“Israel launched widescale strikes against Iran on Friday, saying it targeted nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and military commanders and that this was the start of a prolonged operation to prevent Tehran from building an atomic weapon. Iran had launched about 100 drones towards Israeli territory in retaliation, which Israel is working to intercept, Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said. … Defrin said 200 Israeli fighter jets took part in the strikes, hitting more than 100 targets in Iran. … Alongside extensive air strikes, Israel’s Mossad spy agency led a series of covert sabotage operations inside Iran, Axios reported, citing a senior Israeli official. … While the U.S. tried to distance itself from Israel’s military operation, an Israeli official told public broadcaster Kan that Israel had coordinated with Washington on Iran. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States was not involved in the strikes and Tel Aviv had acted unilaterally for self-defence [sic].” (06/13/25)
“As a private citizen, who you are and what you look like is none of the government’s business until and unless there’s probable cause to believe you’ve committed, or are in the act of committing, a crime. As a government employee, who a cop is and what he or she looks like is entirely the public’s business any time we want it to be. The cop at least pretends to work for — ‘serve and protect’ — us, while collecting a paycheck from the taxes we fork over. We’re the bosses, at least in theory. They’re our employees, at least in theory. The idea that they’re entitled to hide their identities from us while waving guns at us and ordering us around gets that relationship completely bass-ackward.” (06/12/25)
“A federal appeals court Thursday delayed an order requiring the Trump administration to return control of the California National Guard to Gov. Gavin Newsom. A panel of three judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an administrative stay of the lower court’s order and set a hearing for June 17. Two of the judges on the panel were nominated by President Donald Trump, and one was nominated by former President Joe Biden. Earlier Thursday, a federal judge in California issued a temporary restraining order that would have blocked Trump’s move to deploy California National Guard troops during protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles and returned control of the California National Guard to Gov. Gavin Newsom.” (06/12/25)
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“As of April 2025, the U.S. national debt stands at a staggering $36.2 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that net interest payments on this debt alone will reach $952 billion in fiscal year 2025 — nearly a trillion dollars just to service past borrowing. Over the next decade, the debt is expected to rise by approximately $2 trillion per year, bringing the total to over $56 trillion by 2034. And still, there is no serious movement among America’s political class to stop the hemorrhaging. It is long past time to confront a fundamental truth: the United States must default on its national debt.” (06/12/25)
“Protests in the Kenyan capital Nairobi intensified on Thursday, with vehicles set ablaze and police firing teargas to disperse crowds angered by the death in custody of a political blogger last week, Reuters TV footage showed. The death of 31-year-old Albert Ojwang, who blogged on political and social issues, is the latest case to throw a spotlight on the country’s security services, who have been accused of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances for years. Police used teargas to disperse hundreds of protesters in the capital, with at least two vehicles set on fire, Reuters TV footage showed, a day after President William Ruto said Ojwang had died ‘at the hands of the police,’ reversing earlier official accounts of his death. Police had initially said Ojwang was arrested in western Kenya on Friday for allegedly defaming the country’s deputy police chief Eliud Lagat online and died ‘after hitting his head against a cell wall.'” (06/12/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kerry McDonald
“When my home state of Massachusetts became the first to enact a compulsory school attendance law in May 1852, it set a troubling precedent. For the first time, parents were compelled to send their children to school under a legal threat of force. … just three weeks ago, a Florida judge sentenced two parents to jail for not sending their kids to school. These laws have got to go. If schools are desirable places to grow and to learn, then families and students will happily flock to them, as they do to the schools and spaces featured in my new book, Joyful Learning. … The current ‘chronic absenteeism’ epidemic in schools across the country, typically defined as students missing at least 10% of schooldays, is a sign that forced schooling isn’t desirable for many students and their families.” (06/12/25)
“If law enforcement wrongly raids your house, damages your property and assaults innocent occupants, you might think you could sue the government over it. But legal accountability is hard to come by. Yet, the Supreme Court just unanimously gave hope to a family’s lawsuit in the wake of a predawn FBI SWAT raid in 2017 in suburban Atlanta. Agents meant to search a suspected gang hideout but instead stormed into the home occupied by Hilliard Toi Cliatt, his partner Curtrina Martin and her 7-year-old son. … The couple sued the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act. But the district court rejected their claims, and the Atlanta-based federal appeals court affirmed the rejection. … The justices didn’t say the suit would prevail in the end; rather, they sent the case back to the 11th Circuit for further review.” (06/12/25)
“I have no objections on principles to extending the expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Allowing these cuts to expire would deliver some measure of pain to the economy and add to our troubles. Tax hikes at a time when individuals and businesses are expecting tax stability would undoubtedly depress investment, employment, and overall economic confidence. Americans are already getting a huge tax hike because of Trump’s tariffs. However, making a sound case for maintaining the current tax structure is fundamentally different from making the case that it will bring about substantial new growth. It’s largely a defensive move. Realistically, the economic boost will be modest at best. In fact, the administration and congressional supporters of this bill admit that much without realizing it.” (06/12/25)
“U.S. filings for jobless benefits were unchanged last week, remaining at the higher end of recent ranges as uncertainty over the impact of trade wars lingers. New applications for jobless benefits numbered 248,000 for the week ending June 7, the Labor Department said Thursday. Analysts had forecast 244,000 new applications. A week ago, there were 248,000 jobless claim applications, which was the most since early October and a sign that layoffs could be trending higher. Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered representative of U.S. layoffs and have mostly bounced around a historically healthy range between 200,000 and 250,000 since COVID-19 throttled the economy five years ago, wiping out millions of jobs. However, the past three weeks, layoffs have been at the higher end of that range, raising some concern from analysts.” (06/12/25)
