Congratulations to her!

Many people: "You can't do that!" The Trump administration: "It's okay, it's just war, we can do whatever we want."

...the 'reasonable chance of success' principle and planning for the attack on Iran; jus in bello and (a) Hegseth's 'no quarter' order and (b) the failure to check whether a building was a military facility or a primary school before flattening it; and threats of genocide by the commander in chief.

So apparently Johnson and Vance are Just War Theory experts now. As someone who used to lecture on this, I'd be interested in their detailed explanations of: jus ad bellum and the legitimacy of the attack on Iran in the absence of an imminent threat...

This is a Ukrainian boy, Bohdan. He will forever be eight years old.

Yesterday, a Russian drone killed Bohdan as he was playing on a playground in Cherkasy.

Bohdan sang in the church choir.

Deepest condolences...

Russian terrorism must be stopped.

Peter Duncan obituary Other lives: Lecturer at UCL who wrote books on Russian politics and advised the House of Commons

Nice obituary of Pete Duncan, the legendary scholar and teacher of Russian politics. Generations of students and colleagues benefitted from his kindness, his knowledge, and his academic rigour. A unique, and uniquely valuable, scholar. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Exactly.

More gold stuff, too.

Putin has been praising Trump for a long time. I suspect private flattery goes back further than the public praise.

They've probably said nice things about him first though - that seems to be a precondition. So, supporters who he can look up to because he thinks they admire him.

Trump talks about the Pope as if he's running against him. He seems to have only three frames through which he sees other male public figures: supporters (men who say nice things about him), business rivals, and political opponents.

A lot of Orbán's American fans are saying that this election proved he was never an authoritarian in the first place.

This is completely wrong — and, in fact, betrays a complete misunderstanding of both Hungarian politics and modern authoritarianism.

Here's why.

A Skeptic From the Start Mr. Vance did not want the United States to go to war with Iran. He warned about regional chaos and mass casualties. He worried about depleting the U.S. stock of munitions. He feared betraying the administration’s political base, many of whom backed the president because of his vow not to enter the United States into new wars.

This has so quickly become conventional wisdom that the NYT doesn't even feel the need to attribute it. The original article attributes it to "extensive interviews." Hmmph. And this article makes it sound like Vance made his concerns public, which of course he didn't. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/12/u...

"Their navy is gone, their air force is gone...most of their leaders are dead" and "little...is left of Iran" but somehow Iran is able to carry out "WORLD EXTORTION" 🤔

I was just saying exactly this - with the caveat that the sheriff in Blazing Saddles knows what he's doing.

A reverse Mike Tyson: everyone (in the Trump administration) has a plan until they punch someone in the face. When that doesn't work, they have no plan B. They made the same mistake in assuming they could use overwhelming diplomatic force to compel Ukraine. And Europe over Greenland.

Either seems possible.

Hopefully none of this will happen, and the Hungarian elections will produce a clear, violence-free result that everyone accepts. But this can't be taken for granted, and Europe needs to be prepared for the possibility of the US backing a stolen election in an EU state.

It would also give the White House a pretext to move to an even more explicitly anti-Ukrainian position in relation to the war.

If the Trump admin accepts a Russian-origin provocation blamed on Ukraine, designed to keep Orban in power illegally, that will cause a further major breach in US-Europe relations and raise urgent questions for European states about US-Russia interference in other elections.

Will the US accept what looks to be the likely result in Hungary? Unclear. If Orban/Russia stage an attack and blame the Ukrainians, as reporting suggests is possible, will the Trump administration side with them and support Orban holding on to power illegally? Seems likely.

It's been clear since Jan 2025 that the Trump administration has been aligning the US with Russia. In Hungary, for the first time, we've seen the US and Russia interfering in an election on the same side - the side of Russia's ally. 🧵

Currently re-watching this great series. If you haven't watched it and have any interest in art, history, amazing landscapes, or Iran, I strongly recommend it.

...that benefits the family and those willing to prop up the president, turbo-charging an oligarchy and leaving everyone else behind; starting catastrophic wars that show a total disregard for humanitarian law; fixated on international status and respect while tanking both and blaming everyone else.

Term 2 Trump looking like mid-late period Yeltsin in so many ways: an individual with visibly diminished physical and mental capabilities inhabiting an extremely powerful presidency, with no clarity over who is wielding actual decision-making power, presiding over a wildly corrupt system...

Thank you, again.

Exactly.

Extraordinary to see the UK PM putting Trump and Putin together like this, and referring to 'Trump' not 'President Trump'. A lot has changed in the last few weeks - this would have been unimaginable six months ago - and I don't see how it changes back. www.politico.eu/article/star...

(None of that last post should be taken as an apology for Putin, the USSR, or communism.)