Mindy Haas
@mindyhaas.bsky.social
940 followers 330 following 12 posts
Assistant Professor at SPIA, Univ. of Pitt. Studying covert action, US FP, int'l security & int'l law. PhD from Princeton Politics, JD from Penn Law. Mom to Amelia & kitty cat crew. She/her.
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mindyhaas.bsky.social
Excited to see Covert Action: National Approaches to Unacknowledged Intervention, in the wild at #APSA2025. My contribution: Israel's Mossad and Covert Action: Immigration, Counter-Proliferation, and Assassination. Edited by @rorycormac.bsky.social @magslong.bsky.social @markstout.bsky.social
mindyhaas.bsky.social
Anyone have a free Saturday afternoon in Vancouver? Come to my panel, Overt and Covert Interference in World Affairs, at 4pm in VCC West 215! Also featuring Alex Downes, Rob Schub, and five amazing papers on foreign interference.
Reposted by Mindy Haas
stevevladeck.bsky.social
“If the unitary executive theory is subject to exceptions for contexts in which the practical consequences of eliminating an agency’s independence would be too extreme, then it’s not much of a theory.”

Today’s “One First” on #SCOTUS’s deeply flawed ruling last Thursday in Trump v. Wilcox:
153. Living by the Ipse Dixit
A constitutional principle like the "unitary executive theory" isn't worth all that much if the Supreme Court can conjure new, unprincipled exceptions to it by simply asserting that they exist.
www.stevevladeck.com
Reposted by Mindy Haas
josephcox.bsky.social
New from 404 Media: the CIA secretly ran a Star Wars fan website. Was part of the network of sites the CIA used to communicate with sources. Iran discovered the network, imprisoned people. Later dozens died in China after exposed www.404media.co/the-cia-secr...
The CIA Secretly Ran a Star Wars Fan Site
The site, starwarsweb.net, was a covert CIA communications tool. It has pictures of Yoda and C-3PO on it.
www.404media.co
mindyhaas.bsky.social
Announcement from Columbia's History Lab: 🗄️ HistoryLab AI 📁 history-lab.ramus.network 🗃️allows natural-language queries of over more than 5 million primary source records -- CIA files, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) volumes, and State Department cables.
Reposted by Mindy Haas
nilc.org
*New English & Spanish #KYR*

DHS has expanded its use of the 'expedited removal' process. Undocumented community members are now at greater risk of being put in a rapid deportation process - without the right to appear in front of an immigration judge.

What changed & how people can prepare 🧵
A cover graphic with the title Know Your Rights: Expedited Removal Expansion and Conozca Sus Derechos: Ampliación de la Deportación Acelerada
Reposted by Mindy Haas
josephcox.bsky.social
New from 404 Media: we've obtained a leak from inside Palantir describing Palantir's plan to help ICE find people to deport. Includes peoples' location. Palantir is expecting a backlash, preparing comments for employees to tell their family. Says ICE "mature partner"

www.404media.co/leaked-palan...
Leaked: Palantir’s Plan to Help ICE Deport People
Internal Palantir Slack chats and message boards obtained by 404 Media show the contracting giant is helping find the location of people flagged for deportation, that Palantir is now a “more mature pa...
www.404media.co
mindyhaas.bsky.social
Had a wonderful time learning and connecting with fellow scholars about current world issues and how we can educate our students about them, with the help of @cfr.org and their educational resources!
Reposted by Mindy Haas
ichotiner.bsky.social
New Q&A: I talked to the political scientist Jan-Werner Muller about whether Trump is less rational than other authoritarians, the historical relationship between far-right leaders & big-business, & whether it’s condescending to absolve Trump’s voters. www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...
How Trump’s Tariffs Fit the Autocrat’s Playbook
The President thrives on confrontation and demands supplication. Politicizing the economy creates opportunities for both.
www.newyorker.com
Reposted by Mindy Haas
theatlantic.com
American war planning usually takes place in highly secure facilities. But the Trump administration planned its strikes on the Houthis using a group chat—and accidentally included The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. theatln.tc/IuULQFiY
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans
U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.
theatln.tc
Reposted by Mindy Haas
lucatrenta.bsky.social
My initial deep dive into the "shocking" new JFK Assassination files. open.substack.com/pub/thebrush...

#JFKRelease
Reposted by Mindy Haas
foreignaffairs.com
On the latest episode of “The Foreign Affairs Interview,” Fiona Hill discusses Donald Trump’s admiration for Vladimir Putin—and why his push for warmer relations with Moscow is raising alarms across European capitals:
What Does Trump See in Putin?
A Conversation With Fiona Hill
fam.ag
Reposted by Mindy Haas
dandrezner.bsky.social
NARRATOR: The U.S. economy is not being repaired or restored. danieldrezner.substack.com/p/short-term...
Reposted by Mindy Haas
cambskeptics.bsky.social
The QAnon conspiracy theory that Donald Trump was fighting a satanic pedophile cabal may have faded from national discourse, but its ideology, networks, and practices have become integrated into American politics, reports Julian Feeld for Jacobin.
QAnon Hasn’t Disappeared. It’s in America’s Bloodstream.
The QAnon conspiracy theory that Donald Trump was fighting a satanic pedophile cabal may have faded from national discourse, but its ideology, networks, and practices have become integrated into…
jacobin.com
mindyhaas.bsky.social
Exactly, essentially someone who lacks individuality or critical thinking. An insult, for sure.
Reposted by Mindy Haas
jkertzer.bsky.social
New in @iojournal.bsky.social w Jost @ericmin.bsky.social & Schub:

We combine computational methods with uniquely rich Cold War archival evidence to study how advisers matter in foreign policy.

Where advisers stand doesn't just depend on where they sit.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

polisky
Do advisers affect foreign policy and, if so, how? Recent scholarship on
elite decision making prioritizes leaders and the institutions that surround them, rather than the dispositions of advisers themselves. We argue that despite the hierarchical nature of foreign policy decision making, advisers’ predispositions regarding the use of
force shape state behavior through the counsel advisers provide in deliberations. To test our argument, we introduce an original data set of 2,685 foreign policy deliberations between US presidents and their advisers from 1947 to 1988. Applying a novel machine learning approach to estimate the hawkishness of 1,134 Cold War–era
foreign policy decision makers, we show that adviser-level hawkishness affects both the counsel that advisers provide in deliberations and the decisions leaders make: conflictual policy choices grow more likely as hawks increasingly dominate the debate, even when accounting for leader dispositions...
mindyhaas.bsky.social
I reviewed @lucatrenta.bsky.social excellent book, The President's Kill List, for RUSI: doi.org/10.1080/0307... I loved it, in part, b/c it acknowledges the cognitive dissonance btw a formal ban on assassination and policies that permit killing foreign officials for political gain. Go read it!
The President’s Kill List: Assassination and US Foreign Policy since 1945
Published in The RUSI Journal (Vol. 170, No. 1, 2025)
doi.org
mindyhaas.bsky.social
So happy to have shared my research on state-sponsored assassination with @lucatrenta.bsky.social, @avramovok.bsky.social, and Arturo Jiminez-Bacardi at the @socintelhist.bsky.social 2025 Conference at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. A perfect location for studying intel history!