Reflections from the Heart of the Empire: Imperial Flails and Fails
And a very resourceful steer
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes banned Xtwitter in Brazil because Elon Musk refuses to censor Brazilian political speech, and threatens $8000+ a day fines for anyone using a VPN to get around it. Surely, everyone in Brazil will stop using XTwitter now, right?
Or, to paraphrase Andrew Jackson in a positive way,
Mr. Justice de Moraes has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.
Ansar Allah, aka the Houthis, agreed to allow tugboats to tow the Greek-flagged oil tanker Sounion, which they had attacked and crippled several days ago, out of the Red Sea.
Previously, a French destroyer picked up the crew without being fired upon. This shows Ansar Allah is obeying the traditional Law of the Sea concerning helpless sailors in spite of the fact that they are designated terrorists by the US State Department.
Algeria is now the #1 exporter of pipeline natural gas to Europe, and is frustrating the US Empire by refusing to incur any more international debt, and thus control by that Empire. It also has nice beaches, like the one below in Algiers, and is slowly liberalizing its visa policy to promote tourism.
It’s almost as if Algeria is trying to be independent while not being Libya’d by the Empire. I wish them the best of luck.
Most of Venezuela experienced an electrical blackout Friday night. The government says it was caused by sabotage, but gave no details. Power has been restored. Nicolas Maduro is still president. (photo: Caracas at dawn during the blackout)
$kamala Harris, the white dude with a name one letter short of a dance at her side for moral support, pretended to to be interviewed by CNN’s Dana Bash, who had the unexpected temerity to ask followup questions after $kamala evaded such simple ones as “What will you do on Day One in office?” She didn’t have an answer ready! That surprised even me. It went over so well that political bookies lowered $kamala’s odds of winning the election.
What’s really, to use a trendy Democult word, weird is that the Harris campaign had weeks to prepare for this, but $kamala looked like she forgot her lines or was drunk or hungover or something, and she managed to bomb a softball interview that was edited. That takes epic
I am not exaggerating when I say this meme captures $kamala’s performance perfectly,
More and more Americans who have always voted Democratic just can’t bring themselves to support anyone who actively enables a genocide being livestreamed before their eyes, not even an accomplished woman of color projecting nebulously joyous new ways forward. Here is one of the best examples of this I’ve seen on Substack:
$kamala made much ado about being a career prosecutor. Yah, like that’s going to help her with the Black vote. The Trump commercials in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Milwaukee practically write themselves.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump endorsed a ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida.
The Israelis, frustrated with their exhausting ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza, decided to try it in the West Bank, again, most recently attacking Jenin and killing at least 21 Palestinians just the other day. I swear I heard a giggle. Oh, that’s right! We can’t let a little genocide interrupt our joy, now can we?
The Russians claim they are breaking through on the Donbass front and that the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kursk has stalled. You be the judge whether the videos or claims in this RT article are mostly true or not.
They probably mostly are. It’s amazing how often Russian disinformation turns out to be true, isn’t it? They said they didn’t interfere in 2016, Hunter Biden’s laptop was really a thing and not a Russian plot, the Biden Administration is a slavering pack of warmongering vampires, German and American tanks burn prettily, things like that, and they all turned out to be true!
If anything, the Russians have been too polite. This is what I think the US Empire is deliberately doing to Ukraine for profit, and it’s absolutely disgusting that my tax dollars subsidize this ghoulish grifting operation:
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian F-16 was shot down, and one Ukrainian MP is saying the Ukrainians shot it down themselves with their own anti-air missiles. It’s nice to see my tax dollars spent so wisely.
(image of crashed F-16 in Kansas, 2015)
Ukrainian Prez Zelensky fired the head of his air force after that worthy said the MP should go to jail for saying such an outrageous thing, so friendly fire probably is what happened.
The Blinken/Sullivan Administration decided not to sent American contractors to Ukraine to service those F-16s still flying because of concerns for their safety on the part of the US intelligence community.
It’s nice to see that B&S, not to mention the US intelligence community, is concerned about someone’s well-being. I’m so relieved.
The International Criminal Court told Mongolia it is required to arrest Vladimir Putin for war crimes when he makes his state visit to Ulan Bator. The ICC is so adorable. Right Vlad?
Not quite last and definitely not least, I just hit 1000 subscribers!
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Finally, a steer which had been on the loose in the Boston area since June 22 was finally corralled by the Yankees, who expressed their ignorance of cattle by first announcing the animal was a cow, then a bull, only to find out he is a steer. Big difference between a steer and a bull, folks, just sayin’. Neither steer nor Yankee was injured in the steer’s 2 months plus of freedom.
Thank you for reading, good day or night, and good luck.
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Most excellent!!!!!! Thank you!!!!
The F-16 - I did hear that Russia offered to give the million ruble bounty that has been offered to the first person to shoot down an F-16 to whoever actually shot it down in Ukraine. Ukrainian or NATO. Burn.
BRICS started using their new banking system for agricultural trading, which not only cuts out the American SWIFT dollars system, but cuts American farmers out of having global information to use in figuring out what to plant and how much. The fall of the hegemony is going to hurt a lot of people who had nothing to do with this shit.
If California actually passes those reparations bills, the amount of reparation may come to two and a half times California's GDP. And the potential receivers of this bounty are telling $kamala that she better force Newsom to get those bills passed, or no votes for her from the black community. Also it seems to me that $kamala dislikes Newsom because he was the favorite. Until the DNC realized they could not get their hands on the Biden/Harris slush fund. So that should be interesting. I don't think her WEIRD plan to tax unrealized profits is going over very well either. I kind of doubt she even understands that.
Jon Stewart finally acknowledges the corruption of the Democrat Party. Well, better late than never, I suppose. Pretty good segment on his show about it. He said oh well, there goes that booking.
That steer - remember that animated film where ALL the cattle, male and female, had udders, because the writer/director thought that city folks thought that all cattle had udders? Still makes me laugh.
And, of course, the Rada MP says the F-16 was shot down by a Patriot missile, leading to a sadly funny meme.
In the meme, Zelensky is asking for more F-16s as one was shot down, and he's asking for more Patriot missiles as one was used to shoot down a F-16.
Isn't it great to see lots of US tax dollars at work?!