Reflections from the Heart of the Empire: Baby Steps and Feliz Cumpleanos, Mexico!

Plus a most impressive pig

• China announced it is raising its retirement age from 60 to 63 for men and 55 to 58 for women. And I thought Americans who retired at 65 had it good.

• Soon to be retired President Joe Biden finally managed to make the news in a classic own. Take this, $kamala and Barry O!

• Meanwhile, Donald Trump survived another assassination attempt. This time, it was at a golf course in Florida, and this time even the FBI is admitting it really was an assassination attempt. They even caught the shooter and displayed his weapon.

• Ah, progress! Baby steps! Incremental progress!

• Even $kamala said she was “deeply disturbed” by the attempted assassination of the Greatest Threat to Democracy Ever. It would have been more accurate just to put a period after “deeply disturbed,” but nobody’s perfect.

• Here’s the would-be assassin. He was apparently obsessed with defending Ukraine against Russia.

• In yet more incremental progress, Donald Trump is finally saying that a vote for $kamala is a vote for war with Russia, which is a much more reasonable assertion than accusing Haitian immigrants of eating cats.

• India rejected the US Empire’s request that it ban RT.

• The Houthis successfully fired a hypersonic missile into central Israel, which exploded on impact near Tel Aviv, according to Israeli authorities. (Tel Aviv is visible in the background)

• According to the Military Times, there is such a shortage of skilled sailors who can maintain ships at sea that maintenance has become “moderately to extremely difficult.” IOW,

out there.

• Israel is finally admitting it killed at least three of its own people being held hostage in November. It only took them ten months but you know incremental change can only come about in baby steps.

• The Russians claimed they shot down three Ukrainian jets, but that’s OK because all of them were Soviet-made.

• Meanwhile. Ukrainian President Zelensky complained the West won’t shoot down Russian missiles over Ukraine and it’s not fair because it did help shoot down Iranian missiles over Israel a few months ago.

• What a cry baby. It’s not Israel’s fault the Ukrainians failed to set up a vast bribery and intimidation operation in Congress while the latter settled for Hunter Biden. How short-sighted of them!

• Protests calling for Macron to resign are still happening across France, but even the French media is trying to pretend they are not happening.

• Canada’s New Democratic Party(NDP) finally pulled its support for Justin Trudeau’s amazingly screwed up Liberals a couple of weeks ago, and even the BBC is now saying that Trudeau’s government could fall at any time.

• Mexico has changed its constitution to require the popular election of judges because the appointed ones had mostly been bought by the US Empire.

• I’ve got news for them. As any American who has ever been in court can tell you, judges can be corrupted whether they are elected or not, but since the US government opposed the move it’s probably the right thing to do now for Mexico.

• Regardless, it’s Diez y Seis! Mexican Independence Day! Back in 1810, a Catholic priest named Hidalgo chugged a bottle of tequila(well, that version is my personal favorite) and let out el grito, the cry that launched the Mexican Revolution which kicked out the Spanish and banned slavery 11 years later.

• Finally, police in Franklin, Wisconsin are looking for the owner of a loose pig that was wandering around for several days. That is some pig.

Thank you for reading, good day or night, and good luck.

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