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Bulletins and News Discussion from May 6th to May 12th, 2024 - The Nagorno-Karabakh Nosedive - COTW: Armenia

Image is of Stepanakert, essentially the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. It is now a ghost city, and Azerbaijan has recently torn down the parliament building and various other important places. Sourced from this article.


Despite the predictions and assertions of various NATO-aligned commentators that Russia's influence is waning, the opposite generally appears to be occurring. ASEAN has become more strongly aligned with Russia despite claims to the contrary. In Central Asia, there has been a propaganda push to declare that countries there are "emerging from Russia's shadow", while in reality, as Bhadrakumar analyzes, Russia's significant economic growth and ongoing march towards victory in Ukraine is creating opportunities for further integration, not separation, and there are no major political shifts there in terms of Russian ties. And in Niger, Russian soldiers have now entered an airbase which once hosted American soldiers, now kicked out, and generally Russia's diplomacy and economic deals (nuclear power plant construction, military equipment, grain shipments, etc) have accelerated in Africa.

Where Russia's influence has actually seemed to decrease (outside of the West, of course) is in Armenia. Nagorno-Karabakh's remarkably rapid collapse in late 2023 demonstrated that Russia was not willing to escalate things in defense of Armenia to fend off Azerbaijan. One hundred thousand Armenians - most but not all of them in the region - fled in advance to avoid mass persecution, which received remarkably little attention by a West which calls itself overwhelmingly concerned with borders changing due to military action as in Ukraine. Since then, Armenia seems to be on some kind of self-annihilating bender, allured by the potential of Western military and economic deals. Armenia froze its membership in the CSTO due to its failure to protect them, and the head of NATO, Stoltenberg, visited the region in March. The West has offered up hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance to Armenia and is helping them "modernize their military"; given the poor track record of Western military equipment in Ukraine, one wonders why they're even bothering. RAND has advocated for a balancing act; America should, in their eyes, realize that they can't entirely remove Russia's influence but nonetheless should make inroads to protect Armenia from Azerbaijan (which is an interesting position given that Israel provided arms to Azerbaijan to help them take Nagorno-Karabakh).

A quick look at Armenia's geographical position reveals the folly of trying to create some kind of Western outpost. With a hostile Azerbaijan to their east, a very unfriendly (albeit NATO member) Turkiye to their west, an ascendant Iran to their south, and Russia not far from the action, there is little hope of doing much more than causing a little chaos in the hopes it'll momentarily distract Russia while it makes inroads most everywhere else on the planet. The political situation appears miserable for Pashinyan, but there isn't really a popular alternative to take the reins. A truly cursed situation.


The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

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

Please check out the HexAtlas!

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.


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  • https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hakeem-jeffries-house-talks-house-divisions-israel-issues-facing-voters-60-minutes/

    Democrat leadership admits there is one unified party when it comes to the interests of the American government.

    House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says Democrats "effectively have been governing as if we were in the majority"

    Though they disagree on most issues, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has opposed efforts to oust embattled Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.

    Except they don't and the few they do they roll over.

    After Johnson worked with Democrats to pass a foreign aid bill that included $61 billion for Ukraine, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who opposed the bill, said she'd follow through with a threat to remove Johnson by forcing a vote on her motion to vacate him. This past week, Democrats released a statement saying they would oppose Congresswoman Greene's effort to remove Johnson, though Jeffries said Johnson has not asked for his help.

    Oh lookie lookie, Democrats are rallying around the Republicans to keep them in power.

    "Our view would traditionally be, 'Let the other side work its own mess out,'" Jeffries said. "But when that mess starts to impact the ability to do the job on behalf of the American people, then the responsible thing at that moment might be for us to make clear that we will not allow the extremists to throw the Congress and the country into chaos."

    Lol they don't act on behalf of the American people, they act on behalf of the capitalists who line their pockets

    Division in the House

    The United States Congress is not particularly popular these days and it's easy to understand why. The current session will likely be the least productive Congress since the Civil War, in terms of laws passed, according to historical data analysis by J. Tobin Grant, a professor of political science at Southern Illinois University.

    jagoff says it's unpopular and easy to explain why that is. Doesn't explain why at all.

    Hint: because it's wildly anti-democratic and constantly acts against the will of the American people.

    Republicans hold the majority in the House, but with only two votes to spare, infighting has crippled their conference. Even some Republican representatives are at their wits' end, including Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), who recently told reporters "The Lord Jesus himself couldn't manage this conference."

    The lord Jesus would probably get his beating stick out and drive all you demons into the Atlantic

    To hear Jeffries tell it, the Democrats are already in charge.

    What I'm hearing is that Democrats murdered Roe and are aiding and abetting the targeted persecution of the LGBT+ and the Trans community.

    "Even though we're in the minority, we effectively have been governing as if we were in the majority because we continue to provide a majority of the votes necessary to get things done," he said. "Those are just the facts."

    That just means the Democrats are rubber stamping all the Republican terror projects.

    Indeed, in the 118th Congress, House Democrats provided a majority of the votes on bipartisan bills to avert a government shutdown, send aid to Ukraine, and pass the National Defense Authorization Act, which went on to be signed into law by the president.

    Keep the war grift machine going, keep Ukrainian fascism on life support, reauthorize the budget for the U.S DOD, and also fund more Israeli fascist bombing campaigns.

    Jeffries, who represents New York's 8th Congressional District, in Brooklyn, views being a member of Congress as being an emissary of the American people to get things done and solve problems. But he said some Republicans have a different take on the job.

    Emissary of the people of wall street more like

    "It's a difficult situation on the other side of the aisle, because many of my Republican colleagues are more interested in creating chaos, dysfunction and extremism," Jeffries said.

    Good.

    Jeffries' stance on Israel — and how it might impact the election

    The foreign aid bill passed under Johnson's leadership also includes $26.4 billion to support Israel in its ongoing war with Hamas. Amid protests on college campuses across the country over Israel and Gaza, some far left members of the Democratic caucus have shown support for demonstrators.

    Remember that the Democrats are actually in charge of the house

    In all, 37 House Democrats recently voted against sending more military aid to Israel. The divisive issue will follow Jeffries and President Biden into the election this November, where control of the White House and Congress looks like a coin flip.

    Only 37 demons felt a little remorse after they realized some of the blood of thousands of dead innocent Palestinians that had been murdered was on their hands as well.

    "We can't take any vote for granted," Jeffries said. "But I also believe that, at the end of the day, voters are going to look at the totality of circumstances. Who is fighting to deliver for everyday Americans, and who is simply fighting for himself?"

    Tie me to a missile and launch me at this dudes house

    Jeffries, whose district is 11% Jewish, said he supports the First Amendment rights of protesters on campuses, but condemned any form of violence or antisemitism.

    jagoff

    He said after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack which sparked the war, Israel had to respond and "decisively defeat Hamas."

    wall-talk

    "At the same time, my view has been that we have to do everything possible to get the hostages out, and to surge humanitarian assistance into Gaza," Jeffries said.

    wall-talk how-compelling-flipped

    Jeffries acknowledged that Israel needed to do more to get humanitarian aid into Gaza and that more surgical precision was needed in its military strikes, but he seemed reluctant to criticize Israel.

    wall owned how-compelling-flipped

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has spoken out on the issue. In a nearly 45 minute speech on the Senate floor in March, he called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an obstacle to peace and urged the Israeli government to hold new elections once the threat of Hamas is reduced.

    Dumbfuck chuck says something partially true, holy shit

    "Anything that Chuck Schumer has to say on the subject is going to be incredibly important and received. But at the same time, every single member of Congress has the responsibility of answering to their constituency," Jeffries said.

    Especially their hasbara constituency

    He added that any suggestions by Republicans that Schumer, a staunch supporter of Israel, was somehow undermining the U.S.-Israel relationship are ridiculous.

    Lmao

    Issues facing voters at the polls: Immigration, abortion, guns and the economy

    I don't see any "continue support for Ukrainian or Israeli fascism" so maybe listen to the people on this one, seen if it's over the same dumb buzzword bullshit we've seen our entire lives.

    Closer to home, voters are concerned about the influx of migrants; Jeffries' home city of New York is a hot spot for immigration issues. Shelters to house thousands of migrants have gone up in and around Jeffries' district in Brooklyn.

    It's not actually that bad. Trust me I actually was there.

    "We have a broken immigration system and we have clear challenges at the border that we have to confront decisively and in a bipartisan way," Jeffries said. "And the American people are crying out for us to do something about the situation at the border in a manner consistent with our values."

    jagoff everyone knows Mexico is at the border of Manhattan and is quickly accessible via rail.

    Sorry that's New Jersey. My bad.

    Jeffries also views abortion rights as a major issue in the upcoming election.

    jesse-wtf isn't he a fucking republican? Holy shit I forgot he was a lib he sounds fucking indistinguishable from the republican hogs

    "Extreme MAGA Republicans have set in motion the erosion of reproductive freedom. We're going to fight for it with everything that we've got at our disposal," he said. "If Roe v. Wade can fall, anything can fall. Social Security can fall. Medicare can fall. Voting rights can fall. And God help us all, but democracy itself can fall."

    God forbid Democrats actually lift a finger to do something to actually combat it instead of being a republican rubber stamp

    • Jeffries also pointed toward Democratic legislative wins during his wide-ranging discussion with CBS Evening News anchor and 60 Minutes correspondent Norah O'Donnell. Though CBS News polling earlier this year found two-thirds of voters think the economy was better under former President Donald Trump, Jeffries said the view is inaccurate.

      Everything is going great for the American people as long as you ignore everything the people need

      "We have to do a better job of laying out the facts," he said. "That the economy has dramatically improved under the leadership of President Joe Biden."

      You are not suffering. Stop complaining about it, peasants.

      There are challenges that remain when it comes to lowering costs, ending price gouging, growing the middle class, keeping communities safe and solving problems at the border, Jeffries said.

      Buzzword buzzword buzzword, jagoff

      "We're on the right side of those issues," Jeffries said. "And we just have to make sure we make that case in a compelling, a clear, and a comprehensive way to the American people."

      Yer on the wrong side of history and wrong side of the people

      Asked by O'Donnell if he admits Democrats hadn't done that yet, Jeffries smiled. "It's a work in progress," he said.

      It ain't happening

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