I was in a 2 hour briefing today on the Iran War. All the briefings are closed, because Trump can't defend this war in public.
I obviously can't disclose classified info, but you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are.
1/ Here's what I can share:
“Bluesky pianists’ expertise suddenly becoming relevant to issues of US military spending” was not on my bingo card but here we are
This is a legit correct assessment given the reporting that 1) Witkoff, Jared, & team clown shoes didn't read the negotiation docs the Iranians prepped because it was too much work & 2) didn't understand any of the technical details of Iran's nuclear program & just assumed the worst.
We must never lose sight of how absolutely fucking hallucinatorily batshit this is. The other guy says when you surrender now? That means *you* are the one suing for peace
He is deliberately avoiding telling the truth, right? it's not that he doesn't know it.
Project 2025 lays out very clearly how these people want to break the back of U.S. culture, education, academia, and science, but he can't say that
Chris Murphy: "I Just came from a two hour, closed door classified briefing on the war. It just confirmed to me it's totally incoherent. We are not gonna be able to achieve any of our stated objectives ... this is a disaster of epic proportions, a 10 day debacle"
Kim: The vast majority of what I hear in these classified briefings can be said publicly, but they intentionally do this to as a tactic to be able to prevent the American people from hearing and questioning what it is that they're doing.
They know that the American people do not want a war
The US has, in slightly over a year, torched what was once one of the best repositories of legal talent (the DOJ) in favor of...uh...total hacks now struggling under an impossible workload made all the more impossible by an administration that is acting without even the faintest color of law.
This has 100% happened. The DOGE boys have an unmonitored, unsecured Signal chat where they make their plans and openly exchange data that are completely illegal for them to have viewed, let alone exfiltrated.
He allegedly said "he needed help transferring data from a thumb drive “to his personal computer so that he could ‘sanitize’ the data before using it at [the company.] ... [and] that he expected to receive a presidential pardon ... ." www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
“The childhood vaccination schedule needs to be eliminated," MAHA Institute's president said at a meeting Monday, @notus.com reports www.notus.org/health-scien...
an incredibly difficult problem here is that even if iran could somehow get an acceptable guarantee out of trump, netanyahu might not honor it, and vice versa
This does suggest new ways for government employees with access to upcoming social media posts to bet in both the stock market and now prediction markets with the benefit of inside information.
Whoa. This is big. "The U.S. Navy has refused near-daily requests from the shipping industry for military escorts through the Strait of Hormuz since the start of the war on Iran, saying the risk of attacks is too high for now." www.reuters.com/world/middle...
Goodnight from Lewis Bramwell, comforted by the thought that if he dies due to tripping on one of the hundreds of books on his staircase at least his ghost will have a lot to read. Goodnight from Gemma Cross, scrabbling to make a chalk circle around her bed. Goodnight from Hookland.
Scoop: DHS ousted multiple privacy officers at CBP after they questioned orders to purposely mislabel records about government surveillance to prevent their release under FOIA.
Hahaha Israel, noted for its many ceasefires
Q: Senator Britt just told us they have offered to sit down with Democrats--
SCHUMER: It's a lot of bull
Let me clarify something for those not steeped in FloriDUH politics. Should Rubio, who was born into & grew up in one of the Cuban-American cartels that devolved out of the Bay of Pigs militias (VEOs), & his fellow travelers get their way, they WILL NOT be greeted as liberators. 1/
This is nuts.
Somebody call Chili Palmer! 😳 Holy Crap, Mercedes-Benz Is Actually Bringing This New Luxury Minivan To America www.theautopian.com/holy-crap-me...
Josh Marshall: I think right now it’s clear that Trump does not have the stomach for a true regime change war, and he’s going to try to get out of this as quickly as he can.
One, great job by @davidjbier.bsky.social, but also Kennedy calls it "blue-skee"
Absolutely no one could have predicted
This is just astonishingly great reporting.
All of the crises the White House has claimed over the last 14 months were planned in advance. All of them.
And however much contempt you have for media outlets who reverently relayed Trump's claim to have no relation to Project 2025, it isn't enough.
Last year, Philly finally got a long overdue women's sports bar. The city cops raided it www.inquirer.com/food/bars/ma...
This demonstrates the importance for time travellers of having a change purse with clearly marked compartments for different currencies. (Pick one up any year after 1893)
That Dem consultants told Gov. Walz to stop calling them “weird” still has me miffed.
I've been thinking about whether to post this, but Adam Serwer's latest column convinced me.
Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes continues to push a story about "Havana Syndrome." I want to look away from the way he presents the story and suggest a different sort of evidence. 1/
Has he tried swimming in the potomac or other alternative cures? Is he not eating enough protein? This sort of thing doesn't happen to people who follow the right lifestyle.
