Source: Semafor
by David Weigel
“Why couldn’t Steyer pull this off? What did his 12 years as a ‘donor-doer’ leave behind for his party? Quite a lot, mostly related to the ballot measures he funded before getting more tied to national politics. But as he grew more ambitious, Steyer embodied the Democratic Party’s problems.” (06/10/26)
https://www.semafor.com/article/06/10/2026/why-democrats-rejected-class-traitor-steyer-in-california
Source: Law & Liberty
by Walter Donway
“Great scientists probably cannot be relied upon to control the perils of new technologies by exercising personal restraint.” (06/10/26)
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Nothing is so permanent, wrote Milton Friedman, as a temporary government program. Six years ago, Americans learned that not only vaguely temporary measures go on and on, even precisely marked-out periods with clear starts and stops stated at the outset can be dragged on well past their expiration date.” (06/10/26)
Source: Common Dreams
by Carmen Rojas & Daniel Gould
“For too long, philanthropy has hidden behind the twin gatekeepers of fiduciary duty and perpetuity to avoid giving more when communities need it most. Last year, the Marguerite Casey Foundation provided a one-time fivefold increase in funding to meet a deepening moment of crisis. We learned this was a lifeline to many organizations facing increasing attacks and whose funders were pulling back from supporting racial and economic justice organizing. The damage we’re seeing (from cuts to essential government services and ICE raids to a corrupt federal government orchestrating the largest transfer of wealth from the poorest people to the richest in our nation) will have impacts for a generation. Philanthropy must provide resources at a scale and with a fervor that meaningfully responds to the reality of the world around us.” (06/10/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/philanthropy-must-evolve
Source: CBS News
“An American diplomat was found dead in Myanmar’s largest city, the U.S. State Department said, and members of the diplomatic community in Yangon say a Thai woman has been detained by police in connection with the investigation. American officials in Thailand and the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar referred questions on the case to the State Department, which confirmed the ‘death of a U.S. government employee’ assigned to the embassy in Yangon but gave no other details. … According to three people in the diplomatic community in Myanmar, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, the man was found dead about two weeks ago at the Sakura Residence & Hotel.” (06/10/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-diplomat-dead-myanmar-woman-detained/
Source: The Verge
“Microsoft’s Office 2019 apps for Mac will stop working next month, because the company isn’t renewing a certificate that validates Office licenses. Owners of Office 2019 for Mac are being warned they’ll have to purchase Office 2024 or a Microsoft 365 subscription if they want to continue editing documents. Microsoft previously promised that ‘all your Office 2019 apps will continue to function,’ when it announced end of support in 2023. The company then quietly updated that support note last month to remove the mention of apps continuing to function, replacing it with ‘Rest assured that all your Office 2019 apps won’t lose any data.’ Starting on July 13th, Office 2019 for Mac and Office 2021 for Mac will both run in ‘reduced functionality mode,’ allowing people to open files but not edit, save, or create new documents.” [editor’s note: If you purchased Office 2019, you made a mistake in buying from an untrustworthy company. Instead of taking the bait again, switch to e.g. LibreOffice, which is free – TLK] (06/10/26)
https://www.theverge.com/news/947518/microsoft-office-2019-for-mac-end-of-support-no-edit
Source: The Political Orphanage
“The Emperor of Epcot: Walt Disney and Company Towns.” (06/10/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/the-emperor-of-epcot-walt-disney-and-company-towns
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Thomas Karat
“On a podcast this spring, Ivanka Trump described how she and her husband Jared Kushner came upon Sazan Island. A friend’s boat, a stop to swim, a captivation that would not release them. ‘We swam to the island. We went on a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated.’ … Sazan’s coastline is so forbidding that sailors gave it a name: Gryka e Xhehenemit, the Gorge of Hell. The slopes are studded with some 3,600 concrete bunkers, most of them one-man domes built to survive a nuclear blast, threaded together by ten miles of reinforced tunnels and a buried command center. In the water around the island lie World War II artillery shells, anti-submarine mines, and tons of undetonated ordnance, enough that the area is mapped as a hazard. Nobody walks barefoot up that.” (06/10/26)
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“The four young men in the rebel camp hidden deep in jungle-covered mountains never wanted a part in Myanmar’s civil war. They didn’t choose to be soldiers for the military either. One had been a chef on his way home from work when he was grabbed off the street. His lack of ID was enough for the military to detain him and force him to sign up. Another was taken on his way back from a late-night karaoke session; a third had been working for the forestry department when he was arrested. The fourth man says on being arrested, drugs were slipped into his shoe, and he was framed and made to enlist. ‘Before we even understood what was happening, we were sent straight to the front lines,’ one of the men – all between the ages of 19 and 25 – tells the BBC. ‘They made us do all kinds of things we didn’t want to do,’ another adds.” (06/10/26)
Source: CNN
“Annual inflation rose to a three-year-high of 4.2% in May, underscoring how elevated energy prices are rippling through the US economy, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices rose 0.5% on a monthly basis, driven higher by the US-Israeli war with Iran, the latest Consumer Price Index shows. The higher cost of energy accounted for 60% of the monthly increase. Overall food prices and grocery prices didn’t rise as fast as they did in April, increasing 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively, versus 0.5% and 0.7%. Economists were expecting prices to rise 0.5% from the month before and for the annual rate to accelerate to 4.2% from the 3.8% reported in April, according to FactSet estimates.” (06/10/26)
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/10/economy/us-cpi-consumer-inflation-may