Frederick Deknatel
Journalist, fellow at Century International, editor of @Hidden-Cities.com hidden-cities.com
Previously: Founding executive editor, Democracy in Exile @dawnmenaorg.bsky.social; managing editor @wpr.bsky.social; staff editor @foreignaffairs.com
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- Among the emails: a 2009 missive in which Ross responded supportively when Epstein told him he was contemplating funding an art exhibition, tentatively titled “Statutory,” that would showcase underage models dressed to look older than they were. “You are incredible,” Ross said replying to the idea.
- “a very basic obligation of trial court judges is to decide cases—both those that are “political” and the many, many more that are not—according to objective facts. But for Trump judges, the only facts that matter are the ones that Trump authorizes them to believe.” @jaywillis.net
- How many of The Free Press’s investors and wealthy backers are listed in the Epstein files so far, I wonder?
- Marty Baron: “Bezos’s sickening efforts to curry favor with President Trump have left an especially ugly stain of their own. This is a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.” www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...
- Reposted by Frederick DeknatelAnother batch of Trump's judicial nominees refused in their confirmation hearings today to publicly acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, which annoyed Sen. Richard Blumenthal enough for him to call them "monkeys" and "puppets"
- Reposted by Frederick DeknatelKind of amazed she had it turned on? I only turn it on when I'm crossing borders or am visiting a country controlled by a repressive regime ahhh shit
- New from 404 Media: the FBI has been unable to get into the iPhone of raided Washington Post journalist because the phone had Lockdown Mode enabled. Apple markets Lockdown Mode mostly to stop spyware like NSO. Here, a real world example of it stopping access too www.404media.co/fbi-couldnt-...
- "Struggling to handle the downstream effects of President Trump’s immigration crackdown" is quite the euphemism for DOJ lawyers trying to defend lawless and unconstitutional actions by ICE, including defying court orders. www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...
- “This isn’t a tactical disagreement,” said @drhahellyer.bsky.social. “It’s a strategic split over what stability means in the Middle East.” www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/w...
- More Saudi investment in Syria, part of Sharaa's vision of using foreign investment (mostly Gulf money) to fund reconstruction — except how does a new private Syrian airline, or real estate "in the old towns," help house millions of displaced Syrians? www.reuters.com/world/middle...
- I'm no constitutional lawyer, but claiming a judicial warrant is a burdensome "new layer" of warrant requirement simply ignores the constitution. "We can't do that," Johnson says — "that" being uphold the 4th Amendment. Remember, this stems from ICE just asserting this authority in a secret memo.
- Just wait until they roll out Trump Ballots for the midterms — the only ballots that count.
- "Having been invited in 2010 to an Epstein dinner with Woody Allen and then Prince Andrew in New York, the magazine editor, Tina Brown, replied: 'What the fuck is this . . .? The paedophile’s ball?' Brown’s reaction should have been everyone’s." www.ft.com/content/3f82...
- Reposted by Frederick DeknatelTrump to Harvard: 2 billion $ NYT: Harvard to pay 2B$ Harvard: no Trump: 1B Harvard: no NYT: Negotiations intensify Trump: 200 million NYT: Harvard-Trump reach deal Harvard: no Trump: 0$ Harvard: ok NYT: Harvard not paying! Trump loses. Trump: How about 1B$ Harvard: no NYT: Negotiations resume!
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatelthe Epstein files make it very clear why the MeToo backlash was so extreme and why so much of elite society preferred Donald Trump ruling us like a king to the barest hint of accountability
- It’s a broken record at this point, but this revelation alone would topple any previous presidency — nonstop media coverage, congressional investigations, impeachment. Trump’s corruption is so unprecedented but also so brazen, he obviously thinks he’s immune.
- WSJ: “.. The deal marked something unprecedented in American politics: a foreign government official taking a major ownership stake in an incoming U.S. president's company." @wsj.com www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
- “This sure looks like a violation of the foreign emoluments clause, and more to the point, it looks like a bribe.” "A five-alarm fire about the federal government being for sale.” www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
- A senior Emirati government official, who is indistinguishable from the Emirati government itself, lined Trump's pockets with a $187 million "investment" up front, and then the Trump administration gave the UAE rare access to tightly guarded American AI chips. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
- A senior Emirati government official, who is indistinguishable from the Emirati government itself, lined Trump's pockets with a $187 million "investment" up front, and then the Trump administration gave the UAE rare access to tightly guarded American AI chips. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
- Stephen Miller and co just can’t abide the Constitution — too woke.
- Reposted by Frederick DeknatelUnmarked car, no lights or police insignia. Masked armed men leap out. Victim not in the act of committing any crime. This is not how a serious federal law enforcement agency acts in a free society. How is this not supposed to be a “right wing paramilitary force loyal to the regime”?
- This is just insane. It’s only a matter of time before DHS kills another innocent person here. (clip via MPR and @davidjbier.bsky.social on X)
- You’ll be shocked to discover that the guy who likes to dress in Nazi-style overcoats is also anti-Semitic. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/u...
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Frederick DeknatelLooking at the mug shots Bondi posted of folks who allegedly impeded ICE officers... I'm reminded me of some of the iconic 1960s images of 'criminals' from counter sitins and freedom rides
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- “If the 4th Amendment permits the government to tear down your door with nothing more than an administrative warrant, the 4th Amendment doesn’t exist.” @radleybalko.bsky.social on the framers’ fear of just what is happening in Minneapolis and historical echoes with colonial Boston under the British:
- It was rhetoric — masked, heavily armed, trigger-happy rhetoric — that shot and killed Renée Good and Alex Pretti.
- “AI will change the world.” (Rapidly accelerating global warming and reversing any progress on phasing out fossil fuels.)
- The AI boom isn’t some tech futurist utopia — it’s a dirty industrial frenzy reliant on huge amounts of new carbon emissions. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
- The AI boom isn’t some tech futurist utopia — it’s a dirty industrial frenzy reliant on huge amounts of new carbon emissions. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
- Great to be on Order From Ashes, Century International's podcast with @tcambanis.bsky.social, talking Syria's reconstruction challenges, what rebuilding could look like, and Sharaa's vision for the post-Assad era. @centuryintl.bsky.social @tcfdotorg.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/w...
- From the opinion pages of the famously lefty Financial Times: "Trump has turned ICE into a menacing paramilitary that detains five-year-olds, hauls elderly men from their homes, snatches mothers from day care centres and executes non-violent protesters." www.ft.com/content/623d...
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- “It is often said that The Homeland is skeptical of immigrants, but more precisely, The Homeland is skeptical of aliens. Asylum-seekers from Gaza fleeing a genocide have no place in The Homeland; Afrikaners suffering the indignity of post-apartheid are welcome.” www.vanityfair.com/news/story/t...
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatelmy grandmother, an Auschwitz survivor, was Anne Frank’s neighbor in Amsterdam, and Oma thinks this comparison is perfectly apt
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatelkayfabe
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- “Minneapolis reminded me of what I saw during the Arab Spring, a series of street clashes between protesters and police that quickly swelled into a much larger struggle against autocracy,” Robert Worth writes. A veteran war reporter on “a layered civic uprising” against ICE:
- When I see videos of ICE freely firing clouds of tear gas into crowds of protesters, the image it evokes is Mubarak’s reviled Central Security Forces.
- “As many as eight agents were attempting to detain Pretti, videos show. One emerged from the scrum holding Pretti’s gun, having removed it from his waistband area. Less than a second later, the first of what appear to be 10 shots was fired.” www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- More on Neom as obvious boondoggle (“paper architecture”) and indictment of big-name architects “seduced by outrageous consulting and design fees.” “Is it not humiliating to aid and abet a project that is so evidently bullshit?” @katewagner.wehwalt.net www.thenation.com/article/worl...
- Who can believe this delusional folly isn’t actually happening. www.worldpoliticsreview.com/saudi-arabia...
- Who can believe this delusional folly isn’t actually happening. www.worldpoliticsreview.com/saudi-arabia...
- Reposted by Frederick DeknatelKudos to the NYT editor who took “Appears to” out of the lead headline (finally)
- When the unchecked militarism and vast new security state you once championed as “Suck on this!” isn’t “going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad” anymore like you wanted, but has come home.
- Reposted by Frederick DeknatelPutin pioneered this. No opposition is legitimate. Regular, decent, “ordinary” people cannot possibly be against us because only we represent “the real people.” Tell-tale sign of authoritarianism.
- And coming up next week on 60 Minutes: a special marathon presentation of Swan Lake.
- Reposted by Frederick DeknatelThe guy that runs the Reddit where people post about patting their cat on the butt like bongos has put his foot down
- The chasm between the administration’s lies about this ICE killing and what the videos clearly show is the kind of thing you expect from authoritarian regimes — apparatchiks so obviously lying, against obvious evidence, because they don’t think anyone or anything can hold them accountable.
- Reposted by Frederick DeknatelImagine how much they’d be lying about what happened without all the videos showing it from multiple angles.
- Trump's DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, sounding more and more like Bouthaina Shaaban
- Reposted by Frederick DeknatelSayre: "My background is in international humanitarian response in conflict zones in Yemen, Haiti, Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine. What I've seen here is what I've seen there. A powerful entity violently and intentionally terrorizing people."
- Reposted by Frederick DeknatelWoman tells Minnesota Public Radio that the man killed today was helping vehicle traffic get around the area where ICE agents and observers had started to gather and "next thing I knew, they shot him." www.mprnews.org/live-updates....
- After the shooting, an angry crowd gathered and screamed profanities at federal officers, calling them “cowards” and telling them to go home. One officer responded mockingly as he walked away, telling them: “Boo hoo.” Agents elsewhere shoved a yelling protester into a car. apnews.com/article/immi...
- When the secret police kidnap your preschooler, they’ll take them to the drive-through — the kind of message that should poll well, I’m sure.
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- “These cabinet secretaries have failed in their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution,” Judge Young said last week in a denunciation of the government from the bench. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/u...
- Newly unsealed evidence makes it even clearer that Rubio and Noem knew they were targeting students based solely on their political speech and that they knew this policy was unconstitutional. They just didn’t care. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/u...
- Reposted by Frederick DeknatelNewly unsealed evidence makes it even clearer that Rubio and Noem knew they were targeting students based solely on their political speech and that they knew this policy was unconstitutional. They just didn’t care. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/u...
- Making sure Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars go to violating their Fourth Amendment rights.
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- Trump's secret police wrote a secret memo last summer claiming they have the power to violate the Fourth Amendment. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
- Reposted by Frederick Deknatel[Not loaded yet]
- Checking in on EU officials who definitely buy Trump’s supposed pivot on Greenland… www.ft.com/content/fb90...
- "Analysts say the Syrian Democratic Forces miscalculated, taking a hard stance in negotiations with the new leaders in Damascus on the assumption that if a military conflict erupted between them, Washington would support the SDF as it had for years when they battled the Islamic State."
