Source: The American Prospect
by James Baratta
“Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has been whipping Democratic support for an effectively clean reauthorization of the government’s warrantless spying program—or at least he was until Tuesday. On the news that President Trump was tapping Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence (DNI), Warner said in a statement that the appointment ‘speaks volumes about what this president expects from the nation’s top intelligence official,’ and warned of the dangers of politicizing intelligence work. ‘Americans have every reason to worry about what happens when the official charged with overseeing everything from counterterrorism to foreign election threats is chosen for his willingness to advance the president’s political agenda rather than his experience,’ Warner said.” (06/04/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/06/04/senate-democrats-threaten-to-punt-fisa-over-pulte-appointment/
Source: CNN
“John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser-turned-adversary, has reached a plea deal over mishandling sensitive national security information, according to three sources familiar with the matter. He intends to plead guilty to one felony count of illegal retention of sensitive national security information, according to one of the sources. He has also agreed to pay a more than $2 million fine, according to one of the sources. A conviction on one count of illegal retention comes with a sentence between 0 and 60 months in prison. The Justice Department declined to comment and referred CNN to the court docket, which indicates a hearing was set for June 26.” (06/04/26)
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/04/politics/john-bolton-guilty-plea-agreement-trump-critic
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“North Korea on Thursday unveiled a new facility believed to produce fuel for nuclear weapons, with leader Kim Jong Un pledging to expand the country’s nuclear forces ‘at an exponential rate.’ Photos suggested the site may be a uranium enrichment facility. Kim has repeatedly cited US-led military threats as underpinning the need for his country to bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal.” (06/03/26)
https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20260604-north-korea-unveils-new-nuclear-fuel-facility-vows-exponential-expansion-nuclear-arsenal
Source: Roll Call
“You can’t always get what you want, politics edition.” (06/03/26)
https://chrt.fm/track/D3F8DG/traffic.megaphone.fm/FISCAL7679783675.mp3
Source: The Tom Woods Show
“Does Israel ‘Drag America into War?’ Scott Horton Explains.” (06/03/26)
https://tomwoods.com/ep-2766-does-israel-drag-america-into-war-scott-horton-explains/
Source: Project Liberal
by Oliver Gale
“President Donald J Trump spent the better part of a decade telling the world that Barack Obama’s (among many others) Iran deal was the worst agreement in American diplomatic history. Iran’s nuclear program reached its most advanced state ever. He launched a war that killed thousands, shut off a fifth of the world’s oil supply, and ended with a ceasefire built on terms that are, by every objective measure, more generous to Tehran than anything Obama or the EU secured. This is how that happened, and what the legal wreckage left behind tells us about the remaining integrity of the rules-based international order.” (06/03/26)
https://projectliberal.substack.com/p/how-we-ended-up-here-a-post-mortem
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Joe Kent
“We cannot outsource components of our national security to nations that do not share our interests and that is exactly what this proposed scheme would do.” (06/03/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-israel-integration/
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mike Brownfield
“For more than two decades, Flying Goat founders Norm Yost and Kate Griffith have built their family-owned winery into one of the region’s most innovative and celebrated producers—pursuing their own vision of what their winery should be along the way. But last year, county officials and the leaders of the local vintners’ association decided that they know what’s best for Flying Goat. In February 2025, the board created a wine ‘Business Improvement District,’ or Wine BID, requiring all local wineries to pay a 1% assessment on sales to fund regional marketing efforts. The ordinance also forces wineries to become members of the Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Association, which controls how the money is spent. … The problem is, Norm and Kate don’t want anything to do with the Wine BID because they don’t agree with its marketing or lobbying activities — including paying for overseas trips for its leaders.” (06/03/26)
https://fee.org/articles/winery-sues-santa-barbara-over-unconstitutional-mandate/
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said the military will continue its ground operations in southern Lebanon, hours after Israel and Lebanon agreed to implement a US-backed ceasefire to end hostilities. … ‘The IDF will, at this stage, continue its fire and ground operations, remain in the security zone in Lebanon up to the yellow line – including in the Beaufort area – and without the return of the population, while continuing to dismantle terrorist infrastructure on the ground,’ he said in a statement. … The IDF also issued a warning this morning saying fighting will continue in southern Lebanon as it urged people to ‘refrain from heading south of the Zahrani River.’ Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported several people were wounded in Israeli strikes in the southern Tyre and Nabatieh areas, which have seen repeated attacks in recent weeks.” (06/04/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jun/04/middle-east-crisis-israel-lebanon-hezbolllah-us-ceasefire-southern-military-attacks-continue-latest-news-updates
Source: Students For Liberty
by Les Affranchis
“There is a particular intellectual posture that has become distinctly fashionable at the edges of the liberty movement. It goes roughly like this: a public figure makes a contested empirical claim. Experts in the relevant field find the claim unsupported by the available evidence and say so. The figure, rather than producing better evidence, reframes the disagreement as persecution and blames ‘the establishment’ for it. Sympathetic bystanders, some of them part of the pro-liberty movement, often rally to the outsiders’ defense, not because they sincerely agree with the underlying evidence, but because they see an outsider being criticized ‘by the establishment.’ The liberty tradition, they argue, must side with the outsider, regardless of evidence. Such reasoning is unpersuasive and it may come at a reputational cost for the pro-liberty movement.” (06/03/26)
https://studentsforliberty.org/blog/the-freedom-to-question-requires-the-duty-to-prove/
