People are still treating Trump as a normal person when his malignant narcissism means that ALL of his relationships are essentially 'beyond repair'. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The state of it that the best prospect for getting rid of Trump is making 'no homo' jokes.

"No Sir. That's not a question that you need to answer; it's the number of the page that you're on".

Trump does not think strategically, historically, geographically, or even rationally. He does not connect actions he takes on one day to events that occur weeks later. Allied leaders know that if they help him in the Gulf, he won't be grateful, or even remember www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Dems gonna be like 85% to retake the senate now, a hard map be damned.

Big "you're not coming to my birthday party" vibes here.

are you an oil tanker? because you dress like you're trying to pass with the straights

Eddie Izzard's piece about the Pilgrims insulting the native Americans before asking them for food sort of fits this moment: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrOg...

I wonder whether the Royal Mint could do a special release of e.g. 100 different £1 coins, each with a different historical fact, with differing quantities of each coin being available so as to create interest (think Tazos). I guess if people started collecting them en masse it'd create problems...

Unhinged.

I’m enjoying watching Trump try to taco this far more than I should - us reaching out to Israel to beg them to stop hitting Iranian oil infrastructure. Lmao incredible Bantz

The geopolitical fight now really is can Iran keep the straight closed long enough to re establish deterrence and make the us and Israel not want to do this again. If it can the it wins. If the US can do this and threaten or force them to reopen the straight then the US won and can do this again.

Viva España. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Six years ago, his principles were entirely different.

turns out McSweeney and the Blue Labour gang were wrong and the out of touch woke liberal elite Bluesky echo chamber bubble was right

"Freedom is having the right to live as you choose, not the right to choose how everyone else lives." - James Van Der Beek, Rest In Peace #NOH8

Crockett: "The US is falling apart, partially bc he's allowing for killings in the street, but also bc we have a 34 count convicted felon being shielded from any type of accountability as it relates to a child sex trafficking ring. I don't understand why we're pretending any of this is normal."

Yes, but even bigger than that. The evidence positions the Epstein operation as the product of a gradual confluence of *several* foreign intelligence services—and moreover establishes that there was an adjacent and at times interconnected Trump operation as well. This scandal will only get larger.

Former speechwriter for Bush the Younger and Senior Editor at The Atlantic:

In the 2010s, the Icelandic tv station Channel 2 accidentally added subtitles from a gritty crime drama to an episode of Teletubbies. I have translated some of the highlights

There is such huge opportunity cost to each Trump tantrum. So many people with critical jobs have lost another week when they could have been doing something useful.

Interesting list, which shows the dominance of U.S. brands. Unilever holding out like a Risk Oceania, down on the bottom right...

Canadian PM Mark Carney says criminals exploit “irresponsible American gun laws” and weak U.S. border enforcement to move illegal firearms into Canada, saying U.S. platforms have become “seas of racism, misogyny, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and hate.”

In all seriousness, the UK and Europe should consider banning Trump from his golf course in Scotland if he moves on Greenland. Feels much more likely to stay his hand than most of the consequences the U.S. would/could face.

Banning X would have loads of upsides and really not many downsides for the government. The argument for shutting it down (distribution of CSAM) is incontrovertible, the people who are its most avid users hate the government anyway, and it would address threats to social cohesion and public order.

I appreciate a lot of us will think "they've always been like this" but the utter moral decay on the right in the last few years has been notable. A shift from love the sinner, hate the sin fig leaf to "yeah, kill she/her, haha, pronouns in bio."

I was listening to @thebulwark.com's Next Level podcast today and they were thinking through the chance that Trump actually tries to seize Greenland and there was a @jvl.bsky.social sort of 'I kinda hope he does it to drop the mask entirely' and I just cannot scream loudly enough: No, You Do Not. 1/

Surely someone must have made the XXX joke by now?

Nice to see some domestic opposition to Trump flexing its muscle.

'If you’ve broken the rules then those around you should be saying 'you’ve broken the rules'' Senior Labour MP Emily Thornberry urges the UK government to condemn Trump's military action in Venezuela #InternationalLaw #Rules Peter Stefanovic | Tweet @peterstefanovic.bsky.social Thread 3/3🧵

Dumb NATO question ... if Venezula counter attacks the US now, are the U.S' erstwhile allies oblidged to come the the U.S' defence under Article 5?

French Foreign Ministry: “The removal of Maduro from power and the violation of sovereignty constitute a serious act of aggression against the dignity of the Venezuelan people and their right to determine their own future.

This is lovely. Happy Christmas all

US evidence also shows that fertility drops as you ascend the household income scale until you get near to the very top where it shoots up again.

Just found out that Gavin Newsome was married to Kimberley Guilfoyle, Don Jr's since fiancée and now die-hard MAGA ambassador to Greece. To what extent is it fair to judge a man by the actions of his ex? V poor judgement no? www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

This is a fab article by J Oliver Conroy & articulates something I feel strongly resonates here too; to me it feels central to why everything feels like it's falling apart. "For most of history, living was cheap and things were expensive. Now it's the opposite". www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Feel like I'm going mad. The Budget's 'headroom' is based on frankly irresponsible and wildly optimistic claims about what Labour will do in the final year of the forecast, and on ignoring a bunch of upward pressures on spending, and the claim is that she was being exaggeratedly *pessimistic*?

I'm hoping to unite Left and Right - they'll all hate my piece in today's Sunday Times, saying that successive Budgets have overtaxed the highest-earning 20%, and under-taxed both the median earner and the richest 0.1%.https://buff.ly/BqRFpJr

Boom.💥 Great to see a robust defence of The Republic.

My column in today’s FT: the vision since 2016 has been that the lever British governments pull to fight poverty is to increase the minimum wage. Time for government to start pulling its weight again too:

I’m going to become the joker

It's interesting that a lot of the commentary appears to under pricing the impact of the salary sacrifice change by only factoring in the impact of employee NICs and ignoring employer NICs. The latter are probably much more significant in terms of their cost and impact.

Take pride in our fellow American, Sen. Mark Kelly, vigorously standing up for the Constitution and against a violence-inciting White House occupant who is failing to intimidate this good man and honorable public servant.

Longer assessment here. There are genuine positives to be found. But by christ there's a lot to criticise too. share.google/FhopmLj9Eaat...

The OBR's commentary on the salary sacrifice changes is interesting:

Such a cool Senator.

It's important to understand what this ad does and why it is so threatening to the Trump admin. It gets to social identity theory, which posits that we have many identities, and the one which is salient in a given context will dictate how we think/behave in a particular situation. 1/

Much enjoyed this conversation with @andyostroy.bsky.social

This does feel like a major crossing of the Rubicon – the world's best-funded and in many ways most powerful public health agency is now actively pushing disinformation. I know there's a *lot* going on to care about at the moment, but this one really is significant, and matters well beyond the US.

A lot of it is stuff Cooper refused to do, which is why she was moved, but yeah the detailed policy work hasn't been done.