Links 5/2/2023 | naked capitalism - Montana Digital News

#COVID-19

Cytokine deficiencies in patients with Long-COVID Journal of Clinical and Cellular Immunology (karenica). Small sample but dire findings. karenica in comments yesterday that all the long Covid cases studied (12) had zero circulating levels of Interferon Gamma. That is what you see in AIDS.

We are in our fourth year of work to understand #LongCovid and we now know things about it thanks to science. After being told again by a quasi-well meaning, if uninformed, clinician that LC is just functional neurological disorder (FND). Here’s a 🧵 on why LC IS NOT FND (1/)

— Putrino Lab (@PutrinoLab) May 1, 2023

Breaking news: A leading cardiologist and covid scientist in the UK says the average age of referrals to her clinic has gone from 55-80 years-old before the pandemic to 16-40 years-old now. This astonishing shift seems worthy of media attention

— Nate Bear (@NateB_Panic) May 1, 2023

Climate/Environment

Oil Company Gave $200K to Group Accusing Pipeline Opponents of Taking Secret Money DeSmog (Dr. Kevin)

China?

US tracking another mystery balloon – media RT (Kevin W)

Jack Ma, the billionaire co-founder of Alibaba who disappeared from public life in 2020, has taken up a teaching role in Japan Yahoo! News (Kevin W)

La belle France

May Day march against pension reform: Protesters determined to ‘give it our all’ France24 (Alison L)

France protests: More than 100 police hurt in May Day demonstrations BBC (Kevin W)

Le Maire doubles down on reform plans after Fitch cuts France’s credit rating Politico

Old Blighty

They call it ‘national conservatism’ but it’s a divisive, far-right movement. Why are Tories embracing it? Guardian

New Not-So-Cold War

St Petersburg Travel Notes – Part One Gilbert Doctorow (guurst)

Lawmakers deploy ‘Munich’ trope to push dangerously hawkish Ukraine resolutions Responsible Statescraft (Kevin W)

9 years ago, the teeming crowd – people who cheered at human beings being burned alive & survivors being finished off with steel pipes – had their moment of national birth; from this event the “Ukrainian nation” was born. On this day, war stopped being a matter of geopolitical… https://t.co/1fJUzsrHe8

— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) May 2, 2023

Now is not the time for Ukraine to join NATO – member state’s president RT. “Member state” is Lithuania.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Mockery Of An Indian Deity Was Reprehensible Andrew Korybko. Erm, not only is offending an estimated 1.2 billion Hindu believers not such a hot idea, going after Kali was even less smart. As I understand it, Kali (who wears a necklace of the human heads) regularly appears in Hindu myths, most often to kill demons other gods have managed to set loose. From Wikipedia:

Kali, also referred to as Mahakali, Bhadrakali, and Kalika (Sanskrit: कालिका), is a Hindu goddess who is considered to be the goddess of ultimate power, time, destruction and change in Shaktism. In this tradition, she is considered as a ferocious form of goddess Adi Shakti, the supreme of all powers, or the ultimate reality. She is the first of the ten Mahavidyas in the Hindu tantric tradition.

As the headline stresses, this tweet was issued by the Ukraine Ministry of Defense, not an overheated commentator. What are these people thinking? How is this remotely helpful? I wish I could find the article again, but a very good piece (more than a few months ago) explained with a great deal of supporting detail how Nazi/Banderite absolutism amounted to a death cult. The self-destructiveness of stunts like this would seem to bear that view out.

Another fake to the pile. Reversed footage, sneaky sneaky.https://t.co/XA3BjoEsxr

— Dr.Snekotron (@snekotron) May 2, 2023

Ukraine Welcomes EU Deal on Continued Farm Exports US News (Kevin W)

BREAKING NEWS FROM THE DONBASS FRONT, THE TEIXEIRA CASE, AND THEN FROM CANADA — WHAT HAPPENS TO THE OTTAWA REGIME WHEN THE KIEV REGIME IS DEFEATED John Helmer. I am remiss in not saying this sooner here (I have said it privately. It seems close to certain Teixeira will be given an at least not-bad plea deal. The officialdom cannot allow him to engage in meaningful discovery.

Syraqistan

THREAD: Bezalel Smotrich, the extremist Israeli politician with massive control over the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, just admitted that Israel’s official policy is to destroy Palestinian towns that connect large Palestinian areas.

Why? To end Palestinian sovereignty. pic.twitter.com/gITeRqOqGv

— IMEU (@theIMEU) May 1, 2023

Egypt to raise prices of basic commodities like oil and rice Middle East Eye (resilc)

Looted antiquities returned to Yemen The Cradle (Micael T)

Imperial Collapse Watch

We’ve provided factoids like this in comments, which helps explain why even if countries denominate more trade away from the greenback, it’s not going to have the impact on the dollar as soon as you’d expect. The role of FX, not trade, also determines which currencies are useful for central banks to defend their currencies when they get in trouble.

How Big Is BRICS? Antiwar.com (Kevin W)

Things that get lost in regular discussions: real world vs. financial world. https://t.co/cmbduN01ly

— RationalInvestor (@Orangeman1992) April 28, 2023

The Limits of U.S.-India Partnership Daniel Larison

With Marcos watching, US Army HIMARS fires 6 times but misses target in South China Sea Stars and Stripes (guurst). From last week, still germane.

Trump

Trump to appear at CNN town hall in New Hampshire CNN (furzy)

Horror Scenario: Germans Prepare for Possible Re-Election of Donald Trump Der Spiegel (resilc). As if Biden blowing up the Nord Streams and the Europe-exploiting Inflation Reduction Act are so much better than Trump?

Pro-Trump pastors rebuked for ‘overt embrace of white Christian nationalism’ Guardian (Kevin W). The piece tries to depict other pastors as the critics, when it looks like NGOs: “Christian social justice group Sojourners” and Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.” Not sayin’ there aren’t actually some pastors unhappy with this, but oddly the Guardian couldn’t be bothered to find one to give a quote.

Biden

I have now heard a Biden fundraising ad 2x in barely an hour of YouTube listening today. This on a channel that engages in anti-globalist commentary, as in would not skew Democrat. Biden discusses finishing the job and sounds and looks weak. This smacks of being a terrible campaign. Which does not mean he won’t necessarily win given terrible alternatives. But Biden is clearly promising nothing.

Debt Ceiling

Yellen: U.S. Could Run Out of Cash as Soon as June 1 U.S. News (furzy)

McCarthy accepts Biden’s invitation to meet on May 9 amid debt limit standoff
The Hill

Abortion

Feds: Hospitals that denied emergency abortion broke the law Associated Press (furzy). More proof of unseriousness on abortion. The Center for Medicare Services certifies hospitals for Medicare reimbursements. No participation in Medicare is a death sentence for hospitals. The Feds could easily bring hospitals to heel but it has never been serious about using these powers.

Oklahoma abortion ban delays care for partial molar pregnancy NPR (furzy)

Our No Longer Free Press

Twitter to let publishers charge users per article read, says Elon Musk Guardian (furzy). Seems a bit desperate. Twitter does not have any way to make me pay, so I don’t see how this works.

You Should Read Tucker Carlson’s Last Speech Before Fox Fired Him Intercept. I can understand not liking Tucker for his racist dog whistles. But the venom in this piece is over the top. So now we have Tucker derangement syndrome too?

Police State Watch

This is the Atlanta Way: A Primer on Cop City Scalawag (martha r)

Tennessee Advances Bill to Arm Teachers After Deadly Nashville School Shooting U.S. News (furzy)

B-a-a-a-a-d Banks

JPMorgan Chase acquires substantial majority of assets and assumes certain liabilities of First Republic Bank JP Morgan (furzy)

Here’s the Great Deal JP Morgan Got on First Republic, according to JP Morgan’s Victory Lap in front of Investors Wolf Richter

How JPMorgan’s Dimon won the First Republic deal Reuters. The breathlessness is grating.

First Republic fallout: Democrats fume as regulators bail out yet another failed bank The Hill

US regional bank shares drop after First Republic failure Financial Times

“Godfather of deep learning” Geoffrey Hinton quits Google to warn against dangers of AI BetaKit (Dr. Kevin)

AI chatbots have been used to create dozens of news content farms Business Standard (furzy)

Crooks don’t need ChatGPT to social-engineer victims, as they’re more than happy to demonstrate The Register

Political Science Joe Costello. Arendt on how modern republicanism constrains action and the only parties allowed to engage in it were technocrats and scientists.

Class Warfare

Greg Afinogenov · What should the action be? Anarchism’s Failure London Review of Books (Anthony L)

Firm that hired kids to clean meat plants keeps losing work Yahoo! News (Kevin W)

Will We Ever See Affordable Housing Prices Again? A Wealth of Common Sense (Micael T). From last month, still germane.

May Day began in 1886 when tens of thousands of workers in Chicago, led by socialists, went on strike for the 8-hour day. They were repressed and their leaders hung.

Workers all around the world now celebrate May Day to commemorate the long struggle against capitalism. pic.twitter.com/ByySBTTpOv

— Danny Haiphong (@SpiritofHo) May 1, 2023

Antidote du jour (CV):