Image is of Trump’s initial set of reciprocal tariffs. Source is CNN and Reuters.
It’s difficult to keep up with the news around the tariffs; they get instated, then dropped, then reinstated… for example, on Friday, Trump said that certain electronics like smartphones would be exempt, causing markets to rally a great deal, but now the Commerce Secretary has said that they might not be exempt? The state of play right now, if you haven’t been keeping up this week, is that the US recently announced a 90-day global pause on implementing the tariffs he had planned (that is, 25% on certain Canadian and Mexican goods, and at least 10% on every other nation) but nonetheless increased tariffs on China to 145%.
Meanwhile, China has been - quite remarkably - standing their ground, increasing tariffs on the US to 125%, and putting restrictions on rare earths. Xi Jinping has been in Vietnam and has made statements against a tariff war there, saying that it would have no winners. Meanwhile, a Chinese spokesperson has essentially said that China can endure the tariff war due to the increasing demand from its domestic market in combination with its growing economic ties with other countries.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Currently riding on a train through Xinjiang. Hopefully I’ll update later with more details.
New greek political party “Course of Freedom” surging to 2nd place in a poll.
Guy who skimmed wikipedia said that they are:
- pro-Palestine
- pro-re-nationalisation of public services and public assets
- pro-LGBT marriage
- pro-refugee
- anti-EU
- anti-compulsary vaccination
- anti-Macedonia (dunno what this quite means I think it’s something to do with the name)
- say “we look neither left nor right. we look forward”
- haven’t joined any european parliamentary grouping (kke also hasn’t)
- logo is a boat
- slogan is “We will change the world with Love”
And syriza polled below the old center-left and the communists. The rulling party also fell by a lot but greece has something where whoever ends up in 1st place gets a bunch of extra MPs so idk if that matters.
This is going to be controversial but imho about the “neither left nor right” position, in a party that is pretty clearly on the left, it’s a smart move. It’s one thing when you’re an organization that has a history (and I don’t advocate such organizations, like mine, to do this) but if you’re starting a completely new political project there’s really no reason to assume an identity on a left-right or a communism-capitalism that most people either don’t care about or actively disdain. Not that many people think of themselves as “leftists” or “right-wingers”, if anything most people probably consider themselves “centrists” even when they have a bunch of radical positions, so ditching the label and actively rejecting it in favor of more concrete political positions is a good way to past the skepticism of the masses about modern politics. And at the end of the day, any party or any smart politician will take positions considered to be left or right at different occasions, the point is whether they are the right position/policy.
However, the strategy creates its own tensions and down the line (like we’ve seen with italy’s M5S) you DO have to affirm where you stand on the left-right axis or people will affirm it for you.
Of course anyone seasoned enough can tell whether your “neither left nor right” party is actually left or right, and this one seems to be left which is why it doesn’t bother me. I’m also not greek so 0 stakes
Greek here. First of all dont take any information from non Greek non leftist twitter accounts cause it will cause disastrous confusion.
They are a purely opportunistic, leader centered party with no platform, no program and no organization. Laughable to even call them left. Led by a former Syriza politician. They were just promoted and pushed massively by the media as the non antisystemic opposition to the ruling party on the heels of the massive anti government sentiment and rage coming from the Tempi train disaster and the entire saga of corruption and criminality that included, successful piggybacking that public discontent. At the same time there was a big collapse of syriza through the last year. So them just yelling the loudest, taking whatever populist position is possible at every issue and being given pr constantly by the media and having large amounts of voters from left populist spaces available along with apolitic people that eat the narrative the media feeds them and pick “whoever tells it like it is” led to that increase.
A total unserious opportunistic mess of a party that is doomed to not exist in 5-10 years time and will be sure to lose against the ruling government , given life by how desperate and given up people are and through the machinations of maybe the most corrupt media and political environment in the EU
What’s with the anti-vax left? I understand being skeptical of pharm companies but vaccinations are literally for the public health.
Maybe they came from the granola-leftist pipeline
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Mainstream leftist party not have at least one terrible stance challenge - difficulty: impossible
It’s very much a leader-centered party. Their leader, Zoe Konstantopoulou, used to be a quite prominent member of Syriza (actually her father was for a time the leader of “Synaspismos” a left party from the 90ies whose members were mostly communists who split with KKE and later became Syriza) but she left the party after the 2015 capitulation. Around 2012-2015 she was known for pushing for reparations from Germany for the Nazi occupation, at the time what some people thought was a useful argument for forgiving the greek debt or turning around the discussion from “we owe money to Germany” to “they owe us too”. During the first Syriza government she was named as the speaker of the greek parliament. She is known for being a firebrand, always speaking in parliament over the allotted time, and getting into arguments very often. She is also a lawyer who has been involved in some interesting/public cases: In the past, she was representing a journalist who started a motion against Henry Kissinger for his involvement in the military dictatorship in greece as well as part of a motion in the ICC against British officials for crimes committed during the Iraq war. She defended the family of Alexis Grigoropoulos (the 15 year old boy who was shot by a police officer in cold blood in 2008 which led to some of the biggest riots in modern greek history). Her recent surge in popularity has to do with the fact that she is currently defending pro-bono the families of the youth that died in the Tempi train crash in 2023 (I wrote a post a few weeks back about the greek protests related to this), and has been the most vocal critic of the government for the handling of that case.
I think that her politics are incoherent, and I agree that the “we are not left or right” will have to face reality if she ever gets close to power. It’s unclear whether her popularity will keep going up or it will burst. Greek politics right now are too chaotic to tell.
anti-Macedonia
If only they were anti-Albania as well I’d support them
North Macedonia is in a naming dispute with Greece because Greece has the province of Macedonia
That’s why they went from FYROM to North Macedonia
They have this whole conflict about Macedonia stealing the name and cultural heritage of a Greek region when they’re slavic
I’ve noticed recently that Wikipedia has been a lot less pro-Israel recently. Like, they directly call it an Apartheid state and what Israel is doing a genocide without any qualifiers, and if you look at the Talk pages on those articles, any time someone tries to bring it up, they’re basically just like “No. We’ve already settled on this discussion.”
It’s a barometer of the opinions of normie college-educated liberals, they’re the ones who write it for the most part
Or because funding for US propaganda outfits got cut?
lol bye bye USAID
or whatever fuckin agency it is that spreads that shit
Had to wait until everyone had already made up their minds
From what I saw they were pretty early on it, citing scholarly opinion that it was a genocide long before I saw most libs really come around to calling it that. They do love their appeals to academic sources, and there was widespread agreement among scholars that Israel’s actions qualified as genocide.
Guess libs are getting off the Israel train because of Trump being in charge. Although the policy is exactly the same as Biden’s
The only difference is in tone: Biden feigned at it being an unfortunate necessity to destroy hospitals and starve babies, while Trump brags about it.
Yes. A repeat of the first Trump admin. Sadly, their opinions will just return to the right-wing status quo when the next Biden is president and in charge of the genocide again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide
The evidence is overwhelming that denial propaganda has to ignore or discourage people from investigating into the claims. It isn’t just the scale of catastrophic damage but the rhetoric of Israeli politicians, media, micro-celebrities in Israel, and the entire society espousing genocidal rhetoric on social media, interviews, and public statements. Netanyahu quoting Amalek was the huge and first red flag for special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, but even recently ministers like Smotritch claiming "it’d be a good, moral, righteous thing to let 2 million people starve but ‘the world won’t let us’. "
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson regarding the ongoing talks with the US:
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Javier Milei’s party comes in third in Argentina’s first electoral test of the year (Spanish Only)
Article Translated
The elections were to elect those who will reform the Constitution and also local offices.
The party of Argentine President Javier Milei came third in Sunday’s elections in the province of Santa Fe, where the coalition of Governor Maximiliano Pullaro won in the opening of an electoral year with national legislative elections in October.
Santa Fe, to the north of Buenos Aires, elected this Sunday those who will reform its Constitution and also local offices. Sixteen months ago, the ultra-liberal Milei obtained there 62.8% of the votes in the ballot that led him to the presidency, but now his candidates reached 14%, according to provisional results.
The district is the third most important in Argentina and its electorate represents 8% of the electoral roll.
With 98.7% of the votes counted, Governor Maximiliano Pullaro, who headed the list of his political space, a coalition of the Unión Cívica Radical, Propuesta Republicana and Socialist parties, won with 34.6% of the votes.
He was followed by the candidate of the Justicialist Party (Peronist), Juan Monteverde, with 15.2%, according to the provisional scrutiny.
The local aspirant to the Constituent Convention of Milei’s force La Libertad Avanza (LLA), the national deputy Nicolás Mayoraz, added 14.11% of the votes.
The beginning of the electoral calendar took place two days after the support given by the International Monetary Fund to the government program, with a loan of 20 billion dollars to strengthen the reserves, in the midst of an exchange crisis which forced the Central Bank to sell more than 1.8 billion dollars in two weeks.
The vote also took place after Milei announced the elimination of the exchange control as from this Monday, when a fluctuation of the value of the currency between bands of 1,000 to 1,400 pesos will be in force.
The head of the local public opinion consultant, Roque Cantoia, said that these elections do not represent “a plebiscite for the national government”, but the first stop in the race towards the national parliamentary elections of October 26.
“The national key lies in the fact that it is the first electoral instance since Milei is president, and it can give us an idea of the power that the brand has to transfer political flow”, said Cantoia, to underline that it was an election “without Milei on the ballot”.
The Argentine electoral schedule will continue on May 11 in the provinces of Salta, San Luis, Chaco and Jujuy, and on May 18 in the City of Buenos Aires.
lol
While the world is distracted by media noise… China is quietly rallying Asia to shift global power. In just a few days:
- 45 economic agreements signed with Vietnam
- A 5-year strategic pact sealed with Malaysia
- Key diplomatic meetings in Thailand
- Military and strategic cooperation boosted with Indonesia
- Telegram
Hamas statement regarding the passing of Pope Francis:
The Islamic Resistance Movement extends its deepest condolences and sincere sympathy to the Catholic Church worldwide and to all Christians on the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis, Pope of the Vatican, who passed away after a distinguished career in the service of human and religious values.
The late Pope Francis was a noted advocate of interfaith dialogue, calling for understanding and peace among peoples, and rejecting hatred and racism. On more than one occasion, he expressed his rejection of aggression and wars in the world, and was one of the prominent religious voices to condemn the war crimes and genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
While we, in the Islamic Resistance Movement movement, value his moral and humanitarian stances, we emphasize the importance of continuing the joint efforts between the bearers of divine messages and people of living consciences to confront injustice and colonialism, and to support the causes of justice, freedom, and the rights of oppressed peoples.
I hope trump succeeds in his quest to get Powell fired from the Fed. Insert more chaos into the dollar
https://xcancel.com/MayadeenEnglish/status/1911873227510690111France’s foreign minister announced that #Algeria has ordered 12 French officials to leave the country within 48 hours on Monday, a decision reportedly connected to the recent detention of three Algerian nationals in France.
“I am asking Algerian authorities to abandon these expulsion measures… if the decision to send back our officials is maintained, we will have no other choice but to respond immediately,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said.
The 12 include some members of the French Interior Ministry, a diplomatic source told Agence France Press (AFP).
Apart from the fact that islands are populated, I’d love to see these libertarians do more of this. Find land that is completely unpopulated. Create a “libertarian”/liberal/conservative utopia. Get owned by bears. Repeat.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia to remain in El Salvador, says Bukele
spoiler
“How can I return him to the United States? I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous,” Bukele said. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States. We’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country.”
"To liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some. That’s the way it works,” Bukele told Trump. Abrego Garcia has not been charged with terrorism.
Not surprising, ghouls doing ghoul shit. Wish someone would do something funny while Bukele is still stateside
So they’re just holding them indefinitely? So deportation is a life in prison sentence?
Yeah, once you are taken to CECOT you aren’t getting out
More like a death sentence than a life sentence.
Is this officially the first Supreme Court order Trump is ignoring
Edit: also occurring to me there’s a small chance this guy is already dead / very fucked up and that’s why there’s all this “I’m powerless” theater. Much more likely Trump just doesn’t want to comply, but it’s a possibility
The President has complete immunity according to SCOTUS. He doesn’t have to follow any of their rulings.
Trump avoiding a constitutional crisis by just ignoring the crisis and doing what he wants anyway
So the Trump admin says it doesn’t have power to bring him back, and Bukele says he doesn’t have power to send him back.
while Bukele is still stateside
telling on himself
After a plane carrying Abrego Garcia and other detainees secretly left the U.S. in mid-March, a federal judge in a separate case temporarily blocked the deportation, ruling that the plane must turn around.
“Oopsie… Too late,” Bukele wrote with a crying laughing emoji on X the next day alongside a screenshot of a news report on the judge’s decision.
Hell would be too good for them.
How long until we get an ICC case for trump and bukele? The Hague is far to nice of a prison for their likes unfortunately…id rather he spend the next 40 years in pure darkness with wormy bread and sewage to drink
Bukele is more likely to get one than Trump once the US turns on him again.
COVID.gov now redirects to a teaser explaining that Trump did the lab leak
Ford stops car shipments to China from Michigan and Kentucky.
In April, ~80 cargo ships are “blank sailing” so far, while around 50 were at the height of Covid. So more cargo ships have either cancelled their scheduled travel entirely, or are at least skipping ports than at any point during Covid.
Trump did something to fuck with the student loan system, I completely forget what it was. Anyway, student loan defaults spiked 289%.
So we can agree that
went to the Vatican to kill the Pope, right?
