A couple of weeks after *millions* of people were on the streets in the US protesting under the “No Kings!” banner !!?!
Yes, I know they were targetted at Trump, but still, what an inauspicious, inapproriate time for a king to go on a state visit to the US. I fear the king has been badly advised.
A cartoon showing soldiers sitting in a transport plane with jump door open. One soldier asks "Where are we heading, sarge?". The soldier next to him answers "Not sure. But @DonnieJunior just made a $150M Polymarket bet on Kharg Island beachfront futures. By Wintersart (substack.com@wintersart).
This is all too real. These days, satire is just news but in teaser format.
$1.5 billion. Five minutes before Trump's post. On a Monday morning with no scheduled news.
Somebody knew.
open.substack.com/pub/adamkinz...
I’d say the main political divide these days is
• Care about the future of mankind and the planet
versus
• Don’t care about the future of mankind and the planet
That’s right, but the changes in the past (few thousand years) have been localized in extent (Sahara, late Middle Age cool period in Europe) or in time (volcanos), whereas the current catastrophe is enormously bigger, and is will get catastrophically worse in the lifetime of today’s children.
Very similar to 1979, I guess. It is only in the last 50 years or so that CO₂ levels and climate change have been getting really bad. The Bering Straight opened about 11,000 years ago, so that would not have been a factor.
A US submarine sinking a lonely, dinky Iranian surface ship an ocean away from the theater of the main conflict—and 9000
miles from North America—makes it pretty clear the US is fighting a general war, without the declaration required by the Constitution. www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...
Caolas Hormuz
Ardú an ghuta á go é faoi thionchar an iarmhír -ín, ab ea?
An bhuil an riail seo atá sa Chaigheán Oifigiúil? 🙂
It’s good!
It's as I said this morning. They are beyond the point of trying to actually persuade anyone. What this messaging is for is to rally not change minds, noone is expected to believe it. It's about rallying in-groups against out groups identified for dehumanisation.
Here’s the answer: “A Corruption Riddle Solved”
phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-up...
And the answer is quite simply Donald Trump’s pocket.
Our analysis at @bellingcat.com on the killing of Alex Pretti breaks down the video evidence.
He never reached for his gun.
Agents sprayed/tackled him while his hands were up.
He was disarmed before he was shot.
The first shot came from an agent firing at him.
www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/01...
I’d say that the main danger is that he’ll press help from his oligarch cronies who control social media, so that they allow right-wing bot farms and misleading individually-tailored messaging. À la Musk and Xitter in 2024 – and yet politicians and others are still using Xitter in 2026!
“A Corruption Riddle Solved”
Mar a tha Dòmhnall Iain Trump a’ pleanadh $billean de dh’airgead Ruiseanach reòite a ghluasad thuige fhéin gu pearsanta troimh a “"Board of Peace”". Agus tha Tony Blair an sàs sa sgeuma.
phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-up...
New: an FBI agent who took the routine step of investigating the ICE officer who shot Renee Good has resigned after FBI leadership discouraged the investigation
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/23/u...
And combatting Climate Change will require international solidarity and cooperation. With Trump and Putin instead driving the world into an Orwellian hell of perpetual war, maybe he can be excused for giving that his attention for the moment.
Mark Carney is one of the few world leaders who really understand the full implications of Climate Change and the need to combat it. But there are political limits to what he can do, given he is head of a country currently dependent on fossil fuels.
Why is the Taoiseach using Xitter at all, when it is an openly biased platform? Its algorithms magnify authoritarian/dictatorial views, suppress democratic views, and give free reign to lies and hate speech. That’s what Elon Musk bought it to make it do.
Demonstrates clearly that it was a big mistake awarding her the peace prize in the first place.
Is it any wonder people feel disenfranchised? The UK is the same.
Has anyone told them that under the wonderful US first-past-the-post system you can’t be “Independent”? Unless you vote Rep. or Dem. you are effectively wasting your vote. (And unless you live in a swing state or district, you might as well waste your vote.) That’s all the say you get under FPTP.
so currently we have five or more parties with a shout according to opinion polls. After the election there’s going to be an awful lot of voters very disgruntled that their vote has counted for nothing or even been counterproductive.
I am expecting some sort of explosive disintegration in UK politics after the next Westminster election. The only stable state under the antiquated first-past-the-post system is a two-party alternation, with anyone not in marginal seat effectively disenfranchised. But people want more say than that,
Céad fáilte romhaibh!
Why is parliament.uk advertising Xitter as the only social media platform relevant to Liz Kendall? To her credit, she has not posted on it since 2022.
members.parliament.uk/member/4026/...
Why does the minister in question, Liz Kendall, still advertise a contact address on Xitter (and not anywhere else), even though Elon Musk has made it clear for years that has turned Xitter into a biased platform designed to promote his own views?
members.parliament.uk/member/4026/...
Why are Government ministers and politicians still using Xitter themselves, when Elon Musk has been quite open for several years now about turning it into a biased reflector of his own views??