“It’s June, which means the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to issue some of its most significant opinions of the term and, predictably, radicals on the political left are renewing their hysterical calls for sweeping changes to the court whenever decisions fail to align with their preferred policy outcomes. In recent years, virtually every Supreme Court ruling that has diverged from progressive policy preferences has been met with demands for so-called ‘court reform.’ This year, however, many prominent voices have abandoned any pretense of moderation, with demands for packing the court becoming the norm. U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, one of the most influential members of the Democratic Party, recently stated, ‘The Supreme Court is a disgrace. In the new Congress, we’re going to have to do something about this Supreme Court and let me be very clear: Everything is on the table — everything — to deal with this corrupt MAGA majority.'” (06/11/26)
“What if your favorite thing in the world was in the hands of a ghoul? Like the damsel in King Kong’s hand, the FIFA World Cup is a thing of rare beauty in the grip of a monster. The tournament is disfigured by its prefix: FIFA, football’s cartoonishly evil world governing body, a cartel of such rapacious vice its perfidy almost — but never quite — obscures the luminescent glory of el mundial. … Every four years, the World Cup plants a flag in my life, transforming the boring middle-aged fart I’ve become back into the awestruck eight-year-old with a heart broken at the hands of Paolo Rossi.” (06/11/26)
“Global Witness is telling us all that the things put in place to make sure that coltan (columbo-tantalite, a source of tantalum for mobile phone capacitors) does not come from slave driven mines aren’t working …. We agree, slave driven mines are a bad thing. It’s just that this problem was brought up before and a solution imposed. We disagreed with the solution imposed at the time as well, while Global Witness, Global Justice Now and the like all argued, vociferously, for that solution to be imposed. … In normal life something that’s an abject failure stops being done. In politics abject failure just carries on to the impoverishment of everyone — costs imposed that achieve nothing.” (06/11/26)
“In the early days of the republic (back when government was really small), tariffs were the primary means of both raising revenue and doling out ‘rents’ to businesses that organized and lobbied for them. The wonderfully named Tariff of Abominations (1828) was heavily influenced by Northern textile and iron producers. The post-Civil War decades were a golden age of tariff rent-seeking, with the U.S. iron, steel, wool, and sugar industries essentially writing U.S. tariff schedules. As I’ve documented at Cato and as Dartmouth economic historian Douglas Irwin thoroughly chronicles in his great book, Clashing Over Commerce, 19th-century tariff lobbying was in many respects an incubator for the entire U.S. lobbying and interest-group machine that exists today. And it began because American trade policy was openly auctioned off to the highest bidder. Offer the rents, and the rents get sought.” (06/11/26)
“Tim Kaine and Rand Paul made a shocking revelation last week about the U.S. military’s boat strikes in the East Pacific and Caribbean — attacks legal experts agree are illegal. In questioning Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Foreign Relations Committee hearing, they revealed that the targeting decisions about which boats would be attacked did not take into account whether they had drugs or arms aboard. In other words, the military may have attacked — and may attack in the future — a boat that carries neither drugs nor weapons, yet somehow, according to the Trump administration, constitutes a military threat to national security. … This is a ludicrous position. At the very least, insurgency and asymmetric warfare have to include some warlike activity, and merely sailing a boat through international waters is no more inherently warlike than taking a walk in the park or eating a hamburger.” (06/11/26)
“The time is ripe for European leaders to set aside the self-licking summits in European capitals and get in the room with the U.S., Ukraine, and Russia to orchestrate a modern-day Helsinki Conference. A durable peace for Ukraine will require several interlocking agreements, each of which will be incredibly difficult to negotiate, but all of which will be vital if we are to avoid a general war in Europe.” (06/11/26)
“Graham Platner is now through to the general election in Maine. He has survived another scandal, despite the fact that June is an unlikely time for the final story on him to drop. And his supporters, both in Maine and across the country, appear unwilling to abandon him for any reason. I want to argue here that Platner is a beneficiary of two kinds of populist thought, moving from both the bottom up and the top down. The first kind is the traditional sort, the kind that leads to Platner being excused as a hardscrabble everyman with rough edges. The second is an elite driven form of populism …. that underwrites the audacity of a Hotchkiss School dropout turned military adventurist turned oyster farmer to run for a Senate seat with no prior experience and no recognition that a single one of his subsequent scandals could be disqualifying.” (06/11/26)
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“The energy index surged 3.9% in May, accounting for the lion’s share, over 60%, of the monthly CPI gain. Gasoline prices jumped about 7% MoM (with even larger unadjusted moves) and sit 40.5% higher than a year ago. Overall energy costs are up 23.5% YoY. Food prices rose more modestly, while shelter costs continued their steady grind higher in the core measure. This isn’t abstract economic noise. It’s a direct hit to real incomes. … The primary culprit is unmistakable: the ongoing U.S.-involved conflict with Iran that Washington and Tel Aviv launched in late February 2026.” (06/11/26)
