lemy.lol

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reposting to see how much the lemmyverse has learned since the last time: https://lemmy.ml/post/7927508

the ultimate police state - 'security' is one of their top exports

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https://x.com/ContraPoints/status/2042290570584862798

From independent Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone:

Israel is already aggressively sabotaging the Trump administration’s two-week ceasefire with Iran by slaughtering huge numbers of civilians in Lebanon, a nation which is explicitly off-limits for any attack under the ceasefire conditions agreed to by Tehran.

The US and Israel are trying to claim that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire agreement, but Pakistan, whom the US appointed to mediate the agreement, says this is false. The New York Times reports that the White House took part in Pakistan’s public messaging which explicitly included Lebanon in the ceasefire conditions, before changing its tune after Israel attacked.

Iran has reportedly responded to these violations by again halting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

This serves as yet another reminder that the world can have peace or it can have Israel — but it cannot have both. Israel is a genocidal apartheid state whose entire existence is premised upon a strategy of unceasing violence and abuse in the middle east. As long as that state continues to exist in its present iteration, peace will never be attainable.

Democrats in the House and Senate are finally moving on a War Powers Act to stop the US president from going to war with Iran, and I’d say better late than never but at this point that would barely even be true.

Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Chris Murphy are currently slamming the president not for his horrifying mass atrocities in Iran but for losing the Strait of Hormuz and failing to achieve objectives like completely disarming their conventional missile program.

As I have said here previously, it’s clear that the reason the Democratic Party failed to oppose Trump’s warmongering with Iran was because they supported it too.

The actual, official 2024 Democratic Party platform accused Trump of “fecklessness and weakness” for failing to go to war with Iran during his first term. Kamala Harris labeled Iran the #1 enemy of the United States. In their 2024 debate, Harris repeatedly slammed Trump for being too soft on America’s enemies and announced that she “will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.”

I’ve seen a lot of people trying to argue that Trump’s depravity in Iran proves everyone should support Democrats, but it’s clear the Democratic Party is just the more polite-looking face on the same evil power structure.

The Grayzone’s Wyatt Reed has an article out about a freakish BBC article which cited an anonymous Iranian who allegedly told them he supports the US and Israel “hitting energy infrastructure, using an atomic bomb, or leveling Iran.” Following public outcry, the quote was removed and replaced with completely different words — initially without any editor’s note of any kind.

Reed documents how the BBC reporter behind the story, Ghoncheh Habibiazad, is a London-based Iranian monarchist with an extensive history of agitating for regime change war against her home country, including with the US government propaganda operation Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Last month The Times ran an article titled “Some Iranians say one thing’s worse than bombs: no bombs”. Western powers are always aggressively pushing this self-evidently false claim that people in empire-targeted countries want bombs dropped on them, in much the same way slavery proponents argued that Africans were happiest as slaves because God made it their nature to serve.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s impossible to have enough disdain for the western press.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-193682839

https://thegrayzone.com/2026/04/07/senior-bbc-iran-reporter-opposition-activist/

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01100-y

https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:s6yp6jam5og3tftozaw7pjth/post/3mj34sn6kyk25

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For those with filters: Politics

Attacks on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline knocked out 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) of the kingdom’s oil capacity, or roughly 10 percent of its current exports, according to a statement by the kingdom’s energy ministry on Thursday.

“These attacks included a pumping station on the vital East-West pipeline, leading to a loss of approximately 700,000 barrels per day of pumped volume through the pipeline, which is the main route for supplying global markets during this period,” the energy ministry said.

The statement marked the first official confirmation that Saudi Arabia’s energy facilities have suffered damage as a result of Iranian strikes, and comes just as the US and Iran gear up for high-profile peace talks in Islamabad, Pakistan.

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The White House Correspondents' dinner is a yearly tradition stretching back over a century, yet this year's host could perhaps prove controversial as many users of gay hookup app Grindr have opposed the association.

Beginning all the way back in 1921, the White House Correspondents' dinner, organized and operated by the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) is a joining of journalists covering politics in the United States and some of the current administration's leading officals.

It's often attended by the president, and frequently features segments where the head of state mocks themselves, yet the host for this year's edition could perhaps spark debate and division among members of the LGBTQ community.

As reported by The Hill, gay hookup app Grindr is, for the first time ever, hosting a WHCA dinner party on April 25, which also marks the first time that President Donald Trump will be in attendance across both of his terms.

Trump was notably the only president since the dinner's creation to not attend a single event, having skipped every one during his first term, yet he announced last month on Truth Social that he would be bucking the trend by showing face this year.

Artist: Azasuke | twitter | danbooru

At least a dozen US military sites across the Gulf region have been so badly damaged by Iran's retaliation to US and Israeli attacks that their presence now creates significantly more vulnerabilities than it does benefits, a slate of Middle East experts argued on Thursday.

The original revelation about the state of the bases was first reported in The New York Times last month, in which they were described as "all but uninhabitable".

The Trump administration has yet to acknowledge the extent of the damage sustained.

"This is the physical architecture of American primacy, and Iran has essentially rendered it useless in the span of a month," Marc Lynch, director of the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University, said at the Arab Center Washington DC's annual conference.

A traditional owner on a north Australian island has captured rare photos of an "enchanting" masked owl, adding to a limited knowledge base surrounding the endemic and culturally significant bird.

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Alt Text: A cartoon illustration of a group of adventurers, a barbarian, archer, and elf, being guided by a yelling wizard into an IKEA store. Caption reads "Come, my merry band of adventurers! Into the Eye of Kea!!!"