Source: The American Prospect
by Whitney Curry Wimbish
“To the casual observer, the two candidates vying for the Democratic nomination in New York’s Seventh Congressional District to replace retiring 16-term stalwart Nydia Velázquez may look indistinguishable. New York Assemblymember Claire Valdez and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso are both Democrats, and both intend to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), fund affordable housing, institute health care for all, and end Israel’s war on Palestine, which they agree is a genocide. Both candidates have substantial endorsements from powerful figures and organizations. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani backs Valdez, a fellow Democratic Socialists of America member, as do DSA-NYC and Justice Democrats; Rep. Velázquez, the New York Working Families Party, and state Attorney General Letitia James back Reynoso.” (06/17/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/06/17/new-york-commie-corridor-valdez-reynoso-seventh-district-congressional-race/
Source: ABC News
“A leadership standoff in the Philippine Senate ended Wednesday with the removal of an ally of former President Rodrigo Duterte as leader of the chamber, which will soon start the impeachment trial of his daughter, incumbent Vice President Sara Duterte. With 13 of 24 senators backing him, Sherwin Gatchalian, an ally of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., was elected Senate president. His rival, Alan Peter Cayetano, a key supporter of Duterte, conceded defeat. Both had claimed leadership of the Senate in the last two weeks based on contrasting legal interpretations of the quorum that led to their elections. … Control over the Senate is crucial. It’s expected to start the trial in July of the vice president, who was impeached by the House of Representatives last month over criminal charges, including unexplained wealth and publicly threatening to have Marcos assassinated.” (06/17/26)
https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/philippine-senate-president-allied-duterte-removed-ahead-daughters-133952994
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“The US-China AI Race | Robert Wright & Ryan Fedasiuk.” (06/16/26)
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/69557
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“The JAWBONE act would prohibit federal agencies from coercing or threatening online and other services into changing content and would give victims the right to seek damages. Now, you might be thinking, doesn’t the Constitution already prohibit the federal government from censoring us? Well, yes. It provides no exemption for government censorship implemented via plausibly (or implausibly) deniable delegation of the task. But we have had many legitimate debates about constitutional meaning. Further, we have also always had many illegitimate ones, in which people — including Supreme Court justices — seek to circumvent even the plainest and most unmistakable import of constitutional provisions.” (06/17/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/06/17/first-amendment-needs-help/
Source: CounterPunch
by David S D’Amato
“Last week’s SpaceX IPO made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire, despite the fact that the company has lost tens of billions of dollars since it was founded almost 25 years ago. Shares of the company climbed steadily after markets closed on Friday, pushing its market cap to $2.2 trillion. The public conversation about Musk’s vast wealth often obscures the fact that he is actually a very fancy welfare recipient, having taken billions of dollars from the public coffers by even the most conservative measures.” (06/17/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/06/17/the-trillion-dollar-alarm-bell/
Source: spiked
by Emma Gillan
“Children and teenagers need more freedom, not less.” (06/17/26)
https://archive.is/HvmdX
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“A Memorandum of Misunderstanding? Anthropic vs. the US Government, Round Two (with Maria Curi).” (06/16/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/a-memorandum-of-misunderstanding
Source: Antiwar.com
by David Stockman
“Self-evidently, the reason for the attack is not that Iran was days, weeks or months away from a nuke: Even the Donald’s own former DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, had recently affirmed in Congressional testimony that the long-standing assessment of the US intelligence agencies that Iran had ceased all research and activities designed to weaponize HEUs was still the case, and with a high degree of confidence. Likewise, the January 2026 street uprisings throughout Iran, which had been the catalyst for war that Netanyahu had peddled to the SUCKER he finally found in the Oval Office, has long since become a moot point. … what the hell was the reason for going to war on February 28th when there was no bomb and, self-evidently, no prospect of a regime change uprising, as MOU item #3 makes clear as a bell?” (06/17/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/david_stockman/2026/06/16/hey-potus-the-point-of-the-war-was-what-again/
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Of all the reasons that the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has ceased, leading to a tentative deal, at least one had a common thread: Each nation seemed to worry more about internal political ruptures than about winning the war. In each country, then, a desire to keep hold of national cohesion might have helped silence the guns – and could influence the difficult negotiations still to come. In Israel, for example, a newly released poll showed some 55% of the public sees internal political polarization as the most dangerous threat to the country’s existence – far more than threats of violence from Iran. That widespread concern over domestic friction also carries some hope for national unity. ‘It is possible to cultivate space of agreement in Israeli society, but it requires a practical action plan aimed at that, and not at defeating the identity-based rival,’ Yedidia Stern, president of the Jewish People Policy Institute that conducted the survey, told The Jerusalem Post.” (06/16/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0616/Iran-US-and-Israel-Which-will-win-a-peace-within
Source: Politico
“The Justice Department sued Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration Tuesday over its handling of a popular Medicaid home care program that enables over 200,000 New Yorkers to hire their own caregivers, court records show. The civil lawsuit accuses state Health Commissioner James McDonald and Medicaid Director Amir Bassiri of making false or misleading statements about the consolidation of Medicaid’s consumer-directed personal assistance program, or CDPAP, under financial services company Public Partnerships LLC. The DOJ’s complaint also accuses PPL of creating an ‘artificially attractive proposal’ to administer the Medicaid program through a ‘sham bid process,’ making false statements about its communications with state officials before winning the CDPAP contract and improperly inflating hourly billable rates upon taking over the program in 2025.” (06/16/26)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/16/doj-accuses-new-york-of-unlawful-medicaid-home-care-scheme-00964284