Word of the day is ‘quockerwodger’ (19th century): a puppet politician whose strings are pulled entirely by someone else.

2011 - In the Situation Room, President Obama oversees the attempt to capture Osama bin Laden 2025 - In the Situation Room, President Trump attempts to convince a woman who was thrown out of Beetlejuice: The Musical for allegedly wanking off her boyfriend, to not vote to release the Epstein files

You've got to hand it to Madame Tussauds, they really nailed this one

UK in advanced talks to build warships for Denmark and Sweden on.ft.com/4oYosS1

I’d love to know what Macron knows and what he just told Meloni. That’s one hell of a reaction. #G7

😂

The US navy has placed its base in Bahrain on high alert.

The head of US Central Command has postponed tomorrow’s testimony to lawmakers because of rising tensions in the Middle East.

In amongst all the excitement I fear many have missed this outstanding bit of trolling by Friedrich Merz. The Chancellor gifted Trump a gilded framed copy of his grandfather’s German birth certificate... reminding Americans that Trump is both the child and grandchild of migrants.

Portugal is taking online disinformation and fake news seriously. As part of a broader attempt to encourage media literacy, it’s offering 15-18 year olds a free digital subscription to a range of respected newspapers and magazines as well as online upstarts that don’t spread lies. (Monocle)

Tim McVeigh would either be in Congress or a popular podcaster/youtuber today: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

I am no body language expert, but

This is so simple. The Tariffs crash the stock market. The billionaires buy up the stock. He undoes the tariffs and the stock price goes up. A simple transfer of wealth from the middle classes to the super rich is occurring. Wake up!

The suffering that will be unleashed on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos is horrific. And that's not because they have "raped" America. It's because they're poor, they can't afford many US goods but they can become wealthier by exporting to rich countries.

This is a catastrophic set of policy decisions for the global economy. That’s what matters here. But: Trump used to be able to put on a show. This is the biggest thing he’s done so far this presidency, and it was a disjointed, rambling mess with a cardboard prop.

The UK grid right now.

Pikachu successfully evades police in Turkey

Trump needs more diversity in his top team. Some non-idiots would be a start.

Welp, there goes the US defense industry.

Linda Yaccarino from X addressed the most senior people in the UK advertising industry last night. One person described her talk to me as “brazen lies”, another said “it was like something from Black Mirror”. It went down very badly away from the Fatherland.

The oracle strikes again!

Might as well just get it over with and start handing over bags of cash in front of the cameras. There’s a word for this. This is blatant corruption. And it should be reported as such without mincing words, and not just in Wired.

the intraday lifetime high for Tesla was $488 per share on 18th December. today the stock has broken below its 200dma and is now $265 per share. Musk owns 410.8mn shares, which means he's lost $91.6bn in less than 3 months. you're welcome:

It's GETTING REAL. EU President Ursula von der Leyen announces new debt rules to enable EU countries to borrow up to 650 billion EUROS to fund defence spending in the next four years. Combined with EU-backed loans, the continent could raise defence spending to 800 BILLION. latika.me/4hTWW4h

Not sure I'm going to watch #Anora tbh. If I want to see someone getting paid to do degrading things for a Russian I can just tune into a Trump press conference.

We stand with Ukraine, now and for as long as it takes

THE Rep. Jasmine Crockett to Elon Musk: "Fuck off." So say we all. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 Video clip courtesy of @calltoactivism.bsky.social

… 👀 So in January 2025 166,065 Battery Electric Vehicles sold across Europe (EU+Efta+UK) UP 45,099 increase on last Jan, (+37%) Within that, Tesla sold 9,945 DOWN 8,216 on last Jan (-45.2%) So 1 in 7 EVs sold across Europe was a Tesla last January, Now it’s 1 in 16.

As seen in NYC:

Byline Times is facing major DDOS (malicious traffic-flooding) issues on our site apparently after this article went live... bylinetimes.com/2025/02/21/d...

Scoop --> Trump-Musk cuts just resulted in the firing of numerous top researchers at NIH's center for combating Alzheimer's, sources tell me. They predict big setbacks to fighting dementias. This cause was once championed by *Republicans.* Details here: newrepublic.com/article/1917...

Wednesday’s @thetimes.com cartoon times.newsprints.co.uk/morten-morla...

The text on the front banners say 'We are the Firewall'. Massive demo in Berlin today against right-wing extremism.

Tesla Gigafactory, Berlin (Collaboration with @politicalbeauty.bsky.social )