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Links 4/18/2026

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Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution Nature

Conflict Has Memory: Why Local Wars Follow Distinct Trajectories Irregular Warfare Initiative

Climate/Environment

Scores of Forest Service plans could be upended after Boundary Waters mining vote Stateline

A newly recognized pollutant is widely present in the atmosphere Phys.org

The ocean off California keeps breaking heat records Los Angeles Times

Judges overseeing Louisiana’s landmark oil cases have financial stakes in defendants Floodlight

Pandemics

Burials of unclaimed people in NYC soared early in COVID pandemic, suggesting worsened disparities CIDRAP

Researchers draw parallels between plague victims and COVID-19 pandemic CTV News

‘It’s a powder keg’: Romania leads EU measles cases as vaccination rates collapse The Guardian

The Koreas

S. Korea explores crude oil, naphtha supply with Algeria, Libya amid Mideast conflict Yonhap

Japan

Japan-NATO cooperation enters new ‘concrete’ phase, Tokyo’s envoy to alliance says The Japan Times

China?

Should the US Buy from CXMT? ChinaTalk

Southeast Asia

Indonesia, US forge defence partnership Intellinews

U.S. to Create High-Tech Manufacturing Zone in Philippines WSJ

High debt ties Philippines’ hands in response to energy crisis: IMF The Star

India

“Machines are standing still”: Fuel shortages disrupt wheat harvest in Uttar Pradesh Down to Earth

Interview: Why India and other Asian powers need to fundamentally rethink their Gulf strategy India Inside Out by Rohan Venkat

Syraqistan

As world focuses on Iran, Israel ‘engineering starvation policy’ in Gaza Al Jazeera

All they will find is sand London Review of Books

***

Drone Kills Lebanon Man Minutes After Trump Said Israel Prohibited From Striking Antiwar

What happened in Islamabad regarding Lebanon? Conflicts Forum

***

Iran says reasserted control over Strait of Hormuz amid US ‘piracy, blockade’ Press TV. And before that…

Trump claims Iran has agreed to indefinitely suspend its nuclear program ANadolu Agency

Trump says Strait of Hormuz ‘completely open’ as US blockade on Iranian ports continues Fox News

Iran Requiring IRGC Coordination for Hormuz Transits Reuters

Iran hardliners attack Araghchi’s Hormuz tweet as ‘incomplete and misleading’ Intellinews

Africa

Israel appoints first ambassador to Somaliland after recognition Geeska

US Launches Airstrike in Somalia as US-Backed Government Claims Major Al-Shabaab Casualties Antiwar

IMF Tells Nigerians to Suffer in Silence as War Drives Oil Prices Past 113 Dollars West Africa Weekly

Nigeria’s forest bandits and the geography of governance Review of African Political Economy

European Disunion

Brussels to propose ‘voluntary’ jet fuel sharing as shortages loom Euractiv

Old Blighty

Starmer’s go-to excuse: ‘I was in the dark’. Don’t believe it. He’s deeply in the loop Jonathan Cook

New Not-So-Cold War

War: better late than never Julian MacFarlane

Budanov – Russian agent? Events in Ukraine

South of the Border

US will help Peru ‘take back’ Chancay port from China, Congress chair says South China Morning Post

Soy Republics Phenomenal World

Trump 2.0

Trump puts the FBI on case of missing NASA and nuclear research scientists: ‘No stone will be unturned’ The Independent

UFO-linked scientist who warned ‘my life is in danger’ before she was found dead at 34 becomes ELEVENTH mysterious case Daily Mail

White House Wants a Nuclear Reactor Orbiting the Moon by 2028 OilPrice

***

New DoD leader connected to firm that trained Khashoggi’s killers Responsible Statecraft

MAGA Is Increasingly Convinced the Trump Assassination Attempt Was Staged Wired

Democrats Suck

Ilhan Omar blames ‘accounting error’ and insists she’s NOT rich… despite claiming up to $30million in assets Daily Mail

Imperial Collapse Watch

The Epstein Cabal Wants ALL of the Americas, as Iran Craftily Maneuvers an Unsteady Ceasefire—The War Is Not Over. Fiorella Isabel and Vanessa Beeley

They Needed a Recession Savage Minds

How did the US run out of missiles in Iran? Doomsday Scenario

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

SOLD OUT AT 2AM – Part 1 The Leah Files

The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden’s Surveillance Machine Wired

Home Depot Shareholders to Vote on Whether Parking Lot Cameras Are Helping ICE Find Customers Migrant Insider

Agriculture

Optimism Wanes for Hard Winter Wheat Progressive Farmer

High-tech robotic dogs now on patrol guarding valuable corn crops The Fence Post

Groves of Academe

A place I once called home Synergies

Florida’s Billionaires Want More Private Schools. So They’re Building Their Own. WSJ

Our Famously Free Press

Online Personalities and Comedians Overtake TV and Newspapers as Primary News Sources Hollywood Reporter

Antitrust

Newly unsealed records reveal Amazon’s price-fixing tactics, California attorney general claims The Guardian

Mr. Market

Economy

Hold the Champagne: Oil Recovery Faces Weeks of Delay as Supply Chain Shocks Deepen gCaptain. “Weeks”?

Loss of energy output in Middle East due to Iran war will take about 2 years to recover: IEA chief Business Times

Guillotine Watch

The alternative reality of Lauren Sanchez Bezos Oligarch Watch

AI

Spotify AI Hijacking Crisis Intensifies: High-Profile Jazz Musicians Are Now Waking Up to Fake Album Releases and Artist Page Takeovers Digital Music News

How Angine de Poitrine’s Intricate Math Rock Defies Generative AI Formulas for Text-Prompted Music Laughing Squid

Class Warfare

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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62 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    “White House Wants a Nuclear Reactor Orbiting the Moon by 2028”

    I have to admit that this one has me stumped. Why would you have a nuclear reactor in orbit around the Moon when you would need the energy created on any base on the Moon itself? Is there going to be a power cord from that orbiting nuclear reactor going down to a base on the Moon itself? I would guess that it would need a crew to monitor it unless the plan is to monitor it remotely. More questions than answers here but I sure hope that the rocket sending it into orbit does not blow up first.

    1. Carolinian

      You ask a good question and brief searching doesn’t seem to find an answer. Perhaps the power could somehow be beamed down to the surface? Of course a base to beam to is maybe years (or never) away so by 2028 it will be a moot question. Perhaps it’s only a demonstration project and will illuminate a giant Trump sign, visible from Earth.

      1. NotTimothyGeithner

        “We” can beam energy and convert it to electricity. Shooting it off into space is not the same as firing a gun into the air, so the real issue would be designing a facility that wouldn’t need maintenance and can shed excess heat.

        For the most part, 2028 is obviously a Trump stunt, but I think it would be part of the power grid for facilities built away from the poles over the long term for mining purposes.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKco3wcwKyE&t=80s

        There is a 1 in 3 chance Trump intends to carve his name into the Moon.

    2. Fried

      And then they store the nuclear waste on the Moon and it all blows up and the Moon leaves its orbit and starts racing through space, moonbase and all…

    3. MicaT

      The extremely well written and researched article made sure to include that both wind and hydro power were not good choices to power activities on the moon.
      I’m so glad for that education.

      1. MicaT

        I got to wondering where is the best place to live on the moon.
        A quick search shows the best place to inhabit the moon is the South Pole. 24/7/365 sun. Ice in the shadows of craters for water.
        Perfect for solar.

    4. GC54

      The DRACO joint DARPA/NASA nuclear thermal propulsion demo was cancelled a few months ago because elements could not be tested on Earth. Placing the reactor in lunar orbit would bypass that, and 2028 goal tries to prevent the usual fate of forward thinking NASA infrastructure when Federal admins change. However the article is uninformative what the power output here would be used for.

    5. Socal Rhino

      This is pretty obviously a reaction to Chinese and Russian plans for the moon.

      I have read that China and Russia have a joint project to start a base on the moon to be built out by autonomous vehicles, and powered by Russian nuclear power. Was in context of Russia’s miniature nuclear power generator created for missiles but with an intended second use powering space craft (one point was that going to Mars using chemical rockets (SpaceX) is a pipe dream.

      Quick search found a wikipedia article on the International Lunar Research Station, for starters.

    6. chris

      The thing about Trump when it comes to science, and I think we can apply this to most of his staff in the administration, is he gets it mostly right when describing what he has heard, and then it is completely misrepresented in the media. Best example is the discussion about bleach during covid. Or his description of how light could be used to disinfect sick tissue. I expect this is something similar.

      There are a lot of positives in theory about nuclear power generation in space. But the theories and designs will need to be rigorously rested. As others have already said solar in certain moon sites is a great option for baseload generation on the moon. It would likely be even more efficient than on the earth because the temperature on the backside of the panel elements would be much colder than on earth based installations. Meteors and dust contamination are concerns but nothing that couldn’t be managed.

  2. caucus99percenter

    > “All they will find is sand” London Review of Books

    There’s an extraneous apostrophe on the end of the link that keeps it from working.

  4. DJG, Reality Czar

    The Guardian discovers that Amazon has and is engaged in price fixing. I’m shocked, I tell you. Wait until I have to tell the Guardian that Amazon also engages in predatory pricing and in abuse of its so-called resellers.

    Yet during the General Strike that supposedly will rock the U S of A on 1 May (any sightings of organizers?) nobody will ask / tell the audience to get rid of their Amazon accounts. The populace has been dulled into submission by 24-hour shopping.

    Meanwhile, at the Alternative Reality of Lauren Sanchez Bezos. (Noting that L. Sanchez is indeed no relation to Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez.) >

    The death camp at Mauthausen or daily life in the U S of A?: ‘One employee at the [Amazon] warehouse said they offered to perform CPR on the collapsed worker but were rebuffed by a manager, who said, “It has to be management or safety team. Please get back to work… Just turn around and not look. Let’s get back to work.” ‘

    I note from reading the article about Lauren Sanchez Bezos and continuing on through Meta and Musk that the reason for the rise of these companies is regulatory capture, undermining of the regulatory boards / agencies, elimination of inspections, and weak regulation by the states. So let’s put aside the idea that people like Peter Thiel and J.D. “Obviously Recent Convert” Vance are somehow creative and special and productive. It’s like trying to pretend somehow that Hillary Clinton isn’t a rapacious warmonger.

    PS: Noting the photo up top at Oligarch Watch, I am still wondering about the architecture of L S B’s bosom. It seems to involve some hydraulic or pneumatic system. Do you think that she will be affected by the upcoming helium shortage?

    1. A Little Bird

      One employee at the [Amazon] warehouse said they offered to perform CPR on the collapsed worker but were rebuffed by a manager, who said, “It has to be management or safety team. Please get back to work… Just turn around and not look. Let’s get back to work.” ‘

      I’m sorry but this is actually insane and probably a crime ? First aid practitioners have what’s called “implied consent” if someone collapses and are having a heart attack and they’re non responsive you don’t need permission, and it’s kind of seen as an OBLIGATION that you help them.

      That’s just evil.

  6. The Rev Kev

    “S. Korea explores crude oil, naphtha supply with Algeria, Libya amid Mideast conflict”

    If this goes through, it is going to make a awful long supply line as those ships will have to go around Africa before heading to South Korea. That will make any supplies more expensive but I suppose the alternative of no supplies is a worse alternative. Hopefully Trump won’t set up a blockade around the Cape of Good Hope to interdict such ships unless they pay the Trump Maritime Tax.

    1. vao

      There still is the very roundabout route via Cape Horn, until climate changes makes the Northeast passage feasible during the entire year without recourse to those nuclear-powered Russian icebreakers.

    2. dearieme

      I take it that Very Large Crude Carriers can’t use the Panama Canal. Could there be money in a VLCC steaming to Panama and then pipelining its cargo across the isthmus to another VLCC to carry it across the Pacific?

      Maybe not because the emergency will have ended long before ports, storage, and pipeline could be constructed.

      1. Craig H.

        If time averaged I have always found Yves’ Saturday links the best set of the week and I look forward every week to that Saturday links assembled by Yves.

        Bravo to Conor for a great set.

  9. Frequent Traveler

    Looking at the published prices for jet fuel, at what point will airlines just start refunding tickets and canceling flights wholesale because it is cheaper to take the loss in salaries and idle jets than buy fuel?

    2. NotTimothyGeithner

      To me, it feels like there is a great deal of clapping. I blame the Amazon “Fulfillment” attitude. The old world of waiting four to six weeks for a cereal box mail-in product has long been gone. “Smart” people simply expect an alternative source because the half-remembered class with a “business case study” showed that to be true. The person in charge of finding the jet fuel may be a mess, but there are too many “shift the paradigm” individuals who need to hit rock bottom before anything will happen.

      It’s like the calls for a no-fly zone in Ukraine. They were simply stupid, but people who have managed to not eat broken glass for much of their lives were calling for one.

      “If Trump is pro-business, why would he hurt business?” is part of the thought process.

    3. TimH

      I remember the British airlines imposing post-ticket-issuance fuel surcharges maybe 30 years ago.

  10. The Rev Kev

    “Brussels to propose ‘voluntary’ jet fuel sharing as shortages loom”

    Sounds like an European Commission plan to get jet fuel from the smaller EU members and give it to the bigger EU states like France and Germany because they “need” it more. Wouldn’t be surprised to learn that unofficial payments would be swapping hands so that the right countries get that pooled jet fuel as well. Is Ursula part of this plan?

  11. AG

    Sadly French actress Nathalie Baye passed away age 77. Le Monde spoke of “maladie à corps de Lewy” – Dementia with Lewy bodies according to Wiki.
    I did wonder about her in recent times why she had scaled back on her roles so significantly and did seem frail.

    Great artist.
    Lets rewatch her films!

    1. herman_sampson

      I still want to watch again “Une Semaine Vacanse” ( I saw it as ” A Week’s Vacation”) (pardon my bad French spelling). I have gotten details, but remember that it moved me at the time.

  12. tegnost

    Crisis as Strategy…

    Appropriately cynical

    Think about what that means. The government issues debt, the Fed buys that debt with money it creates out of thin air, and the government then spends that money. The economy gets flooded with liquidity, asset prices go up. The rich get richer and the whole machine keeps turning. They did it during Covid and they are about to do it again. The only thing that changed is the justification.

    and…
    You think the point was to win? No. The main aim was to create a recessionary scenario—spiking oil prices, supply chain chaos, geopolitical panic—so that exceptional measures become inevitable. So that rate cuts, liquidity injections, and backdoor bailouts become not just permissible but mandatory.

    Rate cuts r us

  13. pjay

    – ‘Conflict Has Memory: Why Local Wars Follow Distinct Trajectories’ – Irregular Warfare Initiative

    I don’t want to sound unfair or snarky. At one level I agree with everything the authors say here. But the main thing they say is this: “Research tracking contemporary conflict patterns across Africa since the late 1990s reveals a striking empirical regularity: most local conflicts are brief and ephemeral, some are recurrent, and a smaller but highly consequential set becomes entrenched.”

    Ok. So what explains these different conflict patterns? Well, one might posit the differing *histories* of such regions, including the historical relations between different ethnic groups, availability of land or resources over which conflicts occur, the existence of different cultural and institutional factors that restrain or encourage conflict, etc. And one would be right. In fact the authors say as much. But this is something I assume most of us would know, and historians who study war would take as their starting point as they delve into the details of this or that history.

    But the authors seem to be saying that the fact that some places have brief and ephemeral patterns of conflict, some recurrent patterns, and some entrenched, is itself the “striking empirical regularity” which their research reveals. But isn’t this a rather mundane and widely-known observation? We are told that the authors “have introduced the concept of the spatial conflict life cycle and trajectory analysis in conflict studies” to account for this “striking regularity.” I take “spatial conflict life cycle” to mean that different geographic spaces have different levels of conflict. I assume “trajectory analysis” refers to the obvious fact that the previous history of particular peoples, institutions, regions, etc. shape their current historical trajectory. But haven’t historians always known this? This isn’t something “research since the late 1990s” has revealed to “geospatial scientists.” I remember when the notion of “path dependence” was being trumpeted and debated back in the 1980s as if it was some new discovery in “historical science.” It wasn’t back then either.

    Perhaps I’ve missed something. But this sounds like another example of academics re-inventing the wheel again by using different terminology to discuss something long known. And in this case there also seems to be a desire to categorize historical phenomena in ways that can be generalized and quantified, a desire that was also rampant way back in the 1980s when I was a grad student. Again, maybe I missed something. If so I’m willing to be corrected.

    2. brian wilder

      There is something deeply odd about the way abstractions are being used and lexically manipulated in the essay, Conflict Has Memory, from the Irregular Warfare Initiative.

      Consider this passage:

      When response strategy ignores memory, policy drifts toward repetition. The same instruments are applied to different problems, and mixed results are misread as bad luck. But when strategy accounts for memory, interventions can be calibrated to trajectory type, timing can be aligned to transition points, and assessment can focus on whether pathways are actually changing.

      This is as if Judith Butler got a job at some defense intelligence think tank. There’s a kind of computer flow chart metaphor hovering over the whole thing without any anchor to a recognizable, organic social or economic condition or circumstance.

      It reminds me a bit of the kind of post-literate madness Sam Kriss warns about. Maybe this is a “your brain on video games” frypan?

      Deeply weird, imo

      1. Steve H.

        > without any anchor to a recognizable, organic social or economic condition or circumstance.

        Without life. In fact, the Subjects of the sentences are abstractions (Strategy), which is quite an epistemological twist.

        Yesterday’s linked Hostile Symbiosis — A World Where Win and Lose No Longer Apply worked through some adjacent semantic perspectives.

        A semi-adjacent note intersecting Whorff and cognitive bias. The other day, Wilkerson said that 50% of 18-to-24 year-olds would leave if the US implemented a draft. I told Janet it was 15-to-25 Percent, which I may have transposed from 18-to-24, based on my brain boggling at the consequences of half of that cohort leaving. That could implode the complex system like a vacuum under a house of cards. The Objects in that case would become the Subjects and agency inverts.

  14. The Rev Kev

    “US will help Peru ‘take back’ Chancay port from China, Congress chair says”

    ‘Maria Elvira Salazar warns port’s ‘dual usage’ potential could enable Chinese submarines, carriers and warships to operate from Peru’

    What is not said is that the US wants that port so that it could enable American submarines, carriers and warships to operate from Peru

  15. Some Guy in Jeju

    What happened in Japan– US-selected thugs as captains of industry and government– also happened in South Korea. After the US liberated Korea from Japanese colonial rule, we handed out all the industrial assets to families who previously collaborated with Japan. These are the chaebol families– owners of Samsung, Doosan, etc. Today, they have their fingers in almost every pie, and major influence over public policy.

    When the people of Jeju weren’t going along with things, Rhee sent gangsters and soldiers down to the island and killed tens of thousands of people. To speak of the Jeju Massacre was afterward illegal, and kept secret from mainlanders. Today, it’s accepted that the US didn’t ask for this, but they also did nothing to stop it.

    And of course, the US was perfectly fine with the iron fist of Park Chung-hee

    Now the country finds itself in yet another desperate position thanks to the US. On the plus side, the current president seems to be the right person for the current moment.

    1. Kouros

      “After the US liberated Korea from Japanese colonial rule”. For quite a while they kept those Japs to help manage order as well as business. And not only there, but everywhere else in territories occupied by Japan… Beter the Japs than the commies, I am telling you…

    1. ambrit

      That lineup is quite a curious display of Neo-Left personalities. Varoufakis we know. Eno is a long time Avant Garde musician and quite good at what he does. Mz Pidman is a Corbynite Labour politica while Edman started out as a Sportsman but has grown into a Populist Influencer. Quite a range of experiences and outlooks to draw from.
      Thanks for the introduction. I’m guessing that this group will be proscribed by Whitehall just as they begin to gain traction with the public.

  17. Jason Boxman

    In another edition of America is a trash country

    The Inside Story of Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court (NY Times)

    The 16 pages of memos, exchanged in a five-day dash, provide an extraordinarily rare window into the court, showing how the justices talk to one another outside of public view.

    …

    Writing on formal letterhead, but addressing one another by their first names and signing off with their initials, they sound notes of irritation, air grievances and plead for more time. In addition to the usual legal materials, they cite a blog post and, twice, a television interview. They sometimes engage with one another’s arguments. But they often simply talk past each other.

    In public, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has cultivated a reputation for care and caution. The papers reveal a different side of him. At a critical moment for the country and the court, the papers show, he acted as a bulldozer in pushing to stop Mr. Obama’s plan to address the global climate crisis.

    Which is amusing because Obama had no such plan, anyway, just more Magic Pony thinking.

  18. AG

    re: Omer Bartov v. Zionism

    NEW YORKER Radio Hour with David Remnick

    Have never listened to it before…

    A genocide scholar asks “What went wrong” in Israel
    April 17
    40 min.
    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-genocide-scholar-asks-what-went-wrong-in-israel/id1050430296?i=1000762036540

    description:

    Omer Bartov is an Israeli professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. He grew up in a Zionist home and served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, but he has long been concerned about Israel’s use of military power. In a new book called “Israel: What Went Wrong?,” Bartov argues that Zionism has morphed into an ideology of extremism that led to genocide in Gaza following the Hamas attacks of October 7th. “There is growing criticism of American support for these kinds of Israeli policies, both on the American left and on the American right,” Bartov tells David Remnick. Bartov believes that Israel requires “shock therapy” because “it has not still come to identify the limits of its own power, because those limits are in Washington, DC and it’s there that those limits have to be set.” “For Israel, that would be good, because I think Israel needs to be liberated from that kind of dependence on American power. I think, for American society and for American Jewry, that’s a very bad thing because there is a rise of . . . antisemitism from the Tucker Carlsons of the world, who are a rising force right now.”

    p.s. tbh besides the fact that I never took Bartov 100% seriously now I am at a point where I won´t give a fuck over the question “What went wrong” regarding Israel any more. We are beyond that. We have been long time ago…move on man. This is like German society. It makes no sense to try to make sense. They had their chance. They failed. Not by an accident. But structurally. And if someone is seriously so “overeducated” and entrenched to not understand that ordinary people are sick of listening to the very same Jewish question for decades now while their own lives in the present are going to shit and while billions are suffering here and now to Israel´s and our deeds that someone is producing useless, self-serving garbage.

  21. Mikel

    They Needed a Recession – Savage Minds

    While there’s is much nuance missing in the “AI kills software” narrative, the overall financial sector desire for more of the hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-them (interest rate cuts) seems apt.

  22. JBird4049

    >>The ocean off California keeps breaking heat records Los Angeles Times

    I have noticed a steady decline in the summer fog over the past forty years. Since the reason for the coastal redwoods to be where they are is the supply of water from the fog; no fog means eventually a very shrunken forest.

  23. Jason Boxman

    democrats suck

    Potential 2028 Democrats Audition in Michigan, With a Focus on Trump(NY Times)

    Like literally Trump won’t be running again, or he will, and “our” democracy is over anyway.

    Former Vice President Kamala Harris accused the Trump administration of being historically ineffective and unethical. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey urged Democrats not to be derailed by their internal disagreements. And Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said the party could lure back working-class voters by focusing on kitchen-table issues.

    The 2028 presidential shadow primary arrived in the swing state of Michigan on Saturday, with several potential Democratic candidates test-driving their pitches before a crowd of party activists eager to turn the page on President Trump.

    The Democrats’ remarks at a luncheon hosted by the Michigan Democratic Party were part of a weekend of programming in Detroit that will culminate with the state party’s convention on Sunday. Michigan has been pivotal in recent Democratic presidential primaries and general elections.

    Please, no.

    Did I mention that they suck?

    “Our kryptonite is division,” Mr. Booker said, adding that the party should have a “robust dialogue” during the primary season but should not allow its disagreements to bleed into the general election. “I’ve seen it too much in our party.”

    He said some Democrats turned away from Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Ms. Harris in 2024 because they disagreed with them on a sliver of the issues.

    Oh. Like genocide.

    Genocide is a tiny issue.

  24. Jason Boxman

    Patrons of Journalism (Hamilton Nolan)

    Interesting piece

    For anyone reading this, most of the journalism that you have consumed for your entire lifetime has been primarily supported by advertising money. The industry settled on the self-regulated idea of a “Chinese wall” between the business side and the editorial side of publications, a separation that can be enforced zealously or can degenerate into a polite fiction, depending on the scrupulousness of the editorial side itself. The journalists most attached to their own anti-establishmentism can bristle even at this reality. At Gawker, I recall an incident where we took a screenshot of an ad on our own site, and then published a post mocking it. This led to a panicked meeting with the ad department at which a new rule was created that said we shouldn’t, you know, do that. We were making enough money at the time to laugh about it.

    2. AG

      Maybe it was Harding himself in a revamp of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde.
      (Just like once upon a time firemen, or cops or even reporters used to create the crimes and fires themselves to keep their jobs…)

      Since it´s legendary:

      Aaron Maté v. Luke Harding:

      2017 interview with Harding about his “book” “COLLUSION” about Russiagate. Have fun if you haven´t seen it already:
      28 min.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ikf1uZli4g

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