this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
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Image is of smoke rising after Iranian missiles impact a US military site in Bahrain.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleAfter a few weeks of both diplomatic and military manuevering - mostly over Iranian control of Hormuz - we have hit the hottest phase of military exchanges since at least the MoU period began. The US has generally focussed on striking southern Iran, although they have also sporadically hit transportation infrastructure elsewhere, which was repaired in less than 24 hours. Meanwhile, Iran has struck a wide range of targets, with an interesting focus on Jordan, but has, up to the time of me writing this, so far relented on striking the Zionist entity. The US and Iran have had little periods of mutual military strikes during the "ceasefire" before, and so it's hard to tell for sure whether this yet another temporary spat or if it represents a full return to the pre-ceasefire conflict.

A complicating factor in this conflict is that Ansarallah has become increasingly active, and seems eager to start to break the siege it has been put under by threatening to attack Saudi Arabia and Saudi-aligned forces. This has put Iran in a somewhat awkward spot. On the one hand, it has greatly helped Ansarallah resist foreign attackers and has even recently sent civilian airplanes into Sana'a to begin to break the siege. On the other hand, Iran has, with China's help, generally desired to improve its relationship with the Saudis over the years. While in this latest war there have been a major dispute between them over whether Iran is "allowed" to strike US military infrastructure located in Saudi Arabia, the Saudis strike me as considerably less anti-Iran as the UAE, let alone the Zionists, and did send a delegation to Khamenei's funeral. I guess we'll just have to see what happens next, but I strongly suspect that Iran is going to help Yemen over the Saudis.

And finally, Lindsay Graham has died of a sudden heart attack a suspiciously short time after visiting Ukraine. He was a true enemy of civilian populations all the way to the end of his life, and he seemed to particularly despise children. He advocated for using nukes against Gaza and the total annihilation of anybody and everybody who had even the meekest criticism of Zionism. If God (and, more pertinently in this case, Satan) does exist, I hope Graham is extended the exact same level of courtesy and respect in the afterlife that Graham extended to all Palestinians.


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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

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Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on the Zionists' destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
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English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
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English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

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 17 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

some additional commentary:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/1uwjugz/new_500m_artillery_shell_plant_failed_to_produce/oxloyxw/

Full report by Inspector General is here: https://media.defense.gov/2026/Jul/10/2003960034/-1/-1/1/DOWIG-2026-095_REDACTED_FINAL%20SECURE.PDF

The Army officials agreed but did not address the specifics of one of the three recommendations. Therefore, we consider one recommendation unresolved and open. The Army officials agreed and described actions they have taken, or planned, to meet the intent of the other two recommendations, therefore we consider these two resolved. We will close all three recommendations when Army officials provide documentation showing that the actions are completed.

Looks like the Inspector General has no power at all to actually force them to address all recommendations. The three individual roles identified as holding responsibility for handling the shortfall are the following:

  • Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology) - this is currently Brent G. Ingraham as per the article, but the Mesquite contract was awarded in 2023 and Douglas R. Bush was in that position then
  • Capability Program Executive Ammunition & Energetics - this is a new organization only activated this year, currently run by Colonel Jason Bohannon
  • Executive Director, U.S. Army Contracting Command – Rock Island (ACC‑RI) - under Lynda R. Armer since 2022

A press release identifies Firat Gezen as the senior executive at the time. The report does not identify any punishment or penalties to General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems for missing deadlines/commitments for the Mesquite facility. On the contrary, it drops this banger hidden in a 8pt font citation on page 7:

According to the Federal Acquisition Regulation, bilateral agreement between the contractor and the Government is required to extend a stop work order. As part of the bilateral agreement, the Government agreed to resume progress payments to the contractor. Progress payments for lines 2 and 3 totaling $26,339,252.41 were made to the contractor in December 2025. Since then, no additional payments have been made.

Phew lad, I'm glad they're at least not mailing them anymore of my taxes this year! But will any of the names/entities in this report receive any punishment or penalties? Will anyone above in those theoretical positions of responsibility come out and release the bare minimum statement of "oopsie daisies"? Hell, was there even an enforcement clause/KPI commitment in the signed contract? Will a follow up report (if there is one) ever dare to utter the forbidden "c" word? (spoilers: 0 hits in this report) Place your bets!


As best as I can tell, this is the contract: https://www.highergov.com/idv/W15QKN24D0037

Facility is not running, but the contract is 68% complete.

capitalist-laugh we're 68% done bilking the government out of 2 billion bucks!

For some additional fun, scroll down to the bottom to get jumpscared by the one and only Ted Cruz who happens to be the rep for the district where the work is supposed to take place

ted-texas

[–] HexReplyBot@hexbear.net 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

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