Bulletins and News Discussion from April 14th to April 20th, 2025 - The Lamentations of a Levy-Loving Leader

Image is of Trump's initial set of reciprocal tariffs. Source is CNN and Reuters.

It's difficult to keep up with the news around the tariffs; they get instated, then dropped, then reinstated... for example, on Friday, Trump said that certain electronics like smartphones would be exempt, causing markets to rally a great deal, but now the Commerce Secretary has said that they might not be exempt? The state of play right now, if you haven't been keeping up this week, is that the US recently announced a 90-day global pause on implementing the tariffs he had planned (that is, 25% on certain Canadian and Mexican goods, and at least 10% on every other nation) but nonetheless increased tariffs on China to 145%.

Meanwhile, China has been - quite remarkably - standing their ground, increasing tariffs on the US to 125%, and putting restrictions on rare earths. Xi Jinping has been in Vietnam and has made statements against a tariff war there, saying that it would have no winners. Meanwhile, a Chinese spokesperson has essentially said that China can endure the tariff war due to the increasing demand from its domestic market in combination with its growing economic ties with other countries.

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Growth Of Ukraine's Azov Units Follow Path Of The Waffen-SS | Moon of Alabama
(no brainworms detected)
- I wrote the following 2 comments 3 years ago that are almost identical to this article in conclusion: https://hexbear.net/comment/2259695
  https://hexbear.net/comment/2332850
  I've bolded the most important parts.
  Azov commanders in the post 2014 maidan revolution held the positions of Minister of Internal Affairs and Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs for several years, these positions hold executive power over a HUGE amount of violent levers of power in the country. During this time they brought Azov in as an official wing of the Ukrainian military in order to give them state resources and then they set about the creation of 56 different nazi battalions under the title Special Tasks Patrol Police. These are the people that you may have seen terrorising the population across the country, tying people to lampposts as a public humiliation tool or performing public naked floggings, extrajudicial disappearances, etc etc scroll to the top of this channel to see for yourself. These units were created with the intention of expanding the Azov formula as a volunteer battalion across the entire country, a model that was created in the likeness of the nazi SS which was also a volunteer battalion that was expanded into special police and terror functions for the nazi machine.
  This is shit because it absurdly posits that Azov are the only fascists, the fascists don't riddle the rest of the military as well, that OTHER fascist groups like Aidar, Right Sector and others don't exist, it acts like if you're not in Azov, you're not a fascist and no other fascists exist.
  In addition to this, it acts like fascists don't already have electoral success. He quotes one of the parties as only having 1-2% of the vote and completely ignores the fact fascists fill the other party. He seems completely ignorant to the fact that they voted to make Bandera a hero of ukraine, a very clear signal that a majority of them are A-OK with fascism.
  In addition to this, he seems structurally ignorant. He seems like he doesn't really understand how a small number of fascists might be able to get any politician to do literally anything they want because if they don't well they can just kill them or disappear their children and families.
  The most important structural aspect of this issue is the Ministry of Internal Affairs .
  Deputy Minister for Internal Affairs, Vadym Troyan, Azov Batallion nazi.
  Minister for Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov, Azov Batallion commander and nazi.
  Why are these two important? Because the Ministry of Internal Affairs holds executive power over a HUGE amount of the important levers of power in the country, including:
  
  National Guard of Ukraine National Police of Ukraine Special Tasks Patrol Police State Border Guard Service of Ukraine Ukrainian Sea Guard State Emergency Service of Ukraine State Migration Service of Ukraine
  These roles, in control of nazis, gives free reign to the nazis to do ANYTHING they want. They control law and order in the country.
  If you try to do anything the nazis don't want they can just kill you or your family and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. The nazis are the police. They will not investigate that killing afterwards.
  What environment does this create? One where the nazis get everything they want because everyone knows they can't go against them.
  
  Awoo of Alabama
  
  Only solution to this problem is getting someone in the position of Ministry of Internal Affairs who can do a mass purge of these groups, and hand over all of their information to an intelligence agency to handle them because they're going to be a serious post-war problem.

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