Source: Serious Trouble
“Mike Lindell declares victory, despite losing; Michael Avenatti gets his sentence reduced; a Real Housewife’s deported ex-husband provides a useful lesson in the law of defamation by implication.” (06/19/25)
Source: EconLog
by Pierre Lemieux
“Political violence is violence for political reasons. More precisely and to avoid circularity, the difference between political violence and ordinary violence is that the former is motivated by resistance to, or promotion of, the imposition of some collective choices on others. … Imagine a very different system: a society with no collective choices. To make the model watertight, also assume that there is no demand for political choices: everybody is tolerant of what others do within some traditional and very general rules, such as ‘thou shall not kill nor steal.’ All individuals want laissez-faire and accept its consequences. Even if you don’t think that such a state of the world can exist or remain stable, the thought experiment helps distinguish political violence from other sorts of violence.” (06/19/25)
https://www.econlib.org/political-violence-in-minnesota-and-elsewhere
Source: The Chris Hedges Report
by Chris Hedges
“The lies told to ignite the war with Iraq have been resurrected to ignite a war with Iran. The assessments of intelligence agencies and international bodies are dismissed, replaced by hallucinations.” (06/19/25)
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“China reduced its stockpile of US Treasuries to a 16-year low in April, as an escalating trade war with Washington sparked concerns about the long-standing status of American government bonds as the world’s safest asset. Beijing’s holdings dropped to US$757 billion, down US$8.2 billion from March, according to the latest data released by the US Treasury Department. The figures for April marked the second consecutive month of decline and the lowest level since March 2009, according to data compiled by Wind. Having already slipped to the No. 3 position among foreign holders in March – behind Japan and the United Kingdom – China continued its steady retreat from US government debt, a trend that began during Trump’s first term.” (06/19/25)
Source: Bretigne Shaffer
“From Hospital Nursing During Covid, to Building a Wellness Center — Angela Sheehan’s Healing Journey.” (06/19/25)
Source: The Daily Economy
by Isaac Willour
“One comment I get very often when I speak to people involved in conversations around DEI is, ‘so, did America actually get less racist because of all this?’ It’s not a side question — it’s the question. After corporate America dumped tens of billions of dollars into programming, conferences, speaker sessions, and workforce briefings ostensibly designed to deepen our national conversation on race (to say nothing of similar efforts in higher ed and beyond), was the actual result that people were less divided along racial lines? The reality is, we’re talking a lot more about race now — and it’s by no means clear that the result has bettered our discourse.” (06/19/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/juneteenth-could-be-a-casualty-of-dei-and-thats-a-tragedy/
Source: Town Hall
by Larry Elder
“When it comes to criticizing President Donald Trump — and refusing to give credit for virtually anything — it’s full speed ahead for Democrat politicians. On the economy, Axios just reported: ‘The stock market had been recently scraping new highs … The unemployment rate was 4.2%, and inflation was well-contained near the Fed’s 2% target.’ Gas prices are down, as is the retail price of eggs. Inflation, despite the tariffs, is at a four-year low. Wages are up. That southern border has become a nonissue for much of the media. The New York Post recently wrote, ‘Border Patrol agents didn’t release a single migrant into the US last month …'” (06/19/25)
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
“Summer will make a dramatic entrance in the U.S. this week with a heat dome that will bring stifling temperatures and uncomfortable humidity to millions. The heat will be particularly worrisome this weekend across wide stretches of Nebraska, Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa, where forecasters are warning of extreme temperature impacts. … A heat dome occurs when a large area of high pressure in the upper atmosphere acts as a reservoir that traps heat and humidity, said Ricky Castro, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Illinois. According to the NWS Weather Prediction Center, daytime temperatures will be in the 90s Fahrenheit and overnight temperatures will only drop to the mid-70s Fahrenheit (mid-20s Celsius) from the Great Lakes to the East Coast during the heat wave that’s expected to last into next week.” (06/19/25)
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/06/19/heat-dome-us/
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“Donald Trump’s War on Drugs.” (06/19/25)
Source: Isonomia Quarterly
by Nikolai Ott
“In these turbulent times, I’m often reminded of an anecdote popular in liberal circles. In liberated postwar Paris, French intellectuals would gather on the Rive Gauche — the south side of the Seine near the Grands Boulevards — to debate France’s future over apricot cocktails. Many — likely the majority — were on the Left: Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and others. Raymond Aron was an exception, and his participation was mostly by chance, stemming from his long-standing friendship with Sartre from their university days. A liberal alongside the era’s showpiece Marxist — this was not bound to go smoothly. They clashed more and more frequently. During one argument—Sartre, presumably after several cocktails, suddenly shouted at Aron: ‘Mon petit camarade, pourquoi as-tu peur de déconner?’ Roughly translated, that means: ‘My little comrade, why are you so afraid of talking nonsense?'” (06/19/25)
https://isonomiaquarterly.com/archive/volume-3-issue-1/the-hour-of-sartre-strikes-again/