Ilmi

"Cartelization of knowledge and expertise" is just fancy professor-speak for "stop guys you're ganging up on me."

The worst consequence of the necessary step of Finland and Sweden joining NATO is that we lost some of the most important voices on nuclear sanity and disarmament by doing so. That was the best—albeit rightfully losing—argument for them staying out.

All I can say is: yeesh.

Image of children pouring out of doors into a courtyard in green, red, and blue jackets. TPR Protest breaks out at Dilley immigration detention facility holding 5-year-old Liam Ramos By David Martin Davies | TPR

Kids are protesting and begging for freedom in Dilley, TX at an ICE detention center. Kids. Liam Ramos was sent here.

These are children screaming for freedom.

A reminder to the news media: “conflicting accounts” is what you say BEFORE the incontrovertible video evidence appears. After that, your job is to ask why one side is lying, not to repeat the lie and pretend no one knows the truth.

Trump’s endless empowerment of federal immigration agents has resulted in yet another senseless killing. This brutal crackdown has to end.

I cannot and will not vote to fund DHS while this administration continues these violent federal takeovers of our cities.

Penguins? In Greenland!? Are you Faukland kidding me!!?

It's hard to know whether the best part of this meme is the loneliness of it, the reference to a Batman villain, or the absurd zoological ignorance.

a man in a purple top hat and bow tie is holding a cigarette ALT: a man in a purple top hat and bow tie is holding a cigarette

Embrace the what now?

But how much did they offer to pay you to read it?

But you have to admit: "Mine, baby, mine" does fit this administration to a T.

Funny! Spot on. On 10 Jan, I suggested the same to a Swedish diplomat, who insisted that it was a terrible idea and that we needed to work towards a diplomatic solution "because NATO." I said yes, because of NATO, I'm saying raise the cost of the alternative.

Funny that he picked walnuts, since 99% of US walnuts are grown in California.

When it comes to right wing conspiracies, you know it always comes around to blaming the bergs.

*Garden, singular!

This is why the Gardens of the Finzi-Continis (1970) is, by far, the film that has influenced my view of fascism the most. It showed--personally, empathetically--how incredibly easy it is for elites to seek comfort in the illusion that they are insulated from directly suffering fascism's injustices.

It's all so very Buddhas of Bamiyan.

Exposing hypocrisy only works, rhetorically, if you can establish that the accused party purports to uphold values you share, and then fails to do so. This is what it means to accuse something of being un-American.

(See, e.g., Douglass, F. (1852) "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?")

The kind of people who are horrified at what is happening here and find it deeply un-American are, maybe counterintuitively, the kind of people who are MORE likely than average to know and remember historic abuses. It is their determination to rise above them that gives them moral strength!

A whole lot of "well, it worked for me" energy.

Jeffries Won’t Whip Vote Against ICE Funding - The American Prospect While the House Democratic leader announced personal opposition to a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, he won’t pressure his colleagues to do the same.

NEWS: While Hakeem Jeffries has announced he's opposing the DHS/ICE funding bill tomorrow, his team is not whipping the vote. Several frontliners are expected to vote yes. There's a difference in leadership between personal vote decisions & unifying the caucus.
From me:
prospect.org/2026/01/21/j...

"If great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism will become harder to replicate... Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty."

We genuinely wouldn't know which parties to reach out to! There's the rub.

One thing I'd like to see from the Democratic Party is an explicit attempt to build the sort of transnational solidarity between parties of liberal democracy that exists between parties of the nationalist far right.

Though no Pests, Many little Bodhis to be sure.

"The bull will have no impact on the china shop because he makes no housewares."

Between Mamdani and Spanberger, the establishment of "instantly repeal all the bullshit the last pig put in place" as Democratic priority #1 for both democratic socialists and ex-CIA types is an extremely heartening development.

In this economy? 😂

Perhaps rose colored glasses, but...are the tariffs a climbdown?

In Indonesia, 35% of new car sales were battery-electric models last month. Quite extraordinary. But let's see what the next few months bring.

Hey @aiannucci.bsky.social, this here's a bat signal.