Burger national election news is scary and depressing. Got anything fun happening in your local or state elections?

Portland Oregon is choosing a new mayor and oh boy. Our choices this round include the lady with 150 unpaid parking tickets, who really probably shouldn't be driving at this point, or we have the guy who falsely accused someone of assaulting him on the train, (there are cameras) who also used public funds to spiff up his wikipedia page and of course hates the homeless.

Or we got Keith, the guy who doesn't seem to hate homeless people, provided they stay at an overnight shelter (he's on the record as being against the 24-hour shelters with onsite case management). Or Liv, maybe better known as the stripper Viva Las Vegas, who seems to be running on a platform of...make Portland good and artsy again? Somehow? (The solution is lower rents).

There is also Mingus. Idk what Mingus has been up to. He's already in the city government, probably coasting on being mediocre and not attracting controversy idk. I think he might be our water guy? Idk the city government is split really weird here. Anyways, not spicy enough to win, or get any real juicy news articles. Has a cool name though. Mingus Ulysses Mapps. Yeah that shit is tight.

You guys got anything fun going on?

This is being sold as a security measure, but it's really a heavily-lobbied economic measure to benefit a single American drone company. Skydio, DJI's largest American competitor, can't compete with cheap Chinese drones used for commercial purposes like farming and surveying, so over the last two years they have spent over a million dollars on lobbying efforts to take out their rival. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2022&id=D000086902

Skydio drones are expensive, and the company has deep ties with American, British, and Israeli militaries. They have also completely pulled out of the consumer market, focusing purely on commercial and military drones, so a DJI ban will be a serious blow to drone hobbyists, independent professional pilots, and smaller companies that can't afford to pay thousands of dollars for a drone that they used to be able to get for $400-$1000.

Ukraine is using flamethrower drones to light up trenches now

Didn't know that was allowed but apparently it is. How long till mustard gas makes a comeback? Acid drones maybe, like those Israeli settlers used on Palestinians recently?

Jfc this is the most doomer thing I've seen all year.

This starts with peace talks.

We held a May Day rally, coordinated with other communist and SWANA groups in Portland to make connections with each other and with the local communities directly impacted by the genocide. There were speakers, musicians, posts, it was a lovely Big Red Tent.

Then the black bloc showed up during our march, lit off fireworks and assaulted a few people, so the march got called short. The SWANA groups we organized with were pissed. So many bridges were burned cause some anarchists who had nothing to do with organizing the event wanted to smash some windows.

They disrupted our event then complained online about tankies. Fucking fed shit.

Reddit banned RussianWarFootage, UkraineRussiaReport gone private. Pro-ukraine opinions only on Reddit.

I try very hard to maintain my love of humanity in the face of overwhelming despair. Sometimes it can be very hard not to hate people, to not pray that some day death will rain down from the sky onto the oppressors and that they will know even a fraction of the torment that they are inflicting. I want to tell myself that the average person, even the average citizen living under fascist governments, is a decent person worthy of life and dignity. I don't want to be someone who poisons my soul by wishing ill on others, even if they might rightfully deserve it.

Anyways here's an article about how Israelis are so stressed out by their genocide that they're becoming fat.

It's fun reading old reddit posts about Euromaidan and seeing people like "why not just split the country in half and the east can go to Russia?"

Like well done, posters from 10 years ago - you called it.

Houthi attacks in Red Sea delay arrival of critical Yad Sarah medical equipment

https://www.timesofisrael.com/houthi-attacks-in-red-sea-delay-arrival-of-critical-yad-sarah-medical-equipment/

Yad Sarah, one of Israel’s largest non-profit charitable groups, warned on Sunday that the disruption of shipping in the Red Sea, caused by assaults by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants, is causing delays in the delivery of critical medical equipment and could lead to severe shortages, as Israel is almost four months into war with the Hamas terror group.

Almost felt a twinge of sympathy, but then

Since the outbreak of the Hamas war, Yad Sarah, one of the country’s largest medical aid volunteer organizations, has already supplied an entire year’s worth of “critical medical and rehabilitation equipment,” to soldiers and civilians, Cohen said.

Get fucked. I hope that your need for emergency supplies increases and is never fulfilled.

The attacks are working.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7903104/ this shit is still causing birth defects in Iraq. This is Ukraine's future now.