“In a ruling Friday, District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered the cessation of all repair plans for the Kennedy Center and the removal of Trump’s name from the building within two weeks. It is a detailed and comprehensive opinion, but I believe Judge Cooper is wrong about halting the repairs. I previously expressed skepticism over the claim that the board could order such a change unilaterally. At that time, I raised the very issues that Judge Cooper cited in his rejection of the right to rename the center without congressional approval. I agree with the court on its standing decision, which is hardly a surprise given my past writings in favor of broader standing. However, the opinion becomes more challengeable when the court addresses the decision to close the center for two years to carry out major renovations.” (06/03/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
Connor O’Keeffe
“As Kevin Warsh takes over as chair of the Federal Reserve, investors and financial media outlets are looking closely for any hints at how his appointment will impact monetary policy. One series of comments Warsh made while testifying to Congress back in April as a nominee has been getting more attention in recent weeks, following some high inflation reports. Essentially, Warsh signaled that he believed in focusing primarily on inflation data from core or even trimmed price indexes. To understand what that means or why it matters, it’s important to note that, originally, ‘inflation’ was a term that simply meant the act of increasing, or inflating, the money supply.” (06/03/26)
“Doctor Charles Augustus Leale was just 23 years of age when he walked into Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. He had finished medical school only weeks before and was assigned to the theater because the President would be there. By the end of that night, his name was forever linked to one of America’s most tragic events. … Leale had no protocol to follow that evening. No committee advised him. No administrator stood nearby explaining liability concerns. No electronic medical record demanded documentation. There was no legal department, no compliance office, no billing specialist, and no corporate structure surrounding him. There was simply a physician, a dying patient, and a sense of duty. Medicine today feels very different.” (06/03/26)
“The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of Donald Trump’s own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No, we don’t. We already accomplished it. We ‘obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in between. No deal without ‘unconditional surrender.’ Let’s make a deal!” (06/03/26)
Source: The American Prospect
by Jacob S Hacker, Zoltan Hajnal, G Agustin Markarian, & Mackenzie Lockhart
“It has been just one month since the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court effectively nullified Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), making it lawful for states to draw congressional districts that systematically dilute the votes of Black and Latino Americans. Within hours, Southern states responded. Florida legislators passed a GOP gerrymander the day the decision was announced. Alabama moved to eliminate majority-minority districts even after primary-election votes had been cast, though an appellate court has temporarily blocked the state from proceeding. (UPDATE: The Supreme Court waved the gerrymandered map through last night.) In Tennessee, the district representing Memphis—majority-Black—was cracked into three, all now majority-white, all expected to turn red. By 2028, South Carolina will likely gerrymander out of existence the district that has elected the state’s only Black congressman, civil rights icon James Clyburn.” (06/03/26)
“Jan Marco Müller, the European Commission official who drafted the EU’s new science diplomacy framework, just said the quiet part out loud: ‘Science diplomacy is not about being nice to each other.’ Yes, it is, dumbass. That was the whole point. For centuries, science diplomacy worked precisely because it allowed ordinary human beings to humanize one another on neutral ground while governments were busy failing.” (06/03/26)
“This should not be a news flash to anyone, but the Trump Administration is out of control when it comes to war (and many other things, like ruining the economy, our judicial and electoral systems, as well as the landscape of the nation’s capital). Congress needs to do its job and rein in the executive branch. In the next few days, the House of Representatives needs to, ahem, represent the interests of the American people and vote in favor of two War Powers Resolutions, on Iran and Lebanon.” (06/03/26)
“In a recent article for UnHerd, Richard Dawkins revealed that he had spent three days trying to persuade himself that Claudia — an instance of Anthropic’s Claude — was not conscious. He failed. This raised some eyebrows. A number of people retorted that the man who wrote a book about anthropomorphic misattributions of consciousness (The God Delusion) was himself deluded; conned by the Eliza Effect into thinking that text-generating script was a ‘friend’ who cared. This may be eyebrow-raising, but it is not overly interesting. More interesting is a question Dawkins asks: ‘If my friend Claudia is not conscious, then what the hell is consciousness for?'” (06/02/26)
