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Craig Kafura

@ckafura.bsky.social
1.9K followers 332 following 163 posts

Director, foreign policy and public opinion @Chicago Council; Fellow @Truman National Security Project; old Young Leader @Pacific Forum. Dad, husband, and hockey player. Via Columbia, Yale, and Appalachia.

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Reposted by Craig Kafura
Sam @samd.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Jose Andres is the absolute GOAT. turbolib who has brought meals to disaster zones after the Haiti earthquake & to war-stricken families in Ukraine and Gaza and now he’s YIMBYposting in the face of Spain’s severe housing shortage
@chefjoseandres
X.com
© Translated from Spanish by Grok
Incredible to see the "experts" on resolving the housing emergency that Spain is experiencing! On every television! @telediario_tve @ANoticias
@tele5_noticias @noticias_cuatro The reality is that we have politicians who try to create decrees and solutions when they lack the preparation or knowledge to devise a real solution to the problem we're facing.
Spain doesn't have a problem of a lack of decrees. It has a problem of a lack of housing.
And as long as the Government keeps confusing announcing measures with solving problems, we'll keep paying the consequences of its inaction.
Subsidizing demand without increasing supply pressures prices. Regulating a market more and more without building new housing doesn't eliminate scarcity: it manages it. Taxing a type of rental can change incentives, but it doesn't lay a single brick either.Because housing doesn't get cheaper by distributing scarcity. It gets cheaper by ending it.
Spain needs to build. A lot.
More available land. Permits in months, not years. More density wherever possible. Legal certainty. Much more public housing and also private housing.
But the Government isn't doing what's necessary. It prefers to intervene on the few homes that exist rather than create the conditions for there to be many more. It prefers to present patches as solutions and load the cost of its failure onto owners, developers, and citizens.
The rest can serve to redistribute, protect certain groups, or change incentives. But let's not confuse that with solving the underlying problem.
You don't fix a lack of housing by better distributing the few homes that exist. You fix it by making many more exist.
Less propaganda. Less patches. Less obsession with intervening on the same apartment.
More supply. More construction. More homes.
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Craig Kafura @ckafura.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Kicking off a great discussion on public opinion, foreign policy, and the 2026 midterms with @roguepollster.bsky.social , John Lapinski, and Asma Khalid @global-affairs.bsky.social
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 01/10/2026
"they really believe it"/"they will try to do it"/"the promises are real" are things that most americans refuse to believe about politicians but if you take them seriously will help you predict political behavior more often than not
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The Great Pumpkin Papers 🎃🎃🎃 @professormusgrave.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
AI might be a bubble, but is it a tulip bubble or a railroad bubble
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Chicago Council on Global Affairs @global-affairs.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
With the US #midterms approaching, the newly-released 2026 Chicago Council #Survey finds Americans are making the connection between inflation and cost-of-living concerns and US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy decisions. 📊 Read the report: bit.ly/4e7vShU
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The worst-ever approval rating for Trump in the AP-NORC data, across both terms.* His previous worst was -34% in late 2017. Even more monumental is that Americans are giving him a -47% rating on the economy! *caveat that they didn't do a post-January 6 poll
AP-NORC Approve Disapprove The economy 

09/24-28/2026 (N=2,140) 26% approve, 73% disapprove
07/23-27/2026 (N=1,165) 32% approve, 66% disapprove
06/11-17/2026 (N=3,040) 33% approve, 66% disapprove
05/14-18/2026 (N=1,117) 33%, 67% disapprove
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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
You've seen fireworks that look like jellyfish, but what about a jellyfish that looks like fireworks? The E/V Nautilus filmed this rare Halitrephes maasi jellyfish glowing like a firework at a depth of 4,019 feet (1,225 meters) off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. (📷: Ocean Exploration Trust)
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Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Pete is lost in terms of modern war. I use the example of this outgunned Ukrainian army officer who successfully terrorized a Russian unit for weeks because she "did the math." At the time, someone commented, "yeah, in combat, 'I did the math' beats 'I can do 100 pushups' every time."
Ukrainian female soldier: Okay, I said the idea is this: There is enough time to empty one full can of 32 grenades and be gone by the time the return mortar fire reaches us. I did the math.
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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“Cutting this much from the university budget will mean that some of the core functions of the university will be lost. It’s not possible to just do more with less — to work smarter, to trim around the edges. We’re going to have to do less with less.” Gift link: www.startribune.com/umn-cuts-sta...
startribune.com
Perry: What we lose if the U cuts $225 million
"Austerity doesn’t work. Instead, it creates a death spiral, where reduction in services leads to reductions in revenue, which lead to reductions in services, which leads to reduction in revenue, whic...
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public health guy @publichealthguy1.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
rural health folks have been hearing nonsense and hype about how AI and medtech will fix everything for YEARS. if these coastal elites had bothered to talk to anyone instead of imposing their corrupt deals on everyone...
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Christina Wolbrecht @cwolbrecht.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Philip Bump, master of data, tests alternative explanations for the testosterone chart. No, it’s not driven by states with more men. Thank you all for your service to my gender & politics course this semester.
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Tobias Harris @tobiasharris.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Former foreign minister Iwaya has met senior Chinese government officials in Beijing. Whether Beijing wants to isolate Takaichi or wants to stabilize relations, neither government appears willing to back down after nearly a year of worsening ties. observingjapan.substack.com/p/iwaya-sees...
observingjapan.substack.com
Iwaya sees senior Chinese leaders but no signs of thaw between governments | Japan Daily Briefing
Beijing may have multiple reasons for meeting with friendlier Japanese lawmakers
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Emily Feng @emilyzfeng.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
1/ New from me: Chinese diplomats scrambled up to 90 min before the Xi/Trump visit to the National Archives to stop a Taiwan-related treaty from being shown. ..."an indication of pushback from within the U.S. government against President Trump's warm reception of Xi.." www.npr.org/2026/09/29/n...
npr.org
Potential Taiwan tension sparked 'last minute' change in Trump-Xi National Archives visit
The sudden change was precipitated because of Chinese displeasure over one document that the U.S. had planned to show.
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Ariel Edwards-Levy @aedwardslevy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
at least they've stopped polling horserace
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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
it's almost as if the administration's China hawks were largely careerists who believed this was an issue they could rise on!
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Ryan Enos @ryanenos.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
One note about this, because I was curious: remarkably, the state-level explanatory power of Google searches for testosterone and Trump vote survives controls for education, income, and rurality.
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Gerry Doyle @mgerrydoyle.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
well now there's something you don't see a speaker of the house say every day
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Craig Kafura @ckafura.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
New frontiers in 'One China Policy'
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Craig Kafura @ckafura.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Bluey is easily the TV show that has made me cry the most, and I don't think it’s remotely close.
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Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Wait I'm sorry are we not putting Bluey on these lists? What other show has used evolution from the sea to the stars as a metaphor for parenting and death told through assembling IKEA furniture, all in eight minutes?
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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
BTW, Cardinal McElroy has a PhD in political science from Stanford (1989). Wrote his dissertation, eventually a book, on Morality and American Foreign Policy.
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Nick Kodama 🌳👻 @nickkodama.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
colby: selling weapons to taiwan vs selling weapons to china
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Ariel Edwards-Levy @aedwardslevy.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
survey respondents:
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Anjali Dayal @anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I know veracity is not the relevant metric here, but this is especially funny since the diplomat gets little things about the world it's animating exactly right, and big things exactly wrong, because the diplomat is three soapy political thrillers in a prestige trenchcoat
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Seems like it should be part of the "are phones ruining the kids" debate that every marker of teen mental health has improved since 2021 www.cdc.gov/yrbs/youth-h...
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Ariel Edwards-Levy @aedwardslevy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
New polling! We can get so inured to the current political landscape that it's worth remembering that, while Trump was also unpopular in 2018, the economic backdrop looked *very* different www.cnn.com/2026/09/23/p...
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Chicago Council on Global Affairs @global-affairs.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
“The attitudes toward China have been really surprising,” @roguepollster.bsky.social told @nytimes.com, citing new Council polling. “They’ve shifted from a majority wanting to limit the rise of China and limit its influence to now a majority of Americans wanting to engage cooperatively with China.”
nytimes.com
As Trump Welcomes Xi, More Americans Have a Positive View of China
Experts attribute the changing mood to fading memories of the coronavirus pandemic, awareness of China’s tech innovations and disaffection with President Trump’s trade wars.
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Paul Poast @profpaulpoast.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Fewer Americans, regardless of Party affiliation, see China's territorial ambitions as a "critical threat". As for being an "economic threat", the results are largely unchanged (though the percentages were already low). These findings come from recent polling by the @global-affairs.bsky.social
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Secretary of Defense Rock @sodrock.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
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rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
one thing i have learned from trump is that literally every word procopius and suetonius wrote was literally true
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Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 23/09/2026
the authoritarian internationale is real and can hurt you
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Opinion Today @opiniontoday.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The original "Star Wars" movies are the most popular among Americans, but younger adults also like the more recent films, according to the Ipsos Consumer Tracker. (@mattcarmichael.com @ipsosus.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/260920
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Ariel Edwards-Levy @aedwardslevy.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
counterpoint: it's actually good to have a systematic way of understanding what and how Americans think about politics and society outside of the periodic and limited datapoints provided by election results
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 22/09/2026
this is a genuinely crazy story
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Chicago Council on Global Affairs @global-affairs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
As Germany confronts political shifts at home and uncertainty in the transatlantic alliance, Chief Diplomatic Correspondent of Der Tagesspiegel Christoph von Marschall joined the Council for a roundtable discussion. Craig Kafura chaired the event in partnership with the American Council on Germany.
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MPR News @mprnews.org · 22/09/2026
Schools across the state started offering free breakfasts and lunches to all students in the fall of 2023. The number of students eating school lunch went up 15 percent the first year. The number of kids eating breakfast at school went up 40 percent.
mprnews.org
Fewer skipped meals, less stigma: New data on the impact of Minnesota’s universal school meals
A trio of new studies shows Minnesota’s universal school meals program is providing a sense of relief to Minnesota families and students who are no longer skipping lunch and worrying less about family...
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Scott Imberman @imbernomics.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I do not know how much it needs to be stressed that a military coup is *bad* under nearly all circumstances.
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Will Yale @wayale.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It is extremely unfortunate and regrettable that the Department of the Air Force has decided to shutter the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI). CASI, along with its sister institutions the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI), China Landpower Studies Center (CLSC), and…
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Emily Feng @emilyzfeng.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Details on Xi's visit. Trump not only will greet Xi on the tarmac but also do a military flyover as part of a welcoming ceremony. Wondering where 'perfect reciprocity' went. (Trump did not get this in Beijing. He got singing children.) www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-st...
whitehouse.gov
First Lady Melania Trump Releases Details Ahead of His Excellency Xi Jinping, President of The People’s Republic of China, and Madame Peng Liyuan’s Visit to The White House
President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will welcome His Excellency Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China and Madame Peng
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Secretary of Defense Rock @sodrock.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Maybe bombing to win will work this time!
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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
People randomly assigned to a liberal or conservative group chat groups shifted their expressed stance in the direction of the group, demonstrating that social norms alters political expression This effect emerges after controlling for baseline ideology www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Catherine E. de Vries @catherinedevries.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Europe is heading into a super election year in 2027. Those elections will take place against a precarious security backdrop: war in Ukraine and Iran, a retreating US & Europeans increasingly worried about their own security. So shouldn’t this benefit the political centre? Not so fast. 🧵
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Paul Nadeau @pauljnadeau.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Anyone out there with a U.S. policy/politics focused outlet want a pitch on why any path back to U.S. credibility goes through Ottawa before anywhere else?
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Lawfare @lawfaremedia.org · 17/09/2026
On Rational Security, @sranderson.bsky.social, @kevintfrazier.bsky.social, @rparloff.bsky.social, and @atabatabai.bsky.social discussed the week’s big national security news stories, including tensions along NATO’s eastern flank and more. youtu.be/b5Iqt1RXQq0
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elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Friend shared this video of a man unveiling the library he hid when he fled Damascus in 2011. It’s incredible
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Simon Lester @simonlester.com · 17/09/2026
Post-Trump US trade policy is going to be a big battle. Not sure where we will end up.
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mathieu gallard @mathieugallard.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
📊 sondage @ipsosus.bsky.social pour @reuters.com : seuls 17% des Américains (et 33% des républicains !) pensent que l'annonce par Trump d'un chèque de $5000 en cas de victoire républicaine aux élections de mi-mandat est "appropriée".
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Haeyoon Kim 김혜윤 @haeyoonkim.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
S Korea's first U.S.-bound investment announcement reportedly delayed over three issues: 1. Washington’s push for greater investment in a Texas gas-fired power plant; 2. Seoul’s bid for a larger Westinghouse stake and board seat; 3. Seoul’s concerns over the Alaska LNG project’s commercial viability
koreajoongangdaily.com
Inside the Korea-U.S. $200 billion investment package tug-of-war
Seoul delayed its U.S. investment package as disputes persist over a Texas power plant, a Westinghouse stake and Alaska liquefied natural gas.
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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I started writing about how America simply lacked the regulatory capacity or will to make any kind of meaningful agreement on AI safety with China on Sunday and ... they just kept tweeting it out. foreignpolicy.com/2026/09/15/c...
foreignpolicy.com
Trump and Xi Won’t Find Common Ground on AI Safety
The leaders have fundamentally different ideas about the technology and how to regulate it.
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