It’s crystal clear now that Trump has lost control of this war. He badly misjudged Iran’s ability to retaliate. The region is on fire.
1/ I’m going to explain to you in this🧵what I’ve learned - in part from closed door briefings - about the four biggest current crises.
"He recalled that “you saw suddenly that it was a politically criminal system in which you had lived.”
"Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of a new era in 1945 and his coming to terms with the reality of Nazi crimes as something without which he wouldn’t have found his way into philosophy and social theory..."
Those same shameless people also somehow believe their own hype to such an extent they seem to also be anesthetized to the economic and societal pain they're bringing down on all of us.
"The worst, most shameless people in the world already understand this and use that cold logic to their advantage. You do not need to justify a war if you believe that, ultimately, people will lose interest in it and move on to the next outrage."
"There is a cost to all of this—a flattening of every event, feeling, and piece of art, commerce, joy, and suffering into the same atomic unit of attention, all of them easily replaced by what comes next."
This is a very good piece. "I have suggested in the past that our information ecosystem is broken. But I now suspect that’s wrong: This is how it is meant to work. These online products sustain themselves by making us dependent on the content that makes us feel powerless and miserable."
How about “Every congressman with an ounce of integrity should be screaming for Trump to be removed from office”?
Well, what do you expect as a woke leftist hippie scholar working at (checks bio) the American Enterprise Institute and serving as (looks again) the Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress?
This is a good lesson for journalists: Use plain language to state true things clearly.
Watching Politico get told they're sanewashing shit by the guy they're sanewashing is just excellent. Media cooked. Getting dunked on by the people they're protecting. We are in the post-dignity era of the press.
You're not alone. I do think the infraction always calls for a red (cross) card, though.
Pathfinder’s diabolic dragon: they’re technically not a fiend, but they do a really good job pretending to be one.
Phouka, the 326 Phouka (pooka), the. The Irish word "Phouka' is sometimes used, as 'Pouk", or PUCK, was in Middle English, for the Devil. More usually he is a kind of BOGY OR BOGEY-BEAST, something like the Picktree BRAG of the North of England, who takes various forms, most usually a horse, but also an eagle or a bat, and is responsible for people falling as well. Many a wild ride has been suffered on the Phouka's back. It is he who spoils the blackberries after Michaelmas. This is Crofton CROKER's view of him. According to Lady WILDE, however, he was nearer to the BROWNIE OF HOBGOBLIN. There is a charming story, "Fairy Help', in her Ancient Legends of Ireland in which a young boy, a miller's son, makes friends with Phouka and throws his coat over it as it rushes like a mad bull towards him. Afterwards he sees the Phouka directing six younger ones to thrash his father's corn while the miller's men are asleep. In this form the Phouka is like an old withered man dressed in rags. The boy tells his father and together they watch the phoukas at work through the crack of the door. After this the miller dismisses his men, and all the work of the mill is done by the phoukas. The mill became very prosperous. The boy Phadrig became very fond of the Phouka and night after night he watched him through the keyhole of an empty chest. He became more and more sorry for the Phouka, so old and frail and ragged, and working so hard to keep the idle little phoukas up to their york. At length, out of pure love and gratitude, he bought stuff and had a beautiful coat and breeches made for the Phouka, and laid them out for him to find. The Phouka was delighted with them, but decided that he was too fine to work any more. When he left all the little phoukas ran away, but the mill kept its prosperity, and when Phadrig married a beautiful bride he found a gold cup full of wine on the bridal table. He was sure it came from the Phouka and drank it without fear, and made his bride drink too.
A Dictionary of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures, Katharine Mary Briggs, 1976. For #BookWormSat #GothicSpring
Though it may seem like inside baseball, it's also an example of something that was developed and sorted out through bitter trial and error - and much conflict and confusion - during World War II.
1. Apparently the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is on its way to deployment in the Persian Gulf, but is still more than a week away.
A meme with the heading “Sorry, I’m booked all weekend.” Below are three vertical panels labeled Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Each panel contains two circular icons. Friday: a kitchen knife icon above a person wearing a hockey mask resembling a slasher-movie villain. Saturday: a kitchen knife icon above a steaming pie. Sunday: a kitchen knife icon above a stylized bust of a Roman figure wearing a laurel wreath. The joke suggests the person’s “plans” involve stabbing or cutting things associated with each day.
Glad to talk to @nickkristof.bsky.social at the @nytimes.com about the way the United States is waging the war in Iran and the questions it raises about possible war crimes.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/o...
"The border is a factory for making racism and racist violence."
I realize that to people outside the PNW this is just an interesting news item, but if you're in the PNW, where tracking orca pods is a local religion, this is basically like being visited by alien gods
I'm convinced that the technology of fiction has advanced dramatically in recent decades. The reason a lot of old pulp novels don't hold up (and could be written at astonishing speed) isn't just that tastes have changed—it's that there's WAY more competition now, so modern authors HAVE to be better.
CNN: Trump underestimated problem of Hormuz
Trump: FAKE NEWZ!!
WSJ: Trump's advisors didn't underestimate the problem, Trump kept the smart ones out of the room and ignored what contrary advice he got
www.wsj.com/politics/nat...
The job *was* to wreck and purge, just like Musk and DOGE. All revolutions need these people.
Trump Has Seized More Ballots as Part of His Effort to Take Over the 2026 Midterms slate.com/news-and-pol...
As I put it on the pod, Team USA needs to simultaneously tighten up (DeRosa) and chill the fuck out (everything else)
Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Iran’s attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe. We have already destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military capability, but it’s easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are. Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a Nation that has been totally decapitated. In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Days after declaring total victory and boasting that no other military could match the US, Trump is now begging other countries — including China — to send warships to stop his Iran war from spiraling into catastrophe.
A galactic humiliation.
The bill would have created a new exemption for several highway-related records under Mississippi’s Public Records Act.
Anti-ICE protesters accused of being part of antifa found guilty of support for terrorism in Texas www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
When a federal judge (finally) put ICE officers under oath, they admitted that they are given daily detention quotas and rely heavily on a Palantir-supplied AI tool to select targets, without warrants and without enough evidence to obtain one. They simply go into neighborhoods and round people up.
NEW: Judge orders ICE to release a Minneapolis man and asylum seeker unlawfully detained for 50 days.
In January, Elvis Joel TE + his 2-year-old were arrested without a warrant + flown to Texas despite an order barring their transfer. The girl was later released, but he remain jailed until today.
