Reflections from the Heart of the Empire: Of Frigates and Gangsters

Plus gallant crab occupies first-class seat on English train.

• Israel attacked the Global Sumud Flotilla with incendiaries dropped from drones. Italy responded by dispatching the frigate Fasan to protect its citizens. (Below: Italian Navy frigate Fasan)

• I guess Spain doesn’t want to be left out. They dispatched the Furor , which appears to be a corvette with teeth, to escort that same flotilla.

  

• On September 17, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich referred to the entire Gaza Strip as a potential real estate bonanza, saying the “demolition is done,” and that the Israelis are only negotiating the percentages of profit from the future Riviera with Donald Trump. To wit,

There is a business plan, put together by the most professional people here, that is on President Trump’s desk.

• In my opinion, Donald Trump has always been a real estate con man who wants to be the boss gangster from a TV show, which is exactly how he is attempting to govern the United States and to intimidate the rest of the world.

  • Some of his supporters even embrace the image because of that old populist American reverence for banker-defying gangsters that they don’t understand, and Trump himself digs this shit. (Below: bumper sticker available on e-bay)

    

  • That’s right. Keep on thinking that what’s behind you is not important, you stupid, stupid kleptocrat.

• Speaking of stupid, Trump decreed 100% tariffs on imported pharmaceuticals, 50% tariffs on things like kitchen cabinets, and 30% on upholstered furniture. Way to feed that inflation, baby!

• Americans are so lucky sometimes. Just as everybody was thinking we all had to be a bunch of bloody idiotic morons to ever elect that guy President, Kamala Harris went on Rachel Maddow’s show to remind the world of the other choice our kleptocratic ruling class deigned to give us last November:

  • It’s only a little over 4 minutes, so please look at her and listen as she spouts a cacophony of contradictory babble. Harris is promoting her book about her catastrophic campaign, wherein she mentions she didn’t pick Buttgig because he was so gay and so much was at stake and she only had 107 days, and of course the Great Lesbian Maddow simply had to ask her about it, and then nod along in very well-compensated acquiescence.

    

    • The real reason is that former Secretary of Negligent Transportation Buttigieg was, and still is, polling at 0%(not a typo) with Black Democrats, and it’s not because he’s gay.

      • There is a shitlib somewhere scratching his head and wondering why I said that right now.

• The Trump Administration raised the application fee for an H1-B work visa from around $5000 to $100,000, and Indians are melting down.

  • We asked a Big Tech HR lady if that means her company will start hiring more Americans for more pay now, and received this reply:

    

• The Venezuelan government responded to Trump’s threat, at the UN General Assembly of all places, to blow President Maduro “out of existence” by submitting a declaration of “external unrest.”

  • I love it. Venezuela is declaring that there is external unrest that threatens it, and not internal unrest, which seems to be true. It grants the government “exceptional powers,” however…

The Decree must be in compliance with the requirements, principles, and guarantees established in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights.

• So Maduro’s less authoritarian than Trump even when he makes emergency decrees.

  • Maybe it’s because he knows Russian Oreshnik hypersonic missiles are already in Venezuela. Maybe not. I honestly don’t know. All I know is Russia was thinking about it in July, and if I were Maduro I’d want them.

• Meanwhile, a new YouGov poll shows a whopping 18% of Americans support a military action against Venezuela, while 59% of us are firmly opposed.

• Starbucks announced it is closing stores across the US and the UK due to flagging sales. Well, boycotts + inflation = Fewer people spending money on overpriced coffee. Who knew?

• The UK science minister said that the NHS must raise its drug prices because Big Pharma isn’t investing enough in the country. Great idea! This will raise British drug prices so much that the EU will see a boom in medical tourism for sure!

• Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted by a Federal grand jury for helping make Russiagate up. As someone who knew Russiagate was total bullshit from the beginning, all I can say is

  

• Donald Trump said he would never call Russia a paper tiger ever again. He did not say why he called it that in the first place, or why he took it back so quickly.

  • Maybe somebody told him about the Russian technicians and weapons in Venezuela or something.

• Meanwhile, Germany is accusing Russia of “shadowing” their satellites. We Americans have been hearing this shit for over 40 years now. The German government needs to watch better American reruns, as this one was stale before 9/11. Que the Imperial March for old times sake.

  

• Secretary of War Pete Hegseth upset all sorts of high-ranking admirals and generals by summoning them to a meeting in Quantico, of all places, and they are said to be nervous. Hegseth has made noises about reducing their numbers by 20%, you see, which isn’t enough, but it would be a good start.

  • You know, like 10,000 bankers or lawyers at the bottom of the ocean is a good start. Therefore that’s probably not what’s going to happen.

• More protests rocked Peru as the rightwing government proposed pension reforms cuts.

• Trump said he “will not allow” Israel to annex the West Bank, but said nothing about allowing Israel to “extend Israeli law” over Jewish settlements there, or about new settlements in the wake of ethnic cleansing operations.

  • Plain English translation: Israel plans to ethnically cleanse the West Bank, then merely extend Israeli law over new Jewish settlers because there aren’t any Palestinians left for any Palestinian authority to govern for some mysterious reason.

• The hourly horrors happening in Gaza are beyond my capacity to adequately convey. Israel delenda est.

• Meanwhile, an English crab heeded my call for more Levellers by occupying a first class seat on the London to Portsmouth train. The insurrectionary crab was relocated to a pond, and no doubt a security camera was installed by Airstrip One authorities to insure the newly monikered Craig the Crab does not support Palestine Action.

  

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

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