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Odds and Ends — 10 June 2026

preparedwombat

Published: 10 Jun 2026 › Updated: 10 Jun 2026Odds and Ends — 10 June 2026

Odds and Ends — 10 June 2026

Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, AI, and Debt:

AI deepfake election ad in Minnesota raises transparency concerns

Solana Sponsors the World Series of Poker, Enabling Crypto Entry Fees and Payouts

Coronavirus and Public Health:

Survey highlights greater burden of long COVID in Native Americans

Flu Vaccines Should Not Be This Hard

In a typical year, the process of bringing a new seasonal flu shot to market is one of the United States’ most predictable vaccine routines. This, however, is not a typical year.
Vaccine manufacturers have prepared updated versions of the annual flu shot, as they normally do. The FDA has green-lighted those recipes, as it normally does. And normally, the next step would fall to the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel, known as ACIP, which guides the agency’s recommendations for which Americans should take those shots…
But in March, a ruling from a federal judge effectively suspended ACIP, on the grounds that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had violated the lawful procedure for selecting new members when he hastily remade the panel’s roster last June. Currently, no functional ACIP exists to guide this autumn’s immunization campaigns.

Iran:

How Many Times Has Trump Claimed an Iran Deal?

Including the period before the ceasefire, he’s done it at least 37 times. That’s the number of times he’s said directly — in social media posts, public appearances and phone calls with the media — that a deal was nigh or claimed Iran was desperate to cut one.
There’s no indication that’s any more true today than it was back on April 7. But Trump keeps saying it, either because he’s delusional, trying to calm the financial markets or thinking he can will it into existence.”

US begins huge new airstrikes on Iran as 'drinking water reservoirs taken out'

Trump Says Iran Will ‘Pay the Price’ for Prolonged Talks

Politics:

UK Brexit Vote Would Reverse if Held Today

A UK poll shows that a new Brexit referendum would reverse the vote that led to Britain’s departure from the European Union a decade ago.
Fifty-two percent of Britons think the UK should rejoin the EU, according to an Ipsos survey of 1,137 British adults conducted between May 14 and May 20. That’s the inverse of the mood in June 2016 when a comparable share of the electorate backed Brexit.

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———— The Epstein Coverup ————

The Epstein Files Caused a White House Freakout

The president’s top advisers gathered in a series of Situation Room meetings as they struggled to contain a scandal engulfing Donald Trump himself.

———— Screwworms ————

———— Autocracy R Us ————

And they thought Minneapolis was going to go well? Trump Border Chief Plans ICE Surge in New York City

The Trump administration has drawn up a plan to surge U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel to New York City, a move that threatens to escalate tensions with New York Governor Kathy Hochul over the president’s migrant crackdown.
President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said Monday he’d warned Hochul of the surge before she signed a bill late last month curbing operations and banning masked ICE agents in her state.
Said Homan: “You’re going to see more ICE than you’ve ever seen in New York City, and it’s coming. I just reviewed an operational plan. I’m not going to tell you exactly when it’s going to happen, but it’s coming.”

Lawmakers Abandon Trump on Warrantless Wiretapping

President Trump is encountering headwinds on a top national-security priority for his administration with several Republicans joining Democrats in refusing to greenlight a federal spy program ahead of a deadline this week.
The pushback from some members of Trump’s own party, who have long said they have constitutional concerns about the program, comes amid broader intraparty friction. Last week, several conservatives voted against advancing legislation to reauthorize the spy program alongside Democrats, who are protesting Trump’s pick of Bill Pulte to temporarily lead the intelligence community.

Trump Nominates Todd Blanche as Attorney General

President Donald Trump nominated Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche to fill the position on a permanent basis, rewarding a loyal ally whose controversial actions ensure an uphill Senate confirmation fight.
The White House announced Monday it had sent Blanche’s nomination to the Senate, a move Trump telegraphed last week during remarks at a private event in the Rose Garden. Blanche formerly served as one of Trump’s personal lawyers before the president picked him for the No. 2 position at the Justice Department.

Does Trump really think that Blanche can get confirmed? That’s not a bet that I would make.

———— Putin&Krasnov vs. Ukraine ————

Ukraine Is Not Losing. Russia Is Not Winning.

Ukrainian military technology has been evolving rapidly since the first years of the war. But only now are outsiders—in Europe, the United States, the Persian Gulf, and of course Russia—beginning to understand what that evolution means.
Since 2022, many public arguments about the war, even in Europe and the U.S., have adopted the narrative put out by Russian propaganda, tacitly assuming that Ukraine, outmanned and outgunned, would eventually lose. Helping Ukraine was a way to stave off disaster, nothing more. When the Trump administration stopped sending military and financial aid to Kyiv in 2025, some in Washington expected (and maybe wanted) the end to come quickly.
Instead, Europeans have provided money. Ukrainian society produced networked situational awareness. And when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky toured the Gulf states in late March and signed a series of security agreements, something changed in the international narrative.

Army general assassinated? Bomb kills driver in Moscow suburb

———— Smoot-Hawley 2.0 ————

———— Melon Husk ————

———— Hegseth on the Rocks ————

———— Mors Imperii ————

People Are Starting to Eat the Rich

Lately, I’ve begun clipping pieces about violence against the rich. I vowed that when I got to the point where there were more than three good high-profile examples, I’d write about the topic. That time is now. There were secret hearings last Wednesday about Luigi Mangione’s alleged murder of United Healthcare executive Brian Thompson. In early April, someone threw a Molotov cocktail into the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Around the same time, an arsonist comparing himself to Mangione set fire to a Kimberly-Clark warehouse outside Los Angeles. This follows all sorts of free-floating rage that has been going on for months and years, like attacks on Tesla property and vehicles, increased targeting of homes and property in wealthy neighbourhoods like Beverly Hills, Manhattan tyre slashing on rich blocks and May Day protests at the NYSE.

Serendipity:

Steve Almaas, punk pioneer of Suicide Commandos, dies at 69

If you’re not from Minneapolis, you might only associate its music scene with Prince, but the Suicide Commandos were at the center of Minneapolis music in the late seventies. Almaas was classically trained but became the high-energy bass player for the Commandos. My brother knew Steve better than I did, but off-stage he always impressed me as a calm, soft-spoken, decent guy.

Here’s and early music video by Chuck Statler (who later went on to do videos for DEVO, The Cars, and Elvis Costello) of them playing Burn it Down:

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Badge thanks to arcange@arcange

skeptical kid meme source

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“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” – Plutarch

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