UnderpantsWeevil

joined 2 years ago
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[–] UnderpantsWeevil 7 points 5 hours ago

Israel is the gun pointed at the head of Egypt, to prevent them from ever exerting serious control over the Suez Canal. Americans have turned that defense pack into a religious fetish, but the roots of the relationship boil down to the simple question of who gets to do business between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Control of this pivotal choke point of trade, along with Cape Town, South Africa and the Panama Canal and Singapore functionally dictates global trade. What's one more psychotic ultra-reich wing ethnostate on the map for control of that kind of wealth and military power?

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 2 points 6 hours ago

I Guess we’re just ignoring all the shit they’re pulling

Interesting "West vs rest" moment yesterday on French TV with the President of Congo, the 2nd biggest country in Africa.

The host asks: "Are you saying that the Chinese or the Russians behave better than us, Westerners, currently, in your opinion?"

"Oh absolutely!" he replies, "You don't quite understand African realities... it's astonishing to see how we are very distant in terms of cultures. We cannot understand why you come to give us lessons, for example, on human rights."

Reminds of the now famous saying from a Kenyan official: "Every time China visits we get a hospital, every time Britain visits we get a lecture”...

Can’t wait for someone to pull out a 400 year old map to justify modern day imperialism again!

glances at a map of US military bases

The crazy thing about NATO is how much of it hinges on the political attitude of a single man in a big white house within walking distance of the Potomac. So many eggs placed in one basket. And then the Americans spill it... twice.

But you cling to NATO like its something so much more than the legacy of American post-war expansionism. Like it really is an enthusiastic alliance between Atlantic Nations and not the biggest kid on the playground shaking down everyone else for their lunch money.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 6 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Its curious how many politicians out of Nebraska are die-hard Trump supporters, despite accepting enormous sums from Berkshire Hathaway staff and investors.

Buffet and Munger both play this game. Go on TV and say the thing people like to hear. Then go back into the back rooms and

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

I promise you not a single vendor is absorbing the tariffs, but a few are getting around it by just moving production for the US market to other factories they already own in Southeast Asia.

Often not even moving the production to other factories. The tracking on this stuff is comically underfunded and underserved. You can absolutely make a widget in a tariff country, like China, stamp it "Made in The Philippines" or Indonesia or wherever, and move it into the US without paying the tax.

These companies were already afraid of the Chinese government absorbing them and moved “headquarters” to Singapore.

Given the degree to which Singapore is beholden to Chinese owned and operated businesses and falls within the operating range of the Chinese military, this is more a Hong Kong style bureaucratic loophole than a real escape from China as a sphere of influence. Its like banking out of Bermuda while you work in the United States. A legal fiction that gets you out of a certain degree of taxation/regulation, but does nothing to shield you from the Coast Guard or the FBI.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 0 points 10 hours ago

Americans only understand Russia as an American Opposite. The 90s might as well not have happened. Perestroika never happened. The Warsaw Pact was never dissolved. Gorbachev was never couped.

The USSR is still real and still the opposite of Capitalism. Putin is an America hating super villain, not an ally of convenience depending on who is in charge. And we're still the Freest, Bestest, Shining City on a Hill that exists to oppose it.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Most American American who ever did American things in America Americanly

Holy shit this guy is such a scary foreigner.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 7 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

It's so easy to ignore how one of Biden's final acts as president was to deny Transgender Americans healthcare through TRICARE.

Anti-LGBT bills have been flooding state and federal legislatures, and only a handful of Democrats have been brave enough to oppose them.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 5 points 11 hours ago

Americans will live through the most prosperous, most happy, and liberal period in human history, elect a single piece of shit to the Presidency, and decide it's time for the world to end.

 

"Indivisible is urging people who are scared to call their member of Congress, whether they have a Democrat or Republican, and make specific procedural asks," Greenberg said.

"Our supporters are asking Democrats to demand specific red lines are met before they offer their vote to House Republicans on the budget, when Republicans inevitably fail to pass a bill on their own."

 

Sponsor: Rep. Carter, Earl L. "Buddy" [R-GA-1] (Introduced 02/10/2025)

Committees: House - Foreign Affairs; Natural Resources

Latest Action: House - 02/10/2025 Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

 

 

Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, has said that any immigrants who pose “public safety and national security threats” will be targeted for deportation first. Rhetoric that paints America’s 45 million immigrants as “threats” to public safety is a key Republican strategy to drum up support for mass deportations. One of the first bills passed by the Republican House in the new Congress was the Laken Riley Act, after the 22-year-old nursing student who was killed in February 2024 by a Venezuelan man who had entered the country illegally. The bill would require any undocumented person or DACA recipient arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting-related offenses to be detained, even if they are ultimately never charged with a crime.

 

"CPS will continue to protect our students and their families in alignment with the Illinois TRUST Act and Chicago's Welcoming City Ordinance," one school official said.

Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates called the situation "unprecedented" at a news conference Friday afternoon.

 

After receiving the text for the ad quoted above, a representative from the advertising team suggested AFSC use the word “war” instead of “genocide” – a word with an entirely different meaning both colloquially and under international law. When AFSC rejected this approach, the New York Times Ad Acceptability Team sent an email that read in part: “Various international bodies, human rights organizations, and governments have differing views on the situation. In line with our commitment to factual accuracy and adherence to legal standards, we must ensure that all advertising content complies with these widely applied definitions.”

 

After more than two years undercover, he’d been growing rash and impulsive. He had feared someone was in danger and tried to warn him, but it backfired. Williams was sure at least one person knew he was a double agent now, he said into his phone. “It’s only a matter of time before it gets back to the rest.”

In the daylight, Williams dropped an envelope with no return address in a U.S. Postal Service mailbox. He’d loaded it with a flash drive and a gold Oath Keepers medallion.

It was addressed to me.

The documents laid out a remarkable odyssey. Posing as an ideological compatriot, Williams had penetrated the top ranks of two of the most prominent right-wing militias in the country. He’d slept in the home of the man who claims to be the new head of the Oath Keepers, rifling through his files in the middle of the night. He’d devised elaborate ruses to gather evidence of militias’ ties to high-ranking law enforcement officials. He’d uncovered secret operations like the surveillance of a young journalist, then improvised ways to sabotage the militants’ schemes. In one group, his ploys were so successful that he became the militia’s top commander in the state of Utah.

 

Body camera footage shows the moment an LMPD officer hands a woman in labor a citation for unlawful camping as she waits for an ambulance.

 

In 2025, Mexico’s current challenges are likely to worsen, as the recently inaugurated Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo administration (2024–30) has shown an unwillingness to depart from the policy playbook of the Andrés Manuel López Obrador administration (2018–24) — a playbook that has already proven unable to resolve most of the country’s problems.Political and diplomatic relations are headed for a rocky year, as Mexico drifts further away from a strategic allyship position with the United States on several items.

 

Anyway, please stay safe and don't be afraid to defend yourself.

 

We spent the whole day in Pyongyang and visited:

Mansudae Fountain Park
Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum
Juche Tower
Pyongyang Metro
Mangyongdae Children's Palace
Pyongyang Circus

Cost of a five-day tour to the DPRK: $1378.

The five-day tour included 4 flights (Vladivostok - Pyongyang - Orang - Pyongyang - Vladivostok), accommodation, meals, excursion program (Pyongyang and Chilbo), visa, insurance. Some entertainment is paid for additionally ($20 - circus, $7 boat ride, etc.).

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