@asfried.bsky.social
Political scientist, kayaker Emeritus, UMaine Political Sightlines at https://amyfried.substack.com/ Books on how U.S. conservatives weaponized distrust, New England politics, professionalizing polling, and perceptions of public opinion as a resource
Sure!
"A leading Jewish refugee advocate has vowed that solidarity work with asylum seekers will continue despite growing harassment from far-right activists targeting Jewish organisations supporting refugees." www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...
The shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz aren’t particularly deep. Bombing the shoreline could conceivably result in a much more permanent closure of the strait.
1/What is happening at the Pentagon? Wall Street recruiters promise positions that "gain access to fund-raising channels that include royal families and foreign sovereign contacts". This is not military contracting but rebuilding the state around neo-royalism.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/u...
Inside the Department of War are two wolves:
"We've shut down the Colleges of War because book learnings are woke, gay, and irrelevant to war fighting."
"How come no one told us the Strait is important, there are different kinds of Kurds, Iran is big, and air power historically doesn't win wars?"
Republicans do the corruption directly. Jared Kushner solicits money from oil kingdoms as he is conducting war in the region. It cuts out the middleman www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/b...
I’ve wondered about the sidelining and firing of middle eastern experts at the State Department and how that played into the decision to go to war with Iran.
The Embassy of Lebanon in Washington, D.C., and the Lebanese Consulate in Detroit issued a statement strongly condemning the terrorist attack on a Jewish synagogue in Michigan, rejecting all violence against places of worship and innocent civilians. 🇱🇧
Yemen’s Houthis have announced they’ll be joining the war in support of Iran shortly. Analysts expect them to shut down another strait, Bab El-Mandeb, which will close the Suez Canal. The global economy hangs by a thread.
A Pentagon recruiter openly offers corruption: “unmatched access to top-level government officials and privileged information flow — whatever you need, you can get.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/u...
CNN: Trump underestimated problem of Hormuz
Trump: FAKE NEWZ!!
WSJ: Trump's advisors didn't underestimate the problem, Trump kept the smart ones out of the room and ignored what contrary advice he got
www.wsj.com/politics/nat...
That has nothing to do with whether it’s moral to attack Jewish preschoolers in Michigan. Your moral barometer is broken.
Hegseth: Why do the headlines say inflammatory things like “war intensifies”?
Pentagon official press release 3 days ago: Hegseth says war intensifies
And that has what to do with the crime of attacking Jews in Michigan?
To bring up a nation’s war crimes with discussing attacking civilians in another country is profoundly misguided and immoral.
Um, that’s you.
You wrote the sentence, which somehow had to do with the attack on a synagogue,
Who is “they”?
The boundaries of war do not encompass places of worship and if you’re alleging that this man was engaged in an act of war, then he further committed a war crime (beyond attacking civilians without any pretense of attacking combatants) by concealing himself in civilian clothing.
When a federal judge (finally) put ICE officers under oath, they admitted that they are given daily detention quotas and rely heavily on a Palantir-supplied AI tool to select targets, without warrants and without enough evidence to obtain one. They simply go into neighborhoods and round people up.
I would like to point out: the reason synagogues are doing active shooter drills is because they’re expecting people to shoot them up, based on precedent.
using it as evidence that it’s a false flag isn’t just antisemitic, it’s also stupid
idk maybe it’s just me but I don’t think you get to call yourself “antiZionist [but] pro Judaism” if you think driving a car full of explosives into the entrance hall of a preschool with over 100 kids in a US synagogue is a “revenge attack” against the Israeli military
Yes but it also has to do with the Maine press’s routines.
The remarkable thing is that no game-planning on DoD and War College desks and conference room tables could have omitted the importance of the Straits and the likelihood that Iran would Iran would close it or materially curtail traffic. We are in the Age of Bozo Leadership.
My position is simple: Don't violently attack people for their views, religious or otherwise. Use your words.
And does that mean you want to kill all people who go to a church, synagogue, mosque or temple? Do you defend people who want to do so?
Which ones? Hegseth or random people in a church somewhere? Civilians worshipping shouldn't be violently attacked because of their policy views, ever.
For sure and that matters more than national folks realize.
Mills has a great deal of local knowledge and relationships. Platner doesn't so he'd have to contend that the big, national policies are what matters the most and ultimately he'd be able to deliver locally, too, while doing more big pic.
