Cynic who wishes to be idealistic. MA Graduate Royal Holloway and UCL. Foe of #Malebolge, Asexual Aromantic, Autistic, He/Him. Library Assistant.
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Keir Starmer really has sold out all of his human rights lawyer principles. We're having racist mobs threatening to burn down hotels because really vulnerable people are there, and Keir Starmer is praising this behaviour. You don't win against fascists by saying that they're right!
Asked by the BBC how he would feel if "your daughter was having to walk past one of these [asylum] hotels every day?" Keir Starmer replies that "I completely get it". "I understand why people want the hotels closed. I want them closed".
Well... Kissinger would have deserved it more than when he actually got the Nobel Peace Prize. But I agree on Trump!
Trump may be the only person who could qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize by dying.
Yeh, this is way too coherent for a Trump tweet. It's too detailed and trying to sound like someone winning a debate through facts. Obviously I don't believe what's in it, but it's trying to sound fact-based. More likely Stephen Miller than the possibly dying fascist! What is going on there?
Stephen Miller is REALLY bad at pretending to be Trump. Like this doesn’t even almost sound like a Trump tweet
Thx for this thread! Much as I hate AI and think that it's destroying the planet, it is kind of amusing seeing the tool of the fascists being used against the fascists. Unmask them!
“An activist has started using artificial intelligence to identify Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents beneath their masks — a use of the technology sparking new political concerns over AI-powered surveillance.” This is amazing! They love Ai so much, it’s funny to see Ai backfire! 🥳🎉
Yeh, a lot of that Zohran Mamdani stuff gets you excited. bsky.app/profile/call...
Oh goodness, this warms my heart 🥰
It's a similar problem to the EU last decade. A lot of people don't really know what the ECHR does. For them it's just unaccountable people somehow being responsible for their lives being bad. So people assume that leaving will just make this one problem go away, without realising how they benefit.
Where has this ludicrous ECHR "debate" even come from. I've never once met an ordinary member of the public who's said to me, "Do you know what? We REALLY need to leave the ECHR." It's just a new right wing talking point because every other shit idea they've foisted on us has run out of steam.
I can't fault law enforcement for their actions against the Jan 6th terrorists. The people who were storming the capitol deserve to be seen as traitors. MAGA isn't interested in law and order, or however Trump's gang justifies their actions. They worship violence.
This is the type of person Trump pardoned. He proudly asserts that they should have injured a US Capitol Police Officer worse than they did on January 6th (@sergeantaqgo.bsky.social) had to medically retire). But MAGA supports law enforcement? Seriously? Then show me by condemning this guy.
Quite frankly I will not show the decorum that you're told too when Trump dies. When you have brought misery to so many people then you deserve to be hated.
I’ve never witnessed this many people collectively hoping someone has shuffled off this mortal coil. It’s a real spectacle.
@kissedbyfirepod.bsky.social on the 17th I listened to episode 10! @bword.bsky.social and @steflyoness.bsky.social had plenty to say on the bro culture around Rogar Baratheon and Westerosi martial culture! And the plots against Jaehaerys and Alysanne, including the saucy stories of Coryanne Wylde...
The right accuse us of being pathetic and whining about non-issues, yet they're always trying to find things to be outraged about!
On the 26th, I began another book in Earthsea: The First Four Books, The Farthest Shore! I'm so enjoying Ursula K. Le Guin! I just finished Chapter 12! #TheFarthestShore #EarthseaTheFirstFourBooks #Earthsea #UrsulaKLeGuin www.instagram.com/p/DOB9E4OiFR...
It's odd seeing how quickly the GOP sort of collapsed into this Trumpist cult. Or maybe it was just there under the surface, I'm not the expert here. But it is strange seeing such prominent GOP people from last decade swing round. Anyway, Stuart Stevens is right. The Democrats must be aggressive.
If you had told me in 2012 that Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign manager would be posting like this 13 years later i would not have believed you
It's very telling that the papers are prioritising the concerns of the rich when talking about Zohran Mamdani. His victory has really laid bare who a lot of the establishment is on the side of. However they justify it, they are with the rich, and so present Mamdani as a threat.
it is so obvious that the press in Britain are institutionally transphobic. They aren't interested in balance or protecting kids, they have found a marginalised group to attack, and they relentlessly push it. Shows of support are ignored or omitted on the grounds of balance. It's a fucking disgrace.
3. Trans people are also disproportionately targeted by the mainstream media, generating 1000’s of articles of transphobic click-bait, while simultaneously totally ignoring ANY trans-positive news! 😣
Cold War Steve's cartoons really gets it with the political landscape. There is such weight in Reform's favour, at the expense of the Greens and Lib Dems. The reason that Reform is seen as this powerful force is because the media tell us this, and thus make it so. The bias is grotesque to see.
The Consortium of Evil does not approve of Mamdani.
this is quite a split screen:
Really? I'm sure that the people that the establishment papers talk to about Mamdani are just some regular working guys!
So it seems that the Express was always pushing crackpot rubbish. It's just that now other papers have graduated to this stage of BIG CONSPIRACY THEORY. The Princess Diana stuff was never based on real evidence, but they just kept pushing it. That Iron Man stuff was probably more useful!
For the next 20 years or so it seemed that every single front page of the Express was variations on this
WTF are these anti-woke people even about? Alex Phillips and the like just seem to throw round woke to describe anything that they don't like. It's bread, just say that it's not a food to your liking!
🚨BREAKING: Bread is now woke, according to Alex Phillips
Oh, you have the right sentiment. The people being all Trump can't be a fascist, RFK Jr. won't really do all these terrible things, you're just overreacting... We're not overreacting, this is what these crazy people have been talking about doing for so many years!
On that now!
Yes, and I realised that I never replied to you on here. Though this is my I'm reading it post, and that was my I've finished it post.
A most heartfelt and sincere fuck you to everyone who told me six months ago that I was overreacting about what RFK Jr. would do to the availability of vaccines for my kids
It is the second book! And it's splendid!
From the 20th to the 26th, I read The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin from Earthsea: The First Four Books! More Ged, but it focuses on Tenar and her oppressive society. Great sequel! #TheTombsofAtuan #EarthseaTheFirstFourBooks #Earthsea #UrsulaKLeGuin www.instagram.com/p/DN_m7sPiLV...
You just wonder what goes through the heads of these people. This is the sort of news that should please us, having bluefish tuna back, more of nature making a return! This isn't like fishing for food, something that makes sense. It's just this cruelty disguised as sport.
This is just next level insanity. In January this year, Reform picked Sharon Carby, aged 70, from Bradford, to run as their Croydon Mayoral candidate. There was just one rather significant problem. She had sadly died in July 2024. insidecroydon.com/2025/08/27/f...
So like the way that you vote in Chicago? Though with Reform's standards it wouldn't surprise me.
Oh... sorry. In our defence, she was dead before she left the plane!
This week's column. The details will make you gasp and rage. This massive desecration of nature is almost unbelievable, but it is happening in the UK right now. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
I've noticed this too! The Times likes to present itself as a respectable paper. But this decade it's quite noticeable how bad it's become. It's really going down the route of The Spectator, constantly promoting Farage, cheering on Trump, and presenting this anti-immigrant stuff as heroic.
If you just look at the language here. "Undeterred". This is a judgement of a Court of Appeal. Not a war against a common enemy. It's the small things that are eroding the rule of law in this country. And the Times has become a driving force in it.
For all this talk about how the rioters are just ordinary hardworking people who feel their community threatened and want their country back, this is the reality of the situation. A bunch of bigoted thugs terrorising actual hardworking people and threatening the community.
This is where the empty headed Flag shagging leads. Race hate.
Something that people don't realise is how many of the rules about politics is just codes of conduct. They say oh, these far-right politicians won't really do this fascist stuff, the system will stop them. Well, who enforces the system? And yes, the greater good argument only stretches so far!
The Greater Good of the Lesser Evil: Sacrificing a group a time for the promise* of bit less fascism. And once you have sacrificed all minorities you realised you did the full fascism and you did it yourself.... *That you just imagined in your head because you believe fascists would play fair.
Ditto! The Spectator: Reform running dead candidates shows their commitment to trying new ideas! Or the Woke left have no backing to condemn Reform over this when they... ran Biden.
How Chuck Schumer is still leading the Democrats and is arguably their top figure is... I'll skip to the end, Schumer has to go! New Senate leader, and AOC really needs to think about primarying him! He hasn't been standing up to Trump or RFK Jr. or the other ghouls!
If only you knew someone who could have tried to prevent it.
Oh god, I love meeting someone like you! I thought the exact same thing when I saw the first episodes of Game of Thrones in 2014! And that comparison of Daenerys and Kriemhild I think led me to this blog for the first time... racefortheironthrone.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/c... Following you now!
It's really clear when you do the slightest scrutiny that Reform is shambolic. But it's not a real party, it's a private organisation owned by Farage. It's all about him, and the media bolstering him up with an inflated load of media appearances. The media not scrutinising them shows complicity.
The fact that Reform were trying to run a person who had been dead for six months as their Croydon Mayoral candidate is proof if it were needed that they are not a serious party. It demonstrates abject incompetence and no vetting as well as utter contempt for the electorate.
You know, I can really see that with Jim O'Neill and RFK Jr., though so many of the people in the Trump administration feel like cartoon villains.
After the independent head of the US CDC is fired, Robert Kennedy Jr's loyal deputy, Jim O'Neill, is appointed to take her place.
Yes: and he also used mediæval *literature*: Daenerys's storyline owes a lot to Kriemhild's in the Nibelungenlied.
We don't like to admit it about the BBC, which has been a valuable public service all our lives, but it is clear that now that they are complicit with the far-right, as is Sky News. They are not interested in informing, they want Reform to be in power.
Why, you might ask, do the BBC and Sky News, casting their editorial guidelines to the wind, keep giving massive airtime to the far right, while shutting out leftwing voices? Don't their bosses understand the likely consequences? Only one explanation now remains. They do. And it is what they want.
By this point thoughts and prayers is just a very dark joke on how little is ever done about shootings in the states. Vance, the GOP, etc. don't really care for the victims. When someone asks about doing something they'll say don't politicize it, just keep letting it happen!
Perhaps rather than praying they could introduce gun control legislation that stops children getting killed.
What about Con Spiracy Nut for a Reform candidate?
Well, there's less chance of that Reform candidate being involved in scandals. And they're probably not destroying the planet as they rot away.
We're on the side of working people! But not those other working people! We're on the side of you, as you're not like the scroungers! The people who vote for these right-wingers always think that it will be someone else who loses out, as they're an honest hardworking person. Then they're surprised.
Fascism is here in the US. These sorts of big images of a leader are what you use to depict fascism. The people who just brushed off Trump being a fascist or do the usual fascism can't happen in the US or wherever... It can happen anywhere!
I did not know this bit of history! And now I know of Phyllis Wheatley! #blackwomen #blackhistory #blackpoets #blacksky #addtoblacksky
#blackwomen #blackhistory #blackpoets #blacksky #addtoblacksky
Yeh, Trump is kind of looking like that version of Vladimir Harkonnen. Even if he's beholden to another Vladimir...
He’s looking more like this every week! 😳
Yeh, it's fascism with the Trump administration. They're doing all the fascist stuff.
Like I said. They aren’t embarrassed by history, it’s their playbook.
We laugh at the details in this thread, of the stupidity of Reform in picking someone who is dead, but it does tie into the wider issue of how shambolic the party really is, and how any proper media scrutiny would show how these people really aren't suited to running even a council properly.
Yeh, that's pretty much the BBC for you now. It's devolving into a propaganda network for Farage, just hammering it in again and again to the populace, telling us that only he is the voice of reason.
“And now in a change to our scheduled programme , we bring you live coverage of Nigel Farage saying exactly the same thing as yesterday again.”
The same for Tolkien, I am sure. He was still working from Nordic literature. But the world is still there. It's still a very developed world. Even in The Hobbit you get a sense of the history that is there. Rowling set hers in the present day...ish... and is so sloppy with trying to worldbuild.
Oh I quite agree that people take too much credence from Westeros about the middle ages, like the Lord's right and so on. Of course, that was partially why GRRM did his own world rather than real history. But he still put a lot of work into his worldbuilding rather than sloppily hashing it together.
Well you say that and then ignore me.
That's pretty much what it comes down to. The film series was very successful, it really helped JK Rowling become a billionaire. Now she's angry about the stars, and the direction that it took afterwards didn't help. It comes back to her transphobia.
Reform will have to reselect in Croydon, as their initial candidate for Mayor had been dead for 6 months when they selected her, Inside Croydon report Being dead is one way to pass the social media vetting but was likely to get noticed eventually insidecroydon.com/2025/08/27/f...
I recall that the history teacher is some boring old ghost who basically everyone falls asleep in the classes of. I don't mind a joke about boring historians, but it does feel symbolic of how history is treated by Rowling, unlike fantasy authors such as GRRM or Tolkien.
It always seems to come down to racism in the US.
There's plenty of bad news around, but it's nice to hear of a proper taking the bastards to court case! bsky.app/profile/call...
Now this is the sort of reporting that we need from the press! Not crap presenting riot-rousing bigots as free speech warriors, but proper facts! Convicted hate monger describes Lucy Connolly quite well! She's making a less safe Britain for us all! Saint Lucy helps the blind, she's making us blind!
I've written about the concerted effort by the combined forces of the right to turn convicted race hate monger Lucy Connolly into a victim, a saint and a martyr. @bylinetimes.bsky.social bylinetimes.com/2025/08/27/l...
Yeh, Chris Columbus is kind of getting to the point. Rowling is angry at the stars of the old Harry Potter films not following her in her bigotry, so wants this new adaptation.
Original ‘HARRY POTTER’ director Chris Columbus on the upcoming HBO reboot series: “I’m seeing these photographs… and he’s wearing the exact same costume that we designed for Hagrid. Part of me was like: What’s the point?” (Via @restisents)
Unfortunately, the media continues to help Trump avoid accountability, constantly presenting him as an exciting character who is doing lots of things, and therefore must be good at the job. So even as the economy crumbles he is given much more leeway than a Democrat POTUS would be.
The irony of Trump trying to usurp control over the BLS, Federal Reserve, the tariff power of Congress, and even private corporations is that he'll have no one else to blame when the economy crumbles. His hubris will be his undoing.
May as well put #TrumpIsWrongAboutEverything here now! Very true with that lying fascist!
Let's get #TrumpIsWrongAboutEverything trending!
The right attitude to take with the AI industry!
Good luck to those authors with their claims! And fuck AI!
AI advocates have warned that if every author in the class action filed a claim, it would "financially ruin" the entire industry.
It's clear that Reform is a mess of a party, with so many of it's officials being caught up in scandals. But they're never given focus. It's just a party centred around Farage, and all most of the media is interested in is promoting him and never scrutinising him.
Perhaps rather than endlessly promoting Mr Farage, the national media could highlight what his local councillors are doing - as demonstrated here by @northantstelegraph.bsky.social www.northantstelegraph.co.uk/news/people/...
The point is that I don't want to be constantly reminded of the far-right by you sending me stuff!
Yeh, it's best to assume that Trump is on the side of Russia. The idea that he was needed to keep the world safe from Putin is pretty clearly rubbish.