Like the neocons, Trump’s neo-neocons repeatedly invoke the West’s complacency and unwillingness to defend its own values, a frailty that can be rectified only through the ritual use of military force against weaker targets. The conservative writer Jonah Goldberg once articulated what he called the “Ledeen Doctrine,” after the neoconservative Michael Ledeen, which was: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” Despite Trump’s rejection of George W. Bush, MAGA bears many similarities to the right-wing politics of that era—a fetishization of violence and torture, the treatment of opposition as treasonous, a disdain for due process, and an anti-Muslim bigotry at odds with fundamental American principles.

Pundits loved telling you about Trump's "anti-interventionism" because it seemed contrarian and interesting, but he always represented neoconservatism's worst impulses shorn of any moral pretense or concern www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

keep in mind that they've accomplished this amid the almost total retraction of US support. truly one of the most impressive war efforts in world history.

The battle used to be over whether detained noncitizens should get bond hearings. But now judges want detainees released outright, because bond hearings before AG Bondi’s immigration judges would be “futile.” h/t @kyledcheney.bsky.social ...
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storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Inside Texas A&M’s Scramble to Censor Its Curriculum Documents reveal widespread uncertainty, even among administrators, over what professors could teach.

Inside Texas A&M’s Scramble to Censor Its Curriculum

Documents reveal widespread uncertainty, even among administrators, over what professors could teach.
www.chronicle.com/article/insi...

honestly, this goes in the war crimes prosecution file, a pretty clear declaration that the mission is not guided by rules rooted in the law of armed conflict

A core finding of my forthcoming book on the history of US CT in Afghanistan is that you cannot, in fact, just kill people you think are bad and have it all be fine 🙄

Rightly. Democratic leadership ought to be accountable to the demos.

Pentagon tells Congress no sign that Iran was going to attack US first, sources say Trump administration officials acknowledged in closed-door briefings with congressional staff on Sunday that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran planned to attack U.S. forces first, two people f...

Trump administration officials acknowledged in closed-door briefings with congressional staff that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran planned to attack US forces first, two people familiar with the matter said reut.rs/46ybyTg

Maralago delenda est.

I have come away from my last conference cautiously optimistic about how useful AI can be in reversing malware and extremely scared about all of the new attack surface being created in the use and deployment of AI tools.

Pres Trump told me tonight the US had identified possible candidates to take over Iran, but they were killed in the initial attack. "The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates," Trump told me. "It's not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead."

complete insanity

84% of the time, “ChatGPT Health” killed a customer using their paid service as advertised

🎯🎯

A Great Grey Owl outstretches her wings wide to slow down. The background is snow covered. Her talons can be seen getting ready to grab the landing post.

The grace and ease with which a Great Grey Owl moves is a sight to behold. Here a Great Grey uses her wings to slow down as she approaches a post to land on. And check out those talons! #wildlife #birds #owls

He then added ‘10/10’

This isnt true. I’ve seen other ppl saying it & it’s wrong. Iran consistently intervened against Trump. That part was true.

The point of having the fake Proud Boys make threats was to get news coverage of a false flag of Trump supporters making threats.

In 2022 it boosted left candidates.

OFFS. When Iran tried to interefere in 2020, researchers caught them and called them out. Then the Benz-Weiss-Taibbi-Musk-Jordan-Trump axis labeled those researchers "censors" ... and set about defunding them and dismantling their organizations.

This.

In Iran, air power alone will not reshape the regime. Since WWI, dozens of U.S., Israeli & allied air campaigns have tried to force political change — none installed friendly governments. None! They strengthen nationalism and intensify resistance.

the guy who wrote the literal book on this stuff is dunking on the admin:

“They make a desert and call it peace.”

There it is. Blew up a school. Claude Code at work.

The sober, careful researchers of @bellingcat.com are highly experienced at examining breaking news imagery and verifying what's initially known. They will authenticate images, establish the geographic location of events, and examine imagery of locations prior to incidents.

U.S.-Israel strikes 🧵:

User Chris: What was the core difference why you think the DoW accepted OpenAI but not Anthropic Sam Altman: I can't speak for them, but to speculate with the best understanding of the situation. *First, I saw reporting that they were extremely close on a deal, and for much of the time both sides really wanted to reach one. I have seen what happens in tense negotiations when things get stressed and deteriorate super fast, and I could believe that was a large part of what happened here. *We believe in a layered approach to safety--building a safety stack, deploying FDEs and having our safety and alignment researcher involved, deploying via cloud, working directly with the DoW. Anthropic seemed more focused on specific prohibitions in the contract, rather than citing applicable laws, which we felt comfortable with. We feel that it it's very important to build safe system, and although documents are also important, I'd clearly rather rely on technical safeguards if I only had to pick one. *We and the DoW got comfortable with the contractual language, but I can understand other people would have a different opinion here. *I think Anthropic may have wanted more operational control than we did

I saw some folks asking what the difference was between what OpenAI signed with the DoD and what Anthropic said they wanted, and Sam more or less admits here the key point: OpenAI's deal requires them to trust the NSA. Anthropic's contract had real safeguards.

Seems like we should be investing in anti-drone defenses that are more affordable than fighter aircraft and surface to air missiles.

Does the FIFA peace prize mean nothing anymore?

Great 🧵 with many links to what political science research & history can tell us about FIRCs:

So far, appears to likely be the case too.

“A lot of politicians during Black History Month are talking about John Ware and Violet King and holding up these people as examples of Black excellence. If they are also participating in anti-immigrant rhetoric today, their words of praise for the legacies of previous immigrants ring hollow.”

Certainly would have.