Jason Dempsey

"A belief in military force as the sole ingredient for success has enabled a lazy and destructive foreign policy that ignores the will and motivations of both allies and adversaries. Such thinking also elevates tactics above strategy." Great piece by @jkdemp.bsky.social

This Day in Labor History: October 16, 1859. John Brown and a group of followers invade the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (today WV) to start a war and end slavery. Let's talk about this key moment in American labor history!

“I doubt questions of justice are Mr. Hegseth’s real motivation. His career has long mixed celebrations of violence with disturbingly little concern for whether the people we kill are enemies.” I wrote about Hegseth and the idea of live-streaming an execution. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/13/o...

The concluding paragraph of today's FT column on America's moral decay under Trump by @edwardluce.bsky.social

mutual cowardice keeps us in peace. Were one-half of mankind brave, and one-half cowards, the brave would be always beating the cowards. Were all brave, they would lead a very uneasy life; all would be continually fighting: but being all cowards, we go on very well. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/o...

Hey, I’m just asking questions. Ignorant questions, bigoted questions, questions that have been repeatedly answered for many years. Sorry, but I’m not listening to answers right now; I’m far too busy asking questions. It’s called being intellectually curious.

I'll just say that a guy joking about being a tough guy and holding hands with another guy so they can make a PSA about flu shots is so obviously one thousand times more studly than our idiotic defense secretary who thinks it's about pushups and making fun of beards.

When you say it that way …

"The bar for proving proving yourself innocent was so much higher than the bar for intelligence used to lethally target and kill someone."

Chatting about the future of the AVF here at 4EST with colleagues from @cnas.bsky.social and @csis.org. Join us. www.csis.org/events/bend-...

My man looks like a G.I. Joe whose code name is Friendly Fire

1/Today marks 1 yr of the President's extrajudicial killing campaign at sea, carried out by the military—220+ people dead @justsecurity.org has tracked the legal, policy, & moral fallout from day 1 In calmer times, it would be the story of our era A few must-reads below, plus the full Collection:

The people who are putting our servicemembers and country at risk are those who ground our readiness down to the bone with an unwise and unsuccessful war. Not the people reporting on it.

“While Picasso was living in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II, one German officer allegedly asked him, upon seeing a photo of Guernica in his apartment, ‘Did you do that?’ Picasso responded, ‘No, you did.’” via pablopicasso.org The horse (loon) represents the people of Guernica (Minnesota)

2nd Order Effect: an exponential increase in the number of dorks claiming to have been 'MOS: I can't tell you what I did in the Army'

"Today is August 4, 2026" There Will Come Soft Rains By: Ray Bradbury

Ignoring press releases and letting journalists sort through them to decide which were actually newsworthy has always been the right thing to do. But now I guess we just read AI summaries of press releases and consider it news?

Jolly Green Giant as my personal bodyguard Mr. Peanut's vast wealth to maintain control of the Burger King and his state power, plus Little Caesar's legions

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." -Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

One quick hack for avoiding accountability for a war: Hide behind the soldiers you sent to war.

If we ever need a new Trojan Horse myth, might I suggest The Baby From The Photo Shoot?

I’m in.

In case anyone doubted he needed to exit the race.

this is really well said www.liberalcurrents.com/graham-platn... @liberalcurrents.com

With this ruling, the birthright issue is not going away. The right hasn't really begun *organizing* around getting rid of the citizenship clause. Like Roe, this will be their fight for a generation. And if the Democrats just say "we won" and ignore it, like Roe, the Republicans will eventually win.

Turned in the final proofs for my book! To celebrate, here’s an endorsement from the great @kschake.bsky.social 👇

Wildly underestimating the military’s ability to spin itself in circles and declare it is moving the world.

So you’re saying we’ve lost … and the only question is just how many corners we might turn in the reflecting pool on our way to defeat.

Did DoD just admit in a court filing that it used xAI's Grok Gov Model to hit the girls' school on the first day of the Iran war? Based on some passages flagged by @rgoodlaw.bsky.social in DoD's recent filing in NAACP's case against X, it looks like it did 1/

Hegseth is exactly why the US military needed DEI programs www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/u... Because the long history of white dudes taking care of their own. Where is the GOP yelling about the 3rd best person getting the job because of the color of their skin?