Aaron Ackerley

#OtD 9 Feb 2007 Alejandro Finisterre, anarchist poet and inventor of the Spanish table football (foosball) died in Zamora, Spain. He invented the game following injury during the Spanish Civil War so injured children could still play football workingclasshistory.com/2018/07/29/s...

"Eighty-two years after his execution by the Gestapo on June 16, 1944, the Jewish historian and resistance fighter Marc Bloch will be inducted into the Pantheon on June 23... His family requested that 'the far right, in all its forms, be excluded from any participation in the ceremony.'"

That’s Brett Ratner there on the right.

From the same newspaper that published “did feminism fuck up the work place?”, we now have “did feminism fuck up sex?”

The NYT really is desperate to cater to conservative audiences and it’s just getting more obvious and embarrassing.

The colonial imperialist west shouldn’t be forgiven for a lot of things, and the crimes against Haiti and her people are one of them.

The Board of Governors decided, unilaterally, that no published textbook in the field of sociology could be used in compliance with the law for an Intro to Sociology class. None. Victor: There's not a single existing textbook on the market that could be used that would qualify under state law? Zachary: Correct. Victor: I'm sorry, that's kind of funny. Like, the absurdity of not a single sociology textbook getting past the censors. I mean, it makes me kind of proud of our colleagues, but...

I do want to shout-out my fellow sociologists, who have collectively created a discipline so woke that not a single one of our introductory textbooks can make it past Florida's censors.

Great work everyone.

BREAKING: McSweeney’s think tank paid PR firm to investigate journalists Labour Together put private investigators onto journalists writing about its funding. Starmer's right-hand man knew.

It has been revealed that our chief reporter, @john-mcevoy.bsky.social, was among journalists investigated by a PR firm paid by Labour Together.

Labour Together was then managed by Josh Simons. Simons is now Cabinet Office minister.

democracyforsale.substack.com/p/exclusive-...

What a tremendous loss.

If you're interested in learning more about Chip's legacy as a right-watcher (well before right watching became a cottage industry), check out this brief reflection.

www.academia.edu/95027577/Age...

You see what is going on in the US, and the far right in Europe saying “this is specifically what we’d like to do here”, and the US govt saying “this is specifically what we want to make happen there”, and our approach to national security is to treat this as an inconvenient distraction.

The lack of concern given to US influence over British politics compared to say Russian or Chinese, when the current US govt and associated business elites are overtly committed to undermining liberal democracy in Western Europe *and* have the leverage to do just that, is incredibly alarming.

So, are they saying they don't approve what the President of the United States puts out on Truth Social, his preferred megaphone to the world -- that he's used to announce peace deals, tariffs, and military ops?

A staffer can post something there without the President or top officials approving it?

This is massive. A credit to Democracy For Sale for their investigation.

Among the batch of newly released emails from Jeffrey Epstein: Epstein telling Peter Thiel he would “gladly share…expenses for the Gawker suit.”

This was sent the day after @rmac.bsky.social and @mattdrange.bsky.social reported in Forbes that Thiel was behind the lawsuit that would bankrupt Gawker

The same argument that says, “It’s not right that fit and healthy people pay for the expensive treatment of cancer patients on the NHS.”

You either believe in the state properly resourcing its institutions, or you don’t.

An Injury To All: The Unmaking of the British Working Class will be published by Verso in October!

Today I submitted responses to last comments from my editor and worked on the blurb. It's getting closer and closer!

The UK edition of the crown silence, out now!

Happy 🇬🇧 UK pub day to THE CROWN’S SILENCE—a deeply researched narrative history of the monarchy’s centuries-long entanglement with slavery. This is the new history book the far right loathes. Please buy it b/c it’s important history but—also—it will really piss them off if it does well in the UK!!😉😘

Crime and Policing Bill - Hansard - UK Parliament Hansard record of the item : 'Crime and Policing Bill' on Tuesday 20 January 2026.

The actual words of the current British Home Secretary:
“My ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the State can be on you at all times."

Hello, I have a new book out in the spring with Picador and I would love it if you could help me spread the word.

IF WE TOLERATE THIS draws on years of work, to help readers understand why British politics is hurtling rightwards and what to do about it.

Pre-orders: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/if-w...

Yes, the main problem with the deskilling machine is that no one has the skills to use it

Screenshot of an X.com post by The Associated Press (@AP) stating that dozens of immigrant families protested for better treatment behind fences at a Texas detention facility, where a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his father were sent after being detained in Minnesota. Below is a video thumbnail showing a crowd gathered outdoors along a fenced walkway; many people wear bright blue or red outerwear, and some hold signs.

After being held in two of them as a boy, I fought for decades urging America to never again build concentration camps and put human beings in them. It breaks my heart to watch this happen twice now in my own lifetime.

JD Vance Places Candle Outside Hooters Where ICE Agents Were Heckled

JD Vance Places Candle Outside Hooters Where ICE Agents Were Heckled

Sesame Street Instagram: Big Bird snuggling a smaller bird. Offering comfort in Scary Times: After a violent event, children of different ages will have different needs. These age based strategies can help them feel safer and more secure.

Sesame Street is now offering tips for parents on post-trauma comfort because the federal government is physically and mentally abusing our country's children.

Like, it’s just weird, even if your dad left home when you were 5/6 (me too, as it happens), if he was doing an MBA when you were 3, you don’t get to claim that he didn’t go to uni, & that you were the first person in your family to do so? I mean I don’t care but who’s this supposed to impress?

Matt Goodwin makes a living out of railing against university educated elites & his whole schtick is "he was the first person in his family to go to university", which is a bit weird given that his Dad, now being heavily invoked for his Manchester connection, appears to have a string of degrees.

Video from this morning shows ICE agents deploying tear gas outside a Minneapolis preschool as parents shout, “This is a preschool! There’s kids here!”

Bauer, who is 49, struggled to maintain her composure as she described the day early this month when ICE showed up in force outside her school. Agents had been circling the school since December, seemingly learning its routines, and they arrested some parents just before the winter break. But this time, agents leapt out in riot gear and began entering the apartments just across from the school, where many students live. “We had to lock down and keep the kids inside, and parents linked arms to block the school entrance,” Bauer said. “We had a student who was looking out the window and saw them break into his apartment and just sobbed, ‘That’s my house. That’s my home.’ And we shut the blinds, but it was too late.”

The terror that ICE and CBP have inflicted on the children of the Twin Cities is, by itself, a crime of scandalous proportions that will forever stain this country's moral fabric, and all those responsible should never know another day of peace. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

I simply can’t see how any conscientious, professional journalist can think what happened in Minneapolis is “a subject of sharply contradictory narratives” rather than a government blatantly lying in order to cover up a murder

Big tech, “AI”, fascism, all hand in hand.

So important. What they say is not the story. That is never the story. What happened is the story. Write what happened.

I just want to make it clear that it was *Border Patrol* agents who murdered Alex Pretti, and those fuckers murder people regularly here along the border.

Renee Good´s murderer is also a former Border Patrol agent (currently ICE).

Disband ALL the paramilitary groups and prosecute every member.