Image is of Yemen seizing the first ship in its blockade of Israel (the Galaxy Leader) with a helicopter raid.


Alternate title: What If It Was The Bab El-Womandeb And It Was Just For The Ladies?

Ansarallah is a key component of the broader Resistance movement, backed by Iran, and has been a stalwart member in engineering the ongoing collapse of Zionism. It has steadily escalated both its rhetoric and, rarely nowadays, its actions, proving that the mythical "red line" might actually exist in the world after all, after going MIA in both Russia and China. It has been striking first Israel-owned ships heading through the Bab el-Mandeb - the strait that leads into the Red Sea and then to the Suez Canal - and, recently, has demonstrated its promise that any ships that intend to dock in Israel will be attacked. While this is really only half a blockade, the cost of going around Africa is significant, and Western insurance companies really don't like it when their ships get blasted by missiles and drones. Several shipping companies have already stated their intention to alter/stop shipping routes through the Red Sea, trying to prompt the West to find a "solution".

Despite US naval presence in the area, Yemen possesses the ability to strike the oil refining facilities of the Gulf monarchies, leaving the US in a very difficult position. If they attack Yemen, then not only do Western ships risk being attacked directly, but those oil refineries may go up in smoke depending on if they help the West - and global oil prices will skyrocket, in an already declining world economy - and it might cost several Western leaders their leadership positions, including Biden himself. A regional war could ultimately tumble into worldwide chaos.

Equally, however, the US cannot afford to lose Israel. It is the single most important American imperial outpost, perhaps alongside Taiwan. If Zionism is destroyed as a local destabilizing influence, then the Russia-China-Iran axis will find itself in a leadership position over the region. Israeli military losses in Gaza increase every single day as they advance further into the labyrinth death trap under the obligation to show some kind of military victory, with Hamas' strategy of attrition taking its toll. And Hezbollah sits there, having destroyed most of the border infrastructure, silently threatening the obliteration of Israel's infrastructure under the rain of a hundred thousand missiles.

As world attention gradually shifts away from the Gaza genocide, we continue to approach the brink.


The weekly update is here on the website.
Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Saturday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.


The Country of the Week is Yemen! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli 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 Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. 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.
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.


  • Ideology [she/her]
    ·
    8 months ago

    St. Louis Police Crash Into LGBTQ Bar, Arrest Its Owner

    The Reddit thread, if you care.

    Full Text

    Last night around 12:30 a.m. a St. Louis police cruiser smashed into the front window of an LGBTQ bar in Carondelet. But it was Bar:PM’s co-owner who wound up getting arrested and is currently being held in central booking.

    "There were several police officers that jumped him,” says James Pence, who co-owns Bar:PM with Chad Wick, who is currently in police custody.

    Pence says the police officer who ran into the bar told him that he had swerved to miss a dog in the middle of South Broadway. Pence says he does have security camera footage of the crash, though he is not making it public at this time.

    The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment this morning. We'll update this post if we hear back.

    Pence, who lives above the bar, says that he was getting ready to head to bed as two other people closed up for the night. Suddenly, he felt the whole building shake and ran downstairs.

    He came down to find the police SUV in his building and an officer demanding to see his identification.

    Pence says he replied: "No you don't. That's a police cruiser in my building. You don't need to see my ID. This is not how this works."

    Pence says he was spun around and placed in handcuffs.

    Pence’s co-owner, Wick, was taking videos and photos of the police vehicle when, according to Pence, "Three of them (officers) went for him. He raised his arm and they said he hit them."

    Pence was eventually taken out of cuffs, but Wick was taken away by police.

    In addition to cleaning up the damage, Pence spent much of this morning trying to locate Wick. He later found out that Wick had been taken to the South Patrol police station, then SLU Hospital for medical attention. He was then taken to the North Patrol and finally, around 9 a.m., was at Central Booking.

    Wick, whose legal name is Chad Morris, was later charged with felony assault. (See details here.)

    Pence spoke to the RFT as a group of friends and regulars gathered at Bar:PM, which is located at 7109 South Broadway, to help clean up and show support for the owners.

    Others who were there at the time of the incident say that no medical services or ambulances were ever called to the scene.

    This is the second high-profile crash involving a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department car in a week. Last Tuesday, a police SUV and another vehicle both ran a stop sign at North Sarah and St. Louis Avenue. The police cruiser ended up being flipped over outside a business located at the intersection.

    • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      The cops were drunk as skunks, I would bet my life savings on it. It explains the crash, their belligerence and their panic to clean up the scene without calling any ambulances. It’s also why they attacked, arrested and beat the man filming them - I’m sure they also deleted his photos and videos of them slurring their speech and stumbling around

      • Ideology [she/her]
        ·
        8 months ago

        Phones just need a "instant livestream/upload" button specifically for this sort of thing.

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      I don't know if this counts as burger punk but it is still an extremely American headline