Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“‘Police warn families of Tiananmen crackdown dead not to visit graves on 37th anniversary,’ reads the headline of yesterday’s story in New York’s Newsday. How rude of those families! How dare they show such utter disregard for the right of the Chinese Communist Party to ‘grind you up and crush your bones!’ Or to have your ‘heads bashed bloody,’ as CCP top Pooh Bear Xi Jinping has more recently been fond of saying. Especially after all the trouble Xi and Chinese authorities have gone to easing all this unnecessary tension by facilitating a thoughtful and therapeutic four-decade ‘campaign to erase what happened from public memory.'” (06/05/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/06/05/the-nerve-of-some-people/
Source: National Priorities Project
by Hanna Homestead
“Our country’s massive weapons budget has directly enabled the US-Israeli led war on Iran that has caused thousands of deaths and is exacerbating the nation’s affordability crisis. Even if the war on Iran ends soon, it will have cost somewhere in the range of $50 billion to $72 billion, or more. The US weapons and war budget already exceeds $1 trillion, and President Donald Trump and his cronies want even more. Trump’s Pentagon budget request for FY 2027 includes $95 billion to buy more bombs and missiles, and specifically to restock munitions used in the US-Israel war of aggression on Iran and those fueling ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine and Lebanon. The administration plans to continue to arm Israel, which the Trump National Defense Strategy identifies as ‘a model ally’ that the United States has ‘an opportunity now to further empower’. ” (06/06/26)
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/blog/2026/06/01/each-missile-pentagon-buys-commit-war-crimes-abroad-could-fund-critical-services/
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“The Pentagon’s intelligence arm has raised the assessed threat level on Israeli spying from “high” to ‘critical’ in recent weeks, according to US media. NBC News first broke news of the change on Friday, with The New York Times issuing its own report the following day. The news outlets cited anonymous sources as saying the switch came in light of concerns over increasingly aggressive tactics related to the US-Israeli war with Iran. They said the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had raised the alert level amid fears that Israel is increasingly attempting to surveil top US officials. The aim is allegedly to understand internal White House deliberations about ending the war. … The New York Times reported that, while Israel has been known to spy on the US, the DIA cited an uptick in activities beginning in late 2024, as the administration of US President Joe Biden increased pressure on Israel over its genocidal war in Gaza.” (06/06/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/6/pentagon-said-to-raise-threat-level-on-israel-spying-to-critical
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Rages Over Iran Setbacks as Leaks Reveal His Seething Obama Envy.” (06/05/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/211400/trump-rages-iran-setbacks-leaks-reveal-seething-obama-envy
Source: Quillette
by Rosalind Arden
“The most consequential weakness of philosopher and journalist Kathleen Stock’s new polemic against assisted dying is its failure to engage with the empirical record.” (06/05/26)
https://quillette.com/2026/06/05/its-my-party-and-ill-die-if-i-want-to-do-not-go-gentle-the-case-against-assisted-death-kathleen-stock-review/
Source: The Daily Economy
by Mohamed Moutii
“Once a dominant force in global energy markets, OPEC is facing growing fragmentation from within and intensifying competition from without.” (06/05/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/are-opecs-days-of-dominance-over-why-the-cartel-is-cracking/
Source: SFGate
“Raúl Castro, Cuba’s low-profile former president and revolutionary guerrilla, appeared in public for the first time since being indicted by the United States for his alleged role in the 1996 downing of two civilian aircraft, official video released Saturday showed. Castro’s celebration of his 95th birthday with top officials and military leaders at the Ministry of Interior in Havana on late Friday offered Cuba’s socialist government an opportunity to close ranks and project defiance as the Trump administration escalates its pressure campaign on the fuel-starved island. State TV broadcast footage of Castro, clad in his olive-green military uniform, entering a packed theater to a standing ovation, followed by his grandson and bodyguard, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez, and Cuban President Miguel Diáz-Canel.” (06/06/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/cuba-ex-president-ra-l-castro-makes-first-22294113.php
Source: Washington Post
“How weddings got so expensive.” (06/05/26)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/impromptu/how-weddings-got-so-expensive
Source: The American Conservative
by Anik Joshi
“The traditional blowback from Middle Eastern adventures has been in terms of refugee inflows and a less stable, more risky MENA region that produces knock-on effects across the European political frame. Going beyond destabilizing Europe to destabilizing the entire world as a function of Middle Eastern wars is unlikely to win converts to the Western cause, unless they share its dedication to their own destruction.” (06/05/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-wages-of-economic-warfare/
Source: The American Prospect
by Dylan Gyauch-Lewis
“After months of speculation and anger, the Democratic National Committee finally released its autopsy of the party’s loss in the 2024 presidential election just before Memorial Day weekend. Despite pledging to release the document publicly when first elected to lead the Democratic Party’s organizational arm in early 2025, DNC Chair Ken Martin reversed course in December of last year, announcing that the report would not be published. Why? Some speculated it was merely a way for party insiders to avoid accountability for their failures; many others that it showed Kamala Harris lost because of her refusal to disavow Joe Biden’s policy toward Israel. As it turns out, the coverup was due to a much more banal and embarrassing reason: Martin’s friend whom he hired to complete the report turned in a pile of garbage.” (06/05/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/06/05/can-democrats-learn-from-2024-loss-biden-harris-dnc/
