Patrick Owens

💯The case for democracy is not that voters are always right, or wise, or good. It's that they can correct their mistakes. That's why it's so dangerous to have billionaires controlling the media or regulating the flow of information. It shuts down the immune system of democracy.

And a sign of America losing a foothold in the region

Bolsonaro's loss is not just a loss for Bolsonaro. It's a loss for Trump. For Musk. For Milei. For Netanyahu. For Farage. For Meta and Zuckerberg. For the meat barons, the fossil fuel corporations, and the rest of the neocolonial looters. And it is a massive win for humanity and the living planet.

For two years, student-led protests have raged against Aleksandar Vučić and his corrupt government in Serbia. Today, in parliamentary elections, he was toppled. One of the most sustained protest movements in recent European history has succeeded. Resistance works.

First Orban, now Vučić. Both fundamentally undone by rank corruption of their regimes. Which is so often the reality of the authoritarian right in power. Really worth paying heed to in Western Europe right now

The Heritage Foundation adviser who recruited 12 bishops to pray over Trump in the Oval Office claimed a Ph.D. from an Italian university that doesn’t grant doctorates. His listed bachelor’s school is a high school. A Vatican official called the meeting an insult to Pope Leo XIV.

Ukrainian drones struck Siberia’s Omsky Kauchuk plant over 2,500 km away, hitting a site producing missile rocket propellant. The record deep strike hit a logistics hub in Omsk alongside concurrent drone attacks on a Belgorod commercial complex. www.kyivpost.com/post/88099

There is a massive corruption scandal unfolding in the US, with top American executives abandoning a $25 billion gas project over allegations of secret Russian investment and control. ​All of this is happening just as the US administration moves to ease sanctions on Russia. ​

Quite right.

I'm sorry, but this is such bollocks. Are they seriously suggesting *a quarter* of all tourists would not visit the UK because of a tax which nearly every other European country (not to mention nearly every US state) has? Give over...

🚨🚨This could be a turning point. Amid #Starlink crisis, #Finnish tech giants #ICEYE and #Nokia signed a letter of intent with #Ukraine's Defense Ministry yesterday formalizing a partnership aimed at developing Ukraine's own #satellitecommunicationssystem. kyivindependent.com/amid-starlin...

Anyone with some understanding knew this but it was excluded in the TOR of the report commissioned by Johnson. Given how narrow the win was it's an important question. It's one of the reasons behind the painful divisions in our society. Many lost a part of their identify when we left the EU.

Great powers do not ask for security guarantees, they give them. So we are not one. And the last time Ukraine declined a proposed security guarantee, Russia's guarantee was that Russia would guarantee to protect Ukraine from an invasion in the event that Russia invaded Ukraine. True story.

“Most countries responded to the global financial crisis by hollowing out their diplomatic service and cutting foreign aid. Is there not a direct line between that and current chaos? If we defund the things that are designed to avert conflict, is more conflict not a reasonably predictable outcome?”

Some people are compelled to repost Tom Holland's Umbrella video whenever it crosses their feed. I am compelled to do the same with @garygulman.bsky.social's masterpiece.

"Ordinary Russians in the regions know little about this war. They are told about downed drones and damaged buildings, and as long as the explosions are far away, that is enough," writes Andrii Sukharyna, head of analytics at Join Ukraine, in this op-ed.

The blame game between Trump’s administration and Musk over Starshield is telling. Neither wants to own the decision. Perhaps even this White House recognises there’s a political price for abandoning Ukraine. For all its bravado, there may still be limits to how far it can go.

President Zelenskyy: If Ukraine gives up Sloviansk, Kramatorsk Druzhkivka, that will open up Dnipropetrovsk region to Russian troops. "It's very dangerous, and this is the heavily reinforced defense of our nation right here."

Christiane Amanpour, "Don't forget. Every time Donald Trump has asked for a ceasefire, Zelenskyy says yes, Putin says no" "Putin wants Zelenskyy to give up territory which Putin hasn't even conquered yet"

Can you recall the faux outrage that Biden let the Ukrainian military use cluster munitions on the battlefield? It stands in contrast to the silence that we use them on civilians.

Up here in the English Peak District it is pretty wet, hence the reservoirs But this is what Ladybower looks like now - nearly two-thirds of the way through Autumn This bodes very badly for summer 2027 Standpipes in the street would be no surprise at all www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Wish the UK government would wake up to the fact that the US giving support to Russia is not the action of an ally.

Translation: If the government turns on him, he's finished.

Updated myself on the latest alleged shenanigans of Lavrov's mistress Polyakova She owns $9.5M apt in Moscow, her daughter bought £4.4M luxury apt in Kensington, London; they moved to Doha upon invasion of Ukraine, now acquired UAE passports.

Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of Starlink relied on by Ukraine to protect their civilian population from Russian attacks, a decision that sparked panic in Kyiv and confusion inside the Trump administration.

Perhaps it didn’t make the news in your media. Yesterday, russia damaged the Book Chamber of Ukraine in Kyiv. It holds 15+ million books, newspapers, magazines and maps published in Ukraine since 1917. The collections are now at risk from moisture. Windows in the storage areas were blown out.

BBC not beating around the bush here. I don't think Trump really wants this to play out in court.

Danny Kruger's words on Muslims, if you replaced references to Islam with 'international Jewry' or 'the Bishop of Rome', might appear familiar to fans of Western Medieval and modern history

Other dreams are available www.ft.com/content/83be...

Today is, rather wonderfully, the 31st anniversary of this excellent report from RTE (Ireland’s public service broadcaster) about DIRTY MUCKY FILTH coming to Cork in the form of Utopia Adult Products, a sex shop which owed its existence to… [checks notes] er, Saddam Hussein

ITV’s exposé of racism and misogyny in Reform? Just a few (more) bad apples | John Crace

Incredibly complacent and glib piece.

This is a big deal - The first time England has had a severe drought in modern history - 100 years. buff.ly/HuTO0aq

Was it Danny Kruger who was meant to be getting them “ready for government”? Hahaha. Such a perv-filled racist clown-car of an operation.

We don’t need to raise taxes on the Banks. We can stop paying them interest on their deposits - this £30 Billion a year drives their outrageous profit levels. buff.ly/pi1ohJ7

Sunderland. My home town. Haven’t lived there in 27 years. People have a victim culture. Surprised they don’t blame asylum seekers for the ship yards closing. It’s always everyone else’s fault.

A new wave of Ukrainian refugees is asking for shelter in the UK, as conditions in Ukraine worsen. Oxford-based aid worker, campaigner and organiser Justin Robinson asks how people in Oxfordshire can help this Christmas. oxfordclarion.uk/ukraines-sec...

Rifkind says what everyone else is thinking - the Emperor is naked.

Zuckerberg's own employees confirm that he directed an intentional effort to throw the Brazilian election in favor of Flávio Bolsonaro, apparently because he understood this is what Trump wanted. www.reuters.com/world/americ...

Well, happy ninth birthday to this tweet, I guess

The United States is actively helping Putin murder civilians in Ukraine. Trump is doing everything he can to force Ukraine to surrender to his friend and ally Putin so they can be subjugated by the Russians again.

Why is a retired banjo playing, public school nepo-baby on the BBC's flagship Newsnight commenting on the Red Wall? And why no mention that: Winston Marshall only has a political platform because his Dad is billionaire Paul Marshall... owner of GB NEWS and the Spectator.

Liberal England: Jago Hazzard on the planned West London Orbital rail service Local Liberal Democrats are pressing for the service to be extended from Hounslow to serve Whitton and Twickenham.

Thank you Ian. You never get time to say everything you intended to. I should have noted that what Trump considers pressure tactics, like suspending intel on Russian missile launches or messing with Starlink, is costing lives of civilians in Ukraine. That won’t be forgotten.

Palestinian skateboarder in Gaza doing a kickflip over an unexploded US-made (in Garland, Texas) Mk. 84 2000lb aerial bomb, provided to Israel as one of many tens of thousands of aerial bombs in the 1,000 and 2,000lb class included in US military assistance.