‼️The FT has launched a four-part series on Orbán and the Orbán government. The first part focused on Russian interference in support of Fidesz; this second part deals with the “family’s” enrichment. You wouldn’t believe it, but the FT mapped out their real estate empire from the air ✈️
Sunday Reading:
From Abraham Lincoln to… Donald Trump?
The history of the Republican Party in two parts: Key moments, actors, and dynamics - and a framework (in about 8,000 words) for how to think about continuity, change, and radicalization in the past and present of the American Right:
Good defending.
Buttigieg: "Trump's political operation was raising money off images at a dignified transfer. Any politician who does that has no business leading American troops into war. If the president is willing to raise campaign funds over the bodies of America's war dead, he's unfit to be commander in chief"
His whole life, Trump has always had someone else around to bail him out of the messes he creates: his father, Allen Weisselberg, the "adults in the room" in his first term. Now all those protectors are gone and he is openly begging for someone to save him from his own folly.
These 52 people could have stopped a national and a world catastrophe any time they chose to. They confirmed Noem, Bondi, Hegseth, et al, okayed DOGE and tariffs, and green lighted Trump’s military attacks. The country and the world reels. Fifty-two people.
My maternal grandmother was German, so that's Oma. My English one was Nan or Nanny.
To mark #MothersDay, 'The Lesson' - a 1959 bronze by Franta Belsky on the Turin Estate, Bethnal Green, part of the London County Council's Patronage of the Arts scheme to bring art to estates and schools.
Monday: We have won
Tuesday: Iran is about to surrender
Wednesday: High oil prices are good
Thursday: There is nothing left to hit
Friday: They have no army, navy or missiles left
Saturday: HELP
I still watch the BBC one most Sundays out of habit. But, as you say, it's very glib and depressing.
Excl: Reform UK is planning a purge of Whitehall’s most senior civil servants if it wins the next general election
Nigel Farage’s party is proposing to sack virtually all the permanent secretaries and directors general, @theobserveruk.bsky.social has learned
👇
observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
Even the conservative Wall Street Journal understands the havoc wealth inequality is wreaking on our economy and society.
It’s far past time to unrig the system. https://www.wsj.com/finance/billionaires-low-taxes-are-becoming-a-problem-for-the-economy-27a560ca
Of all the generations that have ever lived on Earth, this one is the only one to have even attempted to recognise the substantive equality of all people.
If it dies, it dies with us. But let it not die without a fight.
He’s very a piece of work.
“With all newspapers in Germany being told what to publish and how to write the news and editorials, it was inevitable that a deadly conformity would come over the nation’s press.”
- William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 406
The celebrated German philosopher Jürgen Habermas died today. He was 96.
Brno, last September.
See previous post.
Supine American and global media went mad about Hunter Biden but there's not enough about the massive corruption of the Trump industrial-family complex (at least in the also supine UK media).
Yep, Saturday also ruined for me.
Trumpism didn't happen overnight. It took decades of lies and hate all over the airwaves to make it seem even vaguely normal or mainstream. We still have time to nip that process in the bud here in the UK. We won't.
bylinetimes.com/2026/03/12/g...
This government should be a lesson to the people (not Mark, to be clear) who have complained about the decline of Cabinet government. We have proper 'Cabinet government' now and as a result government policy is in conflict with each other all over the shop.
The greatest song ever written about a motorcycle …
And yes. Save a life. Look out for motorcycles .
Not so long ago, hugging Hitler was one of those lines you just didn’t cross.
But that’s what’s been happening with increasing regularity, revealed by a recent string of unhinged text chains among young Republicans.
Read @johnavlon.bsky.social commentary: www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
There are other reasons for the UK government not to award or continue Palantir contracts but this statement of intent by its CEO must surely be decisive?
#NowPlaying - new Gong album, Bright Spirit
He's quite good at putting himself out of circulation (e.g. Valencia).
The reality is that we are not going to vibe our way to a comprehensive deal with the EU- the "biggest prize". We have to put something big, bold, and realistic on the table.
Also means taking on the argument politically. There are no signs this is happening.
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
