Gregg Hurwitz

I raised my right hand, as many of you did, after 9/11. My stint was relatively brief, 5 years and 15 months in combat. Sixteen years later, I'm still working out what that oath actually asked of me. When you're in, the mission gets handed to you. Somebody tells you where to be, what to carry, who's on your left and right. It isn’t easy, but it’s simple. Keep comms working, keep the gun up. Then you get out, and nobody tells you anything. A lot of guys hear that silence and assume the obligation ended with the unit. I understand why, as I too lived some version of it. Over time I've come to believe the oath was something deeper than enlistment. It represents taking on the burden of my country permanently, for better or worse, to honor and protect the civilization for those past and those yet to live. Service after the uniform looks smaller. That's the hard part for many of us. Nobody pins a medal on you for showing up for a brother at 2am, or coaching your kid's team, or keeping your body strong enough to carry someone if it comes to that. It won't make the news and you’re unlikely to receive any praise or recognition for it. I would argue this quiet, unglamorous readiness and steadfastness is immensely more important than anything you did in uniform. None of it feels heroic. Most days, it's phone calls and follow-ups, driving your kids to school and showing up to work. But you need to understand something. Being a veteran doesn’t mean you used to do something. It means you accepted permanent responsibility for the fate of our nation, civilization, and culture. So today, if someone thanks you, take their thank you graciously. Be proud of what you did, and more importantly understand that you’re a leader who’s accepted responsibility and act that way. Find the people and causes that need you and show up for them the way you showed up in uniform. Your service never ends. Happy Veterans Day.

Everyone wants to weigh in with their Most Astute Take™ on the midterms. But no one wants to even factor in the glaringly obvious: the US has been under the most sustained information attack by foreign states in decades, if not generations. Foreign adversaries have learned to weaponize the very protections and safeguards – First Amendment, Section 230, privacy laws – that make discourse online possible. They use our shield as their weapon. These actors have learned that they don't need to "hack Facebook" — as the press claimed Russia did in 2016. (In fact, that had no measurable impact.) They found that they don't need to infiltrate voting systems. Instead, they have learned to focus on seeding poisonous narratives into virtually every open information system online. It's not only effective, but it's remarkably efficient. The influence happens in various ways: 1. Bot manipulation – Accounts/shows that see enormous engagement surges on particular issues are motivated to double down on the messaging that the bot swarms respond to. 2. Direct incentives – Money and influence. This comes in the form of corporate financing, advertising deals materially larger than their market value. (Did Hasan Piker go to China just for kicks?) 3. Information poisoning – Bringing fringe narratives into the mainstream by seeding them into open, trusted platforms (e.g. Wikipedia). 4. Discourse radicalization – Actors tied to foreign adversarial states pull the discourse further to the fringe. There is no accountability mechanism, so these actors are free to not just say, but endlessly repeat, the most extreme, toxic, and false claims. 5. Network building – As one example: the Singham Network can build, fund, and run ideological networks with alarming success rates. These are broad categories; they break down into thousands of smaller tactics. Further, they innovate. Foreign adversaries have an ability to test and experiment, since state budgets are virtually unlimited relative to the cost. Even more damagingly, there is almost no mainstream journalistic reporting on, or investigation into, malign influence by foreign actors in information spaces. Can we name a single public investigation into information operations by US adversaries like China in recent months? (It's as if, after a decade of "Russia, Russia, Russia," the press simply forgot this is a thing.) Even in the rare cases where we catch and expose these activities, there is almost never consequences: Example 1 - Recall the right-wing influencer taking $10m per year from the Russian government, whose posts seemed design to sowed division? Far from consequences, this individual was entirely let off the hook and even invited back into the country. Example 2 – Al Jazeera's digital network, AJ+, was ordered by DOJ to register as a foreign agent – and simply ignored the order. Were they shut down? Did their operation even slow down? Example 3 – Chinese operatives work in plain site on social platforms, disclosing their affiliations while dragging the discourse into the anti-American fringe. Example 4 – The CCP-linked Singham Network, which funds groups like Code Pink, was exposed in recent months and still functions seamlessly. Example 5 – Influencers and podcasters traveled to Cuba, apparently coordinating with the Cuban government, and are caught doing so. Have any one of them ceased or even decreased their activities? WHAT REALLY MATTERS This is the core imbalance: autocratic states running these operations have no – literally zero – checks on their capabilities: + They face no domestic journalistic investigation. + There is no Oversight Committee demanding answers. + There is no FOIA process to produce information. + There is no consequence in rare cases of exposure. Total freedom to maneuver on the information battlefield. We think, naively, that because these platforms are owned by US companies and regulated by American bodies that they are "ours." Nothing could be further from the truth.

Talarico agrees with Trump on securing the border and cutting red tape for housing Good start

Carville is having an unhinged crash out over Haley Stevens: "If you think that these Republicans are going to treat you as anything other than what they view you as...a used condom. The Democrats don't even think you're worth a used condom." They're coming completely unglued.

I stopped when I realized I was in a movement that wasn't moving anywhere. This is an open letter to the people still stuck in it. lucasgage.pub/p/an-open-lett…

Whenever I start a new pilot I go and rewatch the pilots for Alias and Lost, which are both absolutely perfect.

How cool is this?? THE BIG EMPTY scored a Shamus Award! Many thanks to the Shamus committee and the Private Eye Writers of America.

I think you could write a great Western.