“U.S. Reps. Steny Hoyer and Jerrold Nadler, two of the top Democrats in Congress, are retiring when their terms expire in January, but they will continue to make their imprints on Washington. The pair passed the torch Tuesday night to former aides who won the Democratic primaries to replace them on Capitol Hill, and because both districts are overwhelmingly blue, they are all but certain to win in November and get sworn in to replace their former bosses. Hoyer and Nadler are the latest lawmakers to successfully anoint their successors after spending decades in Congress. Among 68 members of Congress not seeking reelection this year, at least five have endorsed former staffers to replace them and more than a dozen others have, to varying degrees, worked to smooth the path to Capitol Hill for their favored replacements.” (06/24/26)
“Progressive candidate Iván Cepeda on Wednesday conceded Colombia’s presidential election to Abelardo de la Espriella, a conservative outsider who was endorsed by U.S. President Donald Trump. Election results showed de la Espriella, a businessman and lawyer who had never run for office, defeated Cepeda, a lawmaker, by 1 percentage point, or nearly 251,000 votes. ‘We assume with serenity, responsibility, and absolute resolve — and let there be no doubt about it — the role that circumstances demand of us,’ Cepeda said in an address to the nation. ‘We will exercise a democratic, vigilant and constructive opposition.’ The result effectively was an indictment of outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s government, whose policies Cepeda had promised to continue, including a largely failed effort to establish dialogue with multiple armed groups under a plan known as ‘total peace’. Electoral authorities published all but a fraction of the vote count hours after polls closed Sunday.” (06/24/26)
Source: Common Dreams
by Phil Buchanan & Elisha Smith Arrillaga
“Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, his administration has waged war on nonprofits. Actions have included federal funding cuts to the tune of billions of dollars, targeting of specific organizations with investigations or indictments, and threats to tax-exempt status. While some efforts have been turned back by the courts, the administration has been unrelenting and, sadly, every American community will suffer as a result of this sustained attack. Presidential announcements warn of ‘anti-American NGOs’ and allege without any credible evidence that networks of nonprofits are acting as ‘domestic terrorist organizations’. Recently, the administration issued proposed regulations intended to impose sweeping new restrictions on nonprofits that receive federal funding—including that such organizations not advance diversity, equity, and inclusion or assist in voter registration.” (06/24/26)
“President Donald Trump ratcheted up tensions with Senate Republicans on Wednesday by abruptly canceling his signing of a bipartisan measure to make housing more affordable. Republicans had hoped to show voters they care about affordability ahead of the November elections. But the president blindsided them by insisting that Congress first pass a bill imposing federal rules on state-run elections. Trump had already planned to lunch Wednesday with GOP senators increasingly frustrated by his diversions from the party’s agenda and his unclear Iran war strategy. Trump also has a face-to-face Wednesday with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, two weeks ahead of the annual summit of the military alliance, as the Pentagon reviews the U.S. military footprint in Europe.” (06/24/26)
“A very successful businessman (and a major contributor to Democratic Party candidates and causes) once explained to me why he talked, acted, and thought like a Republican but never considered supporting any Republican candidate, ever. ‘We’ve already got the Republicans’, he told me. This is the transactional essence behind corporate support for Democrats in California, the one-party state. Republicans have no political power, and whenever the Democrats in the state legislature are surprisingly split on a matter of concern to business interests, the handful of Republican politicians will invariably cast pro-business votes. This has been going on for a long time. Democrats have controlled both houses of the state legislature since 1997 and the governorship since 2011. A signature moment came in 2010 when Jerry Brown defeated the hapless billionaire Republican Meg Whitman to begin his second two-term stint as governor.” (06/24/26)
“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)
