Source: Liberal Currents
by Dennis Lytton
“The answer to Eric Swalwell and the top-two debacle in California is multiparty electoral reform.” (07/06/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/make-political-parties-great-again/
Source: CNBC
“SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell announced she would donate to the Trump Accounts program on Monday, joining a growing list of companies and billionaires pledging to support the investment accounts for American children under 18. The gift, which includes shares of Shotwell’s and her husband’s SpaceX stock, will go to around 2 million Trump accounts, with a ‘bit more emphasis’ on children who live close to their home in central Texas, Shotwell wrote in a post on X. … Shotwell, who is also SpaceX’s chief operating officer, is one of its largest individual shareholders, with a stake worth roughly $2.4 billion following its record-breaking IPO last month.” (07/06/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/06/spacex-spcx-gwynne-shotwell-stock-trump-accounts.html
Source: Brookings Institution
“How robotics is reshaping manufacturing.” (07/06/26)
https://shows.acast.com/tech-tank/episodes/how-robotics-is-reshaping-manufacturing
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Doug Bandow
“President Donald Trump has proved, yet again, why America’s founders wisely insisted that only Congress could declare war. The legislative branch must empower the government’s chief executive to, in the words of Constitutional Convention delegate James Wilson, ‘involve us in such distress.’ Had Trump followed the law, he may never have launched his disastrous attack on Iran. Yet much worse would be a conflict between the U.S. and People’s Republic of China.” (07/06/26)
Source: Law & Liberty
by Jared Rhoads
“Cross-subsidization inside hospitals doesn’t just distort prices, it makes healthcare harder to fix.” (07/06/26)
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“UK fighter jets intercepted a Russian maritime patrol aircraft after it “repeatedly approached” a carrier strike group in the Norwegian Sea, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said. The Russian Bear-F plane passed at low altitude and ‘unnecessarily close’ to the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier and is believed to have dropped 10 sonobuoys into the water on Thursday, the MoD added. The MoD said Moscow’s activity in the Norwegian Sea was ‘unsafe and unprofessional’. It comes weeks after Royal Marines boarded a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the English Channel, while the head of the military has warned the risks and threats facing the UK are greater now than at any time since the Cold War. The UK’s Carrier Strike Group is currently deployed off Iceland under Nato command, with 1,500 British personnel on board.” (07/06/26)
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Home is the High Ground: Reimagining a New Hermit Kingdom.” (07/06/26)
Source: CounterPunch
by Binoy Kampmark
“In the annals of policy, strategy and budgeting, the AUKUS pact comprising Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States will be seen as one of the most mindless, absurd projects of tiny, poorly furnished minds. Not for those in the UK and US, with both receiving Croesus-rich dollops of Australian cash for stuttering submarine programs. Not for flabby think tankers who repeatedly run out bills on the advisory circuit lauding the importance of costly boats and the China threat. It will be down to Australian government officials, elected and appointed, who seek the imaginary assurance of nuclear-powered submarines that they do not need, expending money they can scarce afford (AU$368 billion), while surrendering the country’s sovereignty in carefree, even treasonous manner.” (07/06/26)
Source: Common Dreams
by Norman Solomon
“The following invented interview has been edited for clarity and length: Norman Solomon: You’ve downplayed the importance of the individual in history. But the United States now has as president an individual who transformed power relations and the political landscape. Karl Marx: I can assure you that he did not do that by himself. Power relations are class relations. And by the way, I never said individuals are irrelevant to history. I exhorted individuals to get involved in changing history. NS: President Trump has rolled back gains from the last hundred years and more. Also, he’s mentally unstable, to put it mildly. KM: The basics still hold. As I wrote in 1869 about a situation in France where a cult existed around a tyrant, the class struggle ‘created circumstances and relationships that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero’s part’.” (07/06/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/karl-marx-reflects-on-donald-trump
Source: Associated Press
“Two Tennessee National Guard members assigned to a crime-fighting patrol in Memphis fatally shot a man Sunday who turned toward the soldiers with a gun during a downtown pursuit, authorities said. The Guard members are part of a federal task force in Memphis created by President Donald Trump, who last year sent troops and federal agents to Democrat-run cities that he described as overrun with crime. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, had deployed the Guard to support the effort.” (07/05/26)