Saturday, June 21, 2025

Links 6/21/2025

Michael Hudson: Why America Is at War with Iran

The neocon logic for needing to defeat Iran and break it into ethnic parts

NATO’s Procurement Corruption Scandal Might Delay Its Rapid Militarization Plans

Yves here. Yet another example of European values in action! A corruption scandal in Aisle 5! While this procurement abuse is not all that big an impediment to European NATO members bulking up their armed forces, say compared to voters not being on board with baked-in social spending cuts, the lack of an industrial base, […]

Coffee Break: Healthcare and the State of Science, Plus Baseball and Abundance

Part the First. How Did the United States Get This Healthcare System?  I distinctly remember the first time this question occurred to me, because as the child of a union household a visit to the doctor or the Emergency Room (trees were made to fall out of) was never a problem.  I was twenty years […]

ICE’s Rap Sheet Grows With Continuing Defiance of Congressional Oversight at Facilities, Attempt to Write Its Own Rules

ICE is becoming even more high-handed in its defiance of legally mandated Congressional oversight rights.

Links 6/20/2025

Christine Lagarde’s Delusions of Grandeur(o)

As the US dollar’s decline deepens, is this the EU’s “global Euro moment”?  

What if MAGA Has a Point About Science?

On the fallen legitimacy of science in the US, and what might be done about that.

The US Is Taxing the World’s Poorest — and Is Disguising It as Regulation

Yet more mean-spirited US conduct, here via taxing remittances, hurting families of (often legal) migrants and their home countries.

Nihilism is at the Core of the Israel-Iran Conflict — Not Nuclear Weapons

Nihilism, understood as the absence of a transcendental purpose, lies at the heart of the conflict that Israel initiated against Iran

Trump Reportedly Greenlights Plan for US Attack on Iran Without Congressional Approval

The Trump administration barrels toward U.S. intervention in Iran, with neither reality nor Congress serving as a check.

Links 6/19/2025

Will Iran Actually Close the Strait of Hormuz? Eni CEO Weighs In

Investors seem unduly chill about the risk that a US attack on Iran will produce a formal or de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Via the False Claims Act, NIH Creates Another Weapon for Ideological Enforcement at Universities

Universities are loath to take NIH funding due to “evil” grant terms that make ideological non-compliance subject to False Claims Act damages

What’s Next for Capitalism — Reinvention or Authoritarian Rule?

In Capitalism and Its Critics, John Cassidy presents historical foes of monopoly, inequality, environmental peril, and authoritarianism