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.
Existing liberal lines on the PRC are shattering, and those antagonistic towards the PRC are increasingly being opposed. The time is good to be correcting misconceptions about the PRC and explaining the benefits of siding with it over the US.
I may have to hand it to the accelerationists, Trump may go down in history as one of the accidentally best presidents in USian history.
The Chinese Century is well upon us, as we already knew, but increasingly liberals are accepting this. The Paper Tiger is dissolving.
UK Supreme Court has ruled that the concept of sex is strictly binary, and based on sex at birth.
Trans women are now excluded from women’s spaces and services, even if they have a gender recognition certificate. Discrimination is now codified.
Bukele is one of many Salvadoran fascists. Every generation of my leftist family have dealt with them through orgs and sometimes militant acts. He’s proving to be more like Maximiliano Martínez. A self-admitted facist who’s responsible for heavily kneecapping the Communist movement in El Salvador and nearly wiping out their indigenous population. My great-grandfather was jailed during his reign and I don’t think he ever came back.
Even worse is that he did all this before the CIA even existed. Much like Bukele, Martínez was an opportunist who was more than happy to suck the imperialists teats if he got something out of it.
I have to say that it’s a little amusing how nobody gave a shit about Central America and now all these foreigners keep talking about us. The takes here are much better than other sites that regularly frustrate me.
His popularity in polls seems wild to me, is something like 90% the reality or is there some kind of dissent?
Not directly related to his popularity but here’s a decent
thread on /r/trueanon on the topicThanks for the link
A Reddit link was detected in your comment. Here are links to the same location on alternative frontends that protect your privacy.
Thanks, might be the only response I get so I appreciate it
havent posted in a few years, been lurking since october 23, my whole family is in Jenin, but I live in the so called united states. So I’ll try to post news from and about Palestine when I can as my contribution to the mega.
havent seen this posted yet but US killed 70+ civilians and injured over 200 at Ras Issa Port in Hodeidah, very significant escalation in my view
UPDATE | Sanaa’s ministry of health reports that the death toll of the US attack on Ras Issa Port in Hodeidah last night has reached 74 Yemenis.
At least 171 others were injured.
Rescue teams from the ambulance and civil defense are still identifying missing persons and searching for victims.
Source: The Cradle
China says Latin American countries ‘are nobody’s backyard’. After the US Secretary of State said that the US wants to reclaim its ‘backyard’, the Chinese Foreign Minister said that Latin America does not want ‘doctrines of domination’. In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Hegseth accused China of dominating Latin America and said that Donald Trump’s administration wants to regain US influence over countries in the region.
“The Obama administration took its eye off the ball and let China take over all of South and Central America, with its economic and cultural influence, making deals with local governments for bad infrastructure, surveillance and debt. President Trump said ‘no more’! Let’s take back our backyard.”
In response, Wang Yi declared that Latin American countries are seeking independence, not “doctrines of domination”. Chancellor Wang Yi: “What the Latin American peoples want is to build their own home, not to be anyone’s backyard. What they are looking for is independence, not doctrines of domination.”
- Telegram
“Youngest political prisoner in Russia”, exchanged to the West last year, publicly confesses that he was not a “political prisoner”, but an actual spy and enemy combatant.
Why Trump (probably) won’t defy the Supreme Court Today at 11:45Aam BST
Donald Trump Is Defying The Supreme Court Today at 06:29pm BST
lol
Establishment liberals, as usual, completely ignored that the supreme court order had some weasel wording (on facilitate vs effectuate) that would allow for this very possibility to occur. Did they really think that the Trump administration would not try to exploit this?
The weasel words:
The rest of the District Court’s order remains in effect but requires clarification on remand. The order properly requires the Government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador. The intended scope of the term “effectuate” in the District Court’s order is, however, unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority. The District Court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs. For its part, the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.
Nobodies on twitter/x were pointing this very possibility out days ago. You know it’s bad when nobodies on twitter are doing better journalism than the Washington Post.
Also the Huffington Post article is really bad
These are two entirely different things. There is no world where the administration’s definition of “facilitate” aligns with obeying either court’s orders.
There is, it’s the one we’re living in right now. Hence Garcia still being locked up in El Salvador and not repatriated back to the United States, and Trump remaining president, with no constitutional crisis. That is how it’s playing out. Saying that it ain’t so doesn’t actually change anything.
The reason the administration can even make the claim for its mangled definition of “facilitate” gets at how the Supreme Court royally screwed this case up.
In its unanimous decision, the court did order the administration to get Abrego Garcia out of CECOT and to the U.S., but it also stated that the district court that first ordered Abrego Garcia’s return “should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
Why is the Huffington Post viewing this as a screw up, and not a deliberate action by the justices on the court, to give the Trump administration an out here? The court is a partisan institution, the majority of the judges are Republican nominees. Compromises obviously had to be made to get this verdict, yet alone a unanimous one at that. They are going to give their party and their guy (in Trump) a way out. Does the Huffington Post not understand the basic dynamics of political power?
😔
Currently riding on a train through Xinjiang. Hopefully I’ll update later with more details.
Lol lmao
A sitting US Congressman personally firing on the Russian military.
There has to be some law against this (not that it will be applied). MAGAs have been crying “Logan Act” because of van Hollen’s visit with Abrego Garcia, meanwhile a Republican elected official is personally committing acts of war against a sovereign nation.
ICE arrested and is holding a Latino man in Florida as an “unauthorized alien” after he crossed into the state from Georgia. He is a US citizen born in Georgia.
There are factories in China going on tiktok and telling people how to buy stuff directly from them and ways to evade tariffs
Its all extremely funny
Looks like Trump is pushing forward the Biden export license rule for high-end “AI” accelerators. Similar to what China implemented for rare earth minerals. NVidia is expecting a ~$5bn hit from this. Poor China, they will now have a harder time wasting energy on AI.
[edit] as is tradition, someone was buying big puts on NVDA the entire day before the announcement. Insider traders are making insane amounts of $$$.
A deadly E. coli outbreak hit 15 states, but the FDA chose not to publicize it
We are continuing down the eugenics “let disease cull the weak” path. They will probably unrecommend vaccines next, so insurance will stop covering them, and people will be priced out of vaccine access like they’ve done with uninsured people and covid vaccines. Dr. Brianworm will say they cause autism, and disease makes you strong, and that will be that.
ICE nuking tourism by kidnapping random tourists.
