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With Catholicism suffering from the death of the Pope and undergoing the whole succession ritual now, let's talk about a different religious group that will undergo the exact same process probably very soon. Shia Islam works remarkably similar to Catholicism, where the position of Grand Marja occupies a similar standing to the Pope within the faith. To summarise the position of the Grand Marja to anyone that haven't heard about it, Shia Islam has a lot of small Popes that reach that status after at least 30-40 years of studying theology, the Grand Marja is the biggest Pope out of the them all. A Shia Muslim can follow the rulings of any of the small Popes, but there's an implicit understanding that everyone respects the big Pope and his word is in the end the most important. The Grand Marja right now is a very old and sick Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who coincidentally is the first ever Shia Grand Marja to meet the Catholic Pope, after a historic meeting in Najaf, Iraq a few years ago.

The discussion within Catholic circles right now is about the conservatism of the next Pope, where Catholics discuss if the next Pope should be woke or not. The discussion around the next Grand Marja is a bit more multifaceted than that even within normie circles that aren't really into theology. I like Catholicism even as a Muslim dude, but the truth is that Catholicism in Europe is basically dead as a relevant political force, while Shia Islam is alive and still very energetic as a political and societal force. The first point of discussion is "how political should the next Grand Marja be?". Sistani is remarkable as the first modern Grand Marja with an active website and everything, but at the same time he's also remarkably media shy and there's still not even a recording of him actually talking. He's also very apolitical, he stood silent during the American invasion of Iraq, he offers no political commentary when it comes to the internal politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and his only outwardly political position was taken during the ISIS campaign across Iraq in 2014, when he declared lawful jihad against ISIS and asked young Shias to join the fight against ISIS, which later led to the creation of the Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq.

Now we come to the more woke second discussion point, "should the next Grand Marja be Arab or Persian?". This is basically the eternal Shia idpol dilemma. Sistani is Iranian from the city of Sistan, but has basically lived his entire life in Iraq. The last important Marja before him, Ayatollah Abulqasim Al Khoei was also Iranian, and we have to go back to the 60s to Muhsin Al Hakim, to find a Grand Marja that is considered Arab. Al Hakim is coincidentally the most political Grand Marja in modern history, with his rulings against Arabism and Communism still being debated today and his sons Abdulaziz Al Hakim and Muhammed Baqir Al Hakim were instrumental in the founding of the current Iraqi state after the American invasion. Maybe the Marja shouldn't be Arab if the result is such comprador sons, but that's just my commentary.

We move on to the next discussion point, "should the next Grand Marja be sympathetic to the Sadrists or not?". A short summary of the Sadrist movement coming now. Big family in Iraq and Lebanon, Musa Al Sadr in Lebanon is the spiritual father of all Shia Lebanese, Muhammed Baqir Al Sadr in Iraq basically creates Shia Islamism in Iraq, he also founds the Dawa Party (biggest Shia Islamic political movement in Iraq during the 80s and later), Muhammed Baqir gets executed by Saddam in the early 80s, Dawa Party moves to Iran, regular Shia proletariat in Iraq starts following his cousin Muhammed Sadiq, Muhammed Sadiq gains popularity as a pretty good preacher who says the anti-Saddam stuff without really saying it, he gets assassinated in the late 90s, the preaching stops after his death but his following moves to his surviving son Muqtada Al Sadr, these Muqtada followers later form the backbone of Iraqi resistance to the Americans, at the same time Sadrists slowly start resembling a cult around the image of the Muhammed Sadiq and Muqtada, big clash between the Iraqi government and Sadrists first in 2008, then it turns bloody again in 2022, but doesn't escalate. There were already some rumblings that Sistani's influential son was trying to move certain pieces in order to create an anti-Sadrist camp in 2022, with him reportedly saying that the Sadrists would be considered soon outside the realm of Shiaism. So question remains, does the next Grand Marja exclude Sadrists from the bigger Shia umbrella, or maybe tries to steer them away from the cult and back into normal religion?

I have two or three more points to bring up but my attention span is failing me, so I'll bring them soon in a different comment inshallah 🙏. No proofreading of course, please notify me if something is completely incomprehensible. If you've made this far, congrats!

I know we don't agree with the pope on everything, but NOBODY deserves one of their last moments to be with JD Vance.

I am hearing that on his deathbed Pope Francis received the light of Islam and unhesitatingly recited the Shahāda. Even now he looks down on the Ummah from the gardens of Jannah. Truly there is no god but God, and Mohammed is his prophet!

BREAKING: The Education Department will begin collection on student loans that are in default next month, including garnishing wages for up to 5.3 million borrowers.

Damn. Another curse of the Biden bankruptcy bill, without it student loans would also be discharged in bankruptcy.

The Islamic Resistance Movement in Lebanon, Hezbollah:

'Hezbollah extends its sincere condolences to the Vatican, the followers of the Catholic Church around the world, and all Christians, especially our Christian brothers in Lebanon and the Papal Mission, on the passing of the Pope of the Catholic Church, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis.

Pope Francis believed in peace, called for the rejection of wars, and worked with deep faith to instill the values of love and tolerance, and he worked hard to build bridges between religions, civilizations, and peoples in order to establish dialogue, understanding, and justice.

Through his inspiring stances, Pope Francis embodied the spirit of interfaith dialogue. His prominent meetings with Islamic authorities in Najaf (Iraq) and Al-Azhar (Egypt) were milestones that ignited the flame of love and the message of human fraternity.

His frank positions calling for an end to the Israeli aggression on Gaza until the last moments of his life, his condemnation of the massacres of our people in Palestine, his demand for the provision of humanitarian aid, his official recognition of the State of Palestine, and his support for the Palestinian cause, in addition to his constant support for Lebanon at all stages and his condemnation of the Israeli aggression against us, embody the sincerity of his call and his commitment to human values that reject injustice anywhere.

The Lebanese, regardless of their religious sects and ethnic backgrounds, are called upon to recall the words of Pope Francis, who described Lebanon as the following: 'A message of great meaning that expresses a model of coexistence and national unity'.

And we call upon everyone to draw from his spirit the wisdom and strength to face challenges, and to counter attempts to sow discord and division in our beloved country, Lebanon.

Pope Francis survived pneumonia, report reveals likely cause of death. It wasn't pneumonia that Pope Francis battled for months that might be the cause of his death. Italian news agency ANSA reported, quoting sources, that the likely cause of his demise was a stroke, and not respiratory illness. An official confirmation will only come from the Vatican.

I would also have a stroke if I had to talk with JD Vance

Hamas has released a statement mourning Pope Francis

'The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) extends its deepest condolences and sincere sympathy to the Catholic Church worldwide and to all Christians on the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis, Pope of the Vatican, who passed away after a distinguished career in the service of human and religious values.

The late Pope Francis was a noted advocate of interfaith dialogue, calling for understanding and peace among peoples, and rejecting hatred and racism. On more than one occasion, he expressed his rejection of aggression and wars in the world, and was one of the prominent religious voices to condemn the war crimes and genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

While we, in the Hamas movement, value his moral and humanitarian stances, we emphasize the importance of continuing the joint efforts between the bearers of divine messages and people of living consciences to confront injustice and colonialism, and to support the causes of justice, freedom, and the rights of oppressed peoples.'

there has been some noises about this for a week (from this account on twitter, majority of tweets are in arabic tho) , moroccans are protesting shipping to pisrael of weapons linky to dropsite twitter thread (morocco normalized with entity on first trumpo iteration and got western sahara in reward)

they find some dignity, because christ it's bleak in the region

So nice of the pope to die on a Monday so that the megathread topic writes itself

ain't that some shit linky to thread

https://bsky.app/profile/coldwarsteve.bsky.social/post/3lncv7i2ql222

I had to spend the weekend in Trumpland. His supporters already have their excuses locked and loaded. No matter how bad the economy gets - 20% unemployment, 1929 stock market crash, whatever - the US economy was already fundamentally broken because of democrats and their “loony lefty” socialistic policies over the last few decades. However bad it gets, the suffering was “necessary” because our entire economy was built on a shaky foundation - not because of capitalism, of course. But because we didn’t do ENOUGH raw, uncut capitalism.

Trump and Powell can agree on one thing: destroying the American economic empire by any means necessary

Palestinian resistance forces released more recent combat footage of RPG strikes on Zionist armored vehicles in northern Gaza:

https://s5.cdnstatic.space/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/video_2025-04-20_19-14-37.mp4

For anyone who is interested in left wing/historical materialist inroads to discuss Christianity, i have been reading a physical copy of Parables as Subversive Speech : Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed William R Herzog that i found in a used bookstore.

I cannot recommend it enough, it goes into various aspects of ancient Palestinian history from the worth of a talent to the treatment of day laborers by landowners' hired help, to the proportion of people within various classes in the time period discussed.

https://archive.org/details/parablesassubver0000herz

context- I am an ex Catholic turned transsexual communist, and while I may not follow the tenets of the Church anymore and have resentment for the harm it did to me and countless others, I recognize that it has provided comfort and can be a difficult framework to negotiate with. I'm sharing this less as "see, the Church is cool after all!!" and more "if you have the patience to actually sit down and talk to people, this may be a useful reference."

gold at $3459 per ounce

I am kinda sad to hear Pope Francis passed away, even though it was coming eventually. And I say this despite being somewhat atheist myself. In Argentina, Francis is know to some as "The Pope of the Atheists" because he was well liked among important groups of people for his militancy, not only at the head of the Catholic Church, but also during his days in the Argentinian Church. I have grown a great deal of respect for the man, of course I had a lot of disagreements with him but I don't think he was your regular super conservative Pope, far from it. It's kinda good to see he was deeply moved by the Genocide in Gaza, and he was personally invested in denouncing it until the very end of his life. That I can respect, despite our "spiritual" and political differences.

He really got under the skin of milei as well, he absolutely despised the Pope. Years ago he even called him, publicly, a "fucking Communist SOB" that is a "representative of the Devil in the Holy See". A while back he was shown a fragment of a interview an argentinian journalist did to the Pope, where he said that we should all be aware of "men without history that pretend to become saviors", he specifically mentioned that "this was the case with Adolf [Hitler]" and milei took great offense lmao and became very angry because he thought the Pope was talking about him. He is, indeed, a dangerous man without history, someone who has a messiah complex.

Francis also mantained some relationships with local Communist leaders and Socialists, especially those linked with the Church and/or doing charity work among the needy. His persona ideology however could be something along the lines of Social Justice. Truth is, he wasn't a rabid anti-Communist like pretty much all the other Popes, quite refreshing.

Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, in an official statement:

'I offer my condolences on the passing of Pope Francis to all Catholics worldwide and his followers.

Pope Francis dedicated his life to promoting Christ's teachings of peace, justice, freedom, and interfaith dialogue.

The highlights of his life and leadership were his humanitarian positions against anti-human behaviors in the world, especially his explicit positions and condemnation of the Israeli regime's genocide in Gaza, and the demand to end the killing of innocent Palestinian women and children.'

I'm not crying, you're crying

(original was in Portuguese, translated to English), not a lib

TSLA 2025Q1 results are out. Keep in mind that "estimated" comes from Tesla-friendly analysts who waited until the last two weeks before the earnings to suddenly drop their estimates, making Tesla look closer to estimates than it was not so long ago. Even so, results are not good. And this is before all the tariff stuff that should seriously hit Tesla's energy business, since they import the majority of the cells and solar panels for their battery storage and solar division.

Earnings per share adjusted: 27 cents vs. 43 cents estimated

EPS: 12 cents vs 34 cents y/y

Revenue: $19.34 billion vs. $21.11 billion estimated

Automotive revenue dropped 20% to $14 billion from $17.4 billion in the same period last year.

Earlier this month, Tesla reported a 13% decline in deliveries to 336,681.

They "achieved" $660 million in free cash flow, but their accounts payable are up by $1 billion (despite lower production), this means that they are probably delaying payments to their suppliers until the end of the quarter to make this quarter look better. Despite the fact that Tesla is supposedly developing all this new stuff - robotaxis, FSD, autonomous robots and so on, their capital expenditures are down by like 50%. It looks like they are already trying to conserve spending.

[edit] Naturally, the stock is up by 0.5% on this terrible news. The Tesla piggies are going for the worst price/earnings ratio in history.

who could have expected

We are so back

🚨🟢 Martyr Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades: —

Watch: The complex "Breaking the Sword" ambush against enemy forces near the separation fence east of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. Al-Aqsa Flood.

— Notes: 0:26 - Our fighters were able to carry out the Breaking the Sword ambush on Al-Awda street, east of Beit Hanoun:

• Targeting a "Storm" military jeep during the ambush.
• Targeting the support force that came to the place with an anti-personnel Television-3 explosive device.
• Targeting a newly established position of the enemy forces with four RPG shells and a number of mortar shells.

0:56 - Newly established enemy military position on Al-Awda street.

1:05 - The passing of a zionist truck and a zionist jeep while waiting for the target.

1:15 - Targeting the "Storm" zionist military jeep belonging to the enemy leadership.

1:45 - The overturn of the jeep and liquidating those inside it.

1:57 - Targeting a newly established enemy military position.

2:21 - Targeting the newly established enemy military position.

https://streamable.com/26sh8n

🟢 A leader in the Martyr Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades to Al-Jazeera: — The Beit Hanoun ambush occurred in the buffer zone from which the occupation forces had not withdrawn.

The well-executed ambush took place on Al-Awda Street in Beit Hanoun, just 300 meters from the separation line.

JD VANCE FUCKING KILLED THE POPE

once again, japanese bond traders - pathetic effort, haven't breached 5%

forex markets do be wilding though

new conspiracy theory, what if bessent is deep soros mole, and soros plans to do another heist of the century, this time on the dollar?

US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 39th night in a row.

Multiple rounds of airstrikes have targeted Taiz, Hodeidah and Saada Governorates, along with Kamaran Island.

More airstrikes in Ma'rib Governorate.

Ballistic missile launched at Israel from Yemen, was reportedly intercepted.

Warning for potential graphic imagery of casualties during ongoing airstrikes:

Al Masirah TV twitter

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The Yemeni Armed Forces released a statement earlier today, about shooting down another MQ-9 Reaper drone, along with launching cruise missiles and drones at US Navy warships. Their anti drone air defence systems are proving very difficult to suppress under current SEAD doctrine.

In more US military movements to the region, two E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft arrived in Saudi Arabia today, and a third could be on it's way. This is quite a significant development, to move airborne warning and control aircraft to the region.

Lots of strategic bomber movement within the United States tonight, with a B-52 now tracking east over the Atlantic Ocean. We may see yet another bomber deployment, on top of the 10 USAF bombers currently forward deployed (6 B-2s in Diego Garcia, 4 B-1s in Japan).

The B-52 is currently approaching two mid air refueling aircraft over the Atlantic.

Justkilled Dapope Vance

Word is that Pope Francis has ruthlessly purged reactionary cardinals, paving the way for less shitty cardinals to elect another less shitty pope. Is this liberation theologist cope or should we trust the plan?

Some smol news regarding the passing of His Holiness.

The newly minted president of Iceland, Halla Tómasdóttir, expressed her condolences on Facebook, as people do these days.

But instead of using the Icelandic style of his name, Frans páfi, she used his English name, Pope Francis, which made language scholars and conservationists furrow their brows and scold the president when the press asked them for their opinions.

The office of the President has declared that the president simply wished to tag His Holiness in the post but in her haste, forgot to put the @ sign. Which might work as an explanation except that His Holiness does not have an official Facebook page.

Some people expect the next pope to follow in Francis' steps since he appointed so many electors. I hope they're right, but I just read some counter-arguments in this piece which I think are worth sharing.

It is difficult to predict the outcome of the forthcoming conclave. However, there are strong reasons to believe that Francis’s successor will be a more conservative pope. First, his pontificate has been highly transformative, both institutionally and in its public messaging, making it unlikely that the cardinals will choose another candidate equally inclined toward reform. The Church tends to resist radical and sustained change.

Perhaps more importantly, although the Sistine Chapel has thick walls, the Vatican is invariably influenced by global political trends. With Trump in the White House, and with the far right on the rise worldwide, electing another pope as progressive as Francis would be swimming against the tide – and the Vatican has a long history of adapting to changing realities rather than confronting them. That is why the next fumata blanca will likely announce a more conservative figure than Jorge Bergoglio. Indeed, the mood of the moment suggests that he may well be a stark antithesis to the ‘leftist’ pope.

So the arguments are that, since Francis was a transformative pope, it's not likely that they'll elect another pope that's transformative in the same manner since that would entail too much transformation for the church too quickly.

And that, in 2013 electing a progressive pope seemed apt for the time, but in 2025 with the far-right on the rise, it would be against the current trend, so it's likely they'll ride the wave and elect a conservative or even, god help up, a far right pope.

Hope whoever wrote this is wrong, whatever one may think about the catholic church, it was politically useful for me to be able to say "well the pope agrees with me, you brain dead warmonger" whenever I argued with liberals who wanted to keep the ukraine war going.

Also something I found interesting in the piece.

As Gerard O’Connell recounts in his book on the 2013 conclave, The Election of Pope Francis, the then-Archbishop of Buenos Aires gained popularity among prelates for his strong stance on financial transparency – a sensitive issue following the Vatileaks revelations.

So the electors in 2013 warmed up to Frances not so much because of his leftish credentials but moreso for his anti-corruption stance. This checks with the idea I've heard that since he only had 1 lung, they probably didn't expect him to live that long and to change anything.

first

also apparently the pope died right after meeting jd vance. what a world.

here's a link to a source to make this an officially acceptable top comment: https://apnews.com/article/vatican-pope-francis-dead-01ca7d73c3c48d25fd1504ba076e2e2a

US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 38th day and night in a row, with between 20-25 airstrikes reported in Hodeidah Governorate during the daytime. During the night, multiple rounds of airstrikes with multiple airstrikes each were reported in the Ma'rib and Sana'a Governorates, along with Kamaran Island

Al Masirah TV twitter

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The Yemeni Armed Forces released another statement yesterday, about launching drones at Israel and targeting the two sets of US Navy warships:

The use of a Sammad-1 drone is interesting, the Yaffa drone is a variant of the Sammad-3, an upgrade to the Sammad-1 with a vastly longer range. So I don't know why they'd use a Sammad-1, which only has a 500km range and is usually used for surveillance, and not one way attack.

Two of these cruise missiles launched at US warships likely crashed within Yemen itself, one in Al Mahwit Governorate, videos and phots of the debris suggest a failed Quds series cruise missile launch. Another missile crashed in the capital city Sana'a, and media was banned from the crash site in the hours after the initial media frenzy (so no photos or videos of missile parts for identification purposes), which is why the reporting of "a US airstrike targeting a market in Sana'a yesterday" has died down on resistance channels, there's a high possibility this was an Ansarallah missile that misfired. Two potential failed cruise missile launches (with one confirmed) on one night is a bit odd.

Footage of the failed Quds missile launch/crash

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The US Navy is continuing to suppress Yemeni radars and SAM sites, along with a potential new tactic to take out Yemeni anti air loitering munitions like Missile-358 (which have likely taken out many MQ-9 Reaper drones). An EA-18G Growler launching off of the USS Harry Truman is equipped with a heavy/"beast mode" (yes, that's what the Marines and Navy actually call a fully laden aircraft) SEAD/DEAD loadout, with 4 AGM-88E anti radiation missiles (two on each wing's outboard stations, visible in the first picture), 2 AIM-120 AMRAAM air to air missiles (visible in the second picture, near the centreline of the aircraft inboard of the drop tanks), and three 1817 litre/480 gallon fuel drop tanks (one on the centreline, and one on each wing). I'm guessing that that the AIM-120s will be used to shoot directly at the airborne loitering munitions themselves from a safe distance. So the plan to counter these air to air loitering munitions like Missile-358, is just to shoot them out of the sky with radar guided air to air missiles from EA-18Gs.

Montana has a measles outbreak with its first cases in 35 years

CNBC: Trump ramps up attacks on Powell, demands ‘loser’ Fed chair lower rates ‘NOW’

President Donald Trump on Monday ratcheted up his pressure campaign on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, calling him a "major loser" and warning that the U.S. economy could slow down unless interest rates are lowered immediately.

″'Preemptive Cuts' in Interest Rates are being called for by many," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump claimed that there is currently "virtually No Inflation" in the U.S., and that costs for energy and "most other 'things'" are on the decline.