Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 1hA large, diverse Western democracy elected far right forces, then ousted them in a close election for an old pol over 75. Then the far right haphazardly attempted a coup, most visible in rioting at federal buildings that January. Four years later, voters returned the far right to power. Which one? 812413
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 10hPutin apologists want you to buy that: -An alleged off-the-books 1991 verbal promise outweighs a signed 1994 treaty -Democratic countries formerly occupied by Russia asked to join an anti-Russia alliance for no reason -Ukrainians don't want freedom, an American tricked them into it with cookies 12548139
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 11hTucker Carlson’s frustrated bafflement when confronted with basic things like “the UK’s GDP is larger than Russia’s” and “in 1994, Ukraine, Russia, US, and UK signed a treaty called the Budapest Memorandum” shows the state of Putin apologetics. Without lies and conspiracy theories, it falls apart. 525355
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 12hAI is now the biggest investment in all of US history as a percentage of GDP. Datacenter construction is up, all other construction is down. "AI Is Squeezing Out the Rest of the Stock Market," reported WSJ 2 days ago. We basically bet the whole economy on the most optimistic visions panning out. 461030268
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 12hNormalization is treating the president stealing from taxpayers to buy campaign ads and offer bribes to voters like it's just another day. Normalization is reacting with "won't work" or "polls poorly," and not "resign immediately or you'll be removed, we exist because of a revolution against that." 11384115
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 13hWe control the Strait of Hormuz and it's totally open, says the US government. Three tankers struck in the Strait of Hormuz this weekend, reports the UK Maritime Trade Operations Centre. 714630
Reposted by Nicholas GrossmanDr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 03/10/2026see this is the thing about "high trust," it's this attempt to find a way of speaking "nonpartisanly" about the actual magic beast of modernity, "free and equal citizens" 630451
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 13hExposing Trump's scheme to illegally withhold aid to coerce Ukraine into lying to help Trump's reelection got the aid released. Important point. I don't know how some Dems talked themselves into thinking the best way to counter criminality is to let it slide, rather than investigate and expose it. 18803191
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 13hElections in Brazil, Israel, and the United States (U.S. legislative only) all happening soon. The world could look pretty different in a month. (Or not.) 513819
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 13hI fully buy that frontier AI models advanced labs are working on differ from less powerful models available to the public. What I don't fully buy is that any comment from anyone working in those labs must be an accurate assessment of what the tech really is, rather than inflected with AI psychosis. 2878
Reposted by Nicholas GrossmanElizabeth DeLoria, Pope of Chili-Town @yourdadloves.me · 03/10/2026 170125632957
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Headline news this week touted how more oil is flowing out of the Middle East. If those reports mentioned that it's much less than before the Iran war, and costing a lot to get it—including US Navy escort—it was low down. Anyway, I still don't think the regional war is over and everything's okay. 712529
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026“No NEW wars” was the trick, and I can’t believe people fell for it, but many did (including most media). If Americans have to hear about war in a new location, that is bad and the US president’s fault (Libya, Ukraine). Trump Term 1 worsened Syria, Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan, but that doesn’t count. 1235667
Reposted by Nicholas GrossmanCharlie Sykes @sykescharlie.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Surely the Pentagon has seen strange sights, but seldom anything like the testosterone-besotted, fascisty-tinged clown show put on by the former weekend Fox News host who now runs the US military. charliesykes.substack.com/p/day-one-im...charliesykes.substack.comDay One: Impeach Pete Hegseth“No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos.” But Musk. 2124468
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026I dunno, Yale... Are you actually envious of Cornell and Columbia? Think things are going well for them at the moment? That appeasing fascist demands has yielded positive results for them? And the Trump regime is on the upswing, so better hurry up and forfeit core university values now? You sure? 524063
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026The 2024 GOP policy platform was: -Put Trump above the law, let him crime without consequence -Hurt the darkies and the queers -Make things more expensive -Censor media and academia -Empower corrupt tech oligarchs And it worked! Voters were into it. So I can see the logic of trying that again. 821747
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Trump’s insider trading is, on its own, the worst corruption scandal in US history, with $$$ dwarfing Teapot Dome. So are Trump’s bribes-for-pardons. So is the Qatar bribe plane. So is all the Saudi money he (and Kushner) have pocketed. And the ballroom. And more. Each alone would be the worst. 19551161
Reposted by Nicholas GrossmanAdam Gurri @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com · 03/10/2026That’s why you’ve got to expand the court with judges who have a very narrow interpretation of the pardon clause 712813
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026POPE LEO <turns chair around, sits, placing his arms on the back>: You want to hear about an Influencer, one with a direct connection to a superior intelligence? 1434164
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Trump’s ballroom must be instantly torn down for rule of law, fire code hazards, damnatio memoriae, and symbolic reassertion that We the People are sovereign. But also clearly for national security. Like the bribe plane from Qatar, we know foreign interests are involved but don’t know all they did. 23521151
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Putin apologists of the right (eg Tucker Carlson) and left (eg Noam Chomsky) got what they wanted: a U.S. government that treats the war as not Russia’s fault, cuts military support for Ukraine, and pressures Ukraine to give up land in exchange for the Kremlin’s word. It has not resulted in peace. 520544
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026The last Trump-Kushner-Witkoff “peace plan” for Russia-Ukraine had more on data center construction opportunities than on security guarantees that could make peace last. This time it’s an oil deal. The whole effort has been trying to sell out Ukraine for personal profit and neo-fascist solidarity.nytimes.comU.S.-Russia Talks on Ukraine Now Involve an Oil Deal Tied to Trump AlliesPresident Vladimir V. Putin brought up a sale of Russian energy assets with President Trump’s envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, pushing a deal that raises new questions about conflicts of inter... 7243120
Reposted by Nicholas GrossmanDave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026The reason I'm so skeptical of the AI industry's latest breakthroughs is they are operating with infinite money and pretending that doesn't matter. So many things become easier when you have infinite money to throw at a problem. The Infinite Money Trick davekarpf.beehiiv.com/p/the-infini...davekarpf.beehiiv.comThe Infinite Money TrickGuarded skepticism about AI product releases 920749
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026ISIS has killed thousands. They beheaded people on video. The wider network spans continents, and the central org controlled over 100,000 sq miles at peak, including Iraq’s second largest city. The worst in the Caribbean is maybe low level drug traffickers. The comparison spotlights how wrong. 413329
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Could the "LLMs can't do anything" crowd and the "LLMs can do everything" crowd go somewhere private to yell at each other so the rest of us can have a normal "this new tech can do things previous tech couldn't but is limited in various ways, let's figure out best uses and regulations" conversation? 1321537
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026If you don't understand why the Pope thinks human consciousness is special and a machine doesn't have it, try reading his favorite book, I bet you'll find the answer in there. He's apparently read it many times, and has a bunch of it memorized. 1218223
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Cornell apparently reacted to the gang rape case not with "oh no, that's so awful for the victim," but with "oh no, that will look awful for the institution." Similar reaction Penn St. and Joe Paterno had to Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse. 1618540
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026We're a society plagued by bad faith and widespread indulgence of it. Say "free speech" while unsubtly meaning "I say whatever I want, you have to listen, and you can't say anything I don't like back." Voila, a Free Speech Crisis! Here, anti-civility groups say "civility." And the money flows in. 620658
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Were you feeling left out, Mumps? Measles getting all the attention? And since you're back... any word from Rubella? Some antivaxxers would like to introduce it to pregnant women. 510927
Reposted by Nicholas GrossmanDrew Kadel @drewkadel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026I haven't seen any of these "popularists" coming anywhere near to Gretzky levels of anticipating where the puck will be. If anything they are diving to where the puck was a second ago. Having values and selling them/fighting for them is the only sane course. 28412
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026One of my biggest concerns in 2023-24 was the likelihood that, if Trump got power again, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and related figures such as Palmer Luckey would get more deeply burrowed into the U.S. national security apparatus, in all sorts of dangerous ways that will be hard to dislodge. Alas. 1113647
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026One crazy thing about this new outpouring of racism against South Asians and calls for expulsion or forced assimilation is it was kicked off by some brown skinned students at a Texas game wearing cowboy hats and excitedly celebrating their football team — ie some guys very assimilated to America. 34847172
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Another monthly jobs report below expectations, with previous months revised down. Again I must ask, if so many months come in below expectations, doesn’t that indicate a flaw in the expecting? 813117
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026How does anyone think diplomacy with Russia hasn’t been tried? That’s been absurd the whole time—there’s been constant diplomatic efforts to stop Russia’s war—but even more absurd after 1.5 years of Trump-Kushner-Witkoff trying to get Putin what he wants. Sorry that aggression is real. Now what? 910824
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Why is the European discussion about a possible Russian attack so “oh no, what if” and so little “if you attack we’ll hit you back hard, you know we can.” Russia has its hands full in Ukraine. They should be, and almost certainly are, afraid of the war expanding. Fret less. Prep and deter more. 3021942
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Regular reminder that Russia has been doing everything it can think of to Ukraine for years. And Russia has tried the “now we’re going to *really* fight, you’ll be sorry” move many times too. No doubt Russia will hit Ukraine hard this winter. But no, it’s not because “look what you made me do.” 514428
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026The techno-dystopia I actually fear is a future where most people think truth is whatever Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Grok say, and the very small number of people who control those systems use that to manipulate for their own ends, making our current epistemic crisis seem small in comparison. 29625175
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Iran can see the US political calendar too. Have this whole time. Much as Iran used the MOU period—when Trump surrendered, tried lying about it, then bombed again—to prepare with allied militias, they’ll use this time to get ready for post-midterms fighting, knowing the US president will be weaker. 17417
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026We already won the war, we just have to keep fighting the war so that we don't lose the war. 1235964
Reposted by Nicholas GrossmanJosh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 01/10/2026I have a hard time deciding which are worse. The retributive fake indictments against longtime Trump "enemies" or the ones where just a random person is picked out because of the need to retrofit reality to a latest Trump tweet/meltdown. 932254
Reposted by Nicholas GrossmanCharlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026For a long time I've wanted a sense of how trump has or hasn't interacted with chatbots (we know he posts a lot of slop sure). And this TIME anecdote about Grok arguably leading Trump into war is just extremely bracing 14237841252
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Conspiracy theories break your brain. Make you stupid. No, the Israeli government did not somehow get over 100 passengers and a stabbed Indian pilot and all the medical personnel who treated the pilot and the governments of the UAE and Saudi Arabia to all tell the same false story. That is absurd. 112816
Reposted by Nicholas GrossmanStarfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 01/10/2026This is good but still presents an implementation challenge because Throw polling at 60% is misleading when Take polls at 5%. 19746133
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Pilot acting alone? Member of an armed group? Or deployed by a state? The answer—or, more accurately, the conclusion(s) Israel, the US, and Gulf states reach—will matter a lot. Alone? Not that big a deal. Thwarted before he could kill anyone. Larger plot? Could prompt airstrikes and escalation.theguardian.comMotive behind flydubai cockpit stabbing unknown as international investigation opensBenjamin Netanyahu says too early to tell who may have been behind plane incident as carrier halts all flights to Israel 3395
Reposted by Nicholas GrossmanNorm Eisen @normeisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026BREAKING: Davey Hearn reflecting pool prosecution dismissed WITH PREJUDICE That means the case cannot be brought again  Huge victory for Davey, for us at @democracydefendersfund.org & our legal team colleagues Washington Litigation Group and Steptoe--& for rule of law More to follow! 490146903098
Reposted by Nicholas GrossmanJennifer Van Goethem @jennvg.bsky.social · 30/09/2026He's trying to do George C. Scott from Patton but is mostly doing George C. Scott from Strangelove. 21147187
Reposted by Nicholas GrossmanDon Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 01/10/2026America today is a country where regulators won't allow private companies to air interviews of the opposition on TV, but declare that taxpayer funded propaganda is fine. 462218779
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Amidst a failing war the US started, the SecDef chose to focus on measuring military members’ hormones, and injecting testosterone into personnel whose hormone levels he dislikes. He also fixates on PT while losing an air war. If you said this to someone a few years ago, they wouldn’t believe you. 85860202
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026When I say John Roberts is a liar, hack, anti-democracy ideologue, and enemy of the Constitution, I do so in a civil manner. No yelling or cursing here. But since he will be remembered as an utter disgrace who tried to destroy the republic but failed, some in the future might say it less civilly. 22993202
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Hey you, Europe, You know how we started a war without telling you, failed badly, and hurt all our economies? No, after we tariffed you, lectured you that Russia isn’t a threat, and demanded territory. Okay. So. Weaken yourself to rescue us or we’ll hurt our own economy more and you’ll be sorry. 19388152