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Insanity. The 20th century's brutal history of anticolonial struggle for a better world turned upside down in the service of Trumpism. Central figures in the Trump regime are mobilizing a bastardized account of US & world history to service its crackpot vision of premodern capitalism w/o democracy.

It’s also a direct take off of Louis Dalrymple’s 1905 cartoon that originally featured Uncle Sam.

Look, it's Trump in the British imperialist, Cecil Rhodes, infamous collosus-stands-bestride-the-African-continent pose.

I'm looking forward to hear what @ojutel.bsky.social had to say on @gilduran's NerdReich podcast. He's one of the sharpest voices on the technofascists' plans to build systems & self-contained 'network states' that offer them an escape from society and democracy.

Beautiful. It's such a refreshing change to see Zohran Mamdani mobilize art, community, and beauty at his inauguration. It strikes such a welcome contrast to the usual state of politics.

Prof. @maryannefranks.bsky.social on how X's worsening record on CSAM and exploitative images set the stage for Grok to be used for the same purposes right now.

Advertising-funded, money losing cog in the rightwing propaganda machinery.

Having Grok issue an “apology” is not just insulting and stupid (obviously Grok cannot actually “regret” anything, deeply or otherwise) but cowardly: It asks us to assign responsibility to an unconscious piece of software rather than the humans and institutions who should actually be blamed.

It's 2026 and time to check your assumptions about Russia's strength (it's much weaker than you might think) and that the US will automatically return to being a "normal" state post Trump (unlikely).

Yes. We can.

Thanks @uccmediajustice.org, @newsguild.org, @nabetcwa.bsky.social & @publicknowledge.bsky.social for joining @freepress.bsky.social to stop this conglomerate merger. Like I say when Brendan Carr talks about defending localism: these giant chains are local broadcasters like CVS is a local pharmacy.

The Trump administration consists of a bunch of Neanderthals.

🥳 Welcome to the Public Domain: creative works from 1930 & sound recordings published in 1925! Duke Law's Center for the Study of the Public Domain has highlighted some of the most anticipated works entering the #publicdomain in 2026! More ➡️ blog.archive.org/public-domai... @dukelaw.bsky.social

How on earth, indeed. 🤔

Jack Smith in just-released House Committee interview … about Trump: “The attack that happened at the Capitol … does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit” youtu.be/1NOVLkzycPI?...

"The US can destroy a European's life with the swipe of a pen. This week's US sanctions against European lawmakers and privacy activists is a major escalation. And it shows the dangers of Europe relying on American economic infrastructure." davekeating.substack.com/p/the-us-can...

Great list of insightful essays and reflections on topical issues in the last year over at the @lpeblog.bsky.social. Good on the @lpeproject.bsky.social for developing and maintaining this valuable contribution to public scholarship.

Media convergence 1.0, circa 1930s. Remember, AT&T a decade earlier had 2 stations in a planned national American Broadcasting System network. It also leveraged its key role in rewiring movie studios & theatres for sound to became one of the largest financiers of Hollywood movies in the 1930s.

Nice gem of a list of people with keen insights on living in our weird and fraught times.

I found this beneath the Christmas 🎄. Its a big, bold attempt to trace the history, geography, and political, social and cultural forces that gave rise to capitalism over the past 1000 years, and not just in one region of the world but many scattered and interconnected places.

Canada, a beacon of freedom who shines brighter against the thickening darkness of Trump's Amerika.

Tech oligarchs, finance and Trump tighten ties, ICYMI: Trump Media & Tech to merge with Google & Goldman Sachs backed TAE Technologies. www.bbc.com/news/article...

trump admin sanctions are outrageous and purposeful: 1. ensure europe doesn't regulate their political allies on the right, enabling space for incitement, disinfo, propaganda. 2. promote muskian/big tech lawlessness 3. distract from its unprecedented domestic repression of speech

The US State Department is now going to be deporting people and/or revoking visas over Benz, Taibbi, and Shellenberger’s “censorship industrial complex” hoax. Let that sink in. This is what the Twitter Files pretext was actually about. Water boys for authoritarians. www.state.gov/releases/off...

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

I agree, Canada should follow Norway 🇳🇴 lead in defending the ICC and in shining a light on the US for trying to undermine it.

Still on point.

The Trump regime is not afraid of censoring things it doesn't like. Any time we hear one of its spox or defenders squeal about free speech and the 1st Amendment, this is exhibit A that neither they nor this administration give a sh*t about either.

Excellent piece by @sulliview.bsky.social in @theguardian.com. Grateful that she references our recent @rooseveltinstitute.org report on the media crises facing US democracy. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Interesting account of Walter Lippmann.

I think attn should turn to what the content moderation regime looks like under this new entity. @anupamchander.bsky.social told me "it is possible that the American TikTok might end up censoring or hiding speech that is permissible on the global TikTok platform" www.npr.org/2025/12/18/n...

The Trump regime is depraved. Every leader in the world, govt and corporate, should denounce Trump as a whackjob and his administration unfit to govern.

And there it be, grading for the term done, and submitted to the Dean for approval. But yikes, what a bimodal distribution of results. I don't like such outcomes one bit but what to do in this day and age when . . . ?

Warner Brothers has rejected Larry Ellison's hostile takeover bid, forestalling authoritarian state TV for a little longer. I suspect in the new year you'll see Trump's DOJ engage in a fake populist, fake antitrust campaign that tries to block the deal and redirect it back to Ellison

Orwell's FCC boss Brendan Carr. Always a charlatan and now a frontman for autocracy and oligarchy.

Wooo, this looks good. 👇👇👇

The #FCC under Trump appointed Chair Brendan Carr can try to erase history & its status as an independent regulator but it can't change reality. Thankfully we have WaybackMachine. Screenshot from Oct. 1, 2025 vs today after the word "independent" had been scrubbed.

The #FCC under Trump appointed Chair Brendan Carr can try to erase history & its status as an independent regulator but it can't change reality. Thankfully we have WaybackMachine. Screenshot from Oct. 1, 2025 vs today after the word "independent" had been scrubbed.

COMMISSIONER GOMEZ: “.. No edit to a website can erase the long-standing congressional intent to create a multiparty, independent regulatory agency like the FCC that is accountable to Congress and the American people, not the whims of the White House.” www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told a Senate committee on Wednesday that his agency is “not formally ... independent.” Shortly after he made that claim, the FCC seems to have removed the description of it as “independent” from the FCC's website. www.cnbc.com/2025/12/17/f...

Ya, Tedeschi rocks and a real pleasure to savour.

Last week, the Global Media & Internet Concentration Project released two new reports on the state of the telecoms, internet & media industries in Germany and Canada, respectively. Both are treasure troves of analysis, data and policy insights.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr trying to perform unitary executive theory into being. This is a position he'd denounced when he was just a commissioner at the FCC under Biden.

Gruesome tour of the opportunists and new fusionists publishing the tech Zeitgeist in SF bayareacurrent.com/meet-the-new...

US big tech companies seek unbridled freedom to operate in markets as they see fit without being subject to either the pesky rule of law or democratic oversight. It's their version of freedom without democracy.

Sorry - correct one here www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Carleton’s Centre for European Studies welcomes applicants for the 2026 Konrad Adenauer Visiting Scholarship on Transatlantic Relations. A great opportunity for an early career researcher or established scholar on sabbatical. carleton.ca/ces/konrad-a...

With enshittification made the word of the year in 2024 by Macquarie Dictionary, I think we're on a roll...in the wrong way. www.macquariedictionary.com.au/word-of-the-...

Out in spring from @bentarnoff.com & I www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...