“A village council meeting was unusually packed on May 12 as people across the lower peninsula called for officials to stand against the reopening of an immigrant detention center just north of Baldwin. The 1,800-bed, maximum-security North Lake Correctional Facility, owned by the for-profit prison corporation Geo Group, would become the largest such facility in the Midwest and second-largest in the nation. Several were concerned that an increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence would hurt Michigan agriculture. Others spoke of habeas corpus and humane treatment. ’We really don’t want Michigan to have a Dachau,’ said another, referencing the Nazi concentration camp. ‘I understand everyone’s concerns,’ Harold Nichols, Baldwin village president, assured the room before stating that the village council had little power to stop Geo Group, which operates 16 ICE facilities across the United States and was a large Trump donor.” (06/25/25)
“After spending nearly two weeks in a secret bunker somewhere in Iran during his country’s war with Israel, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, might want to use the opportunity of the ceasefire to venture out. He is believed to be holed up, incommunicado, for the fear of being assassinated by Israel. Even top government officials apparently have had no contact with him. He would be well advised to be cautious …. When – or indeed if – he does emerge from hiding, he will see a landscape of death and destruction. He will no doubt still appear on state TV claiming victory in the conflict. He will plot to restore his image. But he will face new realities – even a new era.” (06/26/25)
“At this week’s NATO summit in The Hague, leaders announced an alarming new goal: push military spending to 5% of nations’ GDP by 2035. Framed as a response to rising global threats, particularly from Russia and terrorism, the declaration was hailed as a historic step. But in truth, it represents a major step backwards—away from addressing the urgent needs of people and the planet, and toward an arms race that will impoverish societies while enriching weapons contractors. This outrageous 5% spending target didn’t come out of nowhere—it’s the direct result of years of bullying by U.S. President Donald Trump. During his first term, Trump repeatedly berated NATO members for not spending enough on their militaries, pressuring them to meet a 2% GDP threshold that was already controversial and so excessive that nine NATO countries still fall below that ‘target.'” (06/26/25)
“How deranged are the Trump-deranged? Are the deep-state leakers and their Democratic media mouthpieces so blinded by their hatred for the president that they will go to treasonous lengths just to deny him a victory? Or are they simply hellbent on provoking a full-scale war with Iran? CNN’s exclusive report of a leaked top secret US intelligence assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency on Tuesday suggested that the weekend B-2 bunker-buster sortie in Iran was a flop. This conveniently contradicted Trump’s claim that it was ‘a spectacular military success’ that had ‘completely and totally obliterated’ Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities and overshadowed the startlingly good news that the president had somehow pulled off a cease-fire between Iran and Israel, which was still holding more than 40 hours later, when we went to press.” [editor’s note: How is reporting news “treasonous” just because it makes Devine’s orange god look stupid? – TLK] (06/25/25)
“The desperation from the Republican leadership on the Big Beautiful Bill would be funny if I thought it would stick. The bill is clearly not ready for the Senate floor, with numerous Republicans saying they would not vote to advance it. Yet Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is sticking to his original plan of passing the bill this week, a bill that remains invisible, without final text, without CBO scores (which are critical for compliance with budget rules), without fixes to some of the items ruled not germane to a reconciliation bill, and without adjudication on many of the other items, including most of the all-important Senate Finance Committee language that covers taxes and Medicaid. The more severe cuts in the Senate Finance version … have really set off several Republicans, especially those in rural states who know that their hospitals will not survive the carnage.” (06/26/25)
“California drivers are about to get hit – again – at the pump. On July 1, gas prices are set to rise thanks to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s relentless climate crusade when higher gas tax and stricter fuel regulations take effect, punishing working families under the guise of environmental virtue. Despite our state’s plentiful oil reserves, Californians are forced by Democrat ‘climate’ policies to pay the nation’s highest gas prices (now around $5.00 per gallon), surpassing even Hawaii, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Extortionate gas prices are not just an inconvenience; they are a crushing burden for working families, who typically face far longer commutes than the leftist work-from home elites who impose these policies. And they’re a disaster for small businesses operating on tight margins and are already struggling under the weight of the nation’s highest taxes and most burdensome regulations.” (06/26/25)
“A Harvard University researcher accused of smuggling clawed frog embryos into the United States was indicted Wednesday on additional charges. Kseniia Petrova, a Russian-born scientist conducting cancer research for Harvard Medical School, was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Boston on one count of concealment of a material fact, one count of false statement and one count of smuggling goods into the United States. She had been charged with the smuggling in May. Despite the additional charges, Petrova will remain on pretrial release. A lawyer for Petrova could not be reached for comment. She was returning from a vacation from France in February when she was questioned by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Boston Logan International Airport. Petrova, 30, had stopped at a lab specializing in splicing superfine sections of frog embryos and obtained a package of samples for research.” (06/25/25)
“A study into potential serious side effects of weight loss jabs has been launched after hundreds of people reported problems with their pancreas. The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and Genomics England are asking people on weight loss drugs who have been hospitalised by acute pancreatitis to get in touch. There have been hundreds of reports of acute and chronic pancreatitis from people who have taken drugs such as Mounjaro, Ozempic and Wegovy, although none are confirmed as being caused by the medicines. The aim is ‘to better predict those most at risk of adverse reactions,’ said MHRA chief safety officer Dr Alison Cave. The study is being run through the MHRA’s Yellow Card scheme, which allows anyone to report an issue with a medicine, vaccine or medical device to help identify safety issues as early as possible.” (06/26/25)
“Mostly, in politics, good things don’t happen. Let’s be honest. Most of the time, the candidates are dishonest, and the issues are distractions, and the person with the most money wins. Sometimes, though, there is a reason for inspiration. And — even more rarely — there is a reason to believe that things are changing. You can feel the gears of history moving. You can feel the tectonic plates of normalcy begin to quaver and slip. The previous, unsustainable arrangement of the world is beginning to slip. The future holds something different. Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old Muslim democratic socialist, just won the New York City Democratic primary for mayor. When the results came in Tuesday night, I was inside a Democratic Socialists of America watch party in the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, a sprawling space with the look of a crumbling high school auditorium, and the sweat-drenched young crowd of Zohran volunteers was approaching ecstasy.” (06/25/25)
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by Kurt Shillinger
“In late January, an armed rebel group backed by Rwanda swept through the city of Goma on the eastern edge of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The humanitarian toll since then has been grim. In early June, Human Rights Watch reported that the group, M23, ‘has created a climate of fear … to solidify their control by whatever means necessary.’ But when reporter Sophie Neiman traveled to Goma in April for a series of stories featured in this week’s cover package, she found another mindset among its residents that even the rebels have had to acknowledge. ‘All over Congo today, people are expecting us to come because they want change,’ M23 leader Corneille Nangaa told Sophie. ‘They want good governance. … They want development.’ Uniformed militants patrol the city in armored cars, but they have also reopened schools and restored some water and electricity.” (06/26/25)
