Matt Who Loves His Wife

Actual white trash. Communist.

[Matt Who Loves His Wife @mattymoron]

"It's beautiful here. And everything sucks."

[Adam Johnson @adamjohnsonCHI]

A good reminder of the Good Conspiracy Theory/Bad Conspiracy Theory dichotomy. The most deranged, dehumanizing racist Pallywood posting (as israel killed 400+ a day) resulted in zero media pushback or careers derailed. Everyone just ignored it and moved on. See also: David Frum.

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

In the same breath, Israel says it’s unfair for Iran to defend Hezbollah because those are different conflicts — and then takes out its anger on humanitarian orgs delivering aid to Gaza

[barry with the NED @bonzerbarry]

IRGC: Despite previous warnings from the Islamic Republic of Iran, the child-killing Zionist regime, crossing all red lines and increasing attacks in southern Lebanon, has targeted the Dahieh area of Beirut.

We had previously warned that if the crimes in Dahieh Beirut expanded, we would strike targets in the occupied territories.

The Zionist army must stop its attacks on southern Lebanon and Dahieh, and if it expands its attacks in that area or responds to Iran's actions, it will face more crushing and regretful blows and devastating attacks against the regime and its supporters.

[jeremy scahill @jeremyscahill]

⚡️Iranian official says, “At this point, reaching an agreement [with Trump] is not really feasible.”

🔺 “The primary person responsible for the current situation is Donald Trump himself,” the Iranian official told me, referring to Israel’s massive escalation in its attacks against Lebanon and Iran’s retaliatory strikes against Israel.

🔺 “Should Israel carry out another attack on Beirut in the coming days, missiles will immediately target areas within the occupied territories in retaliation,” the official said.

🔺 “For nearly 20 days, the draft of a potential agreement has been on [Trump’s] desk,” said the official, adding that Trump is “driven by his fear of the Israeli lobby and his hope that the naval blockade plan will prove effective.”

“Iran will no longer accept or tolerate his current position.”

🔺The two central issues the official emphasized are: Israel’s war against Lebanon and expanded occupation of the south; and Trump’s refusal to unfreeze Iranian funds for reconstruction.

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

The magnitude of what just happened may take some time to sink in.

This is the first time Iran has struck Israel after Israel struck another country's territory (that is, not Iran).

This means that the battle lines have been moved.

Iran's deterrence had already been restored in the sense that Israel knew that any strike on it would be responded to.

But now, Iran has proven that it will also respond to Israeli strikes on Lebanon.

This is the first time in decades that a regional power has the means, capacity, and willingness to put hard power against Israeli military maneuvers or aggression against a third party.

Read full analysis here: https://t.co/CPawJ4TYdr

[Thomas Juneau @thomasjuneau]

Quite the combination of headlines on the New York Times website tonight:

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

Adam Johnson, author of How to Sell a Genocide says in order to carry out a genocide, the US, Israel, and liberal media “needed to make a ceasefire with Hamas politically toxic… politically ‘unserious.’”

To achieve that, he explains, “it became so central [that Hamas and Palestinian resistance] are removed from history. And their grievances are [portrayed as] not secular or political but as instead driven entirely by hatred of Jews.”

“Then a ceasefire becomes not only impossible, it becomes immoral… and then genocide was inevitable.”

@adamjohnsonCHI | @PlutoPress

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

Claudia Sheinbaum has approval ratings of between 70 and 80%, thanks to her progressive policies which have lifted over 8 million people out of poverty.

So of course the @NYTimes finds some reason to attack her.

They hate her because she shows what can be done.

[Chris Hedges @ChrisLynnHedges]

An audience member at a Q&A recently asked me why I'm so apocalyptic. The genocide in Gaza, beyond being a tragedy, marks an irreversible shift in the global world order. Before the genocide, the imperialist ambitions of the Western oligarchic class were partially constrained by the utopian ideal of the rules-based order. Now that ideal is gone, and unrestrained barbarity will characterize the methodology of the war-making ruling class. In other words — our future is an apocalyptic one.

[Mark Ames @MarkAmesExiled]

That unnamed US officials are leaking this story to legacy media is, like previous leaks, another sign of growing resentment in the US NatSecState over the Iran war debacle, and Israel's critical role cajoling the US in & pushing Trump to resume the war.
https://t.co/y7o79ISehr

[✦ Cori ✦ @DeliaCore]

UNDER COMMUNISM WE WILL INVENT CIGARETTES THAT ARE GOOD FOR YOU

[Leyla Hamed @leylahamed]

We all knew these situations were going to happen, and so did FIFA. Yet they still allowed the World Cup to go ahead in the U.S. They are not receiving anywhere near the level of scrutiny they should.

[Iran Embassy SA @IraninSA]

The incompetent @FIFAWorldCup host, USA, is failing to fulfill its responsibilities properly.

We are guests of @FIFAcom, and it is FIFA’s responsibility to ensure that visas for all members are issued.

US Denies Visas to Iran National Football Team Officials Ahead of World Cup

https://t.co/sXw74OzmIt

[Adnan A. Husain @adnanahusain]

Worst WC ever. And it hasn’t even started. Ignominious, esp compared to the best WC ever previously in Qatar in 2022.

US should never have been granted the WC as it is an inappropriate host for more reasons than can be enumerated in a tweet.

https://t.co/Ov5xsUYTc9

[𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 @OopsGuess]

Mearsheimer says China could not rise peacefully.

But the comments got to the real question:
China already rose peacefully.

It did not bomb its way into the world’s second-largest economy.
It did not build 800 overseas military bases.
It did not sanction half the planet.
It did not invade, assassinate, regime-change, and call it “order.”

China rose through factories, ports, railways, power grids, shipyards, engineers, workers, and decades of national discipline.

The real question is not whether China can rise peacefully.
It already did.

The question is whether America can decline peacefully.

And that is where the real danger begins.

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

Wesley Bell skipped a candidate forum saying he had an important vote. That vote was apparently to continue the war in Lebanon because reasons.

[Mark Ames @MarkAmesExiled]

We've been discussing on RWN the likelihood of Israel using Azerbaijan for assassinations & bombings in Iran as quo pro for Israel helping Az cleanse Karabakh. Oughta raise questions about Raisi's mysterious May '24 helicopter crash just over Az border.
https://t.co/XMEMyXefJX

[Alexander Aviña @Alexander_Avina]

Palestinian infant dies after being shot by Israeli forces in Hebron

[Craig Mokhiber @CraigMokhiber]

This will be one for the history books. The Iranian government is holding the line to defend Lebanese sovereignty even at a cost to its own interests. At the same time, the Lebanese government is signing a surrender deal with the very US-Israel Axis that is attacking, invading, occupying, and subjugating it, surrendering its territory to the invading army, promising to disarm the country’s only resistance on behalf of the invading Axis, and signing a declaration attacking the Iranian government that is defending it. Marshal Pétain has returned from the grave.

[Sopo Japaridze @sopjap]

The insane fallout from the Jacobin article against Chris Smalls should make the author and the defenders pause to think why this happened. Dismissing everyone as having an axe to grind or some trolls online isn’t really facing this objectively. The defense that ‘Most of the arguments were substantial and not about AOC’ misses the mark how it was presented. There are thousands of people upset.

The article’s tone and its swipes at his left-sectarianism (especially without engaging the substance of his critiques of AOC and folding them in as symptoms of his larger narcissism) make it feel more like a takedown than a balanced assessment. A truly critical piece would have spent equal time on the impossible situation Smalls was in, not just his personal failings. More on the structural problems and the agency of a persona like Smalls.

Most people can’t verify many of those claims, we can’t verify whether Smalls actually neglected committee meetings or broke promises to Jane McAlevey years ago. The ‘angry’ threads and tweets we can verify, and most of us don’t think Smalls was sectarian, petty, self-aggrandizing or whatever the charges are in those cases. That alone significantly weakens any other criticisms the author makes because her credibility and the intention of the piece is called into question.

A white woman criticizing him and writing about his hip hop aesthetics, also feels very cringe. It’s not that a white writer can never discuss Black working-class aesthetics, but the framing matters if you’re trying to highlight the departure of this particular brand of union organizing.

No one understands, including me, what was the purpose of this piece anyway. If you wanted to bring Smalls down a notch, it worked against it. Smalls is now even more popular, more people will buy his book. Furthermore, more people are alienated from Jacobin. And it’s giving ammunition to people who want to discredit the ALU’s legacy. Finally, it looks like the author is defending even more powerful elected politicians (and I’d add more narcissistic) AOC and company against a less powerful individual.

The article’s arguments may be common sense in little NYC leftist cliques but what those cliques consider common sense doesn’t stand up to the scrutiny of the larger public who know Smalls through a different lens.