Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Back when I was a college student, a very long time ago, coat and tie were required wear in the dining hall. I kept a rolled up tie in my pocket, to be worn for meals and only for meals, have rarely worn one since. Part of the reason may have been that my sport at the time was judo, where choke holds are legal. Neckties are an obsolete technology. Their purpose was to seal the shirt at the neck to help keep the wearer warm in unheated rooms. They have been made obsolete twice, first by central heating and a second time by elastic. They are still worn, although less often than when I was young. Neckties are a fossil. There are others.” (06/19/26)
“Democrats take great offense at being accused of being unpatriotic, but the data don’t lie. A new NBC News poll captured the partisan gap over pride in America. Overall, 56% of Americans are extremely or very proud of the country, but only 29% of Democrats, compared to 90% of Republicans. That’s a yawning gap, and about a matter that really shouldn’t be controversial. We aren’t talking about abortion, or Donald Trump’s White House ballroom, but an elemental thing (pride in country) that in most times and places has been taken for granted.” [editor’s note: If you (irrationally, IMO) want people to be “proud” of their “country,” keep it a country that inspires pride. Otherwise, shut yer whining – TLK] (06/19/26)
“Everyone is right to expect a big blue wave—maybe a tsunami—in the midterms this fall. Even with all of the gerrymandering, the odds of Democrats winning control of the House are strong. The Senate, which Republicans now control 53-47, is much closer, which makes it more likely to be the locus of a constitutional crisis. Donald Trump is a chaos agent, and his fear of impeachment and a Senate trial are making him desperate and more dangerous. He can’t cancel the midterms, but he will use the enormous powers of his office to try to invalidate the election of Democrats, even where the margins aren’t close. It’s easy to miss that a slow-motion rolling coup attempt is already underway, staged by Stephen Miller and, of course, Trump himself.” (06/19/26)
“Starmer’s growing unpopularity (he is now tied with Liz Truss for least popular prime minister ever) invited a series of challenges over the last few months, especially following a disastrous result for Labour in May’s local elections. But none of his opponents, including the ambitious health secretary Wes Streeting, managed to get sufficient backing from other Labour MPs to launch a challenge. The amateurish plotters resigned from the cabinet without drawing blood. But all along, the real threat to Starmer was far from Westminster. Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester since 2017, has long been gunning for the top job.” (06/19/26)
“[W]hile the rest of the Gulf countries went one way, toward restraint and staying out of a war they were trying to end, the United Arab Emirates went another. The UAE urged the other Gulf countries to take a more aggressive posture in their defense and to join the United States. They alone said they would be willing to join a U.S.-led international effort to ‘secure navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.’ And on the very day the Gulf Cooperation Council opened its recent summit, the Emirati government announced it was leaving the Saudi-led OPEC group of oil-producing nations. But then the more sensational revelations came. In an extraordinary first, Israel sent an Iron Dome battery, interceptors, and dozens of IDF operators to the UAE, to help intercept Iranian missiles fired at the UAE.” (06/20/26)
“In the course of my roughly three-quarters-of-a-century-long life, I’ve lived in just three cities: Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C. By year’s end, there’s a decent chance that all three of those cities will have a socialist mayor. Just to be clear, despite the fact that I’ve been an avowed democratic socialist in all three cities (for all of my adult life, in fact), I’m claiming no credit for their new socialist proclivities. Yesterday, the candidate running second in Tuesday’s D.C. Democratic mayoral primary conceded the race to the front-runner, city council and DSA member Janeese Lewis George. With three-quarters of the ballots counted, Lewis George has a 53 percent to 37 percent lead over the second-place finisher.” (06/19/26)
“Asked about the latest Consumer Price Index report showing inflation hitting 4.2 percent, a three-year high, President Trump gave an answer that deserves to run on a loop in attack ads from now until November: ‘You know what I really love?’ he said. ‘I love the inflation.’ The war with Iran, he explained, is the only thing propping up prices, so once it ends, inflation is ‘going to come down like a rock.’ If the president genuinely loves inflation, then he is in luck, because we are about to get a great deal more of it. No peace deal can change that. The war’s inflationary effects cannot be simply switched off at a signing ceremony.” (06/20/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“If you can hear the whales / through your glowing foot roots, / then stand up. / Open your mouth. / Let their aria rip through you. / Let it pound up and out / so the others can find you. / Burrrp! / Now’s not the time for politeness, my love. / We’re staring down mass extinction. / We don’t have time to be cool. / Care! It’s fine! / There’s a rumbling in your belly. / Can you feel it? / An inner ocean, / still teeming with luminescent jellyfish, / dulled by a thin coat of plastic, / immortal but dying anyway. / For so many / their foot roots / have withered away
somewhere in between an Uber shift / and a Door Dash, / and besides, / their heart, / rick-roll racketed by rent scam subscriptions, / beats too loud and fast / to hear any stupid whales….” (06/21/26)
“Arguing to uphold the ban, the government had to argue that marijuana users were more dangerous than the general population. Yet as the Court pointed out, marijuana is legal in most States. And Congress has constricted Department of Justice funding for enforcement of federal marijuana laws. Moreover, the Executive branch has moved some marijuana from Schedule I (outlawed) to Schedule III (regulated). In short, Hemani rests on foundations that both originalists and a non-originalists can find compelling.” (06/19/26)
