2025-06-28


etc

  • On the Limits of Realism

    this sort of ‘normative smuggling’ in realism is not remotely new: it is exactly how the very first instances of realist political thought are framed. The first expressions of IR realism are in Thucydides, where the Athenians – first at Corinth and then at Melos – make realist arguments expressly to get other states to do something, namely to acquiesce to Athenian Empire. The arguments in both cases are explicitly normative, that Athens did not act “contrary to the common practice of mankind” (expressed in realist dog-eat-dog terms) and so in the first case shouldn’t be punished with war by Sparta and in the latter case, that the Melians should submit to Athenian rule. In both cases, the Athenians are smuggling in a normative statement about what a state should do (in the former case, seemingly against interest!) into a description of what states supposedly always do.

    I should note that one of my persistent complaints against international relations study in political science in general is that political scientists often read Thucydides very shallowly, dipping in for the theory and out for the rest. But Thucydides’ reader would not have missed that it is always the Athenians who make the realist arguments and they lost both the arguments the war. When Thucydides has the Melians caution that the Athenians’ ‘realist’ ruthlessness would mean “your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon” the ancient Greek reader knows they are right, in a way that it often seems to me political science students seem to miss.

    And there’s a logical contradiction inherent in this sort of normative smuggling, which is that the smuggling is even necessary at all. After all, if states are mostly rational and largely pursue their own interests, loudly insisting that they should do so seems a bit pointless, doesn’t it? Using realism as a way to describe the world or to predict the actions of other states is consistent with the logical system, but using it to persuade other states – or your own state – seems to defeat the purpose. If you believe realism is true, your state and every other is going to act to maximize its power, regardless of what you do or say. If they can do otherwise than there must be some significant space for institutions, customs, morals, norms or simple mistakes and suddenly the air-tight logical framework of realism begins to break down.

    • I think he's building and burning straw men here; but its entertaining at the very least. "this is what realists believe" and why they shouldn't; but all $X are rarely $Y.

Horseshit


Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

Trump

  • Mediator proposes $20 million settlement in Trump's CBS lawsuit, WSJ reports | Reuters

    CBS said Trump has not provided any evidence that the “60 Minutes” interview represents commercial speech. “Effectively conceding that their claims cannot survive if the Broadcasts are editorial speech subject to full First Amendment protections, Plaintiffs argue that the Broadcasts somehow became ‘commercial speech’ via a simple promotion for the Interview,” CBS said. “But they provide this Court with nothing that would support the conclusion that the Face the Nation and 60 Minutes Broadcasts — involving an interview of a presidential candidate about issues of utmost public concern — are anything but fully protected editorial speech, and they cite not a single case holding that news broadcasts (or promotions for such broadcasts) are commercial speech. Indeed, the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected that argument. The First Amendment applies fully to the news reporting at issue and bars Plaintiffs’ claims.”

  • Who Counts? Trump Poised To Try To Remove Noncitizens From Census.

Democrats

  • Democratic establishment melts down over Mamdani's win in New York

    Establishment Democrats looking to recover from 2024's losses fear Mamdani could hurt the party's brand nationally — while young progressives believe his formula could spread beyond New York. On Wednesday, many Democratic lawmakers and officials either denounced Mamdani or notably declined to rally around him. Republicans — including President Trump — crowed about Democrats embracing a democratic socialist who has called for reduced police funding and sided with Palestinians in the Gaza war. The top two Democratic leaders in Congress, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, both New Yorkers, declined to endorse Mamdani even as they applauded his victory.

  • Chris Cuomo says Democratic Party ‘dead,’ after brother loses NY mayor primary to democrat-socialist.

  • Jill Biden's 'work husband' Anthony Bernal snubs House Oversight probe of ex-president Biden's decline

    Top Biden aide Anthony Bernal is refusing to appear before a House Republican-led committee on Thursday to answer questions about the purported cover-up of the president’s cognitive decline while in office. Bernal, known as first lady Jill Biden’s “work husband” and a loyal member of the family’s inner circle, flouted an invitation to sit for a transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee after the Trump White House waived executive privilege for the testimony.

Left Angst

  • RFK Jr.'s CDC panel ditches some flu shots based on anti-vaccine junk data

  • Classified Report That Suggested Iranian Nuclear Program Still Intact Likely Relied on Faulty Info From Iranian Sources, Former Intel Officers Say

    The U.S. intelligence community deemed that initial assessment "low-confidence," a fact CNN omitted from its original piece, and based it solely on satellite imagery and intercepted communications—known as signals intelligence, or SIGINT—from Iranian officials. Shortly after the assessment leaked, Axios reported that communications intercepted by Israel "suggest Iranian military officials have been giving false situation reports to the country's political leadership—downplaying the extent of the damage." Such communications likely made their way into the DIA report, according to three former U.S. intelligence operatives, a current U.S. official, and other veteran national security insiders who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon both on and off the record. Some of them referred to the DIA as the "discount intelligence agency." "It's basically messaging by the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], messaging by Tehran," said Michael Pregent, a former intelligence officer with U.S. Central Command who operated in the Middle East for nearly 30 years. "DIA is taking a SIGINT report from the National Security Agency ... and putting together an assessment to leak. I know it’s messaging, the Iranians know it’s messaging, and for some reason, NSA believes it’s actual f—ing intelligence."

    “CNN’s reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence,” the statement reads. “We have extensively covered President Trump’s own deep skepticism about it. However, we do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest.”

  • 'Graveyard of companies' Climate tech startups feeling the heat from Trump 2.0

  • Notes on Epistemic Collapse

    For a long time I’ve been having difficulty making sense for myself of a lot of what is going on in the world around me. Recently I’ve found that a useful way of understanding some otherwise baffling things is as products of what is sometimes called “epistemic collapse”. By “epistemic collapse” I mean the collapse of a shared reality, caused by the loss of reliable sources for distinguishing what is true from what is false. Someone I’ve found to have a very insightful take on this is Bellingcat’s Eliot Higgins. Some of his best explanations of the problem are at threads on his Bluesky feed, for example here and this recent one, which includes:

    The danger isn’t just that people believe lies. It’s that entire communities become locked into belief systems that can’t be challenged, where loyalty replaces evidence, and disagreement feels like betrayal. That doesn’t just distort truth, it breaks trust. When this happens at scale, it’s not just bad information, it’s a breakdown in how society makes decisions. We lose the ability to deliberate, to find common ground, to hold anyone accountable. That’s what disordered discourse really is, a collapse in collective reasoning.

    I find thinking in these terms helps to make sense of the bizarre and disturbing new political situation in the US and elsewhere, with a new form of Fascism on the march. Autocrats are coming to power on a wave of lies and the destruction of institutions that can provide the facts needed for a shared reality. Efforts to fight this by just coming up with better policy proposals are doomed, what is needed is some way to bring back reality to our information environment. Absent this, we’re looking at a future dominated by autocrats governing through lies and a system of client oligarchs who work with them. The US is now well on its way there.

    • Note that only "institutions can provide the facts needed for a shared reality." That's the religious faith this person doesn't even see they assume, even as they demand it of the world. Reality provides the facts which define our shared reality. They are available to all, regardless of the opinions the proper people manning the institutions have of them, or us.
  • Univ of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure from Trump Administration

  • Ex-Doge employee 'Big Balls' gets new Trump administration position

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

  • California EPA hazardous substances engineer arrested, charged with trying to support ISIS.

    A very different picture emerges about Akhtar, who remains listed as a hazardous substances engineer at the California Environmental Protection Agency, in the criminal complaint accusing him of trying to give money, guns and ammunition to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, and of threatening to kill Jews. The 33-year-old, who, according to his LinkedIn profile, is a 2023 graduate of the University of the Pacific, gave the money and weapons to an undercover law-enforcement officer he thought was an ISIS member in Iraq, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday. He faces up to 20 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.

  • Dozens of Illegal Aliens Working at Meat Processing Plant with Stolen IDs Screened with E-Verify | Judicial Watch

    A recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) worksite enforcement operation at Glenn Valley Foods in Omaha, Nebraska busted over 70 illegal aliens who were using stolen Social Security numbers and identities to unlawfully obtain wages, health benefits and employment authorization, according to the agency. The criminal identity theft scheme left “more than 100 real victims to face devastating financial, emotional and legal consequences,” ICE writes in its announcement of the operation. Incredibly, Glenn Valley Foods was reportedly 100% compliant with E-Verify, a costly government database launched nearly three decades ago that screens new employees using records from various agencies to confirm candidates are in the country legally. The web-based system claims to match information provided by new hires against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA) records. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) operates it because the agency is responsible for administering the nation’s lawful immigration system.

  • U.S. Charges 11 in Russia-Based Scheme to Bilk Medicare of $10.6B

Health / Medicine

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

  • Rates of successful conceptions according to COVID-19 vaccination status: Data from the Czech Republic

    Adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccination on human menstrual cycle characteristics have been observed, but limited data are available on the relationship between COVID-19 vaccination status and birth rates. Therefore, we used nationwide data from the Czech Republic to examine rates of successful conceptions (SCs), that is, conceptions leading to live births 9 months later, for women who were either vaccinated or unvaccinated against COVID-19 before SC. Summary monthly COVID-19 vaccination and birth data for women in the Czech Republic aged 18–39 years were retrieved for the period from January 2021 to December 2023. The numbers of SCs per month per 1000 women were calculated for preconception-vaccinated or unvaccinated women, respectively, as well as the number of SCs per month per 1000 women for all women aged 18–39 years. During the study period, there were approximately 1,300,000 women aged 18–39 years in the Czech Republic, and the proportion of COVID-19-vaccinated women increased from January 2021 until reaching a steady state of around 70% by the end of 2021. At least from June 2021, SCs per 1000 women were considerably lower for women who were vaccinated, compared to those that were unvaccinated, before SC. Furthermore, SC rates for the vaccinated group were much lower than expected based on their proportion of the total population. In the Czech Republic, SC rates were substantially lower for women vaccinated against COVID-19 before SC than for those who were not vaccinated. These hypothesis-generating and preliminary results call for further studies of the potential influence of COVID-19 vaccination on human fecundability and fertility.