Evita

Picture of Marjane Satrapi alongside a quote from her. The quote reads: The world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same... - Marjane Satrapi, Iranian-French graphic novelist

Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.

YouTube video by Kat Abughazaleh 10 Minutes of Kat Absolutely Owning the Fox 32 Chicago Debate | Kat Abughazaleh For Illinois

In case you missed it, here are some of my top moments from the debate last week: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHKp...

I spent a bunch of time arguing that, based on available evidence, the Trump White House has no long-term plan for the Iran war, no answer for what happens next. Sen. Lindsey Graham confirms that, except I meant it as a criticism, and he, bafflingly, means it as a defense.

Rubin: "There is at least one witness for whom 3 interviews with the FBI in in 2019 are missing [from the Epstein files]. What's the big deal? We can also confirm she is the same person who in a 2025 FBI presentation is identified as accusing Trump of a sexual assault when she was between 13 and 15"

CNN: The Supreme Court rules that President Trump’s emergency tariffs are illegal.

UK can arrest royalty, US can't even arrest a shitty former reality TV host.

I remember everybody laughing at him when he bought Twitter for $40 billion but it doesn’t seem like such a bad investment now. Especially when your goal is fascism.

This is why @defendpublichealth.bsky.social includes combating scientific misinformation as a major pillar in our report entitled Improving the Health of Americans Together, or IHAT. You can read it here if you are interested.

www.defendpublichealth.org/sites/defaul...

A lot of science fiction and shady government projects have been centered on “brainwashing” or getting people to do or say stuff that they wouldn’t normally.

Well, it’s here, and disinformation from right wing influencers is a huge component.

The political effects of X's feed algorithm https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2 Received: 16 December 2024 Accepted: 4 January 2026 Published online: 18 February 2026 Open access • Check for updates Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right.

Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement.

This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.

OVERTIME HOCKEY USA SWEDEN LET'S GO

@michaelemann.bsky.social

Recent CBS News news:
1. Anderson Cooper leaves 60 Minutes after two decades
2. Stephen Colbert reveals network won’t let him air interview with Dem
3. Producer says politics dictating what airs
4. Owner’s bid for CNN parent back on the table.
5. Not firing Epstein pal.

Som högstadielärare som alltid är uttalad feminist och ofta lyfter HBTQ-perspektiv är jag inte förvånad av det här. Det kommer säkert en del från föräldrarna, men ni bara måste fatta hur mycket hat som sprids på TikTok osv.

Irish man held in ICE detention says he fears for his life and asks Ireland for help Seamus Culleton describes conditions as ‘torture’ as he pleads with taoiseach to raise his case with Donald Trump

An Irish man held by ICE for five months despite having a valid work permit and no criminal record says he fears for his life and has appealed for help from Ireland’s government.

“I’m not in fear of the other inmates. I’m afraid of the staff. They’re capable of anything.”

@randomirish tweeted on X: Take Irelands name out of your mouth when you want to rationalize white supremacy. The Irish didn't come to America to share their culture. They came fleeing destitution and starvation in their homeland, courtesy of the kind of imperial power you now fetishize. We don't forget. [He's reacting to this tweet by Elon Musk:] For a country to survive, there has to be a common culture. Nobody dies to defend a "multicultural economic zone"! American culture, with its English-Scotts-Irish origin, is great and worth fighting for. Some may not realize it, but that's why people come here. Feb 16, 2026.

Trust an Irishman to tell it like it is.

[Note: No insult was used to compile this masterpiece of a put-down.]

M-topp får intern kritik –påstår att S vill ha diktatur Sven Gustafsson, Moderaternas kommunalråd i Haninge, anser att Socialdemokraterna är en "samhällsomstörtande organisation" med mål att ”skapa en socialistisk diktatur”. Det skriver han på Facebook, ra...

Tråkigt uttalande, men hoppas verkligen att sossarna inte går in i någon offermentalitet nu. Ta chansen och förklara värdet av ekonomisk demokrati och det totalitära hos otyglad kapitalism.

Imagine this .... in the US !

I and millions of Americans believe exactly the same thing Kasparov does.

Too many troops, too many new prisons, too much money not under Congressional supervision.

We're not just witnessing a mass deportation scheme anymore.

This is something significantly bigger and scarier.

White House is hosting a “Champion of Coal” event today, where Trump will outline plans to redirect Pentagon funding to support coal-fired power plants.

He is also set to receive an award from the Washington Coal Club, as part of broader efforts to expand coal use and roll back climate regulations.

How the roots of the ‘PayPal mafia’ extend to apartheid South Africa Elon Musk grew up with the privileges of a stratified racial order and Peter Thiel lived in a city that venerated Hitler

"Musk is part of the 'PayPal Mafia' of libertarian billionaires with roots in South Africa under white rule. They include co-founder Peter Thiel, who was educated there in the 1970s, former chief operating officer David Sacks, and Roelof Botha, grandson of the apartheid regime’s foreign minister."

Plus the PayPal founders are a bunch of white supremacists who hate Europe and democracy.

Jeffrey Epstein emailing Peter Thiel: Finding things on their way to collapse was much easier than finding the next bargain. ... Return to tribalism. Counter to globalization. Amazing new alliances.

Definitely seems like they destroyed the country on purpose.

It's nothing serious, just Bannon listing Farage as one if the leading European fascists that he controls.

The signs of a blue wave heading into the midterms are growing by the day, with this weekend’s romp in Texas the latest proof.

Right on cue, instead of defending their record, Republicans are turning to conspiracies to threaten a free and fair election.

www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...

I have not met many (3?) billionaires and they were certainly nice people but it also seems plausible that as a class billionaires simply cannot be “human” if we view material limitations as constitutive of the human condition

You can look at the Epstein files and conclude that only bad people have billions of dollars, but I think it’s also possible that having billions of dollars cauterizes your humanity

YouTube video by MS NOW 'Very chilling and disturbing': Lawyer reacts to bodycam of raid at GA elections hub

The Constitution is quite clear: states run elections in our country. The president has no role.” - @mawaldman.bsky.social on Trump's talk of federalizing elections.

Instagram post by h4ckedreality reads: France didn’t announce a protest. They didn’t tweet a warning. They raided X, summoned Musk, and logged out for good. That’s how serious countries communicate.

🚨The French offices of Elon Musk's X have been raided by the Paris prosecutor's cyber-crime unit, as part of an investigation into suspected offenses including unlawful data extraction and complicity in the possession of child pornography.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Not only did the cybercrime unit in Paris raid the X offices.

They rubbed it in and posted on X that the X offices have been raided.

Then retired their Twitter account, so their final post is that they are raiding Musk.

Absolute legend.

Magnifique! 🇫🇷