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Lindsay P Cohn

@lindsaypcohn.bsky.social

15K followers 1.2K following 1.6K posts

Political Scientist (all views are own, not employers’). Visiting Prof @ Columbia SIPA; civ-mil relations, military orgs/manpower, public opinion, foreign policy, militarized policing, democratic theory, intl/natsec law, pol econ

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · Jul 8

I’m excited that my first book is available for pre-order and will come out at the end of the month!
It looks at how to think about military ethics from a perspective of upholding democratic governance and values. Everyone can just ignore the chapter on Augustine unless you REALLY like Augustine 😂

On Order, Authority, and Modern Civil-Military Relations, by Lindsay P. Cohn, published by Bloomsbury Academic

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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 16h

⚠️ Fascinating new research shows LLMs become misaligned when optimized for audience—even when explicitly instructed to remain truthful

Paper:
arxiv.org/pdf/2510.06105

James Zou
@james_y_zou
Follow
We found a troubling emergent behavior in LLM.
*When LLMs compete for social media likes, they start making things up When they compete for votes, they turn inflammatory/populist
When optimized for audiences, LLMs inadvertently become misaligned—we call this Moloch's Bargain
MOLOCH'S BARGAIN: EMERGENT MISALIGNMENT
WHEN LLMS COMPETE FOR AUDIENCES
Batu El
Stanford University
batuel@stanford.edu
James Zou
Stanford University
jamesz@stanford.edu
ABSTRACt

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 5h

Kristi Noem, while governor of South Dakota, supplemented her roughly $130,000 salary by secretly accepting $80,000 donated to a political nonprofit she was affiliated with, records show.

She never disclosed this income on federal ethics forms.

(Published June)

Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations

A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirem...

www.propublica.org

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Dave Byrnes @djbyrnes1.bsky.social · 4h

I know a lot of people are still absorbing judge Perry's order against national guard deployment in Illinois. A couple things to keep in mind:

Dave Byrnes @djbyrnes1.bsky.social · 5h

Looks like we didn't have to wait for tomorrow for the written order: bsky.app/profile/jons...

Jon Seidel @jonseidel.bsky.social · 7h

U.S. District Judge April Perry's temporary restraining order is in:

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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 4h

The Trump administration confirmed that the U.S. bailed out Argentina.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he had directly bought Argentine pesos in global currency markets in a bid to relieve pressure on the nation’s embattled President Javier Milei, a supporter of President Trump.

The U.S. just bailed out Argentina, Treasury Secretary confirms

The US Treasury has finalized a $20 billion financial rescue of Argentina, including a currency swap arrangement with the country's central bank.

www.washingtonpost.com

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G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · 2d

The research on this topic shows that the way pollsters ask about political violence impacts the results they get — and that this can, in turn, actually affect real-world support for violence. That means that covering polls the right way can help decrease long-term political violence in America

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

Ditto with writing about the National Guard and domestic deployments

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

It is one of my favorite Rhode Island stories … and there are so many

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Block Club Chicago @blockclubchi.bsky.social · 3d

The state of Illinois is suing Trump to stop him from sending hundreds of National Guardsmen to Chicago. blockclubchi.co/4gTVTl8

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

She is an angel 🥰

Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

Apologies for typos I wrote this while walking the dog
Might do more later

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

Also the irony that just a couple of yrs ago Gov Abbott was arguing that the federal govt had practically no authority over his National Guard (for COVID vaxx) but now seems fine w actual mobilizations against governors’ objections is 😘

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

My point with all of this is that many of these questions haven’t been adjudicated in a long time, and there is at least room in the jurisprudence to find that the earlier precedents are quite narrow.

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

The constitutional issue was the Guarantee Clause - Art IV section 4, which says the US guarantees to every state a republican form of govt, and the states can appeal for help. But in this case the president declined to intervene, so the question of review *of the decision to intervene* never arose

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

SCOTUS basically said the determination of which govt was legit was a political question and the court did not have the authority to question the president’s determination *in the absence of a congressional determination*

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

SCOTUS was asked to deal w a question in which both sides were alleging that the other was in the wrong bc both were claiming govt authority for their actions and the point at issue was, which of their govts was the legit one?

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

But Tyler did quietly support the old govt and reinforced the garrison at Ft Adams just in case (they were never used). So in effect the Prez recognized the old gov asked the legit one. Congress never had a chance to weigh in on which gov was legit, bc no new Sens were chosen during this time

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

But the old govt was like, uh, we’re right here, and conflict ensued. Both govts claimed to be the legit govt of RI. RI courts recognized the old one; the old gov asked Pres Harrison and then Tyler for assistance; neither would commit on the grounds that it didn’t seem super necessary …

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

Luther v Borden originated in the Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island (whoo go RI!), which is a freaking anazing story and if you’re unfamiliar you shld 100% look it up. But basically a bunch of RIlanders felt that the franchise was too narrow so they got together and voted in a new govt

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

The govt might also point to SCOTUS case Luther v Borden (1849), which has generally been held to say that the president’s decisions in calling out the militia to deal w insurrection etc are not subject to judicial review. But again, there are significant differences bt the circumstances.

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

The second big difference is that the Mott case stemmed from actions during the war of 1812, where there was in fact a v obvious invasion/war happening. It could def be argued that - and there is legislative history supporting this arg - the bar for claiming an inability to enforce fed law is higher

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

That is very different from a state challenging the president’s authority to characterize events within said state.

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

Plus that is one signal difference between Mott and what we are dealing with today. In the 1827 case, it was an individual plaintiff who had been called up to serve in the militia in federal service, and who refused in part on the grounds that he did not think the grounds existed

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

But multiple judges have now challenged that, arguing as Judge Immergut does that the government must have a “colorable claim” that the state in fact needs assistance, based on the 10th amendment.

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

Gov will definitely appeal and will prbly rely on the 1827 SCOTUS ruling in Martin v Mott, that discretion to determine whether an insurrection or failure to enforce federal law is happening rests w the prez alone and is not reviewable.

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 3d

Judge Immergut to gov arg that CA troops are already federalized:

“you’re missing the point. There is not a legal basis to bring federalized National Guard members into Oregon…You have to have a colorable claim that Oregon conditions require it, but you don’t, so why is this appropriate?”

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