“A quarter-century has passed since the terrorist attack that killed almost 3,000 people in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. During the first seven years after that mass atrocity, Pentagon spending doubled. The aftermath of 9/11 was also a huge boost for ‘the intelligence community.’ Despite – and because of – their failure to prevent the carnage on that day, the CIA and the National Security Agency as well as 14 smaller spy agencies boomed with enormous jolts of funds. Along the way, some line items paid for torture that persisted during the George W. Bush presidency under the euphemism of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.'” (09/09/26)
“On November 12, 2024, I went on NBC News when Hegseth had been announced as Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense and argued that Hegseth might be just what we need, instead of another standard military-industrial-complex ‘veteran’ who never met a war he didn’t like. But I included two key caveats in my support. First, I argued that he had to be different from his predecessors and not just be a yes-man who prosecutes wars even if a sober analysis reveals we could not win them. Second, I warned that if we continued to support other wars and saw our stocks of key weapons systems plummet – especially missiles – he had to tell the president we could not go down that path (as it would put our own national security in unnecessary peril). Hegseth violated both of those warnings.” (09/09/26)
“In the 19th century and much of the 20th century, the quadrennial party conventions were indispensable pieces of political technology. I mean that literally. Traditionally, conventions were where party stakeholders — elected officials, party bosses, etc. — chose the nominee. Factions representing regions, interests, even ideas (how quaint!) would debate and horse-trade with each other, sometimes over days of voting, to name someone the party could get behind. That system started to atrophy in the 1930s, as Michael Barone, the great political analyst, has argued, because of the telephone. … Polling, and then television, further sapped away the function of conventions. … party conventions essentially became infomercials ratifying a fait accompli. The brokered convention — even the prospect for one — is gone now, replaced by a coronation. But at least the coronation still serves a purpose. It’s still a necessary function of our electoral system. A boring, intelligence-insulting, performative function, but a function all the same. This midterm ‘convention’ isn’t even that.” (09/09/26)
“Americans are more skeptical of government information than they were a few years ago, with majorities now saying they have little or no trust in federal government information about elections and politics, foreign affairs or the environment, a new poll finds. The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USA Facts shows that while mistrust of government information has grown since 2024, it’s also higher than it was at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term, underscoring how his recent attempts to dismantle the federal bureaucracy may have affected public confidence in the executive branch, particularly among Democrats. … About 6 in 10 U.S. adults have low trust in information from the federal government about the environment, foreign affairs, elections and politics, abortion or immigration — saying they trust it ‘only a little’ or ‘not at all.'” (09/09/26)
“On Sunday, the Trump administration made its third appeal in less than six weeks to the Supreme Court, seeking to move ahead with implementing a role for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) in overseeing mail ballots as some blue states try to block it. … There’s been lots of talk about election law, the president’s powers, whether the postal service can actually execute the role the president has tasked it with, and whether election administrators could handle the last-minute change. But overlooked in all the discussions is the fact that the administration is pursuing a change that will do nothing to make our elections more secure.” (09/09/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by Joseph Addington
“t the end of August, President Donald Trump announced a major deal with the government of Venezuela. The agreement would give the U.S. functional control of about 20 percent of Venezuela’s oil, which equates to over 65 billion barrels—or almost one and a half times more oil than the United States has in its own current proven reserves (which total approximately 46 billion barrels). … Trump, ever the dealmaker, appears to view this as the capstone of his Venezuela policy. Superficially, it bears the hallmarks of a triumph for a kind of crude foreign policy realism: American hard power, deployed narrowly, forced cooperation from a previously hostile neighbor and secured material benefits for the United States. … Despite the president’s enthusiasm, however, the Venezuelan oil deal is a clumsy instrument that introduces significant risks.” (09/09/26)
