James Downie

MAGA Unreality vs the World The U.S. government is in the hands of people who are fully detached from reality. That is a major weakness for the regime – but also a source of further radicalization.

I believe MAGA will ultimately fail to consolidate authoritarian rule. But for the time being, the powers of the U.S. government are in the hands of a regime that is hellbent on imposing its unreality on America and the world.

And that is truly frightening.

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Blumenthal: "I have emerged from classified briefings deeply concerned and very fearful that we're on the precipice not only of an escalating conflict that in region, but also putting troops on the ground b/c that is almost inevitably the path the admin has chosen by its current tactical approach"

B of A:

“.. consumer stimulus from the OBBBA is so far getting reflected more in smaller-than-usual tax payments, vs. larger-than-usual refunds.” 😞

it must've felt so fucking good to say this to the trump admin lawyer

SpaceX: the final frontier of IPOs Can Elon Musk’s moonshot deliver the mooted $1.75tn valuation?

SpaceX probably has revenues of less than $20bn and loses money after the merger with xAI, but is targeting a $1.75 TRILLION IPO.

So Alphaville got two experts to go through how Musk will probably try to pull off what could be the biggest bagholder operation in history. www.ft.com/content/5bf1...

FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?

Trump was said to be especially upset about Noem's response when Sen. John Kennedy (R-La. pressed her Tuesday about a government-funded ad campaign that Kennedy said only served ta boost her own personal name recognition nationally. The $220 million contract for the ad campaign was awarded to a firm run by the husband of former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. The ads were filmed in October at Mount Rushmore. Under questioning from Kennedy, Noem said repeatedly that Trump personally approved the controversial ad blitz featuring her in the lead role. This has so angered Trump that Noem's future at DHS may be at risk we're told. <

Punchbowl: After Noem's appearances before Congress earlier this week, "Trump has quietly asked Hill Republicans if he should fire Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem,...according to multiple Republicans who have spoken with the president." punchbowl.news/archive/3526...

Quietly, calmly and forensically, BBC just dismantled the Trump communications shitshow on Iran.

No hyperbole, just laying out an unprecedented military, diplomatic and reputational shambles.

Worth a watch.

(🎥 BBC News/BBC Verify)

The most amazing thing about the latest GOP Nazi group chat story is that the ending is *exactly the same* as the ending of a different story by a different publication about an entirely different GOP Nazi group chat!

This is almost verbatim what Montreal fans said when he was *five* years younger.

It rules that the biggest name in conspiracy mongering about propaganda and shadowy elites is the son of the former head of Voice of America, tried to join the CIA, and is on the record in multiple legal cases admitting that his viewers shouldn't trust him.

It could be worse, John Fetterman could have chased after me with a gun.

That’s right.

What happens when the U.S. starts a war—and the biggest economic pain lands somewhere else? Financial markets are a real-time forecasting machine: billions of dollars placed on bets about the… Trump, Markets, And “TACO”: Why The Usual Warning Signal May Fail In Iran, Warns Justin Wolfers

Here's what worries me. The U.S. is less oil-dependent than our peers, and so Wall Street has responded far less to the war in Iran than financial markets abroad. When the country calling the shots feels only a small share of the pain, that's a dangerous asymmetry.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfTL...

A simple test for America's law firms and universities: Will you show as much integrity as Waffle House?

Remember when Sen. Sheehy accidentally shot himself in a national park and pretended he got the wound in a firefight in Afghanistan?

The threat posed by shaheds was 110% anticipated and anyone who says otherwise is either misinformed or lying

I'm aware that category apparently includes the SECDEF and chairman

"Near the end of the negotiation the [department] offered to accept our current terms if we deleted a specific phrase about 'analysis of bulk acquired data' which was the single line in the contract that exactly matched this scenario we were most worried about. We found that very suspicious," wrote Amodei in a memo to staff on Friday, which was first reported by The Information on Wednesday and seen by the FT. In the note, which is likely to complicate negotiations, Amodei wrote that much of the messaging from the Pentagon and OpenAI, which struck its own agreement with Hegseth on Friday, was "just straight up lies about these issues or tries to confuse them". Amodei suggested Anthropic had been frozen out because "we haven't given dictator-style praise to Trump" in contrast to OpenAI chief Sam Altman.

www.ft.com/content/97bd...

Maj. Jeffrey R. O’Brien, 45, of Indianola, Iowa, died on March 1, 2026, in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert M. Marzan, 54, of Sacramento, Calif. as well.

!!! Per local Montana news, Sen Steve Daines has withdrawn his name for re-election, literally minutes before the deadline to do so.

Some context: in Gallup's polling, support for the Iraq War was never lower than 41% until mid-2005, over two years into the war. (Source: news.gallup.com/poll/1633/ir...)

never, ever, ever, ever accept "how will you pay for it?" as an argument against social programs.

Easier for unarmed Iranians to take to the streets we are carpet bombing?

Justice Dept., Under Pressure From Trump, Fails to Build Autopen Case Against Biden

Another swing and miss for the Queen of Box Wine:

Trump’s War on Iran Could Screw Over US Farmers The Middle East supplies a huge amount of the world’s fertilizer. Conflict in the region has sent prices soaring ahead of the critical spring planting season.

there's a lot going on right now but did you know a massive amount of the world's fertilizer flows through the middle east, and did you know that that fertilizer needs to be shipped to the us *right now* for planting season, and uh did you know we are at war with iran

Under fire and then fired: When Kash Patel’s behavior becomes the story An MS NOW analysis finds the FBI director often lashes out after his own bad press — by firing experienced agents and staffers.

NEW FROM @carolleonnig.bsky.social: "MS NOW found that in four key instances, Patel’s decision to fire FBI agents and staff came within hours or days of unflattering accounts emerging about him and his competency to run the FBI."

READ MORE: www.ms.now/news/under-f...

"Somebody said" is the "I know my polls are terrible" version of "many people are saying."

This is the point. If your vaunted trillion-dollar military can't get through a few days of airstrikes because you've consolidated the industrial base so badly, then you don't have a trillion-dollar military, you just have contractors in No. Virginia getting rich

That is a load-bearing "virtually."

if you've ever studied FDR and the 1938 midterms this shit just seems wiiiild