Uncharted Waters

I’ve spent decades around politics. What we’re seeing now is nowhere near normal, and here’s the evidence.

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

Our country had never before been this endangered. The Overton Window has shifted so far that we are all - regardless of prior experience or expertise - in uncharted waters. I want to focus attention on how extraordinary our current situation is.

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

.@SecRubio
What’s our plan, Marco?
Putin falls and chaos ensues. The Chinese move to snap up Russia’s Far East. Can we grab the nuclear weapons before they are sold off?
Do we encourage the Poles to move on Moscow?
Or do we just seize Cuba and Greenland and tell the Europeans to deal with it?

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Applebaum: Putin's war has finally reached Moscow.

Muscovites have lost cell service, struggled to use ATMs and come under drone attacks.

They understand Russia isn't winning. Putin won't fall tomorrow, but it has shifted the mood of Russia's business and political elite. 1/

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

Putin will flip a tac nuke at Zelenskyy. And soon.

[Sean Cidy @CidySean]

@alexplitsas Biden was careful calibrate so as not to push Russia too hard, and that was easy to assess on the battlefield. But their media are not open, so the CIA may easily over or underestimate the effect the fuel strikes are having on public opinion. Putin's state of mind, too.

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

@PressSec Go home and feed the baby. You are just plain wrong.

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

Hire some Ukrainians. Give them a garage in Silicon Valley. Fund them generously. They’ll produce something pretty good that can be built in quantity - for a reasonable cost.

[Blake Scholl 🛫 @bscholl]

Lessons from Iran and Ukraine:
1/ US and Israeli air defense systems are the only ones that actually work. Chinese and Russian systems can’t handle the F-35 or even a drone.
2/ They are also vastly too expensive and unproducable. The enemy need only outlast our stockpile.

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

Russia should be a member of NATO. They are going to need all the help they can get to keep China from taking their Far East.

[Volodymyr Tretyak 🇺🇦 @VolodyaTretyak]

Girkin has already provided his reaction to today's news. He says Trump played Putin, as always:

"Donald, as they say, has happily "played with the nose" of his beloved partner. Now the "spirit of Anchorage" can be discarded as no longer needed — but the nose will still come in handy, of course. Now it can be shown directly what Ukraine is intended for. Ukraine is intended as an instrument against Russia and nothing more. An instrument with which Trump counted — and still counts — on returning Russia under the sovereignty of the United States and turning it against China. If Russia turns, it will be used against China the same way Ukraine was used against Russia. If Russia does not turn, the war will continue, and the United States will help Ukraine achieve victory. Or at least they will try to help her do so. All the more so since they've been at it for almost five years now, but the "lovers of offering their nose up to gentle hands" refuse to see this, refuse to believe it."

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

But the country did elect a guy - twice - who was recorded saying “Grab them by the p***y.” Maybe misogyny is a plus in modern campaigns.

[Chuck Todd @chucktodd]

Um, considering how many red flags were actually surfaced for the public, donors and operatives to see before this latest credible accusation, it’s hard to call this a vetting fail. The vetting did its job; surfaced enough red flags to make a reasonable decision to stand down on this candidacy. What deserves scrutiny is why so many supposedly smart and savvy people decided to ignore the red flags and plow forward anyway.

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

But these will make great MAGA internment camps.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Last week, the Trump administration spent $1.5 billion of your taxpayer money to buy two immigration detention centers in California from a private prison company called CoreCivic. The deal closed on July 2.

The government now owns the Otay Mesa facility in San Diego County and the California City facility in Kern County. CoreCivic still runs both places under its existing ICE contracts. This sale demands many questions about what it means for immigration enforcement in Southern California, and I’ll be asking them.

As part of the deal, CoreCivic walks away with an estimated $1.1 billion in profit.

Here’s the corrupt part.

President Trump’s own 2025 financial disclosure lists CoreCivic among the stocks he holds. His administration decides how many billions of dollars flow to CoreCivic. When CoreCivic’s stock rises on a government decision, the president personally benefits.

A president should never be able to enrich himself through a choice his own government makes. That is the entire reason conflict of interest rules exist in the first place. Every modern president before this one either sold off their holdings or used a real blind trust to put a wall between the Oval Office and their portfolio. Trump did neither, and holds stakes in dozens of companies that carry federal contracts, from defense firms to detention operators, and his administration keeps directing public money toward them.

Republicans in Congress need to wake up and open a full and public investigation. Not into one company, but into the entire web. Who across this administration holds a financial stake in the contractors their own agencies pay? Who profited, and by how much, from decisions they had the power to shape?

The American people funded these deals.

They have every right to know who else was cashing in.

https://t.co/7LfTca8og1

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

That’s what Kim Jong Un uses to discourage his political opponents.

[Tyler Rogoway @Aviation_Intel]

North Korea’s Frigate Bristles With A Comical Number Of Machine Guns

North Korea's Kang Kon warship released a full broadside of machine gun fire during a demonstration for Kim Kong Un.

https://t.co/0eEvr5Jovq

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

@JesseKellyDC On the other hand…

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

USAF Col John Boyd: “Operate inside adversary’s observation-orientation-decision-action loops to enmesh adversary in a world of uncertainty, doubt, mistrust, confusion, disorder, fear, panic, chaos . . . and/or fold adversary back inside himself so that he cannot cope with events/efforts as they unfold.”

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

China may be lucky its population is shrinking.

[Michael Pettis @michaelxpettis]

This is becoming an increasingly important story: "A Chinese thin tank estimates the number of people in flexible employment - without a permanent full-time contract - rising to 320 million this year from 280 million in 2025, about 44% of China's workforce. China's gig economy has become a crucial employment buffer as the property crisis wipes out construction jobs and manufacturers shed workers through automation and cost-cutting ​amid tariffs, overcapacity and price wars."
https://t.co/3y2EkzuB5Q

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

John Boyd’s OODA concept.

[Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof]

“I wouldn’t be surprised if 2026 is remembered for centuries to come as a year in which a major breakthrough in military technology was made—akin to gunpowder and the like—which is autonomy,” Louis Mosley of Palantir told me.
The key feature of the war between Russia and Ukraine, and likely of other major conflicts to come, is that what used to be cutting-edge weapons and technologies becomes outdated within months. “If you have an adaptive adversary, it’s the speed of iteration and the rate of learning that matter, rather than the technology per se,” Mosley added. @louismosley

https://t.co/Vdjv1DOqT2

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

@tonyannett I think it is one of the drivers of middle class discontent.

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

@tonyannett Which continued under a Republican president.

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

Tripwire forces? Or sacrificial lambs?

[Visioner @visionergeo]

‼️🇺🇲🇨🇳🇹🇼 BIG | American commandos are operating openly inside Taiwan’s elite military bases, flashing a massive middle finger to Beijing’s red lines right on the island's front lines.

US military personnel have been repeatedly spotted entering and exiting Wuhan Camp, the strategic headquarters of Taiwan’s Army Special Warfare Command in Taoyuan, according to local observers and major Taiwanese media outlets. This public exposure highlights a rapidly deepening tactical alliance, with US Congress estimating that around 500 American military trainers are currently embedded across the island. Amid escalating Chinese naval blockades and airspace violations, Washington is already moving forward with plans to double that deployment to 1,000 elite personnel, directly embedding US Special Forces into Taiwan’s core defense infrastructure to prepare for asymmetric guerrilla warfare.

This isn't just routine military training; it is a clear, deliberate message that the US military is already on the ground and ready to fight for Taiwan. By putting American boots inside Taiwan's most elite special forces hubs, Washington is completely shattering Beijing's illusions of a swift, unopposed invasion, proving that any Chinese assault on the island will mean a direct, catastrophic kinetic clash with the United States.

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

I told Donald he should have sent ICE after the Belgian team!

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

@JohnFetterman
Well, big guy, I’m having a little buyers’ remorse about backing YOU.

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

Trump has succeeded in getting NATO to spend more on its own defense. Guess that means we can cut our own defense budget, right @SecWar?

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

@NYConserv33169 Don’t blame the bearer of the news.

[Uncharted Waters @DividedNation28]

@libsoftiktok Coulda had something to do with the nearly $5 trillion in COVID spending under Trump 45 and Biden.