🟠SettledElegantMess🟠

🌅On Gubbi Gubbi County 🌄 Au ContinentalGermanicCelt Heathen. Follower of the Old Gods, Wöðanaz, Raven & Ritual

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Jennifer Welch: “There’s a reason Israel wanted Donald Trump to be president. It’s because he’s weak, he has no principle, he doesn’t value human life, he’s so easy to manipulate. Donald Trump is a joke. Nobody takes him seriously. The Iranians don’t take him seriously, Israel doesn’t take him seriously, the American public doesn’t take him seriously, our allies do not take him seriously. He is a dementia duck fading to black”

[Elena @elenacute01]

He went down the scariest water slide in the world…

[Vfynn_🥷🏼 𐙚 @Vfynn_]

Zlatan Ibrahimovic on to Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell stakes in the FIFA World Cup:

🗣️ “Listen to me carefully, because most of these people in suits have never understood the game and never will.

They create a subsidiary. Call it FIFA Forward Enterprise. Keep majority control on paper. Sell 20% to investors who have never smelled grass. Then wave $20 million in front of every federation and pretend it’s democracy.

That is not structure. That is a magic trick for lawyers. FIFA keeps the majority. FIFA keeps the board. FIFA keeps “exclusive authority” over governance, the calendar, the rules, everything that sounds important on paper. The investors get no operational role. They are only buying a slice of the cash machine. FIFA even says the investors are buying into the subsidiary, not into FIFA itself, so “nothing changes.”

I have seen this movie before. Nothing changes… until the numbers start talking. Once private money owns a permanent piece of the World Cup’s revenue, the pressure never stops. More tournaments. Bigger formats. Different calendar. Different priorities. Because investors do not care about the soul of the game. They care about return. And when the federations are already bought with the $20 million “gift” and the bigger Forward payments, who exactly is going to say no?

This is the same FIFA that spent decades selling the World Cup under the table. I remember the 2015 arrests. Swiss police walking into the hotel in Zurich and taking officials out in the early morning. Racketeering. Bribes. Money laundering. Hundreds of millions paid for television rights, for marketing rights, for World Cup votes. South Africa 2010. Qatar. The whole circus under Blatter. Jack Warner. Chuck Blazer singing to the Americans. Blatter and Platini banned for that $2 million “gentlemen’s agreement” that suddenly appeared when it was convenient. The Ethics Committee, the indictments, the years of “we are cleaning the house.”

And now the house is cleaner, they say. Now instead of brown envelopes and secret payments, we have subsidiaries, minority non-controlling stakes, permanent capital vehicles, JPMorgan valuations, and carefully selected long-term partners. Same hunger for money. Same system of buying loyalty from the 211 associations. Only the language got more expensive.

Infantino stands there and talks about democracy and opportunity. I am Zlatan. I do not need the $20 million and I do not need the speech. Most of these federations do need the money. That is exactly why this structure is dangerous. You are not offering development. You are offering a transaction: take the cash, vote yes by September, and stay quiet while pieces of the World Cup become private equity assets.

Football does not belong to FIFA. FIFA belongs to football. The moment you put shareholders inside the commercial heart of the World Cup and call it progress, you have already admitted the game is for sale. They just found a prettier way to write the contract this time.

I played at the highest level. I saw real power and real money. This is neither. This is bureaucracy protecting itself while selling the one thing that still belongs to the people who actually love the game.

Keep your structure. Keep your valuations. Keep your minority non-controlling stakes. The World Cup was never meant to have owners in suits. It was meant to be bigger than all of you.

[Hey, Dave! @davegreenidge57]

Trump’s posted threat just caused Iran to cancel talks in Switzerland.

[Phil Stewart @phildstewart]

BREAKING - IRAN'S REVOLUTIONARY GUARD CORPS IRGC SAYS STRAIT OF HORMUZ IS CLOSED TO ALL VESSELS

IRAN'S IRGC WARNS VESSELS NOT TO APPROACH STRAIT OF HORMUZ, SAYS THEIR SECURITY WOULD OTHERWISE BE AT RISK -STATEMENT

IRAN'S IRGC NAVY CITES ISRAELI ACTIONS IN LEBANON, U.S. VIOLATION OF CEASEFIRE COMMITMENTS FOR STRAIT OF HORMUZ CLOSURE -STATEMENT

[Hugh Riminton @hughriminton]

When not even Fox can look away…

[Christopher Hale @ChristopherHale]

NEW: It appears that Marco Rubio might be trying to get a blessing from the Vatican to undertake military action in Cuba.

If true, it’s an absolutely wild gambit to try to preemptively silence Pope Leo XIV.

There’s no doubt a military operation in Cuba would be publicly and vigorously opposed by the first U.S.-born pontiff.
https://t.co/7ZtwPuffva

[Nina @ShakeLS]

How fucking magnificent is the Spencer tiara. So glorious. Meghan making a huge mistake. She should have stayed with her first choice to wear the Spencer tiara since the wedding gown was fitted for that. The connection and history would have been so epic.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

Thank you to @Keir_Starmer and the United Kingdom for tightening the grip on Russia's shadow fleet. Allowing British law enforcement to stop and detain sanctioned vessels is a timely move, particularly now, when global pressure on Russia is quietly loosening.

It is hardly a secret that Russia funnels illegal oil revenues directly into its war machine. Anything that cuts off that flow brings peace closer and makes Europe safer. Sanctioned tankers must be stopped, their oil seized. I thank JEF countries for their willingness to jointly inspect these vessels – and urge other European partners to follow.

[David Pocock @DavidPocock]

We’re seeing oil and gas prices skyrocket and have no mechanism to ensure Australians benefit from higher prices - we currently just get slugged with higher petrol and energy prices while gas companies make bank.

We can and should fix the broken PRRT that allows gas companies to book windfall profits while paying very little tax. It's time for a 25% tax on gas export revenue.

If the government won't do that they could at least introduce a windfall profits tax.
https://t.co/wudnTSrwir

[🟠SettledElegantMess🟠 @Lycra_Pluggers]

Horrible. For others to get caught up in one person’s Karma.

[Omne Europa @neolatyno]

Greenland, i think you can sleep tight 👍

[Dr. Ann Olivarius @AnnOlivarius]

Epstein Files Coverage Glossary Reminder:

"Underage woman" = a child.
"sex with underage women" = raping a child.
"barely legal" = nasty porn trope suddenly in circulation meant to normalise child abuse.

Children (still) can't consent to sex.

[Kelly @broadwaybabyto]

There’s no such thing as “barely legal” women.

There’s no such thing as “junior women”.

There’s no such thing as “mature minors”.

You can’t “have sex” with a child.

It’s rape.

The Epstein survivors were children who were raped.

Language matters.

[YourFavoriteGuy☭ @guychristensen_]

This is the man behind UpScrolled:

Issam Hijazi, a Palestinian Australian.

Israel took 60 family members from him in this genocide.

It pushed him to create this app.

Now it’s the fastest growing in the world and has all these billionaires afraid.

[Irish Unity 🇮🇪🇵🇸 @IrishUnity]

On this day 1988 - Burnum Burnum plants the Aboriginal flag at the cliffs of Dover, claiming England for the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, exactly 200 years after Arthur Phillip claimed Australia for the British.

#InvasionDay

[JayJay @JayJay91341991]

We stand with solidarity with First Nations people on Invasion Day.
We will never forget. 🖤💛❤️
#InvasionDay #Jan26

[0⚡7 @0_7_user]

Die Welt geht den Bach runter, weil zu viele Länder von Männer regiert werden, die im Knast sitzen sollten.

[Craig Foster @Craig_Foster]

This is timely for Australia, after recent years, months, days.

The Canadian PM says that ‘we knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused, and the victim.’

‘This fiction was useful’, he goes on to say, admits that Canada ‘participated in the rituals’, and ‘largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.’

This breakdown in international law has implications for Australia now, and in future, since no country will be constrained by a rules-based order that has no authority, no credibility, no consistency.

And we cannot continue to pretend to the world that we are fair, while showing that we are not.

That means rebuilding a genuine, equal system of State conduct in the only ways possible: through reform, consistent application, and a steadfast refusal to excuse any crimes.

Instead, we are criminalising people who point them out.

It’s a long and challenging path ahead to national integrity, consistency, credibility and security, sadly.

And we will certainly need a new generation of leaders.

With a brain, a heart and crucially, a backbone.

All three will be required to help Australia navigate a fast-changing world. And all three, are too rare.

[Morgan J. Freeman @mjfree]

BREAKING: Trump declares himself winner of all the 2028 Summer Olympic Gold medals.

[🟠SettledElegantMess🟠 @Lycra_Pluggers]

@ProjectLincoln 🤮