news

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/speaker-mike-johnson-gop-budget-vote-trump-agenda-rcna200578?link_source=ta_bluesky_link&taid=67f7e1c2cbaffa0001e87634 216-214. One Democratic absence (Norcross) and two Dem vacancies due to deaths (Turner and Grijalva) proved decisive on a budget that unlocks the door for Republicans to make trillions in tax/spending changes.

There Will Be No Return to the 1991 Borders: Russian FM Lavrov - Telesur English

Black Monday was temporarily postponed

Bernie "Don't call it a genocide" Panders was at Coachella.

Mearsheimer has given an interview to one of the Finnish tabloid rags and this also made the national news today which was citing the tabloid article.

The article part tries to shit on him but also states his views on how he thinks Finland joining nato was a mistake, the Finnish president is a lib and that the Ukraine war is the result of nato expansion. This might be worth reading via translate as the tabloid tries very hard to undermine his opinions, but as they try to be nuanced, it largely fails in this.

The article seems to have 1000 comments, but those can't be read without signing into their site. That is a lot of cope for a country this size.

Plus side is, people fucking love china now purely out of negative polarization towards trump. Obviously many are bots, but look at the comments on this vid

https://youtu.be/lLSIklQSMro

Apparently Avelo airlines has become the first/only commercial airline to publicly announce a contract with ICE for doing deportation. Usually it's little charter airlines that do it.

Can't resist those juicy PIC moneys for enhanced profit!

USA Today: Why are tens of thousands of people boycotting this little-known airline?

Don't worry, though. 30k people have signed a petition!!!!

And, sorry/not sorry: because I found this gem of an opinion piece by a genocidal liberal fuckwit apologizing for this "just doing business" nonsense, you have to read it too.

Avelo Airlines — neither woke nor broke (apparently—according to Startpage—originally titled "Anger at Avelo deportation flights is misplaced. Here's why."

The airline is only doing this because it allows you your cheap tourism, folks. We all know that flying commercial passengers is done out of the goodness of their hearts, and will continue despite not being profitable (enough), so long as they can get better money from ICE! Sorry, but the ethnic cleansing is necessary for you to have your treats! And, after all, you can't blame the furnace companies for supplying the Nazis or anything; they were just in the business of making furnaces!

Ex-Marxist turned right-winger Mario Vargas Llosa, candidate for the Peruvian presidency in 1990, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, has died at the age of 89.

https://elpais.com/cultura/2025-04-14/muere-mario-vargas-llosa-gigante-de-las-letras-universales.html

Cargo ship captains sailing west to Europe have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever right now.

Colombia: President Gustavo Petro said at the CELAC Summit in Honduras that no Latin American government should accept that its citizens be treated as criminals and sent to prisons in El Salvador.

• Telesur Twitter

https://6abc.com/post/wingtip-american-airlines-plane-hits-another-aircraft-carrying-several-us-congress-members-washington-airport/16153448/ Something funny almost happened with congresspeople in a plane

Vargas Llosa has died.

Peruvian writer and politician Mario Vargas Llosa died this Sunday in Lima, where he lived with his family. Since distancing himself from left-wing politics, he has embraced right-wing politics. In 1989, The Washington Post would write that though Vargas Llosa's party appeared center-right, "he has ties with far-right politicians in other countries".

Vargas Llosa has continued to be criticized due to his association with far-right groups and politicians. The Christian Science Monitor would call Vargas Llosa "a right-wing maverick" while Jacobin would plainly describe him as a "far-right novelist".

Vargas Llosa has described himself as a supporter of liberalism and said that the individuals who have had most impact on his political thought have included Karl Popper, Friedrich Hayek and Isaiah Berlin. According to The Nation, Vargas Llosa would condemn leftist groups entirely due to the controversies of some while minimizing similar actions by neoliberal governments.

He supported right-wing libertarian candidate Javier Milei in the 2023 Argentine general election. Following the arrest of Augusto Pinochet for crimes against humanity in 1999, Vargas Llosa would write an op-ed in The New York Times asking why left wing dictators were also not being arrested.

During the 2022 Brazilian general election, Vargas Llosa expressed his endorsement for conservative leader Jair Bolsonaro. "The case of Bolsonaro it's a hard question. His jokes are very hard to endorse, for a liberal [...] Now, between Bolsonaro and Lula, I prefer Bolsonaro. Even with jokes from Bolsonaro, Lula no." said Vargas Llosa at a conference

US Offensive in Yemen Leaves Tragic Toll on Civilians - Telesur English

Regarding the tariff war, Colonel Cassad posted an image with two maps comparing which countries had the US or China as their largest trading partner, first from the year 2000 and then in 2024. China is now absolutely dominant.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9773078.html

Washington is frantically trying to reverse the trend. But the USA's hollowed out industrial base, crumbling infrastructure, and massive debts make achieving that goal practically impossible.

Chinese Money Supply Report for March seems pretty strong after credit being anemic last year so good signs for the economy and demand outlooks i guess. And even less pressure regarding the trade war.

M2 money supply +7.0% y/y; Est. +6.1%;

M1 money supply +1.6% y/y; Est. +0.3%;

M0 money supply +11.5% y/y; Prev. +9.7%;

Aggregate financing 5.9 trillion yuan, Prev. 2.23;

New yuan loans 2.23 trillion yuan, Prev. 0.74.

Problem with credit in the last couple of years and especially last year is that since forever land sales were critical to the credit formation process because they drove the leveraged generation of loans through a number of asset collateralization processes. This is where the money for all other local economic activities came from. But that wasnt viable anymore so one of the central sturctual tranformations of the Chinese economy is to delink credit generation from land sales and towards more mature financial insturments, and that cant be seperated from the general crack down of real estate speculation and deflating that bubble. So especially during last year the "fountainhead" for the credit cycle was locked up because of the land finance wind down. Credit going back to normal seems to indicate there has been substantial progress in that aspect and maybe the economy is beyond the more shaky phase.

Mechanically, the credit impulse drives the demand cycle, not vice versa. Availability of money is what determines demand. Demand does not determine availability of money. So demand problems were in large part downstream of that. Reticence from households to spend due to property value deflation was only a secondary problem. The primary problem was squeezed incomes and business revenue from a slow moving liquidity lockup.

Trump needs to be more efficient at corruption. Instead of funneling money to the MiC via gov contracts and all the various forms of corruption he can just invite all the CEOs into a signal group and pump and dump the equity markets together using options. You can literally "make" hundreds of millions to billions of dollars overnight.

What happens if the US keeps provoking China and China sells off treasuries and uses the cash to pay off Latam and African debt?

Ecuador imposes state of emergency before razor-close election - CBS NEWS

Left-wing and progressive parties in Ecuador express concern over the series of irregularities by the National Electoral Council (CNE) and the government of presidential candidate Daniel Noboa, implemented just hours before today's presidential runoff elections.

The statement reads:

Throughout the electoral process, we have witnessed the shameful role played by the National Electoral Council (CNE). It has failed to fulfill the functions established in the Constitution, which, among other things, mandates that it be the overseer of the electoral process and guarantor of transparency and equality for all contestants in the elections, but none of this has been fulfilled. The latest events we note below should concern and outrage all of us who defend democracy and transparency.

• Last-minute relocation of 18 polling stations under the guise of winter weather. Rain has been ongoing for two months, and flooding has been punishing for two weeks. However, the decision was made at the last minute. Coincidentally, these changes affect the precincts where the ruling party did not perform well in the first round.

• National government broadcasts, four times a day, in complete electoral silence, announcing alleged government actions; something that is expressly prohibited by law, but the CNE remains silent.

• Delegations of international election observers are prevented from entering the country.

• Use of state resources to distribute bonuses (USD 570 million), last-minute payments to state suppliers, and unofficial trips by the presidential candidate, all for the purpose of campaigning.

• Decree of a state of emergency in 7 provinces, suspending the civil rights of inviolability of the home, correspondence, movement, and assembly; Coincidentally, these are the same provinces where presidential candidate Noboa failed to receive a favorable vote in the first round.

• Suspension of voting for Ecuadorians in Venezuela.

We demand that the CNE assume its responsibility and guarantee transparent elections within the framework of the law. We are vigilant for the good of the country; we will not allow them to violate democratic principles. We alert international organizations, the EU, the UN, the OAS, and civil society oversight bodies about these regrettable events that continue to affect our country's weak democracy and hinder this process of citizen participation.

• Twitter - Kawsachuan News

Ecuador Election Update (Sources: Radio Pichincha):

Luiza Gonzalez: denounces electoral fraud after the first official results of the ballot. “There are about 11 polls in which all of them, even those of the government itself, gave us the victory”, she emphasizes. “I denounce before my people, the media and the world that we are living a dictatorship and we are facing the worst and most grotesque electoral fraud in the history of the Republic of Ecuador”, she asserts.

“In the name of the men, women, children and young people we represent, in the name of the people we represent, we do not recognize the results presented by the CNE”, said Luisa Gonzalez from the headquarters of Revolucion Ciudadana. She also indicated that they will request the recount of votes and the opening of the ballot boxes.

Correristas claim they have 52% of the votes, against 48% of Daniel Narcoa

russians struck some military ceremony in center of sumy, but hit civilians nearby :(

what being a lib does to mfers, just strike z-man, ffs.

Putin and his entourage travelled to St Petersburg last night, in preparation for talks with Trump's chief negotiator, Steve Witkoff, over the Russia - Ukraine war today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx20jr8rjj2o Kier Stalin

U.S. Airstrikes in Yemen Fail to Halt Houthi Operations Amid Ongoing Support for Palestine - Telesur English