Daniel Wattenberg

@TimothyHorrigan @JoeBiden @KamalaHarris Partly right. The point is they would never say something remotely like this for fear of the outcry. In contrast, Trump is using the severity of the outcry and his indifference to it to dramatize for the IRGC the credibility of his threatened action.

@danwattenberg If President @JoeBiden or President @KamalaHarris said anything remotely like this, Democrats & Republicans alike would be denouncing him or her. But, Trump is Trump.

President Trump's warning that "a whole civilization will die tonight" if the Iranian regime doesn't meet US terms has predictably scandalized the full spectrum of correct opinion in the US, which was likely the very purpose of his post. The IRGC is betting that domestic US political pressure will force Trump to scale back his war aims and make a quick exit from the conflict. Reaction to his post has just demonstrated for the Iranian war leadership that he can do pretty much whatever he wants and his base won't abandon him and his opponents can say whatever they will — i.e. he's a war criminal bent on genocide — and he won't be deterred. @realDonaldTrump" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTru…

@Gregs_iPinions @FoxNews @TimCamp03 Paul Ryan : Trump 45 :: John Thune : Trump 47

@FoxNews @TimCamp03 It was a ridiculous move not to submit the DHS funding bill for unanimous consent decree. This would have forced the Democrats to vote no, and put them on the record, which could have been used in midterms. Republicans have no game! No surprise, given the lack of leadership.

BREAKING: Senate adjourns until Thursday as DHS shutdown drags on with no agreement with House

@TimothyHorrigan You’ve missed a few of my allusions recently, so let me return the favor: Why do you refer to the scenario you describe here as a “Led Zeppelin” tactic?

@danwattenberg My favorite theory is: this is a classic example of the "Led Zeppelin" negotiating gambit. Trump led w/ a totally unacceptable choice which will be immediately shot down. Trump will follow by offering a 2nd bad choice which is a slight improvement over the 1st. (1/2)

@EricLDaugh Did the White House know Paul was an unalterable “No” and was itching for this kind of direct public confrontation with Mullin? I thought rationale for nominating him was that he was supposed to sail through the confirmation process as a member of the Senate “club.” Are you sure there aren’t more Republican defectors waiting in the chute? What happened?

🚨 JUST NOW: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) doubles down on trying to tank Markwayne Mullin's nomination as DHS Secretary "I went through hell! Anyone who thinks that's commendable is unfit to lead law enforcement!" "It's not just that, it's him jumping up saying he'd fight somebody there." Despite Paul's relentless opposition, Democrat JOHN FETTERMAN would cancel out his vote and get him confirmed.

@josh_hammer Viable third option: Think like Tucker. EVERYBODY is talking about him (again) and clicking on that video.

There are two main possibilities about what’s going on in the Tucker/CIA video, and they both involve 2028: (1) Tucker really is stupid enough to communicate with the Iranians and to think he could still lobby Trump on Iran policy. In this scenario, Trump really did play 4-D chess and Tucker really did inadvertently help get his Iranian friends killed. In this scenario, the most likely source of the administration’s leak to Tucker about the CIA communication interception is the DNI office. Why? Because Tulsi harbors outside-shot 2028 ambitions and has an interest in knifing JD—and what better way to knife JD than through the comically compromised Tucker? (2) Tucker is a psychopathic liar who made the whole damn thing up, much as he did about the Ben Gurion Airport passport interdiction hoax. In this scenario, Tucker is merely doing what I’ve been saying he is doing for two years now—waging a shadow war against Trump and MAGA, accusing Trump of selling out his America First mission, and laying the groundwork even further for his own 2028 run (whether that’s inside or outside the GOP tent). I don’t see a viable third option.

@MegynKellyShow @esaagar Couldn’t be clearer. Case in point: when Lincoln dropped atomic bombs on Atlanta to force Lee’s surrender at Appomattox in 1865.

.@esaagar: "Let's be very clear: 'Unconditional surrender' requires dropping Atomic bombs. It requires a full-style occupation... It means you break the back of the enemy and completely destroy their capacity, their will to fight, occupy them, and impose your martial will upon their soul."

@nypost Muslims in Israel enjoy unimpeded freedom of worship, which is more than you can say for Christians in Newsom’s California during COVID.

Gavin Newsom turns on Israel with blistering attack on 'apartheid' state trib.al/jLWZz7X

@BeschlossDC All John needs to complete the look is the puka shell choker.

Here is a photo of random late-1970s students at Phillips Academy (Andover) now being offered on eBay. Anyone look familiar?

@eveforamerica He stopped to scan book titles in a display window.

Watch how Bill walks and just stops in the middle of the sidewalk. He must have whatever Joe has. Sad people.

@lifeonskis_ Can’t even watch it.

if you can't risk it, don't join them

Tucker cites the larger number of Christians residing in Qatar than those living in Israel to insinuate that Qatar is therefore more tolerant of Christianity than is Israel — while omitting the essential context: the former are noncitizen migrant laborers effectively without political or (beyond their circumscribed enclaves) religious freedoms, while the latter are full Israeli citizens. In logical terms, his argument is equivalent to claiming that Mississippi circa 1857 was far more racially liberal than were contemporaneous Maine or Minnesota, because Mississippi was home to a far greater number (both absolute and proportional) of African-Americans than either of them.

@Solie75 @RyanRozbiani @Valex6891 Better up your game, Grok.

@RyanRozbiani @Valex6891 who is the man with Tucker?

JUST IN 🇺🇸🇮🇱: Tucker Carlson went to Israel for Interview, Refused to Enter Country Tucker visited Israel briefly on Wednesday to interview US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, focusing on claims about the treatment of Christians in Israel and the wider region. He conducted the interview inside Ben Gurion Airport and refused to exit the airport complex, leaving a few hours later. Source: JP

@Solie75 @RyanRozbiani @Valex6891 It’s his longtime business partner Neil Patel.

@elonmusk What do you expect? Other drivers see a driverless vehicle and (wisely) get the hell out of your way.

Try Tesla self-driving, it’s awesome!

Weren’t Trump-style economic nationalists fiercely opposed to Japanese investment in the US back in the ’90s, fearing the erosion of US economic sovereignty? (I’m all for it, incidentally.) zerohedge.com/markets/trump-…

When you respond to a light quip (about spelling/phonemes!) with a literal-minded rant about white conservative ethnocentrism, you sound kind of unhinged. But since you've jarringly racialized and politicized a modest stab at humor, I should probably note that the two people Caldwell reports as mispronouncing "Mamdani" (Andrew Cuomo and Letitia James) are both Democrats, and one of the two is black.

@danwattenberg @ClaremontInst The basic rule for white rightwingers is: dark skinned people's names are (supposedly) always impossible to pronounce, unless they have vanilla anglo-saxon names. (And maybe not necessarily even then: "Kamala Harris" was constantly mispronounced in 2024.)

“The consonant sequence ‘md’ being practically non-existent in English, Mamdani’s surname is easy for a lot of people to mispronounce,” writes my old friend Chris Caldwell in the Claremont Review of Books @ClaremontInst. You agree? I mean, every Tom, Dick and Harry uses that consonant sequence.