John Fowler
@johnsnonsense
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Founder @intintrigue - subscribe for free 👇 Former diplomat in China & international lawyer.
New York, USA
Joined February 2009
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Pretty wild to be featured in the
@FinancialReview
. Many thanks to
@hansvan333
for the write-up that distilled the essence of what we're trying to build
@intintrigue
. Thanks to
@aine_stapleton
&
@calvi_vale
for being brave enough to join the 🚀!
Helen Zhang and John Fowler hope to turn their irreverent, meme- and GIF-filled daily newsletter into a new model for a media platform.
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@3YearLetterman
@maduro_en
@ModeloOnSolana
@MedievalTimes
@BenihanaUK
@JDVance
@IKEA
@ewarren
@NativeGiving
@jiffylube
@Whitesnake
Agree Coach. Modelo is weak and watery and has no place in the American imagination.
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Luckily, Mr Musk is known for his thick skin and ability to contextualise criticism.
Was at the Dave Chapelle show at SF tonight and who comes on but Elon Musk!
A good 80% of the stadium boos. 18k people. and he withers. Like absolutely turns into a corncob.
“What should I say??” He says
Dave tries to salvage the situation but to no avail
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Can confirm this happened to me a few months after leaving Shanghai and the foreign service.
How China Uses LinkedIn to Recruit Spies Abroad
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I increasingly think the time has come for western leaders to politically prepare their populations for war. Putin's bluff needs to be called. I hope it stops far short of western involvement, but the longer we openly signal we're terrified of war, the longer this goes on. 1/4
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Now, I wonder why that might be... googles Switzerland's most famous industry that isn't watches.
BREAKING: Switzerland defies the Western consensus by refusing to sanction Russia but insists it will not facilitate violations of EU sanctions
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@joshrogin
It's very noticeable but I think it's more a dodged bullet than missed opportunity. Not sure Dems want to highlight the state of the world or US foreign policy choices right now regardless of the other guy's takes
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I agree!
Of course it’s unrealistic, it’s TV. If it was realistic, it would internecine bickering over a passive aggressive email from Sue in consular.
It’s a fun show, gets a bunch of stuff broadly right, and it has Keri Russell. ✅ ✅ ✅
As a former U.S. diplomat, I really enjoyed
#TheDiplomat
on
@netflix
.
I’ve seen some reviews criticizing the unrealistic aspects of the show. Sure. But I actually think it gets a lot right. Here are my thoughts: (a🧵)
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A noticeable contrast between Putin's rambling paranoid soliloquy and Biden's tight five announcing sanctions.
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This is wild. Just think about what you’re watching here.
At today's security council meeting, Lukashenko showed what looks like an actual invasion map. It shows Ukraine military facilities destroyed by missiles from Belarus, attacks directions (everything agrees except Odessa-Transnistria). Also, Ukraine is divided into 4 sectors.
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It's cold realpolitik from a messenger you may not like, but when you're right, you're right.
From Mitch McConnell:
"No Americans are getting killed in Ukraine. We're rebuilding our industrial base. The Ukrainians are destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that. I think it's wonderful that they're defending
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@KevinRothrock
I think that's the problem - it's based on a false assumption that depriving Russians = depriving westerners. Most of my Russian friends' parents have the attitude of 'we got through x so we can get through y', which is about as far away from mass movement as you can get.
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Nice example of an excellent Twitter use case - the excellent
@EpsilonTheory
helping elected officials get to the bottom of SBF fraud.
Okay! I’ve already heard from one staffer for a House Financial Services member saying they’ll incorporate these questions. Let’s keep it going!
Spread the word and let’s take these frauds down. All of them!
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Yes I'm aware this isn't LinkedIn but I can't help myself:
We've hit 1.5 million impressions on the International Intrigue newsletter in 2023!
Pretty proud of the
@intintrigue
team. 👏
Humblebrag over, quick
@Dicker_JJ
time for a palate cleansing meme.
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I honestly hate this 'only one man alone can do it' bs.
4/Elon is the one person we know and perhaps the only person in the world who has the courage, brilliance, and skills to fix all of these and build the public square that we all hoped for and deserve.
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@dex_eve
@MenshevikM
Exactly this. Forget Putin, I'll bet not a single western analyst would have put this reaction as well as the fierceness of the Ukrainian resistance on their bingo cards.
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@DmitryOpines
@marceldirsus
Completely agree. Bet he wants a redo on the we'll be in Kyiv in time for tea chapter of the planning booklet.
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I’ll believe there’s a pivot to Asia when China is the enemy in spy films.
The enemy is still Russia as far as Hollywood can tell, and they’ve always been pretty good takers of the American pulse.
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Thinking like this is my chief worry. It’s not that I don’t get it - I’d love to destroy Russia’s military capability for generations. But it never ends up like you hope - real risk of near term escalation and long term “Weimar-ing”.
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@christinelu
@chen_yenhan
Compelling stuff - it's the brandishing the ladle in a revolutionary war pose at the end for me.
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@Noahpinion
I lived there for 3+ years. It's a great city in some ways but Balaji has no clue what he's on about. The building in China isn't startups, it's debt-laden local gov infrastructure. Unless he's suggesting getting funding for startup to sink 2 subway lines/yr for the next decade..
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Great thread. Militaries fight wars based on what people thirty years ago thought they’d need to beat the enemy they thought they’d have to fight.
There's a "We have to defeat China" debate that is tied to the "we need to revamp the Navy" debate in a way that is fundamentally disconnected from the time window where our intelligence and military leadership says we need to be prepared to fight China. The timelines are wonky.
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"Unfortunately, the scholar appeared to enjoy the rare treat of having a captive audience interested in his work, and eventually officers returned to their station confused, tired and more than a little unsure of their place in their world".
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A really, REALLY important point that is almost always missed. You don't sell papers/get scholarships/sound smart at a party if you say: "it depends on these unknowable variables, but I think this might be the least bad option, though let me stress I'm not sure.".
@AzureStriker
FP is almost always choosing the least bad of a bunch of shitty options
The idea that there's a magical perfect and easy solution to all problems if only the idiots in DC would seize it is a myth certain corners of the chattering class like to tell themselves
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Honestly, I respect Canadian foreign policy. From the Meng saga, to announcing this Indian assassination when most would keep it highly classified, I get the impression when faced with hard decisions they choose honesty. Maybe they're naive, or maybe I am, or both, but its fresh.
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It's time to remove the guardrails from that possibility. The nuclear question remains of course, so I understand why ppl disagree. I'm not advocating for western involvement, just for politicians to prepare ppl for that possibility - to give Putin something new to factor in. 4/4
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Like he's spent a year journeying up the Amazon and is presenting his findings to the Royal Society.
Budapest is one of the tourist capitals of Europe my guy.
Kind of remarkable how easily suckered some people are
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The longer we try to help in a 'clean' way - ie. letting Ukrainians bear the civilisational trauma of what is becoming a giant proxy war - the more this convinces others that the West is all decadent money talk and no substance. Which is Putin's calculation of course. 2/4
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I spent a fair bit of time in meetings with CCP officials about climate change. Couldn't agree more with this thread.
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Can confirm it's brutal and I just need to renew a visa.
Thread. My goodness what a broken system, harming tens of thousands of innocent people and the US economy more broadly.
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@thechrisbuskirk
I've not seen a single msm narrative that says Ukraine has air superiority. Not a single one. It's honestly like you checked Twitter on the first day of the war, went out to lunch, came back and tweeted this straw man nonsense.
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Ah the old 'Look a Squirrel!' tactic from Command & Conquer Red Alert. 🙄
We should promptly start large NATO exercises in the Baltic States and the Far East, to draw Putin's forces away from Ukraine.
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@Noahpinion
Or the classic "I just can't understand why they vote against their best interests" line that I hear so regularly.
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Honestly, if that's a John Deere the US has already been in this war for days.
Watching videos of Ukrainian farmers stealing Russian military equipment worth tens of millions of pounds - in this case a Tor-M2 SAM system - will absolutely never get old.👇🇺🇦
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Putin and Kherson, SBF and FTX, Trump and the midterms, Musk and this app...
This week the tide went out and we found out who's been swimming without their drawers.
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@GabrielFox_1
@BaldingsWorld
You don't contribute to a debate by saying "why don't you do it". If I tweeted I believe the police should arrest criminals would you respond 'look forward to seeing you join the police'? Like, the reason I work & pay taxes is partly to fund a military to ensure our security.
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Israel blew up an Iranian consulate, undoubtedly pricing in an Iranian response. No, Iran's telegraphed response wasn't a declaration of war.
Yes, I think a large Israeli response now would be a blunder and yes, for better or worse, this is how international politics works.
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@dieworkwear
I wore a tie every day for a decade - loved it. One of the few chances men get to be creative with work attire. Also convinced anyone who says ties are uncomfortable should stop wearing their high-school formal shirt. Your top button shouldn't pinch your double chin my man.
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The brilliant
@MikeHilliardAus
,
@AndrewJEaddy
and I will be giving folks at the NATO Youth Summit a few tools to quickly debunk most ‘fake news’.
If you’re so inclined, you can join as a virtual delegate and hear from an impressive lineup of speakers.
The
#NATOYouthSummit
will features a training course on 'Verifying
#OSINT
' by
@MikeHilliardAus
@TheRedLinePod
,
@AndrewJEaddy
@GeovaneVideo
@ThirdImageMedia
,
@johnsnonsense
@intintrigue
. Join as a Virtual Delegate:
@internationalwm
@NATO
#FakeNews
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@Iron_Man_Actual
The spraying stuff down is really odd, but in my experience, once the CCP has issued guidance, it's almost impossible to reverse it. 'You know that stuff we told you to do in April 2020? Turns out we were wrong' is politically impossible.
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I promise you business schools really do think they're unlocking the secrets to the universe.
Could McKinsey have helped write Seinfeld is the absolute least of the nonsense.
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Personal announcement: I typed a bunch of political tweets pretty buzzed and instead of hitting send I deleted them and put my phone away. Thank you all for making this moment possible.
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@uamemesforces
@eric_hontz
If he Xi hates being called Winnie the Pooh so much he should stop looking and sitting EXACTLY like him.
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Who cares what the Dem base thinks? Who cares what the LGBTQIA advocates think? Who cares what rally goers think?
This election will turn on a couple hundred thousand voters in six states and NOT a one of them saw last nights debate and said yep that's my guy up there.
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Also, why are the R's disobeying Trump here so easily and freely but not on Ukraine/border bill and other bipartisan-ish issues?
🚨House Republicans intend to fast-track the TikTok bill and bring it up for a vote on Wednesday
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Bahahaha, I did not see that twist coming 🤣 As if I could love Russell Crowe any more.
Now that I'm a civilian again, I can finally share the ridiculous but true story of when I met
@russellcrowe
(Russell this one reflects on me, not you 🙂).
It was a balmy 2005 spring in Glebe, the grungy corner of Sydney where I lived while studying at
@Sydney_Uni
...
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Sure, it's niche. But this is all time.
Of course that's your contention. You're a 1st year trainee on the China desk. You're in some thinktank doom loop & so naturally that's what you believe until next month, when the embassy hosts you to a 4 hour banquet and you stagger out convinced the West is in terminal decline.
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DALL-E's 'Australian diplomat' is actually a Qantas hostie from the early 2000s.
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@LuisMorenolg
Agree but if you sift through the noise there's also a ton of excellent analysis. Twitter has always been about doing the work to uncover the gold, it's just buried under a much bigger pile of shit these days.
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I've never been more wrong, more quickly. What a week.
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We're popping this one up on the
@intintrigue
mantlepiece!
What an absolute delight to talk with one of the best defence/military communicator in the world. Lovely bloke too!
Go grab
@WarintheFuture
's book White Sun War 👇 and give him a follow for his incredible tweet threads
A great conversation about the future of conflict and my new book, White Sun War (from
@casematepub
) on the
@intintrigue
podcast. Thank you to
@EthanPlotkin_
for the opportunity to talk.
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Watching Russian media portrayal of the war, the effect of sanctions, attempted reconstitution of Ru forces, & military analysts' takes, there seems to be no real chance Putin will sue for peace in near future. He knows right now war is politically impossible for the west. 3/4
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I call it "pre-bunking" or the Bill Burns doctrine.
I spoke about this w/ Andrew Nichols
@CBCNews
on Friday.
It's a US-led effort to counter misinfo/overload of info around conflicts.
It pre-bunked Putin's invasion & has arguably deterred Hezbollah/Iran from wider attacks.
This is the second major example after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine of the USA and partners declassifying intelligence to warn of imminent warfare.
A new era in which transparency is harnessed as a strength to drive the allied alignment that underpins democratic resilience.
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Biden will be the only leader of a P5 nation to speak at UNGA next week. Putin won't be there for obvious reasons & Xi is terrified of any environment he can't control. But if Macron & Rishi can't be faffed then we need to chat about why the UK & France get a veto on the UNSC.
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Just asked GPT-4 to analyse
@intintrigue
's writing style. Take a bow
@calvi_vale
@EthanPlotkin_
@Dicker_JJ
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Incredible. Qin Gang now Li. There were always rumours around Li, though.
There are clearly HUGE ructions behind the scenes in Beijing. That they’re not really public is a decent proxy for Xi not being in trouble.
What is prompting this, and why now?
BREAKING: The Financial Times reports that US officials believe that Chinese defence minister Li Shangfu, who has not been seen in public for two weeks, has been placed under investigation.
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Introducing todays winner.
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If the Democrats don't have an open convention they're negligent. Regardless of your politics, you should want a competitive election between two rational, capable people.
Biden has been a great public servant but it's outrageous to think he can do the hardest job in the world.
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Good read. I will say we had a lot of convos about this & mostly decided we didn't care. Stuff like this sends internal signals in the Chinese system so you could guess how they felt by the way snr officials acted, but we (w some exceptions) chose not to waste time being offended
How China honors and dishonors other countries through state media presentation of visits:
PHOTO ON LEFT
-The highest ranked (supreme leader Xi) meeting with and shaking hands with the lower ranked (Foreign Minister Lavrov) (+1 honor)
-Xi moves to meet Lavrov rather than waiting
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@DavidPriess
Putin wins this thread, but only Rhodes has made a career out of saying he had access to it.
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My MBA classmates got sick of (and potentially offended by) me opining that top tier consulting is basically senior execs paying to outsource the decisions they’re already overpaid to make.
That McKinsey is being blamed for the wildly optimistic CNN+ subscriber projections is a good insight into why companies hire McKinsey
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@DavidSacks
I enjoy listening to the pod, largely cos it's great to have smart people disagreeing. Love your insights on finance/tech.
But I beg you all get an expert on for this stuff. Can be a contrarian, an outcast, but someone who doesn't think Putin say he'll negotiate is an off ramp.
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The most succinct summary of how China views all of this. You don’t really need to know much more.
Can you help me fight your friend so that I can concentrate on fighting you later?
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The only way this could be better is if
@DmitryOpines
joined the good ship Intrigue.
You'll just have to settle for the next best thing: the restart of our chit chats on all things geopolitics on Thursday.
🚨 Big news:
@Dicker_JJ
has joined
@intintrigue
!
JD previously served as a diplomat in 🇺🇸 🇵🇪 🇲🇽
Fun fact: he received Peru’s Presidential 🏅 for Distinguished Service.
Funner fact: the same President was charged with corruption not long after (JD swears this is a coincidence)
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There's something to this
This is what happens when you design entire IR curriculums and just absolutely neglect military history. I don’t need everyone to be an ops expert, but theres a lot more to it than ships and nukes and we have deprived an entire generation of policy folks from that basic knowledge
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Upon hearing of his promotion, Australia's Deputy Ambassador to Andorra, Bob "Chuckles" Smith, could barely contain his joy.
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I swear takes like this do my head in.
And because I hate cryptic tweets: no one outside Zhongnanhai knows about this and all the speculation does Xis work for him - ambiguity until Ukraine plays out so he can take advantage of whatever the result is.
Whoa. This is important. When Xi issued his statement of support for Putin before the invasion, he may have been tricked into thinking Putin wouldn't invade.
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I'm going to retweet the best tweet I find saying this same damn thing every day because I'm worried too many politicians are getting their ideas from this website.
I know this will be unpopular and is deeply frustrating given the ongoing Russian atrocities in Mariupol, Kharkiv and other cities in
#Ukraine
. But since it is still being pushed:
A Ukraine No-Fly Zone Would be Ineffective, Dangerous and a Gift to Putin
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Between hot takes about Zelensky from sons who were never loved, tech bros insisting ChatGPT will reshape civilisation by March or at *latest* April, and Musk, my Twitter timeline is purest sewerage today.
Try again tomorrow ✌️
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@expatua
Russian troops from Transnistria, Black Sea Fleet, or anyone else seems highly unlikely. Bombing bridges to make supply chains longer/more fragile might be the more likely reason.
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Twitter is very group-thinky right now. Everything is (rightly) pro-Ukraine, optimistic about its chances.
I hope as much as anyone that Russia is soundly defeated and Putin sent to hell, but I suspect we're not getting a balanced picture of what's actually going on.
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Diplomacy isn't about wealth, or fame, or power.
It's about redrafting a single transactional email for long enough that it gets you through to lunchtime.
Diplomacy isn’t about wealth, or fame, or power.
It’s about getting your boss promoted.
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Even though i can't vote and like to remain apolitical, THIS IS MY PRESIDENT
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What's the one rule of China watching? Say it with me: never believe western reporting based on 'leaks'.
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@3YearLetterman
@RobertKennedyJr
@wormfare
@dennisrodman
@carmenelectra
@SonnysBBQ
@MelloYello
@MiaK_FC
@JeffreyToobin
@Skittles
@Whitesnake
Kamala Harvest made me snort. Thank you Coach.
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This is true. But it's bad news for India in a broader sense because more people will start to put India under Modi in a similar bucket to Russia/China/Saudi et al. The last thing India wants is to become a domestic political issue in the US.
India has virtually nothing to worry about after today’s explosive news. Reality is DC needs New Delhi far more than other way around due to Biden admin’s Indo-Pacific strategy to counter China. But US leeway isn’t unlimited and more bad behavior could chip away at recent gains.
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@JacobShap
Point 2 is key. Iran is deeply threatened by the changing ME dynamics and this is their Hail Mary. Israel obvs can’t do nothing, but I hope that Israel/US diplos are furiously working phones to get at least acquiescence from Egypt/Saudi/Gulf on what comes next.
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I just stumbled across the fact that Sepp Blatter is from Visp, a tiny Swiss town in the alps, and Gianni Infantino is from Brig, a tiny Swiss town in the alps, and just one town over from Visp. WTF? Is there a giant lair of evil high in the alps as I’ve always suspected?
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Bollocks the size of melons.
Remarkable to see politicians act like heroes, unfathomable in Aus/UK
Zelensky posts a video with top aides + his prime minister, apparently from above ground in Kyiv.
“We are all here, our soldiers are here … we are defending our independence”
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I cannot tell how hard this hits, from every angle.
11/10 content from our resident meme lord.
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"The only way to make money is bundling and unbundling."
Congrats to
@SwapstackHQ
and
@beehiiv
.
@intintrigue
loves Beehiiv and I'm excited to see what
@denk_tweets
and the team do with this new ammo.
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@LPWhisperer
Those of us in the media start up land can spot an "aggressively growth hacked" aka shit quality list a mile away. Nice to hear there are some consequences for pumping and dumping in this industry because it hurts those of us building quality audiences the hard way.
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@PGourevitch
Walz gives me Tim Kaine vibes w maybe a few more points of charisma. Kelly looks like he’s got some China vetting issues
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To be clear this thread is *not* about free speech and it's eye opening how few people really grasp what free speech means.
It is however a thread full of Elon being a total d***.
Elon Musk keeps tweeting that he loves free speech. So here's a thread with just a few of the countless examples showing he couldn't care about it less (🧵)
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We weren’t sure there was life after the foreign service for a while there
@pepeotegui
but thanks to support from folks like you we’ve able to build something meaningful. And we’re just getting started 🚀
Congrats to
@johnsnonsense
,
@Dicker_JJ
and the whole
@intintrigue
team for this amazing milestone! Just goes to show there's life after diplomacy after all 😉
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Now, I wonder who has form in this particular area of expertise.
WSJ: Russian Oligarch Roman Abramovich, Ukrainian Peace Negotiators Suffer Symptoms of Suspected Poisoning
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