“Not since the notorious 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) provided for indefinite detention of American citizens, has the annual funding bill been as misused as this year. Embedded in the bill is an insult to every American who values our national sovereignty. The NDAA’s Section 224, the ‘United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,’ would ‘integrate’ the Israeli military with our own, fusing technology, production, intelligence-sharing, and more. … It is hard to think of a more ‘America last’ position than handing the keys to the Pentagon (and our intelligence community) to a foreign country.” (06/09/26)
“For those of us who like to think literacy is a form of liberation, there’s a troubling counterpoint: Mein Kampf. Adolf Hitler wasn’t interested in people thinking for themselves; he insisted they think like him. Propaganda, he recognized, is an assault on reflection: avoid abstraction, parrot slogans, abandon objectivity, and scapegoat your enemies. In forms like Mein Kampf, books contributed to the poison. But for the German theologian and anti-Nazi conspirator Dietrich Bonhoeffer, they could also serve as an antidote.” (06/09/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ely Valentino Binet Batista
“There are two types of human beings in this world: those who wait for someone to tell them what to do, and those who build structures that force the world to move at their rhythm. Modern state-monopolized education is engineered exclusively for the former. The contemporary school system operates as a direct administrative descendant of the nineteenth-century Prussian factory model.” (06/09/26)
“The famed historian Gordon S. Wood died on Sunday, struck by a car in a parking lot at the age of 92. He was his generation’s foremost scholar of the American Revolution and the early Republic, and for decades he pressed a single argument with alacrity. The argument was this: the American Revolution was the most radical event in American history, and the men who made it neither intended nor controlled the radicalism they unleashed.” (06/09/26)
“This week, the nation watched as California grappled again with the ordinarily straightforward task of counting votes in an election. While large states such as Florida declare election winners within 24 hours, California may take up to two weeks to count all the votes. Even Los Angeles cannot count its votes in the time of large states despite giving the Clerk an annual budget of $336 million and a $448,179 a year salary with the help of 1,100 budgeted positions. In most states, voters would be outraged by the incompetence, waste and inefficiency. However, in the Golden State, voters shrug, as if they can demand no more from their elected officials than subpar performance. Call it the Politics of Low Expectations, and California is the model for the nation.” (06/09/26)
“The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) recently released a study by David Primo measuring faculty viewpoint diversity through campaign-contribution data. The average faculty donor scored only slightly to the right of progressives like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The findings and criticism traveled quickly. John K. Wilson, writing in Inside Higher Ed, pronounced the study ‘worthless’ because most faculty never make campaign contributions, so a sample of donors cannot describe the average professor. On the narrow point he is right: a sample of donors is not a sample of all faculty. ‘Worthless’ is a serious conclusion — a verdict that, applied consistently, would discard nearly every measure we have.” (06/09/26)
“‘We are capitalist, not socialist.’ Those words are from the ‘Promise to America’ pledge promoted by a new group of the same name and unveiled last week by Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-New York) and Rep. Adam Gray (D-California). … they declare: ‘We are proud, not ashamed of America.’ The Post suggests, however, that this slogan ‘could be polarizing on the left.’ Sure, it is a much different message than Maine Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner has expressed.” (06/09/26)
“Though smaller than most U.S. states, the landlocked nation of Armenia plays a key geopolitical role at the continental crossroads of Eurasia. With few natural resources, it is aiming to recalibrate regional and global relations and become a hub for international tech, finance, and transport services. So, its parliamentary elections Sunday have been of interest not just to next-door Azerbaijan and Turkey, but also to Iran, Russia, Europe, and the distant United States. The ruling Civil Contract party garnered 49.8% of the vote, Reuters reported, while the two main opposition parties together took in 33.1%. The degree to which both sides can find some common ground will determine how fast and how far this former Soviet republic can move out of history’s long shadow of ethnic conflict and external interference into an era of regional cooperation and progress.” (06/08/26)
Source: Niskanen Center
by Lawson Mansell & Jonathan Wolfson
“Nearly 15 million Californians live in communities with too few primary care doctors. In many communities, patients face long waits for appointments, struggle to find a physician accepting new patients, or must travel significant distances for routine care. The shortage is especially acute in rural communities, the Inland Empire, and the San Joaquin Valley, where access to healthcare often depends on a patient’s ZIP code rather than their medical needs. The California Senate now has an opportunity to address part of that challenge.” (06/09/26)
