“Earlier this month, the California-based organization Consumer Watchdog uncovered an incredible scandal involving rideshare company Uber, which we covered on the most recent episode of my podcast Organized Money. The company pleaded to the California legislature last year that its insurance costs had spiked so much that the state needed to decrease required payouts on its mandated uninsured motorist coverage. ‘They literally said 45 cents out of every dollar is going to insurance,’ Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, told me. It turned out that these excessive insurance payments were going to a Hawaii-based company called Aleka that is run by Uber executives. Aleka was raising rates on Uber higher than other insurers, but that money just got transferred into a reserve bank account under Uber’s control.” (06/11/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Blind submission to authority is the result of propaganda and indoctrination, but it’s also the result of bad parenting. Raising kids who aren’t allowed to say no to you is raising adults who don’t think anyone should be allowed to oppose their rulers. That’s mainly what you’re seeing in the comments section of any viral police brutality video with people defending the cop’s actions and saying the victim should have complied with commands more perfectly. All they’re really saying is ‘Don’t disobey Daddy and you won’t get smacked!’ … Discuss the latest act of war or abuse with someone who’s been trained to reflexively obey authority and you can watch them running calculations trying to find excuses to justify why the powerful are correct in this given instance, even if you’re presenting them with brand new information.” (06/09/26)
“The handful of U.S. firms that dominate global tech and artificial intelligence has almost universal name recognition. And it’s quite widely known that they rely on semiconductors manufactured in East Asia, mainly Taiwan. But it’s safe to say that very, very few people realize that the world’s only maker of the complex lithography machines – used by Asian firms to fabricate the chips that power American tech advances – is headquartered in … Europe. (The Netherlands, to be precise.) Not knowing this little factoid is about more than industry trivia. It points to long-standing, and not entirely merited, views of the continent as an economic has-been, held back by red tape, capital constraints, and innovation inertia. In fact, the European Union is making quiet, consistent progress in undoing both limiting perceptions and policies – even as global markets are more focused on multitrillion-dollar Wall Street listings …” (06/09/26)
“‘The United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack,’ President Trump announced Tuesday of Iran’s shootdown of a US Apache attack chopper over the Strait of Hormuz. Central Command soon launched ‘proportional strikes,’ which don’t sound like enough: The prez needs to show he’s serious, or Tehran will keep trying to play him for a sucker as it has every president going back to Jimmy Carter. Consider: Trump told the press just hours before that attack, ‘We’re very close to having a very, very good, strong, powerful deal.’ A country that’s ‘very close’ to sealing a deal in good faith doesn’t escalate against its negotiating partner. This leaves us wondering which presidential advisers are leading him down this garden path to likely humiliation.” [editor’s note: The only way for Trump to show he’s “serious” is to accept the fact that he lost a war – TLK] (06/09/26)
Source: Common Dreams
by Carmen Rojas & Daniel Gould
“For too long, philanthropy has hidden behind the twin gatekeepers of fiduciary duty and perpetuity to avoid giving more when communities need it most. Last year, the Marguerite Casey Foundation provided a one-time fivefold increase in funding to meet a deepening moment of crisis. We learned this was a lifeline to many organizations facing increasing attacks and whose funders were pulling back from supporting racial and economic justice organizing. The damage we’re seeing (from cuts to essential government services and ICE raids to a corrupt federal government orchestrating the largest transfer of wealth from the poorest people to the richest in our nation) will have impacts for a generation. Philanthropy must provide resources at a scale and with a fervor that meaningfully responds to the reality of the world around us.” (06/10/26)
“The four young men in the rebel camp hidden deep in jungle-covered mountains never wanted a part in Myanmar’s civil war. They didn’t choose to be soldiers for the military either. One had been a chef on his way home from work when he was grabbed off the street. His lack of ID was enough for the military to detain him and force him to sign up. Another was taken on his way back from a late-night karaoke session; a third had been working for the forestry department when he was arrested. The fourth man says on being arrested, drugs were slipped into his shoe, and he was framed and made to enlist. ‘Before we even understood what was happening, we were sent straight to the front lines,’ one of the men – all between the ages of 19 and 25 – tells the BBC. ‘They made us do all kinds of things we didn’t want to do,’ another adds.” (06/10/26)
“Annual inflation rose to a three-year-high of 4.2% in May, underscoring how elevated energy prices are rippling through the US economy, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices rose 0.5% on a monthly basis, driven higher by the US-Israeli war with Iran, the latest Consumer Price Index shows. The higher cost of energy accounted for 60% of the monthly increase. Overall food prices and grocery prices didn’t rise as fast as they did in April, increasing 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively, versus 0.5% and 0.7%. Economists were expecting prices to rise 0.5% from the month before and for the annual rate to accelerate to 4.2% from the 3.8% reported in April, according to FactSet estimates.” (06/10/26)
“Rep. Josh Gottheimer [D-NJ] predicted on Tuesday that Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner will be ‘off the ballot soon’ even if he wins the primary election. Gottheimer, who has criticized Platner for his scandals in the past, called support for far-left candidates like him a ‘major concern’ for the Democratic Party and encouraged people not to support him during the primaries. While he stopped short of supporting Platner’s presumptive Republican opponent, Sen. Susan Collins, Gottheimer told ‘CNN News Central’ that he would call for Platner to step down regardless of how the race goes. ‘What I would suggest is that Graham Platner get off if he wins today, which I assume he will, because there‘s no one actively campaigning against him, that he get off the ballot and let another Democrat step in, that the Maine Democratic Party puts somebody else in,’ Gottheimer said.” (06/09/26)
“Imprisoned rap mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has been accused of sexually assaulting a child actor in an explosive lawsuit filed in California that accuses him of acting ‘beyond the bound of decency.’ Combs, 56, is serving a 50-month prison sentence for prostitution-related offenses after a bombshell eight-week trial in New York City that laid bare his infamous ‘freak-offs’: twisted, multi-day parties rife with drugs, degrading sex acts and children’s swimming pools full of baby oil. In the new lawsuit, a child actor going by the pseudonym John Doe accuses the disgraced Bad Boy Entertainment founder of sexually assaulting him during a networking event in the Hollywood Hills in May 2007, according to ABC News. ‘Defendant Combs’[s] conduct … was outrageous, intended to terrorize and cause him emotional distress, and did in fact cause him emotional distress,’ the lawsuit viewed by the outlet reads in part.” (06/10/26)
“It was February in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Maria Gonzalez was leaving her hotel cleaning job. Thirty minutes later, a co-worker uploaded a video in their group chat that showed ICE agents storming the hotel and searching for Latino people as part of Operation Metro Surge. They eventually grabbed three of her colleagues and took them away; she believes that, had she still been at work, she likely would have been detained. … The hotel business tends to be weak in winter months, she said, but it nosedived starting in December as the surge began, which meant she was called in to work less. Then a week after the hotel incident, ICE showed up at her own door while she was at home with her husband and two teenage children, pounding and kicking it, demanding to be let in.” (06/10/26)
