Lizbeth Barnard
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lizbethbarnard.bsky.social
Lizbeth Barnard
@lizbethbarnard.bsky.social
530 followers 710 following 50 posts
Interpreter, writer. Follow geopolitics, European diplomacy & security, transatlantic relations, conflict resolution, the arts. Fletcher School & Oberlin alum.
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Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
mysteriosox.bsky.social
This is quite a post

www.planetearthandbeyond.co/p/reality-is...
January 17, 2026 at 6:26 AM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
motherjones.com
Viagra claims more lives than abortion pills, Sen. Murray points out—yet Republican men seem somehow less worried.
Sen. Patty Murray: GOP abortion pill hearing is "really about" a nationwide ban
"It's pretty stunning to watch these Republicans talk about this with a straight face,” Murray said in an interview.
www.motherjones.com
January 15, 2026 at 1:33 AM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
rusi.bsky.social
In the latest Global Security Briefing episode Dr Claudia Major joins host Dr Neil Melvin to discuss Germany's rearmament drive and its implications for European and transatlantic security.

Listen here: https://bit.ly/4qfB0Vo
A quote about international global security developments involving the US, China, and Europe, from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)'s podcast Global Security Briefing. Features a dark background with a geometric globe design and text in white and turquoise.
January 14, 2026 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
joshchafetz.bsky.social
Absolutely fantastic piece by @ositanwanevu.com.
ositanwanevu.com Osita Nwanevu @ositanwanevu.com · 4d
I wrote about Renee Good, Venezuela, Greenland, and what it means to be a human being. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
America, JD Vance tells us, is merely a nation like many others ⁠– a “homeland”, he said upon accepting his nomination to the vice-presidency, for “people with a shared history and a common future”. That’s a vision of American identity that would have described bands of cavepeople in skins just as well or better. Stephen Miller’s proleptic defense of seizing Greenland last week suggests the Trumpists themselves know this. “We live in a world, in the real world ... that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he declared. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” Miller’s laws are the laws of animals. It is true, obviously, that high ideals have long been deployed to obscure or justify predation, here and elsewhere. But Miller’s stance and the stance of the administration is that there aren’t, actually, any high ideals worth pursuing or even pretending to – that the human being, in itself, is nothing so much ⁠and that we are, fundamentally and forever, primitives. Against the demands and best aspirations of civilization – western or any kind – they tell us the human being is a creature that yearns for nothing more than blood and soil, which is, of course, just mud. The lust for mud has taken up many guises in our history and has been many given names of late – neo-reaction, post-liberalism, fascism. But the name familiar to most is evil. It was evil – the standpoint that only might matters, that human morality, and our sense of reality itself, must yield to the turfism of the primates with the biggest clubs – that ginned up the propaganda that provoked an act of terrorism against our legislature and the policemen defending it five years ago. It is evil that undergirds pronouncements from the same voices responsible for that attack, in defense of the man who shot Renee Nicole Good, that those who disobey the commands of law enforcement, however unsound or unjust, deserve summary execution – that implies, as Fox’s Jesse Watters and others have, that Good’s killing was of trivial significance because she was a lesbian “with pronouns in her bio”. It is evil that sends innocent men to foreign gulags, evil that condemns hundreds of thousands of destitute people abroad to death without a moment’s discussion or debate about what the country they had depended on might owe them, or the furnishing of alternative arrangements for their wellbeing. The gutting of USAID remains this administration’s worst and least surprising offense against the human conscience – a president who rejects the idea that we might have obligations to all within our society can’t be expected to wonder or worry about whether we have obligations to those outside of it. This is also why, after all the noise and nonsense about the need to depose the Maduro regime, the Venezuelan people are now being told that regime will be left in mostly in place for as long as it takes to secure and extract the country’s resources on our terms – that Venezuela will not see democracy unless and until it is profitable for the United States. Democracy has always been a useless abstraction to those who deny we have basic human entitlements – for those who believe, instead, that the idea of human liberty is a luxury for those wealthy and powerful enough to consider themselves our betters rather than the birthright of all. As many who’ve taken to the streets in protest have noted, the Trump administration’s assaults on liberty here at home are the kinds of abuses that spurred the revolution we will commemorate this year. But no grand revolution is in the offing this time around. The only just and plausible recourse for our situation is politics – understood not merely as the contest to win any given set of elections but as the broader fight to forge a republic that honors and strengthens our humanity. The American project must and will succeed. Its enemies stand for too little. Our lives are worth too much.
January 14, 2026 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
mwhanna.crisisgroup.org
So much of the discussion on potential U.S. strikes on Iran is limited to whether they will happen and very little is devoted to what they are intended to do or what they might produce.
January 13, 2026 at 6:39 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
qjurecic.bsky.social
In DC during the federal surge, citizen parents started coordinating “walking buses” to take children of immigrants safely to and from school. The city-by-city targeting can feel isolating, but it’s also shown how people can share and develop techniques of resistance over time
jcollins.bsky.social Jon Collins @jcollins.bsky.social · 5d
People who aren't in Minnesota might not know that if you drive or walk past pretty much any school, there's going to be a group of people, parents and childless, standing guard to make sure the kids are safe from feds. It's pretty remarkable. And very disturbing. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...
Twin Cities students walk out, decry ICE as surge continues
Hundreds of Twin Cities high school students walked out of school Monday to protest federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota. Officials are increasingly concerned about high absenteeism in some sc...
www.mprnews.org
January 13, 2026 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
gregsargent.bsky.social
Awful: New report shows federal agents fired into civilian vehicles 13 times since July, with 8 people hit and two dead. These are heavily armed government militias gone rogue, not bound or accountable to law, unleashing violence on Americans with full White House sanction.

Our exchange on this:
January 13, 2026 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
justsecurity.org
Expert backgrounder

What are the obligations of the NATO member States in coming to the assistance of Denmark if the United States uses force against Greenland?

An examination of Article 5 of the Alliance and decision-making process.

By @mikeschmitt.bsky.social
The North Atlantic Treaty and a U.S. Attack on Denmark
Would NATO have to defend Denmark if the United States attempted to seize Greenland forcibly? An analysis of NATO Article 5 obligations.
www.justsecurity.org
January 13, 2026 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
vermontgmg.bsky.social
The epitome of a “Kavanaugh Stop.”

“[CBP] sometimes makes brief investigative stops to check immigration status…. If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a US citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go.”

History will remember Brett.
mickeykuhns.bsky.social Mickey Kuhns @mickeykuhns.bsky.social · 6d
ICE kidnap 17-year-old U.S. citizen working at Target then dump him bleeding and crying miles away in a Walmart parking lot… 🤬
January 13, 2026 at 12:40 AM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
bcfinucane.bsky.social
👇
stevevladeck.bsky.social Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 6d
It would take a two-word amendment to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to subject ICE agents and other federal law enforcement officers to the same liability for constitutional violations that local and state officers currently face.

If Congress actually cared about what it's seeing, it could pass that overnight.
January 12, 2026 at 11:36 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
joerglau.bsky.social
Sehr interessantes Interview mit dem Iran-Experten Walter Posch (freebie)
www.zeit.de/kultur/2026-...
Walter Posch: "Der iranische Staat ist vollkommen handlungsfähig"
Ist es zynisch, nicht an die Proteste zu glauben? Eine Frage der Perspektive, sagt der Iranist Walter Posch. Warum ein Sturz realistisch und doch unwahrscheinlich ist.
www.zeit.de
January 12, 2026 at 10:39 AM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
kschake.bsky.social
Well done, Fed Chair.
January 12, 2026 at 1:10 AM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
kentremendous.bsky.social
Anyone can be wrong. But to be *exactly* fucking wrong? That's dope. Respect.
rightwingwatch.bsky.social Right Wing Watch @rightwingwatch.bsky.social · 9d
Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith claims that every single one of the Founding Fathers "by today's standards, would be labeled a far-right Christian nationalist."
January 11, 2026 at 10:31 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
letsgomathias.bsky.social
Seems notable that a few days after DHS/ICE murdered a woman and called her a domestic terrorist, while calling protesters extremists and radicals, they are posting actual neo-Nazi music
letsgomathias.bsky.social Christopher Mathias @letsgomathias.bsky.social · 7d
DHS posted a straight up neo-Nazi song to its Instagram.

I write about this song in my book, describing the white supremacist group Patriot Front singing “By God We’ll Have Our Home Again” while in the back of a UHaul truck after marching in DC
January 11, 2026 at 6:51 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
mcopelov.bsky.social
I was 14 when the Berlin Wall fell. It remains <the> formative event in my lifetime for how I understand politics & IR. This is a fantastic piece. What Adam writes about domestic politics is also true in IR. 🇺🇸’s problems are solved problems, unlike 🇪🇺 or 🇨🇳. Things are awful now, & yet there is hope.
January 11, 2026 at 7:13 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
rikefranke.bsky.social
Joint statement by 4 former officials in Democratic and Republican Administrations—including four NATO Ambassadors, 3 Assistant Secretaries of State for Europe, and 3 NSC Senior Directors.

Excellent opening in particular.
America’s Strategic Alliance with Denmark and NATO
A statement by 14 former officials in Democratic and Republican Administrations—including four NATO Ambassadors, 3 Assistant Secretaries of State for Europe, and 3 NSC Senior Directors
newsletter.ivodaalder.com
January 11, 2026 at 6:09 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
maxboot.bsky.social
The penalties effectively cut the judges off from all American funds, goods and credit cards, and prohibit individuals and business in the U.S. from working with them. “We’re treated like pariahs, we are on a list with terrorists and drug dealers,” Ms. Ibáñez said. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/w...
No Amazon, No Gmail: Trump Sanctions Upend the Lives of I.C.C. Judges
www.nytimes.com
January 11, 2026 at 1:43 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
mississippifreepress.org
“Like his brother, Maurice Taylor received a sentence more than three times longer than allowed under Mississippi law,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves wrote in his announcement. “When justice is denied to even one Mississippian, it is denied to us all.”
Mississippi Man Serving an Illegal Sentence Granted Clemency, Weeks After His Brother
Maurice Taylor, who was handed an illegal prison sentence, has been granted clemency by Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves.
buff.ly
January 11, 2026 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
mcbridetd.bsky.social
Smithsonian Censures Itself
Removes Label Noting Trump Impeachments www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/a...
Smithsonian Removes Label Noting Trump Impeachments
www.nytimes.com
January 11, 2026 at 4:36 AM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
andycraig.bsky.social
Common Sense, published 250 years ago today.
Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.
January 10, 2026 at 9:09 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
npr.org
A recent Israeli decision to bar Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups means international staff and aid can no longer enter Gaza or the West Bank. Local staff must rely on dwindling supplies and no international expertise. n.pr/49f75Xo
Inside a Gaza medical clinic at risk of shutting down after an Israeli ban
A recent Israeli decision to bar Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups means international staff and aid can no longer enter Gaza or the West Bank. Local staff must rely on dwindling supplies and no international expertise.
n.pr
January 11, 2026 at 10:14 AM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
epopppp.bsky.social
This is a good essay on the history of the Monroe Doctrine.
Trump, Venezuela and the doctrine that wouldn’t die
Long seen as defunct, the Monroe Doctrine is being invoked once again as a blueprint for assertive US foreign policy. Historian Greg Grandin charts the rise, fall and rebirth of an ambiguous creed
giftarticle.ft.com
January 10, 2026 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
pgourevitch.bsky.social
more like the fact that they’re rushing to frame it, insanely, as exculpatory affirms how damningly incriminating it is
jamellebouie.net jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 9d
i just watched this video and the fact that they believe this to be exculpatory is genuinely insane
January 9, 2026 at 7:12 PM
Reposted by Lizbeth Barnard
simonwdc.bsky.social
Not The Onion:

bsky.app/profile/poli...
politico.eu POLITICO Europe @politico.eu · 9d
🚨 BREAKING: France will delay this year’s Group of 7 summit to avoid a conflict with the mixed martial arts event planned at the White House on Donald Trump’s birthday.

Read the story: www.politico.eu/article/fran...
January 9, 2026 at 11:27 AM