#r4today has been telling us for almost a week that that oil prices are falling, as if the impact of Donald Trump’s reckless, unprovoked war of choice hasn’t already been baked in. The gaslighting on behalf of a ravenous, genocidal empire is just exhausting. #r4today

“The BBC has to live within its means, even the monarchy is cutting these days.” Not nearly enough when you consider the no of people suffering deprivation and dying in the trenches to keep a parasitic family in luxury. When do we get to decide if the monarchy is good value for money? #r4today

General Wesley Clark: “The easy and most lucrative targets were taken out early, and it becomes difficult to generate new targets.” That’s surprising, given that Israel — America’s rabidly racist regional ally — is known for its expertise in generating “new targets”. #r4today

It’s disappointing to hear Chine McDonald compare her prejudice against a white man to the prejudice Blacks ppl face from racist whites. Black ppl experience racism as an existential threat, not just a kind of extreme incivility, bc racism doesn’t start and stop at the interpersonal level. #r4today

>renames it to the Department of War >names himself the Secretary of War >fights one war >loses

It doesn’t matter how much DT criticises BN. The only thing that wld show he’s serious abt reigning in 🇮🇱’s colonial barbarity is ending US supplied weapons & US supplied immunity. So far, US policy has been waging war to maintain the regional nuclear-weapons monopoly of a genocidal state. #r4today

Two white men sexually abuse a baby to death. Yet no one in this disc is going to claim that child abuse is a product of white British culture. No racialised commentary from right-wing MPs. No riots. It’s almost as if an entire community can’t be blamed for the crimes of two individuals. #r4today

“Former Nigerian oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke ​was found not guilty of six bribery charges by a London jury on Wed. The ‌verdicts are a major blow to British auths , who began their inv into corruption allegations against Alison-Madueke more than a decade ago.” www.reuters.com/world/africa...

Our society has spent the entirety of teenagers' lives systematically destroying every alternative to online interaction, from youth-clubs to broadcast TV, and now wants to cut off their access to the one thing that was sold as replacing it all.

Terrible decision

Mamdani: "Solidarity with a government that is committing genocide is a very different thing than a question of solidarity with people of a specific faith. I'm proud to be a mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population in this country."

Justin on his fave topic: immigration. He never misses an opp to conflate migration w/ criminality, revealing the prejudices that underpin his worldview. He routinely describes undocumented migrants as “illegal” despite plenty of evid on why this term is dehumanising & conceptually flawed. #r4today

He’s so adorable 😍

Inequality is killing us. Healthy life expectancy gap between poor and rich is nearly 20 years. Govts cuddle fiscal rules, but no targets for healthcare, poverty reduction, better housing, environment or income distribution. Tackling inequalities must be a legal obligation.

Ravi pour les Bleus, mais également attristé pour les Lions. J’aime trop ces deux équipes pour choisir un camp.

2–0 to England tonight? Against a Croatian side featuring Luka Modrić? Keep dreaming. #r4today

No, it's because only 3.1 percent of the Dutch population live in poverty as opposed to 20 percent of the British population. The Guardian really needs to stop publishing irresponsible lifestyle crap as news. (The Avondvierdaagse is a nice tradition though.) www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

This is the perfect Kemi Badenoch line: obviously crazy, coarsens our politics and the kind of thing that collapses if she ever put herself somewhere she might face a gentle follow-up question. What does she think the Gestapo *did*?

The most horrifying thing happened to Black and Brown people living in Belfast and The Guardian’s first concern is to make sure White rioters aren’t “hurt” by being called racist. Ditto #r4today. Fighting racism and white supremacist violence means *calling it out*, not hiding behind euphemisms.

Banning children from social media?

I can’t believe #r4today thought Justin was the best person to conduct that interview. Only last week, he was asking Irish politicians how their immigration policies had contributed to the racist pogroms in Belfast. Asking that que a day after people were burnt out of their homes was disgraceful.

Wilkie: “We need to get through this tariff problem and start focusing on new strategic realities.” Yet Trump is threatening to reopen a trade row with Europe over Big Tech regulations. He recently demanded France remove a digital tax on US tech firms or face 100% tariffs on French wines. #r4today

“Authorities in the DRC have recorded the biggest single-day jump in confirmed Ebola cases since an outbreak was formally declared last month. Some 72 new cases were ​documented in 24 hours, government data showed, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 782.” www.reuters.com/business/hea...

Taiwan’s intel svc has opened a website that invites Chinese nats to share tips & pvt info on their govt at a time of heightened tension btwn Beijing & Taipei. Its aim, it said, was to “expand the collection of intel on China’s pol, military, econ & social dev.” www.independent.co.uk/asia/china/t...

“A report from the International Crisis Group said myriad Israeli constraints on life in the Palestinian territory, including restrictions on movement, the withholding of revenue and the illegal settlement of land, are leaving Palestinians without any opportunities.” apnews.com/article/isra...

The long afterlife of Brexit: The brilliant @sarahobolt.bsky.social on how the referendum shattered and reforged our sense of political identity iandunt.substack.com/p/guest-post...

Early projections on Sunday showed Swiss voters had rejected a proposal to cap the country’s population at 10mn people, delivering a surprise defeat to a rightwing initiative that had appeared neck and neck in opinion polls until just days before the vote ft.trib.al/X3a0hqp

it's not even that strongly worded? so like, leave the grim stuff there but stop the kiddies seeing it in case they don balaclavas and join their parents in setting fire to people's homes?

My favourite Hattersley quotes From 1987: “For too long the mainstream of the Labour Party believed that it was possible to combat bad ideas by opposing ideas in general.” On Tony Blair: “Since the prime minister believes in the Third Way, it is important for him to find out what it is."

This is the thing with the BBC. One section of it will cover the far right disastrously while another is diligently digging out the truth. It runs the gamut from courageous gold-standard reporting to Justin Webb

An aphorism for the ages.

It should be in the textbooks, the judgment, for illustrating how legal outcomes are constructed by judges' selection and characterisation of facts. Stressing the covert, unapologetic, 'violent' nature of Palestine Action in contrast to the 'good' type of direct action that the Sufragettes did.

Martin Lewis: “If you profit from harm and abuse, you lose the right to self regulate. So why are we putting it in the platforms hands? The make £4bn a year.” Because they’re mostly US-based, which makes meaningful regulation extremely difficult when Donald Trump favours less regulation. #r4today

In other industries, companies that harm kids are fined& held accountable by gvts. So why the reluctance to take a stronger stance vs US tech firms? Why’s the onus on teens to change their behaviour rather than on the powerful companies designing & profiting from these addictive platforms? #r4today

My step-daughter created a LinkedIn profile entirely to spy on teachers. The kids are a lot smarter than this sledge hammer ban will be.

It’s rather ironic that a PM so concerned abt the impact of social media on teens routinely uses a platform widely criticised for fuelling division and social unrest in the UK to announce new policies. At some point, Starmer needs to realise that leadership starts w/ setting an example. #r4today

KS’ under-16 SM ban looks more like an attempt to secure a legacy than to protect teens. If he were serious abt protecting kids, he’d be taking on the tech companies, not putting the burden on kids to change their behaviour. As for enforcement, expect digital IDs to be the next “solution”. #r4oday

We traded Tory political chaos for Keir Starmer’s relentlessly dreary, sermonising speeches. Every speech sounds like a headmaster scolding a room full of naughty sixth-formers. #r4today

Listening to #r4today discuss assisted dying in a country facing relentless budget cuts, a broken welfare system, a social care sector on its knees, and long waiting lists to access mental health care fills me with much dread.

A crucial issue: deregulation by stealth, which could expose us to a greater range of hazardous chemicals than the EU permits, contrary to government promises. We at Fighting Dirty are suing. We need your help. Please see crowdfunder in next post. Thank you 🧵 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover's war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and, with that revelation, to make freedom real. -Baldwin

NO 👇 LIES DETECTED.......

What are the Government, police and security services doing about the people who are quite clearly in the pay of a hostile foreign state, and using their platforms to whip up actual pogroms on our streets? This is a major national security issue and absolutely nothing seems to be happening about it

At what point does the government move to do something about the open incitement of far right pogroms on X? Or the spreading of hate speech and wild misinformation on the platform? It’s all happening in plain sight. What else has to burn?

At moments of crisis, leaders have a responsibility to speak to, and for, their country. The PM should be on the airwaves, telling the stories of the children, teenagers and families who have been burned out of their homes; naming those responsible; and leading a national fightback against them.

In 2011, after the August riots, the CPS pressed for the most onerous sanctions for all riot offences. The Director of Public Prosecutions was Keir Starmer.

“In Belfast last night, [non-white] people had to be rescued from their homes while fires burned around them.” Yet Justin sees this as an appropriate moment to also discuss Northern Ireland’s immigration policies, bec he never misses an opportunity to conflate migration with criminality. #r4today

It’s hardly surprising that as the Gaza genocide – backed & funded by Western govts – is broadcast on our screens, some Britons seek to emulate this anti-Muslim violence on a smaller scale. Going door to door, terrorising Black ppl they see as outsiders, they echo the bloodlust of the IDF. #r4today

“Americans don’t like to lose, be played for suckers, or endure stalemates.” Nobody does. The problem is that Americans think they’re uniquely entitled to those feelings & expect others to accept humiliation. We saw that when Zelensky was humiliated at the White Hse by Trump & his goons. #r4today

Hard to take JW’s challenges to Carla Lockhart’s arguments seriously when he often uses similar talking points. For s/o who derides identity politics, he seems quite comfortable w/ it when making arguments vs immigration. It’s identity politics when #r4today identifies the ethnicity of offenders.