Hey, everyone …
We don’t go “web-only” with a FIREHOSE FRIDAY — no email or social media editions, everything at the site — very often these days. A few months back we switched to putting in a LOT of content every day and just formatting 60-70 items into those other editions, only showing the rest on the web site.
Today is one of those rare other occasions. I’ll explain why, but first, I’ll let you know that we’ll probably have AT LEAST 100 news stories, opinion pieces, and audio/video links lined up for you here at the web edition by the time you read this.
So, why? I’m traveling (I’m in Clearwater, Florida, a couple of hours from my home, accompanying my wife to a conference and hoping we can work a mini-vacation into the schedule), and when I’m traveling I’m working on a laptop at odd hours, etc. We still get just as much content in, but I sometimes make the call to go “web-only” both because it’s easier and because it’s always possible that some travel-related event will intervene while I’m trying to mess with all that formatting. So now you know.
Of course, whenever we go FIREHOSE FRIDAY on you, I also make it a point to mention that we’re a reader-supported publication and that you’re a reader. Not to put too fine a point on it, but last month I made about $100 and Steve made about $50 for our work producing the freedom movement’s daily newspaper.
I’m not complaining … but I also wouldn’t mind a drink with a little umbrella in it on this here “mini-vacation,” at the expense of whomever might care to buy said drink. The proxy cash bar is open at:
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
Have a great weekend, and if I’m not e.g. eaten by sharks after an unwise swimming decision powered by drinks with little umbrellas in them, we will be back with the regular editions on Monday.
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
Source: Twin Cities Pioneer Press
“Hezbollah on Thursday rejected the latest ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Lebanese government, and the militant group demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon as more fighting there hampered efforts to end the Iran war. The Hezbollah announcement came as Israeli strikes killed at least four people, according to local authorities, and a U.N. peacekeeper was killed in the crossfire. An Israeli soldier was also killed in combat in southern Lebanon.” (06/04/26)
https://www.twincities.com/2026/06/04/us-iran-war-hezbollah-ceasefire/
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Wendy McElroy
“The U.S. border and the requirements for U.S. citizenship or residency are defining issues of this decade. But almost all the attention they receive focuses on one side of the coin: namely, how to control immigration and who is entitled to citizenship or residency. The other side: how easily can Americans emigrate and renounce their citizenship? Expatriation is rare in comparison to the deluge of immigration in recent years, but the ease with which a citizen can become an expatriate is a litmus test of a government’s authoritarianism. How tight a grip does America claim to have over an individual and his wealth because of a geographical accident of birth? Exit taxes provide an answer.” (06/04/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/americas-exit-tax-is-an-unconstitutional-violation-of-human-rights-part-1/
Source: The Anarchist Experience
“Rich, Lori, and Riley wish you a Happy Heemeyer Day, and discuss Riley’s breadmaking activism, how prices adjust with changes in the money supply, and this HEADLINE: HPD officer accused of sex assault by woman he pulled over seeks dismissal of charges,” (06/04/26)
https://theanarchistexperience.wordpress.com/2026/06/05/the-anarchist-experience-583/
Source: Yahoo! News
“One of the three remaining criminal cases stemming from efforts by President Donald Trump’s supporters to overturn the 2020 election results appears headed back to a grand jury in Arizona. The case began in April 2024 when an indictment sought by Arizona’s Democratic attorney general charged 18 Republicans with forgery, fraud and conspiracy, accusing them of trying to undo former President Joe Biden’s victory in the state by 10,457 votes. In a decision released Thursday, the Arizona Supreme Court rejected Attorney General Kris Mayes'[s] request to avoid sending the case back to the grand jury. Mayes had hoped to continue pushing forward through the courts without having to start over at the grand jury level. … The ruling came after similar cases in Michigan and Georgia were dismissed by the courts and a special prosecutor dropped a federal case in late 2024 that charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.” (06/04/26)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/arizona-supreme-court-denies-prosecutor-170640832.html
Source: Garrison Center
by Joel Schlosberg
“It may be 64 years after the New York Mets losing 120 baseball matches in their debut season led manager Casey Stengel to plead ‘Can’t anyone here play this game?’ Yet The Wall Street Journal columnist William A. Galston notes that the same question could still apply to another ‘two monumentally inept teams.’ … Galston has in mind the Democrats and Republicans, ‘Capitol Hill’s Unlovable Losers’ (May 27). Less than two full years after the 2024 presidential election, Galston has merely to nod at the former party’s abject failure to learn from their loss, and the latter’s squandering of what little momentum remains from their win.” (06/04/26)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20642
Source: AOL
“The United States imposed sanctions Thursday on Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, his wife and three other individuals, in the latest move by the Trump administration to pressure the island’s leadership that drew immediate condemnation from Havana. … The new penalties come as U.S. President Donald Trump has been threatening military action in Cuba since ousting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January and then ordering an energy blockade that choked off fuel shipments to Cuba. That has led to severe blackouts, food shortages and an economic collapse across the island.” (06/04/26)
https://www.aol.com/articles/us-imposes-sanctions-cuban-president-210331000.html
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“Some argue that to sacralize others is not a legal contrivance, but an ontological discovery. Rights are real, some insist. Rights are a derivation, others argue. We need not settle that debate. Every tradition that has ever produced wisdom — whether Mosaic, Stoic, Vedic, or Taoist — arrives at the same conclusion: To trespass upon others without cause is not merely a crime, it is a desecration. … The very foundation of law, in every civilization that has not entirely lost its way, is an elaboration on this. One may not injure the innocent. One may not seize what is not his. One may not constrain a person without justification sufficient to meet the scrutiny of a free people who seek similar protections.” (06/04/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/the-covenant
Source: Deutsche Welle [German state media]
“Hungary and Ukraine on Wednesday reached an agreement on the rights of Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarian minority, an issue that has long strained relations between the two countries. The deal will boost Ukraine’s longstanding bid to join the EU, with Budapest saying it would drop a veto by former Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Kyiv’s accession to the bloc if an agreement were reached. … The EU has now said it will move Ukraine, along with Moldova, to the next stage in their membership bids as it hailed the deal announced by [Hungarian Prime Minister Peter] Magyar.” (06/04/26)
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-moves-closer-to-eu-accession-after-hungary-deal/a-77414375
Source: Law & LIberty
by Mitch Daniels
“The evidence is persuasive that AI and related advances are already boosting the economy in the most important way possible, by raising productivity. That’s the biggest reason that GDP is surprising on the upside while job growth remains tepid. Moreover, forecasts that this favorable windage will accelerate seem highly credible. What’s not credible is the idea that even an AI-led productivity surge can suffice to offset our decades of dereliction. The Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Reserve, and other forecasters peg average future economic growth at a little under 2 percent. Assume a 70 percent boost from the AI revolution, to 3 percent or so, and it becomes possible to imagine our [sic] current debt level stabilizing, not improving but merely getting no worse. But even this daydream requires far too many improbable breaks.” [editor’s note: The US government debt isn’t “our” debt, it’s the US government’s debt. There’s a difference – TLK] (06/04/26)
https://lawliberty.org/ai-wont-stave-off-the-debt-disaster/
