Image is of Elon Musk giving the Nazi salute a week or so ago.
I didn’t really want to keep spotlighting American domestic events as I had assumed that shit would calm down pretty quickly, but it appears that the Trump administration, including Musk, are determined to bring down the empire from the inside.
One of the most important lessons of ruling a country - and especially an empire - is to never, ever believe your own propaganda; and yet now we have neo-Nazi failsons disrupting parts of the imperial apparatus and causing general government mayhem because they actually seem to believe in libertarianism; that the state and the capitalists are somehow in opposition, rather than working in lockstep to maximise profit and boost American hegemony around the world.
I’m not so optimistic as to believe that a national collapse is FOUR DAYS AWAY, like those weird anti-China cranks often speculate - the US has at least a decade or two left even under these conditions. But consider the damage being inflicted in these past couple weeks, and extrapolate that over the next four years. Does any living American political figure possess the competency to halt - or even meaningfully slow - the already ongoing decline? And could they achieve power (or even be allowed to do so) after Trump’s term is done?
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
No one told me Gaddaffi’s son was making a comeback in libyan politics
return of the kingI don’t know if anyone else here has posted about this yet, but in more ‘pulling the copper wiring out of the wall’ news, the Boer has decided to take down several important data from the CDC and Census websites. These include, but are not limited to, data from CDC PLACES (Population Level Analysis and Community Estimates), the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), and the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST). This data is very important for a lot of research and long term planning. I was still able to access CDC PLACES data by using a direct link to the download page, so it is not yet entirely gone. It seams from this article that CDC employees think that the data will eventually return, after it has been altered to become ‘politically correct’, but I think it would be best to expect them to never return. Much of the data is also still available from 3rd party data conglomeration, although at an extremely high cost for personal use.
Do we think Trump is serious about ethnically cleansing more of the Strip and moving the Gazans out to Egypt or Jordan? I am worried about that coming to pass.
Nathan Tankus’s latest piece: Day Five of the Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025: Not “Read Only” access anymore
… a top DOGE employee, 25 year old former SpaceX employee Marko Elez, has not only read but write access to BFS servers
…
Additionally, I can exclusively report that while there was initial hesitation from “IT Leadership” to give them access, they relented. However, they still believed this was extremely risky with one member of leadership saying “I’ve never done anything like this before”, according to a source familiar with the situation. A current IT employee of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service told me “This level of unchecked access is critically dangerous to the economy and the government”. When I replied “this is terrifying” to being informed that they have “write access” this source replied “Yeah it’s not good. Read privileges on its own still would have left room for catastrophe, but read and write is apocalyptic.”
It is as of yet unclear whether anyone on the Payment Application Modernization (PAM) system or the “Secured Payment System” (SPS) have been put on “paid administrative leave”, coerced into resigning or quit in protest. All that is known is that Marko can “access and query” SPS and that there was someone who gave Marko a “tour” of the facilities. We do not know where they are in operationalizing any control. One senior IT source can see Mark retrieving “close to a thousand rows of data” but they can’t see the content because the system is “top secret” even to them. No source I have has knowledge of what DOGE is doing with the data they are retrieving.
Been an (adult) school shooting in Örebro, Sweden with somewhere around 10 people confirmed dead so far. The perpetrator is believed to be among the dead and to have acted on his own.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-us-sovereign-wealth-fund/
Is there any real benefit for the US creating a sovereign wealth fund? Isn’t that functionally what the IMF is? I’m sure Michael Hudson could give a 90 minute lecture on the topic, but doesn’t the US have so many tools to inject dollars around the world this is pointless.
Perhaps this will be the slush fund in lieu of USAID and NED.
Apparently the President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, recently appeared wearing a cap that read “Brazil belongs to Brazilians”. Clearly inspired by the MAGA cap. But for some reason, this angered the Brazilian right, since the right-wing in Latin America only serves to support the United States, It’s quite funny to see these people having a meltdown over a cap.
Article
Egypt received the second group of injured and sick people from the Gaza Strip on Sunday through the Rafah crossing, as part of the current ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. Throughout the day, 34 injured and sick individuals crossed, along with 63 companions, the Egyptian press center indicated in a brief statement.
According to several news agencies yesterday, the Rafah border crossing, closed since last May when Israel occupied the Palestinian side of Rafah, was reopened for a total of 50 patients, only three adults, and 67 caregivers to receive medical treatment. The transfer of injured and sick individuals to Egypt, who will later either remain in the Arab nation or move to other countries, is stipulated in the ceasefire, and crossings are expected to occur daily.
The WHO estimates that around 12,000 Gazans need to be evacuated to receive medical treatment, including complex surgeries after being injured during the war, as well as cancer patients.
Since the start of the war in October 2023, about 5,400 patients have been evacuated, most of them before the Rafah crossing was closed and only around 400 afterward through the Israeli border crossing at Kerem Shalom, according to WHO figures prior to the current ceasefire. Hundreds of Egyptian aid convoys have been sent to the Rafah border, Gaza’s only crossing that does not enter Israel. Negotiations for the second phase of the deal, which calls for a permanent ceasefire, are expected to begin on Monday, February 3rd.
Can I ask a super fucked up question about ICE?
What made the democrats the LeBron James of deporting people, putting up 30 points a game? The dems were bragging about how they were deporting double what Trump is doing, right? How? Why can’t Trump, who’s really putting his whole pointer finger into it, match those numbers?
China decides to impose a 10% tariff on US oil and 15% on coal produced in the country. China adopts economic measures against US companies, including Google and Calvin Klein. Among the actions are fines and suspension of purchase contracts
- Telegram
How exactly is the US Attorney’s Office threatening to prosecute social media users for “doxxing” DOGE employees, and pressuring them to ban/tempban part of the platform, not news? If that’s not news, why is the TikTok ban news?
WhatsApp hacked by Israeli spyware firm - and you don’t even need to click a link. Just receiving the message leaves you vulnerable.
Israel targeted around 100 journalists in the attack, according to Meta.
So yeah, if you have WhatsApp, it’s time to not have WhatsApp.
China announces retaliatory tariffs on the United States, including export controls on certain rare earth minerals used for the aerospace, advanced technology and solar energy industries.
- Telegram
Georgian opposition leader Nika Melia and the former mayor of Tblisi, Gigi Ugulava were arrested along with several other protestors over the weekend in renewed protests against the Georgian government
Protests have been ongoing in the country since the November parliamentary elections, in which the Georgian Dream Party retained power and subsequently voted in a new president under new presidential election rules.
The former President of Georgia, Salomé Zourabichvili, left the country after her term expired but has yet to concede that she is no longer president.
- Telegram
Georgian Juan Guaido Gaiden Arc continues
