wk.

Unfun fact: Keiko Fujimori actually lost the vote inside Peru, but overseas Peruvian absentee votes put her over the top with the thinnest of margins. Never take your vote for granted!

Argentina is so funny for this

The Guardian@theguardian.com · last wk.

Javier Milei accuses US Democrats of financing ‘anti-Argentina campaign’ at World Cup

The president of OPEIU (my former union) makes the interesting observation in FT that senior admins are having to do more work to clean up errors from AI work that’s being passed up to them. AI isn’t a uniformly labor saving tech.

I used to joke that it’s not worth the effort to learn the name of the president of Peru since they change every 6 months; now I feel that way about the UK prime minister.

People have long memories when it comes to atrocity crimes. Might be relevant to current events. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

Pinochet-era soldier jailed for killing folk singer Víctor Jara 53 years ago

Nelson Haase Mazzei was sentenced for murdering Jara in 2023, but fled from authorities in Chile

theguardian.com

An irony of the current discourse about standards of social science research is it reproduces the very shoddy practices it decries: confirmation bias, correlation-causation fallacy, ecological fallacy, over-generalization, cherry-picking anecdotal evidence, advocacy over empirics

Essay | Is It Time to ‘Liquidate’ the Study of Sociology?

Sociology has long been tasked with investigating society’s most pressing challenges. But these days, sociologists’ greatest obstacle may be themselves.

wsj.com

The chavista govt of Venezuela has joined the US in denouncing the ICC and announced plans to withdraw, using language of the left (ICC "has disproportionately concentrated its work on African and Latin American countries, to the detriment of the Global South") to uphold the US position.

Venezuela to exit International Criminal Court, accusing it of ‘bias’

Announcement comes as Venezuela has hewed close to Trump administration, who has pledged to'disable' international court.

aljazeera.com

Great, now SEBIN will have access to Pegasus spyware

When he was still popular, Ortega used to compulsively rig elections he knew he’d win. Imagine how unpopular you have to be to have total state control and worry about losing elections even if you rig them.

Ortega declara el fin de la alternancia en Nicaragua: “Aquí no volverá a haber elecciones” | CNN

El presidente de Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, borró de plano este domingo la posibilidad de realizar nuevas elecciones en el país.

cnnespanol.cnn.com

Looks like the State Department published someone’s undergraduate history thesis

Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism - United States Department of State

Cuba’s assault on the United States was never, at root, a quarrel over economic policy or sovereignty or even ownership of a particular territory. It was a revolution against Western civilization itse...

state.gov

The Argentinian junta lost a war to the UK under Thatcher so when you think about it they were the real antifascists

Rather than “keep politics out of sports” I like to think that the World Cup serves to channel otherwise scary nationalist impulses into silly Viking costumes

Guy whose job it is to have opinions about stuff and write breezy thinkpieces without empirics or hypothesis testing thinks the purpose of academic research is to have fun debates about worldviews

Patrick "Inverted Vibe Curve" Blanchfield@patblanchfield.bsky.social · 2w ago

would hogwarts hire a velociraptor? do you have to let a vampire inside your home - if he's your landlord? is a cop who fights crime as a werewolf by night technically a K9 unit who - deserves overtime? if they become partners, can they literally go anywhere and pull over whomever they want?

Good article. I spoke with a doctor in Cuba who was proud to be part of these missions. But admitted most who go on these missions don’t come back. Wherever I go in the hemisphere, in the most rural villages, I meet Cuban doctors who stayed behind.

The doctors keeping Cuba on life support

Medics are the country’s most valuable export. Now Trump has his sights on them

economist.com

“Quietly eyeing” means deliberately leaking potential plans as a pressure tactic for more concessions from Cuban govt. Bay of Pigs style amphibious invasion is unlikely. Smash and grab Venezuela type raid is possible but still unlikely.

Jim LaPorta@jimlaporta.bsky.social · 3w ago

New from CBS News National Security team: As the U.S.-Iran war restarts following the collapse of the weeks-long ceasefire, senior Pentagon officials are also quietly eyeing another flashpoint much closer to home: Cuba. www.cbsnews.com/news/cuba-mi...

AOC takes on the Blob (gift link):

AOC Meets World

The congresswoman’s rise was powered mostly by domestic issues. But she is slowly expanding to foreign affairs.

foreignpolicy.com

When I think of migrant political incorporation and resocialization, I think of my friend who was an anarcho punk who grew up in rural Virginia and then moved to Denmark and had an identity crisis when he realized the state works pretty well there

Nor is it the first extremely insane story about Rubio's actions on Latin America policy undermining other US national interests -- remember this story? 3/ bsky.app/profile/prof...

Elizabeth N. Saunders@profsaunders.bsky.social · 10mo ago

This story is extraordinary even by 2025 standards. Marco Rubio, the nation's top diplomat, made a deal with Bukele and agreed to renege on informant agreements in a years-long DOJ investigation into MS-13, totally undercutting credibility of such agreements. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...