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Joni Lovenduski @jonilo.bsky.social · 1d

So reliably charming

Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 1d

A work of art

Joni Lovenduski @jonilo.bsky.social · 1d

Highbury Fields today

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Joni Lovenduski @jonilo.bsky.social · 3d

Home office has long had a somewhat non accountable border force.

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 3d

A second offer to bring Trump-style deportations, chaos and cruelty, to Britain

Joni Lovenduski @jonilo.bsky.social · 3d

The conversation about the detail of the fascist take over of US government is about demonstrating that it is taking place. That ship has sailed. We already know.

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Jonathan Bernstein @jonathanbernstein.bsky.social · 4d

Y'know there are some really excellent Private SNAFU educational cartoons from WWII that we could force these clowns to watch but I think they were too subtle, really.

taber @kvetch.gay · 4d

this is wild: while Stephen Miller's guy was in Minnesota for his uncle's funeral, somebody was able to see his entire phone and take pictures of his Signal group chats talking about military deployments to Portland, and brought them to the Strib (gift link: www.startribune.com/trump-offici...)

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ksp2pdx.bsky.social @ksp2pdx.bsky.social · 4d

I keep thinking about those 800 Generals and Admirals who had to sit through 90 minutes of Hegseth and Trump…their faces were stone-like and without any emotion…… I think I felt that we might have the beginning of a real and powerful resistance movement that we hadn’t anticipated……🤞🙏

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Joni Lovenduski @jonilo.bsky.social · 4d

open.substack.com/pub/benansel...
Why Labour should stop chasing reform voters.

British Politics' Midlife Crisis

Why British Parties Can't Make Peace with Their Actual Voters

open.substack.com

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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 4d

Just had time to properly read this brilliant piece by @benansell.bsky.social. It left me even more convinced than I already was that what he calls Labour's (and indeed the Conservative's) "prole-whisperers" are horribly mistaken if they genuinely think chasing after Reform voters is the way to go.

British Politics' Midlife Crisis

Why British Parties Can't Make Peace with Their Actual Voters

benansell.substack.com

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Joni Lovenduski @jonilo.bsky.social · 4d

Excellent look at where and why we draw lines from Ian Dunt channeling his inner moral philosopher. open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

The politics of drawing a moral line

The politics of drawing a moral line.

open.substack.com

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Hunter Walker @hunterw.bsky.social · 5d

UPenn professors have responded forcefully to the Trump administration's that colleges sign a "compact" in order to secure funding:

"When an invitation is accompanied by consequences for not accepting it, it is in fact a threat, not an invitation." aaup-penn.org/statement-by...

Statement by the AAUP-Penn Executive Committee on the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education | AAUP–Penn

October 2, 2025 We have received reports that Penn has been “invited” to sign a so-called “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” by the federal government, and that failing to do so wou...

aaup-penn.org

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Kim Weeden @weedenkim.bsky.social · 5d

My timeline, summarized:

"Nice university you've got there. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it."

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Steven Beschloss @stevenbeschloss.bsky.social · 7d

Soon we’ll learn whether our military stand by the principles that define their duty to our country and the Constitution—or whether they break them to serve the depraved, degraded & lawless desires of a wannabe dictator and his sycophantic “War Secretary.”

www.americaamerica.news/p/snapshot-i...

Snapshot: "It's a War From Within"

Be clear: Trump will further exploit our military to wage war in our cities against our fellow Americans. That was the message he delivered to senior officers today.

www.americaamerica.news

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 6d

If they claim they haven't heard the quote, play it for them and ask for a response.

If they claim it's being taken out of context, play a longer version and ask for a response.

If they try to sidestep the issue, play it over again and ask for a response.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 6d

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hold on a second. Answer the question. As Speaker, do you believe it's appropriate to use American cities as training grounds for the military, calling those people 'the enemy within'?

JOHNSON: I'm not comment on your characterization of what the president said.

S: Those are quotes

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Carlos Diaz Ruiz @carlosdiazruiz.com · 6d

Authoritarianism is boring.

My American friends believe that dictatorships are dramatic with public executions and whatnot. Unlike the movies, dictatorships are unexciting. Life goes on: people get groceries and struggle with bills, as usual.

Losing agency in your own society is mostly boring.

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Virginia Sapiro @vsapiro.bsky.social · 6d

Go home and think about what you did.

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Joni Lovenduski @jonilo.bsky.social · 8d

So why would a member of an aspirant authoritarian government summon all the admirals and generals to a meeting?

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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 9d

The major political parties, broadcasters, and institutions should all leave X.

It's an extremely dangerous disinformation machine, and staying there only legitimises it and the chaotic agenda of the richest man in the world.

Who is a raving fucking lunatic.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Ed Miliband says it is ‘possible’ that UK government should leave X

Energy minister says platform’s owner Elon Musk is a ‘dangerous man’ who is part of a ‘global network of right’

www.theguardian.com

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Anand Menon @anandmenon.bsky.social · 10d

I have entered my old fart / grandee phase.

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 9d

To illustrate the point a pizza at Pizza Express is now £20 or you can get a rump steak at Hawksmoor for £27. The gap has really shrunk.

James C @iguandonjim.bsky.social · 9d

Specifically around casual dining, a lot have been "invested" in by Private Equity, who want their return for the pension pots they serve. Casual high street dining is now competing with quite simply better restaurants for similar price points

Harry Wallop @harrywallop.co.uk · 10d

The £100 ‘Bill Shock’ in high street restaurants. What happens when a once affordable treat – at Wagamama/Bill’s/Pizza Express etc – becomes a luxury?
I have investigated…🧵

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Lewis Baston @lewisbaston.bsky.social · 8d

From a thread well worth reading. One might add that when Labour voters were drawn mostly from the manual working class, Labour… lost most of the time. Labour’s electoral coalition couldn’t win in 1955 and would be absolutely crushed in an electorate with the demographics of 2025.

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 8d

Notice that everywhere except Southern Europe, the middle class have proven to be a much more important part of the left's coalition than the working class since the early 2000s. Labour strategists are pining for the early 1980s. Even then working class Brits today are cleaners not miners. 9/n

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Bloomberg News @bloomberg.com · 8d

Gold has kept setting new price records this year and punched through $3,700 an ounce in September.

Why are investors rushing to bullion? Here's what to know ⤵️

Why Investors Can’t Seem to Get Enough of Gold

For centuries, gold has been the go-to haven asset in times of political and economic uncertainty. Its status as a reliably high-value commodity that can be transported easily and sold anywhere offers a sense of safety when everything else is in turmoil.

bloom.bg

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David S. Moon @daimoon.bsky.social · 8d

Pondering the post-war rise in U.S. mass shootings, a reminder the newly released JFK documents include an un-redaction that revels “the CIA “owned” the country’s largest importer and distributor of guns, the company that would spearhead a remarkable boom in gun ownership in the US” archive.ph/XaXSf

Because CIA archives are inaccessible, with the exception of the relatively few documents that have been declassified and redacted through the Freedom of Information Act process, Cummings’ file has never been available to researchers. And as for this specific document, researchers have seen it before—I cited it in my book, in fact—but key phrases were redacted. Now we know what was behind those black lines.
Summarizing Cummings’ file, the previously released redacted version of the document states that “On 17 August 1954 CUMMINGS became the principal agent of the [redacted] International Armaments Corporation and Interarmco.” In the newly released, unredacted version, it reads: “On 17 August 1954 CUMMINGS became the principal agent of the CIA-owned companies known as International Armaments Corporation and Interarmco” (emphasis mine).

In other words, the CIA “owned” the country’s largest importer and distributor of guns, the company that would spearhead a remarkable boom in gun ownership in the United States in the decade and a half before the Gun Control Act iced war-surplus imports.

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Marina @marstrina.bsky.social · 8d

This analysis is informative & important. However, here are three grains of salt:

1) It doesn't account for FPTP & vote distribution - if raw numbers like this drove electoral outcomes, Reform would have more seats than the LibDems. Targeting a small % of voters is how our system works. 》

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 8d

On the morning of Keir Starmer's conference speech here's a new post on an odd psychopathology in British politics - our main parties don't like the people who vote for them - the dreaded Professional Managerial Class. And so they are acting out like a divorced dad seeking cooler voters. 1/n

British Politics' Midlife Crisis

Why British Parties Can't Make Peace with Their Actual Voters

benansell.substack.com

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Charles Keener @charleskeener.bsky.social · 8d

www.commondreams.org/news/oregon-...

Oregon Files Suit Against Trump to Stop 'Unlawful' National Guard Deployment | Common Dreams

"We won’t be cowed, and we can’t let this president normalize military and armed federal policing in our country. This is not how a healthy democracy works.”

www.commondreams.org

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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 8d

I mean, how could the famously liberal owner of the Times possibly have imagined this sort of thing would come to pass when they appointed as the paper's editor someone who'd been deputy editor of the Mail and editor of both the Telegraph and the Sun?

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