iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

And if you say, "What! Trump can't stay!" citing either term limits or his unpopularity, I'm putting you in the sadly large bin of people who insisted in 16 he couldn't win, in 20 that there'd be no coup attempt, in 24 that he couldn't win again. I think he'll go; but he may make an attempt.

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Mainstream political journalists, committed even now to a horse race that Trump openly speaks stealing, call Rubio's Athens speech 2028 positioning. Yes, and--he'd like to be the contender if that becomes the option. But all his great man talk is designed to flatter a boss who may decide to stay.

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Rubio's Athens speech was unabashedly white supremacist. Astonishing to me that reporting references his invocation of the Spartan "300" without noting the fetishized role the idiot movie--a fiction based on a fiction, a comic book--plays for the murder-minded wing of the Right.

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Ah, well thanks for using it and for letting me know its origins. (And the work you do. On the clock and here.)

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 23h

"A fool's freedom" is a persuasive phrase

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Oh, it's not about 9/11. It follows several people in very different lanes afterward.

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

"Sorry about your dead kid. Hey, you want to see my fancy party room? Look at that gold! Lotta gold. I got a new helicopter, too! Do you feel better now about sacrificing your child on my altar? Worth it, right? Look at that gold."

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

VT/NH pals: read the review, buy the book, and then put on your calendar @janetreitman.bsky.social's visit to @dartmouthartsci.bsky.social January 21.

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

It's pub day for my pal @janetreitman.bsky.social's astonishing THE INHERITANCE. Here's a review from the great @anandwrites.bsky.social that gets at what's brilliant about the book itself and the increasingly rare storytelling tradition in which it now towers. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/b...

nytimes.com

Book Review: ‘The Inheritance,’ by Janet Reitman (Gift Article)

Following the lives of ordinary citizens, a new book by Janet Reitman fashions an intimate, morally complex portrait of an insecure America.

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The clearest and most succinct expression I've read of how, beyond the clear fascist rhetoric, the Prairieland prosecutions have terrifyingly expanded federal legal power, beyond the point many feds even wanted to go.

For other activists on the left — and on the right — the Prairieland case has set a dangerous precedent. Cadeddu, the federal defense attorney, told me that the most worrying of all the “terrorist acts” was vandalism. There is no dollar amount set on what sort of damage might qualify as an act of terror. Even throwing a snowball at an ICE vehicle during a protest and scratching the paint or damaging a taillight might qualify. “In theory, if you happen to be on a Signal chat with some people planning a protest, and one of the people at that protest — you don’t even have to know them — throws that snowball, you could be implicated in material support for terrorism, simply for helping to organize,” she says. “That’s the meaning of the case.”

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Reviewing my files, I feel like I really need to update my collection of great profiles. Partly it's gotten out of date because of how much celebrity/important person profiles, which I'm not much interested in, dominate more than ever. Recommendations of brilliant portraits from last several years?

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The hasidim really have some hats. Check out that rabbi on the right's beaver tornado shtreimel. That's what I call a chapeau. (Sable or marten, apparently, but you get the drift.)

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Duchess Goldblatt @duchessgoldblatt.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Oh, dear. This is global-level not good.

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Reposted by Jeff Sharlet

Another couple of billion years and we won't even remember what the fuss was all about.

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From the growing rightwing belief that UK and US should not have entered the war to the kinda crazy increase in outright holocaust denial--there are some insane numbers--to the too-broad enthusiasm for bring-it-on let's-have-a-war-cuz-we'll-win, as applied anywhere.

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Fared Al Mahlool | فريد المحلول @faredalmahlool.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Debris. Detritus. Doom scroll: What if we read our doom scrolls not as portents of what is to come but as records of that which remains? // Another miniature essay, fwiw. www.instagram.com/p/DeF9d6mjGME/

At the foot of a tree, a black-and-white photograph, almost too cracked and faded to be legible--perhaps a figure standing--in a weathered wooden frame. Around it a blue rock, a red rock, green leaves; on it, a yellow leaf.

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Reposted by Jeff Sharlet

An Israeli drone is surveilling and pursuing Syrian journalists documenting Israeli violations in southern Syria.

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Reposted by Jeff Sharlet

Sandhya Dirks @audiosand.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

There's been a lot of talk about the DA's prosecutorial failure in the Cornell rape case but I haven't seen much about this. Cornell police edited out key info when they passed on Jane Doe's statement, omitting her use of the word "rape." The head of Cornell PD is now top brass at Ithica PD.

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This makes me doubly sad, that I won't get to go and that there are bookstores in Brooklyn now that I've never even been to.

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"SOME leading scientists"? Can we have a list, please, of the leading scientists who say "nuclear reactor on the moon? nothing could go wrong!" So we can revoke all their degrees.

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Me: "Hey, look, the local theater is going to put on a 'whimsical Macbeth with shadow puppets!'" My 13yrold: "All Shakespeare-stuff-but-different is bad." 99% true

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How does the fact that some Jews are fascists negate the existence of antisemitism? Yes, those guys are assholes using a warped definition to pursue their fascist political agenda. AND... more than one thing can be true at once. This isn't a football game.

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"Antisemitism" fascists and those willing to fellow travel with fascists has been "carved out"; the real antisemitism that was a low thrum before continues uninterrupted, a bit louder. There are more than two sides to this question.

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One looming example right now: Christian Zionism is a form of antisemitism. That’s part of the fascism of Israel at the moment: they know this and yet think it’s worth working with to commit genocide.

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Heba Gowayed هبة جويد @hebagowayed.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

As James Carroll has written, antisemitism is baked into Christianity. “Not all Christians,” of course. But rejecting it takes work many don’t realize. I literally couldn’t count times in my reporting a pastor or a politician, not thinking of themselves as antisemites, has said crazy shit.

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Reposted by Jeff Sharlet

When my father was faculty at Cornell he was stopped by the police chief in the street & asked who he was & where he was going. When he balked at the fact that no one but him, an Arab man, was being asked, the chief said “I’m just protecting students” Same guy failed to investigate 7 rapists.

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Which, while it sucked, isn’t a big deal. But yes it’s systemic. That’s what bigotry is: like mycelium of lazy evil thought, which sometimes manifests in fungus you can see. (I love mushrooms. But imagine evil ones.)

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In my very liberal town two boys told my kid at six Jews killed Christ. School refused to take action. I wrote about it. Locally powerful parent of one asked me how much I got paid. Later, other boys made fake yarmulkes & danced around my kid. School said it was just “cultural misunderstanding.”

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There's war & there's fighting fascists. Ok. To hell with all brown-shirts, under any banner. But execution? Any execution? Yeah, I mean any one--I killled a lot of hours in high school campaigning against death penalty, full stop. Any execution is your which-side-are-you-on opportunity.

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The real murder-minded are infinitely worse, and that's where our greatest fury shld be focused. But I don't need the help of any Mao-murder-defending know-nothing twit to condemn real murder-minds to hell. I'm agin all would-be executioners, every damned one, poor wretched souls.

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I'm not into thing where we note fascists celebrating fascist--someone who celebrates murder--but then say, "but watch whoever complain about this guy who's verbal sins are lesser." I'm for eff em all, all attention-seeking fiends across the spectrum from real murderous to just murderously dumb.

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Falling Like Leaves, by Ann Neumann

Civil war in Ethiopi bubbling up again. Deathtoll hard to verify--but probat least 600 k, last half decade or so. Imperial fuckery in that land--Soviet, then U.S., up to the recent present--runs deep. This isn't separate from you. Read my pal @annneumann.bsky.social harpers.org/archive/2023...

harpers.org

The war in Ethiopia and its crimes against civilians

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Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Somewhere I have a recording of him, his explanations. We all have explanations for what we do, where we are, who we understand and imagine ourselves to be. www.instagram.com/p/DeA19AVjADl/

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Reposted by Jeff Sharlet

Mike Pompeo has been rewarded with a teaching fellowship at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. The same school that canceled my class on media, race and international affairs. @columbiasipa.bsky.social share.google/KEvTy5yER71U...

share.google

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to join SIPA faculty

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will join the School of International and Public Affairs as a fellow at SIPA’s Institute of Global Politics in March, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

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Nope. You're both-sidesing, too, in a different way. Trump's a fascist and that guy's just an idiot but yes he's an idiot so eff him and I don't need to defend him or care about him at all to call Trump a fascist. This isn't a football game.

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