My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
As we're all aware, the Republicans losing major ground in the midterms is relatively insignificant in the wider geopolitical sense. While many voters cited their dissatisfaction with the Iran War as a critical motivator for coming out to the polls (not out of any humanitarian impulse, but because, gasp, a foreign war is actually impacting them), the Democrats not only won't do anything substantially different - they haven't even pretended to promise to do so. They've merely been thrust into a position of power under the assumption that the Blue Team must, by definition, do the opposite of what the Red Team is doing. The situation inside the Zionist entity is relatively similar - Netanyahu and his government is outgoing, but replaced with a government that shares most of the preceding government's ideology where it most matters. While some Iranian officials (including Araghchi) have attempted to pander to the idea that American voters have 'voted to stop the war' and that the US government would be betraying its base by continuing, the view by the current Khamenei seems to be more lucid, and I thankfully don't get the sense that Iran has lowered its guard by a single iota.
What comes next in the war is now difficult to fathom. Any prediction of an immediate post-midterms strike has obviously not come true, which could be due to a combination of: such threats were always just a bluff; the Trump administration being in turmoil as it self-purges non-believers; and/or a simple lack of readiness (the third aircraft carrier, which may or may not be replacing one of the existing aircraft carriers, is still inbound to the region). Nonetheless, there are still signs that the US is trying once again to shape the battlefield. Over the last few days, there have been several - albeit limited - strikes on Iranian military equipment, particularly on Qeshm Island, as Iran brings down drone after drone and strikes tanker after tanker. They're also meekly attempting to put the screws on land routes into Iran, but this isn't really a viable strategy. Trying to outright stop trade between Iraq and Iran will only ignite a firestorm there with the myriad resistance groups. Meanwhile, Pakistan is critically reliant on Iranian fossil fuels and is already in an unstable situation. And finally, Russia has zero motivation to accede to US demands and stop their growing trade with Iran over the Caspian Sea.
To do a lightning round on geopolitical news: Ansarallah recently rejected a Saudi offer of 1 billion dollars to end the war, which is a lowball so insulting that Ansarallah responded by sending drones and missiles into, among other places, the Saudi Aramco HQ (and the widely distributed claim that Ansarallah demanded $51 billion doesn't seem to be real, as far as I can discern?). Russia has been hammering Ukrainian infrastructure in a few large waves of missiles and drones, exacerbating water and power outages; Russia has also been gradually getting its Starlink competitor, Rassvet, in the sky. China held its Fifth Plenum in late October (for those unaware, there are seven plenums over each National Congress period, and each National Congress lasts five years), and this plenum was notable for having an abnormally high number of absences (~25%) - which, from what I can gather, is mostly due to purges, though it's always hard to sift through the layers of propaganda - as Xi Jinping's anti-corruption drive continues. Over the last few months, Algeria and the Alliance of Sahel States have buried the hatchet on their former misgivings and are now significantly cooperating in both the economic sphere (with new oil infrastructure being constructed in Niger) as well as militarily. Paraguay's right-wing president, Santiago Peña, has been ousted due to the collapse of Ueno Bank - which about 2/3 of the population used - and into which his government funneled hundreds of millions of dollars. And France held a general strike involving 1.6 million people on November 5th, as anger against Macron's feckless political, social, and economic governance continues to build. I'll stop here or I'll never get this megathread out.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
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.
