Former editor/writer at CBS Interactive, now at Salesforce. Opinions my own.
Joined March 2007
- Tweets23.8K
- Following2.3K
- Followers23.5K
- Likes22.6K
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
This is like the epigraph for the entire Trump 2.0 presidency:
‘’I don’t give a damn. We’re making a fortune’
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
Three waves of ballistic missiles have been launched at Kyiv by Russian “humanitarians” since yesterday evening. They used 21 missiles. Unfortunately, numerous sites across the city have been hit and damaged: ordinary residential buildings, energy facilities, infrastructure at one of the railway stations and the metro, shopping malls, and businesses. Even a monastery is among the damaged sites. Our emergency services are working at all the affected locations. Twelve of our regions came under Russian attack overnight. In Kyiv and across the regions, 34 people were injured, including five children. As of now, two people have been confirmed killed. My condolences to their families and loved ones.
Almost immediately after another round of talks, Russia launched a pointed attack. This means there has been no real change in its attitude toward everything that is happening. It is important to keep trying to find the right solutions to end this war. But when Russia responds to negotiations with ballistic missiles, real pressure on Russia is needed to bring about different steps – steps toward ending the killing. Stronger air defenses and the rapid delivery of missiles, the ability to destroy ballistic missile launchers, sanctions over the war – all of this must be in place. I am grateful to everyone who sees the situation for what it is and acknowledges the reality. The aggressor deserves to be treated accordingly. Ukraine deserves support. People's lives deserve protection. Thank you to everyone who stands with Ukraine!
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
The final pieces of the puzzle are falling into place, revealing an increasingly disturbing picture of what is happening behind the scenes in Washington.
If you are still wondering where Donald Trump's hysterical attacks on Kyiv come from, why he keeps making absurd claims about "the rain that saved Ukraine," and why he responds so aggressively to journalists who challenge him, consider the analysis of someone who understands the inner workings of the White House.
Dr. Fiona Hill, a former senior White House national security official and one of America's leading experts on Russia, has offered a deeply troubling interpretation of Trump's behavior.
Trump wants Zelenskyy to capitulate.
Why? Because, according to this interpretation, the entire situation comes down to something painfully simple: Trump's wounded ego.
This is a man who promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. He imagined himself receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and being celebrated as one of the greatest peacemakers in history. He envisioned a spectacular diplomatic triumph that would secure his place in the history books.
Instead, his grand promises have collided with reality.
Months have passed, the magical peace agreement has failed to materialize, and the Kremlin dictator continues to reject proposals that do not satisfy his demands. Putin has repeatedly demonstrated that he has little interest in helping Trump achieve his political ambitions.
So who should Trump blame for this humiliating failure?
Himself? Absolutely not. In Trump's political universe, admitting a mistake is practically unthinkable.
Putin? Apparently not. Trump continues to treat the Kremlin dictator as a powerful leader worthy of respect, despite Russia's continuing destruction of Ukrainian cities and the deaths of innocent civilians.
That leaves one convenient target: Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump is furious because the Ukrainian president refuses to surrender, refuses to kneel before Moscow, and refuses to sign an agreement that would sacrifice his country's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
He is furious because an entire nation refuses to capitulate to an aggressor merely so the 47th president of the United States can stand before the cameras and declare himself the man who ended the war.
And now, as Hill's analysis suggests, the pressure is increasingly being directed not at Moscow, which launched the invasion, but at Kyiv, which is fighting for its survival.
The apparent calculation is that Washington, potentially supported by war-weary European governments, can pressure Ukraine into accepting terms that would allow Trump to claim a diplomatic victory, regardless of the long-term consequences for Ukrainian security.
But the price of this political spectacle is not measured in television ratings, headlines, or Nobel Prize nominations.
It is measured in the blood of Ukrainian soldiers defending their country in freezing trenches. It is measured in the lives of civilians killed by Russian missiles and drones, in destroyed homes, shattered families, kidnapped children, and entire cities reduced to ruins.
Ukraine is fighting an aggressor determined to destroy its independence. At the same time, Ukrainians must confront the possibility that some of those who call themselves allies may place their own political ambitions above Ukraine's survival.
There is something profoundly disturbing about demanding concessions from the country being invaded while treating the invading dictator as an indispensable partner in negotiations.
Ukraine did not start this war.Ukraine did not invade Russia.Ukraine is not responsible for Putin's imperial ambitions or Trump's unfulfilled political promises.
And Ukrainians should not be expected to pay for anyone's wounded pride with their freedom,their territory,or their lives.
A peace agreement that rewards aggression and leaves Ukraine defenseless is not a historic diplomatic victory. It risks becoming an invitation to the next war.
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
Which is worse, the strategic stupidity of rewarding a murderous dictator with billions of dollars for taking American hostages, or a US envoy groveling before him? As usual in these US-Russia “negotiations," Putin gets everything he wants and gives up nothing he cares about.
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
I have read dozens of outraged posts because the US special envoy Witkoff called Putin a "humanist." But no one is writing about the fact that the American negotiators are simply not doing their job. Let me explain.
Peace negotiations are important in their own right. Even if they do not lead to a lasting peace, the process itself is an opportunity to resolve urgent humanitarian issues. If, of course, the human dimension is a priority for the negotiators. But it is entirely obvious that neither Witkoff nor Kushner cares about people's fates in this war.
The Pope calls on Putin to save thousands of people from starvation in occupied Oleshky and the surrounding villages. The UN speaks about a humanitarian catastrophe and asks Russia to allow the evacuation of the civilian population. European Parliament Vice-President Pina Picierno goes on a hunger strike to draw attention to this tragedy unfolding before the eyes of the whole world.
And what are Witkoff and Kushner doing?
That's right, almost nothing.
Except for passing along greetings from Putin’s aide to the First Lady.
Thousands of people are already eating grass to survive and begging to save their lives. The Ukrainian side raises the issue of Oleshky at every meeting. And I can name dozens of such urgent humanitarian issues off the top of my head where American negotiators must be proactive.
Trump’s peace negotiations have already gone down in history as the deadliest years for Ukraine’s civilian population since the start of the full-scale invasion.
I don’t know if anyone will remember the names of Witkoff and Kushner.
But history will certainly record how American negotiators, who had the opportunity to save a huge number of people, refused to raise uncomfortable questions before "humanist Putin."
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
Just to be clear about what happened here:
- Trump cut a deal with Putin that will route ~$4B of American dollars to Russia. That money will be used to fund the war.
- Trump announced an "energy ceasefire" that was probably Putin's idea, surprised the Ukrainians, is structured to benefit Russia, and was immediately broken by the Russian military.
- When Zelensky spoke candidly about these terrible deals, the US cut off Starlink access in ways that made it harder for Ukraine to intercept Russian drones, and seemingly withheld intel about ballistic missile attacks.
- Last week alone, Russia killed more than 150 civilians in Ukraine, including 33 in one strike on a bus stop.
Trump is de facto asking @ZelenskyyUa to surrender. Zelensky can throw on a suit, he can endure lectures from whiny little bitches like @JDVance, but he can't lay down and die just because Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize.
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
What drives a member of America’s elite to aid and abet a regime like Donald Trump’s second term? “Sheer greed can never be underestimated — whether the profits are personal or corporate,” writes Frank Rich.
What is more intriguing than the thugs, mad dogs, buffoons, and rabid ideologues like Hegseth, Miller, Patel and RFK Jr. who have enlisted in MAGA Republicanism are the elites who did have some reputation of probity, independence, or at least sanity, before: Cabinet members like Todd Blanche, Scott Bessent, Doug Burgum, and Jay Clayton and Trump’s billionaire cheerleaders on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley. “These guys — they are mainly guys — used to be thought of as the adults in whatever room they occupied (with the exception of Elon Musk, that is). You’d think they would have wanted to protect the good names they had once worked hard to build,” Rich writes.
Instead, Trump’s billionaires have joined his cause for tax breaks and deregulation, for federal contracts, for lax antitrust enforcement, and for any other goodies they could grab — not for the gutting of the Constitution. Busy fattening their bottom lines, they remained onboard for the rest: the bigotry, the ICE shootings of American citizens and innocent “aliens,” the assault on public health, the betrayal of America’s friends, and the cozying up to the American adversaries China, Russia, and North Korea. “The problem for these tycoons,” writes Rich, “is that you can’t pig out on column A and then pretend column B wasn’t included in the menu.”
Read his full essay on why the cronies of Trump 2.0 are heading for a harsh comeuppance: nymag.visitlink.me/wsXaSz
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
I was in a 2 hour briefing today on the Iran War. All the briefings are closed, because Trump can't defend this war in public.
I obviously can't disclose classified info, but you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are.
1/ Here's what I can share:
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
sociopath thrilled with killing people about whom he knows nothing except they are "Iranians"-- not even pretending to have normal human feelings of regret or conscience.
contrast with the views of a military man like General Eisenhower--war is terrible, war is stupid... war should be a last & not a first resort.
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
In the first hours after the strike, Trump called on the Iranian people “to take back their country.” With what? Sticks and stones? For the sake of projected bravado, our bone-spur president is urging the Iranian people to come out of their houses and die.
Trump could have feasted on the PR chest-beating from the Maduro capture until the midterms. But his Mars god-of-war complex wouldn’t let him.
Get my full take on the Iran attack on Fresh Hell.
tinabrown.substack.com/p/mes…
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
When the Secretary of War made these comments, about one in five people killed by Operation Epic Fury were elementary-age schoolgirls in the middle of a normal school day.
Hegseth: "Death and destruction from the sky all day long. We're playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it ... we are punching them while they are down"
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
The math on this project should mass-humble every AI lab on the planet.
1 cubic millimeter. One-millionth of a human brain. Harvard and Google spent 10 years mapping it. The imaging alone took 326 days. They sliced the tissue into 5,000 wafers each 30 nanometers thick, ran them through a $6 million electron microscope, then needed Google’s ML models to stitch the 3D reconstruction because no human team could process the output.
The result: 57,000 cells, 150 million synapses, 230 millimeters of blood vessels, compressed into 1.4 petabytes of raw data. For context, 1.4 petabytes is roughly 1.4 million gigabytes. From a speck smaller than a grain of rice.
Now scale that. The full human brain is one million times larger. Mapping the whole thing at this resolution would produce approximately 1.4 zettabytes of data. That’s roughly equal to all the data generated on Earth in a single year. The storage alone would cost an estimated $50 billion and require a 140-acre data center, which would make it the largest on the planet.
And they found things textbooks don’t contain. One neuron had over 5,000 connection points. Some axons had coiled themselves into tight whorls for completely unknown reasons. Pairs of cell clusters grew in mirror images of each other. Jeff Lichtman, the Harvard lead, said there’s “a chasm between what we already know and what we need to know.”
This is why the next step isn’t a human brain. It’s a mouse hippocampus, 10 cubic millimeters, over the next five years. Because even a mouse brain is 1,000x larger than what they just mapped, and the full mouse connectome is the proof of concept before anyone attempts the human one.
We’re building AI systems that loosely mimic neural networks while still unable to fully read the wiring diagram of a single cubic millimeter of the thing we’re trying to imitate. The original is 1.4 petabytes per millionth of its volume. Every AI model on Earth fits in a fraction of that.
The brain runs on 20 watts and fits in your skull. The data center required to merely describe one-millionth of it would span 140 acres.
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
“It’s just a couple dead Americans, I don't understand why do you care so much" is officially the new MAGA stance on national security.
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
350,000 people with nowhere to go will be rendered undocumented on Tuesday. Not because Haiti is safe, no, of course not. Because Secretary Noem and President Trump don’t think they should be here legally.
What the hell are we doing? Is this who we are?
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
This is a terribly misleading graphic which uses a non-zero-based Y axis to make a 1% difference seem much larger.
I recommend Tufte's "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information".
American steel is BACK. 🇺🇸
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
For context; chart axis makes increase appear more significant than it is.
Steel Production since 2015
2025: 81.8 *US gov
2024: 80.8 *US gov
2023: 81.4
2022: 80.5
2021: 85.8
2020: 72.7
2019 : 87.8
2018 : 86.6
2017 : 81.6
2016 : 78.5
2015 : 78.9
Worldsteel data unless *
worldsteel.org/data/annual-pr…
Dan Farber #Stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦 #NeverAgain retweeted
In Springfield, Ohio, people are preparing in advance of a “large deportation” promised by Trump. To all appearances, the city is 2 or 3 days from a federal ethnic cleansing, grounded in a hate campaign organized by the vice-president and American Nazis.
snyder.substack.com/p/ethnic…