words from lexi alexander, who had been suspended from this platform for being palestinian

'It can now be revealed that most of those clandestine reports were sent to MI5, helping the Security Service to build up large files on peaceful protesters who were engaged in democratic protests for an array of causes'

Newly declassified documents reveal how Tony Blair quickly regretted the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act - my article for the Telegraph today: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01...

The power of anonymity – open secrecy and digital underworlds blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofb...

‘… the “middle ground” doesn’t exist like it used to because demands for better wages or public services can’t be easily satisfied without redistribution in a stagnating economy.’

A nuclear-armed U.S. under full totalitarian control is an existential threat to billions of people. To life on this planet. It's up to us, U.S. citizens living here in the imperial core, to stop it. Nobody is coming to save us. Not the U.N., not the ICJ. It's us or it's nobody.

What just happened ... Comedy: Jamie Kaler

Much more honesty about what just happened from inside the U.S. than from outside. The world is full of dishonesty and cowardice.

"I'm not scared of Israel. I'm scared of a world that has seemingly lost all sense of humanity. Greta thunberg

Facebook mums are a group that isn’t identified as vulnerable in the same way as teen boys etc. we need a Netflix show called “middle age” where it shows the right wing harm being pumped into homes via parenting bloggers etc. Teen boys don’t just find these ideas online, they hear them at home

This leaves me wondering how many other countries are on Trump's "to invade" list for 2026, and whether the UK government will oppose any of them.

ha - NYT has now changed this sentence, managing only to amplify the absurdity and offense of the original: "Both Mr. Mamdani and Mr. Maduro describe themselves as socialists, though the policies Mr. Maduro presided over in Venezuela differ starkly from those Mr. Mamdani has vowed to pursue."

From the Department of Fresh Hell.

This is my blood

The Israeli ban on 37 charities operating in Gaza began on 1 January NZ Government didn’t even comment #NZPol

I was wondering how this might all turn out to have been my fault

Here are the final daily warming stripes for all years 1940 - 2025. Onward we go. 2026 should be "interesting."

It’s 2:36 pm on 4 January, and RNZ is unable to update its report on NZ reaction to the US attack on Venezuela to include Labour’s views because Labour still hasn’t issued a statement. info.scoop.co.nz/New_Zealand_...

Unfortunately, NZ Labour seems to be moving in the opposite direction. In suggesting we should scale back our ambitions, it feeds political disengagement and offers little hope for a better future. #nzpol

"even if doing so strains the anti-interventionist identity once central to his political brand." He was never an "anti-interventionist" and people writing things like this are at great risk of being scammed by the wallet inspector.

I’ve just looked on Labour’s own website and on Scoop and couldn’t find a statement from either its leader or foreign affairs spokesperson on Venezuela. Too busy at the beach/up a tramping track?

Don't copy paste an Imperial response like other world "leaders" who are abandoning their independent foreign policy to cuddle up to Trump. Have some moral courage Luxon!

Hard not to conclude that 🇺🇸 intervention in #Venezuela is a breach of international law. Maduro was dictatorial ruler presiding over arbitrary detention & torture of opponents. Iraq 2003 precedent, however, suggests unpredictable path ahead for the country. www.cbc.ca/news/world/u...

Either you believe in the rule of law or you don't - Starmer doesn't. That's where we are

If this vision of the world persists, Aotearoa sits between two spheres-of-influence, and we should expect life here will be perpetually uncertain.* * even more than before

👇🎯

Starmer and Farage both drape themselves in flags but once again it's really clear where their loyalty really is. It's Trump first. They will always be on the side of the super rich and powerful - no matter how heinous the crime. This is not patriotism. It's subservience.

Not for the first time, where other European leaders wring their hands over Trump, Spain’s Sánchez draws a line. A stance that is only looking more sensible (more *realistic*) as time goes on.

It’s my life. I’m sick of it. I’d like to live somewhere the Leader of the Government/Opposition doesn’t consider it overly ambitious to cut ties with fascist imperialist regimes.

It's the same story, but the old one is better because of the declassified docs and also because of the political enemies being freed to shit on each other's graves.

How long will it take before journalists realise that Trump lies *all the time*? Are you all idiots?

The cynics think today's attack on Venezuela is staged and transactional. Maduro is allied with Putin, but in 2019 Putin offered Trump a swap: Russia cedes Venezuela and gets Ukraine. (See Fiona Hill's testimony in Trump's first impeachment trial, h/t @davetroy.com). Even Maduro may be in on it. 2/

This is a very interesting thread. I think the one part I zero in on is impeachment, and how partisanship has functionally repealed it. But that has implications far beyond just that provision. There’s *lots* of stuff in there whose only means of redress is impeachment.

“Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?”

And here it is. Starmer's post-press-conference statement manages to be even more cowardly than his initial response. Vague call for international law to be respected. Ignores that it has *already been violated* this morning. No mention of US.

Even after watching Trump's press conference openly admitting 🇺🇸has invaded Venezuela in order to run it and take its oil, 🇫🇷President Macron has released a statement appearing to endorse US actions (as opposed to Le Pen who condemned 🇺🇸invasion). Where does this leave Europe's credibility on Ukraine?

Spain's PM Pedro Sanchez is 1st European leader to make a stronger statement following Trump's press conference where he said the US will run Venezuela and take its oil. Sanchez has been ostracised by other 🇪🇺 leaders for his past criticism of Trump. Will they listen to him now?

Chavez in 2009, while being labelled as paranoid, outlines exactly what is happening today.

I spent months in the archives sleuthing for direct quotes on motivations for Western intervention against oil nationalizations in the 70s, and this f’ing guy just blurts it out the morning after

They’re all posting their statements on the child porn platform? That’s a wild choice.

❗️🇬🇧 Kamran Ahmed, held in a UK prison, has been hospitalized for the fifth time after more than 50 days on hunger strike. He is one of eight detainees protesting prison treatment, demanding bail, restored communication rights, and the removal of Palestine Action from the proscribed list.

“I was lying on the ground after a bomb had been dropped and a quadcopter came and shot me.” — Gazan children, who don’t get to speak to committees of MPs, by Israeli government design.

Please keep in mind that the damage done to international law by the Gaza genocide plays directly into US contempt for the law in its actions in Venezuela. When international law is eroded, it has ramifications throughout the world.

In 1777, after petitions from townsfolk, a further investigation will unearth the truth of matters, at which time the state legislature will compensate those victims who are not Loyalists. But the new investigation’s report will be kept secret.

We need to reflect more on what it means that New Zealand allowed a standalone FBI office to operate in July 2025 with little concern or critique, and is engaging with people like Kristi Noem, Sebastian Gorka, Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel etc with very little visibility of that engagement.

Quite the unintentionally ironic use of this song about young men whose fathers were rich enough to get them out of the draft!

Ever relevant, this poem by Mary Oliver, especially today.

The kidnapping of Maduro inaugurates a highly dangerous era of U.S. empire that for perhaps the first time in an era of mass media is not pretending to be anything other than a violent, extractive enterprise of domination.

It is 1990. I'm protesting in the street because my country has unjustly invaded a smaller country based on propaganda and lies. It is 2003. I'm protesting in the street because my country has unjustly invaded a smaller country based on propaganda and lies. It is 2026…

We are sure it’s just a coincidence, but today is the statuatory date for the DOJ to explain its redactions in the Epstein file productions. We have not forgotten, and we won’t let up - regardless of the President’s new unconstitutional actions.