Reflections from the Heart of the Empire: A Cuisinart of Mixed Signals

Plus police rescue cat from politician!

• In a meeting of the vampires, French President Macron embraced his long lost cousin, the Tyrant President of Syria and Al-Qaeda psychopath extraordinaire, nka Ahmed al-Sharaa, because he looks irresistibly delicious in a suit.

  

• Ukrainian comprador President Zelensky now demands Russia agree to an unconditional 30 day ceasefire before starting any peace talks, while Russian President Putin says he’ll talk but won’t give Ukraine 30 free days to arm up and kidnap and drag more men to the front.

  • OK, he didn’t say the second part, but that’s what he meant.

• Trump then added his own demand that Russia accept an unconditional 30 day ceasefire.

• Julian Assange told us that winning wars wasn’t the goal; waging them forever was. That’s what’s going on here. The US Empire is going to keep the Ukraine War going until the Zelensky regime collapses, and then look for another one for fun and profit.

• There is, of course, the loose orange cannon factor, which has been particularly active of late.

  

• For example, Trump almost immediately endorsed Putin’s idea of talks, saying this week will be a BIG week, whatever that means.

• For another, Trump made a US/Yemen ceasefire without requiring Yemen to stop fighting Israel, then he started up talks with Iran, and now he has delinked a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia from Saudi recognition of Israel.

  • This tells me there are powerful factions in the American oligarchy that are getting sick of the genocidal apartheid state and its incessant demands.

  • Let’s not give them too much credit—they aren’t sick enough of it yet to cut off military aid and make AIPAC register as a foreign agent.

• The EU forced Romania to re-do an election because Romanians voted for the wrong guy, and it worked! Romanians voted for a different wrong guy instead.

  • You know, this reminds me of the old colonial attitude towards subject peoples, where they’d say “We’d love to give them independence, but they’re just not ready.” What arrogant presumption. Maybe Romanians ought to bring back the original Uncle Vlad to address the EU.

    

• Bulgarian President Rumen Radev went to Moscow for Russia’s big victory day celebrations and said Ukraine’s cause is “doomed.” Looks like the EU slipped up by letting that guy win.

• Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Dilution Protection of the Constitution, announced it suspended its designation of the AfD party as “extremist” after the party filed a lawsuit against it.

• Meanwhile, Israel slaughtered hundreds more Palestinian women and children and continued to deny humanitarian aid. Israel delenda est.

• Yemen hit Tel Aviv’s airport with another hypersonic missile.

  

• Lufthansa canceled all flights to Israel.

• White House Deputy Chief of Staff and certifiable authoritarian shithead Stephen Miller said the Administration is looking for ways to suspend habeas corpus so it can deport anybody it wants.

  • The AP asks “Is it legal?” instead of screaming it’s flagrantly unconstitutional like any organization of journalists would.

• The Ohio Supreme Court ruled the state may enforce its ban on transgender “care” and transgender men in women’s sport pending appeal.

• India and Pakistan are already accusing each other of violating a ceasefire they just agreed to.

  • It’s so sad. Indians and Pakistanis are basically the same people divided by religion. Right now Gandhi would be saying Indian civilization would be a good idea.

• Mali’s military government suspended all political activity, which immediately generated a lot of political activity. Funny how that works.

  

• Over 130,000 Sudanese have been driven from their homes since the latest escalation of their civil war began in February.

• Remember Trump’s 145% tariff on China? Well, now he just dropped it to 80%. It’s starting to look like a downward auction.

• That doesn’t mean they haven’t already impacted your life. The Port of Los Angeles has already seen a 35% drop in imports. There will be empty store shelves.

• Australia, like Canada, had an election that the incumbent party made into a referendum on Trump, and the conservative “Trump-like” candidate got trounced. What’s funny is that Trump says he’s never heard of the guy.

  • There’s Trumpian awareness and loyalty, for your convenience all in one example.

• Finally, police in Middletown Township, Pennsylvania rescued a cat that was under the hood of a state senator’s car, who thought the cat was a criminal stowaway. It’s OK, kitty, weird politician man go away.

  

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

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