▪️ “Media workers say the layoffs amount to a strategic retreat from international journalism, narrowing the range of voices, perspectives, and firsthand reporting available to western audiences.” 👇🏽

ICE at the polls! Bannon is basically yelling “fire” in a crowded theater here. His objective is to cause chaos (and suppress votes on the left). And it’s already working. This threat works on multiple levels and doesn’t have to be “real” to serve its purpose. Let me explain & offer some advice.

I want Albanese to tell us what the Israeli President who signs bombs that blow up Palestinian families and denies civilian status to Palestinian children has to do with an “attack on all Australians”. In his own words. I’ll wait.

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, working with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, filed a lawsuit Saturday evening seeking to prevent the destruction of evidence related to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents.

One thing that irks me: people keep calling the folks on the streets in Minneapolis protestors. They are not generally there to protest, they are there to observe and document. This is the product of organizing and mutual aid. It is telling that these acts of citizenship are seen as protest!

Trump's Doctrine offers a grim choice for the world: Obey or suffer - https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/trumps-donroe-doctrine-offers-grim-choice-world-obey-or-suffer

🎁 “Like the stunned victims of an abuser, the countries of the world's strongest alliances – NATO, the European Union and the United Nations – have been scrambling to absorb wave after wave of threats to peace, security and the global economy at the hands of U.S. President Donald Trump.” 1/2

The events of the last 24 hours show why it's important to build functional verification structures in public and counterpublic spaces to resist the authoritarian erosion of our democratic systems, as described in this thread.

3/ "Instead of doing either of those things [checking for a pulse and administering CPR], the ICE agents appeared to be counting his bullet wounds. I asked the ICE agents if the victim had a pulse, and they said they did not know." Link: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

WOW on Pretti's denial of medical treatment "I informed the ICE agents that I am a physician, and I asked to assess the victim. At first, the ICE agents wouldn't let me through. ... But none of the ICE agents who were near the victim were performing CPR, ... None of the agents were helping him."

New: meet ELITE, the Palantir app ICE is using to find neighborhoods to raid. Map interface; officers search for immigrants; click person to bring up individual dossier. This is clearest link between what Palantir is building and ICE's activities on the ground yet www.404media.co/elite-the-pa...

📚🎁 “The logical fallacies and practical shortfalls of the imperial quasi-judicial governing body are clear: the lack of full buy-in from the international community, no Palestinian representation on the board itself, … ⤵️ 1/2

Good to have a time cleanse - I came across the 2014 #AusOpen program today & reminisced about being at the Final to see Stan Wawrinka beat Rafael Nadal to win the title that year. 12 years later it was also a treat to see him win in 5 seats to make thru to the 3rd Round in his 🎾 career swansong.👏🏽

Australia already has a massively concentrated pharmacy market, with just a handful of players. Now Chemist Warehouse is about to buy one of their main competitors. We need to break up monopolies not create more of them. alexwhite.org/2026/01/what... #auspol #ausbiz

📚 “The overwhelming view in the Liberal Party is that the Nationals, led by backbench renegade Matt Canavan, shifted in response to the growing threat of One Nation. “Canavan runs the Nats, not Littleproud,” said one senior Liberal.” #auspol 🎁 www.afr.com/politics/fed...

I’ve been reading Trump’s "Board of Peace Charter," and despite the name, this isn’t a multilateral institution, it’s a centralised structure built entirely around the authority of one person (Trump). www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-ch...

👀👇🏽

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr “Støre said in a statement that Trump’s response came after he sent a message to the U.S. president on behalf of himself and Finnish President Alexander Stubb asking for a phone call to de-escalate tensions over Greenland and tariffs” ⤵️ bsky.app/profile/pbsn...

"Trump’s aides know if the changes they propose were actually turned into law, it'd be a political disaster. Which is how we get what we got: A plan that's not a plan, released so they can say they have a plan but not actually do anything. And that’s just fine with Trump." — @paulwaldman.bsky.social

“The involvement in talks of a private firm whose main business is to maximize financial returns has reinforced concerns that the Trump admin views Ukraine’s reconstruction as a profit-making opp for the U.S. govt & American companies, rather than as primarily a humanitarian or security matter.” ⤵️

📚 🎁 “For countries belonging to the "global South," which enjoy, even if only ostensibly, some equality with large and powerful states at the UN General Assembly, the attempt to construct a "competing UN" is akin to sawing off the branch on which they sit.” 1/4

“Trump has already declared himself the chair of a "Board of Peace" and on Friday announced its full membership that will include Blair as well as senior Americans -- Kushner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, Trump's business partner turned globe-trotting negotiator.” -AFP

📚 “As global attention drifts to Caracas and Tehran, Palestinians in Gaza describe continued military incursions & air strikes, and a shifting Yellow Line that make daily life as dangerous as ever”- Nagham Zbeedat As the World Moves On, For Gazans It's War as Usual www.haaretz.com/gaza/2026-01...

🚨 In Nov., Trump's Labor Dept. lowered the minimum wage for foreign farmworkers. A month later, Trump's winery filed to hire 36 foreign, temporary workers. The rate? Almost $2/hour less than in 2025. 1/ me, for @forbes.com

Update:

📚 “Propaganda via mass media.. is the fascists' principal tool. Its appeal is not to rational judgment but to emotional reflexes: fear, insult, identity, anger. When that discourse dominates the public domain, the very possibility of a democratic discussion dissolves.” - Guy Rolnik 1/2

“The reality is that risk is inevitable, buffeted by mass-media opinionistas and social-media warriors. So artists require boards with fortitude and a commitment to support the artistic vision. There needs to be a shared recognition that art is by its very nature unpredictable,..” - Louise Adler ⤵️

Trump has just withdrawn the US from a stack of organisations including (xi) Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Because it is “Contrary to the Interests of the United States” www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

“The understated, professional and convincing embodiment of America’s martial prowess is instead Dan “Razin” Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs, and by all appearances Trump’s favorite. It falls to Caine to narrate the military aspects... His sway only extends to tactics, though, not strategy.”

Israel's efforts to silence dissent raise these questions for the commissioner: - What is the impact of the Israel lobby's deliberate conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel? - How has a foreign power gained so much influence on Australian politics, media, unis, arts & culture? #auspol

there's been so much smart writing coalescing around the same ideas lately. Don's "clicktatorship" term is so good i'm deeply jealous. reading his and all the others here i think gives a really rich view of how messed up this is. highly recommend them all

1/2 « When any given event occurs—a raid in Venezuela, say—the trolls, pundits, know-it-alls, and shitposters flood in immediately. These days, one doesn’t experience the news on these platforms before seeing the memes and reactions—the reaction and the news are, in essence, one thing now. »

🇬🇱 Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen on early Monday called US President Donald Trump’s recent rhetoric about needing Greenland “completely unacceptable” and “disrespectful.” - From Ilayda Cakirtekin www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/...

𝐈𝐬 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐩 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭...𝐨𝐟 𝐕𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐳𝐮𝐞𝐥𝐚? Join us for a special episode as the US kidnaps Nicolas Maduro and his wife - and Trump vows to "run" Venezuela. ▶️ Watch now: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eCF...

“I’ve never heard anyone sounding so much like an emperor as Donald Trump” Is the US president displaying imperial power after kidnapping the Venezuelan head of state?

▪️ “Trump has said he believes that the United States needs to maintain control over the Western Hemisphere, invoking his own version of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, which rejected European colonialism in the hemisphere. He calls his approach the “Donroe Doctrine.” From Michael Scherer ⤵️

Some petrodollar history from 2017: “Any country fighting against the [USD] dollar is considered to be a direct threat to US economic hegemony and its citizens’ high standard of living which means the US elites do whatever it takes to defeat resistance.” venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/134...

📚 “The US just bombed Venezuela. Not a typo. Not a drill. Seven explosions, Maduro captured, international law in tatters. What happens when the most powerful nation decides sovereignty means nothing?” Urban Wronski posted - his latest article. ⤵️ urbanwronski.com/2026/01/03/t...

“Trump’s nocturnal ravings are dangerous. The world may be more or less accustomed to Trump’s bizarre threats, but it is still a big deal when the president of the United States menaces another nation. Intelligence analysts, friend and enemy alike, do not have the luxury to presume …” ⤵️

“It’s no coincidence that so many of these overcharging cases involve requests by independent journalists or small local outlets. The govt knows the news industry is struggling economically... Officials are taking advantage of the media’s weak financial position to hold accountability for ransom.” ⤵️

“The petitions argue that Ben-Gvir's ouster is necessary because he has systematically undermined the police's independence and turned the organization from a law enforcement agency into a political police force.” www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

“Those with sharp eyes and ears understand that the president, consciously or not, ignores the details. He talks in headlines – peace in the Middle East, improving the situation in Gaza, humanitarian aid and regional stability. These are grand slogans, but empty of practical content.” 1/4

“It seems almost no one is beyond the scope of administration efforts to muzzle views or decisions that conflict with Mr. Trump’s agenda” “What is important to recognize is that these efforts work in concert in their frequency & their volume” from Nora Benavidez ⤵️ www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/o...

Smith says Trump "without question" added to the danger to Mike Pence's life with his 2:24pm tweet while the Capitol was under attack.

“Khaled Daoud, a highly esteemed, chronically ill educator from a refugee camp near Bethlehem, is wasting away in an Israeli prison. His story exemplifies all that is wrong with Israel's widespread policy of administrative detention” Analysis from Dr Maya Rosenfield www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

A Trump-Epstein statue, melting democracy and human banners: the art of protesting in 2025 - in pictures

Israel failed to confirm that the data collected from the new regulations wouldn’t be used for military or intelligence purposes, raising serious security concerns, said Athena Rayburn, of AIDA, an umbrella organization representing over 100 organizations that operate in the Palestinian Territories

On 28th June this year, thousands upon thousands of people came together to defy Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán passing legislation to ban Pride and other protests supporting equal rights of LGBTI people. It was the largest march in Budapest Pride’s history.

For all the murmurs and leaks about growing U.S. impatience with Israel's actions in Gaza and concerns about ratcheted-up tensions with Iran that could once again bring the Middle East on the precipice of regional war, ..

Netanyahu's visit with his wife and son, Yair, the plan for a party in Miami later this week, and the wide-ranging schedule he released appear to be a vacation in disguise. For now, Netanyahu continues to avoid the Israeli media and responds to questions as little as possible.”