hugolxln.bsky.social
@hugolxln.bsky.social
Reposted
“He isn’t worried about Trump’s political wrath; he doesn’t plan to run for reelection.

His fear of speaking out is much more personal: ‘I’d rather my house not get firebombed’”
www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
The Fear Taking Hold Among Indiana Republicans
“I’d rather my house not get firebombed.”
www.theatlantic.com
November 27, 2025 at 4:00 AM
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For now Europe dominates the global export of pharmaceuticals. Source: buff.ly/6bWCvGj
November 26, 2025 at 4:30 PM
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Key chart for public services

Govt is back to pencilling in undeliverable plans to hit its fiscal rules

After taking out likely funding for protected areas, other departments will have to absorb 3.3% annual real terms cuts. That includes prisons, courts, and local govt, among others
November 26, 2025 at 3:59 PM
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I’m excited ministers get to find out what a hot mess the Valuation Office is. It’s currently taking more than a year (based on personal experience!) to undertake assessments that are meant to take less than 4 months
November 26, 2025 at 12:37 PM
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Seems quite mental to me to schedule all the fiscal consolidation for 2028-2029 when you are going to be fighting an election in May 2029
November 26, 2025 at 1:42 PM
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Don’t say you weren’t warned.
New poll suggests Jordan Bardella would win second round of 🇫🇷 presidential election against any other of four tested candidates ⬇️
November 26, 2025 at 8:13 AM
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oh Americans may not understand this, but a 'magistrate' in the UK is a local volunteer with typically no legal background. But it's ok, they receive about 10 days of training. And now they can send you to jail for two years without a jury!
November 25, 2025 at 7:53 PM
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Why does this get so little coverage? It's the destruction of humanity's minimum rules.
An absolute scandal compounded in this case by failure of French government and EU institutions to forcefully react and sanction in turn those who have sanctioned ICC judges and prosecutors. Makes a total mockery of FR/EU's repeated commitment to the rule of law/ICC

www.lemonde.fr/en/internati...
November 24, 2025 at 7:53 AM
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The United States is no longer providing any financial support for Ukraine according to Kiel's tracker - and has not been for a few months now (although I do wonder how one counts the intelligence support).

Europe is footing the bill alone.
November 24, 2025 at 1:01 AM
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Grand opening, grand closing.

X quietly disabled a new feature that showed which country an account was posting from when it revealed that lots of popular right wing MAGA accounts were being run from foreign countries like India and Nigeria.
November 22, 2025 at 9:05 PM
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‼️ Friends, this is very important. Please share to whoever this may concern, especially if you are in the United States.

Ukraine wants peace. Lasting, just, sustainable peace, and not a pause before the next bloodbath. I cannot stress this enough.
November 22, 2025 at 12:00 PM
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A very legitimate approach
““If they’re not gonna run the programs, then what are we paying them for?” she said. “It’s like, you know, you’re paying us for a service and they’re not delivering. So let’s stop paying for it.”

👀 @mikiesherrill.bsky.social goes there …
New Jersey may stop paying federal taxes under new governor
Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill said on a podcast with Jon Stewart it's a "great idea."
www.politico.com
November 22, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted
This is one of my favourite bits on here: the Uk actually taxes its top decile a lot and under taxes the middle, giving us Europes most progressive taxation system. European taxes for the top decile and then they get frozen out of the benefits system because the middle do not pay their share.
November 21, 2025 at 7:34 AM
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Attention is on NEETs today, but the problem is much worse.

NEETs include stay-at-home parents & jobseekers.

Strip those out to focus on people not working, not seeking work, not in education & not parenting: this group of economically & socially dislocated young adults has *doubled* in a decade.
November 20, 2025 at 10:25 AM
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Zack Polanski and Ed Davey have positive net ratings among 2024 Labour voters, while a majority of those who backed the party at the last election now have unfavourable views of Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves

Polanski: +24 net favourable
Davey: +17
Starmer: -10
Corbyn: -15
Reeves: -31
November 20, 2025 at 9:59 AM
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Let me tell you about the other Epstein files the Trump administration is STILL HIDING — records that aren’t affected by the bill Congress passed today.
November 18, 2025 at 11:12 PM
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new paper by Sean Westwood:

With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research
November 18, 2025 at 7:16 PM
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Researchers tried plugging every possible phone number into WhatsApp's web app. They found they could collect 3.5 billion users' phone numbers, plus photos for half and profile text for more than a third, the biggest personal data exposure ever by some measures. www.wired.com/story/a-simp...
A Simple WhatsApp Security Flaw Exposed 3.5 Billion Phone Numbers
By plugging tens of billions of phone numbers into WhatsApp’s contact discovery tool, researchers found “the most extensive exposure of phone numbers” ever—along with profile photos and more.
www.wired.com
November 18, 2025 at 2:04 PM
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Just in the past 3 days, I happened to speak to an academic, a US politician and a former Biden official who had all received death threats and severe harassment from the MAGA movement. It's now a common experience. I am sorry MTG has to live through the same thing, but she can't be surprised
MTG: “.. “I am now being contacted by private security firms with warnings for my safety as a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world. .. The man I supported and helped get elected.”

@mediaite.com #GA14
www.mediaite.com/media/news/m...
November 15, 2025 at 6:17 PM
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November 15, 2025 at 7:56 PM
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The basic rate is too low and the government is too cowardly to address that directly so it will just slowly turn everyone into higher rate tax payers instead.
Even more striking is that a quarter of employees will be higher rate tax payers by the end of the decade.

This is a really fundamental shift in the structure of the tax system.
📈 #IFSSatStat: Continuing the current freeze on personal tax thresholds for another two years would mean that by 2029–30, 17% of age 16+ population will pay the higher rate of tax: equivalent to 10.1 million people.

In 2021–22, just 8% were higher-rate tax payers.
November 16, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Reposted
MTG: “.. “I am now being contacted by private security firms with warnings for my safety as a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world. .. The man I supported and helped get elected.”

@mediaite.com #GA14
www.mediaite.com/media/news/m...
November 15, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Reposted
"It was tough to beat Apple, but the Swiss did it." said one administration official.

How the Swiss convinced Trump to drop tariffs with gifts of a Rolex desk clock and a 1 kg gold bar.

www.axios.com/2025/11/14/t...
How to lobby Trump with Swiss precision: gifts, gold and gab
How the Swiss broke a diplomatic logjam on tariffs by arriving with tributes fit for a king.
www.axios.com
November 15, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Reposted
JP Morgan analysts calculated "AI products would have to create an additional $650 billion a year, indefinitely, to give investors a reasonable 10% annual return. That’s more than 150% of Apple’s yearly revenue, and a far cry from OpenAI’s current revenue of about $20 billion a year." (🎁)
When AI Hype Meets AI Reality: A Reckoning in 6 Charts
Record capital expenditures and data-center planning are running up against the ground truths of physical infrastructure.
www.wsj.com
November 14, 2025 at 12:25 PM