James Gibney

The Senate's IQ has just risen dramatically. Bon Voyage, Senator Mullin!

The Pentagon's snuff films always miss the point about America's overseas adventures: No one blows up things as well as the US military; our problem is that we aren't very good at, or very focused on, putting them back together again.

A Big Chance For the Kurds? They’ve Heard That Before Every outside power that has ever armed them has treated them as expendable. The CIA's latest operation follows a pattern that stretches back 80 years — and the Venezuela playbook suggests how it ends

My latest: Every outside power that has ever armed the Kurds has treated them as expendable. The CIA's latest operation in Iran follows a pattern that stretches back 80 years — and the Venezuela playbook suggests how it ends

open.substack.com/pub/bobbygho...

America Second, Israel First? It was bad enough that Donald Trump hasn’t been able to explain clearly why he yet again felt he had to attack Iran, and why now. His national security advisor and secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the...

Marco Rubio lets slip that the US attacked Iran because Israel had already decided to do so. If true, that is bloodcurdling, says @andreaskluth.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Milei’s Insults Energize His Base. Investors, Not So Much If you thought Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech was incendiary, try Javier Milei’s version.

If President Javier Milei wants to woo international investment, he should focus more on passing reforms than on insulting opponents, says @jpspinetto.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Bitcoin Slump Disrupts Bukele’s Digital Utopia The future was pitched as utopia: Adopting Bitcoin would catapult El Salvador into a techno-libertarian paradise, banking the unbanked, attracting global innovators and financing futuristic projects, ...

Risking El Salvador’s IMF program for a crypto obsession makes no sense. President Nayib Bukele needs a reality check, says @jpspinetto.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

I prefer "Operation Power Pack," which is what the Johnson Administration called its intervention in the Dominican Republic...

What is it about the semantics of US Middle East policy? You can't call what the US condoned in Gaza as a war crime or genocide, and you can't call what the US is doing in Iran as war. Fig leafs everywhere.

The unwillingness of the GOP Congress even to tut-tut Trump's trampling of their Constitutional responsibilities for declarations of war (and so much else) reminds me of that immortal line from Clockwork Orange: "Padre, these are subtleties."

Here’s a thought for James Comer.

There IS a First Lady who has had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And it’s not Hillary Clinton.

It might be worthwhile for Comer to subpoena the First Lady who actually knows Epstein.

You know, just to see what she knows.

It's nice that the Feds released the Columbia student they nabbed by impersonating NY police. But what really needs to happen is that the ICE thugs who did this face some kind of disciplinary action.

Has Trump Delivered on His Promises? What These 12 Metrics Tell Us The president is struggling to sell his “economic miracle” to voters. What do the numbers say? These data points cut through the political noise.

President Trump’s campaign promised voters lower prices, higher wages and a massive deportation campaign. What has he achieved? @opinion.bloomberg.com analyzed 12 metrics to cut through the political noise www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

Sheinbaum Kills a Drug Lord and Crosses Her Rubicon Murders, torched cars and highway blockades. Bank branches set ablaze on otherwise empty streets. Tourists stranded in resorts in Puerto Vallarta. Classes suspended in at least 13 states.

The death of Mexico’s most powerful cartel lord marks a risky but decisive shift by President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government toward confronting organized crime head-on, says @jpspinetto.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Wait, I thought the US "obliterated" Iran's nuke program? Special envoy Steve Witkoff warned on Fox News that Iran is “probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material. And that’s really dangerous. So they can’t have that.”

Supremes' tariff ruling reminds me of the classic Cheech & Chong line, "Bailiff, whack his pee pee." Amen!

US GDP Rose at Slower-Than-Forecast Pace of 1.4% Last Quarter The US economy grew less than expected at the end of last year, dragged down by a record-long government shutdown, consumer spending and trade.

For most Americans, the "Golden Age" economy is best captured in Jerry Reed's 1972 classic, "She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)." Assume the position, 'Murrica... www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Brazil Can't Afford Another Supreme Court Scandal Carnaval may be winding down, but the political scandal shaking Brazil’s establishment is only gathering steam.

Tainted by a big banking scandal and facing a heated election cycle, Brazil's top court must take some big steps to restore public trust, says @jpspinetto.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

The ‘Board of Peace’ Is an Ego Trip The American president, in his new and additional function as chairman of a so-called Board of Peace, is about to host the leaders of some two dozen countries whom he has invited to join as members. T...

Trump's Board of Peace no longer has anything to do with its UN mandate and should be blackballed, says @andreaskluth.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

It always surprises me, this day, like some imaginary twinge from a lost limb.

Mexico Can Call Trump’s Bluff on Trade Tensions over the revision of North America’s trade pact are escalating.

The US and Mexican economies are now so integrated that unraveling the USMCA pact would be far more damaging to Washington than President Trump suggests, says @jpspinetto.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Cuba Is Home Alone in Latin America Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl show may have been unforgettable, but it wasn’t the biggest Latin American story this weekend. That (unhappy) distinction belongs to Cuba.

Cuba is running out of fuel and supplies. Worse, its old BFFs no longer seem willing to help, says @jpspinetto.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Tonight's antidote to madness: Miles Davis '58 Sessions. Just an amazing assemblage. Stella by Starlight will light you up and shut you down.

Mexico’s Cheeky Airline Merger Is an Anti-Trust Nightmare Imagine your company controls 70% of a market. Any market. Tasty, right? For most tycoons, that would be the ultimate fantasy.

A proposed airline merger amounts to a maiden flight for Mexico’s new competition authority. Its success depends on demonstrating its independence, says @jpspinetto.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

YouTube video by Channel Awesome To Serve Man - Twilight-Tober Zone

When you hear AI wizards talk about the sunny uplands that await humanity, just remember that "To Serve Man" was a cookbook... www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvno...

Congress Must Stop War by Mission Creep As in Venezuela last month, as in Iraq in 2003 — as in so many places for thousands of years — so perhaps again in Iran soon: The leader of a major power weighs an attack, and adjusts his reasons to j...

A democracy that is not itself under attack should explain clearly why it has to go to war and what the goal is, says @andreaskluth.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

The US and Venezuela Are Both Pursuing a Devil’s Bargain What has followed the forced extraction of Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela is neither transition nor collapse, but takeover. The dictator is gone; the dictatorship is not. Whatever its strategi...

"First denied by the Venezuelan autocracy, democracy was then rendered irrelevant by the American intervention. That convergence is the story. Its result has been an imperial-authoritarian administration," says @carlosbrevoreg www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Trump can’t evict China from Latin America The U.S. has little to offer but threats

Trump can’t evict China from Latin America. @eduardoelreportero.bsky.social has the goods
open.substack.com/pub/eduardoe...

US Foreign Policy Is Now Medieval The search continues for a framework to make sense of, or at least label, the baffling state of world affairs since Donald Trump took his second oath of office as president of the United States. And n...

To make sense of America's baffling foreign policy under Trump, you need to understand 'neo-royalism,' says @andreaskluth.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...