Laura Callendar

🎥WHO PLACED THE BET? Someone just made a killing with an extraordinarily well-timed bet on financial markets, minutes before Donald Trump's announcement of war talks yesterday. Was it luck, or inside information? Either way... someone just got rich. Four min primer👇

GB News, the channel of “reactionary rage bait”, has filed its latest accounts, showing a £22m loss for 2024/25 (and a £131m total loss since launch) Yet another demonstration that there’s no shortage of funds on the right of British politics, says @WritesBright 🧵1/6

I read it. And I'll engage here in good faith. But before I get into substance, I implore you to open the window, touch grass, and let yourself connect with the reality of what’s happening right now. This is a world historical moment. Please recognize what ICE is at this time, what it’s doing, and what it really means for your company, Palantir, to be supporting them with targeting and surveillance technologies that aid their attacks on freedom, liberty, and the constitution. Now to the substance of your post. I’ll address the three key claims you make in defense of your work with ICE: 1. The post spends a lot of time pushing back on the claim that Palantir is building a “master database.” But in my view this is a red herring. It’s an easy claim to rebut. For one, because there’s no technical definition of “master database” and whether you are building one or not is beside the point. Indeed, injecting multiple data sources from disparate databases that are then processed and synthesized by your system doesn’t require One Big Database. The effect—synthesizing data in service of creating target lists of people in the US—is the same, whether or not this is All of the Data. And that’s the problem, not the size and the scope of a given database. 2. On claims that ICE is using Palantir’s ELITE tool—which shows ICE a map with addresses and other information about people to deport or otherwise menace—you claim that this is not “the purpose of this tool.” I can only read this pushback as cringe ‘neutrality washing.’ Especially in the context of the current moment, it takes a lot of contorting to say this as if it exculpates you. There are hundreds of court orders being disobeyed by ICE; people are being summarily shot in the street and otherwise menaced and brutalized for exercising basic constitutional rights—the first amendment high on the list. Not to mention that whatever the tools’ ‘purpose’ as your engineers imagined it at a whiteboard in a clean office somewhere, 404 media reports ICE officers discussing their use of the tool in exactly the way you say it’s not meant to be used. It also seems clear that many at your company know this, and are upset about it, as recent whistleblowing revealing internal dissent about contracts with ICE shows. 3. Similarly, you point to your tool’s “indelible audit log” as a feature that makes it, implicitly, more safe and lawful. But, just like body cams, the question is not whether it has this audit capacity. The question is what mechanisms exist to ensure this capacity is used to discipline misuse? Whom, in particular, can access such a log? Who’s auditing? God? The referee? In the context of the evidenced lawlessness, and lack of accountability, this reads as an almost intellectually insulting claim. Again, this is a grim and critical moment. I know you and a lot of people are probably scared, feeling some “am I the baddie?” tremors at the level of your core identity. I know this is hard! But as someone who claims to love privacy and liberty, I invite—implore!—you to find the courage of your convictions and at least sit quietly and consider what this work is really supporting.

wrote about the much-deserved death knell of the world's worst architecture project for @thenation thenation.com/article/world/…

Named: 50 ‘experts’ and linked brands publishers should treat with extreme caution! pressgazette.co.uk/news/named-50-…

Amazing opportunity!! Ealing has been successful in gaining a Venice Art Biennale fellowship for one young creative🎉 The winner will work at the British Pavilion for a month🎨 Deadline: 28 November Find out more⬇️ ealingculture.org/news/only-coun…

New upheld complaint against Express website added: Express rapped by IPSO over inaccurate headlines nine times in 2025 so far pressgazette.co.uk/news/express-r…

This is a fun one. I love Roy Ayers, but Bryce Elder nails the vibe and the tune for me #addtoplaylist

4/ Depoliticising distress as always an individual issue (to be fixed with therapy or meds) rather than a systemic issue (to be fixed with social policy) has led many to chase self & identity reform (as a solution) over collective & structural social change. This exonerates...

The infamous Hitler salute was one of the key visual symbols of Nazism. This salute, ingrained in history as a representation of oppression, dehumanization, violence, and unimaginable suffering and murder, is far more than a physical gesture; it’s a reminder of a dark era of humanity, defined by antisemitism and other ideologies of hatred. It is an emblem of the Holocaust and other horrifying crimes perpetrated by Nazi Germany, along with such symbols as a swastika, a Totenkopf (death's head) or runes that shape the name of the SS. Sensitivity to these historical contexts is essential, as such gestures and symbols, even used unintended, resonate and evoke distress, particularly for those who bear the scars of that tragic history. In the picture: Inauguration of the SS hospital at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Our online lesson presents basic information about the Nazi ideology: lekcja.auschwitz.org/31_przygotowan…

Not a single Reform MP has bothered to turn up to today's House of Commons debate on tackling violence against women and girls

The director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), told Sky News: "The changes will affect a remarkably small number of some of the most valuable farms." "[Farms are] still more generously treated, actually, than farms used to be in decades past." bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

🔺EXCLUSIVE: King Charles and his eldest son make millions from feudal levies on schools, hospitals, homeowners and the very charities they represent, a joint investigation by The Sunday Times and @C4Dispatches reveals today #Echobox=1730563425-1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">thetimes.com/uk/royal-famil…

The richest man in the world: is one of the biggest political donors in the world. and one of the biggest government contractors in the world. while owning one of the biggest social media platforms in the word. While warning about a cabal of elites ruining the world.

NAILED IT: “So much for ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ ... This is the most hypocritical, chicken-shit move from a publication that is supposed to hold people in power to account.” theguardian.com/us-news/2024/o…

Jesus Christ

WTAF

I highlighted the Wembley fight as a case of Saudi sportswashing. And this is what happened next telegraph.co.uk/boxing/2024/09…

🧵 Europe Invasion Investigation 1/ We dug into Europe Invasion, a blue tick X account spreading disinformation, xenophobia, and Islamophobia. @elonmusk has boosted it several times, and police say its fake news helped spark the riots in the UK earlier this summer.

Saudi National anthem being performed In Wembley in a fight between two British boxers. #JoshuaDubois