iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Absent a major change in policy, none of us will return to the Bureau. If you leave for more than two years, you’re required to redo the Academy. I’m quite sure that my wife, son, and my then-fifty-year-old body will not agree to that.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I recorded a podcast this very morning in which I proclaimed that Gary Oldman is my favorite George Smiley. I thought that the estate of Sir Alec Guinness might come after me, but now I apparently have to worry about "Succession" fans, too.

bbc.com

Matthew Macfadyen and Charlie Hunnam revealed in first-look images from Legacy Of Spies

Filming has wrapped on the highly anticipated espionage thriller, which will launch exclusively on BBC iPlayer and BBC One in the UK

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I’ll be on MS NOW during the 11:00 hour to provide commentary on Jack Smith’s testimony.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

This, if anything, understates the case. Prior to Trump, the Deputy Director was always a capstone and final position in a decades-long career, spent in its entirety at the FBI.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

What do you mean you haven’t seen “Cold War”?!?!

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

On a slightly more serious note, counterintelligence concerns only arise when one cares about one’s country; none of these people do.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Hell is empty and the devils are all here.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

My thoughts be fucking bloody, or nothing worth.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

He’s one of the greatest authors to reread as one ages; his insights and lamentations hit harder with every passing decade.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

@nickharkaway.com was kind enough to let me read this in galley a month ago, and I’d unhesitatingly recommend it; it’s probably the best spy fiction I’ve read since, well, his last foray into the world of George Smiley.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Approaching fifty, having lost one’s professional calling and having gained one’s first child, is an opportune time to find meaning in a frivolous and idiosyncratic hobby: I think I need to get into Japanese denim.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Today, on national television, I called the FBI’s Washington Field Office the Bureau’s flagship office. It was the most passive-aggressive thing I’ve ever done, for those who will understand why.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Isn’t this not too far from the “Ender’s Game” plot?

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Less than a year later, the Clash will release its debut album, and the musical world will begin to be set right after a long and horrid era.

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Reposted by Michael Feinberg

Lawfare @lawfaremedia.org · 18/09/2026

On Lawfare Daily, @michael-feinberg.bsky.social was joined by @juliacurlee.bsky.social and @johnsipher.bsky.social about John Ratcliffe’s tenure as the Director of Central Intelligence and cultural changes in the intelligence community writ large. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/lawf...

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Reposted by Michael Feinberg

Lawfare @lawfaremedia.org · 17/09/2026

On Lawfare Daily, @michael-feinberg.bsky.social talked to @eileenguo.bsky.social about her research into whether the “censorship-industrial complex” was an actual entity or a pretextual justification to dismantle the government’s anti-disinformation apparatus. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/lawf...

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Regardless of the altruism, he’s certainly made sure that we’re not effective at, well, pretty much anything for which we rely upon a functioning government.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Few things influence us as much as the books we read as children, and maybe he just developed a Dr. Doolittle fetish.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

My thoughts, along with others whose career paths changed because of 9/11, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the tragedy.

m.youtube.com

Lawfare Daily: Sept. 11, 2001, 25 Years Later

YouTube video by Lawfare

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Look, it’s an “official act” in the wild!

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Thank you for coming to my TED talk on "Better Living through Carlos E. Bun." Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get to rolling some numbers, rock and rolling, and getting my KISS records out.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Now we finally know the answer to the timeless lyrical question, "Whatever to all this season's losers of the year?"

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I may have been inspired by some troglodyte complaining about my intonations, but I'm on a roll here.

youtube.com

Fast Times Damone Cheap Trick Scene

YouTube video by davidsco

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

No one has ever been ashamed to be associated with a film that waxes ecstatic about Cheap Trick.

youtube.com

Cheap Trick - Surrender (from Budokan!)

YouTube video by cheaptrickVEVO

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Besides, anyone who knows me clearly understands that if I have an avatar in the extended Cameron Crowe universe, it’s one of the guys offering relationship advice outside of the Gas’n’Sip in “Say Anything.”

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

No one’s forcing you to listen to me. But since you have strong feelings on the matter, I will certainly help you broadcast them.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

This should, um, not comfort anyone who's read "The Power Broker."

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

“I heard God in the Ryman and crawled out of the grave,” is pretty much a perfect lyric, particularly given Jason Isbell’s story.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

And they all grew up to elect Josh Hawley into office.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Here’s the dilemma: My books are fastidiously organized. But I have a beautiful limited edition of Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy,” which is famously uncategorizable. In what section or genre or discipline should it go?

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

My personal view is that this remake is *much* better than Argento’s original.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

I’ll reiterate, again, that the Kennedys were more tolerable when they just killed individuals by coups d’état and drownings. It was easier to cope with, on a societal level, then murdering people en masse by villainizing vaccines and putting out medical misinformation.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Idiocy, idiocy, everywhere, And common sense did shrink; Idiocy, idiocy, everywhere, Nor any thought to think

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

The fowls aren’t even holding the weapons correctly — anyone who’s been properly trained knows you keep your finger straight, above the trigger guard, until the moment you decide to fire. Our president is neither very stable, nor a genius.

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Reposted by Michael Feinberg

Lawfare @lawfaremedia.org · 29/08/2026

Current Public Service Fellow @juliacurlee.bsky.social and former fellow @michael-feinberg.bsky.social joined @benjaminwittes.lawfaremedia.org to discuss the pressures former national security officials are facing not to talk and the sheer numbers who are keeping quiet. youtu.be/1iaRbvyNotw?...

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

“Cusk’s champions insist “Life of M” isn’t cruel or exploitative but an exploration of cruelty, an invitation to consider, in complicated ways, the nature of exploitation.” If one’s work has to be defended in this manner, and the idea is not self-evident, that motivation should not be assumed.

nytimes.com

Rachel Cusk Tried to Caricature Natalie Portman. She Only Caricatured Herself.

Her latest novel appears to savage a celebrity. But Cusk has, once again, managed to turn herself into the victim.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

If you look at this and see a still from Godard film, you’re doing it wrong. The guy in the hat is Jean Pierre Melville, who ushered in the new wave with “Bob Le Flambeur,” and whose other works can wipe the floor with most of the Cahiers du Cinema crowd’s works.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Glad to see Don repost this. It’s my favorite Coen Brothers film, and actually one of the reasons @qjurecic.bsky.social and I became friends.

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Michael Feinberg @michael-feinberg.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I know that this is going to be a niche post, but here it goes: The influence of creepypasta on contemporary horror films and shows is really not a good thing. A riveting story is more important than a single creepy image.

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Reposted by Michael Feinberg

Jan Kooy @kooyjan.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

“Rather than ending its crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and bringing justice for hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs whose lives have been destroyed, the Chinese government persists in its atrocities and silences critical voices, even abroad.”

hrw.org

China: Decade of Impunity for Crimes Against Uyghurs

The Chinese government’s decade-long severe repression against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims amounting to crimes against humanity, deserves a stronger response from the international community.

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