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Debt Rattle June 16 2026

Jun 162026
 
 June 16, 2026  Posted by at 9:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  Add comments


El Greco St. Paul and St. Peter 1595


• US and Iran Agree On Peace Roadmap, Israel Rejects All Terms (RT)
• Trump Details Iran Deal At G7: No Nukes, Conditional Sanctions Relief (ZH)
• Trump Scores Once-Elusive Peace Deal With Iran, Easing Oil Prices (Ben Whedon)
• President Trump Attends G7 in France – This One Will Be Ridiculous (CTH)
• So, What Do We Know? (Rabobank)
• Yes, Trump’s Iran Deal Is So Much Better Than Obama’s (Margolis)
• SpaceX Erupts In After Hours Trading, Hits $3 Trillion Market Cap (ZH)
• Why Did the Smartest AI in the World Just Go Dark? (Stephen Green)
• Anthropic Races To Defuse Trump’s Fable 5 U.S. Export Curbs (ZH)
• Monsters Far and Near (James Howard Kunstler)
• No Friends for Comey; Judge Rules No Amicus Briefs (Alan Wooten)
• Ukrainian Military Hooked on Drugs – Deutsche Welle (RT)
• Starmer to Ban Under-16s From 10 Social Media Apps Including X (DS)
• Starmer Announces Social Media Control System to Protect “Children” (CTH)
• Newspaper Dailies Killing Their Editorial Pages (Tim O’Brien)
• You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone: The Tragedy of John Cleese (PJM)

 


 

 


 


“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly rejected the deal terms that pertain to his country’s invasion of Lebanon..”

• US and Iran Agree On Peace Roadmap, Israel Rejects All Terms (RT)

The US and Iran said they have agreed on a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the conflict, which began on February 28 with a joint US-Israeli bombing campaign and prompted Tehran to close the Strait of Hormuz to most shipping. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told US President Donald Trump that Israel does not consider itself bound by the Lebanon-related provisions of the agreement with Iran and will not withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon, according to Ynet. The US-Iran agreement will reportedly be formally signed on Friday in Geneva, Switzerland.


Iran has said the document would focus on ending the war and reopening the strait, while the two sides would have 60 days to negotiate the future of Iran’s nuclear program. Trump wrote on Truth Social that he ordered “the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz” and the end of the US naval blockade of Iranian ports. “Let the oil flow!” he added. Trump later clarified that the waterway, which carries around a quarter of global seaborne oil and LNG shipments, would reopen after the agreement is signed.

The talks were repeatedly stalled and delayed, with both sides accusing each other of making unacceptable demands and citing a lack of trust. Most recently, Iran threatened to suspend the negotiations over Israel’s continuing strikes in Lebanon. In an effort to prevent the talks from collapsing, Trump reportedly demanded that Israel halt the attacks during several heated phone calls with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Here are the latest developments:
• Iran will reportedly reopen the Strait of Hormuz, halt uranium enrichment, and renounce nuclear weapons in exchange for the release of $25 billion in frozen assets, sanctions relief, an end to the US naval blockade, and a $300 billion reconstruction package.
• Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has called for an end to Israeli military actions in Lebanon, saying during separate phone calls with his Turkish, Iraqi, and Egyptian counterparts that all hostilities must cease.
• Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said the IDF will not withdraw from southern Lebanon despite the reported terms of the agreement, warning that it will respond “with full force” if Iran attacks over its operations against Hezbollah.
• The EU has welcomed the reported deal, with foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas saying it could create “much-needed space.”
• Oil prices fell sharply on the news, with US WTI crude dropping 4.7% to $80.83 a barrel and Brent crude falling around 4% to $83.77, the lowest levels since March 4, shortly after the US-Israeli operation against Iran began.

Read more …

Los of people saying this is not a real deal. Guys, this is Trump, who became a billionaire trading in a cutthroat market.

• Trump Details Iran Deal At G7: No Nukes, Conditional Sanctions Relief (ZH)

CNBC is reporting that a deal between the US and Iran has been electronically signed by Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. According to an unnamed US official, the US-Iran MOU provides for the ‘immediate’ reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, however – while President Trump said earlier that ships were beginning to move, the US official then said that reopening the strait would ‘take time’ due to mines, and that we can expect an increase in strait traffic over the next 1-2 weeks.


Trump addressed reporters and allies at the G7 summit in France on Monday, just hours after a major interim agreement with Iran that includes a 60-day ceasefire, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and strict limits on Tehran’s nuclear program. Speaking alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, he repeatedly underscored that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was the central achievement of the deal. “The main thing is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “They fully agreed to that with strong policing powers.”

He then compared it to the Obama-era JCPOA, calling the earlier agreement “a horrible deal for the United States” that had put Iran on “a road to a nuclear weapon” while sending billions of dollars to Tehran. Trump was also sharply critical of past U.S. cash payments to Iran, describing the $1.7 billion withdrawal from banks plus tens of billions in additional spending as a failed attempt to “bribe them to make a deal that didn’t work.” On the current arrangement, Trump stressed that any sanctions relief would be strictly behavioral and tied to compliance rather than granted simply for signing. He noted improved relations with Iran’s current leadership and reported that the Strait of Hormuz is already partially open, with mines being cleared and commercial shipping set to resume fully by Friday.

Markets reacted immediately, with stocks surging and oil prices posting their biggest drop in some time. Trump also called for an end to fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, saying the long-running conflict “should NOT be tough” to address and that “we have to have a little talk with them.” Less than 24 hours after the Iran developments, he revealed he had already spoken with both President Zelensky and President Putin, describing the conversations as “very good” and expressing optimism that progress could be made to stop the bloodshed in Ukraine, where he noted roughly 25,000 people are dying each month.

Details of the MOU will be released over the next 24-48 hours, though one US official said that the MOU contains ‘possible’ $300 billion in reconstruction funding.

Ghalibaf notably came into public view for the first time in weeks in April to lead the Iranian delegation in talks in Islamabad with US Vice President DJ Vance – marking the highest-level contact between the two foes since before the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Trump
President Trump on Monday claimed on Truth Social that commercial ships loaded with oil are transiting the Strait of Hormuz followinmg an announced deal to end hostilities with Iran. “Ships are starting to move, many loaded up with Oil, out of the Strait of Hormuz,” he wrote. “They are going along the Southern ‘Highway,’ which is totally safe, secure, and pristine. There are other areas of travel, also!!!”

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“The terms of the agreement were unavailable as of Sunday night, but a top Pakistan mediator said both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of all military operations.”

• Trump Scores Once-Elusive Peace Deal With Iran, Easing Oil Prices (Ben Whedon)

President Donald Trump has unveiled a deal to end 47 years of hostilities with Iran, bringing months of U.S.military operations to an end and opening the Strait of Hormuz in a one-two punch certain to ease oil prices ahead of the midterm elections.”Let the oil flow!” Trump declared Sunday on social media after completing the deal on his 80th birthday and the day the U.S. began its 250th anniversary celebration with an historic UFC Freedom 250 mixed martial arts fight on the White House South Lawn. A signed ceremony was set for Friday in Switzerland.


“The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorize the toll-free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade. Ships of the World, start your engines.” Trump said the U.S. Navy would immediately end the blockade of the strait, which it maintained for several weeks in response to Iranian interdiction of oil tankers. Other details about the deal were not available as of Sunday evening including those on a key sticking point – whether Iran will wind down its nuclear enrichment program.

However, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a top negotiator in the peace negotiations, said the sides have declared an immediate and permanent end to military operations including those in Lebanon. Prior to Sunday, Trump claimed nearly 40 times since the start of the war on Feb. 28 to be close to a deal with Iran or to have reached some measure of consensus with the Iranian government, according to CNN. The war began with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Speculation abounded throughout the conflict that the Iranian regime might succumb to internal pressure or face an incursion from Kurdish forces, though it appears to have emerged with the core of its government intact.

Trump has said he started the war to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon, after negotiations on that matter failed. Other objectives, he said, were to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities and navy and to ensure the Iranian regime could no longer fund or direct “terrorist armies” outside its borders. Sharif also said Sunday that a signing ceremony would occur on Friday. Pakistan was a critical mediator in negotiating the original ceasefire agreement, which managed to hold despite intermittent bouts of live-fire attacks by nearly every combatant faction. “With the agreement now in place, mediators will facilitate a series of meetings this week,” he also said.

“These pre-implementation discussions will lay the foundation for the technical talks and the official signing ceremony.” The deal and the Friday signing ceremony already represent something of a moved goal post, considering Trump previously stated that the signing ceremony would take place Sunday and insisted upon that timetable until early Sunday afternoon.Plenty of time remains between Friday and the present, however, and if prior alleged deals are any indication, any number of potential developments could upend the agreement. On Sunday alone, Trump fumed over Israel launching strikes on Lebanon in response to an attack by Hezbollah, asserting that the Israeli response jeopardized a peace agreement.

Fighting in Lebanon was a sticking point for the Iranians, who repeatedly insisted that the original ceasefire was meant to include Lebanon. Trump repeatedly pressed Israel to abandon continued conflict in the country against Hezbollah, leading to considerable tensions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. How Israel, considered the United States’ longest and most loyal Middle East ally, will respond to the agreement announced Sunday is also a factor to consider going into Friday. Public opinion has been decidedly opposed to the war throughout the conflict and opinions of Israel have soured dramatically. The disruption to oil sales has also led to higher gas prices, which in turn, contributed to dropping approval numbers for the Trump administration.

But the news of an agreement is likely to soothe markets, especially if maritime commerce fully resumes through the strait, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply passes. Such a development could conceivably result in falling gas prices and potentially higher approval ratings for the administration. The war will apparently end without a complete, so-called “regime change,” for which war hawks repeatedly advocated. Iranians staged large public demonstrations against the regime weeks before the start of the war that resulted in thousands of reported deaths. However, public opinion still was not in support of the U.S. overthrowing the Iranian government.

At one point, Trump stated that the U.S. had attempted to arm anti-regime dissidents in Iran by supplying them with weapons through Kurdish factions, though he said the Kurdish groups merely kept the weapons for themselves. The long-term implications of the war for the U.S.’s presence in the Middle East remain somewhat unclear. Numerous Gulf State allies expressed frustration with the U.S. during the conflict over its limited ability to supply interceptors for their own defense as the Americans struggled to intercept Iranian strikes on Israel, U.S. bases, and allied nations. Iranian forces, for their part, repeatedly stressed to neighboring nations that aiding U.S. operations against them made those nations valid targets for Iranian counter-operations.

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For Trump, the G7 is like Gulliver among the lilliputters.

• President Trump Attends G7 in France – This One Will Be Ridiculous (CTH)

The G7 was originally constructed as an assembly for the U.S, Japan, Canada, Germany, Italy, France and the U.K. However, in the past several years it is abandoned it’s limited economic purpose and agenda and morphed into an assembly of nations far beyond the original intent.


Now we watch the ridiculous assemblies of dozens of nations who come under the guise of the G7 to discuss everything from cow-farting mitigation to the best weapons and techniques to fight the Russians. The economic focus of the G7 is entirely lost. This will never be more evident than the current apex assembly of leaders brought together at the invitation of Emmanuel Macron in France. Watch and you’ll see how geopolitically ridiculous this has become.

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A bankers’ view of war?!

• So, What Do We Know? (Rabobank)

A deal is struck and the parties are reportedly set to sign on Friday of this week. Markets are jubilant after an agreement was confirmed by US, Iranian and Pakistani sources, but not without first being threatened by Israeli strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon which prompted a telling-off by Donald Trump on Truth Social where he told everyone “don’t blow it”. Brent crude is down more than 4% this morning to be dealing around $83.72 at time of writing and a rally in bonds late last week has carried over to this morning with Aussie and Kiwi sovereign curves both seeing notable bull steepening.


US equity futures portend the printing of a healthy green candle when markets open later today, but there’s still a lingering sense that we’re not out of the woods yet. Aside from the Israeli strikes on Hezbollah over the weekend, and the lesson of experience that the IRGC doesn’t need much convincing to return to fighting, we learned this morning that despite Donald Trump’s declaration that the strait is now open the strait will actually remain closed until the official signing occurs on Friday – ostensibly to provide time for mine clearing operations. Needless to say, a week is a long time in Middle East geopolitics.

Nevertheless, markets are rallying on the vibe right now but what is actually in the deal will be the critical points – and there is still plenty of fog of war surrounding terms. So, what do we know? Firstly, the agreement is not really a ‘deal’ at all, or even a deal to have a deal, but rather a memorandum of understanding staking out a framework to discuss a deal over the next 60 days.

War is supposed to cease on all fronts – including Lebanon, Hormuz is supposed to open and the US blockade lifted within 30 days in a kind of oil-for-oil exchange that we have flagged here many times. Iranian sources are claiming that Hormuz transits will occur under Iranian auspices, whereas the US side is still saying no tolls. Axios reports comments from US sources that sanctions relief will follow the re-opening of Hormuz, but there seems to be disagreement over the release of frozen funds and Iranian sources are claiming reparations of some form up to $300bn in value would be payable. If true, that really would be the full enchilada of TACOs and would see the US agreeing to a set of terms that had it restart bombing only a few weeks ago.

On the other hand, it could be the case that the terms are actually much more favorable to the US and that the Iranians are simply trying to save face. Crucially, there appear to be no guarantees on the nuclear issues aside from a promise from Iran not to seek a nuclear weapon and to engage in talks over the next 60 days. Given that the nuclear program was the entire casus belli in the first place, we still see plenty of scope for this to all fall in a heap. The US midterm elections are 81 days after the expiry of the 60 day negotiating period. Could we see a few more can-kick extensions over that time? Announcing the conclusion of the deal, Donald Trump posted to Truth Social “Ships of the world, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”

Start your engines indeed, because the race is now on to restock the global energy supply chain while we can. So, at the risk of being a party pooper, could this be one of those instances of buy the rumor sell the fact? Perhaps there is no greater bear indicator than the fact that the New York Knicks just won the NBA playoffs. The last time they did that was in *checks notes* 1973, just before the Yom Kippur oil embargoes became the biggest energy shock in history up to that point. The Knicks basically top-ticked the market back then with one of the deepest bear markets of modern history (down more than 40% peak to trough) following their victory.

That brings us to SpaceX, where the largest IPO in history just raised $75 billion at a hefty valuation last week and minted another $2trillion market cap company after the stock rallied almost 20% in its first day of trading. His 42% ownership stake combined with other holdings now makes Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire, a financial milestone event that feels a bit like the topping out of the Sears Tower as the world’s tallest building in – ahem – 1973.

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I don’t think Obama ever really protested Iran having nukes. Their delay tactics worked great on him. Plus he sent planes full of cash.

• Yes, Trump’s Iran Deal Is So Much Better Than Obama’s (Margolis)

President Donald Trump announced Saturday that the United States has reached a peace deal with Iran, and the contrast with what Barack Obama handed the world in 2015 could not be starker. “The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete,” Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday. “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” The naval blockade on Iranian ports has already lifted. The Strait of Hormuz is open. And for the first time in a long time, there’s an actual framework that puts nuclear weapons permanently off the table. Results are happening. Oil prices have dropped, and the market is up.


The deal, currently structured as a Memorandum of Understanding, extends a ceasefire for 60 days while both sides work toward a comprehensive permanent agreement. A formal signing ceremony is set for June 19 in Switzerland. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi confirmed from Tehran that a halt to military operations, including in Lebanon, took effect Sunday. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also confirmed the agreement, saying it followed “intensive talks.”

Now let’s talk about why this matters, because the media is going to spend the next week trying to muddy the waters. But make no mistake about it: this is clearly a better deal than Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). That was the official name of the deal that the left told us was a historic diplomatic achievement. Under that agreement, Iran kept its advanced centrifuges and retained the right to keep enriching uranium.

Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst broke down exactly why that was so dangerous. “During the Obama administration, it allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium,” Yingst explained. The enrichment process takes uranium ore through a series of chemical conversions until it becomes hexafluoride gas, which is then spun in high-speed centrifuges. Do that process enough times and you move from low-enriched uranium to 20%, then 60%, then 90%, which is weapons grade, a process, he explained, could take weeks or even just days.

“And so allowing the Iranians to keep advanced centrifuges and then enrich uranium eventually closer to weapons-grade material, set them on a path toward a weapon, because that is a process that is needed to create a nuclear weapon, even if they weren’t doing it at that moment,” Yingst continued. “This agreement does not allow the Iranians, according to this senior administration official, to keep any of their enriched material.”

The inspection regime under Obama was a joke, too. Under Obama’s nuclear deal, Iran could delay inspections of suspicious undeclared sites for up to 24 days through a multi-step dispute process, giving critics reason to worry that evidence could be concealed before inspectors arrived. That concern was amplified by Iran’s long history of exploiting diplomatic delays while advancing its nuclear program.

Obama’s crappy deal relied on the expectation that Iran would comply in exchange for sanctions relief and other benefits. Trump’s framework assumes Iran will seek opportunities to cheat and ties any rewards to verified compliance. And, of course, there will be consequences for violations. Obviously, the next 60 days will tell us a lot. But right now, the Strait of Hormuz is open, a naval blockade is lifted, and global oil is flowing.

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“.. retail investors have now bought almost as much SPCX over the last two sessions as they bought across the entire US stock market last week.”

• SpaceX Erupts In After Hours Trading, Hits $3 Trillion Market Cap (ZH)

Update (9:00pm): just a few minutes after the initial post, the squeeze is accelerating and SPCX hit just shy of $230, or $3 trillion in market cap, surpassing MSFT in value. And what is even crazier, tomorrow SPCX options start trading, which means one good, solid gamma squeeze could send this stock to $400, surpassing NVDA as the world’s biggest company in the process.


Earlier: After a relatively calm first day of trading, the gamma squeeze crew has finally sniffed out that SpaceX’s float makes it a perfect candidate for an OTM-call option driven meltup, and the stock soared ~20% today, adding over $400 billion in market in the regular session. Commenting on the move, Vanda Track earlier noted that SpaceX topped the leaderboard as the most bought stock by retail investors for a second consecutive session, with net buying potentially set to clear $100mn for the second day in a row.

On a net basis, retail investors have now bought almost as much SPCX over the last two sessions as they bought across the entire US stock market last week. In fact, today’s $93.8mn of net buying in SpaceX accounts for roughly 73% of all retail net buying across single stocks so far today.

The one notable development today according to Vanda, is that we’re seeing some appetite return to semiconductor stocks. Names such as MRVL, MU, SNDK and AVGO have all seen some modest buying today amid the rebound. However, retail flows remain selective rather than broad-based, with leveraged bearish ETFs such as SQQQ and SOXS also among today’s most bought securities by retail investors. Vanda’s conclusion is that “the broader message remains unchanged: SpaceX has not sparked a retail buying frenzy across the market. Instead, retail investors continue to direct capital into this one name, while maintaining a relatively cautious stance elsewhere.”

And since momentum elsewhere is fading, retail has decided to double down on the very illiquid SPCX after hours, where its low float has made it a great squeeze candidate by the retail crew, and the stock is now exploding higher, and at last check was trading just over $210, meaning the stock has added $250 billion in market cap after the close – or a total of $650 billion today alone…

… which translates into a market cap of $2.75 trillion or more than Apple’s $2.65 trillion, and just behind MSFT’s $2.97 trillion.

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They’re slowly finding out AI aystems are nigh impossible to keep secret.

• Why Did the Smartest AI in the World Just Go Dark? (Stephen Green)

Two of the most powerful large language models in the world just got yanked from service, starting with a national security directive from the United States government during the Friday night news dump. “The U.S. government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees,” Anthropic said in a statement. “The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance.” Double emphasis in the original — and, I’d have to add, some claim not all their customers. But stick a pin in that thought for just a moment.


Although the administration failed to give any specific details, Anthropic says it believes the government became aware of a method of “jailbreaking” Fable 5, potentially unleashing the AI from its built-in guardrails against use in developing cyber exploits, deadly chemical synthesis, and other sensitive topics. That’s a big deal. The “Fives” are the latest version of Claude, Anthropic’s enterprise- and government-centric LLM. Fable is the “safe” version available to the public, while you might think of Mythos as the weapons-grade version. Because it is. What separates Fable from Mythos are the guardrails that, as Anthropic put it, are supposed to “greatly reduce the likelihood that Fable is misused for tasks related to cybersecurity (among others).” “

To date, the government has only given us verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak, which essentially consists of asking the model to read a specific codebase and fix any software flaws,” the company continued. “Our understanding is that one potential jailbreak was shared with the government.” Since “that perfect jailbreak resistance does not appear to be possible today, Anthropic adopted a defense in depth strategy” by shutting down both “Fives” until further notice. Again, the emphasis is in the original, but let’s come back now to “all their customers.”

Social media is awash in rumors that Fable 5’s underlying code wasn’t just stolen, but it’s out in the wild — successfully uploaded to Pirate’s Bay for anyone to run locally. Provided, of course, they’re in possession of a powerful enough system. While I can slowly run some stripped-down models on the M4 Pro Mac mini right here on my desk, I assure you I couldn’t run Claude. But don’t believe the rumors. Near as I can tell, they’re based on this prank posted to X on Friday.

The attached Community Note reads: “A Pirate Bay search for ‘fable’ returns no relevant results, and further, there is no ‘Other / Models’ category as claimed in the screenshot.”I asked Grok for any other examples, and it came back with this: “Pliny the Liberator extracted and dumped the full ~120k-character system prompt on GitHub shortly after launch. People are using it to emulate Fable-like behavior on Opus 4.8 or other models… but it’s instructions, not the model itself. Useful for prompting, not a full clone.” Good to know.

“The sudden regulatory intervention serves as a stark warning to the enterprise sector: centralized, cloud-based frontier models exist at the absolute mercy of government oversight and vendor compliance,” is how Venture Beat put it, but I’m not entirely sure that’s a bad thing. I don’t doubt that someday, something like Mythos 5 will escape into the wild, potentially setting up a situation like Frank Herbert’s The White Plague. In his 1982 novel, the Dune author postulated what might happen as genetic engineering becomes inexpensive and accessible enough for a deranged individual to create a plague capable of wiping out humanity.

The book’s distraught villain, John Roe O’Neil, nearly succeeds in doing just that. We have extremely powerful tools in LLMs like Fable, and as you know, tools are easy to refashion into weapons.

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Is the US still ahead of China?

• Anthropic Races To Defuse Trump’s Fable 5 U.S. Export Curbs (ZH)

Anthropic’s Fable/Mythos 5 ranks number one in the world for model intelligence, widening the US-China gap. The gap may widen further because of “anti-distillation” features, and the models are now under US export control, which has shuttered access to the advanced models.


Late Friday, the US government banned foreign governments, companies, and individuals from using Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models after researchers at Amazon demonstrated to the Trump administration that some safeguards on Fable could be circumvented. People familiar with what’s happening inside the Trump administration told The Wall Street Journal that Anthropic sent top officials to the White House and held calls to resolve software vulnerabilities, including the alleged ability to ‘jailbreak’ the model.

Anthropic’s top security staff, including Nicholas Carlini, Logan Graham, and Dave Orr, were sent to Washington on Saturday to speak with senior US officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The move by the frontier AI lab aims to resolve vulnerabilities exposed by Amazon researchers. More color from WSJ: “People close to the company and the administration said both parties are interested in resolving the issue and restoring access to the cutting-edge models, but it isn’t clear what a solution would entail. Anthropic technical experts and government security researchers coming together was seen by some administration officials as a key step toward a compromise.”

The weekend discussions continue months of tension between the administration and one of America’s leading AI labs over how new, cutting-edge technologies are used and regulated. The Trump administration has recently taken more steps to control the fast-evolving industry.

A Sunday letter by cybersecurity experts urged the Trump administration to lift the restrictions on the models, warning that such a move could hurt U.S. cyber defenses, create market uncertainty, and weaken America’s AI leadership. However, Jefferies analysts said quite the opposite, noting that “anti-distillation” features and US export control, “which could make it harder for open-source (Chinese) models to catch up.” “US models are improving at a faster pace likely due to compute advantage, but anti- distillation and US export control are new negatives for China AI,” the analysts said.

More from Jefferies: “Open-source models (mostly Chinese) may find it harder to improve given new anti- distillation features and US export control. More importantly, Anthropic introduced anti- distillation features on Fable 5. If Fable 5 detects suspicious distillation activities, it would downgrade the model to Opus 4.8 and notify users. While this seems to be targeting Chinese AI development, we believe this would set back open source progress if all closed-source model developers follow suit.

“Moreover, the US has imposed emergency export control on Fable 5, barring foreigners from using them (including foreign employees of US companies), given loopholes in the cybersecurity safeguards. However, since Anthropic has no tools to limit the use to US nationals only (ie, ID checks?), it has suspended both Fable 5 and Mythos 5 globally until it could come up with a way to enforce that export control.”

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“We used to say that we don’t know what 2050 will look like. Now it’s more like we don’t know what 2030 will look like.” —Jesus Enrique Rosas

• Monsters Far and Near (James Howard Kunstler)

You must be thinking that reality is pushing its luck with the president bringing this Iran business — a war, actually, let’s face it — to a favorable conclusion around dinner time Sunday evening (yawn) and then Mr. DJT sliding directly into his seat on the White House lawn to enjoy the special 80th birthday edition of Testosterone Gone Wild, that is, a full card of tattoo-bedizend savages beating the crap out of each other UFC style, like it was a Hooters parking lot on wife-swap night. . . why, it just doesn’t get more surreal than that.


Imagine what Victoria Nuland, Robert Reich, George Stephanopoulis, Elizabeth Warren, and other good folks of that ilk must be thinking. The. . . (Sputter sputter) indelicacy of it all! A freaking peace deal, and now this low-rent spectacle of ultra-violence! Like their whole world had turned out to be the meanest, lowest, most sordid backwater of the Marvel Comics universe where no one has ever heard of chardonney. The ape-men slugging, kicking, gouging, and head-butting each other half to death is one thing. . . but to let the slip the opportunity to continue the Iran War with its downstream emoluments for another nineteen years. . . well, now that is an affront to all that is holy in the sub-basements of Foggy Bottom and the broom closets of Langley.

As you read this on Monday morning the cries for impeachment will be ringing across the District of Columbia like calls to prayer in Mamdani’s Caliphate on the Hudson. Surely, you’ll get more details on the Iran deal as Monday spins out, but the terms look not bad at all for Western Civ in the news media’s early shorthand reports: Teheran pledges no nukes, ever, no how, no way. They will allow their cache of super-enriched uranium to be destroyed. The Strait of Hormuz will reopen promptly, free to international shipping, no tolls, no piratical monkey-business. No more Iran funding terrorist proxy groups. That means you Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and sundry cadres of jihadi maniacs ‘out there’ in the world’s hotspots.

Speaking of which, Mr. Netanyahu felt the president’s wrath earlier on Sunday (once again) when he replied to a Hezbollah rocket salvo out of Lebanon with air strikes. But, hey, everybody knows that Israel always and ever answers every attack against it no matter what, because Never Again. Even Mr. Trump knows that, so the whole flap was a sort of mummery. Obviously, Hezbollah must be anxious to wreck the peace deal, since without Iran’s ongoing largess they will not know where their next meal is coming from, not to mention their next shipment of missiles. If Iran actually complies with the deal, Hezbollah can have no more support. There may soon be no more Hezbollah. (Boo-hoo.)

Which raises the next obvious concern, namely, Iran is not known for keeping its word with The Great Satan (us). There is every reason to believe that the vaunted deal is just another sorry episode of them stringing the USA along, playing us. But Mr. Trump has made it clear he reserves the option to rev up the bombers and “do a number on” the Islamic Republic if they pull a fast one on this.

For its part, Iran is crowing in its own state-controlled press that it has won the war. Iran can say whatever it wants to — world opinion will probably not be fooled — if it makes the people running the joint feel good about themselves losing a war. It’ll be Iran’s actions that matter. There’s a chance, perhaps a low-percentage chance, but a chance nonetheless, that Iran has been persuaded to stop being insane.

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“He is facing two federal counts of threats against the president.”

86 47.

• No Friends for Comey; Judge Rules No Amicus Briefs (Alan Wooten)

No friend of the court briefs will be allowed in America’s attempted prosecution against its former FBI Director James Comey in a North Carolina federal courtroom. In the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Judge Louise Flanagan on Friday gave a one-page order explaining the discretion available to the court and the route she’s chosen. Comey, facing charges tied to his posting of an image of seashells spelling out 86 47 on the Outer Banks, is scheduled for arraignment on Sept. 30 in New Bern and trial Oct. 21. He is facing two federal counts of threats against the president.


“No federal rule of criminal procedure or local criminal rule provides for the filing of amicus briefs before this court,” Flanagan wrote. “It is a matter of this court’s discretion whether to allow. “Defendant and the government are ably represented by competent counsel.” The case is formally known as United States of America v. James Brien Comey Jr. Her order concluded, “Acting within its discretion, the court provides this notice that no amicus brief will be considered. Accordingly, any future motion requesting permission to file summarily will be denied.”

In May 2025, prosecutors say, Comey – a resident of Virginia – posted to social media seashells on the Outer Banks arranged to spell out 86 47 – a commonly interpreted reference for eliminating something (86) and the numerical count (47) of presidents. Comey was FBI director in the administration of former two-term Democratic President Barack Obama, serving from July 29, 2013, to May 9, 2017, when Trump fired him. His Senate confirmation was 93-1.

Comey was infamously investigating Trump ties to the Russian government when he was let go. Comey was deputy attorney general to John Ashcroft during the administration of former two-term Republican President George W. Bush. His career outside of politics includes law professor at Columbia, and time with Lockheed Martin and Bridgewater Associates.

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You betcha. They’re experimenting with new drugs as we speak.

• Ukrainian Military Hooked on Drugs – Deutsche Welle (RT)

Drug addiction is emerging as a growing problem among Ukrainian troops as the conflict with Russia enters the fifth year, according to doctors and specialized organizations cited by Deutsche Welle. The report also cites the experience of a former Ukrainian Marine Corps officer who said he became addicted to drugs. Experts reportedly attribute the problem to combat injuries and psychological exhaustion, with many servicemen spending months on the front line without adequate rest or prospects for demobilization.


While narcotics are officially banned in the military, heavy losses, the lack of rotation, and acute manpower shortages forcing wounded troops back to the front before fully recovering are reportedly fueling the problem. According to the report published last week, more than half of Ukrainian soldiers serving on the front line have experience with the use of drugs, alcohol, or a combination of both. “No army in modern history has fought for four years without rotation,” psychotherapist Igor Alferov told Deutsche Welle. He added that when commanders refuse to grant leave, and “there is no one else to do the fighting,” the troops increasingly feel a sense of injustice.

Alferov also cited family problems as a factor, noting that many soldiers have relatives living abroad, causing spouses to drift apart. “She plans to stay in Europe because she sees prospects there for the children, while he remains at war in Ukraine, where every day carries the risk of death,” he said. A former Ukrainian serviceman and patient at a rehabilitation clinic told DW that drug addiction cost him his military career. “I had more than 200 men under my command and took part in a number of successful operations,” he said, adding that his condition deteriorated after being discharged from the hospital and that he eventually “lost control of everything.”

Earlier this year, a local resident rescued from Krasnoarmeysk in the Donetsk People’s Republic, which was liberated by Russian forces in late 2025, told TASS that most Ukrainian troops stationed in the city used drugs delivered by drones in the form of candies wrapped in camouflage packaging. He claimed that intoxicated soldiers often clashed with civilians, with some incidents ending in gunfire. The Guardian reported that many Ukrainian servicemen developed drug addiction, the scale of which is hard to assess due to limited official data, linking it in part to post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety from prolonged combat exposure.

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Social media ban for kids is information control, pure and simple.

• Starmer to Ban Under-16s From 10 Social Media Apps Including X (DS)

Sir Keir Starmer is set to announce sweeping reforms tomorrow banning under-16s from 10 major social media platforms, including X, but not the Left-wing platform Bluesky. In addition, he will introduce daily curfews for 16 and 17 year-olds, going further than Australia’s restrictions. The Times has the story: Teenagers will be banned from certain social media platforms and have their daily usage curbed under sweeping reforms to be announced by Sir Keir Starmer on Sunday.


The ban will go further than the one imposed by Australia in December by targeting technology deemed harmful to children, including chatbots and certain features on gaming apps. Under-16s in Australia have been banned from using ten platforms: TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitch and Kick. It is understood that the UK will follow suit by raising the minimum age on social media to 16, from the average of 13, for the same ten sites. Curfews for older teenagers will be introduced. Daily social media use will be restricted for 16 and 17 year-olds in a move designed to curb unhealthy late-night scrolling habits.

A Government source said: “Keir has been clear we need a game-changer to keep our children — and future generations — safe online.” The reforms, which come two weeks after a public consultation on potential restrictions closed, will stop short of banning the messaging platform WhatsApp and apps considered to have educational value. However, the government will go further than Australia and introduce restrictions on romantic or sexual chatbots after several legal cases involving the AI agents mimicking relationships and encouraging children to take their own lives.

Kanishka Narayan, the online safety minister, has said the government — which will also give 16 and 17 year-olds the right to vote — could block conversations between children and strangers on gaming platforms. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, which was passed in April, gave ministers the ability to introduce measures to restrict harmful features on online services without needing to pass new laws. It is not clear when the ban will come into force or how effectively the government will be able to enforce it.

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Social media ban for kids equals social media control for everyone.

Whatever your age, you have to prove it. How do you show you’re not 12? By proving you’re 48.

“..you now have to prove your age by proving your identity. It is obvious to the non-pretenders that proving your identity is the objective; the ruse to force the mandate is to prove your age.”

• Starmer Announces Social Media Control System to Protect “Children” (CTH)

Leftist British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has lost support among the majority of voters within the United Kingdom as evidenced by the shellacking his party took in the recent election. However, as the embattled leader clings to power by telling law enforcement to crackdown on anti-government voices, he extends the control mechanisms under the guise of “protecting children.” If you are a social media user or internet user in the U.K, you now have to prove your age by proving your identity. It is obvious to the non-pretenders that proving your identity is the objective; the ruse to force the mandate is to prove your age. This is the way a grand lie is deployed in order to achieve an objective. ‘All your information are belong to us.’


UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a press conference with the announcement from 10 Downing Street. He announces a sweeping ban on social media for children under 16, describing it as a “big step” to protect young people from online harm. Starmer defends the policy as necessary to tackle “addictive algorithms, cyberbullying, and mental health risks.” Britain will follow Australia’s example in raising the minimum age to 16 for sites such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube, and Snapchat.

BIG PICTURE: Australia, New Zealand and Canada all have social media control systems in place. Now, the U.K joins with them. What does Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.K have on common? They are all part of the 5-Eyes intelligence network. This is an IC operation. Don’t lose sight of it. This is a freedom battle against aligned interests that have historically used the intelligence community as their main strategy. From the western globalist perspective, you must always accept their #1 priority is information control. It doesn’t matter what the tool or technique of the day being discussed it, the #1 issue -for them- is to control information.

Look at everything, including and importantly the current AI discussions and debate, through the prism of information control. COVID-19 taught you the lesson. Information control is the objective. Social media restrictions, internet restrictions, the terms ‘mis-dis-mal-information’ etc., the AI race, election systems they can manage, demonetizing or deboosting, CISA, NED, USAID, the payment to “influencers”, media bans, all of it, the sum of every effort, tool and technique is about controlling information.

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“The Dirty Little Secret Behind ..”

“It died because its commitment to wokeness superseded popular attitudes and the business discipline it takes to serve a marketplace.:”

“.. the powers that be at America’s dailies have demonstrated they would rather drive their papers into the ground than betray a core leftist editorial philosophy.”

• Newspaper Dailies Killing Their Editorial Pages (Tim O’Brien)

Back in January I chronicled the death of a local newspaper daily, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which at the time was slated to close for good in May. I listed the many reasons for the newspaper’s demise and how it served as a great example of why so many American daily newspapers have expired. The newspaper industry would have you believe that the massive decline in America’s dailies was driven only by changes to news delivery technologies, but it’s much more than that, and yet they are related. Yes, the internet has made the need for an actual paper newspaper unnecessary, but that doesn’t explain why so many of these news organizations continued to decline even as they embraced the internet, social media, podcasting, and so many more on-trend platforms.


My contention in January, as now, is that news consumers get their news from sources they trust. This is common knowledge in the media and communications fields. People pick the source; the source no longer picks them. And we tend to pick sources that agree with our worldview. That’s why you are here on PJ Media, and you’re not right now listening to Barack Obama’s groupies over at Pod Save America. We live in ”media silos” which ensure that no regular listener of Pod Save America ever hears what we’re talking about here, and we never hear what they are saying there, unless of course they say something that ends up going viral on the X platform. More often than not, however, an algorithm looks at what you seem to really like, and it gives you more of that.

In my January eulogy for the Post-Gazette being declared dead by its long-time owner, Block Communications, I wrote: “It died because its commitment to wokeness superseded popular attitudes and the business discipline it takes to serve a marketplace. In short, leadership and staff put their own ideologies first, and they made their product irrelevant to the town they served. And they still have no idea. They openly ridiculed MAGA and the populist movement that put Trump in power in 2016. They did it again in 2020. And they did it again in 2024. Time and again, in big and small ways, they just couldn’t see the formula for success and adapt.”

In the TV world, if Fox News, the major conservative cable news network, is wiping the floor with the lib networks, wouldn’t it make sense to shift a little to the right? The same is true across all media. There is a demand for conservative content. But the powers that be at America’s dailies have demonstrated they would rather drive their papers into the ground than betray a core leftist editorial philosophy. Since January, the Post-Gazette was saved, if that’s what you want to call it. A Baltimore-based nonprofit news outlet called the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism bought the Pittsburgh “daily” at a bargain-basement price.

When making the announcement, Venetoulis pointed to its track record in salvaging local news organizations, and it said it had no plans to cut back on the newspaper’s editorial or distribution schedule. When the purchase was announced, most reports alluded to the likelihood that Venetoulis would be cutting personnel and making other changes. A moral win for the 240-year-old newspaper, but none of this changes the challenges the Post-Gazette faces. People still get their news elsewhere in growing numbers. So, unless Venetoulis makes changes to the product that the marketplace wants, the Post-Gazette will continue to fade in influence.

Speaking of changes, one of the most significant content changes the nonprofit newspaper made was the elimination of its editorial section. In an editorial on May 3, 2026, the newspaper announced it would no longer “support or oppose public policies or candidates for public office.” Hmmm.

Okay, so I get they won’t endorse candidates. Let’s face it, they haven’t had a great track record with endorsements of late (as with almost all other dailies in America), but the obvious reason is this: If a newspaper endorses only Democrats, who lose at the national level a lot, it’s going to lose credibility and alienate the conservatives it needs to attract to its pages. Yet if it endorses a Republican, it will lose newspaper staff, leadership won’t get invited to World Cup watch parties, or may get shunned on Parent-Teacher Night at the private schools where their kids attend. They may even lose their seat on the board of the local opera or symphony.

But why decide not to “support or oppose public policies”? I would think that’s why newspapers exist in the first place. Imagine Ben Franklin’s The Pennsylvania Gazette deciding in the 1770s not to take a position on public policies like the Stamp Act. What good would that have done? Of course, there will be no shortage of opinion in the newspaper. Surely, you’ll find it in the bias that permeates stories presented as “straight news.” You’ll also find actual columns from columnists from time to time, but those will be carefully curated, of course. This will be in keeping with the inherent ideologies at play in the nonprofit management of a legacy newspaper.

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Like so many people who were once liberal and then met woke.

• You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone: The Tragedy of John Cleese (PJM)

Over at Instapundit, Ed Driscoll notes a piece by S.D.Wickett, whom I presume to be a British writer. The article is around four years old, but the commentary is still valid. Indeed, the passage of time has moved us closer to the end the author is concerned about. I’d like to draw your attention to an anonymous post on the forum website 4chan, which forms the basis for what I have titled the Tragedy of John Cleese. It goes: “He was a Progressive, Liberal degenerate in 1960s uber-white uber-polite Britain. He could take the p*** out of the people he saw as uptight and repressed while enjoying the clean, safe streets and quiet little hamlets full of those same uptight, repressed, polite-to-a-fault, helpful, white Christian Englishmen.


“The best part was that those same British conservative Anglos were generally pretty humorous about themselves. So, when you made fun of them, they laughed along with you and shook their heads saying ‘Ha! You know, Margie, he’s got a point!’ It was heaven on earth for him, to be a popular counter-culture icon loved by conservatives and liberals alike for being hilarious, but also enjoy the benefits of a strong, stable and homogeneous culture. I’ve been a Python fan for a long time. But even back in the ’70s when they first burst onto the scene, I noticed they almost invariably targeted traditional conservatives — or at least members of the cultural majority. The one exception I can think of appears in the 1979 film, The Life of Brian:

That’s about as prophetic as the Pythons in general, and Cleese in particular, ever got. Since then, that small crack of light has widened, and thereby revealed to the remaining Pythons a lot they’d not faced before. Wickett continues: Now, he’s an old man, staring at a desolate wasteland where in London, Britons are now in the minority. Everyone is suspicious, the hamlets and villages are economic dead-zones. Every week, there’s a new group you’re not allowed to make fun of, no one has a sense of humour anymore. Little girls are being sold as sex slaves, women are harassed in the street and the men are suspicious and surly over their lowered living standards. The sinking realization that the world he made fun of, but loved more than anything, is gone forever and will never come back.


The horrifying conclusion that his own counter-cultural irreverence may have helped to kill it. So, he impotently gripes on Twitter and wonders where the laughter went, when did the jokes stop? Where are those wonderful, repressed and uptight conservatives So now, apparently, Cleese is making a documentary titled Cancel Me on the cancel culture phenomenon that my PJ Media colleagues and I have written about often enough. One really must wonder if he can see signs, however dimly, suggesting he himself has long been part of the problem. Wickett seems to wonder about that as well: “I want to bring the various reasonings right out in the open so that people can be clearer in their minds what they agree with, what they don’t agree with, and what they still can’t make their mind up about.”

He mentions political correctness as if it were new. Something that emerged out of a campus vacuum in the mid 2010s. Yet, its true origin is something far closer to home. John Cleese cut his teeth in the 1960s. As I’ve previously stated, it was a time of revolution, a springboard into hyper-modernity, hyper-liberalism. It was the death of the suit, the family, the stigmatic removal of undesirable and unbecoming behaviour. The normalisation of sex, drugs, and psychedelia. A time of free expression without limits, restraints, or shame. Hedonism without consequences. Pregnant? Just have an abortion. Bored at a party? Here, take this. ‘Only God can judge me, except he doesn’t exist.’

The last fifty years of evidence have finally handed us the bill, and it’s steeper than anyone, including Cleese, wanted to admit back when the dreaming was seen as being without cost. I’ve long maintained that Britain is the canary in this particular coal mine, and that we colonials are only a few stumbles behind them.

Buried inside the 1960s counterculture was the cheerful slogan “God is dead” — lifted, naturally, from Nietzsche’s Parable of the Madman, by people who couldn’t be bothered to read past the bumper-sticker version. Had they done so, they’d have found a warning, not a guide. Nietzsche wasn’t celebrating the death of God; he was outright terrified of it. His point? Without a moral and cultural framework, the foundation under everything crumbles. The social left grabbed that warning, mistook it for a manifesto, and promptly set about proving him correct, both in terms of the Judeo-Christian ethic and the culture that sprang from it.

The cultural rot and the cancel culture springing from it that has Cleese wringing his hands today is exactly what Nietzsche was describing. Shakespeare’s Miranda squealed with delight at her brave new world, blissfully ignorant of what lurked beneath the surface. Cleese and his fellow progressive cheerleaders spent decades doing the same, pompoms and all. Now they stand slack-jawed while Huxley’s ghost is joined by Rush Limbaugh and other cultural conservatives in saying, “See? I told you so.”

Turns out the architects of that brave new world built precisely what we were warned they would. Cleese is getting a masterclass in a very specific flavor of irony: you never know what you treasure until the revolution you spent your career championing shows up to confiscate and burn it. Or as another leftist icon, Joni Mitchel so famously put it, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?” Cleese has a history with the left in the UK, the Labour Party, the Social Democrats, and the Liberal Democrats, but he has changed in recent years. Just this last February, he joined the Restore Britain party, which the Brit pass has laughably tagged as a “far right group.”

The really sad part? He will likely be called out by the far left for finally noting these things and for being open-minded enough to recognize the damage done by the positions he once championed. Did he cause all of this? Of course not. (No single raindrop, however fat and self-important, floods a valley alone). However, he makes a perfect starting point for diagnosing what led us to this pass. Will he ever own his role in it? Please. Red pills don’t get easier to choke down when you get older — they get harder. So, John Cleese, I’ll borrow from Bruce Willis here: “Welcome to the party, Pal.”

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Home › Forums › Debt Rattle June 16 2026

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  • June 16, 2026 at 9:54 am #242813
    Raúl Ilargi Meijer
    Keymaster

    El Greco St. Paul and St. Peter 1595 • US and Iran Agree On Peace Roadmap, Israel Rejects All Terms (RT) • Trump Details Iran Deal At G7: No Nukes, Co
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle June 16 2026]

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