That it was an EU ship that came to the rescue isn’t surprising. Despite the EU’s scarce naval resources, they are currently the only ones there. There isn’t a Prosperity Guardian ship within 500 miles. Back in May when the carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower was present, the US had 12 warships on station providing a mix of missile picket and escorting duties. Now they have zero. The UK for one brief moment had three. HMS Diamond did some outstanding work as part of OPG but when she left, we left.

There can only be one conclusion: that the US has given up on Operation Prosperity Guardian. It wasn’t deterring the Houthis and it wasn’t reassuring shipping so they might as well go and do something else.

I'm shooting blind as I haven't looked too deep into how the blockade has impacted global trade, but I think this makes perfect sense for the US.

It isn't that much further away around the Cape than through the Suez to arrive from the South China Sea to the US east coast, and AFAIK most trade actually happens with the West Coast through the Pacific or through Panama. So higher shipping costs harm Europe much more than they harm the US in this case.

Just like the Ukraine War, sanctions on Russia and China and the Nord Stream, it seems the US is intending on using this blockade to cannibalise Europe's economy even further. Expect another year of negative growth in the EU, specially with China becoming a suitable replacement as a high-tech producer worldwide. They don't have to go either through Suez or around the Cape in order to ship to a majority of the world's population.

There's a sort of logic to having a weak military in Mexico. Their only land neighbours are the USA, Guatemala and Belize. Neither south neighbour is a threat, and despite the USA being really inefficient there's no way Mexico could fight toe-to-toe with them if they were directly invaded.

They also don't have any strategic overseas rival like an imperialist power would.

So not only can you save lots of budget in the military, but it also reduces the harm that a well-funded and organised military can be to the "internal enemy", which is usually poor, indigenous, black or otherwise marginalised people. (Usually with the cover of "combatting drug trafficking")

Bribing the military is also part of the CIA modus operandi for interfering in Latin America. Just look at the current investigation on the Bolsonaro coup attempt and how many of the relevant generals took part in the MINUSTAH.

But I also don't think the USA will ever be able to directly attack Mexico without gigantic repercussions to themselves. They're better off just doing another Allende.

I also disagree with the idea that this interview was directed at Chinese people rather than Trumpist folks. Lots of of US reactionaries have a positive opinion of Putin (often for reactionary reasons), but interviewing him as a show of "freedom of speech" gets bonus points for Republicans for "triggering the libs" who think he is the second coming of Hitler. But they'd also platform actual Hitler if given the chance.

But I need to enthusiastically agree that twitch reaction streamers like Hasan are unbearable to me. It might be a generational thing, but they seem like Gen Z's version of late night show hosts: pretend to be intelligent and informative while also only serving to crack dumb jokes.

From the first couple of minutes of the react, I don't see any reason anybody would gain anything from watching this with the extra hour and a half to just watching the original video. Right away gives an impression that he doesn't give the whole political situation neither the thought nor the seriousness it requires, and that he doesn't really understand what's being said. And I say that as somebody who doesn't really study much Russia.

It's longer and worse, and a proletarian's time is their source of life.

Actually, yes, but before.

BBC: "China property: New home prices see biggest fall since 2015"

Italy has joined the "poor countries needing charity health work from Cuba". Who's the failed economic system now?

I'm also always impressed by how positive Cuban health workers abroad can be given the circumstances. Not only is their country being denied properiry by foreign powers, but in every country they go they are victims of demonisation campaigns by the bourgeois press, and they still manage to come out not hating the entire country they're sent to.

Worth noting that the Republicans already tried a coup back in 2021, and none of the actual responsible have faced any repercussions. I don't think they'll be too deterred from trying something like that again with proper coordination this time. Doubt anybody will be too galvanised to fight for "President Elect Joe Biden" after these 4 years, so this will be relevant no matter which clown wins.

"Maybe this will finally be the straw that will break the camel's back of the blind trust in electoralism", said the Marxist for the 100th time.

The bit that gets me is that Al-Qaeda's biggest (imperialist) issue was the USA, halfway across the world and with 90s tech. If Azov follows the same path, not only will they have a much bigger beef with closer European countries like Germany (but more likely eastern countries), but have shit like drones that can cause a significant amount of damage with less danger of being caught. Part of me is like "Unlimited genocide on the first world" but since they're racist shits I think it's obvious that they're going to target minorities and specifically scapegoats they can find for their lost war.

First as a tragedy, you know the drill.

That's a lot of African representation, which is nice because South Africa is particularly small compared to the other original members. Would be kinda sadfunny if the ancap from Argentina wins the election and tries a complete 180 on this, but otherwise this is great news. I guess I expected Cuba and Syria would also be on the first batch, but they might be testing the waters before whipping out the "controversial" ones.

Watch the dollar drop like a Yankee's net worth after suffering an accident without health insurance.

Yeah, she spoke about the strike positively on social media, but then voted to make the strike illegal like the rest of them. It's all smoke and mirrors with that one.

At least I'm getting some gimp experience.

This quote is particularly telling.

Those concerns picked up steam in the past week after Ukraine launched a second push in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and has still come up mostly empty in the eyes of Western allies.

You know, like when you are doing a group project and all your "partners" just watch you do all of it, but in this case the project is made with other people's blood, and you already knew the whole class was gonna fail anyway.

It would be funny seeing the blame game getting heated between (what remains of) Ukraine and NATO, if not for all the senseless and pointless spilling of blood they could've avoided from the start. I bet eventually they'll agree on some third-party scapegoat a la WW1 Germany.

It's kinda funny because NATO kinda creates the "Russian allies" themselves by making the conditions for anti-imperialist countries to become friendlier with Russia or other bigger NATO rivals. By constantly threatening and subjugating every single country on earth, those countries have way more to gain with each other than the Northwest and the overreaction from the State Department outlets sometimes even serves to bolster their resolve. In the end we will all be "Russia's allies," and that's NATO's fault.

So it's yellow filter for Latin America and grey filter for China, while Northwest gets full saturation. Very subtle change but incredibly annoying.