Information Overlord: Houthis Roll, Hegseth Bumbles, AI Doomer Hype, Lots of Music Talk

From me this week as Nat Wilson Turner

This week at Naked Capitalism I pulled a shift covering the Iran War and tried to connect the dots between Pete Hegseth’s Department of War and what’s going on with Meta and OpenAI.

I also continued my “Joe Biden’s Three Genocides in Four Years” series with the first installment of the Ukraine debacle.

• Iran War: Ansar Allah Takes Mocha and the Bab el-Mandeb Islands, Putting Both Chokepoints in Play — Naked Capitalism,
• Coffee Break: Hegseth, Altman and Zuckerberg, Elite Impunity Run Amock — Naked Capitalism
• Joe Biden’s Three Genocides in Four Years: Ukraine, Part 1 — Ian Welsh
• Coffee Break: Labor Day Songs & Stories From the Let It Roll Podcast — Naked Capitalism

More of what I wrote and recorded for The MMA Draw and The Let It Roll Podcast is at the bottom of this post but I wanted to feature the news links and think pieces.

What I’m Reading and Watching

The Iran War

• The Iran War Has Just Had A Major Phase Change — Ian Welsh. On the interceptor math: the US runs out long before Iran does if Iran chooses to go all out, and hitting only three or four tankers a day was a choice rather than a ceiling.

“As I said day one of the war, the math is on Iran’s side: the US will run out of interceptors long before Iran if Iran chooses to go all out.”

• The Shattered Myth of US Military Primacy — Steve Jermy
• Exclusive: Pakistan warns Iran to rein in Houthis as Riyadh strikes back — Reuters. Will Saudi’s new daddy actually do anything to protect them from mean ol’ Ansar Allah? I wouldn’t bet on it. What’s Pakistan gonna do? Bomb the Houthis? They’ve been bombed since 2015 by the Saudis, the UAE, the US & UK. Would Pakistan actually send ground forces to the Arabian Peninsula? What would India have to say about that?
• Iran Ready for More Intense War, Won’t Relent, Official Says — Bloomberg
• Is Oil Blocked or Flowing? Co-Founder of Tanker Trackers Samir Madani Joins WGOW Shipping (YouTube) — What’s Going on With Shipping. Show host Sal Mercogliano is a top subject matter expert on shipping and Samir Madani is *THE* subject matter expert on oil tankers. Pay attention to the industry experts, ignore the cable news pundits and especially the Trump administration idiots.
• Col. Larry Wilkerson: Trump Has No Plan in Iran. Hegseth Is Running It — and Lying to Everyone (YouTube) — Ian Proud. Col. Wilkerson is one of my absolute favorite alt-media geostrategic stars. Former UK diplomat Ian Proud is a knowledgable and affable host.
• Oil Price Soars as Wars on Yemen and Iran Escalate (YouTube) — Dimitri Lascaris. A Greek-Canadian who’s spent a lot of time in Lebanon and other West Asian locations. Good coverage of the ME war.
• Amb. Chas Freeman: Saudi Arabia’s Major Losses Amid Israel’s Crumbling War (YouTube) — Dialogue Works. Nima is great and Ambassador Chas Freeman is one of the sage voices from the Silent Generation who understands how US foreign policy went so wrong.
• Houthis Take the Strait | MBS Begs Trump Twice | Ukraine to Draft Women? — (YouTube) Conversations Among The Ruins. I enjoy the dynamic between Charlie and his (incredibly well informed) dad.

Empire, and what it remembers

• Biden And Netanyahoo Were Warned Of Oct. 7 – Both Ignored The Hostages — Moon of Alabama. The more we learn about what went on to trigger the Gaza genocide the worse it gets. Hell awaits.
• Long 9/11 – Sam Husseini and Aaron Good (YouTube) — American Exception
  Aaron is joined by congressional candidate San Husseini, whom you might remember for holding Biden State Department Spokesweasel Matt Miller to account until they finally dragged him out of the press room on Miller’s last disgraceful day.
• When 9/11 Got Hip-Hop, It Killed Dissent — Un-Diplomatic
• 25 Years Ago a Bunch of Important People Skipped Work for No Reason — Sean P. McCarthy. Every year it seems like 9/11 gets a little truthier.
• 25 Years of War Was the Wrong Response to 9/11 — Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies at Naked Capitalism. Obvious but bears repeating.
• Europe Has Lost Its Guiding Myth — Alastair Crooke. From 2023, even more accurate today.
• The Kingdom that sold the world — Karim Zidan at Sports Politika. Karim knows Saudi politics like no one else. I gave Karim his start in journalism at Bloody Elbow and I’m always proud to show off his work whether it’s at the NYT or on his own site. His book THE ULTIMATE STRONGMEN: MMA and the Rise of the Authoritarian Right is coming out soon.

The AI trade

• The A.I. Industry will never rein itself in — Dave Karpf
• No, Anderson Cooper, AI is not going to kill all humans by 2030 — Gary Marcus. AI is already causing harms and there are many real risks, but the constant focus on absurd end-of-the-world fantasies has made the situation worse.
• Stop Panicking About AI — Matt Stoller, BIG. Reads the doomer wave as a business strategy: the resignations and the “could kill all humans” claims are running straight into Anthropic’s IPO, expected within about six weeks at a multi-trillion valuation, while the frontier labs still have no demonstrated path to profit.

Money

What the heck is going on with the bond market, private equity, etc

• The Impotence of Being Kevin Warsh — James K. Galbraith at INET. The tools and concepts guiding monetary policy may no longer fit an economy reshaped by AI, shifting prices, and the fading power of interest rates.
• Private Equity: How the Big Long Became a Long Con as Fund Managers Hang on to Investor Funds — Sebastien Canderle at Naked Capitalism. PE managers have been struggling to dispose of portfolio assets since the rate rises that followed the war in Ukraine; for some the exit dry spell is turning into an existential threat.
• Has capitalism failed, or has neoliberalism destroyed it? — Richard Murphy

Also worth your time

• We Might All Pay for Corpus Christi’s Water Crisis — Texas Monthly. Polycrisis hitting close to home for yours truly.
• Trump Plan Would Bar Millions of Americans From Voting by Mail, States Tell Supreme Court — The Jackpot. The 2026 elections shenanigans watch.
• LIVE FROM MOSCOW: Putin’s Patience Is OVER! Ukraine Faces COLLAPSE (YouTube) — Larry Johnson & Judge Napolitano. Doesn’t get more Putin Puppet than this. Funny how “Russian propaganda” (from a former Fox News host and a retired CIA analyst) like this inevitably bears more resemblance to consensus reality than anything from neo-con approved sources in the MSM.
• The Dissidents, with cartoonist Derf Backderf (YouTube) — The Chris Hedges Report. Great interview with the graphic novelist whose new book is a history of the 1917–1919 Red Scare, an era with uncomfortable similarities to our own.
• Finding The Funk (YouTube) — Excellent 2013 documentary on funk music, one of my favorite eras.

My Work at The MMA Draw as Nate Wilcox

Sadly, my work covering combat sports continues to converge with my political work as Ari Emanuel’s TKO (which owns the UFC, WWE and a nascent attempt to monopolize boxing) is largely financed by the UAE and Saudis. They’re also using the GOP Congress to push legislation to allow them to monopolize boxing. I did get to feature some MMA History from Tony Loiseleur.

• Billion dollar war pains for Turki & Saudi sports investments — The MMA Draw with Zach Arnold
• Ted Cruz to move Ali Revival Act forward next week — The MMA Draw by Zach Arnold
• The Sons of Strong Style and the Birth of Japanese MMA — The MMA Draw by Tony Loiseleur

My Work at Let It Roll as Nate Wilcox

My inner music history nerd has been very extroverted this week. You’re welcome.

From the Beginning — We’re continuing to work through all 400 episodes re-presented in chronological order. This week our episodes bridged the gap from

• Pop Had An Entirely Different Meaning Before 1955 — Bob Stanley on his book Let’s Do It: The Birth of Pop Music, A History. The discussion goes from Stephen Foster in the 1840s to Peggy Lee in the 1950s.
• From Louis Armstrong to the White Stripes, ‘St James Infirmary’ Connects Folk Traditions to Jazz and Rock — Robert W. Harwood talks about his book I Went Down to St James Infirmary which traces the origins of that song (debunking all previous scholarship along the way) from its beginnings to its many famous 20th century versions.
• House of the Rising Sun Before Bob Dylan And After The Animals — Ted Anthony talks about Chasing the Rising Sun another bit of musical detective work, this one tracing “House of the Rising Sun” from its likely 19th Century origins in the Black community, its first recording by a white woman in Appalachia, its glory days in the folk era from Josh White to Bob Dylan, and its commercial apogee with the Animals, then on to some 21st Century interpretations.

Labor Day Songs & Stories — Yves Smith was kind enough to let me feature ten Labor Day/working class episodes of Let It Roll on Naked Capitalism. Here are the shows I featured:

• Countryroll 2: Roy Acuff, Bob Wills, Gene Autry and Woody Guthrie Lead Country Music Through Hard Times – with James Porter
• Alan Lomax, Pete Seeger, Josh White & Jean Ritchie and the first Folk Revival – with Dave Thompson
• The Weavers: Folk Music vs the Blacklist — with Jesse Jarnow
• CountryRoll 5: Charley Pride Integrates Nashville, Buck Owens & Merle Haggard Bring the Bakersfield Sound – with James Porter
• Chula Fronteras Documented Tejano Legends Like Lydia Mendoza, Narciso Martínez and Flaco Jiménez – with Justin Bankston
• The Kinks’ Class-Consciousness Made Them Wary of the Promises of Swinging London — with Mark Doyle,
• The MC5’s Combination of Hard Rock and Radical Politics Was Too Volatile to Last – with Justin Bankston
• Hip-Hop Is Born In The Bronx: We Dig Hip-Hop Evolution – with Alexei Auld and Eugene S. Robinson
• Johnny Paycheck: We Dig Mike Judge’s Tales From The Tour Bus – with Justin Bankston
• Hardcore Punk Ignored Corporate America — with Steven Blush
• Technoroll 12: Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy and the Birth of House Music in Chicago – with Ryan Harkness

Avant Garde Meets Rock:

Next week I’ll be dropping an essay on the influence of the Avant-Garde on 60’s rock so I put a bunch of episodes on Substack to prepare. Sadly I haven’t done episodes on Frank Zappa or Paul McCartney’s avant-garde influences yet.

• The Velvet Underground Brought the Avant-Garde to Rock and Presaged Punk — with Victor Bockris
• The Band That Broke Czechoslovakian Communism: Plastic People of the Universe — with Joe Yanosik
• Yoko Ono Brought Classical and Avant-Garde Techniques to Rock — with Madeline Bocaro
• The Grateful Dead Were the Pied Pipers of Psychedelics — with Jesse Jarnow

Support and follow my work at NatWilsonTurner.com.