@fullfact.org Is this Al Jazeera investigation credibly sourced? Huge, if true. WMD level concerns about a rogue US capabilities being deployed #uspol

Are any opinion pollsters gauging public response to Nats gas tax? The impression of a party so casual about raising taxes on everyone for something so I’ll thought through has surely got to damage them with centre right voters, seeming emblematic of a lack of diligence and stewardship. #nzpol

So glad to see George Cottrell being named in parliament yesterday. He was Farage’s head of fundraising when he convicted of an offence related to money laundering & is still close to & funding Farage. Crypto is an urgent democratic threat to the UK

Rep. Delia Ramirez to DHS officials: "I have as much respect for you as I do for the last white men who put on masks to terrorize communities of color. I have no respect for the inheritors of the Klanhood and the slave patrol. Those activities were criminal and so are yours."

If it walks like a tax and quacks like a tax, it's probably a tax. Tax is fine, but don't use it to increase electricity costs AND climate change with something that will be a stranded asset anyway! Govt under pressure over gas plan as Kiwis will feel sting of #GasTax

One of my fave community notes to date…

To the surprise of nobody... stop talking about small boats every day as though it was a 'tsunami' and people get some perspective Absolutely incredible that Labour wasted months amplifying Reform's strongest message (even if it is distorted)

A big reason for such dramatic swings is "imagined immigration" shifts: people think about different things when answering same Q EU free move (scale of Polish immigration), 2008-16 NHS contribution (2020 pandemic) Syrian + Ukranian refugees (Alan Kurdi 2015; 2022) Channel boats + hotels 2021-26

NB: partisan polarisation is a massive effect Prog party voters (Lab/LD/Green) are still +40 economy, +39 culture in 2025, but were only just +4 economy, +5 culture in 2011, and +60 in 2022 `Right-wing (Reform/Con) are -44 economy, -52 culture in 2025 having been -5 and -1 in 2022 but -30 in 2011

UK public now split one third positive v one third negative on economics and culture of immigration, after a dramatic softening after 2016. Contributors include - dominance of boats/asylum over free movement/visas - starker political polarisation - shifting media and online fragmentation

Palantir were handed a £240m contract without bidding for it by the Government. It simply shouldn't be legal for the Government to handout huge amounts of money to whoever they like without any oversight. That's not democracy.

The United Kingdom has allowed people who hate it and want to see it collapse control over most social media and their own TV channel. Weak and unserious.

Luxon logic? If LNG (product A) needs a $180m per year investment why is this not recovered by a LNG levy on a user pays basis? Why put a levy on a substitute product when the market logic would be that a higher price differential incentivises switching to the cheaper power source? #nzpol

#BHN Luxon saying "It's a charge that's levied against the electricity companies" about the LNG proposal sounds an awful lot like "China will pay the tariffs" doesn't it? Who ultimately pays that "levy" Mr Luxon? #nzpol #nzpolitics #notalevy #powertax

'Essentially, what they’re doing is putting a new tax on every New Zealander’s power bill to subsidise an expensive sunset industry. This is a political choice this government is making.' Alva Feldmeir #nzpol thekaka.substack.com/p/why-not-sp...

🚨BREAKING: Puerto Rico has been part of the United States since 1898, and people still act confused that Puerto Ricans are American. States that joined after Puerto Rico: • Oklahoma — 1907 • New Mexico — 1912 • Arizona — 1912 • Alaska — 1959 • Hawaii — 1959 Yet somehow this is still news to folks.

FYI I’ve opened this up for full public reading, listening & sharing after requests from paying subscribers. Their support allows me to do this kind of public interest journalism on Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate & poverty in public. #nzpol thekaka.substack.com/p/why-not-sp...

Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.

#NZpol What would have been helpful would have been a *comparison*, comparing building a new LNG installation with, say, installing new solar + wind + battery power. With no comparison, this is just rolling out one ‘solution’, rather than that being the best option.

Put solar panels on state houses. You could probably do the lot for $1.5b, would reduce energy costs for those least able to afford it, increase our grid resilience and save about the same amount in energy costs overall. www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/...

Some governments raise taxes to fund public health and education. Not Luxon. He is literally raising taxes to subsidise fossil fuels. He is putting a levy on our electricity bills to pay for his LNG import terminal.

I'm hardly the first person to note this, but it's enormously instructive that our President and his followers saw the message "THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE" and understood it, correctly, as an attack on them

jfc this govt's idiocy is only topped by how hard it sucks up to trump's agenda. Save households $50? Solar can save them over $1,000! www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/...

So we are going to rely on a highly volatile global supply chain instead of just investing in more clean renewables employing more people. Can't see this ever coming back to bite NZ. #nzpol

How many solar and battery installations could $1bn fund? This is just an absolutely brainless decision #nzpol

What a find. Delicious toasties, donuts, free WiFi and power and fresh yet spacious laid back vibe. Vonuts on Willis Street is a true Wellington gem. Third space heaven. #WLG #NZ #HomeFromHomeOffice

Good morning. The President of the United States was in the middle of the most serious child sex trafficking ring of the last quarter century. He is referenced not a dozen times in the case files. Not 100 times. Not 1,000 times. He’s referenced 38,000 times.

Helen Petousis-Harris's piece on how the WHO is vital for New Zealand just nails it. While I am here, can I also just say that @helenp-h.bsky.social is a national treasure. theconversation.com/who-membersh...

Such an irony that, by ousting McSweeny and loosening the hold of Blue Labour, Mandelson treachery may be the saving of Labour (or even Starmer?) #ukpol

best overall beach, best camping beach, second best family and surf beach, best hidden gem beach IN THE COUNTRY and there’s a fast track mining application in to vacuum the seabed and ruin it. #nzpol www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/nzs-b...

Is anybody ever gonna take a step back and realize the "Russia Russia Russia" people — derided as lunatic wine moms — were actually underplaying the foreign influence stuff, and the loud people who kept insisting it was all fake are now saying Jeffrey Epstein was kind of a cool guy?

Excellent article from Andrea Vance today - few quotes "There is a weak argument (usually put forward by white men, those least likely to suffer abuse online) that staying on X somehow moderates the awful. You can’t dilute a cesspool." 1/5

A lot of racists in UK media & politics are currently limbering up to hold Donald Trump to an infinitely lower moral standard than they did Gary Lineker. Starting with Farage, inevitably…

I mean, how hard is it for Brian Roche to get to his desk at the Public Service Commission tomorrow morning and to send out a memo by 9 am to all departmental & agency CEs that they should delete their organisation’s accounts on X by the end of the day? Remove all the links to X from their websites.

SEN. OSSOFF: “.. why are roving gangs of masked men — who look like they couldn’t pass the Army physical exam — dressed up like pretend Delta Force operators, on our streets, demanding papers, dragging people from their cars, and shooting people to death?” @acyn.bsky.social

The cartoon that appeared this week on the front page of France’s most influential national newspaper, Le Monde Brilliant work by the cartoonist, Guffo.

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It’s heartbreaking to see the rivers I used to swim in as a boy being slowly killed to irrigate dairy farms. Climate change will make dairying impossible in Canterbury before too long; but no, we’re going to wring the last few $$ out of the environment while we can.

Please, please, media outlets, remember the C word: context. You can’t discuss Trump’s apes post - or his ‘blame a staffer’ excuse - if you’re not also factoring in and reminding your viewers/readers about his birtherism, his ‘send her back’ remarks, him calling Somalis ‘low IQ’.

This is an immensely significant document that continues to get virtually no attention in US media—but lots abroad. In Jul 2015, Epstein arranged a meeting between a known highest-level Russian intel operative, Sergey Belyakov and Peter Thiel,

Highlight of the Olympics opening ceremony as J D Vance is booed when he appears on the screen.

🚨🚨" Some leaders have chosen to hunt them down and deport them through operations that are both unlawful and cruel. My government has chosen a different way: a fast and simple path to regularize their immigration status." Spanish PM Pedro #Sanchez on why #migrants are essential for Western society:

💸 Brexit is predicted to have cost the UK economy a staggering 6-8% according to the latest study. 💰 That is equivalent to £180bn - £240bn A YEAR! 📉 And that has left HMRC about £90 billion shorter a year. 🪖 150% greater than the UK's defence budget.

5/5 PMs with approval ratings of measles isn't just a feature of failed leadership. It's Brexit Britain. There's no money for anything people want and were promised they would have, and no one can blame the people who got us into this mess because they got 52% of the vote (let alone reverse it).

#mancwatch #MCI #mancity #manchestercity #115charges #baldfraud #EFC #Everton #NFFC #NottinghamForest #LCFC #Foxes #ReadingFC #Royals #DCFC #Rams #SWFC #Owls

Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz: “I have left X. That network is a place of hate. “We are not vassals of Elon Musk or Trump.”

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition. Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

So, first of all, of course it was Trump. But even if they were telling the truth, "We give staffers who post videos of the Obamas as apes access to the agenda-setting, decree-sending, market-moving account of the president of the United States" is not the exculpatory statement they think it is.

1. It was not an accident. 2. It was not a staffer. 3. While the president may have dementia his racism is not due to dementia. 4. He isn’t sorry. He means every racist thought he shares. 5. His base agrees with him. 6. He will do it again. 7. No one in power will hold him accountable.