Mark Trachtenberg

The Art of Diplomacy. #shame #embarassment

NEWS: Six months before the Trump admin began bombing Iran, the Department of State fired its oil and gas experts. State’s energy division got completely DOGE’d. And with it went the people who knew how to plan for a global energy crisis. notus.org/trump-white-ho…

From @theJCPA report: Kent has a history of promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, defending convicted January 6th attackers as “political prisoners,” and ties to Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers. jewishpublicaffairs.org/one-year-in-a-…

You may be inclined to amplify Joe Kent right now because of concerns over the Iran war. Don’t. He’s an extremist with deep ties to Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers who never should have been in this role in the first place (sadly one of many in this administration). 1/

Karl Marx gave humanity its most murderous idea: that human suffering stems not from scarcity and the human condition, but from private property itself. This bearded parasite—who never worked a day in his life and lived off Engels' textile fortune—convinced generations that voluntary exchange was exploitation while violent redistribution was justice. The body count speaks for itself. Stalin's forced collectivization murdered 6 million Ukrainians through engineered famine. Mao's Great Leap Forward killed 45 million through sheer economic illiteracy. Pol Pot slaughtered a quarter of Cambodia's population. And every single time, the intellectuals proclaimed it "wasn't real socialism." The pattern is identical across continents and centuries: seize private property, centrally plan production, watch millions starve. But the intellectual foundation was always rotten. Marx's labor theory of value—the notion that labor alone creates value—was already debunked by Austrian economists like Böhm-Bawerk before the ink was dry on Das Kapital. Value is subjective, determined by individual preferences in voluntary exchange. Marx simply couldn't grasp that the capitalist performs the crucial function of time preference—sacrificing present consumption for uncertain future returns. Even "democratic socialism" in Western Europe required massive wealth transfers from productive individuals to bureaucratic parasites, creating permanent dependency classes and stagnating growth. Venezuela had the world's largest oil reserves and still managed to create toilet paper shortages. Cuba turned a Caribbean paradise into a floating prison where doctors flee on rafts. Every socialist experiment ends the same way: empty shelves, secret police, and intellectuals explaining why the next attempt will be different.

@sarahmccammon @jaketapper Sarah - this is exceptional. Thank you!

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I finished writing this: open.substack.com/pub/sarahmccam…

Thread 👇🏻

A DOGE staffer explains why a grant for a documentary about Holocaust survivors was canceled over DEI concerns. He called it “inherently discriminatory.”

There have been zero attacks against random Muslims by family members who lost people on Oct 7

BREAKING: SHOCKING TESTIMONY reveals DOGE operative wiped out research funding without training or experience A jaw-dropping deposition is shedding new light on how the Trump administration’s controversial DOGE initiative decided which federal research grants deserved to live — and which would be wiped out. The answer? Apparently… vibes. Under oath, DOGE staffer Nathan Cavanaugh admitted that he and another colleague personally labeled several academic grants as the “craziest” they had seen — and canceled them despite having no experience in grant review, federal research funding, or scholarly peer review. When pressed on why one research project was targeted, Cavanaugh didn’t point to fraud, waste, or flawed methodology. His reason? The project mentioned “feminist and queer insights.” That alone was enough. Another grant examining the experiences of marginalized military veterans — including women, Black service members, Native Americans, immigrants, and LGBTQ troops — was also flagged and canceled. Why? Because the description “explicitly says LGBTQ.” That was the entire explanation. When the lawyer conducting the deposition asked Cavanaugh whether he had any background in scholarly peer review or grant evaluation, the answer was simple: “No.” The attorney then asked whether it was appropriate for a twenty-something with no experience reviewing federal grants to make sweeping decisions that could destroy researchers’ careers and cut off funding for academic work. Cavanaugh’s response? He saw nothing wrong with it. He argued that someone could make those decisions simply by being “well-informed” from reading books. The lawyer then asked the obvious follow-up question: Which books? Cavanaugh’s answer? “There were no books.” And the irony gets even sharper. Earlier in the deposition, Cavanaugh insisted he had no regrets about people losing income and research funding because the cuts were meant to reduce the federal deficit. When asked if those actions actually reduced the deficit, he admitted they did not. So to recap: federal research grants were canceled by people with no expertise, no training, no peer review experience, and apparently no research to guide their decisions — simply because certain projects mentioned LGBTQ issues or feminism. And the people making those calls say they see absolutely nothing wrong with that. That’s why so many people are finally realizing that MAGA actually stands for “Morons Are Governing America.” Please like and share!

Guys that post was just the tip of the iceberg, I found 70+ radical anti-Israel posts liked by Rama Duwaji, wife of Zohran Mamdani. One calls October 7 a "mass rape hoax." thefp.com/p/nyc-first-la…

Unfortunately social media is trending in the wrong direction. As world events happen, I increasingly feel that what I see online is 99% junk (AI slop, ragebait, partisan talking points) and 1% useful info. There are things that can and should be done to deal with bot swarms, AI fakes and people who routinely peddle lies proven lies that are exposed via great tools like community notes. Right now, finding good information on social media feels like wading through a sea of manure to find a kernel of something valuable at the bottom. This is in spite of proactively muting, unfollowing and blocking liars, bot-boosted accounts etc. The failures of the mainstream media are now being replicated online. We need and deserve better.

SCOOP @J_Insider via @WillBredderman: "Zohran Mamdani’s wife liked social media posts celebrating Oct. 7 attacks" "NYC First Lady Rama Duwaji showed support for far-left orgs applauding Hamas rampage" jewishinsider.com/2026/03/zohran…

@CAgovernor has lost my vote in 2028.

My latest China is Scrambling: The Overnight Pivot Xi Jinping is scrambling. The word is not used lightly. For a leader who has built his image on strategic composure and long-horizon thinking, the current moment is acutely dangerous. Not because China faces a direct military threat, but because every available response to the crisis in the Persian Gulf leads Beijing into a trap of its own contradictions. open.substack.com/pub/zinebribou…

Scandal breaking in Miami, Florida over a group chat for young conservatives that was filled with racism and antisemitism, much of it directed toward young Jewish women So much so that Florida International University is investigating this as a criminal matter

The secretary of Miami-Dade County’s GOP started a group chat for conservative students Within 3 weeks, it was filled with over 400 instances of the N-word, Nazi rhetoric and writings of "dozens of ways of violently killing Black people" miamiherald.com/news/politics-…

@speechboy71 Exactly right

I don't doubt that Jon is sincere in what he says here ... but I'd ask him to consider how it sounds to Jewish ears when he says that Democratic voters should look past the fact that Platner a) had a Nazi tattoo for 18 years and b) has appeared on a podcast that promotes heinous anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, particularly at a time when anti-Semitic hate crimes have dramatically risen. Do you really not see how this normalizes attitudes and actions that, if we were talking about any other minority group, would be invalidating?

@AbbieKamin What is taking so long??? Fingers crossed for you, Abbie!

I could not be more thankful to our incredible team, volunteers, and supporters who continue to stand with us. We’ll be up for a while waiting for results to come in!

Angie Farella, a Texas-based pediatrician, has called the RSV vaccine an "utter failure" and said the COVID-19 vaccine is "not safe nor is it effective.” On Friday, RFK Jr. appointed her to the CDC's vaccine recommendation committee. New from me: notus.org/health-science…