CA: Newsom backtracks, reduces healthcare benefits for undocumented people

Source: SFGate

“At the end of 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom framed it as a matter of principle when under his administration, California became the first state in the nation to pay for undocumented immigrants to use Medicaid. … now Newsom and fellow Democrats in Sacramento are walking back on their promise to provide healthcare access to all. Lawmakers have slashed the program in a series of cuts over the last year with more expected to come. In January, the state froze any new undocumented adults from applying for the program. Dental benefits for undocumented people are set to expire in July. And Newsom’s latest budget proposal, released in May, calls for increasing premiums from a planned $30 to $50 for undocumented people starting in July next year.” (06/08/26)

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/newsom-healthcare-undocumented-immigrants-22292838.php

Thomas L. Knapp

ICE Profiteer Claims It Cannot Be Sued

Source: The American Prospect
by Whitney Curry Wimbish

“As immigrant prisoners inside Newark’s Delaney Hall enter their third week of collective action against increasingly inhumane conditions, attorneys for the private prison company that runs it are attempting a new gambit to evade responsibility. GEO Group lawyers argued in a recent court filing that the company is exempt from legal action because it is subject to government oversight …. Plaintiffs allege that GEO systematically forced Aurora, Colorado, ICE prisoners into forced labor, a similar complaint to that of detainees in Delaney Hall. But GEO says it has ‘qualified immunity,’ a doctrine the Supreme Court invented out of whole cloth that is meant to protect government officials from cases brought against them as individuals.” (06/08/26)

https://prospect.org/2026/06/08/ice-profiteer-claims-it-cannot-be-sued-geo-group-delaney-hall-new-jersey/

Steve Trinward

CA: Nithya Raman leaps past Spencer Pratt in tight race to make LA mayoral runoff

Source: NBC News

“Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman, a Democrat, has taken a narrow lead for second place over former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, a registered Republican, in the race to take on Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in a runoff this fall. NBC News projected Bass’[s] advancing to the runoff last week, but the outstanding question, as the city and the state continue counting ballots, is whom she will face and what kind of matchup that will be. NBC News hasn’t projected the winner of the other spot in the runoff. … Los Angeles still has more than 100,000 votes left to count.” (06/07/26)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/nithya-raman-leaps-spencer-pratt-tight-unresolved-race-make-l-mayoral-rcna348781

Thomas L. Knapp

Economic Calculation and the Vaccine Industry

Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jeffrey A Tucker

“The cacophony for and against vaccines – even what is a vaccine is in broad dispute – has reached new level of deafening absurdity. There isn’t just one rabbit hole but hundreds. Compliance is tanking, which is what one would expect after brutal mandates and ubiquitous injury and death. Meanwhile, pharma bots are dominating social media to shame dissidents, while legacy media turns news pages into nonstop shot-and-pill advertising. Everyone is left with questions about whom to trust and what is true. Several states have already seceded from the CDC’s own attempt to change the childhood schedule even slightly. That’s how contentious this issue has become. My thesis: this epistemic nihilism is born of the deliberate subversion of economic signaling systems that would otherwise reveal inconvenient truths.” (06/07/26)

https://brownstone.org/articles/economic-calculation-and-the-vaccine-industry/

Thomas L. Knapp

Israeli, Iranian regimes exchange strikes in most serious escalation since April ceasefire

Source: Associated Press

“Israel and Iran traded fire early Monday in retaliatory strikes that threatened to drag the wider Middle East back into a full-scale regional war. Yemen’s Houthi rebels [sic] also fired at Israel and warned they would target Israel-affiliated ships in the Red Sea, further escalating tension. The renewed threat comes as Saudi Arabia is relying on its East-West Pipeline to export oil out through the Red Sea as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. … Tehran had warned of retaliation after Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs without warning earlier Sunday in defiance of Washington’s request days ago to stand down.” (06/08/26)

https://apnews.com/live/iran-war-israel-lebanon-trump-06-08-2026

Thomas L. Knapp

We Don’t Need AI to Tell Us Donald is a Red

Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp

“By virtually any metric, Trump is devoted to central economic planning and government control of American industry. To, that is, socialism. What separates him from other, actually admitted, socialists like [US Senator Bernie] Sanders and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani isn’t that they’re any more or less committed to ‘socialism,’ it’s the specific TYPE of socialism.” (06/07/26)

https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20687

Thomas L. Knapp