John

Pleased to announce that both volumes of On Contested Shores were added to the Commandant of the Marine Corps Professional Reading List in a recent update.
www.marines.mil/News/Message...

HAA letter to Burbank, CA for tonight's Planning Commission hearing. The City has denied the 75-unit, 100% affordable housing development project at 257 West Linden Avenue, relying on fire code sections never adopted by the City or the State.
drive.google.com/file/d/1tfHu...

Kavanaugh pretty much just said this out loud

Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum.

'We will never fucking trust you again' www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurne...

hey a fun thing is that if congress is delegating authority to an independent agency then by definition that agency is not "unaccountable." it is still accountable to congress. and it is interesting (read: extremely frustrating) to me that these people just write congress out of existence here.

Also, if your disruptor Silicon Valley firm doesn't pan out, some VCs lose a bunch of money and you have to change jobs.

Whereas if your doctrine doesn't pan out, 85,000 men are dead, 100,000+ are maimed and 1,500,000 are being held captive by literal Nazis.

The stakes are a bit higher.

The French military in 1940 is the worst possible example of this. They did adapt. They built a conventional military force based on lessons of WWI. They incorporated new technologies. They built new doctrines.

They just learned all the wrong lessons and as a result they fucking sucked.

FWIW DOJ still has not appealed the ruling disqualifying Halligan, nor have they appealed the Third Circuit ruling disqualifying Alina Habba on similar grounds (and nor did they respond to my request for comment about whether they plan to appeal)

THE ISSUE WITH THE DEFENSE BUDGET IS THAT WE THINK WE CAN COAST ON THE LEGACY INVESTMENTS WITHOUT HAVING TO SPEND MORE MONEY OR SHED CAPABILITIES OR COMMITMENTS

that does it, I've seen enough insane navy procurement takes, I'm going to have to stop pretending I'm not a naval historian and write something

I hate the Drone Ecole

Disabling replies for non-followers is so cool because the people who cannot read tone just quote tweet you to their audience of no one instead.

“A more secure world will almost certainly require more military commitment from allies like Canada, Japan and Europe”: yes, well this administration has told Canada and Europe to piss off and left Japan out to dangle re: Taiwan, so … okay.

There is no gizmo that an offset the disadvantage of not having 1.5m 155mm shells when you needed to have 1,500,000 155mm shells.

does feel like the biggest lessons from ukraine for the US et al is "you do not have enough artillery" and "you do not have enough air defense"

The liberals need something - someone - sometime soon to write about warfare from a reality-based perspective, unspoiled by the hard white nationalism of the NSS or the softer version of the Gizmo Cult / Defense Tech.

A strong Current(s), a Bulwark, to stand against the capitulation we have here.

It just drives me fucking bonkers people/organizations have this idea there was some mythical American golden age sometime between 1940-1970 where high-quality weapons were produced rapidly, cheaply, and without bureaucratic friction

I note that this gadget 'go all AI' whatever silicon valley defense framing never engages with specific challenges or their requirements.

Because what you end up with thinking through those problems isn't super-advanced bespoke systems, but a large number of basic, robust systems.

It's neither here nor there, but the kind of shit a pissant like Wurman is peddling is the exact of shit that would get you jumped by a couple of congressmen while you walked back to your bunkhouse on 1850s Washington

This is absolutely insane framing that conflates a bunch of different things. The biggest point is that applying for asylum is NOT illegal immigration, it is a legal process people are entitled to.

we are going to have to start writing laws with explicit addenda preemptively rebutting the most likely bad faith interpretations from future fedsoc hacks.

Honestly I get a lot more joy out of book sharing and informing people about new facts, so you know what? Let's do a book thread. If you're a mutual and you want a non-fiction book recommendation, let me know in the replies. Helps if you also have a genre so I can narrow things down.

the birthright clause was not just written to wipe dred scott off of the books, it was written to repudiate the *idea* behind dred scott, you might say the larger *ideological project* of dred scott. and the whole of section 1 of the 14th amendment is a constitutional statement of political equality

The way to understand the second Trump administration is as a content generation machine. They aren’t implementing fascism, they’re creating fascism-flavored content. They aren’t implementing real policy, they’re signing executive orders to post about them. Anything that gets attention is the goal.

*taps mic*

Ahem

THE US MILITARY IS NOT APOLITICAL, IT IS NONPARTISAN. BY ITS VERY EXISTENCE IT IS POLITICAL.

Please disseminate to the highest levels because they still aren’t getting it

That is all. Carry on.

BREAKING on MS NOW:
 
Brian Cole Jr., the suspect accused of being the Jan. 6 pipe bomber, confessed to agents that he planted the bombs and has indicated he supported President Trump, according to two people familiar with his interview.

This is the third newsroom (at least) with an FBI leak about the suspect being a Trump supporter. Seems some FBI folks — presumably not the political hires —are very eager to get this out there.

Summary of what happened at Temu ACIP this morning:

As expected, they overturned the 30+ year recommendation for the birth dose of HepB vaccine, which has reduced the incidence of pediatric HepB by 99%.

They provided no credible evidence to support this decision.

The way I'd put it is that there's currently a global struggle between democracy and nationalist gangster-capitalism, that this struggle is simultaneously unfolding both within and between states, and that the US currently sits at its epicentre

i do think the NSS is an insight into what a Vance administration would be like, which is *bleak*