Image is from this article, of a Chilean copper quarry.
Title is a reference to Trump's social media post about copper, which was, as usual, mostly deranged.
Trying to follow Trump's administration is pretty difficult, but as of right now, he is threatening 30% tariffs on Mexico and the EU starting on August 1st, as well as new tariff announcements on a bunch of other countries (including, bizarrely, a 50% tariff on Brazil), and also apparently a 50% tariff on copper, which the US imports half its supply of and is, of course, a very important metal in many applications.
I'm not sure what the plan is to bring back domestic copper production beyond hoping that it just sorta works out, but prominent copper producers, such as Chile and Canada, seem both concerned and confused. Reuters had a line that made me chuckle:
Boric said he was awaiting official communication from the U.S. government, including whether the tariffs would include copper cathodes, and questioned "whether this will actually be implemented or not."
Big mood, Boric.
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.
yesterday zei squirrel went off on the absurdity of this argument
https://xcancel.com/zei_squirrel/status/1946356344765968642
tweet:
the whole "no, I recognize the genocide, but Iron Dome is defensive so we must fund it" line is just astonishing. "No, I get Nazi Germany is bad, but we must send them the anti-air defenses they need to keep doing their genocidal war." It is solely because the US and NATO give them this military infrastructure that they are doing the genocide in Gaza and launched their wars on Lebanon, Yemen, Iran and Syria.
Any child knows this. Any 6 year old knows this, and of course AOCIA and Bernie Sanders know this. And the fact that they keep lying about it shows just how much contempt they have for you.
Btw ask Bernie Sanders and AOCIA if they support sending an Iron Dome system to Gaza and Iran.
Go ahead and ask them. Ask them if they support sending Patriots and Iron Dome there to defend their civilians, and watch them fly into Zionist rage-rants: OMG YOU WANT US TO GIVE THAT TO KHAMAS AND THE MULLAHS? OMG
Or how about Russia. Ask Bernie Sanders and AOCIA if they believe the US and NATO should send Russia Iron Dome and Patriots to help defend their civilians. Why not? I thought you care about protecting civilians, so why would you not want to protect Palestinians in Gaza, and Iranian and Russian civilians?
Oh you just meant the Jews in Israel, the only ones you consider to be human, in fact super-human, Ubermenschen.
But it's even worse. All of this is pure deflection because it's not just about Iron Dome, AOCIA and Bernie Sanders consider all the jets and tanks and missiles to be "defensive weaponry" as well, and in their purely symbolic resolutions they knew would fail only targeted a tiny irrelevant percentage of larger caliber bombs slated to be sent in the future, and sold this as "WE ARE TRYING TO STOP ALL FUNDS AND ARMS TO NETANYAHUS EXTREMIST GOVERNMENT" to fool their base into thinking that they actually support that: https://x.com/zei_squirrel/status/1870599903812198837
Bernie Sanders and AOCIA are both totally committed genocidal Zionists who fully support the genocide, but know that this goes against their own base, the overwhelming majority of democrats and the majority of the broader public, so they have to lie, deceive, do propaganda, and feign pseudo-radical poses and pretenses.
But it will not work. Everyone can see what they really are. And they will not forget.
:waow-based: