Ragnar Øygard

Opinion | The Most Important Foreign Policy Speech in Years

This is an excellent @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social podcast with @himself.bsky.social. Chock full of political science theory providing a very useful framework to understand contemporary events www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/o...

I wish Democrats would start just speaking the truth:

“ICE is killing American citizens in public for exercising their freedom of speech because Donald Trump wants to be a king.

This isn’t about immigration—Trump wants to make it illegal to oppose him, and to stay in power until he dies.”

Video: Opinion | Is This Who Trump Meant by the ‘Worst of the Worst’? The columnist Jamelle Bouie argues that the Trump administration’s immigration policy has more in common with ethnic cleansing than actual immigration enforcement.

This is really excellent, glad to see you given the space to go big with this @jamellebouie.net www.nytimes.com/video/opinio...

Det har gått under radaren her hjemme, men i november ba EU-parlamentet m stort flertall EUs Råd og Kommisjonen om å vurdere om Norge kan innlemmes under EUs kollektive sikkerhetserklæring, dvs EU-traktatens versjon av NATOs artikkel 5.

For whatever reason, because of whatever backstory, for whatever ideological drives this guy has always worked for Russia.

A US annexation of Greenland would be the end of NATO.
Trump, as an obedient servant of Putin, might welcome that, but the other NATO members cannot accept having a blatant traitor in their midst.

This is the kind of thing that the Founders explicitly designed our constitution to prevent; a president who has seized wealth for his own benefit without any intervention from Congress, which in our system is supposed to be the holder of the power of the purse.

there are fields that help you understand why the world's most powerful defense establishment is being controlled by mentally ill people but military theory isn't one of them

The US is more likely to fight Europe than fight for it.

Insane

Opinion | Maduro’s Ouster Plays Right Into Putin’s Hands

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/04/o...

Russia can offer much larger bribes and business deals to Trump, his family, and his friends than Ukraine can, and since Trump is the most corrupt and most compromised US president in history, that puts Ukraine in a tough spot

This is horrible. Trump and his crew shut down USAID, which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and they had no idea what they were doing or what would be the consequences. Completely immoral.

(From the VF story on Susan Wiles.)
www.vanityfair.com/news/story/t...

Implications of this leak is huge;

Trump knows that Putin want all of #Ukraine, that a "deal" now is only temporary. T has known this even before the Alaska summit.

This means he has been helping Putin all year.

Whatever "guarantees" Trump is offering Ukraine now, is fake.

THIS IS TREASON!

Trumpian Corruption Is Worse Than Ukrainian Corruption The people of Ukraine want an honest government, even as American and Russian kleptocrats circle their country.

In Ukraine the state itself is investigating the government, the cabinet, even the president’s closest advisers. By contrast, it is impossible to imagine Kash Patel’s FBI investigating anyone in Trump’s White House. Any Russian who investigates Putin goes to jail. www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

Mockler: It's honestly humiliating that other countries are treating our president like a child, like a baby. It's like if I created a peace prize and I gave it to myself. I'm like, I'm just going to keep this medal on all night. Our president is an actual child

Trump administration plans to end prison rape protections for trans and intersex people A Department of Justice memo says certain standards under the Prison Rape Elimination Act do not align with Trump’s executive order

BREAKING: Trump administration plans to end prison rape protections for trans & intersex people, memo says. A DOJ memo says certain standards under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) do not align with Trump’s Jan. 20 anti-trans executive order, @byadamrhodes.bsky.social reports.

They’re killing people as a twitter joke. It’s depraved. Can’t let yourself lose the capacity to be appalled and disgusted and outraged by this.

Effectively there is no *one* person performing the duties of President of the United States right now. We are in an interregnum with an occupied throne.

Gari Kasparov på Halifax Security Forum:

"NATO was created to fight one war — not to go to Afghanistan, not to go to Syria — one war: to save free Europe from Russian aggression. Ukraine is the only country that is fighting this war, and we are still discussing should we include them or not."

One Small Guardrail Finally Held Up Against Trump For almost a decade now, we’ve watched as Trump plowed through guardrails...

One Small Guardrail Finally Held Up Against Trump talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/linds...

Iran’s Capital Is Moving. The Reason Is an Ecological Catastrophe The decision to move Iran’s capital is partly driven by climate change, but experts say decades of human error and action are also to blame

Amid a deepening ecological crisis and acute water shortage, Tehran can no longer remain the capital of Iran, the country’s president has said. www.scientificamerican.com/article/iran...

The Putin-Witkoff Plan Worsens the War Five Reasons the US should not help Russia subjugate Ukraine

We have a US administration trying to bully Ukrainians into accepting Russia’s proposal that their sovereignty be undone. Aside from the naked injustice of this, there are five basic practical reasons why it would make the world far more dangerous.
(video)
snyder.substack.com/p/the-putin-...

Vi gir alt, alt for Norge.
Unntatt skatt. Den gir vi til Sveits.

A gentle word of advice for friends throughout Europe who are praising Trump regularly thinking it will gain results. It won’t. Only corruption works. And right now the US is locked in a struggle to see if corruption will win out.

… med hjelp av Thorbjørn Jagland …

Donald Trump nyter godt av feilsitering Blir Donald Trump feilsitert i media? Svaret er utvilsomt ja, og der bør media ta selvkritikk. Trump kommuniserer i en uendelig strøm av ...

"Trump nyter godt av 'feilsitering' i 9 av 10 tilfeller. Skulle man sitere ham korrekt og utfyllende, måtte avisene trykke egne bilag hver dag bare for å få plass til alt, og folk ville sittet igjen med et enda verre inntrykk av den gale kongen i Washington DC" write.as/eivindtraeda...

Jeffrey Epstein claimed he gave Russians insight into Trump Newly released emails show the late convicted sex offender’s extensive network of foreign contacts, whom he corresponded with about Trump’s policy decisions.

Hm. Really.

www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

I wonder if the United States can learn anything from the last time a major industrialized country decided to isolate itself from the rest of the world?

Almost a decade after the Brexit vote, GDP in the UK is around 6-8% lower relative to peer countries. (Source: www.nber.org/papers/w34459)

This is delusional. Does any serious economist believe this? The president is off his rocker, and the GOP is too scared to acknowledge that.