all wrapped up with a bow. boycott or vote way off brand. like neither; 

 

She outlines all of the talking points people use to try to convince people to vote. And then destroys them. I may vote on some of the referendums but I have no illusions: voting is NOT going to remove evil selected “leaders”.

As for complaining, one man’s “complaining” may be another man’s wake up call. Denigrating telling the truth does not make it false.

So which box does that leave us? If you are unsure, consider this question:

Is the country better off under a Republican trifecta in the government?......more............

 assorted subjects from larry johnson as he returns to the empire from russia; 

 

I am in-between flights heading back to Florida. The trip to and from Moscow is arduous. Between flights and layovers I will spend a total of 32 hours traveling. Not for the faint of heart. I am not doing any podcasts on Tuesday or Wednesday because of the travel schedule.

Trump made a total ass of himself and the United States with his speech on Tuesday to the UN General Assembly. His continued bombast and belligerence are both tiresome and juvenile. He continues to milk the stock market and oil futures by offering a vague promise that he might get back into negotiations with Iran. However, he also apparently has authorized a dramatic increase in the number of KC-135 tankers parked at Al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar. Those are some big, fat targets just waiting for an Iranian strike.

Thanks to internet availability on the plane I am able to focus on a new video from Kevin Wamsley at Inside China Business which is a nice companion to my Monday piece on diesel. Kevin takes the current commentary on this year’s fuel crisis fixes — which focuses on the crude that stopped flowing out of the Gulf when Hormuz closed, and the refineries burning in Russia and the Middle East and ads an important third factor to the crisis that gets almost no airtime in the Western press… The world is running short of the ships that move oil. When you cannot move a barrel, it does not matter how many barrels exist. And the shortage of tankers is now feeding straight into the price of diesel, of jet fuel, and — the part that surprises people — of sweet crude...........more...........

 caitlin makes some excellent palestinian points; 

I strongly disagree with the idea that it’s unhelpful to bully celebrities about their position on Palestine. On the contrary, I think we should bully them more.

We tend to underestimate the consequences of the fact that all the most amplified voices in our society are millionaires. Under capitalism the people with the largest platforms and the biggest audiences are all wealthy enough to have a vested interest in preserving the status quo, so they’re reluctant to rock the boat politically in any major way.

When all the most influential voices in our society are creating the illusion that the system is more or less fine the way it is by what they say and what they don’t say, it cannot help but significantly influence public political opinion. In this way celebrities function as a kind of goalkeeper preventing dissident thought from reaching the minds of the masses.............more..........

 colonel's davis and wilkerson speak of iran who warns they have new weapons. seventeen minutes;

watch.......... 

 trump is akin to the black knight in the monty python movie, the holy grail, demanding more 'fight' from the opponent after loosing both arms and legs. he's all mouth as is usually the case, or is it all hat and no cattle;

 

 Any new attack on Iran will prompt significant changes in the geography of the war and the weapons used, says the spokesman of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

“If another aggression takes place, there will certainly be significant changes in our defense and our counterattack,” Second Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi said on Monday, adding, “We will definitely change the geography of the war.”

He said Iran would introduce new weapons and military equipment with new capabilities, adding that “the world will be astounded” by them.

Mohebbi also identified several areas in which the United States has suffered strategic defeats in its unprovoked war on the Islamic Republic.

“The United States has been defeated in this war, and its defeat is also a historic and humiliating defeat, but it does not have the courage to admit and accept this defeat,” he said.

The US and the Israeli regime waged their first criminal war against Iran, which lasted 12 days, in June 2025. Their second aggression began on February 28, 2026, and came to a halt in early April after 40 days.

In both wars, Iran’s resistance and successful retaliatory operations forced the aggressors to accept a ceasefire.........more.........

 in all of my many years of studying history i can't remember a time like this in which, while bragging about their democracies, it seems that all of those in charge could easily be a satirical presentation by one of the many such artist cooperatives;

 

 Germany’s embattled chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has vowed to stay in office and fight for future-proofing economic changes despite heavy losses for his conservatives in two state elections, one to the far right and the other to a leftwing party.

Preliminary results indicated Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) tallied just 4.9%, below ⁠the 5% threshold needed to enter the state parliament and indicating they may be excluded altogether. It would be the CDU’s worst-ever state score, which Merz called a “disaster”.

The anti-immigration, Kremlin-friendly Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party extended a streak of strong showings by coming in first in the former communist region with 38.3%, more than doubling its previous score, according to projections on ARD public television.

In the capital, Berlin, one of Germany’s 16 federal states, the far-left Die Linke looked on course to win with about 25% of the vote, ahead of the incumbent CDU by a five-point margin. The AfD made headway there too, with a clear double-digit result.

The deeply unpopular Merz has been fighting for his political survival after a humiliating series of setbacks with voters this year.

Speculation about his ability to hold on as chancellor reached fever pitch after Saxony-Anhalt state’s AfD chapter routed the CDU with a record 44% for the party in an election two weeks ago...........more............

 'our' current acting president could easily be a saturday night live creation or even perhaps monty python; 

 

President Trump’s speech to the UN General Assembly today sounded more like a State of the Union address or an oration at a rally and less like a message to the world. It included the customary Trumpian braggadocio.

But he also used the forum to threaten war crimes against Iran once again. Iran had a choice, he said. Either capitulate or be “annihilated.”

This is at least the third time Trump has vowed to erase the country, which would mean millions of civilian deaths that in turn would be classified as a war crime...........more...........