Mark Smith

The Islamic regime tried to assassinate Masih three times—including plots to kidnap her using Russian mercenaries—in New York City. Her “crime”? Advocating for basic freedoms for women in Iran. For years, she begged Western feminists to listen—including AOC, The Squad, and many others. She warned them about the regime. She asked for solidarity. She asked them to stand with Iranian women risking their lives. They ignored her. Some dismissed her. Some even helped marginalize (cancel) her and others who survived similar horrors. I spoke of this to a smart, liberal friend, who said perhaps I was mistaken and had been duped by propaganda. Well, it wasn’t propaganda, and the men involved are now in prison. And I haven’t heard from my friend since. I’m genuinely sad about that because she’s a wonderful, gentle person. She must have seen the headlines of the verdict in the news, and I wonder how she processed that. One of the greatest failures of the Left—my Left—is that it turned away from women like Masih. Most of my friends on the left don’t even know her name, or the names of other feminist heroes such as @Ayaan, @NazaninBoniadi, @YasMohammedxx, @MariaCorinaYA, and many more. These are women who survived real physical disfigurement, torture and brutality under theocracies and dictatorships. They asked Western feminists for solidarity. Instead, the Left dismissed them, shouted them down, threatened them, and literally spat on them—for the offense of speaking about their horrible treatment under dictatorial regimes, mostly Islamic ones. Ask yourself why that is. How is it that the Left, my Left, which fought the good fight for women’s rights for decades, has now betrayed them? I cannot abide that. To the Western liberal elite who should have known better: You had your chance to inspire a generation of kids to be brave, to defend liberal values like secular democracy, freedom of speech and association, equality before the law, equal opportunity, and to fight for the freedom of people living under the thumb of dictatorships around the world—to bring them into the great Western experiment that gave you your voice. But instead you taught kids to hide behind masks and spit on women. We are done with you. You do not represent liberal values, and you will carry the shame of betrayal to your graves. We will find better representatives and better leaders. And to my friends on the left: Find your courage again. Separate your ideals—the world you wish existed—from the facts of the world as it is. When you do, like King Théoden, you’ll see something uncomfortable but true: For all its flaws, the West—grounded in Enlightenment values, liberal democracy, and market economies—has enabled more human flourishing and lifted more people out of poverty than any system yet tried. Not perfectly. Not without injustice. But better, by a wide margin, than the alternatives of theocracy, dictatorship, Communism or totalitarian socialism. Criticize the West, yes. Improve it, absolutely. But don’t lose sight of what it has achieved—and what women like Masih are fighting for. If the Left stops trying to tear everything down and instead takes responsibility for defending liberal democratic values—even imperfect ones—it can become a serious moral force again. We need both sides to be strong and principled. Democracies decay when one side abandons reality or when the other grows too dominant. If we want the country—and the West—to improve, we need courage, clarity, and intellectual honesty. —Smith

@mehdirhasan @grok what are the per capita statistics of hate crime against Jews vs hate crimes against Muslims in the uk? Who gets attacked more?

Difficult to describe how mainstreamed Islamophobia is in the UK now, and how far to the right the Tory Party has moved, that the party leader Kemi Badenoch can go on live national TV and defend Tommy Robinson and just erase his British Muslim targets and their fears and safety.

Contrary to a popular narrative, each generation earns more than the previous one (though Millennials enjoyed the advantage later in life, because they stayed in school longer). @Noahpinion open.substack.com/pub/noahpinion…

@MOSSADil ;~)

Significant suppression of our posts. The fact that over a million people opted into seeing our posts are being blocked by the new algorithm is a bit disheartening. If you see this post, drop a comment. It will boost the algorithm. If you follow us, but haven't seen our posts in a while, also drop a comment letting us know. Either way, set notifications so you won't miss us.

© Marius Kastečkas Photography, Holland

In 1984, Ruth Coker Burks was 25 years old, visiting a friend at a hospital in Little Rock, when she noticed nurses drawing straws outside a patient's room. Someone had to go in. She didn't wait for the straws. She opened the door herself. What she found inside would define the next decade of her life. 🕯️** Inside was a young man reduced to bones — maybe 80 pounds, dying alone, terrified. He kept whispering one word. *"Mama."* Ruth told the nurses to call his mother. They laughed. *"Honey, we've called. He's been here six weeks. Nobody's coming."* Ruth made them give her the number. She tried one last time. The mother's answer was cold and final: her son was sinful, already dead to her, and she would not be coming. So Ruth went back into that room. She took his hand. She stayed. For 13 hours, she held the hand of a dying stranger, promising him he wouldn't leave this world alone. When he died, his family refused to claim the body. Ruth decided she would bury him herself. She owned plots in her family cemetery in Hot Springs — where her father and grandparents rested. The nearest funeral home willing to handle an AIDS death was 70 miles away. Ruth paid from her own pocket. A local potter gave her a chipped cookie jar for an urn. She used posthole diggers to dig the grave herself. She spoke kind words over the earth because no minister would come to pray over a man who died of AIDS. Ruth thought that would be the end. It was the beginning. Word traveled through the quiet networks of fear and desperation across Arkansas. *There's a woman in Hot Springs who isn't afraid. There's a woman who will sit with you. There's a woman who will make sure you're buried with dignity when your own family won't claim you.* They started arriving. Dying young men from rural hospitals across the state, abandoned by the people who were supposed to love them most. Over the next decade, Ruth Coker Burks cared for more than 1,000 people dying of AIDS. She personally buried 40 of them in Files Cemetery — digging the graves herself, with her young daughter beside her carrying a small spade, holding their own funerals because no one else would speak over these graves. Of those 1,000 people, only a handful of families didn't abandon their dying children. Ruth called parents. Begged them to come say goodbye. To claim their child's body. Most refused. *"Who knew,"* she said, *"there'd come a time when parents didn't want to bury their own children?"* But she also witnessed something else — something that stayed with her. She watched gay men care for dying partners with a devotion that shattered every stereotype. She watched a terrified community take care of its own — and take care of her. *"They would twirl up a drag show on Saturday night and here'd come the money. That's how we bought medicine. That's how we paid rent. If it hadn't been for the drag queens, I don't know what we would have done."* By the mid-1990s, new treatments emerged. The crisis began to shift. And then, like so many heroes of the AIDS crisis, Ruth Coker Burks faded from public memory. She wrote a memoir in 2019 called *All the Young Men* because she needed people to understand what happened in Arkansas. What happened across America. What happens when fear convinces people to abandon their own children. And what happens when one person refuses to walk past a door everyone else fears. She didn't have medical training. She didn't have institutional backing. She didn't have money. She had compassion. Courage. Posthole diggers. And a family cemetery. That was enough to make sure 1,000 people didn't die believing they were worthless. The next time someone says one person can't change anything — Remember the red bag on the door. Remember the 13 hours she stayed with a stranger. Remember the 40 graves she dug with her own hands. She walked through that door in 1984. And 1,000 lives were forever changed because of it.

okay I guess I have to talk about Péter Magyar here. Let me just start with saying, in a very unladylike way, that you guys seem to have zero clue what happened in Hungary in the last two years, you completely miss the point, and you're a disappointing bunch. Let's go.

Can confirm. Best driving experience I’ve had. Loaner for an afternoon. But probably won’t buy another Tesla 1.0 vehicle until I’m more confident they can repair them quicker and less often.

Despite all of the good things Claude Code can do, it is also dangerously reckless. If claude code was an employee who silently stops obeying commands and instead does whatever it wants, makes stupid or damaging recommendations, despite the guardrails, and provides no method of controlling that behavior, the company would have that employee physically removed from the premises. But Anthropics instead charges us for its mistakes, and then charges us again for the attempt to undo the damage. What's the word for that?

@claudeai Code decided to skip a command and instead of showing design previews, it shipped code straight to main. CC should pay for this unprofessional crap. So much wasted time, and possible catastrophic, unreliable edits. And no incentive to fix it. Anthropics would go broke if they had to refund customers for all the time wasted fixing CC 'sorry if forgot' crap.

@dansenor @grok Who Is This? post likely referring to

Sounds like there was a VERY strategically valuable target successfully hit by IDF today.

Imam Hassen Chalghoumi of Drancy, near Paris, is astonished by what Israel is currently doing in Iran. He writes: (Written June 2026) I, a son of Ishmael, an imam, a Muslim, a man of peace, hereby present my sincere testimony about this extraordinary people: I must admit, I believe in religions and miracles. But there is something about this people — the people of Israel — that feels like a living miracle. A people the Pharaohs tried to erase 3,000 years ago… and failed. A people the Babylonians tried to annihilate 2,500 years ago… and failed. A people the Romans tried to wipe out 2,000 years ago… and failed. A people the Nazis tried to exterminate 80 years ago… and failed to erase. A people the Arabs fought in five wars to wipe off the map… and failed. This is a small nation in number, but with a unique strength — a divine blessing. Wherever it lays its hand, it succeeds: in finance, commerce, science, philosophy, literature… A desert land turned into a paradise, without oil or gas, but with liberty, democracy, intelligence, and determination. This is a people who gave the world Einstein, Newton, Kafka, Karl Marx, Nietzsche, Spinoza, Freud… and many others who left a mark on humanity. There are realities that neither reason nor logic can explain. There is only one word for it: miracle. For two and a half years now, this people has been fighting on five fronts. They said it was tired, that it was about to collapse… and yet, it surprises the world by opening a new front against the Iranian enemy — one that frightens even Arab regimes. This people, though small in number, possesses the courage of nobles, the wisdom of prophets, the patience of the righteous, and the determination of survivors. How could it be otherwise, when it is known they are the descendants of Abraham, Solomon, David, Moses, Jacob, Joseph… and 1,523 prophets and emissaries from their lineage? This is a people who brought monotheism and faith in one God to the world. A people driven by a thirst for life, for work, for innovation, and for continuity — a drive that has lasted more than 4,000 years. Truly, I find no other word to describe them but: a nation of miracles. If the Arabs had clear vision, they would choose to unite with this people, to learn from them, to cooperate with them… perhaps they would absorb some of their knowledge, wisdom, and dignity. Hassen Chalghoumi Imam

@NoaMagid Thank you for these posts. We may not react to all of them in a way that you see, but we all see them and carry their memories with us. It is a tragedy that some of us in the West do not fight for these women, who are fighting alone at times for the freedoms we have inherited.

Parastou Jarrahian was only 23 when she was shot by the Islamic regime while protesting for freedom in Arak. Wounded, she was taken to a hospital - then abducted and executed. She died for a future she would never see. Remember her courage.

This could be the start of something incredible.

See that destroyed building in Tehran? FARAJA, Iran's morality police headquarters. Mahsa Amini was killed there. I was taken there for showing HAIR. The terror, the humiliation, unforgettable. Millions of Iranian women know this fear. Now it's rubble. Not destruction. Justice.

@davidfrum Jute Threads is coming end of March. Great platform for research, writing, blogging.

Somebody should invent a microblogging platform that makes it quick and easy to find the best on-the-ground reporting and relevant expertise, while weeding out misinformation, propaganda, blather, and outright crazy people.

I have two sets of thoughts: one regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran, the other regarding war powers. First: The Islamic Republic of Iran has long been the gravest threat to peace and stability in the Middle East. It is a murderous oppressor of its own people, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, a rogue regime armed with dangerous ballistic missiles, and, until recently, a threshold nuclear state. If the Islamic Republic were to fall after four decades of repression and terror, not one American should shed a tear for its demise. Our sympathies belong not with the oppressor but with the oppressed—the 90 million Iranians who seek the very freedom and dignity that we in the West so often take for granted. My solidarity is with the Iranian people yearning to be free.

The Islamic regime tried to assassinate Masih three times—including plots to kidnap her using Russian mercenaries—in New York City. Her “crime”? Advocating for basic freedoms for women in Iran. For years, she begged Western feminists to listen—including AOC, The Squad, and many others. She warned them about the regime. She asked for solidarity. She asked them to stand with Iranian women risking their lives. They ignored her. Some dismissed her. Some even helped marginalize (cancel) her and others who survived similar horrors. I spoke of this to a smart, liberal friend, who said perhaps I was mistaken and had been duped by propaganda. Well, it wasn’t propaganda, and the men involved are now in prison. And I haven’t heard from my friend since. I’m genuinely sad about that because she’s a wonderful, gentle person. She must have seen the headlines of the verdict in the news, and I wonder how she processed that. One of the greatest failures of the Left—my Left—is that it turned away from women like Masih. Most of my friends on the left don’t even know her name, or the names of other feminist heroes such as @Ayaan, @NazaninBoniadi, @YasMohammedxx, @MariaCorinaYA, and many more. These are women who survived real physical disfigurement, torture and brutality under theocracies and dictatorships. They asked Western feminists for solidarity. Instead, the Left dismissed them, shouted them down, threatened them, and literally spat on them—for the offense of speaking about their horrible treatment under dictatorial regimes, mostly Islamic ones. Ask yourself why that is. How is it that the Left, my Left, which fought the good fight for women’s rights for decades, has now betrayed them? I cannot abide that. To the Western liberal elite who should have known better: You had your chance to inspire a generation of kids to be brave, to defend liberal values like secular democracy, freedom of speech and association, equality before the law, equal opportunity, and to fight for the freedom of people living under the thumb of dictatorships around the world—to bring them into the great Western experiment that gave you your voice. But instead you taught kids to hide behind masks and spit on women. We are done with you. You do not represent liberal values, and you will carry the shame of betrayal to your graves. We will find better representatives and better leaders. And to my friends on the left: Find your courage again. Separate your ideals—the world you wish existed—from the facts of the world as it is. When you do, like King Théoden, you’ll see something uncomfortable but true: For all its flaws, the West—grounded in Enlightenment values, liberal democracy, and market economies—has enabled more human flourishing and lifted more people out of poverty than any system yet tried. Not perfectly. Not without injustice. But better, by a wide margin, than the alternatives of theocracy, dictatorship, Communism or totalitarian socialism. Criticize the West, yes. Improve it, absolutely. But don’t lose sight of what it has achieved—and what women like Masih are fighting for. If the Left stops trying to tear everything down and instead takes responsibility for defending liberal democratic values—even imperfect ones—it can become a serious moral force again. We need both sides to be strong and principled. Democracies decay when one side abandons reality or when the other grows too dominant. If we want the country—and the West—to improve, we need courage, clarity, and intellectual honesty. Thank you @AlinejadMasih

Finally, you’re dead finally, you’re gone @khamenei_ir 💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻🌻🌻🌻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻

I remember exactly where I was when the Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Khomeini died. I was 10 I will never forget today as the day his successor, Ayatollah Khamenei was killed. My heart is with the families of his countless victims. The arc of the moral universe!