Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – June 22, 2025
by Tony Wikrent
War
[TW: This is what the “globalist” elites centered on the City of London and Wall Street have been scheming for ever since Franklin Roosevelt told Winston Churchill at the 1943 Casablanca Conference that there would be no restoration of the British empire.
[Now that Trump has fully thrown in with the pro-war faction, we will learn if those who supported Trump because they believed Trump would be a foil against the “globalist” elites, accept the chastening of a hard lesson learned. More importantly, now that Trump has allowed the globalists to steer us into a war against Iran, will those who supported Trump be vigilant against Trump using the war to exercise his “war powers” and impose authoritarian measures on the USA population? What will they do if Trump responds to protests against this new war by declaring martial law?
[Building opposition to Trump and a newly energized militarized security state will be difficult and increasingly dangerous. One source of hope is to remember that while Trump and the security state consolidate police state rule in USA, reality continues. The massive misuse of citizens’ lives and national treasures will occur while climate change imposes rapidly escalating costs on “business as usual.” [See The $1 Trillion Climate Problem Republicans Are Ignoring, Kate Aronoff, June 19, 2025, in The New Republic] As entire regions are forced to cope with weather risks without any insurance and entire cities struggle to obtain enough water, there will come a time when reality can no longer be ignored. Reality itself will compel the restoration of systems of governance that protect and nurture all human lives, and the General Welfare of all citizens, and justice for all. ]
[Wikipedia]
Trump official to The Grayzone: CIA’s Ratcliffe acts as ‘Mossad stenographer’ on Iran
Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil, June 21, 2025 [The Grayzone]
A Trump official tells The Grayzone that Israel’s Mossad is using CIA Director John Ratcliffe and US CENTCOM’s Gen. Michael Kurilla to influence Trump with cooked intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program. Inside the White House, dissenters have been isolated, setting the stage for a regime change war that could cost American lives.
Craig Murray, June 20, 2025
For 18 years, the Iranian nuclear programme has been one of the top 10 targeting objectives of the US intelligence services….
It is worth noting – and a prime example of how the neoliberal world works – that the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, is now an executive of British Petroleum. That company controlled Iran for decades, installed the fake Pahlavi “Shah” in 1921 and engineered and financed the coup that ended democracy in Iran in 1953. The appalling dictatorship of the Shah after that led directly to the theocratic revolution.
BP desperately want Iran’s oil back, so ex MI6 Head Sawers has been all over the airwaves advocating war on Iran. Meanwhile it is not an accident that two days ago, a new Head of MI6 was chosen and installed. Starmer has found his Dearlove.
The appointment was made by David Lammy. Blaise Metreweli was chosen ahead of more obvious candidates, who had served longer in MI6, had more operational experience, and were better analysts or better managers. However Metreweli – who spent much of her career in the Middle East – is a fanatical Zionist. She worked closely with Israel on technologies for surveillance and assassination….
Iran halts 20% of global oil flow with Strait of Hormuz shutdown after U.S. strikes
The AI That Triggered a War: How Palantir and the IAEA Fueled Israel’s Strike on Iran
Sarah B., June 19, 2025 [DD Geo-politics, via Alastair Crooke]
Since 2015, the IAEA has relied on Palantir’s Mosaic platform, a $50-million AI system that sifts 400 million data points—satellite imagery, social media, personnel logs—to predict nuclear threats. On June 12, Iran leaked documents it claimed showed IAEA chief Rafael Grossi shared Mosaic outputs with Israel, effectively turning the agency into a “tool for aggression.” The charge echoes a pattern: prior to 2025, Mosaic data helped shape sanctions and even UN aid decisions despite risks of bias.
Palantir, co-founded by Trump ally Peter Thiel, powers IDF targeting in Gaza and Ukraine’s battlefield AI. Its IAEA role, meant to ensure compliance, now teeters toward militarization. As Iran halts monitoring and threatens to expose Israel’s nuclear secrets at Soreq, the stakes are apocalyptic. This investigation asks how Mosaic became a war pretext, why Israel needed a cover story, and whether privatized AI now threatens global peace.
Friday Video Tsunami… It’s All About Israel, Iran and Trump
Larry Johnson, 20 June 2025 [Sonar 21]
From my contacts within the US military, all signs indicate that we’re on-the-luge (a fast snow sled) at this point and there’s no way to get off. We are hurtling downhill… too much is already in motion. Even if Trump decides tomorrow to call everything off, we’ve already set up and committed enough support assets so that the Israeli Defense Force has everything it needs. Reversing course seems very unlikely now because of bureaucratic momentum.
Trump Reportedly Greenlights Plan for US Attack on Iran Without Congressional Approval
WHAT I HAVE BEEN TOLD IS COMING IN IRAN
Seymour Hersh, June 19, 2025 [www.defenddemocracy.press/]
This is a report on what is most likely to happen in Iran, as early as this weekend, according to Israeli insiders and American officials I’ve relied upon for decades. It will entail heavy American bombing. I have vetted this report with a longtime US official in Washington, who told me that all will be “under control” if Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “departs.” Just how that might happen, short of his assassination, is not known. There has been a great deal of talk about American firepower and targets inside Iran, but little practical thinking, as far I can tell, about how to remove a revered religious leader with an enormous following.
I have reported from afar on the nuclear and foreign policy of Israel for decades. My 1991 book The Samson Option told the story of the making of the Israeli nuclear bomb and America’s willingness to keep the project secret. The most important unanswered question about the current situation will be the response of the world, including that of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who has been an ally of Iran’s leaders….
Trump must help Israel finish the job to dismantle Khamenei’s regime – editorial
[Jerusalem Postv, via Naked Capitalism 06-19-2025]
[Conor Gallagher: Provides a blueprint for regime change, in case there were any doubts, including:]
Forge a Middle East coalition for Iran’s partition. Encourage long-term plans for a federalized or partitioned Iran, recognizing that Khamenei’s theocratic regime cannot be reformed. Offer security guarantees to Sunni, Kurdish, and Balochi minority regions willing to break away.
“The only path forward now is reckless escalation.”
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: From Perpetual Peace to World War
Glenn Diesen, via Naked Capitalism 06-17-2025]
[Yves Smith: “Trust me, you must listen starting at 39:00.”]
True Promise 3: Iran Responds With Long-Awaited Hypersonic Retaliation
[Simplicius, via Naked Capitalism 06-15-2025]
Israel Buckles as Iran War Shifts to New Drag-Out Phase
[Simplicius, via Naked Capitalism 06-21-2025]
“behavioral signature of a missile defense interceptor entering logic collapse”
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 06-18-2025]
Iran Shoots Down Third F-35 Fighter, Captures Second Pilot: What Are the Implications?
[Military Watch Magazine, June-14th-2025]
Israel is running out of interceptor missiles. China’s export bans mean they can’t be replaced
Kevin Walmsley [via Naked Capitalism 06-21-2025]
Gaza / Palestine / Israel
Israel’s attack on Iran: The violent new world being born is going to horrify you
Jonathan Cook, June 19, 2025
…With the Palestinians feeling increasingly isolated, choked by Israel’s siege and abandoned by the Arab regimes, Hamas staged a show of force, breaking out for one day from the concentration camp of Gaza.
Israel seized the opportunity to complete two related tasks: destroying the Palestinians as a people once and for all, and with it their ambitions for a state in their homeland; and rolling back the Shia crescent, just as the Pentagon had planned more than 20 years earlier.
Israel started by levelling Gaza – slaughtering and starving its people. Then it moved to destroy Hezbollah’s southern heartlands in Lebanon. And with the collapse of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, Israel was able to occupy parts of Syria, smash what remained of its military infastructure, and clear a flight path to Iran.
These were the preconditions for launching the current war of aggression on Iran…..
CIA Analyst Sentenced To Prison For Releasing Documents On Israel’s Plans To Strike Iran
[The Dissenter, via Naked Capitalism 06-16-2025]
Chris Hedges and Eunice Wong, June 15, 2025
The genocide is almost complete. When it is concluded it will not only have decimated the Palestinians, but will have exposed the moral bankruptcy of Western civilization.
Children Are Starving in Gaza, as Soldiers Kill People Looking for Food
Huda Skaik, June 19 2025 [The Intercept.]
Doctors trying to save starving children and parents trying to feed their families spoke with The Intercept.
Thomas Neuburger, June 20, 2025 [God’s Spies]
Exactly Why Is It that All American Presidents Dance to Bibi’s Tune?
Eric Alterman, June 20, 2025 [The New Republic]
AIPAC Demands Democrats ‘Stand With Israel’
David Dayen, Ryan Grim, Nicolae Butler, Pablo Manriquez, June 18, 2025 [The American Prospect]
Trump not violating any law
‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’
Joe DePaolo, May 4th, 2025 [mediaite.com]
[WSWS, via Naked Capitalism 06-20-2025]
Hamilton Nolan, June 16, 2025 [How Things Work]
ICE believes it will never face accountability again
Garrett Graff, June 20, 2025 [Doomsday Scenario]
The Trump administration is letting an unaccountable secret police form at the heart of our democracy….
What really worries me about ICE’s collective actions nationwide, though, is bigger than any single raid or social media post — what worries me is that what we’re witnessing nationwide are not the actions of an agency that believes it will ever be subject to meaningful oversight or legal authority ever again.
This is not an agency that is treating members of Congress as if it will ever be held to account by the men and women who control its budget.
This is not an agency that believes that any of its actions on the streets will be subject to meaningful review by judicial authorities — or that any of its actions will be litigated in the courts.
This is not an agency that believes that any of its actions will be subject to meaningful review by the DHS inspector general, either for policy violations or criminal use-of-force abuses, nor reviewed by US attorneys or federal prosecutors at any level.
This is not an agency leadership that believes that anyone in government — at the Justice Department, the White House, or DHS — currently cares about public perception, misconduct, or violations of civil rights and civil liberties.
And this is not an agency that believes that Democrats will ever be back in charge.
That’s what should terrify us….
The Trump Crackdown on Elected Officials
Jonathan Blitzer, June 18, 2025 [The New Yorker]
The arrest of Brad Lander in New York was the latest incident in a pattern of increasingly aggressive actions that the Administration has taken against Democrats.
Journalist Who Decried Trump’s ‘Deportation of Dissent’ Says He Was Deported for Dissent
Brett Wilkins, June 18, 2025 [CommonDreams]
…Alistair Kitchen said he was detained for 12 hours and interrogated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in Los Angeles International Airport while en route from Melbourne, Australia to New York last week.
“I was denied entry, detained, and deported from the USA over the last 48 hours because of my reporting on the Columbia [University] student protests,” Kitchen wrote Friday on the social media site Bluesky. “I arrived back in Melbourne hours ago and had my phone handed back to me upon landing.”
“I had it easy,” he added, “one woman had been in that detention room four days when I arrived; she’s still there.”
‘Drop Israel’: How military escalation with Iran divides Trump’s base
[Al Jazeera, via Naked Capitalism 06-15-2025]
Strategic Political Economy
Industrial Policy and Imperial Realignment
[Phenomenal World, via Naked Capitalism 06-16-2025]
…The normalization of industrial policy could mark a historic shift for developing countries. Over the past four decades, their ability to autonomously deploy industrial policies has been severely restricted, in a process described by Ha-Joon Chang as “kicking away the ladder” of catch-up development. A new consensus that re-legitimizes these tools could provide them with greater policy space to pursue instruments and practices hitherto off limits.
Yet the multiplication of industrial policies signals neither normalization nor consensus. Rather, industrial policy is increasingly the object of contestation over the norms and practices of state interventionism. Key actors—including advanced economies, emerging powers, and global governance institutions—diverge over (1) its appropriate form (2) its governance (3) its scope, (4) its objectives, and (5) the policy space available for state-driven experimentation.
In practice, industrial policy is being deployed asymmetrically across the global economy. Both the capacity to pursue transformative industrial policies and the form that enacted industrial policies take remain enormously shaped by global financial and monetary hierarchies, integration into global supply chains, and geopolitical positioning….
The Fed Can Give States and Cities Money Power to Fund Essential Social Programs
Michael Brennan, June 22, 2025 [CommonDreams]
…States, cities, and universities fiscal policy exists downstream from government money and bank money. Their lack of access to money power is a fundamental political problem by design. The federal government retaining the sole power to create government money keeps states and cities subordinate to Washington as a power center; the Federal Reserve granting access only to privately owned banks means our society prioritizes private wealth accumulation first above social needs. As Congress and the president push to stop the flow of new government money, states and cities can use this as an opportunity to refocus on bank money and the discrepancy between giving private banks the money power instead of the public.
The Federal Reserve can resolve this unjust dynamic by opening up the money power to states, cities, and universities directly. Just as it offers credit to banks at policy-dictated interest rates, the Fed can create credit facilities for states and cities at a policy rate that will further its mandate of price stability and maximum employment. Toward that end, the best default interest rate would be permanently at 0%.
The Fed did open credit access to states and cities during the Covid-19 pandemic via the Municipal Liquidity Facility (MLF)….
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 06-20-2025]
OECD does some of the best data work on China & industrial policy. Here they look at 14 manufacturing industries and 482 top firms—⅔ global output, ½ in OECD and ⅓ in China. In nearly all industries, Chinese firms invest more, are more productive, but earn less profit.
[TW: In other words, the Chinese government is able to keep in check the processes of speculation, usury, and rent extraction that have destroyed the industrial companies of USA and the west.]
Eran Ben-Joseph [The Conversation, via Naked Capitalism 06-15-2025]
In 1918, as World War I intensified overseas, the U.S. government embarked on a radical experiment: It quietly became the nation’s largest housing developer, designing and constructing more than 80 new communities across 26 states in just two years.
These weren’t hastily erected barracks or rows of identical homes. They were thoughtfully designed neighborhoods, complete with parks, schools, shops and sewer systems.
In just two years, this federal initiative provided housing for almost 100,000 people.Few Americans are aware that such an ambitious and comprehensive public housing effort ever took place. Many of the homes are still standing today.
Monopoly Round-Up: The Luxury of War
Matt Stoller [BIG, via Naked Capitalism 06-16-2025]
Global power shift
Russo-Ukrainian War: The Flaming Olive Branch
[Big Serge, via Naked Capitalism 06-18-2025]
…Russia and Ukraine have fundamentally different views of the relationship between military operations and negotiation. Ukraine seeks to negotiate to improve its military position: using performative diplomacy to leverage additional support from its western backers, and seeking a ceasefire to reconstitute its forces. Russia, on the other hand, uses military operations to improve its position in negotiations. The particular war aims and demands of the two parties are almost inconsequential, as the two sides do not even agree on what negotiations are for….
Trump is no doubt eager to avoid turning Ukraine into his own Afghanistan, and he has the benefit of a junior partner (Europe) which is perfectly willing, if not fully able, to hold the bag for him. All in all, Trump has managed Ukraine fairly well, if one understands that his chief objective has been to gain political flexibility, rather than ending the war at all costs or achieving some sort of Ukrainian victory. Simply by getting Ukrainian and Russian negotiators into the same room (no matter how performative the proceedings), he’s gained the leeway to tell the American public that he gave it his best shot; when the negotiations collapse, he can begin washing his hands of Ukraine and hand the flaming bag to the Europeans.
Chinese industrial maximalism: Lu Feng
[High Capacity, via Naked Capitalism 06-20-2025]
“Renowned Chinese scholar Lu Feng makes the case for why China needs more–not less–industrial development, particularly in its showdown with the US.”
China’s nuclear arsenal surges 20% in one year, reaching over 600 warheads: SIPRI
[Breaking Defense, via Naked Capitalism 06-16-2025]
African state strips French nuclear giant of uranium mine
[RT, via Naked Capitalism 06-21-2025]
China’s payment system spreads across Africa and Asia amid US trade war
[South China Morning Post, via Naked Capitalism 06-21-2025]
Oligarchy
How the Billionaires Took Over
Timothy Noah, June 19, 2025 [The New Republic]
Yes, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. But the far bigger menace is the monstrous growth in wealth concentration over five decades that made a Trump presidency possible—and maybe inevitable. Here’s how we let it happen….
America always had rich people, and they always influenced government. But never before have the rich amassed money and power on anything like this scale, and Trump helped them get there. After Trump’s 2017 tax cut, the combined wealth of America’s billionaires doubled to $6 trillion, according to a July 2024 report by Americans for Tax Fairness. Going back to the start of the twenty-first century, American billionaire wealth increased ninefold. There aren’t enough billionaires in America to fill Carnegie Hall, but they own 3.8 percent of the nation’s wealth….
Senate GOP Adds $1 Billion Tax ‘Giveaway’ for Big Oil to Budget Bill
Stephen Prager, June 20, 2025 [CommonDreams]
That provision was secured by Senator James Lankford, who has received more than $546,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry since 2019.
‘We’re going to be covering the entire city with drones:’ SFPD accepts billionaire’s $9.4M gift
[Mission Local, via Naked Capitalism 06-19-2025]
Meet the Billionaires Profiting the Most From Trump’s Draconian Policies
Akela Lacy, June 18 2025 [The Intercept]
Why You Should Hate the Rich Even More (w/ Rob Larson)
Chris Hedges, June 18, 2025
…This gross wealth imbalance produces a number of problems within a society, including the wealthy’s overreaching influence into policymaking….
Chris Hedges
Let’s talk about Richistan. What it’s like, I know, I was there, it’s disgusting. You spent the first part of the book describing life in Richistan where they really have no contact at all with the rest of us. If they ever deal with a member of the working class, it’s somebody who works for them, whether it’s their gardener, their chauffeur, their nanny.
And of course, as you point out in the book, if these people are not completely obsequious, they very swiftly don’t have a job. This creates a very distorted view of the world and understanding of the world because no matter how, again, this is from your book, anything they say that’s ridiculous or stupid just gets validated….
Rob Larson
Yeah, thanks Chris. I can do that. You know, just brace yourself as you revisit some of these atrocities. Yeah, the first thing I always just tell people and tell my students is just to start with the simplest aspect. If you are one of these really wealthy people, just start with the simple things like you own your home outright. It’s just your property. You know, you’re a wealthy person. You’re not a debtor who borrows money to do purchases or to get a home or mortgage like I have.
You’re being a debtor in that scenario. If you’re wealthy, you’re a creditor. You have investments. You put money into the system. Other people borrow it to your profit so they can have a mortgage or a car loan or whatever. So just that basic security, I feel, is something that’s already so foreign to a lot of conventional working and middle class people that I think it’s a good place to start.
Obviously, though, beyond owning that primary residence, of course, these people have multiple residences and many are just seasonal; you merely summer there or winter in this place in the Caribbean. And it means that most of the year those properties are completely empty with no one around or perhaps some staff….
But I really do think the deeper insight into that wealthy psychology is exactly what you mentioned Chris and your relationship with the people around you. And we can talk about what this does to your friends, but just purely focusing on the households here. Of course, if you’re rich, you interact with the working class whose paychecks you sign as you said, like that is the crucial thing. You don’t interact with just some independent blue collar person.
You interact with people who’ve been brought into your estate by your home or family manager who pays your bills and brings contractors out to do different kinds of work. And obviously this includes all the maintenance and work that it takes to keep these very fancy properties on their feet. But I also would say it’s that personal staff though that really shows you the issue. And we mentioned, yes, the great book Richistan, which is very enjoyable, a nice outline of the mid 2000s ruling class before the 2008 crisis….
And of course the effect is to make you an imperious, condescending jerk to everyone you deal with. And I always say, the real way to see the power of this is to watch what happens when these characters are occasionally actually criticized. And to me, the definitive version of that in our lifetimes was the 2020 presidential debates where Elizabeth Warren, whatever one may think of her history of candidacies, really tore into Michael Bloomberg publicly during their debate and I think she could have gone a lot further, but she was very disparaging to his face.
And I invite people just to pull up the video of that and just look at Bloomberg’s face in that moment. He looks like he’s seeing aliens arrive on the earth. He’s so dumbstruck. It is the face of a man who’s never been criticized to his face for 20 years. So I think that kind of shows you what happens to the relationships when you’re deep in Richistan like that….
The carnage of mainstream neoliberal economics
Why Is Google Still in One Piece? The Terminating a Monopoly Problem
Matt Stoller [BIG, via Naked Capitalism 06-19-2025]
[TW: Contrast Stoller to the financier / rentier focus of this piece on USA railroad financial performance — from an industry trade report, no less.]
If All Else Fails, Attempt to Merge
[Rail Group News, June 16, 2025]
Investors await the next leg of Class I rail earnings growth… Our report explores the factors at play that can drive the future success of the railroads. We believe the Class I’s need change; if they cannot show volume growth, the group may be at risk to de-rate lower or be forced to look at merging.
Trumpillnomics
South Africa Built a Medical Research Powerhouse. Trump Cuts Have Demolished It.
[New York Times, via Naked Capitalism 06-18-2025]
…South Africa has for decades been a medical research powerhouse, yet its stature has been little known to people outside the field. South Africa’s scientists have been responsible for key breakthroughs against major global killers, including heart disease, H.I.V. and respiratory viruses such as Covid-19. They have worked closely with American researchers and have been awarded more research funding from the United States than any other country has received.
But a swift series of executive orders and budget cuts from the Trump administration have, in a matter of months, demolished this research ecosystem.There are grim ramifications for human health worldwide, and also for pharmaceutical companies, including American giants such as Pfizer, Merck, Abbott and Gilead Sciences, which rely heavily on South Africa’s research complex when they develop and test new drugs, vaccines and treatments.
Restoring balance to the economy
Inci Sayki, 21 Jun 2025 [The Lever]
At a time when the world’s richest man recently said the president wouldn’t have won the election without him and super PACs representing special interests can shower candidates with unlimited funds, grassroots fundraising is making a comeback, including in a high-profile mayoral race.
“We cannot allow billionaires and powerful corporate interests to continue undermining democracy by injecting unlimited amounts of money into the political process,” eight senators, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wrote in a letter addressed to the Democratic Party’s leaders on June 17. They argued that the outsize influence of wealthy donors like Elon Musk made Americans lose faith in the political system and called on the Democratic Party’s leaders to reject billionaire money by removing super PAC and dark money spending from Democratic primaries.
This is “not some pie in the sky dream,” the letter noted, pointing to a resolution adopted by the Arizona Democratic Party earlier this month. The resolution instructs the state’s party to “bar, to the greatest extent possible, the use of massive private wealth to buy or unduly influence our primary elections,” marking the first time a state Democratic Party formally banned big money in its primaries.
How Philadelphia Secured Basic Rights for 750,000 Workers
Brock Hrehor, June 18, 2025 [The American Prospect]
As Trump kneecaps workers’ rights across the country, the city’s political and labor leaders have forged an alternative that furnishes new safeguards for Philadelphians.
Health care crisis
[Boondoggle, via Naked Capitalism 06-19-2025]
Republicans Threaten a Hospital Apocalypse
David Dayen, June 19, 2025 [The American Prospect]
… Senate cuts to the provider tax, a way for states to get more federal funding for their Medicaid programs, along with the House cuts that have been analyzed as leading to at least 11 million fewer people on the Medicaid rolls, will deeply harm the 700-plus rural hospitals already at risk of closure….
Information age dystopia / surveillance state
[ArXiv, via Naked Capitalism 06-18-2025]
[Futurism, via Naked Capitalism 06-18-2025]
Climate and environmental crises
The $1 Trillion Climate Problem Republicans Are Ignoring
Kate Aronoff, June 19, 2025, [The New Republic]
…In the 12-month period ending on May 1, the U.S. spent an estimated $1 trillion on disaster recovery and other climate-related needs, according to a new analysis released on Wednesday by Bloomberg Intelligence….
…Homeowners’ insurance rates have risen more than 40 percent in the last six years, according to a separate study published last week by the online lender LendingTree. While Florida and California tend to grab the most attention for their insurance troubles, the highest rates and increases have been in Midwestern states, which are racked by tornadoes, wind, and hailstorms. Rates in Nebraska have climbed by more than 70 percent, and homeowners there now pay an average of $5,912 for an annual policy—more than twice the national average and the second-highest average in the nation after Oklahoma. That’s thanks in large part to an uptick in weather disasters that are often exacerbated by climate change. Through the 1990s, Nebraska experienced just four weather-related disasters that cost more than $1 billion. In the last five years, there have been 17.
Creating new economic potential – science and technology
Axolotl Discovery Brings Us Closer Than Ever to Regrowing Human Limbs
[Science Alert, via Naked Capitalism 06-20-2025]
Composites end markets: Energy (2025)
Hannah Mason [CompositesWorld]
[TW: an excellent overview with a strong focus on technological and business developments in renewable and nuclear energy industries. ]
Inside the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Quest To Map The Universe
John Oncea, May 13, 2025 [photonicsonline.com]
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will revolutionize astronomy with its massive digital camera, real-time data, and a decade-long sky survey, hunting Planet 9.
[Sustainability Times, via Naked Capitalism 06-15-2025]
RECONDUCTORING: BUILDING TOMORROW’S GRID TODAY
[Hackaday, via Naked Capitalism 06-16-2025]
Democrats’ political malpractice
Hungry for Progressive Economics, Nearly 2/3 of Democrats Want New Party Leadership: Poll
Stephen Prager, June 20, 2025 [CommonDreams]
Voters described universal healthcare, affordable childcare, and higher taxes on the rich as top priorities in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. But they were less likely to believe that party leaders shared those priorities.
The Secret to Trump’s Appeal That Democrats Still Miss
[New York Times, via Naked Capitalism 06-18-2025]
Obama warns America is ‘dangerously close’ to moving away from democracy
[The Independent, via Naked Capitalism 06-19-2025]
Citigroup chose Obama’s 2008 cabinet, WikiLeaks document reveals
[WSWS, via Naked Capitalism 06-19-2025] From 2016, still germane.
Helen Lewis, June 16, 2025 [The Atlantic]
Trump’s transactional regime
US tycoon pours $100mn into Trump crypto project after SEC reprieve
[FT, via Naked Capitalism 06-16-2025]
‘Golden Share’ in U.S. Steel Gives Trump Extraordinary Control
[New York Times, via Naked Capitalism 06-17-2025]
Resistance
Elie Mystal: Democrats should form a shadow government like de Gaulle did during Nazi occupation
Dean Obeidallah, June 21, 2025
…Mystal explained that “de Gaulle goes to England and acts as if he’s the French President despite having absolutely no power to do so.” Yet De Gaulle “continued to put it out there about what France should be doing.” And in doing so, he played a major role in turning French “public opinion against the Vichy government,” Mystal explained.
The best-selling author then connected De Gaulle to today’s politics. “The Democrats should be doing the same thing” adding, “They are a government in exile, and they have to start acting like it.”
To that end, Mystal was emphatic “that the Democrats should be running a kind of European style shadow government.” He noted that this shadow cabinet could “do counter programming to address every time Trump says something as well as every time Trump or his administration says or does something.” Democratic shadow cabinet officials would respond with not just fact checking but laying out what Democrats would have done if in power.
This idea of a shadow government has long been part of British politics. In the U.K, “The Shadow Cabinet” is a team of senior spokespeople chosen by the opposition party to mirror the Cabinet in Government. As the UK Parliament’s website explains, “Each member of the shadow cabinet is appointed to lead on a specific policy area for their party and to question and challenge their counterpart in the Cabinet.” For example, there is a shadow Secretary of Defense and Home office. This allows the opposition party to be viewed as an “an alternative government-in-waiting.”
Second Civil War: Thoughts On Preparing the Battlefield
Jim Stewartson, Jun 19, 2025 [MindWar]
…The establishment allowed the insurrection to continue for four years through the Biden administration, which never once directly addressed the root cause of the deepening fracture in the electorate. We allowed the Russians and their American collaborators to continue to radicalize our citizens. No one above Proud Boy ever spent a day in prison for trying to murder the Vice President and Nancy Pelosi.
J6 could have been a fascist insurrection that was put down, rooted out, and left to history as a warning for all future governments by a Democratic administration. Donald Trump should be in prison for the rest of his life, along with the people who planned it. Instead, we allowed the enemy to erase the worst attack on the Capitol since the Civil War, to put Trump back in the White House, and to let the foot soldiers out of prison to threaten Americans with violence, again.
The weakness of the Democrats have now ensured that J6 was not the culmination of a dangerous reemergence of fascism, it ensured J6 was the start of the Second Civil War.
Incredibly, after losing the election, the Democrats have just gotten worse. The DNC voted for a feckless milquetoast hack, who is doing exactly as well as you might expect. The Democratic Party, which I was a member of until a few months ago, is currently self-immolating while the country is being beaten to death by an abusive, demented tyrant….
If I were going to construct a brief, top line platform as a way to build messaging and strategy for a true opposition movement, it would look something like this:
- Defend the Constitution from enemies, foreign and domestic
- Restore separation of church and state
- Rebalance and strengthen the system of checks and balances
- Rebuild the intelligence community and national security apparatus
- Eject foreign interests and prosecute collaborators
- Protect the vote from interference by foreign governments and billionaires
- Defeat racism, gender discrimination, and religious bigotry
- A pluralistic, multicultural population is the reason for American exceptionalism
- Pass the ERA, restore Roe, strengthen the Civil Rights Act to include LGBTQ+ people, reverse Citizens United
- Abolish oligarchs
- Eisenhower tax on billionaires
- Provide healthcare for all
- Restore American dominance in science and technology
- Recreate the federal government for the 21st century
- Challenge Silicon Valley to stop undermining their government and start helping it to dominate
- Delete all contracts with antidemocratic companies and people
- The PayPal Mafia must be dismantled and defeated
- Regain control of our military and space program
- We must never allow critical parts of our government to be controlled by private citizens or allow our military to be abused to wage war on Americans civilians
- Regulate cryptocurrency, social media and AI
- Each of these crucial technologies is being weaponized by anti-government oligarchs to destabilize America
- Restore America as a global leader
- Defeat Putin in Eastern Europe
- End support for Netanyahu’s regime
- Defend Taiwan from CCP aggression
- Restore NATO as America’s force-multiplier in Europe
- End tariffs and trade wars
- Strengthen the dollar, remove crypto from the government
The (anti)Federalist Society assault on the Constitution
Under GOP Budget Bill, You’d Have to Be Rich to Sue the Trump Administration
Shawn Musgrave, June 17 2025 [The Intercept]
Courts couldn’t issue injunctions or restraining orders against the government unless plaintiffs pay for a security bond.
Senate GOP’s Remedy for Anti-Trump Lawsuits? Make Them Impossible.
Thom Hartmann, June 20, 2025 [The New Republic]
There’s a provision in the Senate’s “big, beautiful bill” that would make plaintiffs against the federal government post huge bonds to file lawsuits. And they’re proud of this crap.
Civic republicanism
Evolution made us cheats, now free-riders run the world and we need to change, new book warns
[University of Cambridge, via Naked Capitalism 06-18-2025]
[Paul R: “To save democracy and solve the world’s biggest challenges, we need to get better at spotting and exposing people who exploit human cooperation for personal gain, argues Cambridge social scientist Dr Jonathan Goodman.”]
Feral Finster
“Now that Trump has fully thrown in with the pro-war faction, we will learn if those who supported Trump because they believed Trump would be a foil against the “globalist” elites, accept the chastening of a hard lesson learned.”
They will learn nothing, but will throw out excuse after excuse, even as Trump betrays them over and over again.
“More importantly, now that Trump has allowed the globalists to steer us into a war against Iran, will those who supported Trump be vigilant against Trump using the war to exercise his “war powers” and impose authoritarian measures on the USA population?”
No. They are itching for the chance to finally stick it to their hated enemies.
To be fair, if Harris had won, those enemies would be doing much the same to them, albeit the rationalizations would be more glib.
Curt Kastens
I guess that was Jim Stewartson that wrote that Platform for resistence to Trump.
What a crock of shit that Platform is. OK there are some food points on it. Banna and Cocunut Ice Cream. But the platform certianly does not rise to the level in which someone should say we should not let good be the Ally of Bad by waiting for perfection.
I will not stick my neck out for any movement that does not recognise Putiin as being the leader of a betrayed country and accuses him of imperialist ambitions. He may have to send the Russian military all the way to Lisbon to protect the people of Prussia.
But that is only because the current Euro leadership consists of intransigent Nazis. So I doubt that there will be many people willing to take any risk to support the Platform that was put forth because it has to many flaws.
DMC
Defeat Putin in Eastern Europe
Us and what army? Not going to happen
End support for Netanyahu’s regime
Considering that there are exactly five people in Congress that are NOT on the Zionist payroll, how’s that going to happen?
Defend Taiwan from CCP aggression
Because that’s worth starting WW3 over!
Restore NATO as America’s force-multiplier in Europe
HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH !!
End tariffs and trade wars
Actually, this one makes sense.
Strengthen the dollar, remove crypto from the government
Better yet, remove crypto PERIOD!
bruce wilder
There have been some figures among Trump’s supporters, who have expressed serious disappointment that he did not choose to resist Netanyahoo’s 30-year-old sales pitch for war with Iran. Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon in particular were visible on social media.
Some Democrats embraced a demand that Congress should vote on war, though Schumer and Jeffries made sure no opposition to Trump’s plan to bomb Iran’s facilities of Iran’s nuclear program.
This despite polls showing no popular enthusiasm for war on behalf of a genocidal Israel.
One conclusion to draw is that it doesn’t matter which Party controls the White House or Congress, the Deep State and/or Israel rules. This hypothesis would go some way toward explaining why the visible political leadership of the country — whether politicians or mainstream media pundits — appear so nonchalant. And, stupid.
The stupidity of trying to bomb Iran’s nuclear program into non-existence does not pass the most basic test of matching means to ends. What obstacles do these morons think stand in the way of Iran putting a bomb on an ICBM? Iran obviously has the missiles already and Iran has had nuclear energy and uranium energy already for many years. Iran’s nuclear “bench” of engineers is too deep to assasinate into oblivion. Don’t brain geniuses at the CIA know this? And, then of course, they might “borrow” a nuke from Pakistan, which has been ever so helpful to proliferators in the past.
I am not sure a nuke is strategically usable as anything other than a threat. But, I am reasonably sure a hypersonic can disable a nuclear aircraft carrier.