That’s what you get when you close the government and screw with the Park Service. www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

Ongoing theme: student-run @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social is place for news on Trump's attempts to take down Harvard. Eg today: cuts Harvard already making, because of $ Trump has illegally (per court ruling) frozen. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025... College papers overall the go-to news source

Trustee & former fellow Katherine Kono spent her ICWA fellowship (1993–1995) in Saudi Arabia, France, Algeria, Yemen & Egypt, studying tradition & modernity in the Arab world. In this dispatch from Algiers, she reports on growing tensions between Islamists & police: compass.icwa.org/p/icwa100-th...

Former ICWA fellow Sharon Griffin Doorasamy reflects on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and her own family's history as Black slaves and domestic servants in the US in this intimate 1996 dispatch: compass.icwa.org/p/icwa100-th...

For Compass, Marvin Kalb reflects on his mentor and the subject of the Broadway play "Good Night and Good Luck," CBS’s incomparable Edward R. Murrow, and asks, Who will stand up for the truth in our time? compass.icwa.org/p/murrow-a-j...

We all should.

Polina Barskova reviews @princetonupress.bsky.social's republication of The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation, a collection of dreams recorded in 1930s Germany by Charlotte Beradt. The book offers glimpses into how we process hostile realities: compass.icwa.org/p/dreams-com...

"The real problem is the depth of American disillusion with the cost of being a global leader," Michael Ignatieff tells Compass's Robert Coalson. "Trump has been the first to ask, 'What’s in it for us?' so directly, but he won’t be the last." compass.icwa.org/p/this-is-no...

For Compass, Paul Starobin examines Russian exile media, a vibrant independent press covering the country from abroad with the aid of staff working anonymously from within: compass.icwa.org/p/how-to-rea...

News organizations worldwide have called on US Department of Homeland Security to withdraw its plan to reduce the amount of time foreign correspondents may stay in the US to 240 days, down from the traditionally permitted 5 years, Elizabeth Wise reports for Compass: open.substack.com/pub/compass1...

This kind of irresponsible analysis is partly why we’re facing fascism. Today’s parallel isn’t the aftermath of MLK’s assassination in 1968. Only one side is calling for retribution and domination. It’s the burning of the Reichstag in 1933.

You know who was also a young husband and father—not to mention ex-Marine—who died, not attacking others to make himself rich and powerful, but to save the lives of others? David Rose, the officer killed by the anti-vax domestic terrorist who attacked the CDC. apnews.com/article/deka...

NATO, and above all Donald Trump, now face a moment of truth. Unless the response is immediate and unequivocal, Russia will see weakness

Like you I've seen all the pics people post here abt the steady increase of tacky gold crap he keeps adding to the oval office. But somehow it wasn't until I saw this picture that it just hit me. What the actual fuck. Like a Vegas whorehouse.

The main impression of the Trump-Putin meeting is that Trump is subservient to Putin. Putin offered no ceasefire & as expected Trump ignored that he had promised "severe consequences" in that case. God help Zelensky when he faces Putin's servant in the White House!

The incomparable Marvin Kalb describes how he became Edward R. Murrow's last hire at CBS, and how Murrow prompted the end of McCarthyism in 1954.

Sad news. Derk Sauer did a huge service to Russia and journalism, and all of us reporters who cut our teeth at MT.

Russian propagandists keep saying that the Commander Islands will not be sold to the US and that Alaska should return to Russia. Talking about Alaska, head of the State Duma's defense committee Andrey Kartapolov said Russia is "accustomed to returning what is ours and will always do so."

Hooray!

"The Trump admin has antagonism to development & democracy, any soft power—support of civil society abroad, rule of law, independent media. So US-funded intl media finds itself a real target," Jeffrey Gedmin, CEO of Middle East Broadcasting Networks tells Compass: compass.icwa.org/p/going-toe-...

China retaliated to Trump's threats and he backed off. The EU talked nice and got rolled. There's a lesson there. www.ft.com/content/85d5...

Last year, the FTC banned two Big Oil executives from serving on the boards of oil giants Exxon and Chevron after it found they colluded to fix gas prices. Trump’s FTC just overturned that ban. His regime is rubber-stamping corporate corruption.

really important to emphasize that roberts' view of the executive branch as comprising a single individual is literally contradicted by the text of the constitution itself

Colbert is actually well positioned and practiced to lead building something better

So, the court decides courts can no longer uphold the constitution. If it wasn't clear before, we're in for longer than just four more years of this carnage.

This from the paper that declined to weigh in on the presidential candidacy of a corrupt sexual predator and convicted felon openly seeking to wreck the global economy, dismantle our society, threaten our national security and end our democracy. Incredible.

Ilya Kolmanovsky on 'learned helplessness' and the detained Harvard scientist Ksenia Petrova:

Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security.    Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.   Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people. —Harry Truman, 1952

Voice of America journalists are fearful after Kari Lake guts network "They see people working for international networks as a spy," a West African VoA journalist tells me about his home country. "I can just disappear, you know? They could kidnap me or [I could] go to jail." / cont

Medicare for all, paid leave, universal childcare. Busting up big corporations and tackling Wall Street’s greed. Getting big money out of politics. Supporting unions and fighting for higher wages. If Dems want to win back working people, this is the agenda they must support.

'More than 20 years ago, powerful Washington Democrats acceded too timidly to a catastrophic Middle Eastern war. Now they’re at risk of doing so again.'

Great to have @daliborrohac.bsky.social weigh in on the Czech Republic's upcoming elections: The leading candidate is "a perfect avatar for Trump’s style of politics, complete with his own red hat that says 'Strong Czechia.'”

I was thrilled to contribute to @icwa.org's exciting new publication, Compass, with an essay on the Czech Republic's Trump-in-waiting, @andrejbabis.bsky.social, and the likely contours of his looming premiership.

Michael Ignatieff: Trump's America is part of an "oscillation between moral tensions that have been present from the beginning of my life."

Very exciting to launch Compass, a new Substack journal we’ve been developing this year. @ICWA.org fellows and others, we welcome your contributions!

On this year's very well-deserved Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction winner:

I'm very pleased to announce @icwa.org has launched Compass, a new journal about global cultures and affairs, with terrific contributions from Michael Ignatieff, @daliborrohac.bsky.social, Roger Reynolds and more. Check it out!

Madness teetering on catastrophe

They invited them in and then killed them. How is this remotely acceptable? Why aren't more countries screaming about this? (Tangent: this was the strategy employed by the daleks in their first story to wipe out the Thals. When your strategy is the same as daleks, you are doing it wrong.)

This is why many of us on the academic side said that if troops get deployed in to blue cities, they will be used for anything The federal government wants them to do no matter what and they will never leave once stationed in a blue city, it’s an occupation of what they see as enemy territory.

The Journalist Assistance Network — a collaboration between @freedom.press, @pressfreedom.bsky.social, @rcfp.org, @penamerica.bsky.social and IWMF — provides legal and safety resources and providers.

“Police cannot pick and choose when the First Amendment applies. Journalists in Los Angeles were not caught in the crossfire — they were targeted." - National Press Club President Mike Balsamo www.press.org/newsroom/nat...

The more blatantly hypocritical the suppression of free speech by the Jan. 6 seditionists now running the country, the greater the projection of power. Failing to do everything possible to confront the new police state deliberately forming in plain view will only strengthen it.

Meanwhile in Russia, another opposition figure arrested.

The Russia affair in the Swiss secret service: ‘This is espionage’ Employees of the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) have been cooperating with Russian contacts for years. Highly sensitive data apparently flowed out and ended up with Russian intelligence www.swissinfo.ch/eng/foreign-...

Protesters Urged Not To Give Trump Administration Pretext For What It Already Doing

Bridget Brink, the US ambassador to Ukraine, says she resigned because she could not carry out Trump policy of pressuring Ukraine, the victim, rather than Russia, the aggressor: "Peace at any price is not peace at all ― it is appeasement." www.freep.com/story/opinio...

When we call, we win!

A really important appeal. It shd be extended to the UK, but I fear it wd fall on deaf ears here: the vital work of BBC World Service is already being cut back. W democracies' ability to pursue their aims in eg Georgia or Moldova is harmed if Russia, China & local oligarchs dominate the media.