ABM
abumandm.bsky.social
ABM
@abumandm.bsky.social
Twitter exile. Interested in all things related to international politics & security.
Hell yeah
HEY EVERYONE REMEMBER WHEN TRUMP WAS IMPEACHED FOR DENYING AID TO UKRAINE BECAUSE HE WANTED ZELENSKY TO LIE AND SAY BAD THINGS ABOUT BIDEN AND ZELENKSY WOULDN’T DO IT?

Maybe literally one fucking American newspapers could mention this in their, “think pieces,” about what happened yesterday.
March 1, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Reposted by ABM
Genuinely appalling and revealing how much more thorough, thoughtful and well-researched the videogame speedrunning community has been in evaluating Elon Musk's claims than the tech press or DC political press youtu.be/z1ykCc588Zw?...
The Elon Musk Cheating Scandal
YouTube video by Karl Jobst
youtu.be
March 1, 2025 at 8:49 AM
Reposted by ABM
What we’re witnessing in America is what happens when disordered discourse captures a political party, then the state itself. The Republican Party was the first to fall - abandoning truth for conspiracy, ideology for grievance, and policy for performative outrage.
February 28, 2025 at 9:47 PM
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I was recently leaked a document that was written by and for think tank and DNC affiliated policy wonks and circulated in private chats. It describes in unsparing terms the threat Curtis Yarvin, Neoreactionary tech founders, and Elon Musk pose to democracy.

shatterzone.substack.com/p/democratic...
Democratic Insiders Are Sharing A Warning About Curtis Yarvin, Elon Musk & Neoreactionaries
DNC employees and think tank workers have compiled a document about the Neoreactionary threat to democracy
shatterzone.substack.com
February 26, 2025 at 6:51 AM
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Curtis Yarvin wrote that “as the crappy govts we inherited … are smashed, they shld be replaced by a global spiderweb of…independent mini-countries, each governed by its own…corporation w/o regard to the residents’ opinions.” This reminds me of DOGE, “Network States,” & “Freedom Cities.” You? 1/
February 25, 2025 at 4:51 PM
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A new piece co-authored with my esteemed friend and colleague @saladinaldronni.bsky.social for The Counter Extremism Project

The Islamic State in Puntland, Somalia

"Africa is slowly developing in to the new epicenter of ISIS’s global terrorist operations"

www.counterextremism.com/blog/islamic...
February 22, 2025 at 6:45 PM
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Trump is going after the press, using punishment and threats to make media toe his line. From kicking AP out for saying "Gulf of Mexico" to trying to reduce the bar for defamation set by NYT v Sullivan.
As @anthonylfisher.bsky.social argues, upending that would effectively end freedom of the press.
Opinion | Without this Supreme Court decision, America wouldn’t have freedom of speech
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan has set the standard for freedom of the press for more than six decades — reversing it would end free speech as we know it.
www.msnbc.com
February 19, 2025 at 6:06 PM
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Has anybody seen any self-reflection from the people who said that identity politics was the biggest threat in American life even as authoritarianism was on the rise?
Has anybody seen any self-reflection from the leftists like Stancil who ignored warnings from liberals that going off the deep end on race/gender essentialism would enable bigoted Republicans to win?
By the way, has anyone seen, at any point, any amount of self-reflection from Chait et al about how all their personal bugbears later became the spearhead for fascist campaigns of harassment and discrimination
February 16, 2025 at 8:59 PM
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I know Stathis. He was a colleague of mine at the University of Chicago. He is a pretty buttoned-down scholar. For him to tweet this out is… something.
February 16, 2025 at 9:18 PM
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I will say again: The destruction of the CFPB—an agency that has brought in $20 billion over a little more than a decade despite having an annual budget that's less than what DOD has spent so far today—is the clearest sign none of this has anything to do with saving taxpayers money.
"I am preparing this declaration to ensure that the Court is aware of the imminent risk that twelve years’ of critical CFPB records, which belong to the public, will be irretrievably lost and cause serious and sweeping damage unless the Court takes action."
CFPB's former chief technologist issues an urgent warning to the court that several years' worth of sensitive data is about to be destroyed, with damaging consequences
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
February 16, 2025 at 6:49 PM
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#Germany Foreign Minister Baerbock: World facing a “moment of truth”: “Everyone in the world has to decide whether they are on the side of the free world or on the side of those who are fighting against the free world"

“No long-term peace if there is no European peace"

#Ukraine #UkraineWar
February 16, 2025 at 8:56 AM
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Vance refuses to meet the German chancellor Scholz, but meets with the head of the AfD and CDU. Vance claims that German parties need to work with the fascists and claims democracy in Europe is declining, threatened by enemies from within. The international Right is forming, out in the open.
Exklusiv: Nach ZDF-Informationen hat sich US-Vizepräsident J.D. Vance am Nachmittag nach seiner Rede auf der Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz mit AfD-Chefin Alice Weidel getroffen. Man habe ca. 30 Minuten gesprochen. Über den Ukraine-Krieg & deutsche Innenpolitik - u.a. Brandmauer.
February 14, 2025 at 10:45 PM
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Putting people with ADHD in a *concentration* camp is bitterly ironic
RFK Jr said he wants to send folks who are taking antidepressants and ADHD medications to "wellness farms" in rural America where they will be forced to labor by growing organic food to "cure their addictions."

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
RFK Jr. wants to send people addicted to antidepressants to government "wellness farms"
The farms will "reparent" them.
www.motherjones.com
February 14, 2025 at 10:46 PM
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Thanks to Elon Musk and DOGE, our adversaries now have access to sensitive information about one of our intelligence agencies.

Elon Musk and DOGE staff should NOT have access to sensitive national security information. www.huffpost.com/entry/elon-m...
Elon Musk’s DOGE Posts Classified Data On Its New Website
“People are scrambling” to see if their sensitive information has been accessed by Musk’s programmers, said one federal intelligence employee.
www.huffpost.com
February 14, 2025 at 9:39 PM
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Beating Trump in court reminds people that there's still a system in place that's supposed to stop him from becoming a dictator. Will it ultimately work? I don't know, but on the pod, @normeisen.bsky.social suggests one way it might.

Our exchange on this:

newrepublic.com/article/1913...
February 10, 2025 at 1:45 PM
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February 9, 2025 at 9:45 PM
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The concept of “legitimacy” here is taken directly from the Weimar-Era writings of Carl Schmitt, who would go on to embrace Nazi totalitarianism. The idea is to cut out legislative and judicial control in favor of an all-powerful executive speaking for the nation (Volk). Now Vance has endorsed it.
February 9, 2025 at 7:22 PM
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“If you are dumbfounded into inaction, if you don’t even want to hear the news, if you feel as though you’re living through a nightmare over which you have no control, I get it. Every other day I feel the same.
But hear me out.”

We can flood THEIR zone:

robertreich.substack.com/p/the-petty-...
Flooding Trump and Musk’s zone
How to deal with their tyranny
robertreich.substack.com
February 9, 2025 at 11:33 AM
Reposted by ABM
On 7/29/16, Tech billionaire Peter Thiel met w/ Kevin DeAnna who wrote under the pseudonyms ‘Gregory Hood’ & ‘James Kirkpatrick. In 2012, DeAnna (as Hood) had written that, “It’s time to fight for a country of our own. It’s time to stop being Americans. It’s time to start being White Men again.” 1/
February 9, 2025 at 6:08 AM
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The world’s richest man appears to be dismantling the government with an eye toward consolidating power and punishing his political enemies, Charlie Warzel writes. Will it work? theatln.tc/zoCxaorI
February 8, 2025 at 7:35 PM
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Musk is acting on the dystopian vision he shares with Thiel, Vance, and Curtis Yarvin—dismantling democracy for billionaire overlords. Gil Duran has tracked it for years, and Fred Wellman breaks it all down with him in a new On Democracy.
New BOMBSHELL Exposé Reveals Trump-Musk Plan | On Democracy
YouTube video by MeidasTouch
youtu.be
February 8, 2025 at 6:09 AM
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Nothing but contempt for law professors explaining that Our Constitutional System Is Working because some judge issued a temporary restraining order while children in Uganda contract preventable HIV infections because Trump is gutting USAID. "But the trains ran on time"-level analysis. Pathetic.
Our Constitutional System Cannot Be “Fine” When It Is Also On Fire
Noah Feldman believes the legal system is up to the task of constraining Donald Trump. The evidence suggests otherwise.
ballsandstrikes.org
February 7, 2025 at 5:06 PM
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NEW: President Donald Trump has given Elon Musk sweeping authority to overhaul the U.S. government bureaucracy and its operations around the globe.

ProPublica confirmed the identities and roles of more than 20 key people affiliated with Musk.
Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been unleashed on federal agencies. ProPublica is attempting to document who is working with him and what they are doing.
propub.li
February 6, 2025 at 10:10 PM
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As someone from the Balkans I regret to inform you that the tolerance of the average public for being utterly brutalized by their government(s) for the most fantastical and asinine reasons is far greater than you may anticipate. Sectarianism is a hell of a drug, alas.
January 31, 2025 at 11:35 PM
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The insurrectionists have seized power. They are purging their enemies.

Does the broader public have a sense of how extraordinary this moment is?
Fired Jan. 6 prosecutors were told they were terminated "based upon your actions in the prosecution of persons relating to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021," and cited Trump calling it a "grave national injustice."
February 1, 2025 at 1:09 PM