“France has confirmed its first case of Ebola – a doctor who had returned from a humanitarian mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The doctor was ‘immediately admitted to a specialised facility’ and is in a stable condition, the French health ministry said on Wednesday. DR Congo announced an Ebola outbreak last month, but experts believe the virus had been circulating for weeks previously. More than 260 people are confirmed to have died from the virus in the central African country, while 1,000 people have been infected. This is the first Ebola case to have been confirmed in Europe, although an American doctor who tested positive in DR Congo was treated at a German hospital last month. DR Congo’s neighbour, Uganda, has also confirmed Ebola cases. The World Health Organization (WHO) says 20 people are known to have been infected there and two deaths have been confirmed.” (06/24/26)
“The off-again, on-again hostilities and opening of the Strait of Hormuz are prompting more creative and proactive thinking about global diplomacy and global markets. Governments are using the lulls to rev up stalled economic activities. And the key fossil fuel-producing nations of the Gulf are working quickly to establish alternative infrastructures of cooperation – as well as of concrete and steel. Already, Iraq – which has had tense relations with Syria for years – has been exporting its oil overland via tanker trucks to Syrian ports. And many Gulf states have pivoted to importing tons of timber, cement, and agricultural and consumer goods through those same ports. There are efforts to collaborate on new pipelines, storage facilities, and even a multicountry rail project. As the Monitor reported last week, these moves are ‘already reshaping regional trade and cementing new Mideast alliances’ among countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and Syria.” (06/23/26)
“California state workers are challenging a new mandate requiring them to return to the office four days a week starting July 1, as lawmakers advance a bill to ensure telework options. A billboard off a Sacramento highway warns of future traffic jams caused by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order. State workers argue they have been working efficiently under hybrid schedules since the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘Since COVID we have been working and doing the jobs and being efficient and doing the jobs to keep California running,’ said Anica Walls, the president of SEIU Local 1000, which represents state workers in Sacramento. ‘This mandate as overarching as it does not give departments the space to bring back our workers as needed.’ It’s not clear which departments exactly are struggling with space and how the Newsom administration is handling it. A spokesman with California’s Government Operations Agency declined an interview request with California Politics 360.” (06/21/26)
“Alan Greenspan’s obituary writers want to credit him with a single, flattering flaw: that he trusted markets too much. That charge is too generous, because Greenspan never left markets to run themselves. He used the power of the Fed to cultivate and reward financial innovation, making the financial system more fragile for it. Often misunderstood as an Ayn Rand acolyte, Greenspan was not a true libertarian. His creed was not ‘leave the market alone’ as much as it was to use the tools of the government to make the market faster and more inventive — and then stand by to catch it when it falls. Those actions fueled the soaring inequality and the economic crash of 2008. Greenspan was no bystander watching markets obey some ineffable logic. His obsession with financial innovation set the stage for the crisis.” (06/24/26)
“The tentative ‘memorandum of understanding’ with Iran has caused glee on the Left and furor among many on the Right. The Left might welcome ‘peace,’ but surely not as much as it enjoys infighting on the Right over the details. If last week Democrats were calling Trump a fascist warmonger, now they deride his peace efforts as those of a Neville Chamberlain patsy. Within 24 hours, the Left’s talking points shifted from a mad bomber-style Curtis LeMay in the White House to an impotent appeaser. A week ago, some Republicans were arguing that not one of the prior seven presidents had dared to use force to stop Iran’s nuclear program. Now some of them are deriding him as an Iranian enabler.” [editor’s note: Poor Vic never seems to handle the failures of his approved schemes very well – TLK] (06/23/26)
“This month has seen two tightly contested runoff elections in South America. The results from Peru’s poll, held more than two weeks ago, are still not official – but indicate a razor-thin margin of 35,000 to 40,000 votes for the conservative candidate. The count of Sunday’s vote in Colombia has been much quicker, showing a win for right-wing political outsider Abelardo de la Espriella, by a 1% margin over his rival. In the wake of highly polarizing campaign rhetoric, some observers might see the results as confirmation of a deep, irreconcilable divide within the electorate. But, viewed through a different lens, the results point to the virtually equal desire among citizens for safety and rule of law – as well as policies that offer pathways out of poverty and high economic inequality.” (06/22/26)
“Why are Democrats and their teachers’ union masters trying to shoot down parental choice in education even when we now have so many examples of these programs working? Choice and competition are two of the hallmarks of the American economy. When stores compete, customers win. Turns out this is also true for schools. That’s an inviolable law of economics. A corollary is that monopolies tend to put customers last. This is all happening at a time when public monopoly schools are showing flat or negative performance despite more funding than ever before. This is one reason why so many states are turning to the new model of school choice, with public funds going to scholarships and charter schools, and tax incentives for charitable donations to private and Catholic schools.” (06/23/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“I just saw an article in The Conversation titled ‘Your AI habit is wasting precious resources. Here’s how to use it responsibly,’ and it pisses me off because you can already see where this is going. Neoliberalism is already doing that thing where they shift all the blame for the environmental consequences of ecocidal capitalism to the individual consumer, like how they told everyone to ride bikes and recycle instead of regulating the corporations who are actually destroying our biosphere. There are plenty of reasons why we should all avoid using AI, but the push to offload all the responsibility for the ecological consequences of data centers onto individual users instead of just regulating AI companies is typical capitalist power-serving bullshit.” [editor’s note: Is there a moral panic Johnstone WON’T jump on and ride hard? – TLK] (06/23/26)
“On Tuesday, New York City’s Democratic voters will decide whether Zohran Mamdani controls the future of their party. With equal parts perfidy and chutzpah, Mamdani has broken with party leaders who supported his rapid rise in last year’s mayoral race to endorse three House candidates. Three-decade incumbent Nydia Velázquez, esteemed by progressives and Hispanic voters alike, was the first member of Congress to endorse Mamdani last April. ‘It’s just beautiful to have someone so authentic,’ she gushed in July. With Velázquez retiring from her NY-7 seat, she thought she could count on Mamdani to repay the favor for her chosen successor, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso — a union-backed progressive who isn’t part of the Democratic Socialists of America. But Mamdani, authentic to himself, failed to follow through.” (06/22/26)
“The Supreme Court on Tuesday barred a former Louisiana inmate from suing prison officials who cut off his dreadlocks in violation of his Rastafari religious beliefs. The justices condemned what happened to the former inmate, Damon Landor. But they ruled that a federal law designed to protect the religious rights of inmates does not permit lawsuits for money damages against individuals even when rights are violated. The high court, in a 6-3 decision, agreed with lower courts that without exception had ruled that the law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, can’t be used to hold those who violate inmates’ rights financially responsible. The justices refused to apply the rationale from their decision in 2020 that allowed Muslim men to sue over their inclusion on the FBI’s no-fly list under a sister statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” (06/23/26)
