2025 is the new 1933

I have nothing to add but have to pin this to my timeline.

🥴Putin is ready for agreements on Ukraine. We had a wonderful conversation, — Trump. He added that it would be good if Zelenskyy also wanted to make a deal. 🥴​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have arrived in Moscow for talks on a proposal to end the war, Russian state media reported. The delegation is expected in Kyiv on Sunday.

President Donald Trump is threatening to sue a left-leaning think tank unless it retracts a report that said his National Guard deployments to various cities did not reduce crime as he said. https://to.pbs.org/4xhPOqf

The full quote is even worse: “I think targeted assassinations should be carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night. Not just those who pose an immediate threat — there are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.” www.ft.com/content/f6b9...

Sorry we tried to stand up for trans people, we won’t do it again, Gender Criticalism is normal stuff actually

The NYT obituary of Lindsey Graham makes no mention of his effort to overturn the 2020 election by calling Georgia’s secretary of state to intimidate him into manufacturing votes for Trump. The Times, like all news media, is GOP propaganda erasing Republicans’ history as election deniers

Euronews: Trial begins for suspected mastermind behind killing of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia www.euronews.com/my-europe/20...

NEW: If USPS moves forward with its proposal to withhold mail ballots from states that don't share private voter data, "it will destroy the Postal Service," one advocate warned. After the postmaster general defended the plan, critics fear the USPS could threaten the integrity of American elections.

BREAKING Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, on Monday denounced the deal between the United States and Iran to end the Middle East war, including in Lebanon, insisting his country was not bound by it

Musk buying twitter, Bezos buying WaPo, Ellison buying CBS—all are less profitable now. But they’re political investments that increase the value of the new owners’ portfolios Wealth concentration makes this possible, and that’s one mechanism by which inequality destroys democracy

substack.com/@marlonweems...

The thing that makes “gutter racism” an appropriate term for this is that it goes beyond even what segregation’s savviest defenders were willing to say in public 60-70 years ago. They understood that this level of explicit racial animus was embarrassing to the cause.

I must say again—because so many do not see this: fascism does not start with concentration camps, that is where it can end. It starts with hollowing out the rule of law; with limiting rights; with denying some of us their existence on the basis of who they are. So that is where must be stopped.

The state of things. A thread 🧵

Something that's being overlooked: The Saudi government—yes, the same gov't that butchered a Washington Post journalist a few years ago—is set to be a part owner of CNN. Watch the full episode of Power Lines on YouTube: youtu.be/nWEG5jUrP2Q?...

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he's "not happy" with the latest talks over Iran's nuclear program but indicated he would give negotiators more time to reach a deal to avert another war in the Middle East. n.pr/4sijOiJ

Cover of The Lancet: @thelancet.com www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

There are two parts of this article: 1 - Historical funding trends & Congressional appropriations. * Requires a longer conversation on levers of power 2 - "The Republicans Made Peace With Science". * No, they did not & no they have not. This requires more than a conversation, but a reset. 🧵

The U.S. is reorienting its foreign funding program to export MAGA ideology to Europe. And a growing set of far-right and conservative think tanks are lining up to take Washington’s money.

Just days after a group of Trump-aligned billionaires officially took over TikTok in the U.S., users reported their videos criticizing ICE and the shooting of Alex Pretti were suppressed or delayed. The oligarchy is tightening its grip over even more of our media. Beware.

1. After months of denials, the Trump administration has admitted that DOGE staff misused Social Security data. A DOGE staffer signed a deal to share the data with a “political advocacy group” seeking to “overturn election results" The identity of the staffer is not disclosed but there are clues

⚡️ Russia welcomes Trump's tariffs on NATO allies over Greenland as 'collapse' of alliance. "The transatlantic alliance is over," Kremlin economic negotiator Kirill Dmitriev said.

And not just "administration priorities" - they're being asked to identify Trump executive orders that they'd advance and explain how. In their job as JOURNALISTS.

The White House says the Smithsonian Institution must submit materials about current and upcoming exhibitions and events for a review that will determine whether they express "improper ideology." n.pr/4583d8f

Why do I have to read an Irish paper for a feature about this?

"Following the Ukraine-US meeting, Trump lauded Putin, saying the Russian president “wants to see Ukraine succeed”. This is becoming farcical giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... via @FT

In a dangerous departure from democratic norms, the Trump administration escalated its effort to punish Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) by turning its review of the senator’s critiques against the president into an official Command Investigation under military law.

Very much reads like they are significantly reducing the influence of peer review on scientific funding, which under the current regime opens the way for more politicized funding instead.

A for-profit education firm called Stride is opening a school inside a for-profit immigration prison run by CoreCivic. Stride has been accused of defrauding investors and providing substandard education to children. @whitneycwimbish.bsky.social spotted the job listings: prospect.org/2025/12/10/f...

Breaking WSJ: Fannie Mae watchdogs who were removed from their jobs had been probing if Trump appointee Bill Pulte had improperly obtained mortgage records of key Democratic officials, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, according to people familiar with the matter.

1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. ⬇️

Tom Bowman has held his Pentagon press pass for 28 years. He says the Pentagon's new media policy makes it impossible to be a journalist, which means finding out what's really going on behind the scenes and not accepting wholesale what any government or administration says. n.pr/4q87Jwb

Pope Leo quotes Hannah Arendt: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist." www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

Israeli Forces fired upon a clearly identified Médecins Sans Frontièreswater truck while it was distributing 10000L of drinking water in Gaza City. The vehicle’s route and schedule had been communicated in advance to the Israeli authorities, as MSF does on a daily basis. msf.org.au/article/proj...

"We have to get them off the streets and we have to get them off the internet. We can’t let them communicate with each other. I’m all about free speech, but this is a virus, this is a cancer that’s spreading across this country."

BREAKING: ICE is sending Russian dissidents back to Russia. When the dissidents arrived in Russia, the Russian authorities were given documents relating to their asylum applications in the US which under US law are confidential. This seems to be part of a secret agreement between Trump and Putin.

🧵 Authoritarianism, Democratization, and Coalition Politics. The consensus around here is, more or less, that the United States is currently a consolidating authoritarian regime controlled by a mix of reactionary populists and fascists.

Andrew Cuomo going on Fox News to accuse Zohran Mamdani of caring about “woke issues” and talk about how much he’s scared of the subway seems like a pretty clear sign that he has abandoned the Democratic Party.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio: The International Criminal Court “is a national security threat”.

A terrorist targeted federal workers last week. There wasn’t much reporting on it. But I’m not finished thinking about it! 🧵 An anti-vaxxer fired more than 500 gunshots into CDC Atlanta, shattering 150 “blast-proof” windows on 6 buildings. Employees were pinned down in terror.

Five Al Jazeera journalists have been killed in an Israeli strike near Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital. Anas al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa were in a tent for journalists at the hospital's main gate when it was struck. www.bbc.com/news/article...