Links 6/7/2025

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Big Bang May Not Be The Beginning of Everything, New Theory Suggests ScienceAlert (Chuck L)

3,500-year-old graves reveal secrets that rewrite bronze age history ScienceDaily (Kevin W)

The Silent Virus Behind Mono Is Now a Prime Suspect in Major Diseases Bloomberg

Climate/Environment

Why Is Hail Getting So Big? Wall Street Journal

The atmosphere is getting thirstier and it’s making droughts worse – new study The Conversation

Rising sea temperatures spawning killer Med storms, study warns ekathermerini

Farmers’ harvest in limbo after UK endures driest spring in nearly 70 years Independent

China?

Hopes for a Xi-Trump summit are naively misplaced Asia Times (Kevin W)

* * *

Falling sales underscore China’s property sector woes Nikkei

* * *

China’s “intelligent mines” are getting rid of truck drivers and diesel fuel Kevin Walmsley

* * *

China’s Rare Earth Ban Starts Shutting Down Auto Production Ian Welsh (Micael T)

China issues rare earth licenses to suppliers of top 3 U.S. automakers, sources say: Reuters CNBC (Kevin W). This is not explicit here, but one assumes this change covers the global operations of these companies.

Africa

Israel’s expanding shadow in Africa’s Great Game The Cradle

European Disunion

Pipelines That Could Spark the Next Price Shock OilPrice. Although loss or restrictions on these transits would have global implications, the EU would be first in the line of fire.

The emperor has no tanks Adam Tooze, Financial Times. On European military pork.

Nato chief is determined to give Trump a win with 5% defence spending plan BBC (Kevin W)

Gala of the Unscrupulous – How Profit Hunters Squeeze the Earth Uninhibitedly and with Impunity Nachdenkseiten via machine translation

‘These are not numbers – they are people’: what ex-communist Slovenia can teach the world about child poverty Guardian (Kevin W)

Old Blighty

British Army supplier founded by Tony Blair’s son raises $20m Telegraph. Colonel Smithers: “Where there’s a trough, there’s a Blair.”

The merits of a wartime mentality Engelsberg Ideas

HMRC plans for tax raid on pensions Telegraph. From last week, still germane.

UK tech job openings climb 21% to pre-pandemic highs The Register

Israel v. the Resistance

Netanyahu confirms Israel arming clans opposed to Hamas in Gaza BBC. (Kevin W: “Not so much ‘clans’ as Jihadists.”

Inside the Hamas unit fighting Israeli-armed gangs that loot aid and facilitate displacement in Gaza Mondoweiss

Israeli Army Faces Technical, Mechanical Failures in Gaza War – Report Palestine Chronicle

The Genocidal Heart of Israeli Society Ahmad Ibsais (Chuck L)

* * *

My Clash with Dan Cohen Alon Mizrahi

How the Media Manufactured a ‘Genocide’ Tablet. Help me. How about the US government loudly backs and funds the Israel genocide? To pretend this is comparable to other cases is rich.

* * *

Israel ‘will attack Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed’ Arab News

New Not-So-Cold War

Ukraine’s dangerous new ‘gift’ to Washington Aaron Mate

This is funny. Do you think there will be any meaningful records?

Ukraine deceived American capitalists Vyzglad via machine translation (Micael T)

Scott Ritter : Is the US at War With Russia? Judge Napolitano, YouTube. Includes important detail on the CIA’s “Russia House”.

Imperial Collapse Watch

Airlines left with fewer flight routes as global conflict zones expand Independent

NTSB finds fuel leak and improperly installed parts in the engine of an airliner that caught fire Associated Press

Trump 2.0

Judge Determines Trump Will Get The Nation On Weekdays, While Musk Gets Every Other Weekend And Holidays Babylon Bee

Russia Offers Political Asylum to Elon Musk over Trump Feud Newsweek (resilc)

The End of Silicon Politics Yascha Mounk

Musk says SpaceX will retire Dragon spacecraft amid bitter Trump dispute Guardian (Kevin W)

Elon Musk proposes forming new political party amid tensions with Trump Anadolu Agency

Methinks Mike Benz doth protest too much:

* * *

US declares Biden fuel economy rules exceeded legal authority Reuters (Kevin W). Note not a court determination

MAPPED: 70 Percent of Trump’s Cabinet Tied to Project 2025 Groups DeSmog

Will Military Officers Have to Sign a “Loyalty Oath” to Trump? A Senior Officer and MRFF Client Says it “Appears to be Imminent.” Military Religious Freedom (Chuck L). The site name gives me the willies, but with Trump, no ego-driven demand is too extreme for him not to attempt.

DOGE

DOGE can access sensitive Social Security records, Supreme Court rules Politico (Kevin W)

DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI to Help Kill Veterans Affairs Contracts ProPublica

Tariffs

Japan, US ‘yet to find common ground’ on tariffs: Tokyo’s top negotiator Anadolu Agency

Trump’s tariffs have become his Vietnam – and the right is breaking ranks Guardian (Kevin W)

Immigration

Agents Use Military-Style Force Against Protesters at L.A. Immigration Raid New York Times (resilc)

Trump’s justifications for the latest travel ban aren’t supported by the data on immigration and terrorism The Conversation

Immigration surge cost state, local governments $9 billion in 2023, nonpartisan CBO says Iowa Capital Dispatch (Robin K)

Mr. Market is Moody

Global Bond Auctions Show Weaker Trend as Fiscal Pressures Grow Bloomberg

The dollar just had its weakest start to a year on record. Why it might be doomed to fall even further. MarketWatch

Loan defaults are looking worse below the surface Financial Times

Trade war bigger challenge for EM central banks than COVID-19: IMF Daily Sabah

The Bezzle

A simple comma is going to cost Apple billions in Europe Jérôme Marin

Global slowdown in banking regulation LeMonde

Class Warfare

Why Is Pizza So Expensive Now? What It Reveals About the US Economy Bloomberg. resilc: “Wake me up when the bonus army reaches Tyson’s Corner on way to Das Capital Hill.”

Consumers Are Financing Their Groceries. What Does It Say About the Economy? New York Times

Guillotine Season Is Coming: The Real Reason Living In America Is Getting Harder YouTube (resilc)

The hidden time bomb in the tax code that’s fueling mass tech layoffs Quartz. Paul R: “They stopped allowing deducting R&D expenses and that led to a lot of engineering etc. layoffs.”

Trump AI Czar Sacks on Universal Basic Income: ‘It’s Not Going To Happen’ Business InsideR

Wealthier Americans flock to dollar stores as tariffs stoke consumer angst Financial Times

Paraguay’s Bolt and Uber Uprising Paraguay Post

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

Antidote du jour (John U):

And a bonus:

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76 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    “Will Military Officers Have to Sign a “Loyalty Oath” to Trump? A Senior Officer and MRFF Client Says it “Appears to be Imminent.””

    Just an article to panic some true believers and the AI generated image kinda gives it away. This was of course inspired by what happened with the Wehrmacht back in the early 30s-

    ‘During the Weimar era, the oath of allegiance, sworn by the Reichswehr, required soldiers to swear loyalty to the Reich Constitution and its lawful institutions. Following H*****’s appointment as Chancellor in 1933, the military oath changed, the troops now swearing loyalty to people and country. On the day of the death of President Paul von Hindenburg, the oath was changed again, as part of the Nazification of the country; it was no longer one of allegiance to the Constitution or its institutions, but one of binding loyalty to H***** himself.

    Although the popular view is that H***** drafted the oath himself and imposed it on the military, the oath was the initiative of Reichswehr Minister General Werner von Blomberg and General Walter von Reichenau, the chief of the Ministerial Office. The intention of Blomberg and Reichenau in having the military swear an oath to H***** was to create a personal special bond between him and the military, which was intended to tie H***** more tightly towards the military and away from the Nazi Party. Years later, Blomberg admitted that he did not think through the full implications of the oath at the time.’

    Trump may be dumb but he is not stupid and trying to do something like this would be an express rout to impeachment.

    Reply
    1. matt

      my dad’s a high ranking military officer. if this were to actually happen it would have been mentioned at the dinner table or something. my whole family would be talking about it. but it has not been mentioned. the only trump order i’ve heard about in detail was kicking trans people out, because my dad had a trans officer working under him but there were no backfill orders so it was like a pain to deal with.

      Reply
    2. Valiant Johnson

      Pleased don’t discount Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein of Military Religious Freedom. This man has been exposing the attempted and sometimes successful takeover of the officer corp by evangelical christians.
      I don’t know about you all, but the idea that large parts of the nuclear strike capabilities are operationally controlled by people who think the second coming is at hand scares the living s–t out of me.

      Reply
      1. pjay

        Weinstein has done some good work in uncovering a certain Christian dominionist tendency in the military, especially the Air Force. But like others who have devoted their lives to exposing the “radical right” (Chip Berlet comes to mind), he suffers from mistaking the trees he is studying for the larger forest in which they are situated, and mistaking their rhetoric for the larger reality of power. Such neo-fascist religious views are dangerous and despicable. And I don’t discount a “General Jack Ripper” event. But for me these groups and their beliefs are more like tools that are sometimes utilized by the Powers that Be rather than part of the dominant power structure themselves. Add to this the usual Trump derangement held by such analysts of the “radical right” and you have a picture of our Orange Hitler leading his secret Christian/fascist storm troopers which omits most of the *real* Establishment that holds the *real* power – and mostly despises Trump.

        Reply
        1. converger

          Your point gives me zero comfort.

          “most of the *real* Establishment that holds the *real* power – and mostly despises”…

          …was true for Nazi Germany too.

          Reply
    3. ex-PFC Chuck

      Sorry Rev but it seems you have jumped to an unwarranted conclusion based on lack of familiarity with the MRFF. In the late 1970s founder Mikey* Weinstein was a cadet at the US air Force Academy and as a Jew he was being verbally and physically harassed on an ongoing basis by a junior staff officer. One day he finally pushed back, which of course put him on the path to expulsion from the academy. Fortunately he had a well-connected attorney on his side who convinced the powers that be that it was not in their interest for the details of Weinstein’s experience to hit the publicity fan.

      By the time he graduated Weinstein’s eyesight no longer qualified him for flight training so he chose to go to law school on the Air Force’s nickel, and from there he was assigned to a desk job and the service’s Legal Department in the Pentagon. His arrival coincided with the breakup of the AT&T telephone monopoly, and he was assigned to look into how this would affect the Air Force from a legal standpoint. Within months he became recognized as the go-to person in the Pentagon and in other federal government departments for anything having to do with the Bell breakup. When his service obligation was up he left the Air Force and founded a law practice specializing in telecommunications that quickly developed a lucrative nationwide practice.

      Fast forward 20 years. Weinstein’s two sons are now USAFA cadets in the early naughts, and they too are targets of Anti Semitic harassment. But the perpetrators now include other, more senior cadets who are fundamentalist Christians as the academy leadership looked the other way. And the target spectrum has widened to include not only Jews but Roman Catholics and also members of mainstream Christian denominations, not to mention agnostics and atheists. This is when Weinstein senior established the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

      Since the religious right coalesced as a political force in the United States in the late 1970s christian evangelicals have encouraged their spawn to apply for entry into America’s military academies. Many of those former cadets are now well up the chains of command and are not sympathetic to those who protest actions that the cross red lines in the First Amendment and elsewhere in the Constitution. Protesting anomalously through the MRFF not only reaches a much wider audience, but also allows the protester to avoid risking career suicide. IIRC One of the foundation’s clients who chose to eschew anonymity was a female Lutheran Chaplain at the Air Force Academy. Based on having followed the MRFF since shortly after its founding, I don’t think there is any reason to suspect that the officer quoted is indeed what he or she says they are, very senior.

      * In the 1950s there was a popular series of television commercials featuring a young child named Mikey who would eat anything on the trial basis. Weinstein’s parents thought their son Michael bore a close resemblance to the actor playing Mikey and therefore started calling him that. It has been his nickname ever since.

      Reply
  2. Expat2uruguay

    Wagner Group leaves Mali, but Africa Corps remains. Basically, Russia is changing from a mercenary operation to a training and technological support operation for many reasons as covered in this article.
    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/6/russias-wagner-mercenaries-leaving-mali-africa-corps-to-remain

    Also, in May, Russia reported that Mali planned to recruit 15,000 soldiers + 9000 security in 2025/26
    https://afrinz.ru/2025/05/vlasti-mali-planiruyut-dopolnitelno-nabrat-24-tys-soldat-dlya-obespecheniya-bezopasnosti/

    But this comes four days after multiple significant battles throughout Mali resulted in 500-600 neutralized. Two sources with different perspectives:

    Mali reports nearly 500 terrorists neutralized: (2:50, trusted source)
    https://youtu.be/TRCj-eJfd2Y

    JNIM claims dozens of Malian soldiers killed, Army base overrun:
    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g3exnnd6po

    Anyway, coincidentally, these huge battles between Malian and Russian forces on one side and JNIM on the other side happened just a week after General Langley of AFRICOM warned about the strength of the JNIM terrorists and the US desire to help out the Sahel… And/But as I reported here yesterday General Langley himself is on his way out, after having embarrassed himself while in Africa in the very interview wherein he expressed his above-described clairvoyant concerns:
    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/06/links-6-6-2025.html#comment-4226109

    Taken together it is a juicy-twisty story, but I don’t think it’s being reported anywhere….
    Saludos, expat2uruguay

    Reply
  3. Wukchumni

    Farmers’ harvest in limbo after UK endures driest spring in nearly 70 years Independent
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Hunga Tonga did that ^

    The almond harvest here isn’t in limbo-the projection is for nearly 3 billion pounds worth, what’s in limbo stick territory is the low value per pound and more tariffs levied by China against the orchardists, who tend to lean so far right politically that a number of them tip over on a regular basis.

    Blue Diamond-the behemoth in the industry, is closing their giant almond plant in Sacramento in the next 2 years, and 600 jobs go away.

    Blue Diamond Growers, the 115-year-old almond cooperative that made Sacramento the world’s almond capital and became an economic linchpin for the region, announced on Friday that it will close down its midtown plant over the next two years.

    As early as the 1990s, city leaders worried that Blue Diamond would relocate its plant, potentially to Stanislaus County. They gave the company significant incentives to stay.

    In 1995, Blue Diamond got a deal to receive some $20 million worth of incentives from governments in the region. Four years later, Sacramento gave the almond behemoth two blocks of C Street, from 17th and 19th streets, so it could connect parts of the plant.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/blue-diamond-exits-sacramento-ending-202641096.html

    Reply
    1. Stephen V

      Maybe now the spreadsheet-toting farmers will stop pulling up Olives to plant Almonds? Asking for a friend.

      Reply
      1. Wukchumni

        There was a big import duty on eating olives that allowed Cali olive growers to make a living, and then once it was dropped, foreign imports killed their market.

        I watched a big olive orchard get ripped out near Woodlake and the trees ground into pyramidical piles, with citrus trees replacing it, all in the course of a fortnight.

        Reply
    2. The Rev Kev

      What’s the bet that whatever ends up replacing those almond trees will be yet another crop meant for foreign export and not one for local consumption.

      Reply
      1. Wukchumni

        The Joads picked peaches in Grapes of Wrath around these parts, but I can’t think of anywhere locally where they are grown, or really much of any other summer fruit.

        There are more almond trees in Cali than there are Americans in the USA…

        Reply
        1. Wukchumni

          Marzipan Plan:

          We have to find new markets for the damned things, and I grew up eating marzipan, which one never really sees much these days, pretty delish.

          Reply
    3. flora

      re: Farmers’ Harvest in Limbo.

      This talk from utube, 8 years ago, ~2hr 30min+ Long, but the first 30-45 minutes are well worth a watch. He’s doing exactly with his farm what Big Ag does not do with their monoculture, tilling fencepost-to-fencepost.

      Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem with Gabe Brown Part 1, The 5 Tenets of Soil Health

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A

      Leaving this for farmers reading NC who might find his ideas interesting. Why creating a healthy soil matters and can help blunt the worst effect of rising temps and changing rainfall.

      Reply
    4. Grateful Dude

      A news story recently reported that apiaries in the US are seeing a 70% drop in bee populations this year, on top of the 50% drop a few years ago. The large almond growers depend on bees trucked in from all over the country to come for pollination.

      Reply
  4. The Rev Kev

    “British Army supplier founded by Tony Blair’s son raises $20m”

    Like another father-son business relation, will Nick Blair have to kick back 10% to the Big Guy for getting an in?

    Reply
    1. Revenant

      I thought it odd that I had not heard of those involved.

      I looked up Skylar and, lo! It is a divestment of Improbable. A bell rang distantly. Ah yes, a Softbank investment ($500m in late 2010’s) that pivoted to the metaverse in the pandemic (oops).

      So basically a loss-making division of a loss-making Softbank boondoggle was refinanced in a tech PE deal and is now bidding for military slush money. Nick Blair is probably to be applauded on seeing where the future lies, or at least where Daddy is doing his lying these days.

      Reply
  5. AG

    re: the 4th Amendment

    Judge Napolitano

    US Domestic Spying & the 4th Amendment
    Government officials — local, state and federal — are trampling the natural right to privacy

    June 6, 2025
    https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/06/us-domestic-spying-the-4th-amendment/

    “Those who drafted the Bill of Rights recognized that human rights are pre-political. They preceded the existence of the government. They come from our humanity, and in the case of privacy, they are reinforced by our ownership or legal occupancy of property.”

    Reply
  6. The Rev Kev

    ‘Suppressed News.
    @SuppressedNws
    ⚡️🇮🇱JUST IN: ‘Sadistic Rituals’ – Survivors Testify to Knesset About Childhood Sexual Abuse Network in Israeli Religious Ceremonies:’

    After reading this, somehow that debate in the Israeli Knesset a coupla months ago about the right of Israeli soldiers to commit anal rape on prisoners is kinda more understandable from where it comes from. The kink is strong with these ones.

    Reply
  7. Clock Strikes 13

    RE: The emperor has no tanks Adam Tooze, Financial Times. On European military pork.

    Funny how the big brain-box professors miss the blindingly obvious: Europe cannot have an efficient military because there is no such thing as “Europe” the state. States do not have friends, only interests. The EU is a shambles and will continue to decline under the mis-leadership of the chicks who wanna have (figuratively) dicks. NATO is a paper tiger and does not overlap with Europe. European states need to look after their own interests. The first large Euro state (UK, Fr, De, It) that figures out that good relations with Russia/China/etc leads to prosperity will steal a march on the others. Who will crack first?

    Reply
  8. Victor Sciamarelli

    On Scott Ridder: “Is the US at war with Russia?” @20:40, “We are on the cusp of thermonuclear war.” There are good reasons he and a number of other people are concerned about a possible nuclear war. However, it still holds that only the president can authorize the use of nuclear weapons and the military is committed to following the chain of command.
    I still don’t think Trump is the kind of president who will launch a first strike nuclear attack, especially against Russia. I don’t think Putin is either, especially against the US.
    Moreover, as rogue and out of control as the deep state is, and capable of orchestrating a false flag event, if it’s no longer true only the prez can authorize it and the CIA or Lindsey Graham can grab hold of a nuclear device, then I agree we’re in serious trouble.

    Reply
  9. Wukchumni

    Russia Offers Political Asylum to Elon Musk over Trump Feud Newsweek
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    ,rade Elon,

    Of course you are welcome to Mother Russia in order to escape tyranny of distancing with Donald, bring along X Æ A-12 and the other ‘baker’s’ dozen too.

    p.s. Adderall is prohibited in Russia, BYOA

    Reply
    1. The Rev Kev

      Well Russia is trying for a larger population and Musk has proved that he is the man for the job.

      Reply
    2. griffen

      Things really spiraled and the poor White House reporter on CNBC kept checking his phone for yet more new tweets….or I guess Truth Social postings by Trump. Granted this also wasn’t CNN reporters covering the first Gulf War in 1990 to 1991. But this week it was social media postings that were going faster and furious than ever imagined.

      It had ended on such a good note a mere week ago! I guess now that Musk will not be ” right here ” after all…

      https://babylonbee.com/news/elon-musk-extends-glowing-finger-to-trump-before-stepping-into-rocket-and-blasting-off

      Reply
    3. Mikel

      I guess Russia may as well have some fun with the feud.

      On the other hand: DOGE loving BRICS nations – make of it what you will.

      Reply
  10. The Rev Kev

    “Why Is Hail Getting So Big?”

    This article starts of by talking about 5-plus-inch hail which is impressive enough. I wonder if anybody has worked out a theoretical maximum size for hail. It would be a function of the strength of rising warm air currents keeping hail aloft and gathering size but you wonder what that maximum theoretical size would be. We do have an inkling however from a partially melted hailstone-

    ‘A record setting hailstone was ultimately discovered in Vivian, measuring 8.0 inches in diameter, 18.625 inches in circumference, and weighing in at an amazing 1.9375 pounds!! This hailstone broke the previous United States hail size record for diameter (7.0 inches – 22 June 2003 in Aurora, NE) and weight (1.67 pounds – 3 September 1970 in Coffeyville, KS). The Aurora, Nebraska hailstone will retain the record for circumference (18.75 inches).’

    https://www.weather.gov/abr/vivianhailstone

    But one in Bangladesh back in 1984 weighed 1.02 kg (2.2 lb).

    Reply
    1. Wukchumni

      For want of hail, the car roof was saved
      For want of a dented car roof, having to use Uber wasn’t needed
      For want of Uber, taxis would still be in business
      For want of taxis, badges would still be worth something in NYC
      Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges.

      Reply
  11. Lena

    “The Silent Virus Behind Mono is Now a Prime Suspect in Major Diseases”

    Thank you for attention to this virus. I can’t read the article, only the headline and a few sentences but it is important information. I had severe mono twice, once in middle school and again in early adulthood. Back then, mono was not considered something that continued to impact the body after the initial infection(s). Now many years later I have terminal cancer. Before the cancer was discovered, doctors thought I might have MS because the symptoms I was experiencing were similar. I hope research continues in this area so future patients will not suffer as I am suffering.

    Reply
    1. marcyincny

      Very sorry to hear about your diagnosis. There’s very little appreciation that I can see for the long term risks associated with many other severe infections, strep being a prime example. I found this access to the Bloomberg article, maybe it will work for you.

      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-06/-kissing-disease-mono-could-be-linked-to-cancer-dementia-and-long-covid?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc0OTE5OTIxNywiZXhwIjoxNzQ5ODA0MDE3LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTWEZDV0VUMVVNMFcwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiIwMEJGMDJBNzYyNTA0RjU0QjY0MjQ5OUNEOEFDRDkxNSJ9.Tbs39lwF9_VplfNcc5akJlu2K9JJrZxgxLrQH8jGSfg&leadSource=uverify%20wall

      Reply
      1. Lena

        Thank you very much.

        I also had septic shock twice (just lucky I guess) and apparently sepsis has long term risks as well. There is so much we don’t know about such infections. I can’t help but think increase in deaths, especially for people under age 60, is due not just to Covid, but other infections like mono, strep and sepsis, to name but a few.

        Reply
        1. marcyincny

          re: the William Huo tweet and magnets

          “A lost industrial art…” It just occurred to me that I never hear mention of Industrial Arts in regard to the school curriculum as I did when I was in high school in the 60’s and many of my classmates were the first generation going to college, tuition paid by father’s who were tool and die makers. We just keep eating the seed corn…

          Reply
        2. .human

          Part of the unheralded rise in immune dysfunction? It’s fortunate that we have a health system that researches this…oh wait.

          I have a small ringworm infection on the back of one hand. Six months of ant-fumgal cream and it is finally under control. I’ve read that this is become more common also.

          First World environments are no longer healtheir than Third World.

          Reply
    2. Grateful Dude

      IIRC, the mono virus was implicated in chronic-fatigue syndrome/fibromyalgia (just your imagination) 30 years ago, which was also attributed to (IIRC again) the epstein-barr virus. A quick search says they’re the same virus and that there are no long-term problems … . In high school (’60’s) we called mononucleosis the kissing disease, and it seemed to be common. Oy.

      Reply
    3. Jason Boxman

      What’s mind bending about this

      EBV was for years dismissed as a mild rite of passage — a virus that most people get and recover from, even though it stays in the body for life. But that view has been changing rapidly since a 2022 study provided strong evidence that EBV is a trigger for multiple sclerosis, a chronic progressive disease that affects the central nervous system. Researchers also believe EBV plays a role in a wide range of serious conditions — from lupus and certain cancers to rheumatoid arthritis — and may trigger some cases of chronic fatigue syndrome. Some suspect it could be a hidden driver of long Covid.

      Is given we’re still discovering the tragic things this virus can do even now… so why is it reasonable to conclude that a brand new virus, SARS-CoV-2, is “just a cold”? Yet that’s the party line. And we have substantial evidence at this point that in fact SARS-CoV-2 is very dangerous, not harmless. But the fantasies about it persist.

      Boggles the mind.

      “It was a very quiet field I was working in with little competition,” Cohen said. “Then the multiple sclerosis paper came out, and suddenly people got very, very interested.”

      What could possibly need to come out about SARS-CoV-2 for people to get “very, very interested”?

      Reply
      1. Revenant

        Those who are not cell biologists may he unaware that if you want a cell line to live forever in vitro, you infect it with EBV. It messes with the cell cycle.

        It works best with lymphocytes – EBV transformed lymphocytes are an important research tool – but I think with other cell types too.

        Don’t catch mono, kids!

        Reply
        1. Lena

          After I got mono at age 12, my mother said I was never the same again. I don’t know how I caught it although it was not from kissing. I had been a healthy young person before but never regained the energy I had prior to the virus. I had a lot of illnesses in my teenage and adult years in spite of the fact that I lived a very health conscious life. And then the cancer diagnosis came.

          Reply
    1. Yves Smith Post author

      Scott Ritter says the CIA’s Russia operation, called Russia House, is ungovernable. “Bloody Gina” Haspel, of black torture sites fame, tried to get it under control and failed. At 9:40:

      Gina Haspel was a former director of the CIA. Hard-nosed woman. I mean, she was London station chief. That’s one of the uh the big ones…. Gina Haspel is no pushover. She couldn’t control Russia house. She tried to. She came in and said, “They’re lying to us. They’re running re They’re running uh operations that we we we can’t we can’t control. We don’t it’s out of control. She couldn’t control Russia House….

      Russia House is the part of the CIA director of operations that runs Moscow station and runs all the covert operations against Russia. Russia House is the the center of power when it comes to uh intelligence operations. Back during the Cold War, Russia House was it. It was the center of the universe. Moscow station was the ultimate place you wanted to be. I had some limited interaction with them when I was uh as a weapons. They don’t answer to CIA command. They consider their operations to be so sensitive and so um important to national security that they keep the the people who know about them limited and sometimes they just don’t tell people about it. So yeah, Vladimir certainly knows this. He knows about Russia House. He knows how it works….

      Let me put it this way. It’s a 100% certainty that the CIA knew about this operation at inception and had been tracking this operation through implementation. 100% certainty that this that Russia house knew about this 100%. And they did not report it up to chain of command because they did not want it to to to stop. They didn’t want it to be stopped. They wanted this to happen. So the CIA, while they may not have been the trigger pullers, were definitely people watching what was happening and cheering them on. And they didn’t report it up the chain of command knowing that had they done so under this administration, uh the the plug would have been pulled. So they are complicit in this. They absolutely are. They’re running a rogue foreign policy. They’re facilitating a rogue foreign policy which could result in the deaths of millions of innocents…

      The problem is, Judge, there’s a founding document dated back to 1947, NSC 10-2, which creates the special activities department within the CIA, and it’s tasked with carrying out covert operations, deniable operations, meaning that they say right in the legislation that the CIA must construct these operations so that if they are uncovered, they are deniable to the United States. This means that the CIA by its very nature goes so deep and restricts information flows so much that they can from the standpoint of a covert operator …

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p_faUdJT3w

      Reply
      1. Henry Moon Pie

        ” For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.

        I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue—and a subject for cold war enemy propaganda…

        But there are now some searching questions that need to be answered. I, therefore, would like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President, and that whatever else it can properly perform in that special field—and that its operational duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere. “

        Harry S. Truman, Op-ed, Washington Post, 12/22/1963

        Reply
      2. Steve H.

        Trump: They gave Putin a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them last night

        cnn.com/2025/06/07/europe/russia-strikes-kharkiv-ukraine-intl-hnk

        Reply
      3. AG

        Excellent! Thanks!
        The different puzzle pieces, contradictory as they may be at times, are so important to track and decipher this decades-long madness and its results so far.

        Was Vicky de “Cookie” surprised about what happened on Sunday? She certainly must have been pleased. Wonder about all those secrets she will take to her grave one day.

        Reply
      4. Camelotkidd

        After the drone attacks MSNBC had a segment entitled: “Ukraine Burns Putin, but also schools Trump with surprise drone attack”
        We survived the first Cold War, where incidents and accidents brought us perilously close to Armageddon, and I’m not thrilled that the deep state is barreling towards planet destruction while well paid propagandists salivate over nuclear war. In the MSNBC show, hosts Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace, cheer Ukraine’s “audacious” drone attacks. Meadow confided to Wallace how they really weren’t that different from Leni Riefenstahl. “I feel like you’re, you’re one of my friends who understands how my brain works on this sort of thing. Like, it is an incredible war story about Ukraine’s capability and their resilience and their creativity and the way they have just done this, you know, like David versus Goliath… But it also does have international strategic implications for every country in the world… In Russia’s position, in terms of thinking about its own defenses, thinking about its own nuclear deterrence…”
        Nicolle Wallace. That name sounds familiar? In her former political career, Wallace served as the White House Communications Director during the second term of the presidency of George W. Bush and as the Communications Director for his 2004 re-election campaign. Wallace also served as a senior advisor for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.
        That Nicolle Wallace.
        But, when you think about it, inciting conservatives to hate on Muslims with the war-on-terror gig, while whipping liberals into a Russia-phobic frenzy with Russia-gate is the reason why Nicolle Wallace and Rachael Maddow are paid millions of dollars. That the invasion of Iraq was a monstrous war crime and foreign policy debacle, and that Russia-gate turned out to be a big flop, with Maddow’s ratings taking a monumental hit, doesn’t matter because there will always be another war to promote.

        Reply
        1. AG

          As far as my environment is concerned, the more they are into media and “educated” the more they are buying into what you describe and the less sanity they show. Which means, I can hardly speak to anyone. Ah, one more feature: The older, the better.

          Reply
        2. hk

          These headlines, intentional or otherwise, are more right than not: this was an attack on United States as much as Russia, and these treasonous cretins would cheer the Imperial Japanese Navy just because they hate FDR or dance as the Twin Towers burn because they hate W.

          Reply
  12. DJG, Reality Czar

    Rules for life:

    The enemy of my enemy is not my friend.
    See: Allegations of extensive abuse in the ultra-orthodox world, where elaborate hairstyles are more important than children. Too many liberals really dug some lazy-ass anti-Israeli rabbis. There are limits when one makes coalitions. This was foreordained.

    The enemy of my enemy is not my friend.
    Poor Musk, drug-addled homme terrible. Poor Trump, so many cheeseburgers, so few ideas. Poor Bannon, whatever he is.

    The enemy of my enemy is not my friend.
    Musk, leader of a political movement? What will he call it? The Zuidafrikaaner Resentful White Boois for Freedom? Watch Democrats try to egg him on.

    Scratch a liberal, find a fascist.
    I wasn’t willing to touch that stinking mess over at The Tablet, with its quantifications and graphics, but I did. Goldberg is liar, bullshitter, and propagandist. Just this little factoid shows how wrong he is: “the first in which the genocider permitted food, fuel, and humanitarian aid to flow into the territory of its purported victims.” Sorry, Goldberg:

    https://www.gale.com/binaries/content/assets/gale-us-en/primary-sources/archives-unbound/primary-sources_archives-unbound_correspondence-from-german-concentration-camps-and-prisons.pdf

    Noting Yves Smith’s observation about Benz: Methinks Goldberg doth protest too much.

    Also, Goldberg should read Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte in which he writes of being allowed to tour (pretty much on his own) the Warsaw Ghetto. Where the hell does Goldberg think that the meager food was coming from?

    Corollary to scratch a liberal, find a fascist: They are already trying to explain away Joe Biden and his war mania and will soon have graphs and charts to show that nobody was killed in Gaza.

    The U.S. Supreme Court is what it has always been.
    Note the Politico article on the Supreme Court deciding to let the DOGE-o-crats loose in the Social Security Administration. Here’s how the NYTimes puts it today: “Justices Grant DOGE Access to Social Security Data and Let the Team Shield Records. As Elon Musk leaves Washington, the team he formed to ferret out waste and abuse won dual victories in the Supreme Court.” In case you were wondering how the Supremes ever came up with the Dred Scott decision… Why, oh, why, am I tempted to dox Little Sammy Alito?

    Reply
  13. AG

    2x OT terrorism:

    1) Looking back to 9/11. Has Bin Laden´s long-term strategy, if you wish to call it that way, possibly been confirmed? Dragging the US (whether it used 9/11 as a pretext is another matter) into senseless wars shaking its foundation in the very long-term?

    2) Does anyone have reading suggestions on the Turkish left terrorist group Devrimci Sol in the 1990s?
    In Germany they were regarded as a dangerous group and banned 1998. As such together with Kurdish affiliates they were painted as threats to our way of life. In hindsight it´s interesting that this episode has entirely been forgotten. But in the Gulf War under Bush I. Devrimci Sol allegedly was responsible for “75 percent of all terrorist-related U.S. deaths in 1991” to quote the only study I found, by a Michael J. Kenville (who possibly died this year. Not sure yet).

    Eventually there is the question if terrorism possibly has long-term effects that might be positive in a twisted way achieved by wrong means.

    Reply
  14. duckies

    China’s “intelligent mines” are getting rid of truck drivers and diesel fuel Kevin Walmsley

    At first I thought this was about explosive devices.

    Reply
    1. The Rev Kev

      After reading this article, you wonder how many other mines that this could be applied to. When you stop to think about it, this might have been how we would have seen the world working towards when we were teenagers. Having dangerous, isolated jobs like truck miners be replaced with automated trucks instead. It would have been how we would have seen the future develop. And now it is happening in China. Down here in Oz we have fly in-fly out mine workers. Rather than having a local workforce working the mine, they fly in mine workers for a coupla days and fly them out again on a continuous basis. Those guys must rack up a lot of flybuy points.

      Reply
      1. vao

        “Rather than having a local workforce working the mine, they fly in mine workers for a coupla days and fly them out again on a continuous basis.”

        I am baffled. Why would they do that instead of having a permanent (or semi-permanent) workforce living near the premises? In any case, if people remain for a couple of days, they must be accommodation, canteen, an infirmary, etc.

        There must be some reason (no matter how perverted the economical incentives) to incur such astronomical transport costs.

        Reply
        1. ambrit

          A mine owner can control the dissemination of pertinent information to the local population, and their elites who control permitting and regulations, via physically removing all ‘questionable’ sources of direct information concerning methods and conditions of the mining process. Not being locals, said miners also do not really care about malign conditions arising from “questionable” mining methods. They are from somewhere else, plus a little bit desperate and or greedy too.
          The continuous rotation of the miners suggests that there is something in that mine that it is not advisable to be exposed to for an extended period of time. It would be interesting and informative to find out if the same miners are constantly being rotated, or if there is a significant turnover in mining personnel.
          Does the mine own or closely partner with the air taxi service? An in house transportation scheme probably would not ‘gift’ “flylage points.”
          Finally, there well could be an economic aspect to this. As I have observed in the construction trades here in the Rancid Underbelly of the North American Deep South, ‘out of town’ workers, even skilled trades, will generally work for much less than the local population is accustomed to. The cost on flying in and out the cheaper labour would also be a tax write-off as being a “cost of doing business.”

          Reply
  15. Steve H.

    > The hidden time bomb in the tax code that’s fueling mass tech layoffs

    Holy Moley! Boy, do a bunch of things make sense in retrospect.

    Musk, Bezos, Googleguys, all of the tech tituns who spend more time with accountants than engineers knew this, they just kept it under wraps. They knew they’d be doing layoffs in 2022 but stfu about it. (MBA_101: reduce headcount.) They push the R&D section to ramp up AI, take the tax write-offs, and then when it comes firing time, holler that the AI is so good they can lay off workers.

    That ‘hidden time bomb’ is running close to ‘forbidden knowledge’. At least if you’re a worker who’s been denominated out.

    Reply
    1. Revenant

      Yes, this tax provision is remarkable. A self inflicted wound. Even HMRC doesn’t do things this stupid. In the UK all R&D that is not capex (buying lab equipment) is a tax expense in the same year. Capex is immediately expendable up to a limit (annual investment allowance) or on an 8% p.a. amortising basis above the limit or for certain goods disqualified for AIA.

      We even subsidise R&D, with a R&D Tax Credit which results in either a deduction of 130% (?) of qualifying expenditure or, for small companies only, can be surrendered for actual cash at a rate if c. 20p (?) in the pound.

      Reply
  16. Erstwhile

    And if you scratch a conservative, you will find a fascist. Since most liberals and conservatives tend to be capitalists, then it’s more correct to say, If you scratch a capitalist, you will find a fascist. So liberals and conservatives ought to be the best of friends, and might gainfully wile away their most pleasant hours, scratching each other’s back.

    Reply
    1. Carolinian

      Or alternately if you scratch any of us you may find a fascist under the right circumstances. Chris Hedges, the moral scold, takes on the issue of our present idiocracy.

      https://scheerpost.com/2025/06/07/chris-hedges-the-rule-of-idiots/

      Donald Trump, and the sycophantic buffoons in his administration, are updated versions of the reigns of the Roman emperor Nero, who allocated vast state expenditures to attain magical powers; the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, who funded repeated expeditions to a mythical island of immortals to bring back a potion that would give him eternal life; and a feckless Tsarist court that sat around reading tarot cards and attending séances as Russia was decimated by a war that consumed over two million lives and revolution brewed in the streets.

      That sounds true enough but in his high flown way Hedges needs to explain why he thinks a society that spent its first one hundred years using humans as chattel has only now become decadent. The planters created their own fantasy world of Walter Scott chivalry to justify themselves because they thought without slavery to support the economic engine of cotton this contributor to a labor shortage country would collapse.

      And to be sure Hedges says you can’t individualize the problem even as he seems to do so. In the end slavery did go away and many of our current problems may as well without “fascism.” It’s a cycle, and the wheel can turn.

      Reply
      1. hk

        Yeah, “fascist” is a dangerously loose term that applies, potentially, as an epithet to anyone wanting anything. No one should be using it.

        I always thought its looseness was intentional: the original Fascists didn’t have a clear orientation, beyond their eagerness to use (and abuse) the machinery of the state to make themselves look good and punish their enemies. The former is a universal attotude for politicians of any stripe. So is the latter, but what would distinguish (and not very clearly, imho) a “fascist” is thst they are willing to go to crazy lengths stretching state authority. Neither US “left” nor “right,” under pretty much every leadership, not just Trump, has shown “fascist” temdencies in this dimension.

        Reply
        1. vao

          For all the talk about fascists being the enforcers of big business, the relation was actually reversed: firms were privileged and given plenty of leeway to exploit their workforce, but they had to obey the fascists — or else.

          Case in point: were Trump a fascist, Elon Musk would by now have been arrested and disappeared into some secret jail after his latest outbursts, accused of “Wehrkraftzersetzung” and “Führerbeleidigung”. In addition, he would have ordered the transfer of ownership of his firms, and possibly authorized other corporations to use the patents registered by Musk’s firms free of charge.

          The lesson for all other oligarchs of the Silicon Valley and elsewhere would have been very clear.

          By the way: in nazi Germany, all of that was done.

          Reply
  17. The Rev Kev

    The horse in today’s Antidote du jour reminds me of the first words of a well know poem down here-

    ‘There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
    That the colt from old Regret had got away,
    And had joined the wild bush horses – he was worth a thousand pound…’

    https://www.australianculture.org/the-man-from-snowy-river-paterson/

    Cue the jokes on the improbability of an institution dedicated to Aussie culture. :)

    Reply
  18. .Tom

    > ‘These are not numbers – they are people’: what ex-communist Slovenia can teach the world about child poverty Guardian

    The article is very interesting and worth your time. I was thinking about how it’s a matter of choice, how we treat children, how we prioritize their interests relative to other interests, e.g. those of banks and the investor class. That made me think of Graeber (the social world is something we make and could make differently) and then Zoe Williams puts her cards on the table:

    In so many ways, the Slovenian story traces that of western democracies everywhere: welfare states have been contracting since the financial crisis.

    As though the GFC had been a natural phenomenon we could do nothing about.

    I also thought about the difference between how Germany and Slovenia (as Williams presents it) reconciled themselves with their socialist past in their post-Soviet position dominated by the Western capitalist model. I lived in W Germany 1990 thru 95 and the Western triumphalism was tough. When I worked and made friends with some ossis the potential for a dialectic was obvious but most wessis weren’t interested. I’m glad to read that in Slovenia they didn’t throw all the good bits away.

    Reply
    1. Bugs

      I may get pushback for noting this, but Slovenia is a very ethnically and religiously homogeneous country, with (I believe) the highest wealth of the former Yugoslav republics. It also seceded with little violent conflict, unlike Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina.

      Reply
      1. EKV

        No pushback on the note itself (I live there), but what you are stating has little to no relation to what the article describes, because it is about dealing with economic hardship and nothing else.

        I can give you an example as I’ve been participating in one of ZPM’s programs for well over a decade. This one is about becoming a godparent to a specific child. It works like this: you donate a fixed monthly contribution to the child’s escrow account at ZPM and the organization uses it to finance the child’s school activities that require co-payment (sports, excursions, arts, etc.). You only learn the child’s first name and age, and get a brief description of their family situation. So, by design, ethnic background is filtered out, because it is about the family’s economic situation and nothing else.

        Why I like the program – it is about helping a specific child, so no generic contribution to some NGOs funds. Also no direct access to the funds by the parents. The ZPM sends occasional reports describing how the child is doing and sometimes a handwritten note or a drawing produced by the child. I had one of those displayed on my fridge for a long time and was quite proud of my protegee for producing it.

        Reply
  19. McWatt

    Can anyone tell me how to access the paywalled Bloomberg article on Mono. My 45 year old daughter just got a mono diagnosis after having it as a teen.

    Reply
  20. Catalpa

    I’m not one to post much, but I am a big fan of the US Dept. of Labor’s BLS. These bring to light something of great concern – namely that DOGE has decimated both the budget and the workforce producing important economic information and statistics going forward. But hey, we do have money for more war (sarcasm, of course)…

    https://archive.is/20250606004417/https://www.wsj.com/economy/cpi-inflation-data-accuracy-8bd2a8ae

    https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/05/economy/cpi-data-bls-reductions?cid=ios_app

    https://archive.is/20250604201106/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-04/trump-budget-calls-for-bls-cuts-raising-data-quality-concerns

    Reply
  21. The Rev Kev

    “Israeli Army Faces Technical, Mechanical Failures in Gaza War – Report’

    This will only be a temporary problems for the Israelis. When the war stops, they will then go to Washington to be made whole again just like in past conflicts. You can bet that Trump will be in on giving, not lending, giving the Israelis the tens of billions of dollars needed here and it will be unanimously supported by both the House and the Senate while being lauded by the media. They could even call it the PIZZA Act as in the Protect Israeli Zionist Zealots Again Act. And its antisemitic not to like pizza you know.

    Reply
    1. Wukchumni

      Here’s how we pull it off…

      American Infrastructure Political Action Committee of course never gets called by that name, its always AIPAC.

      Careless Congressmen bow to what they think is the Kosher Nostra, and highways, bridges and everything else gets fixed in a jiffy.

      Reply
  22. antidlc

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/cdc-bird-flu-virus-that-infected-michigan-dairy-farmer-capable-of-airborne-transmission/ar-AA1G9Z8W
    CDC: Bird flu virus that infected Michigan dairy farmer capable of airborne transmission

    The strain of bird flu that infected a Michigan dairy farmworker is capable of airborne transmission, amping up concerns about its potential to spark a new pandemic, according to a research letter published in June.

    https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/31/6/25-0386_article

    Volume 31, Number 6—June 2025
    Research Letter
    Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Isolated from Dairy Farm Worker, Michigan, USA

    Reply
    1. Steve H.

      Saw them in Milwaukee, at a baseball stadium. With Al Green, and BB King.

      So smooth, good times.

      On a related note, we are buying the complete set of ‘Law and Order.’ It has become our comfort viewing – the early seasons have no cell phones, crude internet, no social media… Janet thinks it’s the Order part that we’re gravitating to.

      Reply
  23. ThirtyOne

    Elon Musk proposes forming new political party amid tensions with Trump Anadolu Agency

    Captain Tan-Fascist and the Brown Shirt Cowboy not besties anymore?

    Reply

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