I remember first following @bellingcat.com back during the ‘little green men’ drama of Russia’s illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014. What I couldn’t have imagined at the time was that a valuable source of news on foreign authoritarianism would need to turn their gaze homeward.
-
-
Anyone able to blend Postman and Huxley is worth sharing IMHO:
This is why, to me, these last weeks have been particularly unmooring, even after the endless chemical train wreck of 2025. The media and technology critic Neil Postman famously argued that the incipient American dystopia wasn’t the blunt overpowering fascism of 1984, but rather Huxley’s intoxicatingly mediated brave new world—we were all on the brink of amusing ourselves to death. It turns out they’ve both arrived, in tandem; the state is booming obvious falsehoods in our face and demanding we accept them, and they are simultaneously being packaged into infotainment to delight the converted and enrage the opposed. It’s a feelie that tells us 2+2=5.
-
The Trump administration has never been fond of NATO, and there are problems with it. But many of those problems are creatures of its success. NATO is like a vaccine; it has worked so well at its core purpose that people now have trouble understanding why it is necessary to continue it. It’s insanely cheap at the price we pay; no one in 1935 would even believe it possible…
…I also doubt that Trump has any intention of a serious trade war over this. It almost seems like the perfect time to go long on a TACO trade. What I think Trump never accounts for is the cost of bluffs. This isn’t poker, where you play hard at the table and when you get up everyone is friends. The whole thing is endogenous, and every action colors every future relationship.1
-
I Keep Returning to King’s Mountaintop Speech
Civic holidays like the one that commemorates Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday provide an opportunity for me to reflect on what I think about the big stories we (U.S. citizens) tell about our nation, and how my views have changed as I’ve aged and the world has evolved. I find myself increasingly aggrieved by how significant portions of my faith community choose to interpret the significance of Dr. King’s legacy, and whether it does or doesn’t influence our mass voting behavior.
As a child of late 20th century U.S. schooling (both public and parochial), when taught about Dr. King and his legacy the artifact of choice was typically his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech and the March on Washington it accompanied. The speech and event were framed as one additional wrung on the ladder of the U.S.’s inevitable ascent towards liberty.
As I got older Letter from a Birmingham Jail took a place of greater prominence. Having spent most of my life participating in predominately white, conservative Christian communities, it wasn’t until college that I was awakened to the many complications and half-truths found in the K-12 narrative I was taught about U.S. history. The letter’s pointed message towards white moderates (like myself) remains an important and bracing critique.
Now, I’ve entered a stage of life where my civic/public consciousness has me turning more frequently to King’s Mountaintop speech. The speech’s charismatic (pentacostal) prophetic edge, and dogged determination to hold the U.S. to our highest stated ideals feels particularly relevant in an era when Federal policy is defined by cruelty and antagonism towards the most vulnerable members of our social fabric. The speech spends time reflecting on the parable of the Good Samaritan, with a small excerpt here:
And so the first question that the Levite asked was, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
That’s the question before you tonight.
I remain committed to practicing the faith (and still hold many of the doctrinal markers) engendered by my upbringing in evangelical Christianity. To our collective shame, many of my fellow white Evangelicals remain the bedrock supporters of a Federal administration that sees an increasing number of its citizens, other residents, and sojourners as threats to be neutralized rather than people who deserve to be treated with the equality demanded by our laws. I was told growing up that character is destiny when it comes to political leadership, and to see this principle abandoned for political expediency leaves a bitter aftertaste I can’t fully rinse out. I (perhaps naively) still believe the character axiom was basically correct.
May the parable of the Good Samaritan and the public witness of Believers like Dr. King–in partnership with the Holy Spirit–work like seeds sown into the hearts of my fellow evangelicals. I pray they not walk the same path as the Pharoahs in the book of Exodus and instead stop their hearts from hardening further.
Find a key excerpt of the Mountaintop speech here:
-
We Found More Than 40 Cases of Immigration Agents Using Banned Chokeholds and Other Moves That Can Cut Off Breathing
I sincerely hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think its hyperbolic to say that unless discouraging these tactics is rigorously embraced by DHS ASAP, that at some point in the next three years someone will be killed by a federal agent because of their use.
-
When a Christian homeschooling family has to confront mass deportations in their community:
“But also I feel like Christians should be the first people to fight for this,” Ben interjected, as Sam nodded. “What have we been taught our entire life? Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked. This is basic, basic stuff. Christians have always been people who are supposed to be there for the marginalized, the people that are being hurt by systems, the people that don’t have a voice…
…The volunteer work has weighed heavily on the Luhmann family, Audrey said. She worries about the relationship between her teenage sons and law enforcement, especially after repeatedly bearing witness to dramatic arrests of immigrants and protesters.
There have been times where my sons have been in tears,” she said. “I’m having to process in real time with my teenage kids the fact that they are watching absolute lawlessness and brutality and violence and cruelty and no one’s coming to stop it.”
-
This morning I saw a senior citizen with a cane, on the curb, in an inflatable animal costume, with signage promoting the No Kings rally happening downtown later today. Punching all the squares on my U.S.-in-2025 bingo card.
-
Lotta swirling commentary in all my social feeds about whether the better response to our political moment is to focus on short term power brokering or to stand in the principled light of truth and my mind just keeps drifting to my favorite fictional representation of the debate in Lincoln.
-
Regarding the speeches delivered at Quantico yesterday my mind drifts to this scene from Battlestar Galactica.
But if the generals were paying attention during minute 44 of the president’s speech Tuesday, they would have heard the fleeting but unmistakable sound of something new. Something different.
It was at that moment that the president recounted a conversation with his defense secretary: “I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”
We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, the president of the United States said.
On an almost daily basis, thousands of words pour forth from the president’s mouth. Sometimes, he tucks in a wild insight about the direction he is taking the country.
–
-
-
We are now 21 days away from the state of Michigan failing to renew a budget program that provides meals for my child and their classmates while they attend school. By law the legislature was supposed to have amended or renewed the program by July 1.
-
Any time some post drifts across my social media feeds involving some slavish assertion about worship or bible studies occurring in the White House I drift back to this public health dashboard showing excess death projections resulting from federal funding cuts to public health programs
-
Carla Hayden’s firing this week hits especially hard for me because my spouse and I just finished watching a fantastic PBS distributed documentary on the history of libraries in the U.S. Hayden’s featured briefly near the end.
It’s a great watch, neither of us could keep a dry eye at different moments.
–
-
Today’s Public Domain find. An image from the Library of Congress by Udo Keppler. Seems appropriate given all the tariff fueled volatility we’re experiencing.
-
Trump administration strips legal residency of international students at CMU | Bridge Michigan
Without notice or explanation, the Trump administration has stripped several current and former Central Michigan University international students of their right to be in the US, university officials announced Friday.
There is a sequence to these moves. During the campaign the emphasis was on “criminals,” early deportations have included lawful visitors and permanent residents. The administration calculates these folks have engaged in activity the public will see as egregious enough (whether that activity is constitutionaly protected or not) to shrug off the civil rights of “foreigners” (legal or undocumented). Now they are accelerating efforts to push out as many non-citizens as possible before the courts step in. This is cruel and capricious behavior.
-
It’s probably a strong cycle for a McMorrow figure to run for Michigan’s senate seat.
Reflecting on some of the recent posts I’ve seen about my state (Michigan) senators. Due to my chosen profession (Higher Ed) and the news interests (Ed Policy) that come along with it my social feeds generally skew left leaning or flat out leftist. The general vibe is that my feeds are mad at Peters and Slotkin. Lots of “good riddance” takes on Peter’s retirement announcement.
Mallory McMorrow is jumping into the race. She’s most known on the political scene beyond Lansing for a viral floor speech she gave after being accused of being a “groomer” for advocating for LGBTQ+ civil rights. Given that there has been lot of chatter about the (IMHO gross) “She’s for they/them not you” ad from the most recent presidential election cycle she’s a natural foil for that wedge social issue.
I see parallels to Whitmer’s early defining viral speech on a different wedge social issue…
…That’s all a side-track from the crank theory I wanted to share for a “heterodox” take on Peters compared to the general vibe of my feeds: that for all the derision I see heaped at Peters I think one could spin a yarn that he shrewdly saw it’s better to leave his seat during a cycle when Democrats are primed for a legislative wave. Maybe it was better to leave the seat now when it Ts up a McMorrow (as opposed to a centrist) to gain momentum instead of an opening in 2032 when the off-presidential-cycle-election could be correction against a Dem administration.
-
Meritocracy is SO BACK baby!!!!
–
“Top Trump officials accidentally texted U.S. war plans to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg:”
-
This Rufo take on the Department of Ed clearly states the ideological project at play.
Pulling this series of quotes from an interview between Ross Douthat and Christopher Rufo. I was listening as a means of trying to understand the justification for all the pain being wrought upon the educational bureaucracy. This is such an ideologically driven take on what a government bureaucracy is and how it functions that I don’t know where to start with common ground or compromise.
It’s the worst sort of cavalier slash and burn policymaking:
Rufo: Here’s the problem, though: It’s very easy to cut external contracts. It’s very difficult to change the culture of an institution and the permanent bureaucracy of that institution. I know for a fact that at the Department of Education, replacing the management within the building does not really replace the broader culture… I just think that there has to be a kind of binary choice, agency by agency. Can this agency be reformed or can this agency only be abolished or dismantled to the maximum extent permissible by law? I think the Department of Education is then in the latter camp. I think the F.B.I. could maybe be reformed. Other agencies can be perhaps reformed. But the Department of Education in my view is beyond reform. You have to spin off, liquidate, terminate and abolish to the furthest extent you can by law. All while maintaining your political viability and your statutory compliance for those things that are essential, required by law, and that are politically popular. You always want to maintain the popularity, but can you take those things away ——… Conservatives cannot fully compete for education grants, or university-level research programs. No, conservatives can’t do any of those things.So we have to figure out what we can do. Where can we have leverage? Where can we take over or recapture an institution? And if we can’t do those things, then what do we have to shut down? Shutting things down is actually a very effective strategy.
I don’t know what sort of objective standard you use to ascertain the level of “wokeness” for any bureaucratic agency. The general gist under the current administration seems to be how quick they are to implement structural change that favors the incumbent president–jurisprudence or constitutionality be damned…
Good policy-making is NEVER a binary choice. It is always a sequence of calculated, often provisional, frequently complicated series of balancing acts that requires an informed perspective on national history, the law, the current cultural moment, and domain expertise of the subject matter (e.g. education, law enforcement, national defense, energy, land management). You can’t summarize the bureaucracy’s value and operation in a pithy Tiktok video, podcast interview, or scintillating video essay–it takes decades of usually quite and monotonous work to see a positive social transformation. That is partially what is so gut-wrenching about what I am seeing happen to the Department of Education–and the federal bureaucracy more generally–I may not always agree with our bureaucratic leaders, but to see the centuries of institutional knowledge and domain expertise demolished with glee or a shrug fills me with dread.
-
18 year old Nic (a dutiful Republican voter) would be absolutely flabbergasted that an ostensibly “conservative” Federal administration would be cheering on the possibility of deep integration of bureaucratic processes and artificial intelligence. This seems like a bad idea of you are skeptical of centralized State power.
Building on that idea in The Human Use of Human Beings, he argues that, once set in motion, machine learning might advance to a point where — “whether for good or evil” — computers could be entrusted with the administration of the state. An artificially intelligent computer would become an all-purpose bureaucracy-in-a-box, rendering civil servants obsolete. Society would be controlled by a “colossal state machine” that would makes Hobbes’s Leviathan look like “a pleasant joke.”
–
What for Wiener in 1950 was a speculative vision, and a “terrifying” one, is today a practical goal for AI-infatuated technocrats like Elon Musk. Musk and his cohort not only foresee an “AI-first” government run by artificial intelligence routines but, having managed to seize political power, are now actively working to establish it. In its current “chainsaw” phase, Musk’s DOGE initiative is attempting to rid the government of as many humans as possible while at the same time hoovering up all available government-controlled data and transferring it into large language models. The intent is to clear a space for the incubation of an actual governing machine. Musk is always on the lookout for vessels for his seeds, and here he sees an opportunity to incorporate his ambitions and intentions into the very foundations of a new kind of state.
–
If the new machine can be said to have a soul, it’s the soul Turing feared: the small, callow soul of its creators.
](https://nic.babarskis.blog/uploads/2025/984px-pieter-bruegel-the-elderthe-tower-of-babel-viennagoogle-art-projected.jpg)
