Colin Wrafter
Retired Irish diplomat, occasional lecturer and seminar chair. Interests include foreign policy, Northern Ireland , human rights, philosophy, history. I enjoy golf but rarely win!
- Reposted by Colin WrafterThe squeeze that Donald Trump has put on Panama is more relevant for the rest of the Americas than his Venezuelan raid or ominous threats over Greenland’s sovereignty. Small countries are vulnerable
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- Reposted by Colin WrafterFacebook launched 22 years ago this week. In 2025, Meta paid an effective federal tax rate of 3.5% — its lowest on record. Meanwhile, Meta is pumping at least $65 million into super PACs to stifle regulation of AI and tech. Trickle-down economics isn't just a hoax, it's corrosive to democracy.
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- Reposted by Colin WrafterThanks to Trump's Big Ugly Bill, Amazon saw its corporate income taxes shrink by more than HALF last year, even as its profits climbed. But instead of investing the savings into their workforce, Amazon just announced thousands of layoffs and plans to spend $200B on AI. Textbook corporate greed.
- Reposted by Colin WrafterOne other point: This is a FAR more effective way to ‘make social media safer for kids’ than u16 bans. Bans sound good to many people but don’t work very well and may not actually change anything. E Commission says TikTok now has to change the app — MUCH more effective than any u16s ban
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- Reposted by Colin WrafterWe’re kicking off our 2026 lunchtime webinars for the All-Island Social Security Network on Feb 9th (1-2pm) where we’ll have researchers from @ulsteruni.bsky.social discussing the Defective Concrete Crisis www.eventbrite.ie/e/all-island...
- Reposted by Colin WrafterThe Melania effect?
- Amazon shares tumble as US tech stocks head for worst week in 10 months ft.trib.al/wnbw2aK
- Reposted by Colin WrafterDon has been warning us about this for most of the last decade. And now it's here.
- New, from me: Trump finalized his Schedule F policy, allowing him to remove job protections from career civil servants. The new rule is dishonest and unmoored from reality in its effort to formalize the politicization of the federal government 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/trumps-sch...
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- Reposted by Colin WrafterEXC: US State dept is set to fund Maga-aligned think-tanks and charities in UK/ Europe to amplify Washington’s policy stances and challenge perceived threats to free speech W/ @annasophiegross.bsky.social, @oilsheppard.bsky.social & Amy McKinnon as.ft.com/r/98452b33-5...
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- Reposted by Colin WrafterCount to one hundred. New post on my Brexit & Brexitism Blog reflecting on a frenetic fortnight of domestic and international news, the state of the reset, the significance of the latest calls for 'proper Brexit', and the anger suffusing our politics: chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2026/02/coun...
- Reposted by Colin WrafterThat‘s the spirit.
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- Reposted by Colin WrafterWhat is phenomenology? Simon Glendinning explains its mysteries for THINK journal. Read the free article: royalinstitutephilosophy.org/article/what...
- Reposted by Colin WrafterCall for Papers: Prejudice in Hume and His Contemporaries. University College Dublin, 23-24 June 2026. Submission deadline: February 27, 2026. For more information, see the full CFP at philevents.org/event/show/1.... #PhilosophyConference #HumePhilosophy #ScottishEnlightenment #Epistemology #UCD
- Reposted by Colin WrafterThe Agnes Cuming speaker for 2026 is Michael Williams, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor at Johns Hopkins University. He will give two public lectures on 10th and 11th February 2026. Attendance is free, but you are advised to register in advance. Further details at www.ucd.ie/philosophy/n... #PhilSky
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- Reposted by Colin Wrafter🚨🚨Given current situation and with the sharply deteriorating situation in #trumpland, I think it is unwise, imprudent and just a very bad idea for the EU to go ahead with plans to grant #US border authorities unprecedented access to Europeans’ data. 🧵 www.politico.eu/article/eu-m...
- Reposted by Colin WrafterProfessor @brendannyhan.bsky.social speaks to the danger of the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security’s repeated false claims. “Every American should be worried about that, because if they can lie about this, what else could they lie about?” he says, via @npr.org.
- Reposted by Colin WrafterI swear this clip is not edited. Trump pivots from downplaying the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti ("two people out of tens of thousands and you get bad publicity") to in the very next breath claiming "we've been very tough on the waters," leaving Tom Llamas baffled ("the waters?")
- Reposted by Colin WrafterIn no functioning country is this allowed.
- Reposted by Colin WrafterThe CIA World Factbook, a reliable source of information about the countries of the world, has been publicly available since 1997. It is now going away. Please consider supporting @wikipedia.org and @ourworldindata.org. The world desperately needs trustworthy data. www.cia.gov/stories/stor...
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- Reposted by Colin WrafterNEW: Abigail Spanberger this afternoon ordered that all state agencies leave ICE's 287(g) program. This means that the state police (and some other agencies) will no longer be empowered to detain and arrest people for ICE. Big, big move by the governor within weeks of coming into office.
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- Reposted by Colin WrafterThe Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has issued an epidemiological alert about measles outbreaks, including ours. PAHO is “calling on countries to intensify epidemiological surveillance, vaccination, and rapid outbreak response…to interrupt transmission and protect vulnerable populations”.
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- Reposted by Colin WrafterNEW: Children are developing encephalitis as the South Carolina measles outbreak continues. @emilymullin.bsky.social has more:
- Reposted by Colin WrafterRe-upping this in light of the discussion with Secretary Bessent today. The oil companies have all been put on alert that they are financially exposed if the WH is selling them oil without clean title. Bessent said nothing today to assuage that risk.
- Any oil company that invests in the production, refining or distribution of Venezuelan oil is exposing their shareholders to significant long term credit liability. We raised that point in a letter to the oil majors today, but want to dive into why: casten.house.gov/media/press-...
- Reposted by Colin WrafterReporter: Do you plan to apologize to the family of Alex Pretti? Vance: For what?
- Reposted by Colin WrafterPresident Trump attacked CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins in the Oval Office on Tuesday, calling her “the worst reporter” and scolding her for not smiling as she tried to ask about the latest release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. trib.al/GORWvyS
- Reposted by Colin WrafterI've said that before, and I'll say it again: V4 only made sense until all four countries joined NATO and the EU. There's vanishingly little this format offers the only country among these four with sea access and an increasingly A-tier EU economy (assuming FR and DE are S-tier).
- Reposted by Colin WrafterThe Wpost had shredded their coverage of the Middle East and Ukraine. Take a moment to think about that. Two areas where U.S. interests and involvement are critical, and where their reporters have produced award-winning work, (at great risk to their own lives).
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- Reposted by Colin WrafterPhilosophers seldom change their mind as much as Wittgenstein did about language. | bit.ly/3M3BzCY The shift from his early masterpiece, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, to his later work, Philosophical Investigations, is as radical as the move from modern to post-modern philosophy.
- Reposted by Colin WrafterBoth the Wash Post & CBS News are being intentionally destroyed by corporate owners who care more about Trump's approval & their rankings on the most wealthy in the world list than America. One meaningful response is to quit Amazon & Paramount+. open.substack.com/pub/jennifer...
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- Reposted by Colin Wrafter"We’re witnessing a murder," writes @ashleyrparker.bsky.social. "Jeff Bezos ... and Will Lewis, the publisher he appointed at the end of 2023, are embarking on the latest step of their plan to kill everything that makes the paper special." www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
- Reposted by Colin WrafterOne of the intended consequences of President Trump’s politicization of the Justice Department is to leave behind a weakened, overwhelmed, decimated organization that simply can’t do its job. This is all coming home to roost in a very visible way in Minnesota: talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...
