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Nicholas Grossman

@nicholasgrossman.bsky.social
82K followers 942 following 24K posts

International Relations prof at U. Illinois. Editor of Arc Digital. Author “Drones and Terrorism.” Politics, national security, and occasional nerdery.

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 1h
A 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?
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 10h
Putin 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
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 11h
Tucker 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 12h
AI 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 12h
Normalization 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."
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 13h
We 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.
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Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 03/10/2026
see 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"
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 13h
Exposing 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 13h
Elections 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.)
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 13h
I 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.
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Elizabeth DeLoria, Pope of Chili-Town @yourdadloves.me · 03/10/2026
A two panel meme of the Simpsons. The top panel has kirk van houten gesturing to a race care bed. The text reads "im an AI guy. How many local models do YOU run?" The bottom panel is homer with a pope hat photoshopped onto his head. The bottom text reads "I run the catholic church."
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Headline 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.
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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.
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Charlie Sykes @sykescharlie.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Surely 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.com
Day One: Impeach Pete Hegseth
“No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos.” But Musk.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I 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?
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Trump’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.
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Adam Gurri @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com · 03/10/2026
That’s why you’ve got to expand the court with judges who have a very narrow interpretation of the pardon clause
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
POPE 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?
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Trump’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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Putin 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The 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.com
U.S.-Russia Talks on Ukraine Now Involve an Oil Deal Tied to Trump Allies
President 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...
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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The 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.com
The Infinite Money Trick
Guarded skepticism about AI product releases
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
ISIS 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Could 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?
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
If 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Cornell 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
We'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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Were 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.
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Drew Kadel @drewkadel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
One 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
One 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Another 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?
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
How 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?
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Why 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Regular 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.”
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Iran 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
We already won the war, we just have to keep fighting the war so that we don't lose the war.
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I 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.
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
For 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
Since returning to office, Trump has marveled at AI’s capabilities. He is increasingly in thrall to the tech executives courting him. In December 2025, Elon Musk returned to the Oval Office for a clandestine meeting. Trump spent hours asking Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot, questions about his presidency and legacy, according to an official present. At the time, Trump was ordering missile strikes against Venezuelan boats he alleged were smuggling drugs into the U.S. He asked Grok how Venezuelans would react if the U.S. captured Maduro. According to the official present, the chatbot responded that Maduro was a repressive and deeply unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall. After Trump ordered the mission to seize Maduro, the following month, celebrations broke out in the streets. Trump, according to officials, came away thinking Grok was ingenious.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Conspiracy 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.
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Starfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This is good but still presents an implementation challenge because Throw polling at 60% is misleading when Take polls at 5%.
A dog asks his human to throw his ball without taking the ball from him.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Pilot 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.com
Motive behind flydubai cockpit stabbing unknown as international investigation opens
Benjamin Netanyahu says too early to tell who may have been behind plane incident as carrier halts all flights to Israel
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Norm Eisen @normeisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
BREAKING: 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!
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Jennifer Van Goethem @jennvg.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
He's trying to do George C. Scott from Patton but is mostly doing George C. Scott from Strangelove.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
America 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Amidst 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
When 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.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Hey 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.
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