@tsworth
Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of the Pacific. University of Wisconsin-Madison PhD. Gender, US foreign policy, public opinion, international security, and gender measurement. On the job market. www.thomassworth.com
Part of Trump’s mass appeal (and of why he’s so dangerous) is that he really seems to share Joe Barstool’s worldview that there are no complex problems: Everything has a simple brute solution, which previous leaders were somehow too stupid or weak to deploy.
92,000 jobs gone in a single month and the people who spent years screaming about “Biden’s economy” are suddenly very quiet. No pandemic. Just the consequences of reckless leadership.
Actually, on 2nd thought, it’s even dumber than that. It’s not that they don’t think allies can be trusted to cooperate, it’s that they continually play defect and then are confused when allies wont play cooperate in return. They can’t understand why our friends won’t let us take advantage of them.
The best description of the Trump Administration yet. These are the idiots that mash the defect button every single time without once considering the shadow of the future. The anti-Axelrods. They can’t even comprehend that some people might be trusted to play cooperate if they’d simply play it once.
Eisenhower: "Plans are worthless"
Pete Hegseth: "cool, bet"
Eisenhower: WAIT I WASN'T FINISHED
Also these polls are stupid and tell us nothing. I, with a PhD in political science with an emphasis on international security, can make credible arguments that this makes Iran both more & less of a threat to the US. We simply don't know and it's foolish to ask people to try to grapple with that Q.
Also, this joke with accompanying quote post is going in my teaching slides for tomorrow. Hopefully it'll bring some levity to the classroom!
I'm not proud of how long I've been laughing at "Failing at peek-a-book" and thinking of the Toddler-in-Chief throwing a tantrum over this.
Whelp, rules are rules. Mash that share button.
The elder millennial existence consists entirely of alternating geopolitical and financial crises
In 1973, a veto-proof majority of Congress took the position that POTUS’s constitutional powers to use military force are limited to:
1) declaration of war
2) specific statutory authorization
3) national emergency triggered by attack on U.S., its territories or possessions, or armed forces. 1/n
Amazing 🧵, any one of these would have embroiled any previous administration in months of controversy, hearings, resignations, etc.
We're *currently in* the Golden Age of TV: Severance, Silo, Andor... the list could go on much further. Very few old shows have story lines even half as complex or premises that are even half as interesting as they are in those. Fallout, The Expanse, See, Good Place, Wheel of Time, Rings of Power...
BREAKING NYT:
The husband of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has been barred from the department's headquarters after at least two female staff members told officials that he had sexually assaulted them, according to people familiar with the decision and a police report obtained by The Times.
Absolutely. I’ve been thinking this for the past few months, and her decision to go to Munich is clearly aimed at this eventual outcome.
This is the second account - the first being in Chicago - of DHS agents mass detaining people and then *sorting them by race*.
We tried to fucking tell people that the economy under Biden was pretty great.
I arrived too late to an abduction yesterday. Ice vehicles boxed in a food delivery driver on the highway. They took him, and when I came on the scene (with a few other neighbors in cars), his keys were still in it. We found his phone, a debit card, his car title and registration.
When this is all over, we should close down Lake Street from the lakes to the river and get takeout from all the restaurants that helped or closed or struggled, and just have a big ol' dinner party. Open Streets but make it a potluck.
Gonna beg media not to just repeat Trump's obviously bullshit framing in the headlines. Tell readers the truth in the headlines.
Alternatives:
"With Artists and Audience Fleeing, Trump Closes Kennedy Center Indefinitely"
"Trump Says Kennedy Center Needs Renovation, Despite Recent $250M Renovation"
I can’t stress this enough. The state of 4th Amendment law is that the cops can’t force you to type in a passcode but they can force you to swipe your finger or present your face. Never stop using passcodes/passwords to unlock your devices. And consider additional code to unlock Signal.
I'm starting to think the Trumpist mastery of propaganda is failing them. The DHS agents posing this way makes it look like they're ashamed of themselves.
Congratulations to the Kamala Will Take Your Guns crowd
"House Democrats should get themselves to Minneapolis. Immediately. They should be on the street themselves, cameras out and recording, observing and putting their bodies on the line."
The killing of Alex Pretti and the grotesque lying was an overreach by the administration. They've paid a price and had to pull back a bit. But it's when there's some disarray that the democratic opposition needs to intensify the offensive, and turn a marginal tactical success into a major victory.
The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced the Democrats have to push their hand immediately. The parallels with the delays and subsequent failures after January 6th are blaring warning signs about what will happen if they don’t go after the issues with ICE and CBP at the root RIGHT NOW.
Okay I think I've mapped out ICE politics as of Monday night
Following the killing of AFGE Member Alex Pretti and the subsequent slanderous rhetoric that followed from top Trump administration officials, AFGE National President Everett Kelley issued the following statement: “Yesterday, AFGE brought together labor and faith leaders from Minneapolis and across the nation to mourn our fallen brother from Local 3669, Alex Pretti. We honored his life and legacy and lifted up his family, his friends, his union, Minneapolis, and our nation in prayer. “Today, we demand accountability. “In the immediate aftermath of Alex’s killing, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem betrayed the public trust by slandering the good name of our union brother and calling him a “domestic terrorist.” Alex Pretti was a patriotic ICU nurse at a VA hospital who devoted his life to serving America’s veterans. That claim was reckless, defamatory, and unsupported by the facts. Noem was preceded in this false statement by Stephen Miller, Deputy White House Chief of Staff, who is also the architect of the chaotic and failed immigration policy in Minnesota. “Our demand is clear: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was responsible for carrying out the policy that led to Alex’s needless killing, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of that policy, must resign immediately. If they refuse, President Trump must dismiss them.
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents border patrol officers at the National Border Patrol Council, calls on Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller to resign or be fired