December 5th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
December 6th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
December 7th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
December 9th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
December 10th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. I recommend their map more than the channel at this point, as an increasing subscriber count has greatly diminished their quality.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources. Beware of chuddery.
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 fairly brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. The Duran, of which he co-hosts, is where the chuddery really begins to spill out.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.
https://t.me/asbmil ~ Now rebranded as Battlefield Insights, they do infrequent posts on the conflict.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it's a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of the really big pro-Russian (except when they're being pessismistic, which is often) telegram channels focussing on the war. Russian language.
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
Any Western media outlet that is even vaguely liberal (and quite a few conservative ones too).
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.
Last week's discussion post.
Apparently the Dems have decided that South Carolina will replace Iowa as the first state in their presidential primaries. They’re saying it’s to reflect “a diverse electorate” but it feels a lot like it’s just giving Jim Clyburn faster access to the kill switch for progressive candidates. At least now I won’t have to have false hope for a decent candidate to come out of it all :agony-minion:
Also why can’t they just host the primaries simultaneously with multiple rounds or ranked choice already goddammit
Do we even have progressive candidates anymore? Admittedly I haven't been paying much attention to US electoral politics but it looks like the capitalists saw 2016 and 2020 and went "Haha, very funny guys, now let's pack up this "socialist wave" nonsense and go vote to crush unions. I hope you had a nice time and had a lot of ice cream but we've got a brick wall in the form of Russia and China to drive straight into and there ain't no turning the wheel on this thing!"
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The euro-automakers-build-here-for-sweetheart-tax-deals-and-jobs-that-are-rapidly-automated-away state.
Don’t forget that we’re the Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Tillman, and Strom Thurmond state too :agony-4horsemen:
Tennessee can keep Jackson, regardless of birthplace, but then you'd have to promote John C. Calhoun to your list.
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Seems like a very short term fix to a very long term problem. That said, Iowa wasn't doing the nation a ton of favors. Neither is SC somehow devoid of leftist tenancies. They just come in different flavors.
This feels more like Dems surrendering the rural Midwest and pivoting their focus to the Mid-Atlantic than banking on the clout of an 82 year old house rep.
This state is practically built for kingmakers, once clyburn kicks the bucket they're probably going to get joe cunningham to help them adjust from relying on black boomers to relying on white gen xers
As for progressive electoral politics here, I can't even tell who the most progressive dems here are because their positions are so fucking vague lol
I just can't imagine making Iowa/New Hampshire primaries the hill any sane progressive would want to die on. Once you move the First In the Nation Circus from Iowa to South Carolina, its going to become just as target-rich as Iowa ever was. If anything, this move sets up someone like Abrams or Harris to run in '24 or '28. It doesn't insulate Biden from a Buttigieg insurgency. Just changes who he's forced to ally with in order to muscle in.
Neither does it really impact a candidate like Sanders. SC being First In The Nation just changes where a Sanders campaign invests a bunch of early campaign infrastructure.
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Iowa is also just less important than it used to be.
They could have it all happen at once but then candidates with less name recognition would just lose. With the state by state thing people drop out over time.
Ranked would be very good