“The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider a Republican push to enforce strict Arizona voting laws passed in the swing state after the 2020 election. The high court has allowed some similar rules to take effect as lawsuits play out, including Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement for state and local elections and a Virginia purge of voter rolls that the state said was aimed at keeping noncitizens from voting. The appeal was filed by the Republican National Committee after lower courts found the measures violated federal voting laws, and it was joined by GOP President Donald Trump’s administration. ‘The RNC is proud to lead this effort, and we will keep fighting nationwide to defend election integrity and ensure only eligible citizens cast a ballot’, said Chairman Joe Gruters. The high court is expected to hear arguments in the fall and likely hand down an opinion after the midterm elections.” (06/29/26)
“On the last day of testimony in the federal ’Prairieland’ trial — wherein nine activists faced charges related to a protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center — the government called its star witness back to the stand. Kyle Shideler, director of counterterrorism research at the right-wing think tank Center for Security Policy, had been key to the prosecution’s case that ‘antifa’ is a violent, criminal organization bent on overthrowing the U.S. government. Shideler, an imposing figure with a cleanly shaven head and full beard, had attended nearly the entire trial, even sitting in the overflow room during jury selection. At the stand, Shideler read aloud the government’s definition of antifa, as well as an excerpt from President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring antifa a domestic terrorist organization — issued in September, less than two weeks after the assassination of right-wing pundit and activist Charlie Kirk.” (06/26/26)
“Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke wrote in 1977: ‘The impact of telecommunications satellites on the entire human race will be at least the same impact as the advent of the telephone in so-called developed societies.’ Today, that prediction has long been reality. Few people realize how deeply daily life already depends on space infrastructure. If all satellites suddenly failed, navigation systems would collapse. Smartphones and vehicles could no longer determine location accurately. Weather forecasts would become unavailable. Airports would descend into chaos without GPS-based time and positioning data. Traffic signals would desynchronize, leading to chaos on the roads. Supply chains that depend on satellite-supported logistics would disintegrate. Even financial transactions would grind to a halt, as precise time signals via satellites are vital for synchronizing debits and credits.” (06/27/26)
“Now that the United States and Iran have signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding ending their war (at least for now) the general public and pundits have been weighing in on who won. A CBS-YouGov survey released Sunday found that 37% of Americans think the memorandum of understanding (MOU) favors Iran, while 22% believe the United States got the better deal. Nearly half (47%) say both sides broke even. Newsweek, meanwhile, queried 10 military experts ranging from a former US Navy admiral and a former Pentagon official to five think tank scholars and two professors of international relations. Seven said Iran won the war. Two said ‘no one’. Only one thought the United States came out on top, but added, ‘Neither side will gain a complete victory.'” (06/27/26)
“Democrat Rep. Dan Goldman has lost his re-election bid in New York. In the olden days (20 years ago), such an outcome was inconceivable. In the modern Democrat Party, however, the rush to socialism knows no loyalty. No matter what yesterday’s socialist or big government proponent did for the cause, that is not good enough for the current socialists, let alone tomorrow’s. In history, the run-up to class warfare/high tax/redistributionist policies we associate with socialism becomes a spiraling rush. Examples include the end of the Roman Republic and the end of the ancient Greek Athenian democracy. The same is true within the Democrat Party today. James Carville recently said the Democrat Party is ‘not a left-wing party.’ Contrary to his spin, however, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have the momentum within the Democrat Party.” (06/27/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“They’re designing park benches / so that homeless people can’t sleep on them / and placing metal spikes beneath overpasses / so they can’t be used as shelter. / Jerry Seinfeld says Palestine doesn’t exist / and that sometimes socks go missing in the dryer, / wocka wocka ha ha ha / it’s funny because it’s a witty observation / about life’s everyday little goofy goofs. / Fast food wrappers blow in the wind / like the leaves used to do. / Duct-taped gargoyles with garbage bag wings / peer down at the din of civilization / as we march over the sidewalk sleepers / to our Jobs, / stepping over dead bodies / while staring at our phones / and counting the minutes / til we can go home to our sofas / and watch wocka wocka …” (06/27/26)
“Last week, Democrats came to Chicago to erect a cenotaph to their past. In the words of Shakespeare’s Mark Antony, they did not come to praise Obama as much as to bury him. They did so because they had already buried the party that nominated him twice. In Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection victory, he received the votes of 17 percent of conservatives. Just twelve years later, in 2024, Kamala Harris received nine percent of conservative voters. And of that nine percent, a good many were undoubtedly not voting for Harris but were ‘never Trumpers’ voting against Donald Trump. The point is: Obama once had a significant appeal to conservatives. That no longer holds for Democrats. The reason is that Democrats are not what they once were, or at least the moderates they were able to successfully pose as being..” (06/27/26)
Source: The American Prospect
by Naomi Bethune & Ryan Cooper
“Thursday was a decision day at the Supreme Court, and the American people got to enjoy the familiar experience of waiting on tenterhooks yet again to see which rights were going to be deleted this time. The answer was residency rights for hundreds of thousands of nonwhite immigrants. The most important of Thursday’s decisions was also the worst one: Mullin v. Doe, which overturned a lower-court order barring the Trump regime from removing Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from hundreds of thousands of nonwhite refugees. For months now, Haitian and Syrian recipients of the TPS program have been in limbo, with their legal status being held up by fragile pauses in lower-court rulings.” [editor’s note: shrewd commentary or whining nonsense? You be the judge – SAT] (06/26/26)
“By statute, the approval process of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is to determine the safety and effectiveness of a new drug. If both requirements are met, the new drug is approved. The process usually takes roughly a decade. Most people would reasonably assume the lengthy approval process is due to the need to prove a new drug is safe for use by patients. But the years-long lag between a drug’s submission for approval and its arrival on the market often stems from the process of assessing its effectiveness. The easiest way to think about it is this: determining safety protects patients; determining effectiveness protects consumers.” (06/27/26)
“‘I urge you guys to freeze the rent, because we want our students to succeed.’ That was the appeal Alyssa Wright made to the nine members of New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) earlier this month, a little more than halfway through a packed, four-hour hearing in the Bronx on whether to freeze rents in the city’s some 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. Wright serves as a campus supervisor for a pilot program connecting City University of New York (CUNY) students with housing, healthcare and food resources. It’s a challenging role: Just that week, Wright said in her testimony, she had counseled five students facing eviction. Some 38% of CUNY’s 240,000 students experience housing insecurity, a condition that makes them twice as likely to withdraw or be placed on academic probation, according to a 2025 study based on a representative sample of students.” (06/26/26)
