Shana Gadarian

Man, they are doing the Iraq War but without even a 9/11 pretext.

At some point you wonder not just if insiders using information to place bets, but maybe also reshaping their advice to make those bets profitable.

Komrade Kristol is firmly on team “these guys suck ass and if anyone is going to be doing regime change wars it’s gonna be *me*”

The President has launched our nation and our great military into a war of choice, risking American lives and resources, ignoring American law, and endangering our allies and partners. It does nothing to help with the urgent problems here at home that Americans face every day.

Wars of choice kill those who have no choice. "Mistakes" like the reported strike on a girls' school that killed forty civilians are the predictable result of poor planning and execution.

For more on "Mistakes" in War, read this by me and @azmatzahra.bsky.social
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Two books worth reading if you haven’t.

i didn't care for schumer's statement, but if you're going to be angry at him, make sure you're much angrier at thune, who bears this obligation even more strongly than schumer and will absolutely ignore his own duty

You can tell how much trump values Iranian civilian lives and their cries for democratic government because of his pattern of not actually coming to their aid when he said he would and then his insistence on killing them for no reason

This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t

I can't fucking believe we're doing this again.

This was a premeditated attack with no conceivable emergency: the choice to do this is Congress not President. Waging war on Iran is an obvious violation of the Constitution, no different than enacting tariffs (raising taxes) or defunding USAID (spending programs).

So we are just going to war and the WH has not offered a single plausible explanation about any imminent threat nor even tried to make one up? At least Bush/Cheney had the courtesy to claim, falsely, there was WMD in Iraq.

Important thread from Jason who has a lot of important work on building and sustaining public support for war.

Just a basic question: what is the point of this attack? What do they hope to achieve? Because I am pretty sure that unless it is just distraction sauce, they are not going to achieve anything in terms of moving Iran on its policy stances.

Trump Calls for Overthrow of Iran’s Government

These are maximalist aims. A country is at its most dangerous backed into a corner facing an existential threat, which Trump appears to have unleashed. What is the off-ramp from the escalation ladder here? 2/ www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/w...

In 1789, Thomas Jefferson writing to James Madison, extolled the Constitution for instituting “one effectual check on the Dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose from the Executive to the Legislative body.”

Iran is an evil regime and deserves to fall. But that's not a good argument for launching a war of regime change without Congress and against the will of the American people.

Welp

The question is why? Why would American lives be lost? For what purpose? Please articulate this imminent national security threat to the US clearly so you didn’t have a choice, but to start a war with a country you are in full negotiations with?

Iran launches missiles at Israel, IDF says.

The Israel Defence Forces said it has identified missiles launched from Iran towards the State of Israel.

It comes as the Associated Press reports explosions have been heard in northern Israel.

There was a much stronger legal case for Iraq 2003, even if you believe that case was weak

So let’s think about this.

A private company refused - on principle - to yield to the government’s demands.

The government then cancelled its contracts with the company and has set about destroying it

“As a final message to our warriors, the Ivy League faculty lounges may loathe you, the so-called elite of academia may mock your patriotism and disdain your sacrifice, but never forget that we the War Department have your back.”

First of all -- fuck you, Pete. None of this is happening in the faculty lounges of your fever dreams.

Second, I've taught military personnel in our PhD programs and if you think slamming the door to Harvard and Princeton in their faces is "having their back" you're even dumber than you sound.

At all three places where I taught, veterans and military students are admired for their service, their ability to get their academic work done quickly and extremely well, and for often balancing family and school.

Not *once* have I ever heard a faculty member disparage a military student.

Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency Activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a draft executive order that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.

Today @washingtonpost.com reported activists are urging Trump to declare an emergency based on claims of Chinese interference in the 2020 election and use emergency powers to dramatically alter election rules. Trump has no power to run elections, even in an emergency. 🧵

An Exceptional Failure of Democratic Accountability: How American Institutions Protected Power While Global Democracies Upheld Justice How Elite Deference Eroded America's Rule of Law, Defying the Global Norm.

Here is the comparative data.

imo the threat posed by CBS News and CNN getting absorbed by pro-regime billionaires isn't that they're going to produce right-wing slop that convinces people to be right-wing, it's the dismantling of newsrooms capable of doing investigative reporting on the administration. Fewer eyes on the street.

Very interesting study. On the conclusion, I'll warn that low-effort mail-to-web surveys may not be the answer. In experimenting with these in the past, they can also produce poor estimates, particularly for Black voters. Incentives and/or live-caller surveys have been more effective