Almost everyone I knew at USAID were dedicated, hardworking professionals who cared deeply about their development work - and did more net good than most anyone else in government. Musk, Vought and Trump’s wipeout of an entire profession should never be forgiven.
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/u...
I've been tracking the "public sentiment industry" that GoLaxy is a part of for the past few years. My friend and colleague Jessica Batke and I wrote a piece about them in 2020 after analyzing public procurement documents from units in China wanting their services: www.chinafile.com/reporting-op...
I wrote about China’s expanding social media monitoring and manipulation industry: the firms building and deploying bot networks for party-state actors and expanding into Western platforms. You can read the piece here: www.gmfus.org/news/outsour...
A few points about the industry🧵
The story of the painting and its symbolism for German-American relations can be found int he opening chapter of my book "No Better Friends? The United States and Germany since 1945", which can be found here: www.amazon.com/No-Better-Fr...
The painting in the background, Washington Crossing the Delaware (which btw was painted in Germany, as I describe in my book), depicts events that took place around Christmas 1776. Just a couple of months later, Washington famously mandated the inoculation of the Continental Army against small pox.
💥Days after Viktor Orbán lost reelection, Hungary's data protection authority is investigating Webloc — an Israeli tool that harvests mobile ad data for mass surveillance, likely violating GDPR. We exposed its use by Hungary on @vsquare.bsky.social with @citizenlab.ca: vsquare.org/goulash-with...
🇪🇺🏳️🌈⚖️🇭🇺 A legal earthquake - CJEU finds Hungary to have violated EU law on multiple counts with its anti-LGBT+ legislation (as expected) but also for the first time in history, in an EU law-reshaping precedent, finds Hungary to violate Art 2 TEU in a self-standing manner.
"Bulgaria’s European partners should be wary. The concerns about Radev’s pro-Moscow orientation will be reinforced by Progressive Bulgaria’s high scores in the polling stations for voters abroad in Russia and Belarus."
👇👇👇
www.gmfus.org/news/new-fac...
@gmfus.bsky.social
#Bulgaria 🇧🇬
"The recent cycle of repeated elections and unstable governments may be ending, but the democratic backsliding crisis is not." My @gmfus.bsky.social colleague @dimker.bsky.social on Bulgaria's elections
📣 Challenging Illiberal Power: Democratic Campaigns in Central and Eastern Europe
🗓️ Thursday, 23 April 2026
⏰ 9:15am ET/15:15 CET
📍 Online
Speakers: Anna Vindics, Martin Burgr, Sven Gerst, @veghzsuzsanna.bsky.social
🔗 Register: https://bit.ly/4cSQNoS
Ivan Krastev made the point the other night that Bulgarian politics is trapped in a loop in which the only salient issue is anti-corruption, which means every government doomed to fail when they inevitability fail to tackle corruption, ousted by the next force that pledges to tackle corruption.
#Moldova This month marks 80 years since the 1946-47 Soviet famine, which killed around 2 million people across the USSR.
Proportionally,🇲🇩 was the hardest hit, losing around 10% of its population - a blind spot in the country’s history.
Report with Bastien Renouil 🎥
🇫🇷 f24.my/BpNa
🇬🇧 f24.my/BpPK
🗒️ Spoke to DW News today on 🇧🇬 Bulgaria's eighth election in five years — what it means for Brussels, Moscow, and Bulgarian democracy 👇👇👇
🎥 youtu.be/3EA6BvE0jyU
@gmfus.bsky.social
#Bulgaria
“Today, our British staff said to us, ‘How brave you are, bravo!’ But to tell you the truth, what really happens is that we are fucked up. We’ve tricked our brains into normalising these threats and not fearing at all because otherwise we will need to go to the mental hospital.”
Coincidence?
The Global Progressive Mobilisation just concluded here in Barcelona. An impressively global gathering - with representatives from Europe & US but also across Latin America, Africa, Asia. My observations:
This is basically why, after evaluating it with my security background I basically declined to have any passkeys for my own use.
Ivanishvili's son is curated to follow in footsteps of his father: to be the future heir of their private kingdom.
Tsotne spoke politics today in front of the Georgian Dream youth wing. He avoided to answer on accountability of those in power who beat up youth protesters.
civil.ge/archives/730...
As a grad student and early-career researcher, I got a lot of grief for studying what I did. "Rebecca isn't serious," they said. "She studies restaurants." And here they are, the barometer of public health, safety, and democratic norms.
Keranov said: “Honestly, I highly doubt that these elections right now will produce any real change.”
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
@theguardian.com
@gmfus.bsky.social
There’s a palpable “mob” mentality surging across social media in the aftermath of the Orbán era. Former power brokers, propagandists, and loyal enablers are being dragged into the light - facing demands for accountability and public shaming.🧵
Fleeting thought of 'I have a dream' delivered in a Brummie accent
The national-conservative opposition PiS party has threatened disciplinary measures, including exclusion from electoral lists, against dozens of its MPs who have joined a new internal group led by former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki with the intention of appealing to more moderate voters.
File the impressive Ukrainian achievement of "enemy position captured solely by UGVs" in the crowded category of "significant milestones that can nevertheless easily be over-interpreted" - a few thoughts on why from me here:
theconversation.com/robots-just-...
Proud to publish this view on Hungary from a Polish colleague.
"As we learned, PiS left a staggering amount of traps and landmines for its successors — and many have proved impossible to defuse. Fidesz, which ruled for twice as long, has done the same in Hungary."
www.occrp.org/en/feature/a...
Goo points? Good points...
Never in doubt, IMO
Thanks. Goo points. Certainly difficulty shouldn't excuse inaction. I think though the point is that the system GD has put in place is such that even huge demand for change, well channeled by a party/leader, couldn't now be expected to effect change just through an election as in Hungary.
Can you say why in a nutshell?
Currently editing not one, not two, but three papers on Georgia, and I endorse this message.