Berkeley Law ‘26, interested in the (critique of) law and political economy/ecology. Fellow @protestlaw. Views my own.
Joined October 2015
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Jake Levitan retweeted
There is literally not one word about #ClimateChange in this entire letter.
NEWS: 19 FORMER ECONOMIC AND NATIONAL SECURITY LEADERS ENDORSE THE BIPARTISAN PERMITTING REFORM BILL
Today, a group of former Cabinet members and White House principals across seven Democratic and Republican administrations sent a letter calling on Congress to pass BAAJA. Here are the signatories:
Janet YELLEN, Michael R. POMPEO, Steven T. MNUCHIN, Leon E. PANETTA, Timothy F. GEITHNER, Henry M. PAULSON, Jr., Robert E. RUBIN, Stephen MIRAN, Jared BERNSTEIN, Tyler GOODSPEED, Jason FURMAN, Glenn HUBBARD, Laura D’Andrea TYSON, Michael J. BOSKIN, Jeffrey ZIENTS, Jake SULLIVAN, Brian DEESE, Larry KUDLOW, Allan B. HUBBARD
Key highlights from the letter:
1. “We are not building infrastructure fast enough to remain globally competitive… The median time for a new power plant to move from an interconnection request to commercial operation has more than doubled, from less than two years for projects built between 2000 and 2007 to more than four years for projects built between 2018 and 2024.
2. China has built more high-voltage transmission in the last fifteen years than the U.S. has built in all of its history... In 2024, China accounted for 31.5% of global knowledge- and technology-intensive manufacturing value added, compared with 20.7% for the United States.
3. Federally funded or permitted projects require NEPA review, but private projects often do not, creating a threat of failure precisely where the government is trying to be proactive, strategic, and engaged.
4. A project that spends years awaiting approval must continue carrying development and financing costs while remaining exposed to rising input costs. The IEA reports that prices for utility-scale transformers increased 26% in 2024, while lead times for some transformers have stretched as long as six years.
5. Mining projects also face tremendous uncertainty: a 2026 study by researchers at the Colorado School of Mines found that permitting for modern mining projects takes an average of 5.5 years, rising to 8.9 years for contested projects. The U.S. currently has the second-longest mine development timeline in the world.
6. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act is the most significant bipartisan legislative effort that Congress has undertaken in decades to tackle these challenges.
7. BAAJA addresses key constraints stifling American industry by requiring interregional transmission planning, strengthening the federal backstop for nationally significant transmission lines, and creating a faster, more predictable process for connecting new generation to the grid.
8. BAAJA also makes permits more durable by imposing tighter timelines for litigation and limiting frivolous lawsuits that can halt projects indefinitely, while preserving community input and judicial review of substantive agency decisions.”
The letter was organized by @arnabdatta321 on behalf of @IFP and covered exclusively by the WSJ this morning.
Jake Levitan retweeted
Good reminder of who Tucker Carlson is. The racist-nativist stream is mad at Trump when he distracts us from the inner war they are more interested in prosecuting.
Tucker Carlson is all-in for the push to deport Rep. Ilhan Omar.
"Is the Somalia First lawmaker some kind of criminal? Apparently, the answer may be yes," he wrote in his newsletter last week.
Today, he uncritically quoted Tom Homan saying that the Trump could denaturalize Omar. "No sitting member of the United States Congress has ever been deported. That could soon change," Carlson said.
Jake Levitan retweeted
the President targeting a sitting member of the opposition party for arrest and deportation three weeks before the midterms would normally be a major story but it was ignored entirely by all four Sunday shows yesterday because the target is The Wrong Race, Religion and Ideology.
Jake Levitan retweeted
Genocide is not some ad hoc buzzword or woke phase de jour or a lefty watchword meant to signal Maximum Outrage, it is a legal finding by experts meant to compel immediate corrective behavior, it carries urgent implications and obligations.
Jake Levitan retweeted
welcome to bizzaro world 2026 where going after weapons makers and banks is a form of racism, something that is objectively insane and something that objectively violates the most basic intellectual honesty but nonetheless something we have to take seriously as a liberal conceit
NYC Council Speaker Julie Menin on this morning’s vandalism of a Capital One branch on the Upper East Side, where windows were smashed and graffiti reading “DROP ELBIT” and “PAL ACTION” was left on the entrance:
“What the NYPD is doing now is they're investigating it as a hate crime. They're gonna do a fast investigation; we appreciate their work on this, and the community is deeply concerned and upset about it.”
Jake Levitan retweeted
The owner of The Atlantic has invested $250 million in Skydance presumably in an effort to eliminate redundancies in the two outlets combined 8000 articles about mean campus protestors variety.com/2026/tv/news/lau…
Jake Levitan retweeted
The commander of the Israeli military unit likely responsible for killing 5-year-old Hind Rajab is currently in the U.S.
As a party to the Genocide Convention and the Geneva Conventions, our government is obligated to arrest and investigate him for these war crimes and acts of genocide. I stand with @HindRFoundation in calling on the DOJ to follow the law and take action.
🇺🇸🚨 The #HindRajabFoundation has filed an urgent request with the U.S. Department of Justice, demanding the immediate investigation, arrest, and prosecution of Sean Glass, currently present in the United States. Glass commanded the Israeli unit implicated in Hind Rajab's murder. HRF's investigation places the 52nd Battalion—including Glass and his Vampire Empire Company—near her vehicle during the killing. Today, Glass walks free in the U.S.
➡️ More → bit.ly/4iv2Zio
Jake Levitan retweeted
Is this the new LARP? American politicians flying to the West Bank to cosplay as defenders of Palestinians while supporting the very institutions that make settler violence possible in the first place?
Brad Lander, we didn’t need you to fly to Palestine and get into a scuffle with settlers to prove you’re an ally. We needed you to stop investing our money in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, while it profited from the genocide of our people. We needed you to stop proudly identifying as a Zionist while condemning Palestinian resistance.
Palestinians don’t need your performative solidarity. We need you to stop supporting our oppressors.
And those who stand with Palestine cannot allow these gestures to buy our trust, erase politicians’ records, or earn them our votes. A photo op in the West Bank does not absolve anyone of their complicity.
Our standards for solidarity with Palestinian liberation cannot be lowered just because politicians have learned how to perform it.
I'm in the West Bank this week as part of the “Protect the Harvest” coalition along with @israelispeaceny, @ucpinpalestine & Protect the Harvest, which is bringing people together from around the world to help Palestinian farmers harvest olives in the face of state-sanctioned settler terrorism.
Our goals for the trip are to help protect the olive harvest — and to shed a light on the reality of the occupation. To ensure that international solidarity goes beyond the harvest, to become a sustained commitment to protecting Palestinian communities from settler violence, forced displacement, and the ongoing threats to their right to remain on their land.
And, speedily and in our day, to secure human rights, safety, equality & freedom for both Palestinians and Israelis.
Thankfully, our corner of today's harvest was peaceful and successful. But violence unfortunately is never far away.
We’ll keep you posted on our efforts this week, especially the stories we hear from Palestinians on the ground. Protect the Harvest.
Jake Levitan retweeted
What an extraordinarily wide-ranging conversation between Barnaby Raine and @adam_tooze
I strongly recommend opening a bottle of wine and just enjoying the ride.
open.spotify.com/show/033MAs…
Jake Levitan retweeted
“settlers are undermining the settler project” guys we’re reaching levels of liberalism heretofore thought impossible
Jake Levitan retweeted
people who call on Israel to "investigate" its own military/vigilante settlers may as well demand to meet Santa Claus. There is literally a greater chance WaPo editors will meet Santa Claus than Israel punishing settlers for this. Perhaps a more existential critique is in order
Jake Levitan retweeted
Since people of all races can vote in elections, the discrepancy below seems most important. If the theory is that Zohran’s criticism of Israel makes him less popular with Jewish New Yorkers, it appears it’s also helping him with the broader electorate which agrees with him
Jake Levitan retweeted
The left has spent 3 years watching Jewish Zionists conflate every criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and said fuck off. The Jewish community has a Zionism problem and that’s on them, not on the left. You don’t get to support genocide and act like a victim.
Jake Levitan retweeted
tbc this it literally Biden’s line. It’s the bog standard line
“I strongly support [clearly defined stance for Israel that serves as the open-ended pretext for genocide] while also [highly conditional gesture that vaguely implies sympathy for Palestinians but commits to nothing]
Jake Levitan retweeted
Israel killed 12X more kids in their 2014 bombing of Gaza than kids died on Oct 7, Israel’s casual bombing in 2021 killed 26 more kids than kids died in Oct 7. I’m curious what allowances the “Israelis were uniquely traumatized by Oct 7” people think this affords Palestinians?
Jake Levitan retweeted
See, you should all be campaigning for Eisenkot so Palestinians can get 90% of the genocide, exactly the same amount of apartheid, and 10% of the international condemnation! Sounds like a great deal!
Jake Levitan retweeted
This has been the core Western liberal talking point since Balfour. “Jews have this very well-defined, exclusive right to national self-determination in Palestine & everyone else already there has … uhm … we’ll make sure they’ve got some kind of rights, too, yeah…”
Jake Levitan retweeted
The @nytimes, which cheerled the genocide, is now leading efforts to whitewash the “Israeli” population which overwhelmingly supports it and is executing it, as hapless uninvolved victims. They are attempting to unfairly scapegoat one man, Netanyahu, and replace him with a more marketable monster.
