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If you're in need of an escape, I'm hosting two writing + yoga retreats this spring (you don't need to do the yoga part if you don't want to!): In the stunning northern hills of Vietnam, and on a hidden-gem Greek island: onthegroundretreats.com/retreat/vietnam onthegroundretreats.com/retreat/greece
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Jill Filipovic retweeted
The only thing I'd say about Haley Stevens, who I knew pretty well in Congress, is that her actions have been neither principled nor opportunistic, just strange. I'd look more to experts in psychology than politics to explain them.
But there are more important issues here. 1/
But there are more important issues here. 1/
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Jill Filipovic retweeted
If there is absolutely one essay you must read this weekend
“Those who fail to reckon with the horror that took place in Gaza cannot be trusted to act differently in the future.”
“Those who fail to reckon with the horror that took place in Gaza cannot be trusted to act differently in the future.”
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Jill Filipovic retweeted
Nothing to see here….Just Tucker Carlson warning us of a tactical nuclear strike by Trump on Iran on the eve of the election.
Under pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran. The target would be Pickax Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program. No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike. Netanyahu has been pushing hard for one. “Bibi calls Trump about it every day,” says an informed observer.
Netanyahu is cornered and desperate. After last week’s election results, he can’t form a government unless Trump intervenes directly in Israeli politics and brokers a deal with other parties that gives Netanyahu 61 seats in the Knesset. Otherwise, he is out as prime minister and on his way to ignominy, investigations and possibly jail. Netanyahu must stay close to Trump. He needs this war.
To that end, he’s applied maximum pressure to his closest allies in the administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper. Both oppose a negotiated settlement to the war they’ve so grievously mismanaged; both are pushing to restart major combat operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe are also following Netanyahu’s lead, as are leaders of the Democratic Party. In a recent meeting on the subject, former president Barack Obama said he opposes the current Iran peace deal being drafted in Doha.
The rest of America’s longtime allies in the Middle East are terrified by the prospect of more war. On September 27th, Netanyahu flew secretly to Abu Dhabi to enlist the UAE in his lobbying effort for a final attack on Iran. The Emiratis refused. After eight months of conflict, Gulf economies are teetering. So are global energy and fertilizer markets. They won’t recover soon. Globally, there are a total of about 850 supertankers used to transport oil from producers to the rest of the world. In October alone, 11 of them were badly damaged in Hormuz. At this pace, a global depression is imminent. A nuclear strike would radically accelerate the destruction. Fallout from a ground explosion at Pickax Mountain would contaminate the Persian Gulf, poisoning the water supply for 100 million people.
And those are just some of the immediate consequences for the region. The rest of the world is every bit as exposed. No country other than the United States has ever used a nuclear weapon in war. Some would like to. An American nuclear attack on Iran would set a new precedent. The Russians have already told at least two other governments that an American nuclear strike on Iran would free them to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Pakistan and India would be tempted to do the same against each other, as would North Korea against Seoul. After the first nuclear strike, World War Three is inevitable. That war would be short and final.
We’ve been sleepwalking toward this moment for months. Since February, the administration has quietly rewritten America’s nuclear doctrine to make first use of so-called “battlefield nukes” easier and therefore more likely. No one in Washington in either party seems bothered by this. Now we’re on the brink of it.
Close observers say Trump is likely to decide by next weekend whether or not to use nuclear weapons. That would be November 7, six days from now. To his credit, he’s hesitating. At the moment, Trump is listening to his vice president, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made.
They’re right, though it won’t be simple. The Iranians are famously frustrating to negotiate with under any circumstances, and elements of that government have become more radical since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family were killed in February. After decades of isolation, even relatively moderate Iranian leaders seem confused by how decisions are made in the West. (There is a widespread belief in Tehran, for example, that the United States government controls Israel.) But overall, people who have spoken to decision-makers in Iran say there is consensus there that more war is bad for everyone and a deal is worth making.
One group that hasn’t been consulted so far is the global population — the hundreds of millions of people who will be killed along with their children if Trump is pushed by Netanyahu into launching a nuclear strike next week. Now would be the time for them to speak up.
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…what? I didn’t support Haley Stevens but what is the point of giving her more air time / doing this kind of public prostration? Just move forward and win!
If you supported Haley Stevens now is your time to speak out, denounce her as the Republican she is and apologize for supporting a traitor.
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Jill Filipovic retweeted
Nothing shows the decline of a high-trust society like modern Halloween.
Halloween used to be a civic duty that we've lost in barely 30 years. It was a simple deal that you bought candy for other people's kids. A high-trust holiday where every neighbor opened the door to strangers and had to welcome each one personally. The Greeks called it Xenia, the sacred laws of hospitality and guest-friendship with a duty to welcome strangers. No other holiday asks us to be this vulnerable to our community.
Now trick-or-treating gets consolidated to a parking lot or onto a few commercial downtown blocks where local businesses have been passed the social obligation of welcoming that the neighbors used to do. High-trust means making oneself deliberately vulnerable, but there's nothing vulnerable for a business who opens their doors to random strangers. It's quite literally how they operate. They risk nothing. Total cowardice of the modern neighbor.
Parents used to trust the people on their street, and a bowl marked "take one" worked because most people took one. If you grew up with it, you remember the houses that didn't give out candy were the neighborhood pariahs.
This is what a fraying shared identity looks like in real life. Fewer obligations to our neighbors, social expectations to participate in shared customs, less faith that strangers will act decently, and more retreating into private circles. Very sad that a children's holiday needs a managed venue to do what an ordinary streets and communities used to do for free.
Halloween used to be a civic duty that we've lost in barely 30 years. It was a simple deal that you bought candy for other people's kids. A high-trust holiday where every neighbor opened the door to strangers and had to welcome each one personally. The Greeks called it Xenia, the sacred laws of hospitality and guest-friendship with a duty to welcome strangers. No other holiday asks us to be this vulnerable to our community.
Now trick-or-treating gets consolidated to a parking lot or onto a few commercial downtown blocks where local businesses have been passed the social obligation of welcoming that the neighbors used to do. High-trust means making oneself deliberately vulnerable, but there's nothing vulnerable for a business who opens their doors to random strangers. It's quite literally how they operate. They risk nothing. Total cowardice of the modern neighbor.
Parents used to trust the people on their street, and a bowl marked "take one" worked because most people took one. If you grew up with it, you remember the houses that didn't give out candy were the neighborhood pariahs.
This is what a fraying shared identity looks like in real life. Fewer obligations to our neighbors, social expectations to participate in shared customs, less faith that strangers will act decently, and more retreating into private circles. Very sad that a children's holiday needs a managed venue to do what an ordinary streets and communities used to do for free.
Trunk or Treat is an abomination and a symptom of a dying society.
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Jill Filipovic retweeted
like, sometimes you sorta need to pinch yourself and ask: did the president just say a female senate candidate was a little heavy but thankfully got herself in shape and did it without GLP-1s and now she's great? And did the crowd laugh and cheer along?
Trump just riffing on Ashley Hinson's body and the crowd eating it up is pretty tacky, old man stuff!
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Jill Filipovic retweeted
The intelligent, sober-minded, and conscientious criminal is a cliché at the heart of so many fun movies that I sometimes wonder if people realize it’s totally fake and in the real world crime is almost all dumb guys with poor impulse control.
boxd.it/h6zc7X
boxd.it/h6zc7X
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Jill Filipovic retweeted
It’s impossible to construct any standard of behavior toward religious minorities that El-Sayed fails but Rogers passes. theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/11/…
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Jill Filipovic retweeted
We've all seen declining, disinhibited elderly relatives act like this. But none of them have the nuclear codes.
I pay very close attention to Trump's mental decline, but even so, the details here are striking nytimes.com/2026/11/01/us/…
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I am generally grateful to be a short woman when I travel by air. But the number of people who seem to think that’s it’s ok to press their whole bodies into you, take up your space, and practically sit on you is… something.
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Two things can be true: adult women of sound mind who were sitting congresswomen are fully responsible for their own actions and choices. And also, the people around them - especially manipulative and bullying men - can shape those actions and choices is extremely negative ways.
NEW
Former Michigan Governor Jim Blanchard — a longtime friend and supporter of Haley Stevens — says he was having dinner on Friday with Stevens and her fiancé, and that Stevens was excited to attend the church service with Jim Clyburn and Abdul El-Sayed.
Blanchard said that Turkish, began chiding her at the dinner.
“He was working her over. The way he was saying it was, ‘Everyone is disappointed in you, they did everything they could to help you and then immediately after you lose the primary, you endorsed him.’”
“He was all distraught,” he said.
“He was all strung out about Abdul. I let her know, he’s not a good influence.”
Blanchard remained in touch with Stevens throughout the weekend and expected her to attend the church service. He only found out from the news that she was at the service with Rogers and endorsing him.
“Something snapped in her. And it snapped in 24 hours,” Blanchard told Zach Gorchow of State Affairs.
“And I don’t know what.”
Blanchard, clearly pained by the situation, said several times, “This is not the Haley I know.”
He lamented Turkish’s “terrible political judgment.”
Full Story: bit.ly/3UV80b7
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The Republican Party has just gone all in on Muslim hate and while it’s not surprising to see it is incredibly ugly and shameful.
Trump: I’d love it for Haley Stevens to join the Republican Party. I think that could happen.
But she showed great loyalty to the great people of Michigan… we don't want to have a jihadist. We're going to have to get a special metal detector for Abdul
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Jill Filipovic retweeted
Hey in case anyone's waffling here. Keep Mike Rogers far, far away from the US Senate.
🚨 BREAKING: Mike Rogers confirmed in a new interview that he would vote for a national abortion ban:
"I've been very open about that time I was in Congress, having a 100% pro-life rating... This is the only way that I know how to be when I go back to the United States Senate."
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Jill Filipovic retweeted
It looks as if the UAE, finding its candidate for UN Secretary-General unpopular because of her complicity in mass murder and mass rape, is now trying bribery. Maybe instead just stop funding mass atrocities?
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Jill Filipovic retweeted
He says he's 29. His U.S. visa + Turkish passport show he is 25. He says he's only been married twice. A third woman told friends they were married too.
Meet Turhan Mildon, the man at the center of the White House inquiry
w @AKurmanaev + @declanwalsh
nytimes.com/2026/10/30/us/…
Meet Turhan Mildon, the man at the center of the White House inquiry
w @AKurmanaev + @declanwalsh
nytimes.com/2026/10/30/us/…
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Jill Filipovic retweeted
The level of betrayal here is breathtaking and beyond disgraceful. This is murder. And Markwayne Mullin should be charged as an accessory.
We have a loved one scheduled to be on this flight. He will be killed if he’s returned to the Taliban. He supported the US mission in Afghanistan. He has broken no laws. He came here legally. Seeking asylum should not be a death sentence.
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