Sam Ratner
Policy director at Win Without War, working to enact a more just and progressive US foreign policy. Formerly @ACLEDINFO and @ZitamarNews. He/him. Views my own.
- Reposted by Sam RatnerWorking on revisions for the Shelby County turnout gap paper and, uh... This is striking! The turnout gap has *exploded* in Republican counties that were covered under Section 5, relative to similar Republican counties that were not
- Kier Smarmer
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- This is really fascinating
- This is satanic for so many reasons, but one that jumps out to me: the fake AI Sudanese refugee is a plagiarism bot, but it's not plagiarizing existing Sudanese refugees, *it's plagiarizing Western, English-language discourse about Sudanese refugees!*
- Reposted by Sam RatnerIsrael has rapidly accelerated its destruction of Rafah in April and May. It's hard to understand the magnitude of this, even when spending time analyzing recent satellite imagery. From me, Samuel Granados, Aaron Boxerman, and @rileymellen.bsky.social Gift link: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
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- Reposted by Sam Ratnerthey’re having a “values? what are you, five?“ conference
- I predict that France doing the Tobias “it might work for us” meme about credible extended deterrence will not go well.
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- Reposted by Sam RatnerLiterally every New Yorker I’ve talked to about it has said they love it.
- NYC’s congestion pricing is a policy miracle: Less traffic, less noise, faster transit, more business sales, more transit revenue. And it hasn’t produced the negative effects outside the cordon zone we were afraid of. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
- Reposted by Sam RatnerIt’s especially galling that AG Pam Bondi personally wrote the memo approving the gift of the Qatari airplane. Her last job was as a lobbyist for Qatar! efile.fara.gov/docs/6415-Ex...
- Reposted by Sam RatnerThings we have not (yet) seen in this crisis: - Fighter jets crossing the border/LoC - Use of ground-based dual-capable missiles - Nuclear signalling of a sort we previously saw in in 1990 & 1999 (at least not publicly) - Large-scale mobilisation of ground forces, as in 2001/02
- You have to laugh to keep from crying
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- David E Kelley on the phone with his agent rn, trying to figure out how to get residuals every time you post "Chicago Pope"
- Reposted by Sam RatnerNEW: The rate of sepsis in Houston surged 63% after Texas banned abortion. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where hospital leaders empowered doctors to intervene before patients’ conditions worsened, it rose just 29%.
- This was one of the most out of pocket things I’ve ever heard an announcer say. Just pure, uncut Orientalism.
- I don’t expect any sympathy, but as an Arsenal and Celtics fan, today has been a Bad Day.
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- "Whoever the cardinals choose to be the next pope would be well advised to avoid appearing to take sides in these old ideological battles," Matt Malone writes. wapo.st/3EWCxNI
- Reposted by Sam RatnerThe ADL says “critical Tikkun Olam issues” include shielding the world’s largest weapons firms from shareholder proposals for internal human rights impact assessments on how the companies’ weapons are used by Israel on Palestinians. responsiblestatecraft.org/anti-defamat...
- Reposted by Sam RatnerVirginians are telling me they want lower prices. They aren't telling me they want to do airstrikes in Mexico or invade a NATO ally. If Trump orders unauthorized military action in Mexico or Greenland, I will immediately file legislation to force a vote to stop it.
- Reposted by Sam Ratnerreminder that nuclear weapons do not deter conventional warfare and risks of dangerous escalation. a relevant lesson for the Middle East right now.
- Reposted by Sam Ratnerplarf rockets weren't full of water; somebody mistranslated a term for over-inflating your budgets so you can embezzle money that means "fill with water".
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- Reposted by Sam RatnerTo this day I still see people, including people who are actually on my side of the argument, mixing up Leahy and Section 620i. They are not the same things. The former is for the proscription of individual units within a state army. The latter is for a wholesale suspension of military assistance.
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- And A Few Dollars More To The Euro
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- Visual Investigations continues to do the most consistently excellent and vital work at the Times.
- Reposted by Sam RatnerTrump's tariffs are a disaster for workers in the US and abroad. Solidarity demands that when we rebuild the global economy post-Trump, we do it in a way that affirms the dignity of workers everywhere. New at @cipolicy.bsky.social internationalpolicy.org/publications...
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- Earlier this week, Hegseth released an Army transformation memo that amounts to a huge giveaway to huge campaign donors Anduril. Today, an Anduril exec nominated to be Under Secretary of the Army says he's going to hold onto his stock while at the Pentagon. War profiteering in broad daylight.
- NEW: Trump's nominee for Under Secretary of the Army, an executive at the weapons firm Anduril, says he's going to hold onto his stock in the company despite its billions of dollars in contracts with the Army, according to a recently filed ethics statement theintercept.com/2025/05/01/t...
- A massive giveaway to the Silicon Valley generation of war profiteers, who got Trump elected and are now milking this administration for all it is worth.
- In the army's reforms: "Enable AI-driven command and control at Theater, Corps, and Division headquarters by 2027." media.defense.gov/2025/May/01/...
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- This is gonna be a banger. Looking forward to reading.
- Reposted by Sam RatnerOption 1: stop sending Israel the means of genocide, thereby removing the Houthi threat to Red Sea commerce, as demonstrated by the Houthis abiding by the ceasefire earlier this year. Option 2: A quagmire with no plausible theory of victory and, now,
- Reposted by Sam RatnerToday @sipri.org has announced that world military expenditure reached $2718 billion in 2024. The top 5 military spenders (US, China, Russia, Germany and India) accounted for 60% of the global total at $1635 billion, but how much do we know about the climate impacts of their military budgets?
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- This excellent resource from @the-ilrc.bsky.social helps you track whether your state, county, or municipality is dedicating resources to helping ICE do mass deportation, and gives you tools for what to do about it. www.ilrc.org/practitioner...
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- Important piece. ICE simply can't do mass deportation at the scale and pace Trump wants without collaboration from state and local law enforcement. We have to go after those forms of collaboration every chance we get.
- GAO coming out and saying what everyone with eyes to see already knew: the NSM-20 process for Israel was total bullshit, and the Biden administration lied to Congress to continue shipping arms to Netanyahu.
- In its own diplomatic way, the GAO finds the Biden admin basically did nothing to stop civilians from getting killed in places like Gaza. “Further, as of December 2024, State had not completed any investigations into reports it deemed credible.” www.gao.gov/products/gao...
- what the fuck are we doing here, folks?
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- Reposted by Sam Ratnerthere really is no alternative to tearing up CBP and ICE root and branch
- A US citizen with a learning disability who has just suffered a medical emergency asks a CBP officer for directions outside the emergency room. He ends up detained in an icebox for ten days and has the assistant secretary of DHS lying about him to the public at large. popular.info/p/us-citizen...
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- Reposted by Sam RatnerGary Lineker, "What's going on there (Gaza), the mass murder of thousands of children is something we should have an opinion on" Amol Rajan, "The BBC needs to be impartial about it" Gary Linekar, "Why? It needs to be factual"
- Reposted by Sam RatnerWashington just took the reasonable step of not allowing the National Guard of other states to operate here without our agreement. It’s not the Guard personnel we are concerned about, it’s other governors in the Trump cult. katu.com/news/local/g...
- Reposted by Sam RatnerStriking detail in this profile of retiring IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi—the most direct evidence yet that political pressure, not military planning, drove the massive volume of air strikes in Gaza in the three weeks before the ground campaign started www.ynet.co.il/yedioth/arti...
- Happy birthday to one of the best to do it. Everyone go see Ishtar.
- Reposted by Sam Ratner‘Pete Hegseth? I thought you might be worried...about the security...of your shit.’
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God love Ryan Coogler for taking his clout from Black Panther and David Zaslav’s money to make a horny, gory, morally grey, politically complicated, very funny original adult art movie shot on IMAX 65mm for real—that a bunch of industry insiders were rooting for to fail. - Reposted by Sam Ratner[Not loaded yet]
- It is not actually a requirement of journalism to grant anonymity to a member of Congress when they say transnational torture is fine as long as the victims are gay. Disgusting shit.
- One House Dem called deportations a “soup du jour,” telling @axios.com Trump is “setting a trap for the Democrats, and like usual we're falling for it." “Rather than talking about the tariff policy ... we're going to go take the bait for one hairdresser.” www.axios.com/2025/04/16/d...
- My home state on the front lines of innovation
- I’d go as far as to say it’s already over.
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- Reposted by Sam Ratnergoing to need to start hearing from governors what they intend to do to protect residents of their states from the federal government
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- Also hidden halfway through this article: SSA has agreed to share 98,000 addresses with ICE, in an unprecedented breach of trust. If Congress had an ounce of self-preservation instinct, they’d throw Acting SSA Admin Dudek out on his ass.
- NEW: @nytimes.com reports that the Trump admin is moving to strip hundreds of thousands of immigrants of Social Security Numbers they got when they were granted work authorization, repurposing a "death master file" to try to erase their previous legal presence in the United States.
- Yet another in a series of actions that are presented as anti-immigrant because that's who they target now but are *obviously* meant to be used against anyone, citizen or not, who Trump deems an enemy. This is an assault on everyone's rights.
- NEW: @nytimes.com reports that the Trump admin is moving to strip hundreds of thousands of immigrants of Social Security Numbers they got when they were granted work authorization, repurposing a "death master file" to try to erase their previous legal presence in the United States.
- Reposted by Sam RatnerUhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh apnews.com/article/mahm...
