Trump sincerely believes Norway stole “his” Nobel Peace Prize. That isn’t a joke. It’s the key to understanding his second presidency. We have to drop the self-delusion, over-intellectualisation and listen to him. America is no longer Europe’s ally. My latest 👇 open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...

Trump repeatedly confuses Greenland with Iceland during a low-energy, slurring appearance at Davos

Morgan McSweeney: Look, appealing to Reform voters is working!

Hundreds of photos revealing the faces of those killed during the violent crackdown on protests in Iran have been leaked to BBC Verify. The pictures reveal the bloodied, swollen and bruised faces of at least 326 victims - including 18 women. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Entirely typical of the BBC's treatment of trans people that it presents Michael Foran, who is literally on the advisory Board of the Sex Matters hate group, as an independent expert.

Donald Trump is acting like a crime boss running a protection racket, threatening to smash up our economy unless he gets Greenland. Will the Prime Minister learn the lessons of history and truly stand up to Trump?

“I sometimes wonder why journalists are so nice to the people who want to destroy them.” My free Stop the Presses newsletter.

“I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China”

A naturalized U.S. citizen felt fear, shame and desperation after ICE agents broke down his door with guns drawn, handcuffed him, and dragged him into the snow wearing just his shorts. "I was praying, God, please help me, I didn't do anything wrong. Why do they do this to me? Without my clothes.”

In his rambling history lesson, he has omitted the fact that the US is the only country ever to have invoked Article 5 of NATO, following September 11th attacks. NATO stepped up.

The President of the US is a eugenicist white nationalist. It’s like having Woodrow Wilson back in the White House, only without any of the good parts.

I think it’s bad that the Speaker of the House has been in a sensory deprivation tank since roughly 2015 and only emerges to get yelled at in the hallway outside of the tank.

Illiberal democracy isn’t a populist revolt against elites. It’s an elite solution to democratic risk. In part 5, we explains why wealthy actors back illiberal systems: not out of ideology, but because they’re predictable. Exposure collapses once alignment is secured.

Let's not blow this out of proportion. It was just an admin error. Two admin errors. A few admin errors. Seventeen admin errors worth £380,000.

Say again now? "Stand down and surrender?"

It's almost as though you don't get a platform with the Daily Telegraph because of your knowledge and insight, but because you can be relied upon to promote a particular view of the world. @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk

Is it a good time to remember that mainstream right-wing figures were listed in Breivik’s manifesto, including: Melanie Phillips Douglas Murray Pat Buchanan That’s not guilt by association. It’s a reminder about how “respectable” right-wing rhetoric travels @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk #lbc

Is it a good time to remember that mainstream right-wing figures were listed in Breivik’s manifesto, including: Melanie Phillips Douglas Murray Pat Buchanan That’s not guilt by association. It’s a reminder about how “respectable” right-wing rhetoric travels @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk #lbc

Enjoying “liberal tears” and fearing a “woke mind-virus” isn’t a political philosophy. It’s a coping strategy. When change feels threatening and empathy feels like weakness, insecurity gets alchemised into contempt. Fear dresses itself up as strength. @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk #lbc

It's almost as though you don't get a platform with the Daily Telegraph because of your knowledge and insight, but because you can be relied upon to promote a particular view of the world. @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk

I would go as far as to say he has pyschosis and has had for a long time. Many of his delusions have been utterly unshaken by vast amounts of evidence presented to him and I do not think that is something he is in any conscious control of.

Take a look at The Telegraph's view on Trump. Every single 'columnist' (I use the term loosely) utterly wrong and totally disproven. Never read again.

Oh FFS.

One of our deeper failures is that too many politicians and too much of the media refuse to say what is plainly in front of them. Below, Mamdani states the obvious about Trump's ICE paramilitaries. And you can hear the room register it in real time. 1/ @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk

Your caller seems to be saying that Trump is a solipsist - someone who treats their own mind as the only thing that is unquestionably real (and consequently the only thing that matters). @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk #lbc

Boris Johnson is a useful foil to Trump @mrjamesob.bsky.social Both are notorious liars, but the difference matters. Johnson knows he’s lying. He doesn’t care. Truth & lies are both props. Trump believes he can will things into being. Say it enough and reality follows. 1/ @lbc.co.uk #lbc

Boris Johnson is a useful foil to Trump @mrjamesob.bsky.social Both are notorious liars, but the difference matters. Johnson knows he’s lying. He doesn’t care. Truth & lies are both props. Trump believes he can will things into being. Say it enough and reality follows. 1/ @lbc.co.uk #lbc

One of our deeper failures is that too many politicians and too much of the media refuse to say what is plainly in front of them. Below, Mamdani states the obvious about Trump's ICE paramilitaries. And you can hear the room register it in real time. 1/ @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk

Mamdani: "I am in support of abolishing ICE. What we see is an entity that has no interest in fulfilling its stated reason to exist. We're seeing a government agency that is supposed to be enforcing some kind of immigration law, but instead what it's doing is terrorizing people."

You cannot overstate how startling it is to see a politician just say the thing with clarity and poise. No fearful hemming. No overwrought qualifying down til it’s meaningless. No lingering sense that there is a loyalty to a donor class or an ideology of stasis that they’d never admit to.

Feels like something that should have happened a a long time ago is finally happening The scales are falling away from the eyes of pretty much anyone sentient, and the reality of Trump is becoming apparent What this means is also apparent. And it’s existential for pretty much everyone

I'm good thanks. I think I probably won't move to the country where the authorities pump out neo-Nazi memes and masked militias roam the streets.

EXCLUSIVE: Germany has joined France in saying it will ask the European Commission to explore unleashing the EU's so-called trade "bazooka" in response to Trump's threat to seize Greenland, according to five diplomats with knowledge of the situation. 🔗 www.politico.eu/article/eu-b...

“ICE isn’t the Gestapo. The Gestapo was…” (proceeds to describe qualities that apply to what ICE is currently doing)

Farage — catastrophically wrong about Brexit, and Trump, both of which he is bound to. It’s almost as if he wants to help destroy the post-WWII ‘International Rules-Based Order”, like Putin.

Friday.

NYT Editorial Board: “How Trump has pocketed $1,408,500,000 — he took an oath to serve the 🇺🇸 people. Instead, he has focused on using the presidency to enrich himself.” www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Trump, who is not mad, has made 30 Truth Social posts in the last 30 minutes, topics including Muslims in the UK, Biden stealing the election, how right he is on Greenland, and other topics.

Trump amplifies post that says NATO — not China or Russia — is part of the “real threat” to America.

Brooklyn Park police chief Mark Bruley: "We're hearing people being stopped with no cause & being demanded to show paperwork to determine if they're here legally. We started hearing from our police officers the same complaints. Every one of these individuals is a person of color... it has to stop"

This will kill people slowly. I assume the Republican thinking on whether the population more prone to HIV/AIDS is still where dinosaur segregationist Jesse Helms left it in that they're deserving of "Gods punishment". Such moral leadership.

The next stage in standing up to Trump will be when the media dares say ‘well, that’s just a load of bollocks’ and ‘he’s lost it completely’.

Now this is a *great* speech by Mark Carney. Deserves careful listen. I'll plan to work up a transcript with annotations. ___ (Some of my Mackenzie forebears came through Nova Scotia. Somehow reminded of that at the moment....)

If you read one thread today (short thread) read this one. Then go and check out @nohostages.bsky.social account it’s a cracker.

“…There is some information in there that isn't familiar to a lot of people. Including that the US is currently holding three times as many people in immigration detention as were detained in the entire Nazi concentration camp system in spring 1939—six years into the Third Reich.”

Left: Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, talking about liberty and freedom in the US in the UK parliament Right: ICE agents attacking a dancing fox

Trump doesn’t want “peace”. He wants a new Congress of Vienna with great powers in a room, carving up the world while everyone else waits outside. America, Russia, maybe China, deciding borders like property developers. @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk #lbc

Dan O’Brien, chief economist at the Institute of International and European Affairs, says it cleanly. Britain is weaker outside the EU, and Europe is weaker without Britain, and Brexit has handed advantage to the bullies who see allies as leverage.

Trump doesn’t want “peace”. He wants a new Congress of Vienna with great powers in a room, carving up the world while everyone else waits outside. America, Russia, maybe China, deciding borders like property developers. @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk #lbc

What we're seeing is not chaos @mrjamesob.bsky.social It is illiberalism - a way of holding power that keeps the appearance of democracy while quietly removing the limits that make democracy real. This is why obsessing over Trump the man, misses the point. 1/ @lbc.co.uk #lbc