Patrick Waeber

Sometimes silence screams

I prefer non-lethal distractions from the tRUMPSTEIN Files like renaming the Gulf of Mexico, making Canada the 51st state & buying Greenland. Sure it was hugely offensive to longtime friends & allies, but at least no one died.

A big part of the authoritarian playbook is war. War takes over the news. War blots out criticism. War divides a nation’s people, subjecting those against it to being called unpatriotic. War grants leaders all sorts of emergency powers. War consumes everything else.

We mustn’t let this war do so.

Merz: For four years, every day and every night has been a nightmare for the Ukrainian people. And not only for them, but for all of us. Because war has returned to Europe. Only with our united strength will we bring it to an end. Because the fate of Ukraine is our fate.

Hypocrite

Eight meetings “to understand where they stand.”
Pretty sure Putin understood him after one.
If the goal was insight, Moscow gained more of it.
Reading your counterpart like a sliced-open fish isn’t diplomacy. It’s leverage.
#AsymmetricDiplomacy #PowerPolitics #GeopoliticalNaivety

'A huge heist from the American taxpayers': Trump's 'Board of Peace' seen as new vehicle for grift YouTube video by MS NOW

Withhold UN contributions.
Announce $10B for a parallel “Board of Peace.”
Place close associates in key roles.
This is institutional drift in real time.
Norm erosion outlasts personalities.

#AntiRulesBasedOrder
#AntiMultilateralism
#OligarchicGovernance #DynasticPolitics
#EliteCapture

Profits first.
Sentient beings engineered for speed, not life.
Customers kept comfortably uninformed.
Out of sight. Out of mind.
The bill always comes due.

#FactoryFarming
#ProfitOverLife
#AnimalWelfare
#ConsumersChoose

From mass graves to beachfront investment opportunity.
More than 60,000 dead.
Mostly women and children.
And the label is “peace.”
Original residents optional.
Bravo.

#PeaceForProfit
#RubbleToResort
#GravesToGlamour

Word.

It seems everything the Trump regime touches risks sliding toward chaos. Almost by design.

Two things are simultaneously true:
1. The Iranian regime treats its people with extreme brutality and cruelty, and we should honour the citizens seeking to overthrow it.
2. A US attack on Iran would turn a crisis into a catastrophe.

Wolf Culling France: France Allows Culling of 200 Wolves Wolf Population Control: French authorities permit culling 200 wolves to protect livestock amid rising wolf attacks near cities.

France authorizes the shooting of 200 #wolves and calls it “management.”
Management with guns is never a sustainable approach.
When politics steers ecology instead of science, ecosystems pay the price.

#HerdProtectionDogs #LandscapePlanning
#Coexistence #NonLethalManagement

FIFA president announces 'true partnership' with Board of Peace for Gaza Gianni Infantino says soccer can help 'rebuild and build people, emotion, hope and trust' - Anadolu Ajansı

FIFA: “No politics in football.”
Also FIFA: shaking hands with power under the banner of “peace.”
Rainbow armbands? Too political.
Presidential partnerships in live war zones? Leadership.
Their true face isn’t apolitical. It’s selective.

#NoPoliticsExceptOurs #Sportswashing #SelectiveNeutrality

Another great sad cartoon from @deadder.bsky.social

How one country stopped a Trump-style authoritarian in his tracks What Brazil got right that America got wrong.

The Brazilian political system is, structurally, very similar to the American one. But when they elected a Trump-style authoritarian back in 2018, their Congress and Supreme Court actually fought back.

I went to Brazil to find out why. And what I learned surprised me.

www.vox.com/politics/479...

Trump officials plan to build 5,000-person military base in Gaza, files show Exclusive: approximately 350-acre compound planned as base for multinational force, according to records reviewed by the Guardian

First #ICE at home.

Now ISF, a shiny new “peace” force abroad.

When you can’t win trust, just rebrand power projection as stability. Nothing says diplomacy like outsourcing your ego in uniform.

Totally about peace. Obviously.

#LegalFiction
#PeaceInNameOnly
#TrumpPowerProjection

Beara grasshopper!

Grasshoppers are amazing: they can jump 20 times their body length in a single leap, have ears on their abdomen, and create their characteristic stridulating sound by rubbing legs against wings!

Excruciating tropical disease can now be transmitted in most of Europe, study finds ‘Shocking’ data shows the climate crisis and invasive mosquitos mean chikungunya could spread in 29 countries

Its not just floods storms droughts wildfires

Its disease too

Excruciating tropical disease chikungunya virus can now be transmitted in most of Europe

The disease can be fatal in young children and older adults.
www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

The vermiform appendix contains lymphoid tissue and helps defend the body. But when it becomes chronically inflamed, we remove it so the organism can survive. Surgery. Recovery. Move on.
Just anatomy. Nothing geopolitical here.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Jesse Jackson’s life in pictures | CNN Politics The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights icon who twice ran for president of the United States, died on Tuesday, February 17. He was 84.

"I want the presidency because I want to affirm my belief that leadership is colorless and genderless." --Jesse Jackson (1983). R.I.P.
#CivilRights #SocialJustice #Equality

Great sitting down with Brian Tyler Cohen to talk about everything from the courage we saw in Minnesota, to how Democrats can be true to our values and get stuff done, to how we’re building a community of changemakers at the Obama Foundation. youtube.com/watch?v=uI-hgSE5QIw

EPA reverses long-standing climate change finding, stripping its own ability to regulate emissions The agency announced it is repealing its 2009 conclusion that greenhouse gases warm the Earth and endanger human health and well-being.

There are so many fucked up things with the current administration that it's hard to focus on one but this recent move is basically a death sentence for the planet. I've been involved with more boots on the ground actions over the years than I can count and this really bums me out.

Calling someone strong doesn’t make them strong ...

AOC: "Extreme level of wealth inequality leads to social instability and drives authoritarianism, right-wing populism, and really dangerous domestic internal politics. That is a direct outcome of the failure of democracies over decades to deliver."

Anne Applebaum on Trump's betrayal of Europe "They’re bewildered we’ve allowed this to happen."

"The American media makes things that are abnormal seem normal. The European press doesn’t do that. So you’ll see when they report on Trump’s rambling Davos speech, they will say it made no sense. In the US press, you’ll just see excerpts and an attempt to sanitize it." — @anneapplebaum.bsky.social

It's rare to see how lobbyists operate. But the Epstein-Mandelson correspondence shows us what happens all the time: plutocrats and government ministers conspiring against the public interest. This is why all lobbying should be in the public domain, but despite Labour and Con promises, it's not. 🧵

Cartoon by @deadder.bsky.social.