It's only a matter of time before Mexican drug cartels attack north of the border with drones

 How cartel members are getting drone training in Ukraine

... Some cartels have turned to drones to help strike rival compounds, and even dropped grenades on other drug strongholds in the country. ...

My God, The American Conservative is a joke of a magazine

The NSS Is the Strategy We Have Waited For

 ... The NSS finally says out loud what many of us have argued quietly: proximity shapes power. If the United States wants to compete with China—economically, technologically, militarily—it must simultaneously secure the space in which its own republic exists. A great power does not project strength globally while hemorrhaging authority regionally. China seems to get this instinctively. It does not confront nuclear competitors while tolerating cartel rule on its own doorstep. ...

China is the principal global source for the world's fentanyl and methamphetamine precursors which fuel the cartels in Mexico and in China's own backyard in Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand, which also supply China with its own heroin and opium.

Illegal drugs are a key weapon China deploys against the West, but Trump's new, awful, stupid National Security Strategy couldn't care less.

And Trump is about to prove it again next week when he reclassifies gateway drug marijuana as Schedule III instead of Schedule I. 

GM will not produce EVs at Orion Assembly Plant in suburban Detroit as the company moves production of gasoline vehicles to the US from Mexico to avoid 25% tariffs

 GM to invest $4 billion in U.S. plants amid tariffs for Mexican-produced vehicles

... GM said the investment will add assembly of the gas-powered Chevrolet Blazer and Chevrolet Equinox that are currently produced in Mexico to two other plants in the U.S. and convert a large idled plant in Michigan — formerly expected to build all-electric trucks — to make gas-powered SUVs and trucks in 2027. ...

 

Trump's DOJ brings Kilmar Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador to face a slew of criminal charges it has cooked up against him in the interim since the Supremes ordered him returned in April

 

Watch out, Elon, you may be next.

 Kilmar Abrego Garcia returns to face immigrant smuggling charges after wrongful deportation

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was returned to the United States to face criminal charges involving an alleged undocumented immigrant smuggling ring Friday, months after the Maryland resident was wrongfully deported to a prison in his native El Salvador. ...

The indictment alleges that Abrego Garcia and others from 2016 through 2025 “conspired to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere, ultimately passing through Mexico before crossing into Texas.”

The grand jury that issued the indictment found that he made more than 100 trips smuggling thousands of immigrants. ...

In a post on X on Friday, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele wrote, “As I said in the Oval Office:1. I would never smuggle a terrorist into the United States. 2. ⁠I would never release a gang member onto the streets of El Salvador.”

“That said, we work with the Trump administration, and if they request the return of a gang member to face charges, of course we wouldn’t refuse,” Bukele wrote. ...

 

 

 

Burning cargo ship bound for Mexico from China with 800 electric vehicles on board abandoned off the coast of Alaska lol

 

... Fires across all vessel segments hit the highest level in a decade in 2024, according to insurer Allianz Commercial. ...

More.

Gee, I wonder why.

Don't park one in your garage.

 

Update Wed Jun 25, 2025:

She sank, 16,000 feet under lol.

The ninth car-carrier in ten years the video says.

 

 

 

We've been liberated from Liberation Day by two Republicans (one appointed by Trump) and one Democrat on a court handpicked by Trump to adjudicate his tariffs lol

 

Federal trade court strikes down Trump’s reciprocal tariffs

The U.S. Court of International Trade on Wednesday blocked steep reciprocal tariffs unilaterally imposed by President Donald Trump on scores of countries in April to correct what he said were persistent trade imbalances. ...

In its ruling, a three-judge panel on the Court of International Trade said that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which Trump invoked to impose the tariffs, does not authorize a president to levy universal duties on imports.

 

“The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs,” the judges wrote.

And separate, specific tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China related to drug trafficking “fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders,” the panel wrote.

Implementing tariffs typically requires congressional approval.

But Trump chose to bypass Congress by declaring a national economic emergency under IEEPA, which became law in 1977, and then using the purported emergency as justification for cutting Congress out of the process.

The panel not only ordered a permanent halt to the tariffs at issue in the case, but it also barred any future modifications to them.

The Trump administration was given 10 days to make the necessary changes to carry out the judges’ orders. ...

 

If ivermectin ever made a difference to COVID-19 outcomes in Africa, it sure didn't in Latin and South America

Wide distribution of ivermectin in Africa to combat river blindness does not appear to have had anything to do whatsoever with low death rates from COVID-19 in places like Angola (62 deaths per million of population), Kenya (120), and Nigeria (16).

It turns out that ivermectin was widely distributed in eight Latin and South American countries from June, August, and December 2020, but all of them had steeply higher death rates from the disease:

Peru 6,945

Brazil 3,396

Mexico 2,654

Panama 2,089

Bolivia 1,974

Guatemala 1,222

Honduras 1,165

El Salvador 652.

 

Exposure to fresh air and full spectrum sunlight with its infrared and ultraviolet radiation has been shown to speed recovery from the disease:

 

 

Andrew Sullivan: The point is the abuse, whether it's Canada's Trudeau, Mexico's Sheinbaum, Germany's Scholz, Ukraine's Zelensky, or the S&P 500

 

Trump doesn't really believe in the tariffs, that they'll do anything one way or another. They are simply the readiest instruments which demonstrate his power, and the daily reminder to all and sundry that he is the king, Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria reincarnate.

 

Trump says he’s not even looking at stock market, tariffs will make U.S. ‘very strong’ 

Trump ‘an agent of chaos and confusion,’ economists say — but a U.S. recession isn’t in the cards yet

So long, Trump bump: Tech stocks wipe out last of post-election gains 

 

Trump rejects pleas from business for more clarity on tariffs: ‘They always say that’ 

 

... Bartiromo interjected: “That’s not clarity.” ...

 

The Bully In His Pulpit

 

... Canada and Mexico are best understood as the baby in the playpen [whom Trump pelted with stones when he was five or six]. Trump himself re-negotiated a trade agreement with both in his first term. Have they violated that deal? No. Have they refused to cooperate on fentanyl and illegal migrants? No. Has Mexico reduced the pressure on the Southern border to almost nothing. Dramatically. Is there anything they can or could do to please Trump? No. The point is the abuse. And like all abusers, Trump constantly shifts what he is demanding, gaslights, threatens, charms, attacks … so that you begin to realize there is nothing you can do except wait for his mood to change. Welcome to monarchy. ...

AKA The Bay of New Spain . . . among the better educated

 

An English nautical chart dated 1775 labels it "the Bay of Mexico", now glossing "Mexico" as an alternative name for New Spain:

 

 

Just a reminder that theatre is exactly what this is, starring Mexico, Canada, and Donald Trump

 Sound familiar?

More tariff theatre: Trump announces 25% tariffs on Canada on Saturday, reverses himself before dinner on Monday lol

 

Trump pauses tariffs on Canada imports for 30 days after doing the same for Mexico

... Trudeau said Canada had made new commitments “to appoint a Fentanyl Czar.” 😉😉

“Canada is implementing our $1.3 billion border plan — reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl,” the prime minister wrote. “Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and will be working on protecting the border.” ...

In 2024, more than 21,100 pounds of fentanyl was seized by U.S. authorities on the border with Mexico, compared to only about 43 pounds seized at the Canadian border. ...

Trump announces 25% tariffs on Mexico on Saturday, reverses himself before lunch on Monday lol

 

 Stocks that got hit the most from Trump’s tariffs before the Mexico reprieve

... Shares of companies spanning the auto, industrial, retail and beverage industries with international supply chains were hit particularly hard. ... The president said Monday that he’s pausing the Mexico tariffs for one month after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to immediately send 10,000 soldiers to her country’s border to prevent drug trafficking.

The country which can't stop the drug cartels from operating unchecked within its own borders is going to stop drug traffic to the USA because it puts its troops closer to our border?

Phony baloney plastic banana good time rock 'n rolla.

Trump tariffs will increase costs of fruits, vegetables, potatoes, and grains, among a hellish host of things

 

... The sweeping tariff could make more expensive a host of items that the U.S. imports from its neighbors. Among the common Mexican imports that will now get pricier to bring into the country: fruits, vegetables, beer, liquor and electronics. And from Canada: potatoes, grains, lumber and steel. ...

Trump is enacting the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows the president to respond to “extraordinary threat,” which Trump has identified as a fentanyl and drug crisis that he alleges China, Mexico, and Canada facilitate. ...

More.

Because some Americans use illegal drugs, Trump is punishing all Americans.

Makes sense, right?

I mean George Floyd's blood fentanyl level was fatal and we lit the nation's cities on fire because of it, so yeah, we deserve it.

President of Jerkola renames places on maps, Canal of Panamonium, Grifterland, and The Great White Eh up next

 

Google Maps to rename ‘Gulf of Mexico’ to ‘Gulf of America’

California's prison inmates tasked with doing the job Governor Gavin Beavis Newsom won't do: Removing the timber and brush ahead of the wildfires but after it's too late

 Absolute lol.

Gavin Newsom faced a recall election, but survived to prove in this new case that he more than deserved it. Just incredible stuff there in California.

28 paragraphs in.

Los Angeles wildfire deaths rise to 24 as more fierce winds are forecast

Along with crews from other states and Mexico, hundreds of inmates from California’s prison system were also helping fight the fires. Nearly 950 prison firefighters were removing timber and brush ahead of the fires to slow their spread, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The practice is controversial as the inmates are paid little for dangerous and difficult work: $10.24 each day, with more for 24-hour shifts, according to the corrections department.

 

 

 

 

Puto in the news, but Associated Press won't spell it out lol

 Mexico is struggling to stamp out a homophobic soccer chant ahead of the World Cup

 GUADALAJARA, México (AP) — Guadalajara is the capital of a Mexican state that is home to tequila and Mariachi music. It is also considered the birthplace of a less flattering tradition – a homophobic soccer chant that has cost Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines over the past two decades.

It’s no wild guess that the chant, a one-word slur which literally means male prostitute in Spanish, will be heard from the crowd in Guadalajara’s Akron stadium when Mexico hosts the United States in a friendly on Tuesday. Multiple sanctions from FIFA and campaigns by Mexican soccer officials to educate fans have not been able to stamp it out. ...

The idiots at UK Daily Mail published editorial discussions about the article in the body of the article on John Deere shipping good American jobs to Mexico lol

 

XX Should we have the Dubuque job losses here too - bunch them all together, at least on first mention. And can we do them in chronological order - May is before March. Also assuming this first Oct one is 2023. And/or a little fact box on them, which we could also get made up ona  little graphic of Iowa showing Factory location and town, population, jobs lost (and jobs left). Might be good to summarise that way. But can do it a fact box first and then decide on map graphic.           

 

I'm sure the company would respond that the 2021 strike was the greed. 

There's plenty of greed to go around, though, obviously.

 

Fury as one of America's oldest companies slashes jobs in the Midwest as it shifts work to Mexico: 'It's greed'

The layoffs come after 10,000 unionized John Deere workers went on strike for five weeks in October 2021.

The strikes were among the most prominent during 'Striketober', where thousands of workers from Nabisco, Kellogg's, McDonald's and others walked out for weeks or even months to protest low pay in the wake soaring company profits.

Striking John Deere employees won a 10 percent raise for hourly earners, increased retirement benefits and the maintaining of the health insurance program that workers don't have to pay premiums for.

Biden restarts Obama's war on new coal leasing ended by Trump . . . just in time for the election

 

 In one of its biggest steps yet to keep fossil fuels in the ground, the Biden administration announced Thursday that it will end new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin, which produces nearly half the coal in the United States.

Climate activists have long pushed the Interior Department to stop auctioning off leases for coal mining on public lands, and they celebrated the decision. It could prevent billions of tons of coal from being extracted from more than 13 million acres across Montana and Wyoming, with major implications for U.S. climate goals. ...

Last year, the Powder River Basin generated 251.9 million tons of coal, accounting for nearly 44 percent of all coal produced in the United States. Under the bureau’s [Bureau of Land Management] determination, the 14 active coal mines in the Powder River Basin can continue operating on lands they have leased, but they cannot expand onto other public lands in the region. ...

The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign estimates that 382 coal-fired power plants have closed down or proposed to retire, with 148 remaining. ...

Trump ... pledged to immediately end the Biden administration’s freeze on permits for new liquefied natural gas exports in a second term . . .. He also pledged to start auctioning off more leases for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and to lift restrictions on drilling in the Alaskan Arctic. 

More.

NeverTrump Bulwark is in a panic that Biden has already radicalized moderates

 Majorities now approve of Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans—including 42 percent of Democrats—as well as a border wall. And while violent crime has fallen dramatically since the Trump presidency, voters see more disorder. Drugstores didn’t clear their shelves and lock up merchandise because of widespread looting until Biden was in charge. Videos of open-air drug markets and mayhem on subways don’t just make people scared, they make them angry. 

There has been record inflation too, and high prices contribute to a pervasive sense of anxiety in the electorate. But Biden would be far better off politically if high prices were the sole challenge he had with voters. Disorder is a drain on the American psyche. And it’s threatening Biden’s re-election, as it leaves voters receptive to the kind of harsh law-and-order appeal Trump prefers. ... look at the polls ... There is bipartisan fury over protests and immigration. Trump is running to restore order, and voters have given him a lead.

The column is devastating for Biden.

Trump's presidential immunity: Democrats want you to forget, for one, that Obama played the tyrant when he assassinated an American citizen in Yemen in 2011 by drone without due process of law

 

And it wasn't just Anwar al-Awlaki, born in New Mexico.

Obama assassinated three other American citizens, in the same and two other strikes.

Y'all just let that slide because you liked Obama.

 

 . . . the Obama administration never charged al-Awlaki with a crime or even presented concrete evidence of his guilt . . . his targeted killing left American citizens with little more than the proposition that we are supposed to simply trust the president and the executive branch when they use secret intelligence to accuse an American citizen of terrorism and then claim the right to kill that individual without judicial scrutiny. 

More.

 

The New York Times, May 2013, after Obama was safely re-elected:

In his letter to Congressional leaders, Mr. Holder confirmed that the administration had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who died in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen. Mr. Holder also wrote that United States forces had killed three other Americans who “were not specifically targeted.” . . . Mr. Holder confirmed the government’s role in the deaths of Samir Khan, who was killed in the same strike, and Mr. Awlaki’s son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who died in another strike. The letter disclosed the death of a fourth American named Jude Kenan Mohammad but gave no further details.