All praise of Kusher is, really, just fawning over Mohammed bin Salman. (And this praise is whack.) thehub.ca/2025/10/13/j...

Extremely troubling that the swap list doesn't include Marwan Barghouti, probably the most popular politician in Palestine. Israel had signaled months ago that they intended to swap Barghouti. (I initially read that the list *does* include Barghouti. Sorry for the error.)

If you're ever in Russia, stay away from the windows: Pravda Publisher Dies in Fall From a Window in Putin’s Moscow www.thedailybeast.com/pravda-publi...

A reminder that, for all the unhinged attacks on it, the ICC is still a functional institution that is capable of holding world leaders accountable for atrocities they commit.

ok this one broke me nypost.com/2025/10/06/m...

From the Bug-eyed and Shameless archives (because I'm late posting a newsletter from last week): My piece, written the day before Trump's re-election, on how the reactionary right monopolized optimism and why nobody else has figured out a counter-message. www.bugeyedandshameless.com/p/the-utopia...

On the good news front, California has recommitted to carbon pricing. The California-Québec (soon to include Washington, probably) carbon market remains a really positive program that will, hopefully, entice in new states.

This really gets at the scale of OpenAI's ambitions, a world in which it's not just a chatbot living inside a browser but an entire platform unto itself. from @willknight.bsky.social @laurengoode.bsky.social and @thiccreese.bsky.social

Heard an officer say "let's do it" and then, in the dark, they tackle Rabbi Ben to the ground. He's being loaded into a CCSO wagon now. Broadview police also here screaming at people.

For years, white nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes was too extreme even for MAGA. Now he's working his way into the mainstream—and has a plan for his secret followers to seize the levers of power.

There are many things not to like about Macron, but he is rising to become hands-down the most effective voice for European sovereignty and democracy. (Original French text: www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-mac...)

Full statement from Hamas, in response to Trump's ceasefire ultimatum.

ICE just blatantly violated the law and arrested sitting Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes while seeking to illegally arrest a patient in a hospital. Fuck these fascists.

You don’t need to become an expert on AT Protocol, you don’t need to learn to code, but I really do want to impress upon people that “federated social media” is a vitally important concept in a time of global authoritarian and technofeudalist consolidation.

maybe we need a little less goosesteppin' and a little more Geese-listenin' youtu.be/tw91e6Nurfc

SCOOP — Pennsylvania prosecutors were alerted to possible voting irregularities by one of MAGA's leading voices against voter fraud. A long paper trail shows Jack Posobiec has been living in Maryland but voting using his parents' PA address for years. From @jsweetli.bsky.social, @slate.com + me:

Canada's left-wing party is in an existential crisis. Can it repair itself? www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Huge opportunity for a progressive politician to come out and promise real, strict rules on sports better. (No advertising, for sure. No apps could work.) Inviting the ire of the lecherous sports betting companies would probably be a good profile-building exercise.

an extraordinary person with an extraordinary legacy who nevertheless didn’t take herself too seriously when Gary Larson published this cartoon, she was in Africa and her institute was horribly offended and drafted a complaint the whole thing was defused when she returned - she found it funny

This, but just about every definition, is fascism. The only question now is whether everyone lets it continue. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

3/ An agent then appeared to shove people away from the elevator entrance, which led to Elibol falling to the ground, as footage captured by photographer Stephanie Keith shows.

1/ DEVELOPING: A journalist was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Hospital following another incident with an ICE agent at 26 Federal Plaza, an immigration court in NYC. The last I heard, he was getting X-rays for his lower back.

@justinling.ca and I discuss his book, “The 51st State Votes,” Canada’s existential election, Pierre Poilievre’s “campaign malpractice,” and how exactly Mark Carney's “elbows up” approach is going today. YouTube: youtu.be/TmrReXrrBec Apple: apple.co/48LNb6i Link Tree: linktr.ee/thepaikinpod...

this is the most how do you do fellow kids ass shit I’ve ever seen

The reason we have rules of engagement isn’t to keep warfighters from killing our enemies. It’s to keep them from killing a farmer with a shovel bc they thought it was a rifle and didn’t bother to wait to check. Or a family in a car bc the driver looked nervous. Or a boat full of fishermen.

If you asked authors in 2023 to write a speculative fiction about month nine in an America turning towards fascism, none would have the audacity to write something like this.

My thesis is that no matter how doomer you were in Nov. 2024, we're probably past your worst-case scenario for the first 9 months of this administration. It's very strange for me to realize I wasn't pessimistic enough. www.thebulwark.com/p/we-are-in-...

The plan is now to do all the bad things they angrily imagined the CIA doing over the past decade.

Good listen — @justinling.ca on @spaikin.bsky.social

I have no idea if Israel will actually abide by this, and there is some crazy stuff, but core elements of this plan — amnesty, right of free movement, peacekeepers tasked with training PA(?) police, total Israeli withdrawal, written commitment for statehood — are very good. x.com/rapidrespons...

this is now an enthusiastic Fust stan account www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1eh...

this is basically the aim of every AI company

it all happens on x, the goebbels app

A long, thoughtful, read by Justin. “What I had not realized,” Weizenbaum would write years later, “is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.”

This is the shit. IRL participatory civil resistance is *the* thing that every anti-Trump leader should be calling for.

Steve and @justinling.ca discuss his book, “The 51st State Votes,” Canada’s existential election, Poilievre’s “campaign malpractice,” & how exactly Mark Carney’s “elbows up” approach is going today. YouTube: youtu.be/TmrReXrrBec Apple: apple.co/48LNb6i Link Tree: linktr.ee/thepaikinpod... #cdnpoli

This is my regular reminder to everyone that jstor is open to the general public now; a free account there will give you access to 100 papers a year.

ICE attempted and failed to disappear a food delivery guy. It needed to be scored.

A nail-biting election in Moldova ended with a resounding result for the pro-European bloc. www.bbc.com/news/article...

This week's newsletter makes the case that the AI companies foisting LLMs on us simply can't be trusted not to break our brains. www.bugeyedandshameless.com/p/hey-grok-i...

This is today!

Toronto! I'll be at the Word on the Street festival tomorrow from 2pm to 3pm, Hawking/signing copies of my new book! Come by! toronto.thewordonthestreet.ca/event-direct...

What a grotesque gimmick. www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

Thus far, in governments' quest to protect kids from the increasingly-evident harms of social media, we've tried: -Befriending big tech -Sending sternly-worded letters -Pretending it's fine -Nothing None of it's worked! Let's try something else. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

NEW: The latest story from the 18,000+ emails in Jeffrey Epstein’s Yahoo inbox: beyond his ties to the elite, a quieter circle proved crucial as state and federal investigations began. Insane reporting from @suryamattu.com, Max Abelson, and team. Free link:

For those of us who rely on yt-dlp to archive/download Youtube content, important info:

Something to watch for, as Moldova goes to the polls this weekend. There's good reason to think that Russia will the guise of protecting Pridnestrovie (Transnistria) to justify some kind of skullduggery in the country.

radical idea: rather than adopting "meet peoples where they're at" like the mantra of a kamikaze pilot, we inform the public that there are some platforms which are, in fact, lying to them. I know it sounds crazy but it's also why Trump is president, so

getting people to go to IRL places to engage in politics and have a laugh fucking rules