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Links 4/15/2025

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Astoria the turkey is on the move in NYC — and she might be looking for love Gothamist

#COVID-19/Pandemics

What RFK Jr. Says About the Measles Vaccine in Private Atlantic

Climate/Environment

The great moose migration is forced to start at record time – concerns about missing the moose SVT via machine translation Micael T: “Climate change and its impact on slow-TV. The slow-tv live stream “The Great Moose Trek”: https://www.svtplay.se/den-stora-algvandringen”

China?

China’s Halt of Critical Minerals Poses Risk for U.S. Military Programs New York Times (Kevin W)

Africa

Diplomatic spat escalates as Algeria orders French embassy officials to leave Middle East Eye

South of the Border

‘Camouflaged invasion’: Panama opposition slams security pact with the US Aljazeera (Kevin W)

Planting of genetically modified corn banned in Mexico Rebelion via machine translation (Micael T)

European Disunion

JD Vance: My message to Europe – America doesn’t want a vassal continent Unherd

The planned blockade of the Baltic Sea and the role of the Baltic states in it Anti-Spiegel via machine translation. Micael T:

This EU warmongering:
1) fake but necessary to cut pensions and welfare to transfer wealth to warpig oligarchs? WEF-Rutte told us to do so.
2) partially real because they want to build up tje weapons industry but not really go to a devastating war with Russia but to use the weapons against the population according to WEF-plans of “you own nothing”?
3) real because they really want to kill the EU population?

Old Blighty

Don’t politicise row over Scunthorpe steel plant, says Chinese foreign ministry Guardian (Kevin W)

Librarians in UK Increasingly Asked To Remove Books Guardian

Israel v. The Resistance

Israeli Policies and Settler Violence Are Driving Palestinians from the Jordan Valley Drop Site

Israel’s escalating West Bank assault is part of a larger plan to split the territory in two Mondoweiss (guurst)

* *

Alastair Crooke : Trump and Chaos Judge Napolitano, YouTube. Crooke claims the US and Israel had a strike plan set for Iran, including with an agreed date, and that Trump dropped or as he implies, may have just postponed it due to the state of the bond market

I am Dead Serious About Being Dead Serious, Seriously Larry Johnson

On Iran, Trump Should Ignore Netanyahu American Conservative. resilc: “What???????? He will be aipac’d.”

With Iran talks, Trump could achieve a triple win Responsible Statecraft (resilc)

New Not-So-Cold War

Zelensky Charms CBS, as Trump Throws Impatient Tantrum Simplicius

NATO has chosen a new direction for military confrontation with Russia Vyzglad via machine translation (Micael T)

NATO needs Romania to launch WWIII – Georgescu RT (Micael T)

The untold story of British military chiefs’ crucial role in Ukraine The Times. Kevin W: ‘”Not a party to this war.'”

Can’t confirm but potentially significant: Dozens of generals of AFU eliminated in strike on Sumy – Russians rapidly encircle Pokrovsk. rusian belov, YouTube

Leon Trotsky: Problem of the Ukraine (1939) . Robin K: “Trotsky’s appeal offers very interesting background to the present war in Ukraine.:

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

EU issues US-bound staff with burner phones over spying fears Financial Times. Lead story

Crosswalk speakers hacked with Musk, Zuckerberg impersonations PA Daily Post (Kevin W)

Imperial Collapse Watch

Crashing the Car of Pax Americana Ben Hunt (resilc). From last week, still germane.

The $1 Trillion Defense Budget will be Test Free Andrew Cockburn

Share but Beware: Managing intelligence in the age of Trump Gregory Treverton

Trump 2.0

Inside Trump’s Plan to Halt Hundreds of Regulations New York Times. Trump really does want to roll the clock back to the 1890s, with adulterated meat, no workplace safety rules, and often toxic potions posing as medicine.

Harvard rejects Trump administration’s demands with federal funding at risk Washington Post. A contrast with law firms. The most white shoe ones capitulated; a few respected but a bit scrappier are fighting.

Trump freezes $2bn in Harvard funding after university rejects demands BBC (Kevin W)

Read the Trump Administration’s Letter to Harvard New York Times (resilc). Note this is almost certainly the same letter sent to other universities.

Harvard’s reply (note from counsel, which are litigators): “But Harvard is not prepared to
agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.”

Harvard Professors Sue Trump Over Threat to $9 Billion in Funds Bloomberg

Pennsylvania Man Threatened to Kill Trump and Musk, U.S. Says New York Times (resilc)

Downplaying Ukraine Connection in Latest Trump Plot Consortium News

Tariffs

War by other means — Trump’s tariffs and the empire’s final gamble Thomas Fazi

American Disruption Stratechery. resilc:

“There is one other very important takeaway from disruption: companies that go up-market find it impossible to go back down, and I think this too applies to countries. Start with the theory: Christensen had a chapter in The Innovator’s Dilemma entitled “What Goes Up, Can’t Go Down”

Under investment in education for decades is not helping. I tried to return drop off a package in Bennington VT and the two young ladies couldn’t figure out the scanner……..

Trump mulls semiconductor levies after lifting reciprocal tariffs on electronics NPR (Kevin W)

Nvidia To Make AI Supercomputers in US for First Time Nvidia

DOGE

Deliberately Polluting the Death Master File Violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act Adam Levitin. In case you missed it, DOGE’s latest caper is to place immigrants it knows are alive on the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File. The intent is to cut them off from banking services. Levitin lays out why this is illegal and I hope someone takes up the case. But as I pointed out, this won’t even necessarily work out as intended. When my mother died on Christmas Day, 2021, I reported it to Social Security as soon as possible. Of her four financial institution relations, only two cancelled or restricted access to her account.

DOGE abruptly cut a program for teens with disabilities. This student is ‘devastated’ NPR

Immigration

El Salvador President Bukele says he won’t be releasing a Maryland man back to the US Associated Press. Bukele’s argument is so obviously ridiculous as to suggest that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is dead.

Trump is halfway to making America a police state Edward Luce, Financial Times. Luce is a Team Dem loyalist, but that does not make him wrong here.

The authoritarian takeover attempt is here Noah Smith (Dr. Kevin)

This Washington border county is desperate for Canadians NBC News (Kevin W)

Democrat Death Wish

New York mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo writes his housing plan with ChatGPT Pivot to AI (Robin K). This ought to be disqualifying.

Bernie Sanders thrills Coachella crowd with surprise appearance Agence France-Presse (resilc). This would have been good in 2020, but this playbook is way out of date.

Mr. Market Has a Nervous Breakdown

Risky corporate borrowers shut out of bond market since Trump’s tariff blitz Financial Times. Bye bye private equity deals.

Bank Trading Desks Are Minting Money From Tariff Chaos Wall Street Journal

Guillotine Watch

Bezos Versus Musk: Which Billionaire Will Trash Space the Most? CounterPunch (resilc)

Class Warfare

Cofertility’s radical model for women: Freeze your eggs for free by donating half of them (Kevin W) TechCrunch

Antidote du jour (via):

A bonus (Chuck L):

A second bonus:

And a third (Chuck L):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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143 comments

  1. Antifa

    A World Without Trees
    (melody borrowed from Suicide Is Painless  by Johnny Mandel and Sam Altman, for the 1970 movie MASH.)

    More heat will kill the honeybees
    A lot less food for you and me
    The fish are dying in the sea
    The heat goes up one more degree
    No God will come to save us
    Our grandkids truly hate us
    For we’ll leave them a world without trees

    Our biosphere is in decay
    So many species gone away
    We watch this with naivete
    ‘Turn up the AC all the way’
    God won’t come to save us
    Our grandkids truly hate us
    For we’ll leave them a world without trees

    We’re all obsessed with profiting
    With grabbing for that big brass ring
    We do not hear the Silent Spring
    Or grasp what is now happening
    God won’t come to save us
    Our grandkids truly hate us
    For we’ll leave them a world without trees

    The forests burn quite merrily
    The real End of History
    We watch it all on the TeeVee
    And settle back to apathy
    God won’t come to save us
    Our grandkids truly hate us
    For we’ll leave them a world without trees

    We’ll leave them on a planet without trees

    Reply ↓
  3. The Rev Kev

    “Bezos Versus Musk: Which Billionaire Will Trash Space the Most?”

    To be honest, I think that Bezos got a lead on Musk today with his all-female crew that went up into space with Katy Perry aboard on his Blue Origin flight. A trip into space became just an expensive carnival ride for a bunch of rich women-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIIGEwMC08k (5:28 mins)

    Reply ↓
    1. Colonel Smithers

      Thank you, Rev.

      Yesterday morning, the BBC gushed that soon anyone can go up to space.

      With regard to an expensive carnival ride for the rich, come on. Be fair. At least, we know that breast implants and lip filler won’t explode in space. That’s useful research.

      Reply ↓
      1. leadenise

        Colonel Smithers, thank you for making my morning! The vision of implants and lip fillers exploding in space made me choke on my coffee. I still can’t stop laughing!

        Reply ↓
          1. James Payette

            as they say in Haiti, “If work as all that great, the rich would have stolen it a long time ago.”

            Reply ↓
            1. Wukchumni

              Heard this one from a Kiwi in NZ…

              ‘If work is so important how come they have to pay us to show up?’

              Reply ↓
      3. Emma

        We need to test them for decompression situations too, for science. Something like the reverse of that some Titanic submersible.

        Reply ↓
    2. Dr. John Carpenter

      As the saying going around goes: I have no problem with the rich joyriding to space. It’s letting them return to Earth that I have a problem with.

      Reply ↓
  4. Colonel Smithers

    Thank you, Yves.

    The Times article about British involvement in Ukraine was preceded by Kit Klarenberg’s https://substack.com/home/post/p-160406409.

    It’s not just the British military, but a much bigger effort, involving various parts and levels of government.

    Officially, there are about 200k Ukrainian refugees in the UK. I won’t repeat how well looked after they are.

    There are another 100k with a different status and here before February 2022. Who are they? Since 2014, the UK has trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian men for the current (phase of the) conflict. That 100k are their families. This is the quid pro quo.

    The pre-2022 men are military professionals and volunteers seeking to become professionals. Many are from neo Nazi groups. They received the full training, i.e months.

    The post-2022 are conscripts of all ages and abilities, shapes and sizes, and here for a few weeks, sic, squeezed between rotations of new joiners and other British regulars. They are trained at Catterick and sometimes Warminster.

    The British trainers are a mixture of junior officers, with a couple of years to may be ten years service, or senior non-commissioned officers (NCOs). The junior officers are unlikely to have seen action. The NCOs are more likely. None of the trainers has led more than 10 – 40 men, whether in action or otherwise.

    Senior officers rarely visit. They don’t get involved with training. In any case, few have seen action. Fewer have led a company or battalion size formation in battle. No serving British officer has led or served in a combined arms operation.

    With regard to the non-military side, the departments of education, social services, housing and local government operate ring fenced and index linked budgets and personnel to assist the settlement and integration of Ukrainians.

    It’s interesting that translation services tend to be for Russian, not Ukrainian.

    How do I know that? I know a government official still involved with the refugees and two officers who were involved with training.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      Thank you for that report, Colonel. The thing that I think about is what happens after the Ukraine goes down. There will be a horde of Ukrainians from ultra-nationalist groups like Azov doing a runner so that they don’t end up standing in a Russian court for war crimes. And of course governments like the UK will take them in with open arms so that they can form the nucleus of an anti-Russian force down the track for deployment in places like Africa and the Middle East. Likely then you will find them in places near towns and villages near Army bases as they settle in. The true danger of these people is long term in how they integrate into British society. One of the ways that the US got involved in Project Ukraine was people from the Ukraine that still held loyalty over it instead of their adopted country meaning the US. And here I am thinking of people like Nuland, Blinken and the Vindman twins. People like that could easily climb high in British society based on their hatred of Russians alone.

      Reply ↓
      1. Colonel Smithers

        Thank you, Rev.

        I forgot to mention that there’s suspicion that some of the first cohort, i.e. pre-2022, are / were muscle for the Ukrainian, but not always so Ukrainian, mafia. That not so Ukrainian lot are also to be found in Brighton Beach, NYC, not Sussex.

        I agree with you about the climb up British society.

        Reply ↓
      2. vao

        I am not too concerned about the average Ukrainian, even if harbouring nationalist feelings. Most people will just want to forget about the disastrous Ukrainian episode and live their lives — find a job, found a family, have some fun.

        A few ones will make it to the top and become a Nuland, Freeland, & co, and they indeed are a nuisance. But there will be few of them.

        More alarming is the hospitality given to the hard-core Azov/Aidar/Sich/Pravy Sektor/… partisans.

        1) They might turn against Western Europeans on the grounds that they were betrayed — Dolchstosslegende and all that.

        2) But more ominously, the aforementioned organizations have been long involved in very shady to outright criminal endeavours. We know that they are already deep into worldwide arms trafficking. Having their hard-boiled, well-connected members scattered all over Europe constitutes the perfect initial condition for the emergence of a new transnational criminal organization.

        Anecdote: 25 years ago, the after-hours discussion with colleagues in Budapest veered towards the kind of protection racket going on in the Hungarian capital.

        The gangs propose a honest deal as such things go: they extort money, but do indeed intervene forcefully to kick out troublemakers, whatever their nationality (Hungarians, Italians, Turks, etc).

        However, the protection “contract” makes an explicit carve out for Albanian and Ukrainian organizations: they are generally considered as way too violent and dangerous to confront, even for the Magyar mafia on its own turf.

        Reply ↓
      4. Vandemonian

        I was thinking to myself that this mass relocation looks a lot like a renewed version of Operation Paperclip. Then I started to wonder whether the post-WW2 Operation Paperclip ever really ended. Suspicious? Moi?

        Reply ↓
    2. JohnA

      Hi Colonel,
      I have reguarly walked past welcoming committees bedecked with Ukrainain signs and flags at arrival points such as the Eurostar terminal in London and various London airports. And more than once, I have been almost carved up by a top of the range Ukr plated BMW or similar upmarket car marque flying out of a side road without stopping.
      Clearly there is plenty of largesse even for expat Ukrainians as well as weapons and training for military in Britain. A group for whom austerity does not apply.

      Reply ↓
    3. Steve H.

      Thank you, Colonel Smithers.

      I’m confused about ‘the UK’. Is that British Isles or including Canada? It’s a bit tricky, given the number of pre-conflict Ukranians in Canada.

      Reply ↓
  5. Steve H.

    > I am Dead Serious About Being Dead Serious, Seriously Larry Johnson
    >> I am sure he genuinely believes that he is making a truthful remark. He just does not take the time to educate himself on the facts. I am dead serious.

    Filming an ad for a co-rent-office-space business, the owner told me ‘I was looking for a way to make a lot of money without much education, and that was sales.’ He took pains to not over-educate himself.

    I’m a lousy salesman. The only things I did well were vitamins and books, which I cared enough about to take a customer to deep waters. I’m a lousy liar, but a fine actor. Strange, that. Unlike many politicians.

    Biden loved lying, it juiced him. Remember him brazen in Bernie’s face during the debate? I’m lying, You know I’m lying, and my teeth look Great! King Troll could be controlling his information flow like a good salesman, intentional agnoticism, which would allow him to ‘believe’ what he’s saying. (Remember Nixon ripping Dean for telling him something he needed not to know? White House tapes, good times.)

    But Trump loves to win too much for him not to mislead. (!) Picture him feasting on Romney. Floating on a sea of acolytes. That’s when he’s truly happy, when he’s f’in’ someone over who thought he was a friend.

    So as much as I love Larry, I just can’t buy what he’s selling.

    Reply ↓
  6. Wukchumni

    Goooooooood Moooooorning Fiatnam!

    Booty count was how we measured success in Southeast Asia-Northwest Asia and all points in between, and repeated tariffist attacks were needed to bring the point home back to the world and prove we were winning the war-often leading to falsified and inflated enemy booty count numbers, attrition notwithstanding.

    Reply ↓
  7. The Rev Kev

    “Pennsylvania Man Threatened to Kill Trump and Musk, U.S. Says”

    Pfft! This guy was just a loud mouth and never considered the possibility that what he wrote on YouTube would get back to the authorities. A coupla days ago I read about this 17 year-old kid in Wisconsin named Nikita Casap who shot both his parents dead, ran off with their car, $14,000 in cash, passports and the family dog. He had a plan to kill Trump using that cash and then flee to the Ukraine but was arrested in Kansas-

    ‘Messages uncovered on his phone showed Casap discussing the plot with an unidentified user on Telegram. On January 21, he asked, “What country will be blamed for the crime?” The user replied, “Russia will be blamed for it, this is the goal.”

    Casap’s phone also contained conversations with a user using a Ukrainian phone number, appearing to discuss a post-attack escape plan. “How long will I need to hide before I will be moved to Ukraine? 1-2 months?” he asked. “So while in Ukraine, I’ll be able to get a normal job and have a normal life? Even if when it’s found out I did it?” he added.’

    https://www.rt.com/news/615719-us-teen-trump-assassination-ukraine/

    Why yes. He did write a manifesto.

    Reply ↓
    1. Duke of Prunes

      I’m surprised this wasn’t covered more widely… even here in IL where we generally love salacious news from our neighbors to the north. I saw a 30 second spot on local news. Oh wait, I guess I’m not surprised…

      Reply ↓
  8. Wukchumni

    The unwanted are all in El Salvador sitting there rotting
    The prisoners piled in their tattooed canvases
    They’re flying ’em back well beyond the American border
    To pay all that money to never have them come back again

    Goodbye to Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia
    He never said adios to his amigo, Kilmar Jr.
    You won’t have your rights when you ride the big airplane
    All they will call you will be deportee

    Kilmar Jr.’s own father, he boarded that Boeing you see
    They took away all the rights he made in his life
    His wife and kids working the family tree
    And Trump wrote him off, so he got crucified

    Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted
    Our luck ran out and we have to move on
    3,186 miles to that El Salvador jail cell
    They load us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves

    Democracy died in your hills, Democracy died in your deserts
    Democracy died in your valleys and Democracy died on your planes
    Democracy died ‘neath Obama and it died with your Bushes
    Both sides of the political river, Democracy died just the same

    The sky plane landed in El Salvador airport
    A method to our madness, and shook all our sensibilities
    Who are all these fiends, all scattered like dry leaves?
    Bukele says, “Kilmar is just a deportee”

    Is this the best way we can grow our big economy?
    Is this the best way we can grow our good population?
    For Kilmar to rot in Cecot prison
    And be called by no name except deportee?

    Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) performed by the Highwaymen

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awKLW7WgGB8

    Reply ↓
  10. Unironic Pangloss

    Senior living communities: Never thought about this, but won’t forget about it anymore…….

    You are an unsecured creditor if you pay any “entrance fee” to a senior living community, even if the community says that they refund fees upon exiting the mortal coil. Unsecured creditor = back of the line for getting any money post-bankruptcy.

    And 99% chance that your state has awful or near zero disclosure requirements for senior living community contracts—you probably get better disclosure on a bottle of vitamins.

    https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/04/15/senior-home-bankruptcies/

    Reply ↓
    1. ambrit

      Having watched Phyl’s parents dwindle away in one such “Senior ‘Living’ Facility,” I can assert with complete confidence that such enterprises are more accurately described as “Senior Dying Facilities,” and “Warehouses of Death.”
      I told Phyl that, if I get bad enough to be “Warehoused,” to not send me there, but to sit me out on the lawn chair in the back yard and keep the alcoholic beverages coming until I cease complaining. (For sanitary purposes, the garden hose will work just fine.)
      The Coroner can list my cause of death as “Rugged (Rugose?) Individualism.”
      Stay safe and do not go gentle into that good night.

      Reply ↓
  11. The Rev Kev

    “Librarians in UK increasingly asked to remove books, as influence of US pressure groups spreads”

    This always get ugly when put into practice and the example that immediately comes to mind is Apartheid South Africa-

    https://theconversation.com/how-the-apartheid-regime-burnt-books-in-their-tens-of-thousands-102355

    I saw this at work when I had my copy of “Lady Chatterly’s Lover” confiscated after landing in Jo’burg. The truth of the matter is that when you have books being banned or even burnt, that this also helps spread authoritarian regimes. Confident democracies don’t do this sort of stuff but when you have a regime that wants to restrict free speech and limit public education, book censorship is always part of this. Ideas and education must be restricted and in the age of the internet, this has become even more easy.

    Reply ↓
    1. Stephanie

      Off topic (or maybe not) – I remember checking Lady Chatterly’s Lover out of the local branch library one summer when I was 15 or 16 thinking I was going to read this really sexy, subversive thing and ended up being bored out of my gourd. Iirc, I ended up re-reading The Thornbirds that week instead.

      So (back on topic?) – perhaps “confident democracies” don’t ban books (as flagrantly) because their populations are successfully distracted. To the extent that the internet has managed to exponentially increase the distractions available it’s doing its job. After all, the best way to counter bad speech is with other speech, right? An onslaught more of other speech, and a good way to hide an idea in plain sight is to surround it with other ideas that are more immediately gratifying.

      Reply ↓
  12. Max Z

    > US Secy of State Marco Rubio vowed to talk to Elon Musk and convince him to turn off the Ukrainian Armed Forces Starlink so that Zelensky would finally return to reality and understand how dependent he is on the US.

    I’m pretty sure I saw the exact same news item about a month ago… As in Rubio already vowed to talk to Musk about disconnecting. Must be a second vow.

    Reply ↓
    1. ambrit

      With a Third Vow, does the Senate Confirm him?
      If this were the Confraternity of Saint Luigi, it would be a ‘Vow of Violence.’
      Stay a safe and small target.

      Reply ↓
      1. panurge

        As soon as Musk will withhold starlink for whichever ludicrous reason, we will know that the jamming is very effective.

        Reply ↓
    1. MFB

      When I visited Addo Elephant Park we were told not to bring oranges in if we didn’t want elephants in our kitchens.

      Reply ↓
  14. The Rev Kev

    “With Iran talks, Trump could achieve a triple win”

    When I read this article, it sounds like what he is proposing the old 2015 nuke deal. The Iranians agreed to reduce the processed material that they had and ship it to Russia, there was tighter inspection routines and Iran would have sanction relief. It is the Israelis that are trying to add their own impossible additions to those terms because they do not want Iran integrated back into the world economy. They want it isolated so that the US can destroy Iran for them no matter how many people die. Potentially the US can, as this article points out, make tens of billions of dollars doing trade with Iran and in fact Iran can sell the US industrial goods in return. He could make a deal so easily but I think that he will blow it because he will insist on one of the Israeli demands that would make such a deal impossible. Shame that as all the pieces of a great deal are just laying there and need only quickly assembled into a great deal for everybody – a win-win deal. Unfortunately Trump only believes in zero sum games.

    Reply ↓
    1. Henry Moon Pie

      Somewhat relevant is a Grayzone video released about the Chabad influence on… No, not Israel, though it’s powerful there, but inside the Trump administration. Blumenthal has researched this group, knows its history and ideology. Sobering stuff considering the level of influence they have on Trump now. Not much chance of a sane, humane ME policy with them around.

      Reply ↓
  15. Carla

    Chronicle of Higher Education, April 14, 2025

    These Faculty Senates Are Trying to Band Together to Stand Up to Trump

    https://archive.ph/u4YjL

    “Four senate bodies — at Rutgers University, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, the Indiana University at Bloomington, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst — have passed resolutions advocating for such an alliance, and several more will consider doing so in the coming weeks.”

    Reply ↓
  16. eg

    Ben Thompson of Stratechery in his “American Disruption” reveals the folly of believing in the first place that “economics” has EVER been divorced from politics — the original term, political economy, should never have been abandoned because at least this sort of fundamental error could have been avoided. Of course, separating the two terms was itself a political act conducted by the late 19th century “marginalists” on behalf of their funders — it’s of a piece with “the greatest trick the devil ever achieved was to convince the world that he doesn’t exist” …

    Reply ↓
    1. jsn

      The Abba Lerner quote comes to mind, “Economics has gained the title Queen of the Social Sciences by choosing the set of solved political problems as her domain”, IIRC.

      We’re deep now into unsolving all those problems, NeoLiberalsm can be looked at as the clandestine, hidden behind maths, and systematic dismantling of those “solutions”. And what the economics profession has become is propagandists trying to prevent us from noticing or understanding.

      Reply ↓
  17. The Rev Kev

    ‘🇺🇸👉🇺🇦🏴‍☠️ US Secy of State Marco Rubio vowed to talk to Elon Musk and convince him to turn off the Ukrainian Armed Forces Starlink so that Zelensky would finally return to reality and understand how dependent he is on the US.’

    Nice to see that Marco Rubio has proved himself as effective a Secretary of State as Pete Buttigieg proved as Secretary of Transport.Ii look at him as SecState on the news and it’s like watching the dog that caught the car.

    Reply ↓
  18. eg

    Re “Crashing the Car of Pax Americana”

    Only an American could convince himself that the American Empire was “good for the rest of the world” and only fellow Americans or their comprador elites could possibly believe him … 🙄

    Reply ↓
    1. Carolinian

      Oh I’d say the British have always been just fine with an American empire. Call it passing of the baton.

      Reply ↓
  19. Mikel

    El Salvador President Bukele says he won’t be releasing a Maryland man back to the -US Associated Press

    I watched the.press conference of the meet with Bukele.
    I was struck by how enamored Trump seemed with him. Unlike with other leaders, he was touchy-feely. I remember him with Starmer and Macron. Hands to himself, cordial. And there was the near-UFC event with -.

    But this:
    Forbes Breaking News-
    President Host’s El Salvadore’s President

    Reply ↓
    2. Carolinian

      As FDR once said about Somoza he may be a sonofabich but he’s our Trump’s sonovabich.

      It is good news that Harvard and others are starting to realize that compromise with the bullyboy only encourages him. Indeed one theory of Trump was that the establishment hates him and would put up more resistance. Clearly the threat of being fired or temporarily fake fired not to mention the–gasp–taking away of money cowed them at first.

      But the tariff madness has shown that this runaway train is aimed in all directions. Doubtless the last to complain will be our distinguished Congress members.

      Reply ↓
      1. The Rev Kev

        ‘It is good news that Harvard and others are starting to realize that compromise with the bullyboy only encourages him.’

        I’ve heard that elsewhere. That he will seek to bully people and if they cave to his demands, then that convinces him that there is more on the table to take.

        Reply ↓
          1. ambrit

            Speaking of Anschluss; just wait for the Ponzi Divisions to march into Toronto! I almost typed “Poncy Divisions,” but stopped in time because I realized that that would be casting aspersions (no pun intended,) on the American Panderers Party. [There is an APP for everything!] {Is that why American Intelligence Agencies are so fixated on finding back doors in everything?} Besides, Panzy Division sounds so Homes & Gardens, and it also sounds too close to the “Hundred Flowers Campaign.” No Red Blooded Righthinker wants to be thought to be aligned with the Middle Kingdom. |We have always been at war with the Middle Kingdom.|
            Ssssstay safe.

            Reply ↓
  20. InquiringMind

    Is anyone surprised that the crossing of the Rubicon yesterday was not in bigger font headlines?

    The President of the United States blithely repudiated two Supreme Court rulings in one day which means that the United States of America is no longer a liberal democracy with due process and rule of law.

    Reply ↓
    1. vao

      “the United States of America is no longer a liberal democracy with due process and rule of law”

      Eric Holder (attorney general during Obama’s presidency) defined “due process” as something equivalent to stating that the government has some form of process to deal with the matter at hand, with “due process” being completely different from “judicial process”.

      And for years we have been living on the much-touted “rules-based order” — which is distinct from the “rule of law”.

      That should take care of your worry that Trump killed the liberal democracy yesterday.

      Reply ↓
      1. albrt

        Yeah, as I recall Holder’s definition was its due process if the President talks about the subject at a meeting.

        Reply ↓
    2. Wukchumni

      First they came for the students with green cards, but I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a foreign student

      Then they came for Supreme Court rulings, but I didn’t speak out because all I was capable of doing was via muted words.

      Reply ↓
    4. Unironic Pangloss

      The Rubicon was crossed a long time ago—-see PATRIOT Act, 2003 invasion of Iraq, US-NATO bombing of Serbia, bipartisan shrug of multi-decade “emergencies” which require presidential emergency decrees.

      People are only upset now because they’re downhill from the excrement and their food bowl is threatened.

      Reply ↓
      1. jsn

        For me, everything after Scalia’s Judicial Coup d’etat is “fruit of the poison tree”. Chop it down, tear out it’s roots and burn it.

        Reply ↓
  21. The Rev Kev

    “Zelensky Charms CBS, as Trump Throws Impatient Tantrum”

    ‘The Trump admin has no real clue how to end the conflict, and Lavrov mentioned yesterday that the US still has not come close to acknowledging Russia’s core interests in the war.’

    The Russians have repeated their demands ad nauseam for a year or two already but the US side does not get it? Heard from The Duran that when the US side went to negotiation the Black Sea deal they were woefully unprepared. They had no idea what happened to the first Black sea deal so the Russians had to tell the US team what happened to sink that deal before they could go on to start. How can they be so ignorant? Do they live in the DC bubble and never hear opposing views?

    Reply ↓
  22. Unironic Pangloss

    so I burned some food in the microwave. to clean the inside vent I took apart the cover.

    Pleasantly surprised that a microwave is relatively simple to repair—mine even had a paper wiring diagram inside an envelope taped to the interior.

    If you (or you have any kids) with an interest in electronics/appliances, the microwave is a relatively easy gateway. Just beware of all the standard precautions when dealing w/electrical stuff

    Reply ↓
    1. Wukchumni

      Used to have a microwave that had written across the front:

      Do NOT use for food!

      The claim is you should never put anything metal in the microwave, but they obviously knew nothing in regards to better coins through chemistry, and by placing a coin in say a shot glass and covering it with the right solution, why I could add value and improve the look of a coin by merely using ammonia, Jewel Luster or something else.

      Older U.S. gold coins had an alloy of 90% gold and 10% copper, and sometimes the copper bleeds out and leaves ugly copper spots, I could make those go away in a jiffy!

      Reply ↓
      1. Carolinian

        Thanks for the tip. Microwaves also make good Faraday cages for your cellphone. Just don’t absent mindedly push that button.

        Reply ↓
    2. InquiringMind

      Microwave innards can be dangerous…powering up an unshielded magnatron can damage your eyes before your realize what’s happening. They also contain a high voltage capicitor which retains its charge after shutdown and unplug.

      Reply ↓
      1. t

        Couple of years ago, a number of people died following online tutorials for woodburning projects using microwave innards.

        (YouTube continues to host these videos. TikTok probably does too.)

        Reply ↓
      2. Unironical Pangloss

        yes. I forgot that any electricity or engine or chemical or widget disclaimer should be aimed at that one guy-gal who doesn’t understand that electrical stuff can be deadly.

        Reply ↓
        1. kareninca

          Even people who know that electrical stuff can be deadly may not know that an appliance can retain its charge after being unplugged. That is not intuitive.

          Reply ↓
      3. Buzz Meeks

        Same thing with the capacitors in photographic electronic flash heads. Had one fail thirty years ago and my hand felt like it had been slammed in car door for a week. The flash head had been sitting on shelf for over a year without a power source or battery. All I did was pick it up. Made this loud POP! and big time electrical shock and ozone smell. Boy, did that hurt.

        Reply ↓
        1. Martin Oline

          I suspect that capacitor blew up and discharged through you to the floor. Perhaps you carried a static charge that didn’t agree with it. The loud pop is the sound of a dying capacitor as I learned in electricity lab many years ago.

          Reply ↓
    3. BillS

      If you do not know what you are doing, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES OPEN UP A MICROWAVE OVEN ENCLOSURE! Touching an energized magnetron power supply will likely mean instant death by electrocution. The voltage is around 3000-4000 volts at 1/4 to 1/2 amp. The “one hand rule” is fundamental and all capacitors must be discharged and jumpered. Of course, the oven must be disconnected from the mains supply.

      Reply ↓
      1. Lena

        When I read that fixing your own microwave was simple, my inner micro radar said “Oh, no!”. It seems dangerous – something that definitely *should not* be done by anyone who isn’t a professional microwave fixer type person. Stay safe out there!

        Reply ↓
  23. ChiGal

    Harvard president’s address to the University:
    “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights”

    Finally one of our institutions meets the moment. Not performative.

    Reply ↓
  24. spud

    the Fazi one was great, how many times did i hear this out of bill clinton and his cronies,

    “The idea of globalisation was that rich countries would move further up the value chain, while the poor countries made the simpler things”.

    corrupt dim wits like clinton, free traded away our industrial advantage which as Hudson said, was the american system.

    “[Trump’s] cover story, and perhaps even his belief, is that tariffs by themselves can revive American industry. But he has no plans to deal with the problems that caused America’s deindustrialization in the first place. There is no recognition of what made the original US industrial program and that of most other nations so successful. That program was based on public infrastructure, rising private industrial investment and wages protected by tariffs, and strong government regulation. Trump’s slash and burn policy is the reverse — to downsize government, weaken public regulation and sell off public infrastructure to help pay for his income tax cuts on his Donor Class. “

    Reply ↓
    1. Darthbobber

      Rich countries monopolizing the high end of the value chain while the periphery was basically confined to supplying raw materials and commodities was ALREADY the structure long before the globalization buzzword (basically just labor and regulatory arbitrage) was introduced.

      The “plan” was to move the manufacturing while continuing to own the “know how” and control functions. But some of the intended permanent low enders had an adequate plan to upend that one.

      Reply ↓
  25. The Rev Kev

    “Inside Trump’s Plan to Halt Hundreds of Regulations”

    I suppose that Trump’s Wall Street buddies convinced him that if America was to re-industrialize, then all those pesky restrictions had to go. They are in effect internal trade restrictions and hamper investment into American industries. And he would have swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

    Reply ↓
  26. Mikel

    China’s Halt of Critical Minerals Poses Risk for U.S. Military Programs – New York Times

    Wonder if the MIC starts to think that risk justifies something like…taking over Greenland?

    Reply ↓
  27. kriptid

    Short missive from Wall Street on tariff impacts…

    Johnson & Johnson had their quarterly earnings call this morning and the pharma/med device world was listening for breadcrumbs about potential tariff impacts.

    They noted potential $400M effect of tariffs on their current fiscal year, and said that the vast majority of those tariffs are coming on duties of finished goods being shipped into China. Raw materials coming out of China and finished goods destined for other markets make up a much smaller piece of the pie in their forecast.

    This along with data points from other companies suggest that China sales are going to be hit a lot harder than US/OUS consumers absorbing the costs of raw/finished goods exports from China. Of course this can vary by industry, but healthcare good is the focus here. Our work suggests average company generates 6-8% of total revenues from China sales. These companies have already been taking hits for the last several years on value-bassd pricing (VBP), which is China’s equivalent of Medicare negotiating better rates across essentially all healthcare verticals.

    So at least fortunate pharma/medtech, we’ve been seeing some heads cooling in the last week and the catastrophist takes are slowly being tuned out. I still don’t know what to think; the strong sentiment here at NC is that the US will blink first but it’s much more mixed on the Street. I suspect we may not know the clear winner here for months/years depending on how things play out.

    Another point of note vis a vis tariff financial impacts: the financials don’t look all that bad for another reason besides the $400M being relatively benign to them as a business: the weakness of the dollar has created a lot of favorable FX situations for many multinationals. The strength of the dollar has hit these companies’ international earnings to the tune of 2-5% depending on their international exposure. But dollar weakness will mitigate a lot of that for them and may end up offsetting a lot of the tariff impacts on earnings. This is good news for consumers wary of the tariff impacts, because it will lessen pressures from investors on companies to raise prices to maintain their earnings.

    Obviously all this could change tomorrow given how quickly things shift with the Trump administration, but hopefully this provides some useful insights.

    Reply ↓
  29. Henry Moon Pie

    Maybe it’s just my system, but I am having major problems with this site. I can hardly scroll a few inches before NC goes blank. Occasionally, my anti-virus will pop-up and warn me about this site. This happens on Firefox and Edge. It is not happening on any other sites.

    Reply ↓
    1. Yves Smith Post author

      Could you please tell us what operating system (version #) and browser (version #s) you are using? No one else has made this complaint, which suggests it is specific to you, but we can check.

      Reply ↓
      1. brook trout

        This has been happening to me several times recently as well with Windows 11 and Edge. As it has become a daily occurrence, I switched to Firefox today with no problems.

        Reply ↓
      2. ThirtyOne

        This got me curious, so I fired up Edge (hardly use it, unmodified)
        Microsoft Edge
        Version 135.0.3179.73 (Official build) (64-bit)

        OS Name Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
        Version 10.0.26100 Build 26100

        Had the page popup a fake warning, full page red.
        I got the page going blank on scrolling, refresh brought it back.
        Checking Windows security, it shows no hits for the red page event.
        Perhaps one of the ads is misbehaving?
        My usual browser is Firefox with no script, no problems with this site.

        Reply ↓
        1. ThirtyOne

          BTW, the red page (for me) had this URL

          477ps://6edb2usj646vcfe0ee.kkheo.co.in/l2/me/index.php?lpkey=17e9446074d8788413&lddomain=kkheo.co.in&pbid=4160&t1=ALL&t2=me&t3=71&t4=griseous-goat&t5=mike-led-v24wype3m6&clickid=6edb2usj646vcfe0ee&language=en-US&pp=1&uclick=usj646vcfe&uclickhash=usj646vcfe-usj646vcfe-tl-2t-xibl-ojsl-ojj2-6c9b11

          Reply ↓
          1. ChrisPacific

            Different URL for me, although the other symptoms sound identical. For me it’s always been a bunch of random characters with a .sbs domain.

            Given the number of reports in Links today it seems to have gotten much more widespread recently.

            Reply ↓
        2. ChrisPacific

          I have been having a similar problem for about a month now – posted on Links at the time, and emailed the support account about it yesterday with more details. It happens for me on PC with Windows 10 and Firefox, also Windows 11 laptop with Chrome.

          It starts out with a redirect to the fake McAfee warning, which I back out of. Often after a few of those it changes to the blank page redirect described above. Later on if I’ve been using the site awhile it goes away entirely, only to come back again following the same pattern the next day.

          I too suspected it was malicious content from an ad server so I installed an ad block and that seems to prevent it from happening. (I prefer not to block ads for NC, but if it’s necessary to avoid malware redirects then I will do it).

          I think it’s likely only impacting a small minority of readers or it would have been all over comments long ago (it’s extremely annoying and pretty obviously a security risk). It could be a geographically targeted ad that only shows up for a certain region.

          Reply ↓
    2. doug

      I was using Chrome this morning and could not read the site as a glaring red popup warning something happened each time I tried to read links. Chrome Version 135.0.7049.85. MS Windows current.
      I then went to Edge and had no problems. Now things are fine, but I agree with HMP about this morning, but it was not my antivirus, rather a bright red warning of a scan about to start. I deleted the page quickly each time, so not sure of specifics. If I see it again, I will try to get more info.

      Reply ↓
      2. nyleta

        Yes, I am getting the blanking here and on MishTalk less often as well. There is a fake looking captcha bot as well. I assumed this was a supression attempt by the usual bad actors. I will take down the address for the captcha bot next time. Edge is the worst for this by a wide margin.

        Reply ↓
    4. Henry Moon Pie

      Windows 11. Firefox and Edge. I don’t use Chrome, so I haven’t tried it with Chrome.

      Thanks for looking into it.

      Reply ↓
      1. Glenda

        Me too with Firefox and Windows 11.
        I wonder if it’s the X links and features.
        Lots of refreshing and scrolling down has allowed me to read today.
        Thanks, and sorry to see others have had this problem too.

        Reply ↓
    5. curlydan

      same issue. I get either a blank screen or evil warning from an anti-virus looking website that I’m redirected to.

      I’m using Windows 11 Enterprise and OS Build 22631.5039 and Microsoft Edge Version 135.0.3179.73 (Official build) (64-bit). The issues kind of went away when I switched my VPN and/or scrolled quickly to the comments. Maybe an ad is causing an issue?

      Reply ↓
  30. Tom Stone

    The USA has nearly 1,000 Billionaires and some of them will need to be reminded who THE KING is.
    Who will be the chicken killed to scare the monkeys?
    It will be a “Small” Billionaire not a Centi Billionaire, it will be someone unlikable who is not a supporter of Genocide and who made the mistake of donating to the wrong people and who may have said something mean about Musk and/or Trump.
    The charges will be something along the lines of “Statements aligned with Hamas” and it will be framed as going after “Suspected Terrorist sympathizers and financiers”.
    And I’m sure the prosecution will be as much on the Up and Up as that $450MM judgement against Trump was.
    Is it the right time yet, or will they wait a bit longer?

    Reply ↓
  31. ChrisFromGA

    “Marjorie Taylor Greene doubles down on AAPL, AMZN, others prior to Trump tariff pause”

    “OpenAI working on launching a social network”

    Is it just me, or is this timeline starting to sound like a new “Despicable Me” sequel, but without the cute minions?

    Dr. Nefario couldn’t invent such evil.

    Reply ↓
  33. Wukchumni

    How addicted to gambling are Americans?

    …even the homeless can come up with $25 to blow on scratchers

    California homeless man just won $1 million on a Lottery scratcher

    A “loyal customer” of a downtown San Luis Obispo liquor store recently won the $1 million prize on a scratcher, the business announced last week. And according to another local business, the man was homeless and had been living here on the streets. In an Instagram post on Friday, Sandy’s Deli-Liquor at 586 Higuera St. announced it sold a Triple Red 777 scratcher with a winning prize of $ 1 million.

    According to Samaan, the man — who he declined to identify — bought two 777 scratchers and some smaller ones on the evening of April 6 for $25. He checked one of the 777 cards immediately and won $200, which the cashier at the register cashed out for him.

    Samaan has since been helping the man get the win verified by the California Lottery, including providing them with photo and video evidence of the purchase. Samaan even offered to drive the man — who doesn’t have a car — to the nearest office in Fresno to redeem the scratcher rather than sending it in the mail and risk it getting lost.

    https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article304205446.html

    Reply ↓
      1. Camacho

        That site demanded I provide my email to them to read their story too, but I clicked on the “X” and closed to pop-up. Still it remained unread, because I only wanted to test if it will show without email. :)

        Reply ↓
  34. tegnost

    Re crosswalk speakers…

    “Hi, this is Mark Zuckerberg, but real ones call me the Zuck,” the message began. “You know, it’s normal to feel uncomfortable or even violated as we forcefully insert AI into every facet of your conscious experience. And I just want to assure you that you don’t need to worry because there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. See ya.”

    Priceless

    Reply ↓
    1. mary jensen

      Speaking of the Surfer Prince, I am trying to find the FTC hearings anywhere, cannot find them on CSPAN, cannot find them on the usual suspects. Anyone know where the Meta hearings can be seen? Sort of desperate because I watched Sarah Wynn-Williams testify…

      Reply ↓
  35. AG

    re: German car industry

    German news site TELEPOLIS

    part 1
    Germany’s car industry – total loss with announcement
    Bureaucracy paralyzes, ideology replaces strategy. China and the US are pulling ahead. Germany is lagging behind.
    A guest article

    April 15, 2025
    by Matthias Weik
    https://archive.is/a1WRN

    “(…)
    With tariffs on Chinese electric cars, the US is sending a clear message: If you want to sell, you have to manufacture here. At the same time, the Inflation Reduction Act offers over $370 billion in subsidies – including a $7,500 tax credit per electric car (only for local production), $35 per kWh of cell production for manufacturers, and massive infrastructure funding.
    This mix of isolation, incentives, and location loyalty is working. The US market is the only option for German manufacturers – over one million VW, BMW, and Mercedes vehicles will be sold there in 2023 alone.
    The German companies are drawing the consequences:

    Mercedes-Benz is investing $1 billion in the Tuscaloosa plant, including a new battery factory.
    BMW is investing $1.7 billion in Spartanburg, where six electric models are to be produced annually by 2030.
    VW is building the ID.4 in Chattanooga and is examining new cell factories in North America.

    This is no longer expansion – this is strategic relocation.

    Germany as a business location? A growing cost factor, increasingly difficult to justify to investors. While Berlin is planning green industrial policy, the US is delivering: “Build here – sell here – get paid here.”
    (…)
    Germany is expensive. Too expensive. (…) Energy prices are at record levels, labor costs are among the highest in the world, and taxes and duties are far above the OECD average.
    (…)
    A few figures to remind you:

    Industrial electricity prices in Germany will average 22 cents per kilowatt hour in 2023 – more than twice as high as in the USA (~10 ct/kWh) and well above the EU average.
    Non-wage labor costs are climbing to over 40 percent, while at the same time there is a massive shortage of skilled workers.
    The total tax burden for corporations is over 30 percent in Germany, 12.5 percent in Ireland, and sometimes less than 25 percent in the USA, depending on the state.
    (…)”

    Reply ↓
    1. Darthbobber

      And given the time involved in planning and building a factory, and how soon some of these US sites are expected to be operational, it appears that these location changes had been decided on even before the tariff fiasco commenced.

      Reply ↓
      1. AG

        Yesss!
        But don´t say it out loud.

        Same as with Scholz´s 100B package in 2022. It had been in the drawers for some time.
        Not a single legacy media reporter pointed that out.

        Reply ↓
  36. Wukchumni

    Yo Homeland!, let’s kick it
    Ice, ICE Barbie
    Ice, ICE Barbie

    Alright stop, collaborate and listen
    ICE Barbie is back with a brand new intention
    Something grabs a hold of the headlines tightly
    Flow like a dress up border guard daily and nightly
    Will it ever stop? Yo, I don’t know
    Turn on the cameras, and the photo ops grow

    To the extreme, watch her handle weaponry and cause a scandal
    Light up a stage and hold up an M4 like a candle
    Dance, go rush to the paparazzi that loom
    You’re killing your brain like a poisonous mushroom

    Deadly, when I play a scathing melody
    Anything less than doing your role play best is a felony
    Love it or leave it, you better gangway
    You better hit bull’s eye, her late dog don’t play
    If there was a problem, yo, she’ll solve it
    Check out the look while DHS revolves around it

    Ice, ICE Barbie
    Vanilla nice, ICE Barbie

    Vanilla nice, ICE Barbie
    Vanilla nice, ICE Barbie
    Vanilla

    Now that the dress up party on the border is jumping
    With the concealer rubbed in, and the mascara is running
    Quick to the point, to the point, to the point of faking
    That pretty face looks like pancake makeup baking
    Applying too much, if you ain’t quick and nimble
    I go crazy when I hear she’s a sect symbol
    And on a high horse with a souped up tremor

    Ice, ICE Barbie
    Vanilla nice, ICE Barbie
    Vanilla nice, ICE Barbie
    Vanilla nice, ICE Barbie
    Vanilla nice
    Yo man, let’s get out of here
    Word to the mother of intervention

    Ice, ICE Barbie, too cold
    Ice, ICE Barbie, too cold, too cold
    Ice, ICE Barbie, too cold, too cold
    Ice, ICE Barbie, too cold, too cold
    I’m on a roll, it’s time to go solo

    Ice Ice Baby, by Vanilla Ice

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoYfh2UBuDw

    Reply ↓
  37. none

    Those of you wanting cheap burner or spare / low-usage phones, there are some good deals on qvc.com if you type “tracfone” into the search field. The one with two Moto G 2024’s for $80 is especially tempting. They have a 2-pack of the 2023 model even cheaper, but I’d go for the 2024 since it is a better phone. These all come with a YEAR of service, i.e. where it says 1500 minutes and 1500 MB, that averages out 125 minutes and 125 MB per month which is plenty for a low use plan if you don’t watch video using mobile data. Tracfone is a Verizon brand now, so these are the Verizon network and locked to the brand, but they automatically unlock after 60 days of having an active plan running.

    Also for us fogeys: they have a retro style voice-only Nokia flip phone for $40 including a year of service. No internet which is a good thing for some of us.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lena

      Thank you! This is so helpful. When the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) went the way of the dodo, having inexpensive phone service became difficult for a lot of people.

      Reply ↓
  38. LawnDart

    Re; China

    The list of key points in this article are worthy a look:

    The Cost of Isolation: How the US-China Trade War Risks Backfiring Without Allies

    Without allies, the United States risks turning a winnable economic rivalry into a self-inflicted injury. The longer the nation walks alone, the more isolated it becomes—and in global economics, isolation is rarely a winning strategy.

    https://undercodenews.com/the-cost-of-isolation-how-the-us-china-trade-war-risks-backfiring-without-allies/

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      I think that that is Trump’s plan – Fortress America. A huge bock of land that includes Canada and Greenland protected by oceans on either side and the Arctic to the north. And with vassal states around the world sending the US Treasury a check for the US forces stationed in their country and yes, that was an actual White House statement on their website. Forcing other countries to send their factories to the US to avoid any tariffs and forcing all countries to still use the dollar – or else.

      Reply ↓
  41. Jason Boxman

    Trump’s Tariff Threat for Imported Medicines Poses Political Risks

    As I recall IM Doc mentioning in the past, we already have a ton of drug shortages, so this is only going to exacerbate and ongoing debacle, some of which is fueled by PBMs as Stoller has described in the past.

    President Trump’s decision to move a step closer to imposing tariffs on imported medicines poses considerable political risk, because Americans could face higher prices and more shortages of critical drugs.

    The Trump administration filed a federal notice on Monday saying that it had begun an investigation into whether imports of medicines and pharmaceutical ingredients threaten America’s national security, an effort to lay the groundwork for possible tariffs on foreign-made drugs.

    This year is so lit.

    Reply ↓
    1. Michaelmas

      Yeah, I saw that piece in the NYT.

      ‘The sheep look up’ was the line from Milton that came to mind.

      I’d been watching the media, waiting for the coin to drop. It still hasn’t fully: I read the article and the NYT readers’ comments, and I saw nothing in them about heparin and its role in IV infusion during surgeries and, well, a whole lot more —
      https://bnf.nice.org.uk/drugs/heparin-unfractionated/

      So they still haven’t twigged how bad this could be.

      Reply ↓
      1. Yves Smith Post author

        We ran a link to the article that Welsh depends for his claims and quotes extensively. Readers trashed it in comments, depicting it as flat out wrong in some of its statements as to how the LNG market works as well as logically incoherent. So please ignore it.

        Reply ↓
  42. Wukchumni

    It is with a heavy heart i’ve received word that Wink Martindale (the game show host) has passed away, leaving me only 1 Wink Martindale left (the NFL defensive coordinator with the same name) on my 2016, 2020 and 2024 Presidential write-ins, where Wink garnered at least 1 vote.

    Reply ↓

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