Van Badham
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vanbadham.bsky.social
Van Badham
@vanbadham.bsky.social
Guardian columnist, co-hosts The Week on Wednesday podcast, makes theatre, yaps a lot. Contact me: https://linktr.ee/vanbadham You should totally buy my book, QANON & ON: A Short and Shocking History of Internet Conspiracy Cults. It’s bonkers.
Pinned
My latest in the Guardian is about the AI singer who just signed a $3m recording contract… while rumours of the return to analogue fun continue to spread.

www.theguardian.com/technology/c...
Xania Monet’s music is the stuff of nightmares. Thankfully her AI ‘clankers’ will be limited to this cultural moment | Van Badham
While a robot pop star may be novelty now, young people are maturing with a scorn for generic digital products
www.theguardian.com
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November 29, 2025 at 11:46 PM
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"... then, after days and days of intense excruciating pain, the lamprey died."
November 30, 2025 at 2:23 AM
The actual cold fuck is this
The head of health services in the United States, letting parasitic lampreys bite his arms for some godforsaken reason.
November 30, 2025 at 1:28 AM
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NYT: "Why are liberal children cutting off their MAGA parents?"

MAGA parents:
On “The Necessary Conversation” podcast, Chad’s Trump supporter parents tell him the military should follow Trump’s illegal orders and kill everyone in LA if Trump commanded it — even with him and his sister in the city😳
November 29, 2025 at 11:16 PM
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Oh, it shook the world alright. Can’t believe they’re actually selling replicas to the cultists.
November 29, 2025 at 11:42 PM
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The Diary of a Wimpy Bitch Ass President
November 29, 2025 at 6:33 AM
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We are living at a time when university leadership amplifies anti-intellectual tropes and technologies

These are very troubling times
November 29, 2025 at 4:08 PM
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Like 30% of the country is absolutely enraged because they thought they were going to be able to be utter shitbirds without anyone being allowed to call them shitbirds, but here we are, calling them shitbirds.
November 29, 2025 at 6:06 PM
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There is an extraordinary sense of entitlement behind the belief that there ought to be political party that aligns 100% with your own opinions.
November 29, 2025 at 7:56 PM
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It’s wild how the press is ok with the president abusing the pardon power. That used to be one of the most scrutinized things about a presidency.
November 29, 2025 at 5:04 PM
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Dictators need war to stay in power.
November 29, 2025 at 12:53 AM
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No one should be surprised Trump wants to hand over Ukraine. He intended to from day one. He hates Zelensky because he is everything Trump is not. That and his quest for world domination that is.
November 28, 2025 at 10:24 PM
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What do these corporations have in common?

Netflix
Ford
Tesla
T-Mobile
Duke Energy
DISH Network
Metlife
Dominion Energy
United States Steel

In recent years, they all paid their execs more than they paid in taxes.

This is what a corporate-rigged system looks like.
November 28, 2025 at 8:00 PM
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Years ago, my colleagues at Business Insider and I tracked YouTuber “cancellation” arcs. What we found is that for many entertainers, “cancellation” actually sets the stage for a redemption arc, one that can raise their profile higher than ever. It wasn’t career-ending. It was fuel.
November 29, 2025 at 9:21 PM
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The world is eventually going to hold Trump and his regime accountable for war crimes. So, we have that to hold onto.
November 29, 2025 at 3:07 PM
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November 29, 2025 at 5:36 PM
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There are specific reasons Trumpists want war on Venezuela, but there‘s a generic one: they crave power to make war on anyone, any time, for completely fabricated reasons, and then to use the guise of war to increase violence and repression everywhere, including home.

They are lawless bestial scum.
November 29, 2025 at 6:28 PM
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This is how you got Trump, twice
You don't win elections by running on what pollsters tell you. You sell a worldview, that makes sense of peoples problems, and gives them a vision of how to fix it. FDR didn't have pollsters workshop talking points for the New Deal.
November 29, 2025 at 4:24 AM
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Honestly, no officer should need advice to decide if "kill these guys flailing around in the water" is a legal order
My understanding is that, at the height of the "drone war on terror" that when the military officer thought the legality of a particular strike was legally dubious, they'd have a CIA guy actually "pull the trigger". I wonder if that is happening in our current "War on Fishing Boats"?
November 29, 2025 at 2:02 AM
This is every Republican in the US Congress under Trump as well as the no-name seat-warmer running against @aftynbehn.bsky.social in Tennessee.

Elegant design. Says everything.
November 29, 2025 at 9:54 AM
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Federal Labor’s Cheaper Home Batteries rebate is expected to have received a whopping 175,000 applications by the end of 2025.
reneweconomy.com.au
November 28, 2025 at 4:53 AM
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An MP in Zimbabwe has called for the repeal of the country's "backwards" 1977 abortion law. He argued that safe abortion should be available to a wider range of Zimbabwean women, as it is currently restricted to a privileged few. Each year, 60,000 women die due to unsafe abortion.
It’s Time To Scrap Zimbabwe’s Outdated Abortion Law - Molokele ⋆ Pindula News
Hwange Central MP Daniel Molokele (CCC) has called for the repeal of the 1977 Termination of Pregnancy Act, describing it as one of the most backward laws in Zimbabwe. Molokele made the comments at a ...
news.pindula.co.zw
November 28, 2025 at 2:35 AM
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I hate it when my family argues about politics at Thanksgiving. My Independent Dad is yelling at my Covenanter cousin for allying with the king while my Fifth Monarchist uncle keeps making cryptic pronouncements about the Book of Daniel, and here I am, a Leveller.
November 27, 2025 at 6:58 PM
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Starting to doubt Olivia Nuzzi’s credibility
November 27, 2025 at 1:39 PM
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Let’s get his ass, America.
Friends: do you know a Megan, who recently hurt her ankle in a Trade Joe’s parking lot and had surgery? Because her pissy ginger boyfriend is talking shit about her at Denver airport and thousands of women on Threads from *at least four* continents are gonna hunt him into his last days.

Pass it on.
November 28, 2025 at 3:48 AM