“Two years ago this week, Daniel Ellsberg died at the age of 92. In the popular imagination, his legacy is often reduced to a singular act of conscience and courage: the 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers, a classified government study that exposed the systematic deceit and misconduct of successive U.S. administrations in prosecuting the war in Vietnam. Ellsberg had spent over a decade inside the national security apparatus, directly contributing to the planning and execution of that war. But over time, he came to regard the intervention as a criminal, imperial war of aggression. Reflecting on the U.S. role in Southeast Asia, he concluded: ‘We were not on the wrong side; we were the wrong side.'” (06/18/25)
“Last week, after a police report alleged that his closest aide had taken kickbacks, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez apologized in a public address – not once, not twice, but eight times. And he asked forgiveness for his failure to detect the alleged corruption by Santos Cerdán, the third-highest official in the ruling socialist party. To make amends, the prime minister dismissed Mr. Cerdán while taking ‘full political responsibility’ for appointing him and trusting him. Mr. Sánchez also reshuffled the party leadership, ordered an external audit of party finances, and welcomed a vote of no-confidence in Parliament if the opposition sought one. He stopped short of resigning or calling a snap election, however, saying voters would have their say in the next elections in 2027. Having come to power in 2018 as a fighter of corruption, he said his ‘duty as captain is to take the helm to weather the storm.'” (06/17/25)
“Pity Tulsi Gabbard. She has a very hard job. As director of national intelligence, she’s responsible for overseeing the largest foreign intelligence enterprise in the world, a multi-billion-dollar behemoth of eighteen agencies spread across multiple departments. At the same time, she’s the ‘principal adviser to the President, to the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council for intelligence matters related to the national security,’ as laid out by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which created the position. The post has relatively little authority but a huge amount of responsibility. However, Gabbard also has a second job, which, unlike her official role, isn’t spelled out in law. As a courtier of Donald Trump, she’s there to make the boss look good — and, possibly more important, feel good. These two jobs were bound to clash eventually, and the Israel–Iran conflict forced the issue.” (06/18/25)
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen, Ryan Grim, Nicolae Butler & Pablo Manriquez
“The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has been furiously urging House Democrats to release messages of steadfast support for Israel in its war with Iran, the Prospect and Drop Site News have learned, even as bipartisan lawmakers come together on a War Powers Act resolution to prevent U.S. troops or funds being used in yet another Middle East conflagration. One member relayed that a colleague had received literally 100 phone calls from members of AIPAC and its allied pressure groups. AIPAC wants House Democratic members to state explicitly that they ‘stand with Israel’ in its actions against Iran …. In addition, AIPAC has taken particular pains to denigrate the moderate pro-Israel group J Street, both in private conversations with members of Congress and in public, picking a fight aimed at blocking any Democrats from using J Street as cover to deviate from AIPAC’s maximalist position.” (06/18/25)
“For the first time in over four decades, the constitutional protections guaranteeing undocumented immigrant children the right to attend public school are facing a coordinated and credible threat. Since early 2025, lawmakers in six states have introduced legislation aimed at restricting or denying public education to undocumented immigrant children — measures that, if enacted, would almost certainly trigger legal challenges with the potential to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. These efforts are not happening in isolation: They are part of a broader strategy explicitly outlined by the Heritage Foundation to provoke a judicial reconsideration of Plyler v. Doe, the landmark Supreme Court case that found undocumented children have a Fourteenth Amendment right to be educated.” 906/18/25)
“Nietzsche, though not possessing a consistently liberal set of political principles and though he did not write a treatise on political theory, had many things to say of interest to those concerned with individual liberty. He did write at length about morality, which is the declared central theme of three books: Daybreak, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morality. Where there is moral philosophy, there is always at the very least some implicit grounds for political philosophy, since political philosophy is typically conceived as morally grounded. In Nietzsche’s case where the grounds might be characterised as immoralism, but it is still a form of ethical theory. Apart from this, there are also many aphorisms, passages and sections of his work which are concerned with political thought. They are frequently of value from a liberty oriented point of view or at least provoke thought around ideas of liberty.” (06/18/25)
“‘Dissent is the very essence of science’ declare employees of NIH — but groupthink and replicability crises reign. Dr. Bhattacharya knows first hand what happens when curiosity meets bureaucracy. Can he change that culture?” (06/18/25)
“Remember all the infamous one-liners from the Global War on Terror? … It’s a slam dunk case! We have to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. We’ll be greeted as liberators. Islam is a religion of peace. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom. Those last two are direct quotes from President George W. Bush, the man most responsible — whether through extreme naiveté or extreme duplicity — for propagating these ridiculous slogans and using them to justify decades-long wars that ended in ignominy for the United States. You’d think that after Iraq and Afghanistan this kind of rhetoric would be totally discredited. But you’d be wrong.” (06/18/25)
“Donald Trump is a remarkably weak man. Consider his administration’s constant immigration flip-flopping. Immigration — illegal [sic] immigration most specifically and urgently, but immigration in general, too — is the reason Donald J. Trump, game-show host and cameo performer in porn films, is president of these United States. In a world in which the immigration issue had been treated seriously by Republicans (or — ho, ho! — by Democrats), Trump never would have been the 2016 nominee and never would have been president. Trade has long been Trump’s No. 1 issue, but immigration has been a close No. 2 for about a decade. Ironic, then, that his trade and immigration policies change every 15 minutes.” (06/18/25)
