Mustafa Jamil

I’m a Seattle dad. My wife @bowenjamil is my hero. Dad to two girls and an out-of-control chocolate lab.

[Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין @MairavZ]

Not a single arrest has been made of any Israeli involved in attacks on Washington Post photojournalist or European diplomats over the weekend in the West Bank.

[Philippe Lemoine @phl43]

A lot of people are responding to this by saying that the French government should just use force to put down the riots, but I don't think it's realistic and I want to explain why.

Before you get angry at me and accuse me of being a pussy, you should know that I personally think a building such as Limoges's town hall is worth more than most human beings and certainly more than the brainless thugs who burnt it down, but it doesn't matter what I think.

We have let things rot for so long that, at this point, relying primarily on force to restore order would require a degree of violence far greater than what people realize and what is politically feasible.

It's possible to contain a riot using only moderate force when the number of police officers is high relative to the number of rioters, but when riots are so widespread and involve so many people because you have allowed this kind of things to happen for so long, that's just not possible and you have to use extreme violence to make up for the lack of manpower.

I know people on the Internet will say that it doesn't matter and that we should just do it, but the reality is that most of the people in charge are not prepared to use that kind of force and neither would most ordinary people if they saw videos of 16-year-old kids having their brains blown out by cops.

I doubt even Le Pen would do that and, if she tried, she would quickly backtrack because of the backlash it would inevitably generate.

When you start shooting rioters after years or even decades of letting them run amok with impunity, it will initially result in even more violence, because repression is no longer credible and they will assume that you will cave in the face of the outrage.

So it's not enough to shoot people once, you have to keep doing it until your credibility is restored and nobody will even want to test your resolve anymore, which in turn means that you have to kill a lot of people.

And you have to be confident that, as you do that, your subordinates and political allies won't get cold feet and desert you because they anticipate that you'll lose and will not want to be on the losing side, giving rise to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm sorry but that's just not going to happen. The Soviet hardliners didn't have the stomach for this kind of carnage in 1991, which is why the August coup failed almost immediately, so frankly the idea that French elites in 2027 will is just delusional. As I say below, there are things we can and should do, but we have our work cut out for us and it will take a long time.

[Ami Dar @AmiDar]

Smug fatalism is the one position I can’t stand. When I was a kid, Spain, Portugal, and Greece were ruled by military dictators. Walls with barbed wire cut Berlin and Jerusalem in half. Being gay was illegal in Spain, and interracial marriage was forbidden in Virginia. You can make your own list of the changes you've seen, but the point is that humans have agency, nothing is static, and hope never dies. Onward!

[Brett Meiselas @BMeiselas]

Is he just gonna write a new one of these every day or what

[Philippe Lemoine @phl43]

It's kind of hilarious that American congressmen sound like they have battered woman syndrome every time you ask them about something bad Israel did.

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Angie Nixon: “If believing that a mother working two jobs should earn enough to put food on the table is radical, then call me radical. If believing a child with cancer should get treatment they need whether their parents can afford it or not is radical, then call me radical. If believing no family should go bankrupt because somebody got sick is radical, then call me radical. If believing we should spend more money taking care of our children than fighting endless wars is radical, then call me radical”

[Tommy Beer @TommyBeer]

Vile, open racist demagoguery by the President of the US against entire swaths of Americans. Proudly spewing hatred at a specified religion.

The crowd cheers.

man how tf did we get here

[Howard Luks MD @hjluks]

Living longer and better doesn't require anything remotely complicated.

I'm 63 and have been an orthopedic surgeon for 30 years. The people who do best aren't doing anything crazy or exotic. They just refuse to let their lives narrow and acting accordingly.

Here’s my Twitter book …

- Don't smoke
- Keep alcohol modest or absent.
- Move
- Move more
- Keep moving
- Push and pull heavy things
- Sleep 7 hours.
- Have friends
- Keep moving.
- Find a reason to get out of bed in the morning!
- A sense of purpose is key.
- See your friends in person.
- Keep moving. For real benefit- consider 500+ min/wk. Sure… 120 min/week works. But my goal is vastly higher.
- Eat real food that you cook.

You can read books that say something else. You can try one of a thousand supplements or research grade injectables. Won’t matter one bit for most of you. Might hurt some of you.

Simple works really well.

Form the habits… they will largely determine your destiny.

There are no shortcuts.
There are no shortcuts.

[Elizabeth Tsurkov @LizHurra]

7 years ago, Lebanese of all sects came out into the streets to protest the corrupt ruling order that bankrupted the country (the immediate trigger was a tax on WhatsApp). In the 2020 university student elections, the “Secular Clubs” representing the uprising made their biggest gains in Lebanese history. Since then, the popularity of the Secular Clubs has waned in all campuses. In 2022, 13 independent MPs entered parliament claiming to represent the Lebanese Tishreen (October) protest movement. If elections were held on time this year instead of being postponed by 2 years, most of them probably would have failed to win.

In Iraq, the simultaneous 2019 Tishreen uprising (which brought millions into the streets and was violently repressed by Iranian-commanded militias that slaughtered hundreds of protesters) brought almost 50 independent MPs into parliament in the 2021 elections. In the 2025 elections, none of them won.

The failure of the uprisings to bring about change through the streets or parliament stems from multiple reasons but is a testament to the durability and adaptability of the parasitical systems and parties ruling both countries. Both Lebanese and Iraq are failed states in terms of state service provision and the monopoly over the means of violence. Yet, the absence of a single ruling party arguably makes the system harder to topple and makes it easier for parties to escape responsibility for state failure. And concerns about the balance of power between sects also makes it harder for voters to abandon their traditional parties.

The election of Joseph Aoun and Nawaf Salam at President and PM owing to Hezbollah’s defeat in the 2024 war and effective politicking by the Tishreeni MPs appeared a moment of hope for Lebanon. Yet almost 2 years into their term, the ruling system is clearly winning. Aoun and even Salam (a clearly non-corrupt individual) not only failed to constrain Hezbollah, but have also succumbed to the power of the “deep state”: bankers, special interests and Nabih Berri, the ruler of the “deep state”. In the service of the banking elite (responsible for the 2019 banking collapse and impoverishment of millions of Lebanese) Aoun appealed against a banking reform law that is crucial for receiving loans from the IMF. Aoun and Salam backed a constitutionally dubious decision to renew the term of the president of the Lebanese University because Berri insisted on him. This follows the transfer of $90 million by the gov for services to the war-torn south to Berri’s Council of the South, a well-known hub of corruption and patronage, rather than through gov ministries.

These decisions may appear meaningless to outside observers who only care about Hezbollah disarmament, but they’re very telling: those too scared to stand up to the banking mafia and Nabih Berri (Hezbollah’s chief ally) will not disarm Hezbollah without severe outside pressure. This pressure is likely too late at this point to prevent a 3rd war between Hezbollah & Israel, which appears likely after the US midterms as Israel & US will strike the Iranian regime again. Still, it ought to be applied, otherwise Lebanon will simply witness more cycles of war, further impoverishment of the Lebanese and permanent displacement from the south.

Source of the video: https://t.co/gBieF9M4ap

[Suzie rizzio @Suzierizzo1]

This Country needs more Journalists like Kyle Clark from 9 News Colorado because he’s not afraid to ask Politicians hard questions & correct them when they aren’t being truthful like GOP Colorado Senate candidate Mike Baisley who embraced 2020 election conspiracy theories.

[U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. @SenBillCassidy]

The Graham law was passed for a reason: to put pressure on Russia to end its war against Ukraine. We should be using every tool available to bring Putin to the negotiating table, not taking pressure off him. Peace requires leverage.

https://t.co/po31ggWQ1l

[Rafique Tucker 🇺🇸🇮🇱 🇺🇦 @RiffRaf979]

Besides the obvious, including the literal destruction of the country's artifacts, if you're not upset about this, do you want the far-Right to take power? Because this is how the far-Right takes power.

[Norman Ornstein @NormOrnstein]

It is a bald-faced lie. By a bald-faced liar.

[Ghanem Nuseibeh @gnuseibeh]

The trajectory of things means that Israel Palestine will turn into states (1, 2 or 50) of religious extremists, of poverty rather than prosperity. The secular, educated Jews will not feel at home in Israel just like Palestinians in Palestine & will leave. Extremists are winning

[Hunter📈🌈📊 @StatisticUrban]

Thomas Jefferson explicitly wrote that the founding generation intended religious freedom to protect people of all faiths, not just Christians.

He specifically named Muslims and Hindus as an example.

[Etan Nechin @Etanetan23]

When people ask why the army doesn’t do anything when settlers rampage through villages, attack journalists and diplomats, and shoot Palestinians with impunity.

[Mike Fellman @MikeFellman]

Palestinians are not automatically legally entitled to a state but in practical and legal terms, statehood is the smoothest path towards granting them self-determination.

Integration into Israel is opposed by both Palestinians and Israelis, and also would require the international community to recognize the WB and Gaza as Israeli. That puts the international community in the awkward position of recognizing the annexation of territory captured in war.

[Laura Rozen @lrozen]

You sure figured out how to make it worse in 18 months

[Alireza Talakoubnejad @websterkaroon]

95% of the "Muslims are gonna bring Sharia to America" panic is just recycled 20th century antisemitism.

Which is why it's so ironic when some Muslims just regurgitate that type of antisemitism or when some Jews become obsessed with the conspiracies against Muslims.

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

"Trump’s Election Interference Is Underway."

And it can come from Trump corporate and tech allies outside government as well as from the government itself.

https://t.co/WBIrBchebS