“Solar energy just provided more electricity in the United States than coal for the first time on record — marking a milestone for the rise of renewables in America. While gas and nuclear plants still lead the country’s energy mix, solar contributed 12.8 percent of the nation’s electrons in May, according to an analysis of government data by Ember, an energy think tank. Coal, meanwhile, provided just 12.2 percent. Just five years ago, solar was less than half of its current levels and coal was at 20 percent.” (06/10/26)
Source: CounterPunch
by Sidney Plotkin & Bill Scheurman
“Woody Guthrie proudly sang ‘This land is your land, this land is my land / From California to the New York island,’ but, in fact, the conversion of vast public resources and wealth to private property is one of the defining dynamics of American history. The political economist Thorstein Veblen called this process ‘The American Plan:’ the conversion of public resources into private hands as fast as possible.” [editor’s note: There are no “public resources and wealth” — if it’s not “private property,” it’s unowned – TLK] (06/10/26)
“It’s the original purchases that are costing the taxpayer money …. the loss was baked in when the Bank of England bought all those bonds back when. Buying gilts with 1/2% and the like coupons just was/is going to lead to a loss. A loss that can be taken in one of two ways but a loss which is going to be taken in one of those two ways. … The loss comes from having done Quantitative Easing, not from the clean up that is Quantitative Tightening. Sorry, there is no free money.” (06/10/26)
“It was February in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Maria Gonzalez was leaving her hotel cleaning job. Thirty minutes later, a co-worker uploaded a video in their group chat that showed ICE agents storming the hotel and searching for Latino people as part of Operation Metro Surge. They eventually grabbed three of her colleagues and took them away; she believes that, had she still been at work, she likely would have been detained. … The hotel business tends to be weak in winter months, she said, but it nosedived starting in December as the surge began, which meant she was called in to work less. Then a week after the hotel incident, ICE showed up at her own door while she was at home with her husband and two teenage children, pounding and kicking it, demanding to be let in.” (06/10/26)
“British author Josh Ireland’s account of Josef Stalin’s quest to liquidate Leon Trotsky is a story of pathology and politics. Ireland doesn’t spend much time on Lenin, who makes only spectral appearances, or on the ideological quarrels between Mensheviks, Leninists, Stalinists, and Trotskyists. He is preoccupied with the two personalities at the centre of his story: Stalin the obsessive hater and the hapless and suicidally negligent Trotsky.” (06/10/26)
“For more than 30 years, nurse practitioner Marcy Markes has cared for patients in intensive care units and small-town clinics across Missouri. She holds degrees from the University of Missouri and runs an allergy and asthma clinic in Columbia, Missouri. The state has a serious health care access problem, and its residents would be better off if experienced providers like Markes were free to provide the care they are licensed to give. Instead, a state law requires nurse practitioners to contract with a physician, which by some estimates can cost an average of $7,000 per year. The price tag for Markes to practice? $50,000 a year. … Courts have increasingly been willing to reassess occupational licensing laws that appear to serve entrenched economic interests more than consumer protection. Missouri’s CPA regime presents a fairly clear case …” (06/10/26)
“Buried deep within the thousands of pages of the annual U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a single provision labeled Section 224 has quietly become one of the hottest political flashpoints in Washington this year. On the surface, it looks like standard bureaucratic language — just another push to strengthen technological and military cooperation between the United States and Israel. But the intensity of the reactions it’s sparked, from both supporters and fierce critics, reveals something much bigger at play. For many watchers, Section 224 isn’t merely a technical tweak; it’s become a symbol of larger, often uncomfortable questions about Israel’s role in U.S. foreign policy, how far America’s security commitments should go, and where the Republican Party is headed in this new era.” (06/10/26)
“The House Freedom Caucus, a group of former congressional rebels who have over the past few years evolved into Trump lackeys, is on the verge of total irrelevance. In a scenario where House Republicans become the minority, the caucus will lose whatever semblance of leverage it has, and current members know it; half a dozen of them will be leaving Congress at the end of the year.” (06/09/26)
