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sissenberg.bsky.social
@sissenberg.bsky.social
200 followers 110 following 10 posts
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Reposted
dandrezner.bsky.social
“During the first term, maybe like 20% of people thought Trump was saving the world, and like 80% of the people thought they were saving the world from Trump. Now it’s like 95% of people think Trump is saving the world, and so they’re believers.” www.politico.com/news/magazin...
Serving at his pleasure: What it’s like to be in Trump’s Cabinet
What it’s like to be in Donald Trump’s Cabinet.
www.politico.com
September 27, 2026 at 12:37 PM
Reposted
vcarchidi.bsky.social
Recommended reading.

One thing I'm taking from this is that some of the cabinet officials and WH staff basically thought Fable was what some in the AI community may have thought of as the hypothetical "this is it" dealbreaker system.

www.politico.com/news/magazin...
Two days later, Amazon researchers stress-testing Fable discovered a jailbreak — an opening for users to direct the model past its safety guardrails. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy shared those findings with White House officials over the phone. (Amazon, which is an investor in Anthropic, was responding to an administration request for feedback, a person familiar with Amazon’s discussions said at the time.) Subsequent testing from Anthropic found that the bypass uncovered by Amazon could also be achieved with substantially less powerful models, including one from a Chinese company, though those models were not subject to the same scrutiny from the government. The White House quickly concluded that its only option was to force Anthropic to take its new model offline. The next morning, Wiles gathered colleagues who had been working on the issue, including Cairncross, attorney Will Scharf and deputy chief of staff Richard Walters, to consider their options. Could the administration invoke the Defense Production Act? Could it somehow force changes to Anthropic’s board? What legal authorities existed to compel a private company to disable one of the world’s most powerful AI systems?
September 20, 2026 at 11:40 PM
Reposted
politico.com
Maine had a plan to feed its hungry by 2030. Then came Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”

Inside the quiet unraveling of America’s food safety net 👇
The Quiet Unraveling of America’s Food Safety Net
Maine had a plan to feed its hungry. Then came Trump's “Big Beautiful Bill.”
www.politico.com
June 22, 2026 at 2:27 AM
sissenberg.bsky.social
Tim Weah plays up and down the right flank. But he’s found his home on the American left wing.
June 13, 2026 at 3:50 AM
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emptywheel.bsky.social
Politico wrote a 10K word piece on Ric Grenell's effort to influence Venezuela that doesn't mention Chris Kise is Trump's former criminal defense attorney and Harry Sargeant funded much of Rudy's effort to frame Joe Biden in 2019.

Aaron Schock plays a part.

www.politico.com/news/2026/06...
The back-channel bid to go soft on Maduro
A web of oil interests, a fallen congressmember, a special envoy and a fleet of social-media influencers tried to pull the Trump administration toward a more accommodating posture on Venezuela. It alm...
www.politico.com
June 8, 2026 at 9:31 AM
sissenberg.bsky.social
FIFA has deftly navigated Argentina’s military dictators, Russia’s oligarchs and Qatar’s royal family to get what it wants at previous World Cups.

Soccer’s powerful governing body may have met its match this year in New Jersey’s elected politicians.
May 4, 2026 at 2:06 AM
Reposted
ryrivard.bsky.social
FIFA faces the World Cup’s toughest opponent: New Jersey www.politico.com/news/2026/05... w/ Sophia Cai
FIFA faces the World Cup’s toughest opponent: New Jersey
FIFA got what it wanted from dictators and oil sheikhs. Elected politicians in the Garden State are proving harder to please.
www.politico.com
May 3, 2026 at 6:07 PM
sissenberg.bsky.social
When Dwight Eisenhower sought to ensure Japan elected a friendly leader, he sent spies with cash to secret Tokyo hotel meetings.

When Donald Trump wanted to shape a Japanese vote, he just...tweeted it out.

How election interference went from cloak-and-dagger to caps-lock ->
April 19, 2026 at 9:30 PM
Reposted
dovlevin.bsky.social
I'm quoted here in a new politico piece discussing the recent tendency, preceding Trump but exemplified in his (& Russia's) interventions in the 2026 Hungarian election for great powers to increasingly meddle in elections through overt methods.
www.politico.com/news/magazin...
The Age of Overt Political Warfare
Great powers once meddled in other country’s elections secretly. Now they are happy for everyone to know.
www.politico.com
April 19, 2026 at 3:05 PM
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michaelkruse.bsky.social
“When these events are awarded, they’re concepts. They’re ideas. They feel good. But between the award and the event itself, the world changes. Politics change. Leaders change.”
North America won the World Cup together. It’s hosting apart.
Mexico, Canada and the United States hoped to showcase continental unity. Instead, competing agendas are turning one World Cup into three parallel tournaments.
www.politico.com
March 8, 2026 at 4:55 PM
Reposted
emptywheel.bsky.social
This LONG Politico piece on how Dems anticipated and responded to Trump's bid to avoid democratic accountability is worth your time.

www.politico.com/news/2025/12...
Trump trained his eye on a coast-to-coast redistricting project far earlier than has been known, our reporting here reveals, emerging as part of an analysis of looming political threats and opportunities even before he was sworn in this January. Trump returned to office already chasing a strategy to dodge democratic accountability for his governance and fend off lame-duck irrelevance that typically follows midterm setbacks for second-term presidents. A White House spokesperson declined to comment on the record for this story. Watch: The Conversation Play Video20:23 The top 5 interview moments of 2025 | The Conversation But things didn’t go quite as planned, as Trump triggered a conflict he couldn’t easily win. Republicans fell far short of the 18 congressional seats which party strategists initially believed they could flip, and whatever gains they did make likely came at significant enduring cost for Trump’s White House. The caper consumed nearly all of Trump’s other domestic political priorities over the course of 2025, while revealing shortcomings in his political operation and cracks in a Republican coalition on which he had come accustomed to a near-total grip. In the feverish aftermath of influencer Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the MAGA movement’s desperation for political victories forced the procedural gamesmanship to take an insidiously dark turn.
January 1, 2026 at 10:59 PM
Reposted
greene.haus
Even more than when I posted this, now seems like a moment for this Sasha Issenberg piece, which war-games a red/blue-state estrangement, to get more time in the sun:
greene.haus Greg Greene (he/him/his) @greene.haus · Aug 29
(*ahem*) … paging Sasha Issenberg, author of this 2018 article, to the chat:
October 6, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Reposted
politico.com
One of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s greatest political accomplishments is about to be wiped away by California voters.

Why hasn’t he done more to defend it?
The action star who wasn’t there
One of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s greatest political accomplishments is about to be wiped away by California voters. Why hasn’t he done more to defend it?
www.politico.com
November 2, 2025 at 5:44 PM
sissenberg.bsky.social
Donald Trump says he wants to kill off voting machines. Does he know what American elections were like before them?

I reconstructed what was the largest election-fraud conspiracy in U.S. history — and how a crusading suffragist and reformed murderer teamed up to expose it. —>
August 18, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Reposted
michaelkruse.bsky.social
How Gianni Infantino won over Donald Trump — and just about every other politician in America.
“The King of Soccer”: How Gianni Infantino won over Donald Trump — and just about every other politician in America
The World Cup's lead organizer learns a new game.
www.politico.com
July 22, 2025 at 1:12 PM
sissenberg.bsky.social
Fascinating portrait of how FIFA's president learned to navigate American politics, by @sophiacai.bsky.social and @timroehn.bsky.social

www.politico.com/news/2025/07...
“The King of Soccer”: How Gianni Infantino won over Donald Trump — and just about every other politician in America
The World Cup's lead organizer learns a new game.
www.politico.com
July 22, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Reposted
hugobebbington.bsky.social
"He loves dictators and billionaires. When he sees people with money, he melts."

A fascinating portrait of FIFA's Gianni Infantino and how he's learnt to navigate the America's politics from the White House to the local level.

www.politico.com/news/2025/07...
FIFA's president plays the American game
How Gianni Infantino learned to navigate the country’s politics, from the White House to city councils.
www.politico.com
July 22, 2025 at 12:21 PM
sissenberg.bsky.social
America's soccer dad has some advice for the White House: "Open up the purse strings" by @sophiacai.bsky.social

www.politico.com/news/2025/07...
America’s soccer dad has some advice for the White House
Alan Rothenberg put on the first World Cup in the United States. He says there’s one thing Donald Trump's man in charge needs to do to ensure next year’s sequel goes off without a hitch.
www.politico.com
July 13, 2025 at 1:57 PM
sissenberg.bsky.social
The library left fights back www.politico.com/news/2025/05...
The library left fights back
As conservatives target library content and funding across the country, bookworms and librarians are teaming up in a California beach town to take their case to voters.
www.politico.com
May 18, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted
douglasmack.bsky.social
I'm probably going to regret joining this discourse but none of these trends are as new as people think—it's just that THEY didn't notice them until recently.

Sushi got big earlier than this. Here's a whole book on the subject. It was published in 2008.
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/297771...
January 6, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Reposted
sissenberg.bsky.social
In the spirit of year-end review, here's the best thing I wrote in 2024: a bit of historic true crime about the largest election-fraud prosecution in American history, and the churchgoing suffragist and convicted murderer who teamed up to crack the case.
www.smithsonianmag.com/history/trai...
When a Trailblazing Suffragist and a Crusading Prosecutor Teamed Up to Expose an Election Conspiracy
An unlikely duo exposed political corruption in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1914—and set a new precedent for fair voting across the country
www.smithsonianmag.com
December 27, 2024 at 2:48 PM
sissenberg.bsky.social
In the spirit of year-end review, here's the best thing I wrote in 2024: a bit of historic true crime about the largest election-fraud prosecution in American history, and the churchgoing suffragist and convicted murderer who teamed up to crack the case.
www.smithsonianmag.com/history/trai...
When a Trailblazing Suffragist and a Crusading Prosecutor Teamed Up to Expose an Election Conspiracy
An unlikely duo exposed political corruption in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1914—and set a new precedent for fair voting across the country
www.smithsonianmag.com
December 27, 2024 at 2:48 PM