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Simon Pratt@simonpratt.bsky.social |
324 followers 81 following 390 posts
Lecturer, University of Melbourne SSPS. Formerly of other places. Research: war, intelligence, and normative change in international politics. Cat paparazzo, BJJ-er, bad violinist. He/Him 🇨🇦🏳️🌈✡️
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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Seems clear that Biden is not stepping down, that this isn't suicidal, but that persistent attempts to make him step down will cause harm when the stakes are incredibly high. So I continue to be astonished at how obsessive American political journos and pundits still are with making that happen.
0 replies 0 reposts 4 likes
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮
@joshuafoust.com
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Anyway, I’m out. I tried beating back the ocean on Afghanistan, Snowden, Yemen, etc. It’s not worth it. I truly hope this doesn’t end in disaster but it feels more likely than ever. We have self destructed because some rich people on TV had a panic attack after a debate. Good for us.
6 replies 38 reposts 220 likes
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò
@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
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"What the report finds is that Biden held on to 94% of the people who said they would support him before the debate. For Trump, 86% of people who said they would support him before the debate said they would do so after the debate."
news.northeastern.edu/2024/07/09/b...
28 replies 349 reposts 837 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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Hi friends, on the radio in ten minutes to talk about Israel, Hamas, hostages, Hezbollah, and the war. radiosingapore.org/cna938
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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A point often lost on international audiences (or Israelis) is that Palestinian communities generally do not like the Iranian regime and hate Assad. Even if external shills for both pretend to care about Palestine (like that Jackson Hankie guy) that does not mean real sympathy from either direction.
0 replies 8 reposts 25 likes
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Emissary Of Night | ليلى
@diplomatofnight.com
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When polled in Sept-Oct, Palestinians ranked Erdogan at the top and Bashar al-Assad at the bottom when asked to give their opinions on the foreign policies of major international and regional leaders. Joe Biden comes in second to last only just above al-Assad. Wonder what it looks like now.
2 replies 9 reposts 29 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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I imagine that the IDF will do a lot of critical self-examination on these failures or mistakes, just as it will for its larger ones. And yet, even in this interview one sees dancing around the main PR 'problem': the devastation of Gaza, so well documented and broadcast, is abhorrent to most people.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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This interview with a former IDF spokesperson discusses many specific Israeli PR failures of the past 9 months alongside the point that no strategic communications can save the public image of a war with no strategy nor the bombardment of civilians to no clear end. www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
1 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Yair Wallach
@yairwallach.bsky.social
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Story in Haaretz: on 7th Oct a Hamas stopped (in the Negev) a van, driven by a Palestinian citizen of Israel, carrying 7 Palestinian workers from Gaza. They shot dead the driver and five workers. Two workers managed to get back to Gaza alive. Only now Haaretz was able to confirm these details
1 replies 18 reposts 27 likes
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Ed Zitron
@zitron.bsky.social
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Investing a billion dollars to train a model that is 10% better at generating a picture of Garfield with an ak47 and giant cans for the low price of boiling an entire lake
www.tomshardware.com/tech-industr...
30 replies 87 reposts 431 likes
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Kelly Barnhill
@kellybarnhill.bsky.social
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Please note the wildly incorrect polling in France. No matter what the cacophony of pundits keep saying, polls are not predictive, and are never the end of the story. Organizing, volunteering, engaging in conversation, and direct action are effective tools. Let's use them here too.
7 replies 201 reposts 516 likes
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Mark Chadbourn
@chadbourn.bsky.social
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The Economist has some astonishing figures on Russian losses in Ukraine. They surpass all losses by the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation from 1945 to 2022 combined. Up to 728,000 soldiers eliminated, confirming Ukraine’s figures. 1/2
16 replies 95 reposts 233 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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Chiming in just to say that Israelis could go many directions on post-conflict governance but the US has a lot of sympathy and appreciation there right now, and I wonder if many US-based critics have deeply underestimated the value of that political capital.
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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Bold of you to assume this person can actually read those 😂
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮
@joshuafoust.com
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When every single national media outlet is speaking in lockstep with Republican talking points about a candidate for president, that is a fundamental, societal level problem with bad implications for the future of democracy in the US. That people discount that is deeply disappointing.
4 replies 58 reposts 127 likes
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮
@joshuafoust.com
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The claim that Biden “lost” the race because of a bad debate is still searching for evidence. The way such a claim has shaped news coverage monolithically is pointing at deeper, more structural flaws in the industry.
2 replies 9 reposts 27 likes
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮
@joshuafoust.com
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I often joke about this obscene behavior by comparing it to The Daily Caller, but even Tucker Carlson’s website is less pathologically focused on forcing Biden out. It’s really hard to overstate how unethical, unprofessional, and antisocial the NYT has become.
4 replies 14 reposts 54 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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An important (if concise) editorial highlighting the alarming and radical increase in Israeli appropriation of Palestinian land in the West Bank. And unlike in Gaza, there's no discussion around returning that land in the context of a ceasefire.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Jeff Lazarus
@jlazarus.bsky.social
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I swear to fucking God if democracy dies in 2025 it won't be because Biden had one bad debate. It'll be because he had one bad debate and everyone decided the world was ending and they had to light their hair on fire and run around naked in the streets.
10 replies 43 reposts 159 likes
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chatham harrison is tending a new garden
@chathamharrison.bsky.social
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Even a tepid choice can be a momentous change when the alternative is evil
17 replies 319 reposts 1334 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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That said, I wish these were unsealed after a term in office so we know who said 'place yourself under the command of the nearest allied force' and who said 'vindictively mass murder the country of whichever regime killed us'. I know what leader I'd prefer.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Director, Basque Space Program
@scoiattolo.mountainherder.xyz
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This is unserious. Why don’t we talk about how the media selectively edits Trump quotes and refuses to talk about all the speeches and rallies Biden has done since the debate. The narrative apparently can’t fail
11 replies 28 reposts 164 likes
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮
@joshuafoust.com
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They know what they’re doing, and they really think we are too stupid to notice it
1 replies 5 reposts 19 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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*nods in ethnography*
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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Not a bad analogy, Alon.
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Judah Grunstein
@judah-grunstein.bsky.social
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Some initial thoughts on the UK elections. 1. It confirms once again that when a center-right party veers to the hard right to weaken the far right, it ends up doing the opposite. After purging moderates and going full-on wingnuts and fever swamp, the Tories got decimated by Reform, not Labour. 🧵
9 replies 77 reposts 263 likes
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Jonathan Cohn
@jonathancohn.bsky.social
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That generals understand that a ceasefire -- rather than continued bloodshed, induced famine, etc., -- is in their self-interest shows how clearly the continuation of the war is a combination of Netanyahu's self-preservation and the settlers' maximalism. www.nytimes.com/2024/07/02/w...
0 replies 17 reposts 39 likes
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J.M. Berger
@intelwire.bsky.social
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And it's not just that they don't create *social* benefits; they don't create *business* benefits! They don't create profits! They just consume resources! It's mystifying!
2 replies 26 reposts 48 likes
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McSweeney's Publishing
@mcsweeneys.bsky.social
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A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks, “Why the long face?”
“I was born into servitude, and when I die, my feet will be turned into glue,” replied the horse.
The bartender realized he would not be getting a tip. www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/kaf...
0 replies 24 reposts 90 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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Trying.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Avishay Ben-Sasson-Gordis
@avishaybsg.bsky.social
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This story is in Hebrew, but still worth your time. Haaretz with a multimedia story on how settlers and settler groups are trying to use Israel's war in Gaza to rebuild Jewish settlments in the strip.
www.haaretz.co.il/news/securit...
4 replies 7 reposts 24 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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The risk of staying the course, while not zero, would be far lower if a bunch of mediocre editorialists hadn't decided that Biden *needs* to be replaced and that no alternative interpretation or outcome is conceivable, then fixated on this narrative to the exclusion of others.
0 replies 1 reposts 6 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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In a choice between a 'non-robust' old man incumbent president and a VP woman-of-colour, I am not optimistic that the latter has any electoral advantages. More to the point, the political commentariat is not 'posting doubts'. It is fixating, and does not have clear measures of its own standards.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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I couldn't reply to this directly as you've disabled comments. It seems to me as though those hammering Biden to step down have no real alternative path to electoral victory and are part of a reaction that will lead to the American people and much of the world being world historically screwed.
1 replies 0 reposts 6 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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If your view is that nothing reassures Americans of their leaders like their seeing leaders bomb some poor schmuck well...you're probably not wrong.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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It's unclear to me how Biden could prove his fitness to the NYT and Atlantic editors or whatever. It is pointless to demand Biden prove something when this all turns on the whims and vibes of supposedly centrist commentators who have no sense of threat and mistake contrarianism for truth-to-power.
14 replies 25 reposts 148 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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Why are most US political journalists so utterly brainfucked? It's literally maddening to watch ceaseless and total coverage of Biden's supposed need to resign because old when (a) that is campaign suicide and (b) whatever shape he's in, his opponent will drag the US into serious autocratic decline.
1 replies 4 reposts 16 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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To whom are you referring?
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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I'm back in Melbourne and I am so tired. I also wish I'd given myself an extra week in Israel. What a complex mix of feelings it was to be there. I'm very grateful to the political science dept at TAU for hosting me and to the friends and new contacts who gave me their time.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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In the UK, you're a border warder as well as an instructor. International students attendance must be documented per Home Office rules.
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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It's strange for a legal expert to see the main problem here as being constitutionalism itself rather than the corruption of the SCOTUS
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Pwnallthethings
@pwnallthethings.bsky.social
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Not that anyone particularly cares about original meaning, but think folks should still say it out loud: For all of the things that are unclear in the founding documents and unknowabilities of what the Founders intended, "the President can kill anyone or commit a coup" was *never* legally arguable
19 replies 233 reposts 1173 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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Worth reflecting deeply on why the fiercest advocates for Zionism as a bulwark against antisemitism are also advocates for racialising Jews through legal chauvinism.
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Rima I Anabtawi
@rimaanabtawi.bsky.social
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Israel Prison Service releases Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital director, far-right ministers throw tantrum over decision made by their own government
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
2 replies 7 reposts 18 likes
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Erin A. Snider
@erinsnider.bsky.social
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Utterly delusional on every front as this piece articulates well: “This [plan] is just the latest iteration. The idea in Israeli minds is that someone — the Arab states, the international community — will pay for it, & locals in Gaza will run it. But no one is biting,” the person added. menasky
0 replies 7 reposts 20 likes
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drow zelensky
@dov.bsky.social
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I'm sorry but I have met many racists and I do not believe a single one of them would be less racist if you gave them a UBI or a shorter workweek. Not one
16 replies 49 reposts 269 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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?
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Nonfic-Jen
@jenyetagain.bsky.social
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-From dawn to sundown Biden is reliably engaged, and this is when many public events in front of cameras are scheduled. - After sundown Biden lopes on all fours, sharpening his talons on the cobblestones as he lathers at the mouth and calls out mockingly to his prey, according to aides.
2 replies 23 reposts 136 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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I couldn't possibly disconnect over Shabbat but sometimes I wish
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Simon Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
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The militia situation here is generally pretty confined to specific space and the targets are so far usually not other Israelis. There's obviously a domestic terrorism risk in Israel but I'd say the US has a deeper problem. The comparison isn't terrible but I'd tread cautiously with it.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes