I will admit: I have watched every episode ever of the documentary-style “Ghost Trackers” and “Haunted,” as well as the fictionalized adaptations of the hauntings of “Bly Manor” and “Hill House.”
If there’s a fleck of dust in a dark room and you wanna call it an orb, I’m there.
But Roger Stone could perhaps stand to watch a few episodes of “Ghost Brothers” or “Haunted Towns” — particularly the episodes when they talk about how basic things like light reflections work — before he starts proclaiming evidence of “satanic portals.”
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss the deluge of texts and tapes giving insight into what Republican lawmakers were doing during and before January 6.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
Let me share a few further thoughts on the current situation in Ukraine, the progress of the Ukraine-Russia war and the chances for further escalation and/or expansion of the conflict. No one knows what’s coming next or how Russia might respond to its escalating mix of battlefield reverses and national humiliations. Without any specialized knowledge in the area I’m especially in the dark. So I rely on the opinion of people who I believe are knowledgeable and have good judgment. For me, in this area, one of those is Tom Nichols. (He’s a defense academic specializing in Russia/Soviet Union and nuclear deterrence policy.) In this thread last night he made clear he’s very concerned about the present situation and what is behind or what is signaled by the escalating rhetoric emanating from Moscow. Maybe not panic level, but very concerned. The salient point from him though is that the decisions about some erratic escalatory actions are going to be made in Moscow and there aren’t a lot levers we have to affect it. That’s a very sobering conclusion.
Here’s an interesting and thought provoking Twitter thread by a Rand Corporation political scientist, Mike Mazarr, on the chances of a major Russian escalation in Ukraine. It touches on some points I noted yesterday about the dangers of Russian weakness and military failure. (It builds in part off this piece from a British national security think tank, “Operation Z: The Death Throes of an Imperial Delusion.”) On the ground in Ukraine it looks like Russia has failed miserably at its initial war aims and strategies and is now trying to grind out much more limited ambitions in the east. But within Russia and in Russian media rhetoric has escalated to make Ukraine itself almost a side issue. They portray Russia as in an existential struggle or holy war, a war that is really against NATO and the U.S. “Russian television has been flooded with statements urging escalation as part of an existential struggle.” A top legislative leader says: “This is a metaphysical clash between the forces of good and evil… This is truly a holy war we’re waging and we must win.”
There’s not a ton to make of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) remarks from the Senate floor today — when he suggested that President Biden is “moving in our direction” on student debt forgiveness.
I was disappointed to see Elon Musk purchase Twitter. On most of the big questions and conflicts in the world today, he’s on the wrong side. It would probably be better for me if Twitter did not exist. But it does. I have what can only fairly be described as an addiction to it. In any case, it would remain a professional obligation to use Twitter even if I didn’t — it’s how I help distribute what we publish at TPM. The best prediction I’ve seen about what is likely Twitter’s future is neither the optimistic nor the extreme pessimistic views but rather that it will be mostly the same but go back to the less governed model of half a dozen years ago in which there was more harassment, neo-Nazis and government-backed disinformation campaigns. The simple truth is that content moderation is much, much less about “free speech” or unpopular opinions than some random guy DMing pictures of his penis every day for a year to a woman he’s harassing, or hoaxes about people dying, or copyright infringement. Of course, as Musk knows as well as anyone, Twitter is also a great tool for market manipulation and securities fraud. In other words, it’s less about “speech” than the digital amplification of the predatory dimensions of people’s personality disorders.
Here’s just the latest revelation from these Jan 6th related texts we keep hearing about. In a way it’s more of the same but the details are telling. This one turns on Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), yet another far-right House member, now the head of the Freedom Caucus. In the days after Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election he was texting Mark Meadows insisting that Meadows get DNI John Ratcliffe (another House right-winger who Trump had installed as chief of U.S. intelligence based on essentially no professional background) to have the NSA “immediately seize and begin looking for international comms related to Dominion.” Basically he was pushing the idea that China had hacked Dominion’s voting machines to make Biden the winner.
In the ongoing war on elections, a troubling tactic has emerged over the past two years: Attempts to gain unauthorized access to election systems, including by attempting to strong-arm local officials into granting access to voting machines.
