Hotlines for US soldiers thinking of leaving the armed forces as "conscientious objectors" are being overwhelmed. Almost all the calls mention the bombing of the girls' school in Iran that killed more than 100 school children. www.npr.org/2026/04/10/n...

🎁 “That inquiry could have wider implications for Australia’s Big Four accounting firms – KPMG, Deloitte, PwC and EY – whose operations have been the subject of intense parliamentary & regulatory investigations in recent years.” - Jason Koutsoukis #auspol www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/share/23020/...

In 1998, a record 11 One Nation MLAs were elected to the Queensland parliament. Within months the party was tearing itself apart, and long before the next election all had left the party. Stephen Spencer on the long list of ex-One Nation candidates. satpa.pe/NnUkCs6

while even the Fox News keeps struggling to spin for the imploding bubble-boy presidency ... "going down to Miami for a UFC fight."

If Congress doesn’t do its job, “you end up with something closer to a monarchy or a dictatorship,” says @oonahathaway.bsky.social. “The whole reason for the revolution was to reject that form of government…When the president is able to act without any checks from Congress, all of that goes away.”

Perfect encapsulation of Israeli politics: the airstrike on Beirut's Tallet El Khayyat on Wednesday that leveled a building happened at almost the exact same time as the IDF Arabic spokesperson calling us a people of culture, civilization and lovers of life.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 2,000 people, and wounded more than 6,400, since March 2nd: — 165 children killed. — 248 women killed. — 85 healthcare workers killed. (Source: Lebanese Ministry of Health)

Loans from a UAE bank were funnelled into the Libyan war effort "likely including payments to Russia’s Wagner Group". More brilliant investigative work from @thesentryorg.bsky.social

My latest for Middle East Eye: satellite imagery analysis reveals that an Ethiopian army base in western Ethiopia is being used as a weapons & logistics hub by Sudan's UAE backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF), to launch cross border attacks on Sudanese army positions from Ethiopia.

Beirut, 1982 — being bombed by the Israeli military during its invasion. Your reminder that Israel has been bombing Lebanon since before Hezbollah existed. (Photo by Yan Morvan)

NEW FOIA Files newsletter is out! On April 1, the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel publicly released a bombshell 52-page opinion. It said that the Presidential Records Act is “unconstitutional” and that Trump “need not further comply with its dictates.” 🧵 www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

🇬🇧 Britain is shelving its plan to hand back the Chagos Islands -- which hosts the strategic Diego Garcia US-UK military base -- according to a government spokesperson, following strong opposition from US President Donald Trump. ➡️ u.afp.com/SEi9

👀👇🏽

This is the 10 point peace plane from Iran gulfbusiness.com/en/2026/iran...

I spoke to TIME together with @rgoodlaw.bsky.social, @oonahathaway.bsky.social , and Harold Koh about this extraordinarily dangerous moment. time.com/article/2026...

Congress cannot wait until Trump’s deadline to find out if he was merely bluffing about committing a genocide in Iran. The statement itself is impeachable. The threat to do war crimes is impeachable. That’s the best case. The worst is he follows through. He must be stopped. He must be removed.

“As former uniformed military lawyers who advised targeting operations, we know the presidents’ words run counter to decades of legal training of military personnel and risk placing our warfighters on a path of no return," write Margaret Donovan and Rachel VanLandingham

More threatening war crimes unless Iran "cries uncle."

“International laws aimed at preventing the horrors of total war are codified in a series of agreements, including the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, the Nuremberg Principles and the United Nations Charter. Deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure violate those.” #MENA

It is a bit rich for POTUS to threaten a journalist for supposedly endangering the safety of US military personnel in Iran given that US service members would not be in harm’s way in Iran but for POTUS’s unnecessary war.

No matter how outrageous the crimes committed by the US and Israel, Albanese, Wong and Marles robotically mouth platitudes about our 'joint commitment to the rules-based international order'. And they wonder why the public looks beyond the political duopoly? www.justsecurity.org/135423/profe...

Iranian strike on US Embassy in Saudi Arabia caused more damage than disclosed: Report

Over 100 international lawyers (including me) warn that U.S. strikes on Iran violate the UN Charter and may be war crimes. Read the letter here: www.justsecurity.org/135423/profe...

How about the UN Security Council adopts a resolution with the consent of the belligerent parties (USA, Israel & Iran) establishing a peace-keeping operation in the Strait of Hormuz allowing ships belonging to non-belligerent states (Japan, France, South Korea, China & others) to pass the strait.

Historians will call this the "Warcrimapalooza Era" if we survive

“The State Department has formally directed U.S. diplomatic posts to coordinate anti-speech operations with a specific, privately owned social media platform & with the Pentagon’s psychological operations apparatus… on a platform owned by a former (& perhaps still current) senior government advisor”

It is existentially bone-chilling that the birthright citizenship case made it to the Supreme Court.

Don’t let this fly under the radar: the Trump administration wants to kick ~6 million more people off of food assistance programs, including nearly 2 million children. That would save just $1 billion a year, while Trump spends upwards of $1 billion per *day* on his new forever war. Priorities.

Obviously key for health outcomes globally. But you can bet this will receive far more attention in western media than Israel deliberately targeting health clinics in Lebanon and murdering paramedics. With the obscene propaganda, also used in Gaza, that ambulances are really enemy troop carriers.

Michael Flynn illegally took money from the Turkish government while he, a retired head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was advising Trump's campaign and serving as his National Security Advisor. He got caught. Trump is now forcing his DOJ to pay Flynn $1.2 mn for having prosecuted this crime.

Mira Hamad’s latest piece, “Rebuilding the Ship of Theseus,” argues that the so-called rules‑based order is being rebuilt plank by plank under Trump – raising the question whether this is still the same ship or a successor system entirely.

Having failed to secure the Snickers or M&Ms that were my original objectives, sources tell the Washington Post I will now be refocusing all energy on extracating my hand from where it is stuck inside the vending machine and restoring said machine to the working order it was in prior to my arrival.

📚“With the international community perceiving Israel as a criminal, imperialist country that is out to gobble up its neighbors' lands, the Israeli right, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the fore, seems to be going out of its way to show, ostensibly, that such a perception is accurate” 1/2

French President Emmanuel ‌Macron said after a two-day European Union summit in Brussels that defending international law and promoting de-escalation was “the best we can do”. “I have ‌not heard anyone here express a willingness to enter this conflict – quite the opposite.” ⤵️

“Kaabi, ​who is also chairman of Qatar ⁠Airways, said the wider impact of the war would ripple across all the economies of the Gulf.” 👇🏽

allow me to explain: it won't

Presumably Canberra's silence means it's happy with Trump "taking" Cuba, ditto with murdering wreckage survivors, sinking ships because “it’s more fun”, showing no remorse for killing civilians and being one with the genocidal Netanyahu government. Mine for MWM michaelwest.com.au/the-madness-...

A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s restrictive Pentagon press access policy, which threatens journalists with being branded security risks if they seek information not authorized for public release.

NEW: The number of companies suing for tariff refunds has spiked in recent weeks, a sign that many importers aren’t feeling confident yet about the Trump administration’s plans to create a claims process after SCOTUS struck down the president’s trade policies www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

📚 “His argument runs as follows: Billionaires shape policy through donations and access. Politicians prioritise donor relationships over the communities they serve. Each choice reveals the same truth: power has structured the system to serve itself.” … ⤵️

Revulsion at Israel’s actions in Gaza is driving a global rise in antisemitism, while the weaponisation of the term to silence criticism is making Jews less safe, John Menadue writes. #auspol #Gaza #Antisemitism #IsraelPalestine

“Australia's competition regulator said on Thursday that it has launched an investigation into allegations of anti-competitive conduct by major fuel suppliers, including Ampol, BP's Aus unit, Mobil Oil ⁠Australia & Viva Energy, in which Vitol is a major shareholder.”⤵️ www.reuters.com/business/ene...

JD Vance laser focused on improving the lives of Americans.

“Moscow’s closest partner in the bloc, the nationalist prime minister has long resisted helping Kyiv to repel Russia’s invasion, stalling EU aid and repeated rounds of sanctions.” ⤵️

You want evidence that he has got the whole Administration believing that he is an omnipotent king? ⬇️ Democracy in the USA is hanging on by a thread. Don't let him cut it!

Another departure from past requirements: “Jared Kushner cannot be an exception to the rule, no matter how murky the Trump administration has allowed his role to be, especially when his work directly impacts geopolitics and not only the lives of the American public but people across the world.” ⤵️

Maddow: How is Jared Kushner's role in the U.S. attacking Iran not more of a show-stopping scandal?

“Among the many negative repercussions of Donald Trump’s ill-conceived conflict with Iran, it must not be allowed to give Putin the upper hand in his own ill-begotten war against his neighbour.” - FT Editorial Board ⤵️