Sebas Veenstra

Links progressief, Veteraan. Geloof in energietransitie.

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

I wouldn’t be where I am today without the love and support that @MichelleObama has poured into me over the years. Her story — from her South Side roots to the White House and beyond — is a central part of the Obama Presidential Center.

[New Direction AFRICA @Its_ereko]

🚨 US Disrepects Africa’s Top Referee: Somalia Welcomes Him Home as a National Hero

Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan—2025 Africa Referee of the Year and the first Somali ever selected for a FIFA World Cup—arrived in Miami with a valid visa and diplomatic passport.

The response from US authorities? Turned away over vague, arbitrary “vetting concerns.” FIFA immediately fell in line and kicked him off the tournament. A lifetime dream shattered by blatant profiling.

But look at Mogadishu today. Flags flying high, massive crowds filling the streets, and pure national pride. A hero’s welcome for a man who earned his spot on the world stage through pure merit.

This is the exact same America that constantly lectures the world on “fair play,” “diversity,” and a “rules-based order.” Yet, the moment world-class African excellence shows up at their border, the gates slam shut.

No transparency. No respect for official state documents. Just another masking of systemic bias while they preach corporate inclusion to the masses.

Somalia showed dignity and solidarity. The world witnessed the double standards. Talent has no borders—but Western gatekeeping certainly does.

Stand with African excellence. Reject the hypocrisy.

[Hassan Mafi ‏ @thatdayin1992]

A blue whale's poop can weigh as much as 4 tonnes, making it the second largest piece of sh!t in the world just behind Donald Trump.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

Europe Wins Again. Obviously.

Armenia went to the polls yesterday. And the results are exactly what you’d expect if you’d been paying attention for the past five years, rather than wallowing in Kremlin nostalgia like a damp sock.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared victory on Monday, with his Civil Contract Party leading with 52.5% of the vote.  Armenia, a landlocked country the size of Belgium that Russia has spent decades treating as a vassal state, has looked at its options and made a decision that required roughly the same level of intellectual effort as choosing between a Michelin-starred restaurant and a skip fire.

They chose Europe.

This election was less a routine vote than a referendum on Pashinyan’s post-2020 course reducing dependence on Russia and moving toward an explicit European orientation. And Russia, naturally, did everything in its power to stop it. According to Reuters, citing Western intelligence officials, the election faced heavy Russian covert interference, including disinformation campaigns and a plan to transport Russian Armenians into Armenia to sway the vote. One analyst collective described it as one of the largest state-backed disinformation campaigns in modern European history. And Armenia still told them to get lost.

Putin had already warned Armenia it would face economic consequences for drifting westward, and introduced restrictions on Armenian agricultural exports in the weeks before the vote.  Threats, propaganda, economic blackmail. The full Russian toolkit. Result: irrelevant.

Now, Trump, Tucker Carlson and JD Vance would like you to believe that Russia represents some superior civilisational model. A proud, white, Christian fortress holding the line against the Muslim hordes supposedly swamping Europe. It is a compelling narrative, in the same way that flat earth theory is compelling if you ignore every single fact available to you.

Here is one such fact: between 10 and 15 percent of Russia’s own population is Muslim. Tatars, Bashkirs, Chechens, Ingush, Dagestanis. Millions of them. Russia is, by its own demographic reality, a multi-ethnic, multi-faith state with a larger Muslim population than most of Western Europe. But you’re not supposed to know that. It complicates the story.

Meanwhile, the Muslim share of the EU population sits at around 5 percent. But the Tucker Carlsons of the world need you frightened, so the numbers get quietly shuffled off stage.

So Armenia joins the queue. Behind Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and every Eastern European country that isn’t currently run by a Slovak who seems to have wandered in from a Moscow focus group. The pattern is not subtle. Every country that has actually experienced Russian influence in practice is sprinting in the opposite direction. The only nation currently moving toward Russia’s orbit is the United States, which managed to elect a man whose foreign policy instincts were apparently shaped by a property developer’s admiration for strongmen with good buildings.

The world watches America and hopes it finds its way back. Most people think it will. Eventually. The damage, however, is already considerable, and democracy, like a soufflé, does not always survive rough handling.

Armenia made its choice. The right one. Obviously.

Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

What the EU Did to Poland and the Baltics
I think the most underreported story in global economics is what European integration has done to the countries that were once the Soviet Union’s western margin.

In 2004, Poland joined the European Union. Its unemployment rate was around 20 percent. It was a middle-income country with serious structural problems and a GDP that reflected the grey inheritance of central planning.

Twenty years later, its GDP has passed one trillion dollars, having roughly tripled between accession and 2020 alone.

A new study from the Polish Economic Institute found that Poland’s economy is 42 percent larger than it would have been had it not joined the EU.

https://t.co/aSOsD7rGqm

[Rohoza (Дев'ятий) Mykhailo 🇺🇦🇱🇹🇨🇦 @Oct7NeverForget]

"AND YOU STILL HAVE THE NERVE TO OPEN YOUR MOUTH..."

Too sharp not to share.

This Australian's response to Trump's rant that "NATO doesn't exist for America" is perfect:

"Mate,

You run a country where 600,000 homeless people will sleep on the streets tonight.

A country where 40% of adults can't cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money.

A country where insulin costs more than a car payment, and people ration it just to stay alive.

A country where medical debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy.

A country where women die in hospital parking lots because doctors are too afraid of abortion laws to treat miscarriages.

You imprison more of your own citizens than any other country on Earth.

More than China.

More than Russia.

More than North Korea.

In the land of the free, 2 million people are held in cages, and a quarter of them haven't even been convicted of anything.

They're just too poor to make bail.

Your life expectancy is falling. You're the only developed country where that's happening.

Your infant mortality rate is higher than Cuba's.

Your children practice active-shooter drills between math and English classes while you sell gun stocks to your friends.

Your minimum wage hasn't changed in 15 years...

You have teachers working two jobs, veterans sleeping under bridges, and you've just spent a trillion dollars flattening a country that never attacked you.

And a convicted criminal, found liable in a rape case, defending a pedophile, sleeping with a porn star, and leading the biggest dumpster-fire campaign since the Taliban, thanks you for yet another failure.

And you're calling Greenland poorly governed?

Greenland has universal healthcare.

Free education.

One of the lowest incarceration rates in the world.

Nobody goes bankrupt because they got sick.

Nobody dies in a waiting room because their insurance company said no.

'NATO wasn't there when we needed them.'

When exactly was that, champ?

September 11?

Because NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in its history for you.

Soldiers from dozens of countries deployed, fought, bled, and died in Afghanistan for you.

Australia wasn't even in NATO, and we still showed up.

For twenty years.

And then you left at two in the morning without telling anyone and left them to clean up the mess.

You don't care that a great nation is being terrorized by your friend. You haven't shown it a shred of sympathy.

So maybe, before you start calling other countries poorly governed, take a look at your own backyard, you aluminum-siding salesman with a spray tan.

The only thing being poorly managed in this picture is your damn mouth.

And you still have the nerve to lecture everyone else?"

[Харківська Нишпорка @ne_vluchiv]

The bus was a mobile drone operator's center.
How do we know that?
- we knew russian equip civilian busses like this, because they politely share video proofs.
- those buses have black military plates, which was carefully removed from both sides before using it for propaganda.💁‍♂️

[Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en]

The moment of one of today’s Russian strikes on Kyiv.

I can see that fewer and fewer people are reading news from Ukraine. I understand that on a Sunday morning, people don’t want to read about war. They want to sleep a little longer, drink good coffee, and sit in the sun. I understand that. The algorithms on X limit content about war, destruction, and suffering. You have to make an effort to even see this information.

All of this is understandable on a human level. But unfortunately, if you remove Putin and the war from your information feed, they do not disappear from reality.

Putin is a sadist and a maniac. He is a threat to all of humanity.

There needs to be active resistance. News from Ukraine needs to be shared. People need to keep their focus.

Despite a sleepless night, I’m still here. And I’m grateful to everyone who continues to stand with us.

One day, we’ll drink morning coffee together in a beautiful, peaceful Kyiv.

[Sebas Veenstra @VeenstraSebas]

@Friyaneb 1/2

[Sebas Veenstra @VeenstraSebas]

@Arden_2210 7

[Sebas Veenstra @VeenstraSebas]

@Beno10_MFC 1

[Sebas Veenstra @VeenstraSebas]

@secretsqrl123 Too late — the point of irreparable damage has already been reached.

Not curious about what instructions Trump may have received from Putin?

Quite a coincidence that he is now announcing a troop reduction without informing the Pentagon.

[Sebas Veenstra @VeenstraSebas]

@LucasSa56947288 Today

[Oorlog-monitor 🇳🇱❤️🇺🇦 @oorlog_monitor]

Links zie je Matteo Salvini van de Italiaanse Lega partij. Een radicaal rechtse partij. Hij staat in Moskou op het Rode Plein in een Putin shirt. Rechts zie je een van zijn fans. Geert #Wilders. Salvini is net als Orban en Fico fan van Putin. Wilders is bevriend met alledrie. 1+1=?

[Lucas Sanders 👊🏽🔥🇺🇸 @LucasSa56947288]

This is awesome! 👏🏽 Who made this? 🤣

[Franky & Coen @FrankyandCoen]

Door de ogen van Franky

''In een land hier heel ver vandaan is het nog een beetje oorlog''

Jongens, wat was er veel groot nieuws de afgelopen week. Onze koning was in Amerika en at een hamburger. PSV werd kampioen. En in mijn eigen Helmond bleek iemand al jaren te frauderen met dezelfde parkeerkaart.

Grote verhalen. Grote koppen.
Logisch dat er dan weinig ruimte overblijft voor bijzaken. Zoals een oorlogje in Europa.

Vorige week liep ik door een horecagroothandel. Een man en vrouw spraken me aan.
“Jij bent toch een van die frietbakkers uit Oekraïne?”

“Klopt,” zei ik, “ik ben hier inkopen doen voor onze volgende reis.”
“Oh… ga je daar nog steeds naartoe? Zo ver weg?”
“Is daar nog steeds oorlog?”

Ik dacht even dat ik het niet goed hoorde.
“Jazeker,” zei ik. “Echt waar?” zei de vrouw.
“Daar hoor je niks meer van.”
En toen kwam hij met:
“Maar niet zo erg meer toch? Het is nog maar een beetje oorlog toch?”

Een beetje oorlog. Omdat we er minder over horen.
Omdat het geen groot nieuws meer is.

Laten we het eens klein maken. Gewoon even rekenen. In dit land in Europa, misschien wel minder ver van huis dan waar u met de caravan komende zomer naartoe op vakantie gaat:

Ongeveer 1.000 tot 1.300 russische slachtoffers per dag, dat is 30.000 tot 40.000 per maand.
Aan Oekraïense kant zo'n 10.000 tot 20.000.
Bij elkaar zo’n 40.000 tot 60.000 dode en gewonde slachtoffers per maand.

Elke dag dik meer dan duizend mensen. Elke dag.
Dat is elke dag een volledig dorp.
Dat zijn niet alleen cijfers. Dat zijn echte mensen.

En dat zijn alleen nog maar de militairen. Dan hebben we het nog niet eens over burgers. Burgers in het frontgebied worden niet eens geteld.

Maar gelukkig horen we er weinig meer over, over dat beetje oorlog heel ver weg.

Dat stelt gerust, toch?

#oorlog #oekraine #help #Steun
#war #ukraine #support
#StandWithUkraine

[Sebas Veenstra @VeenstraSebas]

@ahmetgemici2990 .

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

Is this real?

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

I’ve been following this for weeks, and I think something fundamental shifted last week.

Europe is quietly drafting a fallback plan to run NATO’s military structures without the United States.

Air defense, logistics, Baltic reinforcement corridors. The full package.

The Wall Street Journal has the details, but I’ve believed for months this moment was coming.

Germany dropping its opposition was the turning point. When Berlin moves, Europe moves.

I think that’s the single most important development in European defense this year.

Rutte came back from Washington calling the alliance “more European-led.” He didn’t say much else about how the meeting went.

Nobody did.

Word is Trump was furious, complained throughout, and the whole thing went out the window before it started.

My read: the U.S. is heading for the exit with its tail between its legs.

Trump called NATO a “paper tiger” and threatened withdrawal over Europe’s refusal to back U.S.-Israeli operations against Iran.

A 2023 law requires a Senate supermajority to actually pull out. But I don’t think the Europeans are waiting to find out.

They’re not asking Washington anymore.

They’re planning around it.

Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[Sebas Veenstra @VeenstraSebas]

@WHLeavitt Kaifeng (619)”, een van de Luda-klasse destroyers🤷‍♂️