So, there’s a lot going on here…

Jahrelang hielt die Deutsche Bank an Jeffrey Epstein fest, Kunde geworden war er erst nach seiner Verurteilung. Intern stufte die Bank den Sexualstraftäter als akzeptables Risiko ein – bis 2018. @papertrailmedia.de Recherche für ZDF, @spiegel.de & @derstandard.at www.zdfheute.de/wirtschaft/u...

*Green card application in process and work permit, married to US citizen *Lived in US for 20 years, no criminal record *In detention for five months with no charge, despite judge approving release *He disputes ICE claim that he signed forms agreeing to deportation

Hundreds of millions spent on human misery

ICE has now spent over half a BILLION dollars just on purchasing warehouses around the country to convert into detention camps. If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202...

Don't forget: Last fall, Kristi Noem boasted that ICE would be "all over" the Super Bowl, and said only people who "love this country" should attend. Now ICE enforcement operations there won't happen. It's very plausible ICE would face a hostile reception. 4/ newrepublic.com/article/2062...

Trump is badly losing the war over ICE, not just on the streets, but also in the culture. As Bad Bunny shows, this has become a culture war unto itself. Trump-MAGA's initial hubris has been utterly deflated. I've got fresh data illustrating the point. 1/ (new piece) newrepublic.com/article/2062...

*That's* what it looks like when US elites care about something & want to advance it. That's the benchmark. And with that benchmark in mind, we can ask, are they -- or were they ever -- similarly committed to climate or diversity? LOL.

The bosses are forcing their employees to use it. Politicians are competing to shovel money & infrastructure at it. The billionaires who control media are constantly lecturing & hectoring people to accept it & use it more. They don't care it's losing money. They don't care people hate it.

But the other piece of evidence -- the point of this thread -- is that we now have an example of what it looks like when US political & corporate elites *really are* obsessed with and committed to something. Namely: AI.

An observation I've been thinking about: Around 2020, we were told that US political & corporate elites had been gripped by "wokeness" & thus become obsessed with climate change & diversity. This wokeness was alleged to be so severe & monomaniacal that it threatened the entire culture & economy.

#Epstein Files verstärken Eindruck von Machtlosigkeit angesichts von transnationalen faschistischen Netzwerken, Straflosigkeit, Verantwortungsabwehr. Daher 2 Vorschläge, um ins Handeln zu kommen: Trennt euch von Paypal! Unterschreibt Petition gegen #Palantir: www.campact.de/datenschutz/... 1/3

This kind of analysis is always built on a chain of extremely shaky, unsupported assumptions - usually stuff that kind of sounds good but has zero factual basis - but what’s incredible to me is how many supposedly sophisticated commentators do the exact same thing.

"Twitter is cooking their brains" theory looking pretty strong

Was wäre, wenn die AfD tatsächlich an die Macht käme? Eine Analyse, die dem SPIEGEL vorliegt, gibt Tipps, wie sich die Zivilgesellschaft darauf vorbereiten und dann verhalten sollte.

The GOP has offered nothing this century except for catastrophic wars. No healthcare plan; no re-industrialization. Now they're losing their only issue, immigration, as people see the violence and havoc that comes with mass deportations.

Trump supporters say they’ll be at every polling location with monitors or police every federal election year and it’s always bullshit. Seems irresponsible to cover this at face value (not least because there *are not enough ICE officers)

A brief, recent history of the Washington Post: 1- Trump wins in 2024. 2- Bezos and minions make series of Trump-friendly changes to paper. 3-Readership tanks. 4- Bezos and minions fire tons of employees while telling them the audience just doesn't like what they're doing.

Still remember when I was visiting the Post right after Bezos took over. Everyone back then reassured each other that there is no way he would ever lead to the demise of quality journalism and here we are: www.npr.org/2026/02/04/n...

Wissenschaft: Die Gesellschaft ist nicht so polarisiert wie man uns Glauben machen will. Polarisierungs-Unternehmer in Politik und Medien arbeiten hart daran, das Zerrbild einer gespaltenen Gesellschaft zu zeichnen.

happening this morning in Minneapolis -- ICE agents drawing guns on observers. I reiterate again that it is only a matter of time before DHS kills more innocent people in Minnesota. Congress needs to shut this shit down right now.

Bitte lest unsere Recherche zu unbekannten Giftstoffen im Rhein/Trinkwasser: Das Thema ist riesig, aber meist verkannt und vertuscht: Die Industrie darf zehntausende unerforschte Stoffe einleiten, die uns krank, fettleibig oder verhaltensauffällig machen könnten. 🧵 correctiv.org/aktuelles/ka...

Truth-seeking is what journalists see themselves as always doing. Find the truth. What could be simpler, right? Refuge-seeking includes common practices like false balance, "both sides do it," steering the story "down the middle," and the depiction of "dueling realities" in a divided nation. 12/

My favorite description of refuge-seeking behavior in journalism comes from a former reporter for the Washington Post, Paul Taylor, in his 1990 book about election coverage. I have quoted it many times. 11/

⬇️ Der Widerstand gegen Trumps ICE-Truppen hält an, trotz allem. Was sagt uns das über den Zustand der Demokratie in den USA - und vor allem: warum sind die Trumpisten darüber eigentlich so überrascht? Exzellente Analyse von Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social in der @zeit.de heute Morgen ⬇️

Written about this before but the administration's housing policy is centered around abducting people with the theory that it will lower demand and also that people will just move into homes and apartments presumably still full the victims' belongings. Which is nuts

Getting the impression that ICE is gearing up for a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio, which was ground zero of Vance’s lies about Haitians during the campaign. Haitians lose temporary protected status on February 3rd. Reporters, lawyers, neighbors — please get ready.

Der Widerstand ist da. Neben der klassischen Demonstration bilden sich in den USA neue Formen gesellschaftlicher Gegenwehr heraus – kleiner, dezentral, hocheffektiv. Von der Anatomie des Widerstands handelt der neue Essay Von Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social www.zeit.de/digital/2026...

Hilfreiche Einordnung von @thomaszimmer.bsky.social, zum gescheiterten Vorgehen von Trump. In Minneapolis sollte ein Exempel statuiert werden. Es ging nicht nur darum, die massenhafte Abschiebung voranzutreiben. Das Regime wollte auch seinen autoritären Machtanspruch auf den Straßen durchsetzen. Tja

⬇️ Der Widerstand gegen Trumps ICE-Truppen hält an, trotz allem. Was sagt uns das über den Zustand der Demokratie in den USA - und vor allem: warum sind die Trumpisten darüber eigentlich so überrascht? Exzellente Analyse von Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social in der @zeit.de heute Morgen ⬇️

BIG news from @bloomberg.com, which confirms that ICE has gone ahead and *purchased* multiple commercial warehouses with the aim of converting them into mass detention camps. This is likely to be the big detention story of 2026 — literal warehousing of people. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

100%. I honestly believe political leaders ask too little of people. The thinking is you need an extraordinarily low bar - so ask people for money or to sign something. People want to be part of something and they're eager to do real meaningful work in defense of their community and their rights.

Here's what ICE is up to in Northeast Minneapolis today. Absolutely heartbreaking. Warning: video is hard to watch

BREAKING: A federal judge is weighing Attorney General Pam Bondi’s blackmail letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as evidence that the administration is using the presence of armed federal agents as coercion to achieve policy goals. trib.al/Vm5nYNk

Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The testing ground for Bovino’s Operation At Large was Los Angeles. A California judge initially prohibited ICE/CBP’s most flagrant constitutional violations. SCOTUS overruled her 6–3, handing Bovino a blank check to inflict unspeakable brutality on Chicago and Minneapolis. The 6 bear so much blame.

we talk a lot about how this administration is Very Online and one of the things that comes with that is a complete inability to understand their opposition - who they are, what they're motivated by, and how they might respond to the administration's actions it's why they're failing

Die AfD-Landtagsfraktion Thüringen hat heute Rechtsextremist Sellner in den Landtag eingeladen, um über seinen verfassungswidrigen “Remigrationsplan” zu referieren.

Here's a regular white guy (literally "Chad") not a protester. because, "It seemed pointless, or just a way for people to expiate their sense of guilt." Chad witnessed something shattering. And, that all changed in a moment. Excellent article!

"Right now, it is not an exaggeration to say, Minnesotans are putting their lives on the line to fight for their city, protect their neighbors, and defend the Republic against tyranny."

Quite the video

i think they are bad consolidating authoritarianism choices because effective consolidation involves carrots as well as (secret) sticks. this administration is doing the opposite. no carrots whatsoever and ostentatious public violence against members of the dominant racial/ethnic/religious group

I wonder how many people need to get killed in the street by masked agents of the state before conservatives stop pretending that they’re being oppressed by the existence of HR departments bsky.app/profile/shar...

Rahm’s anti-left views are held by many center-left elites in media and politics. And he is pretending to run for president in 2028 (doubt he actually runs because he knows his odds are very low.) So interviewing him can be framed as “news” and he bluntly makes anti-left points centrists agree with.

Really hard to look at this and all the other examples of bravery and kindness from ordinary people in this moment not think also of the tremendous cowardice exhibited over the past year by some of the richest, most well-protected people in business, media and politics

The political socialization literature suggests that the present moment is likely to have enormous impact on the political views of young people for decades to come.

They’re heroes