news

A general strike is now underway in Bolivia, this time calling for the resignation of the neoliberal President Rodrigo Paz. https://nitter.net/Ollie_Vargas_/status/2054204261299548224

for bolivian conrades

Greater Israel pilled and Cool Zone maxxing

"When you're negotiating with Iran, Mr. President, to what extent are Americans' financial situations motivating you to make a deal?" a reporter asked.

"Not even a little bit," Trump said firmly. "The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about Americans' financial situation, I don't think about anybody.".

BREAKING: President Trump is considering suspending the federal gasoline tax amid surging prices, per CBS News.

The tax currently adds about 18 cents per gallon.

Utah approves datacenter twice the size of Manhattan

• Called “Stratos AI Datacenter”
• Will cover 40,000 acres / 62 sq miles
• Will need 9GW of electricity, more than Utah currently consumes
• Will need god-levels of water, pulling from Great Salt Lake and other sources already in severe drought, and would produce toxic dry-bed dust clouds as the lake disappears
• Will raise Utah’s pollution by 50%
• County commissioners approved project despite thousands of resident objections
• Is backed by Mr. Shark Tank himself Kevin fucking O’Leary
• “I don’t think there’s a bigger site in the world than this,” O’Leary told Fox News. “It shows the Chinese and the rest of the world we are not messing around, we are going to get this done, move it forward and provide the compute power to our AI companies that defend the country.”
• O’Leary claims people mad about this are professional protestors getting bused in lol
• “The network of industrial-scale fans needed to cool the datacenter’s hot pipes will result in so much waste heat that it could raise daytime temperatures in the surrounding Hansel valley by 2F to 5F (1.1C to 2.7C) and night-time temperatures by 8F to 12F (4.4C to 6.6C), according to an analysis by Rob Davies, a physics professor at Utah State University.”
• I just started reading BLAME!, here we go!

Do you remember that military-dolphins-in-the-strait story, the one that was even addressed in a press conference by Hegseth ?

Well here is a very funny follow-up. This is apparently the level of competence one can expect from Iran's "experts" in the US media:

Remember the "Iran Expert" on WSJ Claiming Iran Is Using DOLPHINS with Mines in the Hormuz?

🇮🇷 WSJ's "Iran Expert" Thought Iranian Submarines Nicknamed Dolphins Were Real Dolphins

The Iranian Navy has MINI SUBMARINES nicknamed "Persian Gulf Dolphins" by their own officers. Admiral Shahram Irani confirmed they sit on the seabed in the Strait of Hormuz and track hostile vessels.

That is a documented submarine program with a nickname. A metaphor. Basic military terminology.

WSJ put this story out warning America about actual dolphins with explosives because they saw one word and stopped reading.

The people who cannot read a military dispatch are the same ones explaining this war to 300 million Americans.

That Tocqueville quote comes to mind.

Pretty decent article in The Atlantic today called «Checkmate in Iran.» The general thrust of the article is nothing new to anybody here; that the USAmericans have been thoroughly defeated in Iran, that there is no «return to normal» after this massive humiliation, that the USAmerican imperium has come to a close, that it's a «paper tiger» incapable of defeating a second-rate power that is not even its «peer», etc etc. That this is published in the mainstream press is astounding, but such are the times we live in.

That said, I found this section interesting because it appears that how even somebody with rather clear eyes within the liberal press establishment still doesn't get it on a technical level. Take a look (some excerpts I wanna highlight):

Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored. There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done. The Strait of Hormuz will not be “open,” as it once was. With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region and one of the key players in the world. The roles of China and Russia, as Iran’s allies, are strengthened; the role of the United States, substantially diminished. Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, **the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started. **

But any resolution other than America’s effective surrender holds enormous risks that Trump has not so far been willing to take. Those who glibly call on Trump to “finish the job” rarely acknowledge the costs. Unless the U.S. is prepared to engage in a full-scale ground and naval war to remove the current Iranian regime, and then to occupy Iran until a new government can take hold; **unless it is prepared to risk the loss of warships convoying tankers through a contested strait; **unless it is prepared to accept the devastating long-term damage to the region’s productive capacities likely to result from Iranian retaliation—walking away now could seem like the least bad option.

One effect of this transformation may be an expanding great-power naval race. In the past, most of the world’s nations, including China, counted on the United States to both prevent and address such emergencies. Now the nations in Europe and Asia that depend on access to the Persian Gulf’s resources are helpless against the loss of energy supplies that are vital to their economic and political stability. How long can they tolerate this before they start building their own fleets, as a means of wielding influence in an every-nation-for-itself world where order and predictability have broken down?

The author of this piece seems to be under the impression that, like the United States in Vietnam, if the USAmericans simply committed more that they'd be able to win. That through the overwhelming power of the USAmerican military machine final victory can be achieved. And that the lessons of this conflict are that every country needs a fleet to project power across the globe.

I think the conflict as it's unfolded shows the opposite; regardless of how much the USAmericans do, they cannot change the status quo. Iranian tunnels and missile cities are entirely immune to USAmerican air strikes. No amount of naval power can reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Even if the US Navy was willing to escort ships, all that would happen is those ships would sink to the bottom of the Gulf; all their destroyers and aircraft carriers cannot stop Iranian missile launches. Navies are functionally useless; if the US Navy couldn't stop Yemen from closing the Red Sea, what is the point of other countries building out their fleets? The age of tunnels, missiles, and drones (a word almost entirely absent in this article, mind you!) is here. Naval power holds no sway in this new world.

EDIT: The article in question: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/05/iran-war-trump-losing/687094/

Somali Pirates Ransom Emirati oil tanker for $10M

Lmao

BREAKING: US armed forces & Bolivian police are preparing a joint operation to kidnap Evo Morales and massacre the indigenous communities in the vicinity.

Police officers opposed to the plan have leaked documents confirming the operation.

https://xcancel.com/Ollie_Vargas_/status/2055517199721545869

NYT - The Lecturer and Philosopher King: Xi Jinping Behind Closed Doors

Encounters with other world leaders reveal a side of China’s leader that the public rarely sees, and offer clues to how he will approach President Trump in Beijing.

I know complaining about the NYT is some low-hanging fruit but that "analysis" might as well have included the word inscrutable. The text is supposed to be news not an op-ed but it still made me think of this "egg roll" tweet.

Media is like:

Freelancer, $35,000/yr: “I self-funding a three month reporting trip to a warzone to capture the untold stories of the war crime victims”

Columnist, $300,000/yr: “China's foreign policy is like an egg roll”

Tweet

- - - - - - - -

https://xcancel.com/MorePerfectUS/status/2053928047037059091

590,000 people paid $59 million for the Trump gold phone.

A year later, not a single one has shipped. No one has received a phone.

The original release date was August, 2025. Now all info about the release date has been removed from the website.

https://xcancel.com/TheIranianzg3z/status/2054500094393590208

One of Iran’s underground missile bases near Esfahan was reportedly struck nearly 20 times during the war, averaging one attack every two days, using bunker-busting munitions and precision strikes from B-2 and B-52 aircraft, according to regional reporting. Despite the intensity of the bombardment, the site is said to have resumed operations within hours each time, with reports indicating it rarely remained inactive for more than half a day. A resident in Esfahan described repeated night strikes on the surrounding mountains, saying missiles were still seen launching from the same area the following morning.

Fascinating thread on the new Democracy Perception Index.

Some key points:

• China remains one of the world's most vibrant democracies, enjoying overwhelming support from its citizens across all metrics, and broad positive perceptions around the world

• The USA and Israel are absolutely despised by an overwhelming majority of global citizens

• The wholesome chungus darling of the West Ukkkraine is one of the 5 worst ranked democracies on Earth

• Anglo democracies in particular, even when their overall score is considered good or fair, have abysmally low "transparency" rankings

Lots of good information in that thread.

EDIT: Also, this is so much better than those idiotic "good country vs. bad country" maps that the glue-huffing dipshits at The Economist crap out every year. This actually appears to be based on a tremendous amount of actual data and analysis not just "I don't like China so I'm going to say that they're bad because I said so"

https://xcancel.com/ripplebrain/status/2054243127171445106

30% of car buyers trading in vehicles in early 2026 are "underwater," owing more on their loans than the car is worth, with an average gap of over $7,000, per WSJ

I knew things were bad but this is insane. Apparently you can just keep rolling your negative equity into new loans with increasingly terrifying terms

This Bluesky hantavirus post by a science journalist gives a great reality check.

Remember that there are up to 200,000 [global] cases of human hantavirus infections each year. Probably many more, since especially old world Hantaviruses apparently often only cause flu-like symptoms. Testing for it may well ramp up now, so expect tons of unrelated cases to turn up over the next week.

https://bsky.app/profile/fischblog.bsky.social/post/3mlpjjqkkdc2p

Are they fucking kidding? This old fucking chestnut? Yeesh.

CNN - US energy secretary says Iran is “frighteningly close” to constructing nuclear weapons. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told lawmakers Wednesday that Iran is “frighteningly close” to constructing nuclear weapons, insisting that the country is “weeks away” from enriching one ton of its uranium to weapons-grade levels. “Frighteningly close. They are weeks, a small number of weeks away to enrich that to weapons-grade uranium,” Wright told the Senate Armed Services Committee at a hearing.

“There’s still a weaponization process that happens after that, but they’re quite close to constructing nuclear weapons.” Enriching uranium above a certain threshold — around 90% — means it can be used to create nuclear weapons. Asked by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal about the status of Iran’s other reported 11 tons of uranium, Wright said the levels of enrichment ranged up to 60%, though Iran has “a lot of” 20% enriched uranium, which he called “very concerning.”

Blumenthal then pressed Wright on whether President Donald Trump would have to go after all of Iran’s uranium stockpiles in order to stop the enrichment. “I think that’s the wise strategy,” Wright said. “Ultimately, the goal is to prevent future enrichment of uranium as well. Yes, to have a safe world, we need to end their nuclear program.”

Multiple Trump administration officials have cited Iran’s enriched uranium stores as part of the rationale for the war with Iran. Trump has also said he wants Iran to surrender its enriched uranium in order to reach a deal to end the conflict.

Update on my trans friend who planned on joining Ukraine as a combat medic. Lots of text, but the TLDR is that she's not going to Ukraine.

I was able to talk to her about it today, and a lot was revealed. One of the commenters was spot on, this was suicidal ideation disguised as self sacrifice. I went a bit more critical on her than normal. I normally hold back a little bit because some of the things I said, I don't really feel are my place to say normally. I usually hold back because when she's not on a manic plan, she listens to be a little bit too much. She respects me as being better read and a smarter person when looking at big picture things. Whenever she says stuff like this, I make sure I point out areas that she's smarter than me in. She's really big into theology, so she'll manically switch religions. She's also really big into language, and not mainstream language either, which really impressed me. Doesn't know a lick of Spanish, but knows many indigenous languages. While she is right in her assumption that I am generally better at big picture stuff that sounds conceited, but many of y'all saw the arguments she was making about joining Ukraine, it's very true.

She came to me this morning crying, saying she was thinking about going to a mental institution. I ask why and she tells me that she's very suicidal. I comfort her and tell her I kind of assumed, because the Ukraine mission sounded like a suicide disguised as self sacrifice. She admits that this is probably the case. She is often struggling with suicidal thoughts, and while she deals with a lot of mental illness, I don't think she struggles with clinical depression. I'm not a shrink, but she shares all her thoughts with me, I really think she's depressed due to a mix of being a disabled trans person in America, having incoherent beliefs from not reading theory, and having essentially been groomed to throw her life away in some sort of combat. In my discussion with her today, I tackled all three.

First, being a disabled trans person in America. Under the structure of her religious beliefs in Norse Paganism (more on that later) it says something that amounts to "If you can fight, you should fight." I was very open with her about the fact that I don't know much about Norse Paganism except what she's told me, and what I've seen the alt righters say. I explained to her that this likely meant defending her own people, and as a disabled (schizophrenic) trans woman, she's needed in America now more than ever. Her very existence is radical in a country that's trying to send both schizophrenics and trans people to labor/death camps. Part of her reasoning for wanting to go to Ukraine was to escape America, but if she wants to fight, she should fight for her own people. If she wants to leave America, she shouldn't be leaving to fight in an American proxy war.

Second, incoherent beliefs. She is a Norse Pagan who isn't a Nazi. She rejected all community with Norse Pagans because she understands that they're all Nazis, so she's essentially isolated in her beliefs there. I normally don't go after her religious beliefs, she changes them when she's manic but typically goes for religions that seem to lead to reactionary conclusions. Like you know, fighting for Nazis in Ukraine. I told her she should consider building her own spiritual beliefs, but she has a problem where she just has to be told what to believe. Hence why I typically avoid criticizing her religions, I don't feel like I should determine what religious beliefs she has. I know if I more thoroughly explained mine, she'd probably go with mine. Not because mine are the best and truest, but because she generally follows whatever I say. The first book of theory I gave her to read isn't leftist theory, it's really disability liberation. She feels worthless because she was raised in America, by a bootlicker. She hates herself for being disabled, and I think that's really where she needs to start.

This was the total mobilisation of all far-right forces in the UK that Tommy Robinson claims was "millions".

That's it, that's the current total forces of the far right that they're able to actually mobilise with a year of planning and mossad's money to put it up on Nakba day as a distraction from the pro-palestine protests.

They've got fucking nothing. The rest of the UK hogs are just disillusioned reactionaries that want a better life and are successfully being manipulated, they're not true believers and I don't believe it's possible to mobilise them.

The Guardian Administration officials accompanying Donald Trump on Air Force 1 en route to China reportedly include:

• Secretary of state Marco Rubio

• Defense secretary Pete Hegseth

• US trade representative Jamieson Greer

• White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller

• White House deputy chief of staff James Blair

• Film director Brett Ratner [edit]

Others included in Trump’s entourage include his son Eric and Eric’s wife Lara, science advisor Michael Kratsios, as well as chief of protocol Monica Crowley.

Inshallah... I think that's as much as I can say.

---

About the edit - hat tip to Lando.

not news exactly, but a "decline of the empire" anecdote I came across that I hope fits https://xcancel.com/Wild_Arms_RandD/status/2051634480251650414

Spent almost 2 years locating documents on the swizzlestick [a US prototype hypervelocity rocket], finally able to get them, DTIC [Defense Technical Information Center, DoD research repository] let go all of their staff who can digitize the documents

https://xcancel.com/chrisbolas/status/2051709723855004046

what percentage of DTIC records do you think are solely on microfilm right now? AKA what percentage of their data/information is now effectively impossible to request?

No idea on % but my documents are from late 1960s , early 1970s so most of that stuff is likely on microfilm

The empire is literally, completely voluntarily, Warhammer-40k-ing itself - leaving itself unable to access documentation of a bunch of its own military technology, and for what? To save the money on a couple of salaries, which would be pretty much imperceptible against the backdrop of all the other shit the DoD's blowing money on? Stuff from the '60s may initially seem too old to be relevant today, but remember that the B-52 strategic bomber and the KC-135 refueling tanker, which were extensively used in the war against Iran, date as designs to the '50s. Plus, digital only started to overtake microfilm in the '90s (and digital storage has pitfalls of its own due to ancient file formats no software supports anymore, which will be especially prevalent for early digital stuff from before there was at least some industry standardization on common file formats and there were a gajilion different ones for everything), and a pretty substantial portion of military technology still in use (not just for the US, but more globally) dates back to the '80s (usually upgraded a bunch since then, but the original chassis or airframe or whatever remains mostly as it was, just with new stuff tacked on top of it).

also who the hell says "separated from government service" for people being fired, like what even is this euphemism, I thought we already had "let go" for this

New — The Senate has just voted against advancing an Iran War Powers Resolution for the seventh time, 49-50. This time though, a Democrat was the deciding vote. Rand Paul, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski voted to advance it. John Fetterman voted against it.

https://nitter.net/prem_thakker/status/2054608253091238000

~30 minutes ago

Ukrainians are stunned by the court reading transcripts of texts between Andriy Yermak, until recently the country’s second most powerful man, and his fortune-teller “Veronica Feng-Shui,” in which she advises him to get rid of his enemies in the media and parliament before it’s too late, and while he still enjoys Zelensky’s protection.

https://nitter.net/yarotrof/status/2054554877473460260

that's neat

Finance Bros analysis...

JP Morgan on oil prices/Strait of Hormuz:

"A core assumption of our framework is that the accelerating pace of oil inventory depletion will ultimately force the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, one way or another. Our base case envisions the Strait reopens in June—anchored on June 1 for simplicity—following a clear and credible announcement ratified and confirmed by both sides, such as a statement from the UN Security Council."

https://xcancel.com/BrianSozzi/status/2054123043459342781#m

There's a follow up tweet with more info. Twitter bio: "Executive Editor @YahooFinance."

Mr. Hexbear a seventh Venezuelan ship has sailed to Cuba

Another shipment of solidarity aid is being prepared from Venezuela for Cuba - Prensa Latina

AUTO LOAN AND CREDIT CARD DELINQUENCIES IN THE US HAVE HIT ALL-TIME HIGHS, ACCORDING TO CNBC

Al Jazeera - Tehran warns of 90% uranium enrichment if attacked again by US, Israel. Iranian Parliamentary Commission spokesperson Ebrahim Rezaei said one of Iran’s responses in the event of another US-Israeli attack on its territory “could be 90 percent enrichment”. “We will review it in the parliament,” Rezaei said in a post on X.

https://xcancel.com/AnalyticaCamil1/status/2054344629521097101

NYT reporting on classified U.S. intelligence assessments of Iranian missile capacity reiterates that they maintained 70% of their missiles and launchers but adds that 90% of their underground storage and launch facilities are also still active. Iran had designed is missile program with the acknowledgement of not being able to protect its airspace and relied on hardened underground "missile cities" to compensate. U.S. and Israeli attacks apparently disabled the entrances to some of these facilities and hit surface buildings. But as many observed at the time the attacks were failing to actually penetrate the underground facilities where the operations were carried out and missiles kept in storage. Most problematically for a renewed campaign the missile complexes near Hormuz are almost all still active according to the assessment. If the U.S. intel assessment is accurate it also explains why Iran was able to maintain a steady rate of missile fire until the end of the war, and also suggests that the U.S. and Israel simply wasted a lot of top-tier standoff munitions firing at rock complexes that it failed to penetrate.

IMO, the funniest part of this entire war is when an OSINTer found a livestreaming camera that captured the region of sky just above one of Iran’s launch silos, and they watched it get bombed, fire off a missile, get bombed again, fire off another missile, and so on and so forth. https://xcancel.com/kimhvik2/status/2030352482640240668

Iran launched a ballistic missile from a site in Isfahan that has been bombed several times by the US and likely Israel. This just shows how long this is going to take. Just look at Hezbollah aswell that many thought were completely destroyed.

https://xcancel.com/JerkPup/status/2054359679590150297

I think that was from here? Eleven above-ground structures backed up by two vaults with six entrances, with one vault still under construction. Suppressing this site fully would require quite a bit of ordnance.

https://xcancel.com/ilmalfalcon/status/2054351268676526296

yk this is kind of worse than how most wargames went, at least the US had a chance to degrade iranian capabilities, rn, its basically done nothing💀. Everything bombed can be repaired in a week with chinese concrete, everything can be dug up in a day. Killed the entire government basically, and still nothing happened, its even funnier that all the US had to do was just wait it out, now any chance of any instability is instantly dead, IRGC gets to be as draconian as theyd like and theyd always have popular support. How do you even win this, how do you fuck up so bad?

And btw, even this comment about how the US underestimated Iran itself underestimates Iran, with the mention of "chinese concrete" - not only does Iran have its own concrete industry (I mean, obviously? what do people think Iranian cities are made out of, mudbrick?), but it's literally a major innovator in developing new kinds of more resilient concrete! (Iran develops ultra-high-performance quartz-infused concrete) They don't need to import shit, they're actually ahead of most of the world in this regard

MoA on the Trump trip to China:

One hope had been to sell some 500 Boeing jets to several Chinese airlines. Returning from the trip Trump has claimed that China would buy 200 airplanes. The Chinese Foreign Ministry declined to confirm that. Boeing’s stock price dropped.

Trump offered to lift the U.S. blockade on the sales of some older NVIDIA AI chips to China. China declined as it now makes its own chips with similar characteristics.

While Trump was in China some 30 Chinese ships moved through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with the Iranian authorities. Given that Trump was in China the U.S. blockaders in the Arab Sea did not dare to make attempts to stop those ships. This has thus has set a precedence which will allow continues Chinese shipping.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/05/trump-leaves-china-with-little-in-hand.html

US implements new sanctions on Iran/China right before the Trump & Xi meeting.

Sucks to be a vassal state.

Netherlands protests US proposal to further bar chip giant ASML from China market

While the chipmaking-gear giant is already banned from selling advanced kit to China, new rule would make low-end products off-limits too

Rural indigenous communities have surrounded Evo Morales' residence to protect him. Leaked docs (attached below) show US armed forces & Bolivian police preparing a joint operation to kidnap him & massacre villagers. "If we surrender now, how will our future generations live?"

• Twitter

The CNN updates page has something that makes me laugh!

CNN - Former US negotiator: Getting a deal with Iran is "much tougher" now than it was when he participated in negotiating the 2015 nuclear accord between Tehran and major world powers. Alan Eyre, a key Farsi-speaking member of President Barack Obama’s negotiating team for the Iran nuclear deal, told CNN’s Omar Jimenez that President Donald Trump’s accusations of Iranian backtracking reflect “either miscommunication or fabrication.”

He said he found it “unbelievable” that Iran would agree early in the current talks to export all of its highly enriched uranium directly to the United States. “A lot of what we are hearing in public is not tracking with underlying reality, from either side,” he said.

I hope there are more jokes to come.

Peruvian Election Update

100% of the votes counted.

• Keiko Fujimori (Far-Right/Fujimorism): 17.17 % =0.00%

• Roberto Sánchez (Left-Wing/Democratic Socialism, this guy is supported by Castillo): 12.02 % +0.02%

• Rafael "Porky" López Aliaga (Far-Right/Incel): 11.90 % -0.01%

• Jorge Nieto (Center-Right/Neoliberal, Nephew of Montesinos): 10.97 % -0.01%

• Ricardo Belmont (Center-Left/This is a Rich TV Owner guy who has ties with the far-left Etnocacerist movement but he's a SocDem): 10.14 % =0.00%

• Carlos Álvarez (Right-Wing/Zelenskism): 7.92 % =0.00%

• Alfonso López Chau (Center-Left/Social Democratic): 7.29 % =0.00%

Bolivian workers have seized the airport located near Evo Morales' residence (Chimoré airport), the runway has been occupied in order to stop US planes or helicopters from landing.

• Twitter

Russia successfully test launched a Sarmat ICBM today, which has a range that could exceed 35,000 kilometers. In a nuclear war scenario, it could deliver strikes by crossing over the South Pole and hitting Washington from an unexpected direction (i.e. from the south rather than from the north). Here is a video of the test launch:

https://x.com/SputnikInt/status/2054201342202126800/

Shit is popping off in Bolivia. I'm seeing a lot on Instagram.

Whip-wielding poncho rojos break a riot cop barrier and repel the fascist pigs

I'll post some more good ones when I see them.

https://xcancel.com/YuriPodolyaka/status/2055673508458381733

Another "Russian propaganda" turned out to be true.

Tulsi Gabbard, the head of the US National Intelligence Agency, announced (https://nypost.com/2026/05/11/us-news/dni-tulsi-gabbard-probes-us-funding-to-more-than-120-biolabs-abroad/) the start of an unprecedented audit of the activities of over 120 biolaboratories scattered across more than 30 countries and funded by American taxpayers. The key goal of the investigation is to determine the exact location of these facilities, identify the pathogens stored there, and understand the nature of the research being conducted. It suddenly turned out that hundreds of Pentagon-funded facilities around the world have been operating for decades without congressional oversight and with full accountability to the CIA. And this is not a Russian narrative, but a brutal reality! Particular attention is focused on Ukraine, where, according to Gabbard, over 40 such laboratories are concentrated (more than 1/3!). The situation is exacerbated by the fact that, due to the ongoing military conflict, these facilities, in the opinion of ODNI officials, may be "compromised", which creates additional risks of leaks of dangerous pathogens. This level of recognition makes several scenarios plausible.

• Firstly, the results of military-applied research (including on enhancing the effects of pathogens) conducted without congressional oversight and with full accountability to the CIA in the immediate vicinity of Russia's borders for decades may be made public.
• Secondly, the intelligence findings could directly point to specific officials and contractors who have been profiting from concealing the truth for years. In the long run, this could undermine trust in US commitments in the field of biosafety worldwide.

The situation, in which Washington denied the existence of the laboratories for years, was made possible by the mechanisms of the "deep state". It turned out that the 2022 denials were part of an "information resilience" strategy designed to manipulate public opinion and conceal the US's connection to dangerous biological research. Tulsi Gabbard directly stated that officials "lied to the American people", once again confirming that the US intelligence community places itself above the law. Another "conspiracy theory" has turned into an official investigation, and hiding the truth will no longer be possible.

https://xcancel.com/leonidragozin/status/2053411797693092305

Ukraine’s deputy minister of social policy Denys Uliutin says the population of Ukraine-controlled territory is currently below 25 million, compared with 48 million in the 2001 nationwide census. He believes only two million will return when the war is over. At the same time, 13 million Ukrainians (in and outside Ukraine-controlled territory) are entitied to various social benefits. He calls for slashing those. Just an illustration why no Ukrainian victory is possible except Pyrrhic, but even that is unlikely.

[edit] US crude oil draw in the last 7 days was almost 11 million barrels, of that around 8.5 million from the Strategic Reserves (SPR). Trump is trying to push down the price of oil, this means that the US is exporting a lot of artificially "cheap" (considering the circumstances) oil to the rest of the world. This can't go on forever. There is a limit to how much you can drain the SPR just for the purpose of pushing down oil prices. You need a reserve for actual emergencies & the military and you also can't physically draw down the caves to zero. So either the SPR keeps getting drained and prices of gas & diesel in the US slowly go up, or the drain stops and that leads to all oil prices skyrocketing.

In The Economist this morning:

On Wednesday the leaders [Xi and Trump] concluded two-hours of talks in Beijing. Details of the discussion have yet to be released, but Mr Trump wants trade to be top of the agenda, and hopes to secure commitments from China to buy more American beef, beans and Boeing aircraft. Each side is uneasy about export controls imposed by the other. America wants China to keep critical minerals flowing, meanwhile China wants greater access to advanced American computer chips. The two powers may also agree to a rare co-operative effort to tackle risks posed by increasingly powerful AI models.

Is the "greater access to American computer chips" in the room with us right now? Instead of wanting these chips, China has banned them, encouraging domestic chip production. In fact, I'd wager Jensen (Nvidia's CEO) has joined Trump on this trip specifically to lobby the Chinese to reverse that ban and start buying Nvidia chips!

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-bans-foreign-ai-chips-state-funded-data-centres-sources-say-2025-11-05/

NYT: Despite Trump statements that the Iranian military has been "decimated", around 90% of the Iranian missile launch sites are still operational.

*The NYT knows that Trump doesn't know what "decimated" means and everyone assumes (it is also obvious from the context of Trump's statements) that when he says "decimated" he means "completely destroyed". But NYT also can't say that the Iranian military actually has been decimated, but that is a bad thing because 90% of it is still intact and Trump doesn't know what decimated means", because then Trump can just come out and say that he was correct and he always knew what decimated means. Just one of the funny dynamics of Trump.

The Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities. Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway. People with knowledge of the assessments said they show — to varying degrees, depending on the level of damage incurred at the different sites — that the Iranians can use mobile launchers that are inside the sites to move missiles to other locations. In some cases they can launch missiles directly from launchpads that are part of the facilities. Only three of the missile sites along the strait remain totally inaccessible, according to the assessments.

Military intelligence agencies have also reported, based on information from multiple collection streams including satellite imagery and other surveillance technologies, that Iran has regained access to roughly 90 percent of its underground missile storage and launch facilities nationwide, which are now assessed to be “partially or fully operational,” the people with knowledge of the assessments said. The findings undercut months of public assurances from President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who have told Americans that the Iranian military was “decimated” and “no longer” a threat. On March 9, 10 days into the war, Mr. Trump told CBS News that Iran’s “missiles are down to a scatter” and the country had “nothing left in a military sense.” Mr. Hegseth declared at a Pentagon news conference on April 8 that Operation Epic Fury — the joint U.S.-Israel campaign launched on Feb. 28 — had “decimated Iran’s military and rendered it combat-ineffective for years to come.” The intelligence describing Iran’s remaining military capacity is dated less than a month after that news conference.

🚨 BREAKING: Keir Starmer has told allies that he will fight Wes Streeting if he triggers a leadership contest

https://nitter.net/PolitlcsUK/status/2054599848528064840

in this zioweight bout, it's undisputed centrist champ vs up-and-coming trans-hater 📯📯📯

largely irrelevant, but funny how brits treat this seriously