MA Political Science-International Relations, Syracuse University. Foreign Policy Analysis, EU affairs. Greek-American
Thessaloniki, Greece
Joined July 2011
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Nick Barnets retweeted
Orbán gone. The Bolsonaros gone. Vucic gone. Netanyahu so desperate to avoid facing the criminal courts of his country if he loses the upcoming election that he's trying to incite a nuclear war.
Americans can do their part to stem the toxic tide of global fascism on November 3.
BREAKING: Putin just lost another ally in Europe, and people are celebrating in the streets. Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s authoritarian leader and close ally of Trump and Putin, has officially conceded defeat in a historic snap parliamentary election. The student-led opposition movement has won, ending more than a decade of Vucic’s grip on power. Voter turnout reached nearly 70%, the highest since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992.
A big weekend before an ultimate test to the EU that's on the horizon- will it withstand a France led by LePen and a Germany led by AfD? Those are not guarantees to happen, but it's looking pretty likely at the moment and the EU needs to be prepared.
meanwhile in the US some of the less populated states sometimes take days, even weeks to finalize their vote counts (ahem, nevada 2020, hmm...)
An important, grounding reminder that although there's great reason for hope & celebration beyond Brazil & Serbia, there's still rough road ahead, especially for Europe. France & Germany are both still well on their way to far-right illiberal populism & that hasn't changed today
Given results in Serbia and Brazil today, there’s lots of talk here of an anti-populism backlash but I’d be careful. Elections these days are so often decided by small margins and tend to swing against incumbents. France might offer a different lesson, as has Germany in the East. It doesn’t mean those are permanent turns right - or today’s results are permanent turns left - because if new leaders fail to address public frustrations and concerns, the pendulum swings back. It strikes me that we are in a period of massive and disorienting disruptions and voters are searching for solutions. They are voting based on whether new leaders deliver.
Nick Barnets retweeted
How did Lula come from behind to crush Bolsonaro?
In short, turnout.
Bolsonaro's vote share barely moved. Lula banked millions of votes from those who didn't vote in 1st round and won eliminated candidates' votes.
A remarkable mobilisation. 2nd round turnout usually below 1st.
Nick Barnets retweeted
In one day, two politicians - Bolsonaro in Brazil and Vucic in Serbia - with ties to Trump and his family have lost surprise elections, thanks to high turnout. The rise of the international far-right is not inevitable.
Nick Barnets retweeted
Serbia 🇷🇸: groups of hooded men can be seen strolling around the Serbian parliament tonight.
The Student List warns that supporters of the ruling SNS party might seek to provoke violence once the polls close at 20:00.
Nick Barnets retweeted
I wonder whether Brussels has even prepared a plan for how to respond in case of a stolen election or widespread repression in Serbia 🇷🇸
The EU has a habit of hoping for the best, but never preparing for the worst.
We are deeply concerned about reported violent incidents across a number of polling stations.
Serbian citizens need to be able to exercise their democratic right to vote in a peaceful and safe environment.
We call on all actors to remain calm, to act responsibly and refrain from violence and provocations and on the competent institutions to ensure safety of all involved in the electoral process.
Nick Barnets retweeted
Positive indicators in the Serbian elections: historic turnout (65% at 18 pm with two hours to go), very high social mobilization. Negative indicators: the regime is gathering police forces in Belgrade, the pro-regime patriarch of the Serbian church is calling for the election results to be accepted. A bad cocktail is brewing. Hope I'm wrong.
Nick Barnets retweeted
Aside from the shocking substance of this story, what's amazing is how it was unearthed by Cole. The short version: The Russians were able to penetrate Jared Kushner's iPhone and extract screenshots and data. Then, a Russian intel official was captured by Dutch intelligence (!) and flipped. The Dutch believed Kushner may have been acting on behalf of Russia, so pursued him as an intel target and were able to get into his phone.
They did not find any evidence of Russian collusion, instead they watched him moving hundreds of millions of dollars from slush funds created by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, one of them housed in Israel's central bank.
Incredible reporting, and if Democrats have any sense, they will pull on these threads and learn a lot more about this money.
Explosive story many years in the making, now out in Vanity Fair by Matthew Cole (who will be on Breaking Points next week, and publishing soon in @DropSiteNews):
Saudi Arabia and the UAE set up multi-billion slush funds for Jared Kushner to use.
Iran-Contra 2 here (except with Iran-Contra, at least the US got some hostages released. Not clear what we got out of this one.)
Nick Barnets retweeted
SCOOP: The State Dept has started asking career diplomats up for promotion if they voted for Trump in 16, 20, 24.
Federal law prohibits politically based hiring for career staff.
State tells @washingtonsun it's screening for "fidelity" and execution of the president's vision👇
Nick Barnets retweeted
Episode 2: ‘Russia Bombards Ukraine After Trump Envoy Hails “Humanitarian” Putin’. Good job Witkoff wasn’t negotiating with Pol Pot, or we’d have another mountain of skulls.
Its extremely ironic to see the leader of a party that claims to be patriotic to say that a country defending itself against an invasion & relentless bombing attacks on its people from another country is a provocation. Not the country attacking, but the country defending. Sick.
Weidel: "Prolonging the war and shooting drones into the hinterland of Russia, destroying refineries, houses, and buildings near Moscow, is a huge provocation."
Host: "It's defending itself."
Weidel: "No, it's not."
Host: "Every night, drones and ballistic missiles rain down on Ukraine..."
Weidel: "This strategy is very risky, and we've been criticizing it. We want to end this war.
It doesn't help if a country [Ukraine] launches drone attacks against a country [Russia] that has nuclear weapons. It doesn't make sense, it's very risky and very stupid.
We need to end this, and we need to actually put pressure on Ukrainian president to have the willingness to end the dying and stop this very risky strategy for all of Europe."🔚
Folks, here is Weidel's imaginary reality: black is white, the victim is to blame for the crime against them, and defending your home against a bloody, illegal invasion that murders children and razes towns is "stupid," while letting Russia occupy you and carry out a country-wide Bucha massacre is probably smart.
And defending yourself is risky! Risky, did you hear that? Well, no shit, just standing there and catching Russian ballistics with your face is risky, too. So we may as well take the risk and, hear me out, fight back?
Please don't vote for this evil Russian appendix in Germany!
Nick Barnets retweeted
Ukraine has survived terror-famine, Nazi occupation, Soviet communism, Chernobyl, Yanukovych, Russian invasion and occupation and Russian invasion and occupation. It will survive a lowlife from Queens and a sociopathic Space Karen from Praetoria.
Nick Barnets retweeted
When our political future is distorted by Zuckerberg’s @Meta (boycotting Lula) and Musk’s @Starlink (boycotting Ukrainians’ resistance) to please @realDonaldTrump, our collective dependencies on the US have now become a democratic and security risk.
reuters.com/world/americas/m…
Nick Barnets retweeted
YOU'RE NOT PAYING TAXES FOR THE PROPERTY, YOU'RE PAYING YOUR TOWN FOR THE SERVICES IT PROVIDES. THE ROADS, POLICE, SCHOOLS, FIRE DEPARTMENT, LIBRARY, SNOW PLOWS, EMERGENCY SERVICES AND SO MUCH MORE.
“I’m old. I’ve paid my home off,” said Ray Warner, a 72-year-old Akron resident. “Why would I pay property tax?”
Across the country, homeowners are asking the same question and revolting against property taxes at a scale not seen in a half century.
politico.com/news/magazine/2…
Nick Barnets retweeted
Israeli settlers are out of control, because the Israeli government allows them to be. And while attacks on diplomats or journalists command attention, as they should, this happens unnoticed to Palestinian farmers all the time.
#Breaking: European diplomats, including French and Polish representatives, who went to the West Bank to observe the olive harvest, have been violently assaulted by Israeli settlers.
