Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 2h

Yeah - seems to be the plan. While it's good news the hostages are out and people in Gaza can start to receive aid, the fundamentals remain unresolved. Now that he's gotten his photo-op and praise, he'll probably quickly lose interest in pushing this any further. And we may be back to square one.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 2h

EU seems to have decided to put the squeeze on Kaliningrad - the Russian enclave on the Baltic surrounded by Poland and Lithuania which has always been a potential security liability.

Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 4h

Squeezing what remains of overland rail trade and travel. Turn Kaliningrad into an expensive liability. Further increase naval and air patrols just outside its waters and airspace to squeeze its military usability. Inspections of all tankers leaving its waters

Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 3h

Trump operates by claiming he's made a *deal*, followed by a spectacular event full of pagentry in which he basks in the praise of others, declares victory and then just loses interest in the whole thing.

Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 3h

I fear that is the case. I don't see Trump having the attention span or bandwidth to concentrate on the difficult work of actually making this work in the long term. And now that he's got his photo-op and lots of praise, it's highly likely that he'll lose interest.

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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 5d

"There is a danger that everyone is playing a game here to appease an increasingly erratic Trump, who often seems detached from reality. The fear is that all sides are signing a “deal” they have no intention to keep to, in the hope that they can find a way to collapse it and blame the other side."

This Gaza deal is full of danger - starting with an increasingly erratic Trump

There is a danger that everyone is playing a game to appease an erratic Trump

inews.co.uk

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Dr Emma L Briant 🐸🎃 @emmalbriant.bsky.social · 3h

We will look back on those days when media researchers would critique the commercial right wing bias of mainstream media and cheer public media as an bygone naively optimistic sepia colored time... A new era of mainstream media beckons far more commercial, brutal and propagandistic than the last.

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Archy @archiecarter.bsky.social · 18h

Attention is the most valuable resource I stg most people can’t go deep on a subject

Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 20h

Yeah -seems to be getting worse as well. A couple of bullet points is about the maximum a lot of senior people seem to be capable of digesting. As for nuance, complexity... that's dead and buried.

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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 19h

Carole Cadwalladr was right and we’d be in a better world if more people had listened.

Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 15d

This tweet has been doing the rounds on Twitter now that Nathan Gill has pleaded guilty.

If only someone had tried to investigate UKIP & Russian interference 🧐

There’s another timeline where the Guardian supported me, doubled down on the investigation & I look 5 years younger ..

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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 18h

I find this very touching…& also worrying. Historian @timothysnyder.bsky.social has been an absolutely essential guide to this era. And if he thinks I’m right then we’re in more trouble than we realise

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 19h

Carole Cadwalladr was right and we’d be in a better world if more people had listened.

Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 15d

This tweet has been doing the rounds on Twitter now that Nathan Gill has pleaded guilty.

If only someone had tried to investigate UKIP & Russian interference 🧐

There’s another timeline where the Guardian supported me, doubled down on the investigation & I look 5 years younger ..

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 19h

Turn off all the room lights, open the door to the corridor and maybe it'll fly to the light outside?? I've done that successfully a couple of times. Good luck!!!

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 19h

A lot of those long emails (sent at 1am on Sunday night) are about covering your arse by giving you written proof that you told somebody about a problem (even though you know they never read it) and/or looking busy to impress your boss.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 19h

Absolutely - most large orgs have a filtering mechanism where the higher you are in the food chain, the less detailed information you receive.
You're presented with options to make a decision on.
Key is that the people who do the filtering understand the complexities & can explain them to their boss

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David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 2d

Interesting piece. Reform currently control Staffordshire CC and the company HQ is at Rocester with major facilities at nearby Uttoxeter. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/uk/...

The right’s love affair with JCB

The British firm has acquired an obsessive fanbase and influential political allies in the UK. But in India and the West Bank, its big yellow diggers ...

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

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David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 21h

Incredible amount of China-panic over at the other place, apparently they might be trying to influence the UK away from democracy.

Funnily enough not mentioned is the other superpower whose leaders have explicitly stated their intentions in that direction.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 20h

Yeah -seems to be getting worse as well. A couple of bullet points is about the maximum a lot of senior people seem to be capable of digesting. As for nuance, complexity... that's dead and buried.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 20h

Collapsing attention spans aren't confined to school and college kids. You cannot effectively run and manage a large complex bureaucratic system like this - long term planning, managing political pressure, understanding nuance, seeing beyond the immediate crisis need people to read and write stuff

dcthings.bsky.social @dcthings.bsky.social · 21h

Genuinely embarrassing that no senior leaders I interact with actually read anything (yes this also applies to Biden appointees). No one responds to emails, no one reads past two sentences, no one does anything. The rest of the Pentagon follows along.

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Zach Dorfman @zachsdorfman.bsky.social · 20h

This is a very important point for understanding my field. It accounts for why journalists who speak primarily to “principals” often have radically different reporting than those who are closer to mid-level bureaucrats or on-the-ground operatives.

dcthings.bsky.social @dcthings.bsky.social · 21h

Genuinely embarrassing that no senior leaders I interact with actually read anything (yes this also applies to Biden appointees). No one responds to emails, no one reads past two sentences, no one does anything. The rest of the Pentagon follows along.

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mattie lubchansky @mattielubchansky.com · 1d

what did she call us | patreon.com/lubchansky

PANEL 1: MATTIE and one other person are handcuffed on a platform over a big cylindrical vat full of glowing liquid. Behind them, TWO ARMED TROOPERS stand. One is shouting, next to a big lever.
TROOPER: You have all been charged with sexual deviance under the new statutes!
TROOPER: You are hereby sentenced…

PANEL 2: Closer in on MATTIE and the person next to her.
TROOPER (VO): …To being dropped into a big vat of acid, thus dissolving your perverted bodies!
MATTIE: I sure did prefer life before we were overrun by fascist stormtroopers.

PANEL 3: The TROOPERS look at each other.
TROOPER 2: Sorry…What did she-he call us?
TROOPER 1: NOT Cool…

PANEL 4: The other TROOPER from panel 3. He's crying, and pulls the lever. Some acid splashes into the frame.
TROOPER: STOP BULLYING ME!
SFX: CLUNK
SFX: SPLASH

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Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 23h

one thing that has been obvious for a while is this aspect of the authoritarian internationale: they recognize that their allies abroad are not *countries* but *political movements* within foreign countries.

time we liberals woke up and recognized this--because it's the truth.

Rigorous, Fred-based Reporting @thefred.bsky.social · 1d

Or maybe, just maybe, what was obvious in 2024 was correct: Netanyahu fully backed Trump and would not deal with Biden because Trump would give him a free hand to escalate the starvation, bombing, and do full ethnic cleansing. Which he then did, until Netanyahu embarrassed him by bombing Qatar.

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Dr. William Horne @wihorne.bsky.social · 23h

All jokes aside, this is an incredible piece of analysis & the way it concludes by motioning to the growing phenomenon of RW billionaires buying & destroying anything that challenges their regime of unchecked profit & power should serve as a wake-up call to those of us still missing the thread.

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 1d

Absolutely brutal.

Bari Weiss: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

YouTube video by LastWeekTonight

www.youtube.com

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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 23h

When authoritarians tell you they like authoritarianism, over and over and over and over and over again, believe them

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump on Egypt: "They have very little crime. Because they don't play games. That's why. Like we do in the United States with governors that have no idea what they're doing."

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1d

Spikes to keep the pigeons from landing and pooping all over the car.

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Darin Self @darinself.com · 1d

One lesson for pro-democracy advocates currently sitting in opposition around the world -- hammer incumbents on corruption and link strengthening liberal democracy (aka accountability) to anti-corruption efforts.

Jay Rosen @jayrosen.bsky.social · 1d

This is what I pay the New York Times for: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/w...
[Gift link]

Viktor Orban’s ‘Propaganda State’ Is Starting to Show Cracks

www.nytimes.com

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1d

🎯🎯🎯👇👇👇👇👇
The traditional model of journalism that operated to constrain the actions of political actors through public pressure and consequences within the framework of a democratic system has broken down.

☠️deadward niedermurder☠️ @niedermeyer.online · 1d

journalism is dying for economic, technological, and cultural reasons, but most of all it's dying because the bad guys can't even be bothered to hide their dastardly deeds anymore, because nothing happens when they are revealed

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1d

Sure. As an outsider, there are lots and lots of layers here that I don't get.
Just my take on things - claim no expertise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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