A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

Image depicts the aftermath of a Yemeni missile impacting King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleIt's been a much slower week than last week, consisting mainly of consolidation and (so far, empty) threats.

In Yemen, Ansarallah continues to battle Saudi-backed mercenary groups. Gains have been relatively slower compared to the lightning offensive earlier that took the western coastline, which makes sense with all the new territory they have to administer and generally sort out, including fortifying towns and cities against potential Saudi assaults from the north. The biggest news so far has been Trump apparently being on the verge of striking Yemen over the weekend due to Saudi insistence, to the extent that embassies across the region issued alerts warning that they might soon be attacked, but then deciding not to when people in his administration told him not to. I haven't cared for Trump's theatrics for several months now, so I won't care to speculate whether this is a bluff or a double bluff and so on; all I will say is that a couple years ago, a significantly stronger US military tried and failed to dislodge Ansarallah's control of the Red Sea, and that this time, they even seem willing to hit Saudi oil facilities in response.

On that note, diesel continues to break new price records, and gasoline isn't too far behind it. Outright shortages haven't yet become systemic, as tempting as it is to look at a couple gas stations running out and drawing trend lines from there, but it's certainly going to be where we're headed if there isn't a diesel export ban eventually, which Russia and others have already implemented. A ban would somewhat alleviate US price hikes, but would cause major instability throughout the rest of the world due to the ubiquity of diesel in transportation infrastructure, and if you've created a favourable international order over the past century or so, you really don't want to blow it up.

Next up: Poland's been amping up their anti-Russian rhetoric to new heights lately, joining Germany and others in advocating for further aid to Ukraine and the creation of modern national armies in Europe to send into Ukraine to battle Russia directly. This type of thing would have been rather frightening to me back in 2023 and 2024, but at this point, all I can do is shake my head. We all saw how the US military, which is more powerful than yours, has faired against Iran, which is weaker than Russia - and you want to arm yourself with largely American weapon systems, or at least systems heavily inspired by the American MIC? Lol. Lmao, even.

Lastly for today, Trump seems to have taken a victory lap over their more-or-less annexation of Greenland after Denmark permitted it. As I and many others noted back when this was all over the media initially months ago, the US has had a military base there for decades already and has been investing in mining there too for a while, so this is more of a formalization of the de facto status quo. Denmark previously technically had a veto on US military activity there, but now seems to be gone; after all, there is little chance that Denmark would ever have the courage to actually use said veto anyway at this point. So, geopolitically, it's a fairly minor news item that serves mainly as yet another humiliation for Europe in a long chain that stretches far into the past and continues to stretch into the future. For the Greenlanders themselves, however, this does seem like pretty catastrophic news, with any and all non-US foreign investment (such as by China) likely to be cut.

(and as a postscript here just before I hit post: yes, the Iranian president physically travelling to the US is embarrassing for Iran and very embarrassing for him. at least Araghchi going makes sense given he's the foreign minister. the silver lining of this debacle might be a further discrediting of the non-hardliner side?)


Last week's thread is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist 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 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.
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.

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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[–] 72 points 2 days ago (4 children)

say-the-line-bart-1

another big US military project has had massive cost overruns say-the-line-bart-2

https://archive.ph/Zxj0x

Navy’s shipyard revamp could cost more than $200 billion: GAO [Government Accountability Office]

The Navy originally estimated that the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) would cost approximately $21 billion.

more

The Navy’s initiative to revamp its four public shipyards could come with a price tag nearly ten times higher than initially estimated and take decades longer to complete, according to a new government watchdog report. The Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) launched in 2018 and aims to upgrade the drydocks and standard equipment at the service’s current four shipyards in Virginia, Maine, Washington and Hawaii that oversee repairs for the Navy’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and submarine fleet. Initially, the service predicted the effort would take roughly 20 years and cost approximately $21 billion, although Navy officials overseeing SIOP efforts told Breaking Defense last year that those estimates were outdated. A Government Accountability Office report released today, however, said that the project could take 50 years and cost $200 billion.

dawg I dunno if the US is going to exist in 50 years, let alone have its shipyards fixed

According to the report, the initial estimate “omitted key costs,” and that factors including commodity prices increases and seismic concerns at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard that require “needed retrofits and construction” are driving up costs and adding time to the SIOP initiative. “Developing the plans and cost estimates to rebuild the Navy’s four public shipyards has taken the Navy years longer — and will cost much more — than originally anticipated due to multiple challenges and changes involved in the program,” the report said. Additionally, the report said that more shipyard construction and repair projects have been added to the SIOP program since 2018, and that the Navy has implemented some design changes stemming from “lessons learned from projects already underway.” “For example, the costs for the dry-dock projects in Portsmouth and Pearl Harbor in total grew by more than $2.5 billion since funding was originally requested from Congress,” the report said.

The GAO also noted that the Navy isn’t mandated to submit a consolidated report to lawmakers on SIOP program costs and other “risks” associated with the effort, but rather, it shares updates on “various aspects” of the SIOP program instead. Ultimately, the GAO recommended that Congress require the Navy to share an annual and standardized report to lawmakers detailing the program’s cost and status. “Without a full picture of how much has been spent, what remains to be funded, and what risks may affect SIOP progress, Congress could make consequential decisions for SIOP based on incomplete information, thus risking billions in taxpayer dollars and a lack of program oversight for the decades to come,” the GAO report said.

this is democracy manifest!

Navy officials previously told Breaking Defense in 2025 that they predict a 10 percent improvement in aircraft carrier maintenance and a 15 percent improvement for submarine maintenance once the SIOP program is complete. Typically, a submarine maintenance availability lasts 25 to 36 months, but improvements stemming from the SIOP program would reduce that by approximately three months, officials previously said. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is pushing for a fifth public shipyard to bolster aircraft carrier and submarine readiness.

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  • [–] 41 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    These cost overruns started as simple graft but eventually the project would still get finished. Now the graft is masking incapacity. Nothing will ever be finished again. The money vacuum has replaced the actual know-how

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  • [–] 29 points 2 days ago

    If you can throw infinite money at something and it still doesn't get done, your money is failing to mobilize and direct productive capacity like it's supposed to. Either the money is fake, there's no capacity to mobilize, or probably both here.

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  • [–] 28 points 2 days ago

    Literally, what could the US even "afford" to build now if it's all going to cost this much? That's gotta' fuck the entire economy right? I wouldn't be surprised if the SuccDem left in the US starts a pro-union comprimise campaign to keep the war machine money printer going and then down-flow the profits to the working class via make-work jobs program and like maybe some kind of "freedom dividend" or something. Every other project is insanely judged and screamed at for cost, except if it's military-related.

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