Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“Some argue that to sacralize others is not a legal contrivance, but an ontological discovery. Rights are real, some insist. Rights are a derivation, others argue. We need not settle that debate. Every tradition that has ever produced wisdom — whether Mosaic, Stoic, Vedic, or Taoist — arrives at the same conclusion: To trespass upon others without cause is not merely a crime, it is a desecration. … The very foundation of law, in every civilization that has not entirely lost its way, is an elaboration on this. One may not injure the innocent. One may not seize what is not his. One may not constrain a person without justification sufficient to meet the scrutiny of a free people who seek similar protections.” (06/04/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/the-covenant
Source: Deutsche Welle [German state media]
“Hungary and Ukraine on Wednesday reached an agreement on the rights of Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarian minority, an issue that has long strained relations between the two countries. The deal will boost Ukraine’s longstanding bid to join the EU, with Budapest saying it would drop a veto by former Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Kyiv’s accession to the bloc if an agreement were reached. … The EU has now said it will move Ukraine, along with Moldova, to the next stage in their membership bids as it hailed the deal announced by [Hungarian Prime Minister Peter] Magyar.” (06/04/26)
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-moves-closer-to-eu-accession-after-hungary-deal/a-77414375
Source: Law & LIberty
by Mitch Daniels
“The evidence is persuasive that AI and related advances are already boosting the economy in the most important way possible, by raising productivity. That’s the biggest reason that GDP is surprising on the upside while job growth remains tepid. Moreover, forecasts that this favorable windage will accelerate seem highly credible. What’s not credible is the idea that even an AI-led productivity surge can suffice to offset our decades of dereliction. The Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Reserve, and other forecasters peg average future economic growth at a little under 2 percent. Assume a 70 percent boost from the AI revolution, to 3 percent or so, and it becomes possible to imagine our [sic] current debt level stabilizing, not improving but merely getting no worse. But even this daydream requires far too many improbable breaks.” [editor’s note: The US government debt isn’t “our” debt, it’s the US government’s debt. There’s a difference – TLK] (06/04/26)
https://lawliberty.org/ai-wont-stave-off-the-debt-disaster/
Source: AOL
“President Donald Trump marks the 500th day of his second term in the White House Thursday, but the milestone coincides with a poll showing his approval rating at a new low. The latest survey from The Economist and YouGov places Trump’s net approval rating at -25, down 1.1 points in a week, and reveals that only 35 percent of the American public approves of the job he is doing in the Oval Office, with a massive 60 percent disapproving and the remaining 5 percent unsure. The news magazine explains that the results make the president the most unpopular U.S. commander-in-chief since it began polling in 2009. … The survey finds that Trump is still most likely to receive support in red states that voted for him in 2024 but that dissatisfaction is now ‘widespread’ and is beginning to be expressed in locations he won two years ago.” (06/04/26)
https://www.aol.com/articles/trump-approval-rating-hits-another-101252000.html
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“Progressives rallying around the troubled candidacy of Graham Platner, the habitually dishonest skirt-chasing Totenkopf enthusiast challenging that nice Maine lady for a Senate seat, have learned precisely the wrong lessons from Republicans’ experience with Donald Trump, an experience that has left the GOP morally debased and ethically discredited and—perhaps Republicans will actually care about this part—unable to get much of what it wants politically. Legitimate issues, such as immigration control and abortion regulation, have been tainted by association with Trump and Trumpism, which means dishonesty and stupidity in the formulation of policy followed by incompetence and corruption in the execution of policy. Progressives will get the same thing from such a figure as Platner.” (06/04/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/platner-trump-morals-perfect-maine-primary/
Source: Town Hall
by Larry Elder
“‘Trump is a convicted felon!’ Who hasn’t heard this attack line made constantly by critics of President Donald Trump? For them, Trump’s conviction settles the debate about his character and fitness for office. But consider what one prominent legal analyst — not from Fox News, Newsmax or a conservative publication — wrote about the case. The charge against Trump brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg boils down to this. Trump recorded payments connected to the Stormy Daniels matter as legal expenses. Bragg transformed that into 34 felony counts and secured a conviction in a jurisdiction where Trump remains unpopular. Elie Honig, CNN’s senior legal analyst, outlined his objections in New York Magazine. He was brutal.” (06/04/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2026/06/04/tds-watch-the-convicted-felon-argument-n2677205
Source: Associated Press
“A performance artist in Hong Kong tried on Wednesday to honor the victims of Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown but was quickly stopped by police, the latest sign of the city’s shrinking freedom of expression. Sanmu Chen tried to tie a symbolic red thread to a street signpost in Causeway Bay, a busy shopping district close to a park that for decades hosted an annual candlelight vigil on June 4 to commemorate those who died in the crackdown that ended student-led protests in Beijing in 1989. Police officers stopped Chen and searched his bag before letting him go. Hong Kong was for decades the only place in China where a large-scale public commemoration of the crackdown was held. The massive annual vigils were banned in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and public acts to mark the Tiananmen Square killings have become increasingly sensitive in the city in recent years.” (06/04/26)
https://apnews.com/article/hong-kong-tiananmen-crackdown-artist-sanmu-chen-4bdc7c34b4e9914bbccbb5a31d239870
Source: LP Alliance
“Your source for stories inside the [Libertarian Party], across the country, and around the world!” (06/04/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sorzCxnAzu4
Source: Niskanen Center
by Rachel Levine & Maggie Zhang
“High-voltage direct current (HVDC) technology is widely recognized as the preferred solution for long-distance power transmission, but it also plays a critical role in ‘back to back’ connections that transfer power between neighboring grids. Electricity sharing among the nation’s three grid interconnections relies entirely on these back-to-back facilities, but most were built decades ago and have limited transfer capability. Upgrading these HVDC back-to-backs is an opportunity to help meet the nation’s rapidly rising demand for energy.” (06/04/26)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/boosting-reliability-how-hvdc-back-to-backs-improve-power-sharing-between-grids/
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Cooper Quintin
“Meta has deployed facial recognition code to millions of their always-on surveillance glasses, according to new reporting by Wired. EFF’s Threat Lab was able to confirm that the facial recognition code is present through static analysis of the application. This dangerous new Meta functionality stores faceprints as a series of 2,048 numbers uniquely representing the positioning of a person’s facial features. When this feature is activated, it will convert every new face in the sightlines of the surveillance glasses into a series of numbers, and compare it to all the existing faceprints in the user’s database. Wired and EFF confirmed that the code is present and active, though not yet exposed to consumers.” (06/04/26)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/move-fast-surveil-things
