Fell into a Persian music vortex this evening. Hadn’t heard this one since I was a kid: music.apple.com/us/album/sha...
Fell into a Persian music vortex this evening. Hadn’t heard this one since I was a kid: music.apple.com/us/album/sha...
State Dept official says charter flights from Mideast underway: "Several flights have safely returned hundreds of Americans to the United States with additional flights scheduled to take place over the coming days, as security conditions allow." (Commercial flight options are improving, too.)
Trump also demanded Iran's "unconditional surrender" last June. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/u...
😐
Regime change ... at DHS
How long will this war last? A clue in our story: "U.S. Central Command ... is asking the Pentagon to send more military intelligence officers to its headquarters in Tampa, Fla., to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days but likely through September." www.politico.com/news/2026/03...
Are we calling it the Iran War
Extra Episode OUT NOW! Why did Trump greenlight more military action against Iran, and how messy is the political fallout going to get? @jacobjarvis.bsky.social sat down with @nahaltoosi.bsky.social to get into it all 👉 linktr.ee/americanfric...
The CIA track record on stuff like this is … not great. www.cnn.com/2026/03/03/p...
NEW COLUMN: One way to consider what Trump is doing in Iran, as well as Venezuela and Cuba, is to go beyond the binary of "regime change" and "keeping a regime." What Trump appears more interested in is changing a regime's *behavior*. And it sometimes works: www.politico.com/news/magazin...
I wonder what led to the airspace closures
COLUMN: Trump wants regime change in Iran. Sort of.
In Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, Trump’s top priority is making sure whoever’s left in charge deals differently with the U.S., writes our Nahal Toosi.
Whoa! Hadn't seen that!
NEW COLUMN: One way to consider what Trump is doing in Iran, as well as Venezuela and Cuba, is to go beyond the binary of "regime change" and "keeping a regime." What Trump appears more interested in is changing a regime's *behavior*. And it sometimes works: www.politico.com/news/magazin...
Imagine a world in which the State Department held a public press briefing so we can figure out what the heck is going on with our embassies and citizens overseas... but they don't do those anymore.
From what I can tell, the State Dept is behind on travel alerts for US citizens, ordered departures of non-emergency embassy personnel & other key safety moves when, you know, you go to war. Some sources say this is a result of sidelining career diplomats & not having a real policy process.
Oh my...
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia — but it's not a regime-change war.
From Jonathan Karl: Pres Trump told me tonight the US had identified possible candidates to take over Iran, but they were killed in the initial attack. "The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates," Trump told me. "It's not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead."
😬
If everyone is getting an exclusive interview with the same person, is it an exclusive interview?
Even your EMERGENCY podcasts are outdated now!
So many podcasts to re-do, think tank draft papers to throw away, book proposals to revise ...
Wondering how many podcasts are out of date now
Are they using ChatGPT to help them bomb now
Oh, the humanatee!
“The world is a complicated, messy, and sometimes dangerous place.”
Yes. Yes, it is.
JUST IN: A federal judge says the Trump administration has been “terrorizing” refugees — violating the promise America made to them when they fled persecution at home — by locking them up illegally. He blocked the policy for those in MN storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Pakistan is at war with Afghanistan. Well, gee willikers, who could have seen that coming? 😐
The Washington Post's description of the bodycam video of his arrest last year, and the translation of Mr. Shah Alam's comments, is gutting. Remember, he was entirely blind in one eye and could only see three feet in the other, and he spoke virtually no English.
He spent a year in jail for this.