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Bulletins and News Discussion from June 30th to July 6th, 2025 - Alas, Poor Boric - COTW: Chile (hexbear.net)
submitted 4 days ago by SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net
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Image is sourced from this People's Dispatch article, depicting communists attending the 2023 funeral of Communist Party President Guillermo Teillier, who was tortured for years under Pinochet's regime and helped rebuild the Communist Party while under a fascist dictatorship.

We had the Six Day War in 1967, we had the Nineteen Day War (Yom Kippur) in 1973, and now we've had the Twelve Day War. I wonder how many more very short wars will plague the region until Palestine is freed?

However, moving on from Western Asia from a little while, we have some interesting news from Chile - the former labor minister and communist, Jeannette Jara, has won the primary election for the left-wing bloc in a landslide (~60% of the vote), as the current President, Gabriel Boric, is term-limited. Her achievements include a minimum wage increase and a reduction of the work week to 40 hours.

In November, Jara will face down the contenders from other parties, including José Antonio Kast, who is analogous to Brazil's Bolsonaro. Unfortunately, Jara is now the lead figure of a party that has been taking quite a few Ls under Boric's leadership. Ostensibly a Democratic Socialist, he ruled as - you guessed it - a neoliberal, bending the knee to the US and EU. He not only failed to overthrow the Pinochet-era constitution, he actually allowed the right-wing to turn the proposed new constitution into something worse, and had to settle for campaigning against the new one and keeping the old one. And he had very little solidarity with other left-leaning leaders on the continent, like Maduro, Lula, Petro, or Castillo.

With this in mind, I cannot help but look at Argentina's very recent history and feel a little dread - but if anybody can save Chile at this point, it can only be a communist.

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Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.

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[–] Tervell@hexbear.net 47 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (13 children)

in US procurement news, U.S. is Falling Short on 155mm Artillery Shell Production: Current Output and 1 Million Goal Timeline

Although significant efforts to ramp up artillery ammunition production — efforts that have cost billions of dollars — the U.S. has still not reached its planned output targets. As of June 2025, the total monthly production volume of 155mm artillery rounds stands at 40,000 units. This was reported by John Reim, head of the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office for Ammunition and Armaments, in an interview with Defense One. According to the Pentagon’s plans announced in February 2024, the target for April 2025 was set at 75,000 rounds per month, with a goal of reaching 100,000 by October 2025. However, despite the current rate of 40,000 155mm rounds per month, the U.S. Army remains confident it will reach the target in early 2026. This means the U.S. will be able to produce more than 1 million 155mm artillery rounds only in 2026.

As Defense Express notes, it is crucial not to confuse a round with a projectile. The figure of 40,000 refers to the number of 155mm projectiles, a level the U.S. reached back in September 2024, according to a Pentagon report. However, a complete round also includes a propellant charge and a fuze. According to that report, while 40,000 projectiles were produced, only 18,000 charges (likely meaning full sets) were made. In other words, as of September 2024, the U.S. was effectively producing just 18,000 complete 155mm artillery rounds per month. In the eight months since then, the U.S. defense industry has managed to double complete round production — a notable achievement. Still, the major gap in charge production compared to projectiles is due to a shortage of propellant and the fact that the U.S. had no domestic production.

Currently, all U.S. artillery charges are manufactured at the Valleyfield facility near Montreal, Canada, which is owned by General Dynamics. However, production is being relocated to the U.S. at new American Ordnance plants in Middletown, Iowa, and Camden, Arkansas, where another General Dynamics facility will also be built. In parallel with expanding shell body production and increasing the capacity for filling them with explosives — which remains a challenge, as 100,000 shells per month would require 66,000 tons of explosives, much of which is currently imported — these developments will enable the U.S. to eventually reach the target of producing 100,000 complete 155mm rounds per month.

So, it's up to 40,000 projectiles - that's from 14,400 at in 2022, which is not even an extra 30,000 in 3-and-a-half years, and they're supposed to get to 100,000 by next year stonks-up. For comparison, the daily usage by Russia is 10-20k, with a peak of 60k some time ago.

But wait, it gets better - it seems like production may have actually gone down from last year

spoiler

The Army recently told Congress that 155mm production currently stands at 40,000/month. This is of course a decrease from the 50,000/m LaPlante stated last year.

We now have a likely explanation for why it fell. The new shell body production facility in Mesquite, TX is massively behind schedule. The first two of three production lines are still not fully completed, and the third is likely to miss its due date. The Army has formally notified General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems that their management of the facility is being reviewed for breach of contract. They have until July 10 to detail how they might be able to get things back on track.

As a result, the Army's Load, Assemble and Pack capacity exceeds their ability to produce the metal parts of the projectiles. Previously there was a stockpile of shell bodies that were being drawn on by the LAP facilities, but those must have been exhausted, so projectile production has now fallen to 40,000 which is what the other metal parts plants can produce. Mesquite's 3 lines are supposed to produce 10,000 shell bodies each.

Once again, the West's mockery of the Russians for relying on old stockpiles is projection. It's Cold War era stockpiles all the way down!

More details on the potential breach of contract: Army ‘considering terminating’ General Dynamics’ oversight of new 155mm production lines

... the service is now “considering terminating” the GD deals for all three UPLA lines, according to a June 13 letter from Army Contracting Command (ACC) to the company. “GD-OTS has failed to complete the projects on time or make meaningful progress towards meeting the required completion dates of design and installation of the three (3) UAPLs,” the Army wrote in the letter. ... “Because GD-OTS has failed to meet significant milestones for UAPL 1, leading to six (6) missed First Article Test dates spanning April 2024 through June 2025, resultant schedule impacts have continued to extend [to] UAPL 2 and UAPL schedules,” the Army explained. “Specifically, for Line 3, since January 2025 alone GD-OTS’ estimate for equipment installation slipped three (3) months, thus extending total installation timeframe and subsequent line prove-out activities into 2027.”

Additionally, the service said that even after it was determined that Line 1 equipment did not meet “technical requirements of the contract,” the company continued shipping Line 3 equipment. As a result, there is a “significant risk” that similar Line 3 equipment will also not be up to snuff. Compounding the issue, on May 29 GD-OTS notified Army officials that it had halted work on UAPL 3 “on its own accord,” a decision taken without direction or concurrence from the service.

yeah that contract I signed up for? yeah I'm just not gonna do like a third of it man, I just don't feel like doing it doggirl-sleep

“Because GD-OTS has failed to perform the UAPL Task Orders… within the timeframe required by the contractual terms, the USG is considering terminating” the deals but a final decision has not been made, the Army added. The letter does not go into detail about what other companies could be tapped to replace GD-OTS.

[–] RedSailsFan@hexbear.net 13 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

@darkcalling@hexbear.net this is the kind of thing i was talking about btw

[–] darkcalling@hexbear.net 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

True but also I think in a war with China those won't matter as much as some combination of drone production, missile production capacities, ability to get those through the enemy defenses (counter-jamming, electronic warfare, tactics, etc) AND/OR your ability to take down drones and missiles effectively and not too expensively (resource-wise not cost-wise). The US isn't going to fight a ground war against China in a conventional sense. It's going to be on the high seas, a world war probably across many island chains with naval logistic and control of the seas and air more important. But who knows.

So drones + fighters + other air assets + missiles + naval assets and the ability to leverage them, use electronic warfare, dirty tricks, secret weapons, combined arms, etc to overcome the enemy and strike deep and hard or maintain superiority.

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