06/17 -- Oil steady as downbeat Chinese data offset demand hopes; Injustice for Trump ... and for Hunter Biden
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Thomas L. Knapp
Jun 17, 2024, 6:34:15 AMJun 17
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 06/17/24
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Today's Freedom News:
1) Oil steady as downbeat Chinese data offset demand hopes
2) Disgraced former president promises to cut cost of US military adventurism in Ukraine if returned to office
3) Palestine: Israeli regime to “strengthen” illegal squats in occupied West Bank
4) Russia: Hostage drama unfolds at Rostov detention centre
5) China: Communist Party warns members not to criticise policy ahead of major economic policy meeting
6) Pride designers slam Target’s product cuts, claim it’s avoiding backlash
7) ME: Police kill armed man after a night of gunfire and burned homes
8) Report: US executive pay rises at fastest rate in 14 years
9) New Caledonia: French colonial regime reopens international airport, shortens curfew
10) PA: As presidential election looms, partisan gridlock prevents fixes to state voting laws
11) Haiti: Regime to replace offical gang’s top shot-caller in effort to counter rival gang violence
12) France: Jordan Bardella could soon be PM at 28
13) South Africa: Ramaphosa reelected president after coalition deal
14) CA: Some cities to pay up to $10k for information about home burglaries
15) UK: Historic writer’s desk could be “knackered” old fake
16) Yemen: US military destroys radars that allowed Houthis to target ships
17) NY: MS-13, Russian mobsters use migrants in elaborate injury scam
18) EU diplomat, Iranian prison official freed in hostage exchange
19) Study: Men really do eat more meat than women
20) UK: Middleton makes first public appearance since cancer announcement
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Injustice for Trump … and for Hunter Biden
22) SCOTUS Gives Trump’s Anti-Gun-Rights Record an Inconvenient Election-Year Bump
23) Home-testing boom leaves worriers clutching their pearls
24) Government Subsidies Keep Your Food Boring
25) Crowdleak: A Secure Whistleblower Concept
26) We Approach State Singularity
27) A Real-World Dr. Evil: Big Pharma’s Conspiracy to Game Medical Literature
28) Behold The World Gently
29) Courts, guns, and trouble
30) “Media Reporting” Now Just More Censorship & Suppression Of Information
31) What the Swiss “peace summit” can realistically achieve
32) Dead Man’s Hand: Betting on Biden and Trump
33) Biden Prioritizes US Imperial Ambition Over Palestinian Rights
34) Equalize, or Minimize?
35) How to End the War in Gaza
36) Of 15s and the Man
37) Are the Dark Ages Returning?
38) The Calculation Of J.D. Vance
39) “We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us”
40) The Taiwan Aid Bill Won’t Fix the Arms Backlog
41) Taming the Pricing Beast
42) Journalists Shouldn’t Depend on the State for Their Wages
43) Fauci’s “Don’t Blame Me” Testimony and the Government Accountability Problem
44) Gaza Ceasefire Proposal: Diplomacy or Magic Trick?
45) Dems’ denialism of Biden’s cognitive decline isn’t just unconvincing, it’s cruel
46) Questions for the Biden-Trump “debate” that might be useful
47) The Tragedy and Triumph of The Killing Fields
48) Sympathy for Hunter Biden
49) No Coincidence: Those Who Hate Public Sector Unions Also Hate Democracy [sic]
50) Boosters Beware: Stadiums Aren’t Magic
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Why Are We Funding Harvard?
52) Unattended Baggage, episode 250
53) The Anarchist Experience, episode 480
54) Free Talk Live, 06/15/24
55) Everyday Samurai, episode 62
56) The Fifth Column, episode 459
57) The Bryan Hyde Show, 06/14/24
58) The Climate Realism Show, episode 114
59) Meme Wars, 06/14/24
60) Politics Politics Politics, 06/14/24
61) Conflicts of Interest, episode 615
62) The New Abnormal, 06/14/24
63) There’s A Policy For That with Susan Pendergrass, 06/14/24
64) Beg to Differ, 06/14/24
65) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 06/14/24
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Oil steady as downbeat Chinese data offset demand hopes
Source: Reuters
“Oil was steady on Monday after Chinese economic data underscoring a bumpy recovery for the world’s biggest crude importer offset hopes for a boost to demand from the summer driving season in the northern hemisphere. Apart from retail sales that beat forecasts due to a holiday boost, the flurry of Chinese data on Monday was largely downbeat. The data followed a survey on Friday showing U.S. consumer sentiment fell to a seven-month low in June. … Last week, both benchmarks posted their first weekly gain in four weeks on elevated confidence that oil inventories are set to plunge as the summer season gets under way in the northern hemisphere. ‘The move higher was not unreservedly convincing,’ said Tamas Varga of oil broker PVM of last week’s gains. ‘Further weakness is observed this morning due to sluggish Chinese factory activity.'” (06/17/24)
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-prices-inch-down-weaker-us-consumer-demand-ahead-china-data-2024-06-17/
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2) Disgraced former president promises to cut cost of US military adventurism in Ukraine if returned to office
Source: Politico
“Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday blasted the scale of U.S. support for Ukraine and said that if he is reelected in November he would immediately ‘have that settled.’ At a campaign rally in Detroit, Trump criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling him ‘the greatest salesman of all time’ for Kyiv’s push to secure U.S. support in its effort to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression more than three years after Moscow’s all-out invasion. ‘He just left four days ago with $60 billion, and he gets home, and he announces that he needs another $60 billion. It never ends,’ Trump said. ‘I will have that settled prior to taking the White House as president-elect,’ said Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the U.S. election.” (06/16/24)
https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-ukraine-russia-war-threatens-cut-aid-election-2024/
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3) Palestine: Israeli regime to “strengthen” illegal squats in occupied West Bank
Source: CNN
“Israel’s government says it is looking to ‘strengthen’ [illegal squats] in the occupied West Bank after several countries unilaterally recognized a Palestinian state. In a statement issued on Sunday, the Prime Minister’s Office said all of the proposals for strengthening [the squats] in what Israel biblically refers to as Judea and Samaria would be voted on at the next Security Cabinet meeting. Norway, Ireland, Spain and Slovenia have each recognized an independent Palestinian state in recent weeks, a move motivated at least in part by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s open refusal to commit to a two-state solution. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the move was a reward for terrorism and would strengthen Hamas. The statement also said Israel would look at what actions to take against the Palestinian Authority as it took actions against Israel in international bodies” (06/16/24)
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/16/middleeast/israel-west-bank-settlements-intl-latam/index.html
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4) Russia: Hostage drama unfolds at Rostov detention centre
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Several hostage takers have been killed in an operation to free two prison guards who they were holding in the southern Russian city of Rostov, Russia media report. The guards are said to be unhurt after special forces stormed the centre. The six men, who were being held in a pre-trial detention centre, were said to be armed with knives. They were facing terrorism charges, including links to the Islamic State (IS) group. They had been demanding a vehicle, firearms and free passage out of the centre. Police and national guard were called to the scene when reports of the hostage taking first emerged on Sunday morning. … The detainees said they were members of IS and that their actions were ‘not spontaneous.’ Reports say they managed to smuggle knives, IS flags and mobile phones into their cells.” (06/16/24)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd11p0j80j9o
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5) China: Communist Party warns members not to criticise policy ahead of major economic policy meeting
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“The Chinese Communist Party’s watchdog has issued a stern reminder to members not to criticise party policy ahead of a major party meeting that is likely to set the direction of economic policy for the next five years. But analysts warned this effort to ‘unify thought,’ to use the party’s own jargon, amid challenging economic conditions may further damage Beijing’s credibility and erode business confidence if it is seen as ‘unreasonably trying to control the storyline.’ The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection published a special report via state news agency Xinhua on Wednesday that warned against ‘openly speaking ill of the party on major issues’ as part of the watchdog’s latest internal disciplinary drive.” (06/16/24)
https://archive.is/r2yq5
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6) Pride designers slam Target’s product cuts, claim it’s avoiding backlash
Source: Seattle Times
“A number of artists Target tapped to design part of its 2024 Pride collection have taken to social media to lament the retailer’s product development process, including last-minute cuts, drastically altered designs, wasted products and little recognition. This is the latest controversy for the Minneapolis-based company that has struggled to find even footing on LGBTQ+ issues after conservative backlash about some Pride items last year contributed to the retailer’s dipping sales. In response, Target decided this month to sell a smaller selection of Pride merch in fewer stores, though all items are available online. It is a regression to pre-2021, when Target first began offering the collection in honor of June’s Pride Month in all stores.” (06/16/24)
https://archive.is/70eKO
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7) ME: Police kill armed man after a night of gunfire and burned homes
Source: SFGate
“A Maine State Police tactical team fatally shot a man on a rooftop early Saturday after an hourslong standoff in which authorities said he opened fire at officers, two homes burned down and a person who fought with him apparently died. Police issued a shelter-in-place order, evacuated homes and closed a section of the street in Auburn, trigging memories of the mass shooting in neighboring Lewiston less than eight months ago, when a gunman killed 18 people and injured 13 others in the deadliest shooting in Maine’s history. … Fire investigators later Saturday said human remains were found in the charred wreckage of the home and had yet to be identified. Police said Leein Hinkley, 43, had been released on bail days earlier on a probation violation. He tried to break into a home just before 1 a.m. Saturday, and got into a fight with a man inside.” (06/16/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/explosions-heard-as-maine-police-deal-with-armed-19515964.php
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8) Report: US executive pay rises at fastest rate in 14 years
Source: Financial Times [UK]
“US bosses’ pay is increasing at the fastest rate for at least 14 years, according to new figures which critics say illustrate how ballooning reward packages such as Elon Musk’s risk exacerbating social inequality. So far in 2024, median chief executive pay at S&P 500 companies has risen by 12 per cent, according to ISS Corporate, part of proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services. That compares with a 4.1 per cent year-on-year increase in US wage growth, according to official figures.” (06/16/24)
https://archive.is/gR0nO
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9) New Caledonia: French colonial regime reopens international airport, shortens curfew
Source: SFGate
“The French Pacific territory of New Caledonia is shortening its overnight curfew and reopening its international airport that was closed to commercial flights for more than a month because of deadly violence that wracked the archipelago where pro-independence Indigenous Kanaks want to break from France. La Tontouta airport that links New Caledonia’s capital, Nouméa, to Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore and other Pacific hubs will reopen Monday, the territory’s high commissioner announced in a statement Sunday. The overnight curfew is also being shortened by two hours, its start pushed back from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., because of ‘the improvement in the situation and in order to facilitate the gradual return to normal life,’ the high commissioner said. Violence that flared on May 13 over controversial voting reforms led to nine deaths, including two gendarmes, and widespread destruction of shops, businesses and homes.” (06/16/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/new-caledonia-reopening-its-international-airport-19516839.php
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10) PA: As presidential election looms, partisan gridlock prevents fixes to state voting laws
Source: SFGate
“Pennsylvania is seeing lots of action targeting gaps in its vote-by-mail laws. The problem is that it’s in the courtroom and not the legislature. That could make the most populous presidential swing state a hotbed of challenges and conspiracy theories if the November election is close, as expected. The state also has a U.S. Senate contest between Democratic incumbent Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick that will help determine control of the chamber, increasing scrutiny on election offices if lawmakers can’t break a partisan stalemate and vote-counting is slowed by mailed ballots. … Political gridlock in Pennsylvania over election laws dates to 2019, when a Republican-controlled legislature greatly expanded voting by mail in a compromise with then-Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.” (06/16/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/partisan-gridlock-prevents-fixes-to-19515728.php
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11) Haiti: Regime to replace offical gang’s top shot-caller in effort to counter rival gang violence
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“The newly installed government in Haiti has announced the replacement of the head of the beleaguered national police force, in the latest effort to respond to [rival] gang violence in the crisis-wracked country. Police chief Frantz Elbe will be replaced with former chief Rameau Normil, the prime minister’s office has confirmed. The move comes as Haiti’s new prime minister, Garry Conille, has faced increased pressure to strengthen the Haitian National Police. The force has remained woefully underfunded and ill-equipped despite being at the forefront of the battle against powerful armed [rival] gangs in the Caribbean country.” (06/15/24)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/15/hait-to-replace-national-police-chief-amid-gang-violence
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12) France: Jordan Bardella could soon be PM at 28
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“The French would dearly love to know who is the real Jordan Bardella. The question was interesting when Mr Bardella was merely president of the country’s biggest party, the far-right National Rally (RN). Now that he is being openly spoken of as the country’s next prime minister, it has become a matter of urgency. In two weeks the country goes to the polls in a snap election called by President Emmanuel Macron following his humiliation by the RN at the European elections last Sunday. If the RN has pulled off another big win after the second round of voting on July 7, then Macron will have no choice but to offer it a chance to govern. And if that happens, Mr Bardella – who shares the party leadership with Marine Le Pen – is expected to be named as prime minister.” (06/16/24)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvvlp096eko
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13) South Africa: Ramaphosa reelected president after coalition deal
Source: CBS News
“South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was reelected by lawmakers for a second term on Friday, after his party struck a dramatic late coalition deal with a former political foe just hours before the vote. Ramaphosa, the leader of the African National Congress, won convincingly in Parliament against a surprise candidate who was also nominated — Julius Malema of the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters. Ramaphosa received 283 votes to Malema’s 44 in the 400-member house. The 71-year-old Ramaphosa secured his second term with the help of lawmakers from the country’s second biggest party, the Democratic Alliance, and some smaller parties. They backed him in the vote and got him over the finish line following the ANC’s loss of its long-held majority in a landmark election two weeks ago that reduced it to 159 seats in Parliament.” (06/15/24)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cyril-ramaphosa-reelected-coalition-deal-south-africa/
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14) CA: Some cities to pay up to $10k for information about home burglaries
Source: SFGate
“Residents in some areas of San Mateo County could be paid up to $10,000 for reporting information leading to arrests and convictions of home burglaries. On Tuesday, the five-member San Mateo County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the program as a pilot in District 3, which includes Atherton, Half Moon Bay, parts of Menlo Park and Belmont, Pacifica, Portola Valley, San Carlos, Woodside and several unincorporated areas. Ray Mueller, the district’s supervisor, told SFGATE he introduced the program following a rash of home burglaries in his district and the county as a whole from January to June. So far during that period, he said, there have been more than 90 such incidents in the county.” (06/16/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/san-mateo-county-cities-pay-10k-reporting-home-19514958.php
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15) UK: Historic writer’s desk could be “knackered” old fake
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“The desk of the writer Dr Samuel Johnson is to be returned to his former London home for the first time in more than 260 years. Except, in a strange twist, its owner is now uncertain whether it really is the desk of the famous 18th Century dictionary author. It’s been suggested that despite many years of being treated as a literary relic, it could have been part of a Victorian hustle to make money. It will be the star attraction of a new museum exhibition, but visitors will be asked whether they now believe it’s authentic. Dr Samuel Johnson was an 18th Century literary giant, remembered for compiling in 1755 what was then the most comprehensive dictionary of the English language. In the TV comedy Blackadder the Third, Dr Johnson was portrayed by Robbie Coltrane, with the painstakingly researched dictionary ending up on the fire.” (06/16/24)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8995q12z8eo
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16) Yemen: US military destroys radars that allowed Houthis to target ships
Source: United Press International
“U.S. forces have launched a barrage of attacks destroying Houthi radar sites that helped the group target commercial shipping vessels, according to U.S. Central Command. CENTCOM said in a post on X Friday that the U.S. military over the past 24 hours destroyed seven radars in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, as well as several of their sea and aerial drones. … The strikes come after Houthi rebels [sic] on Wednesday damaged the M/V Tutor, a 44,000-ton Greek-owned bulk carrier while it was navigating the Red Sea about 66 miles southwest of the port of Hudaydah.” (06/15/24)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2024/06/15/attack-houthi-radars-drones/6441718488105/
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17) NY: MS-13, Russian mobsters use migrants in elaborate injury scam
Source: New York Post
“Russian gangsters, MS-13 members, and a cadre of corrupt surgeons, lawyers and lenders are pulling off the latest big con in the city: bogus personal-injury lawsuits where immigrants go under the knife to help their twisted ruse. Migrants and other desperate New Yorkers are pressured into getting unneeded spinal fusion surgery and other operations to boost the value of their fake-accident claims, according to court records, insurance investigators and law-enforcement sources. Doctors cash in on the sick swindle by performing back and neck fusions, allowing fraudsters to swipe billions through bogus insurance filings, according to court filings and sources. The racket typically involves a healthy person taking a seemingly minor tumble on the street or at a construction site, then claiming a devastating injury that requires multiple surgeries.” (06/16/24)
https://nypost.com/2024/06/16/us-news/ms-13-russian-mobsters-use-migrants-in-elaborate-injury-scam-even-getting-spinal-surgery-to-pull-it-off-sources/
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18) EU diplomat, Iranian prison official freed in hostage exchange
Source: Politico
“Swedish EU official Johan Floderus, who has been held in an Iranian prison for more than two years, was released as part of a deal with Tehran, the Swedish government announced Saturday. Saeed Azizi, another Swedish citizen, who was arrested by Iran in November 2023, will also be permitted to leave the country as part of the swap, with Stockholm handing over a former Iranian prison official convicted of crimes against humanity.” (06/15/24)
https://www.politico.eu/article/johan-floderus-iran-eu-diplomat-freed-hamid-nouri-prisoner-exchange-sweden/
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19) Study: Men really do eat more meat than women
Source: SFGate
“Vacationing in Chicago this week from Europe, Jelle den Burger and Nirusa Naguleswaran grabbed a bite at the Dog House Grill: a classic Italian beef sandwich for him, grilled cheese for her. Both think the way their genders lined up with their food choices was no coincidence. Women, said Naguleswaran, are simply more likely to ditch meat, and to care about how their diet affects the environment and other people. ‘I don’t want to put it in the wrong way, that male people feel attacked,’ said Naguleswaran, of Netherlands, laughing. She said she used to love eating meat, but giving it up for climate reasons was more important to her. ‘We just have it in our nature to care about others.’ Now, scientists can say more confidently than ever that gender and meat-eating preferences are linked.” (06/16/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/living/article/it-s-not-your-imagination-men-really-do-eat-19512806.php
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20) UK: Middleton makes first public appearance since cancer announcement
Source: Axios
“Kate Middleton, Britain’s Princess of Wales, made her first public appearance Saturday since surgery five months ago revealed the presence of cancer. … Crowds lining the streets waved and cheered as Kate went past in a covered carriage with her three children in a military parade marking King Charles’ birthday, Reuters reports. In a rare personal written message Friday, she said she was making good progress but is ‘not out of the woods.'” (06/15/24)
https://www.axios.com/2024/06/15/kate-middleton-princess-wales-public-appearance-cancer
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Injustice for Trump … and for Hunter Biden
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“Last column, I pointed out the injustice of Donald Trump’s conviction for violating nonsensical, arbitrary legislation. If such legislation even exists. Last week, it happened to someone else. Once again someone prominent has been convicted of a victimless ‘crime’ while those in Congress and other government positions continue to victimize Americans with their felonious regime. Hunter Biden, the president’s son, has been convicted of breaking a federal gun rule — they wish we’d call it a ‘law’ — that the federal government is explicitly prohibited from making or enforcing. This is tied in with him breaking drug prohibition rules government has no authority to make up or enforce. This is what injustice looks like. The jury involved in this verdict should be ashamed, as should the jury that convicted Trump.” (06/16/24)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2024/06/16/voices/opinion-injustice-for-trump-and-for-hunter-biden/178731.html
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22) SCOTUS Gives Trump’s Anti-Gun-Rights Record an Inconvenient Election-Year Bump
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“On June 14, the US Supreme Court overturned former US president Donald Trump’s 2018 ‘bump stock ban.’ Like many SCOTUS rulings, this outcome turned on neither the plain text and meaning of the US Constitution (under which the ban was clearly illegal) nor common sense (under which the ban was clearly idiotic — everyday objects as mundane as belt loops and rubber bands can be used as ‘bump stocks’). Instead, the court ruled (in the negative) on the question of whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has the power to magically change the definition of the term ‘machine gun’ on the whim of the president. … close enough for government work, I guess. Perhaps the most useful outcome of the ruling is its tendency to highlight Donald Trump’s actual record on gun rights as he seeks a second term in the White House.” (06/15/24)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/18745
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23) Home-testing boom leaves worriers clutching their pearls
Source: Orange County Register
by Steven Greenhut
“Thanks to clever inventions and investments from venture capitalists, the average American can head to CVS and purchase kits to test for drug use, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDs, diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol. This should strike normal people as a blessing. But this remarkable development has upset the professional worriers. The Washington Post recently spotlighted a ‘shadow system’ of such tests. ‘Buoyed by regulatory vacuums, Silicon Valley is building a booming online wellness market that aims to leave the doctor’s office behind,’ it explained. … This sounds so, well, ominous, but there’s no reason DIY tests will cause anyone to avoid a doctor. I had recent health concerns and made a doctor’s appointment. Given our overburdened system, the soonest appointment I could get was months away. I bought test strips at the pharmacy, which helped alleviate my worries.” (06/14/24)
https://www.ocregister.com/2024/06/14/home-testing-boom-leaves-worriers-clutching-their-pearls/
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24) Government Subsidies Keep Your Food Boring
Source: Reason
by C Jarrett Dieterle
“The feds’ focus on large-scale crops hinders the resurgence of heritage grains and results in less food diversity.” (06/15/24)
https://reason.com/2024/06/15/government-subsidies-keep-your-food-boring/
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25) Crowdleak: A Secure Whistleblower Concept
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“The thing that tripped up Julian Assange is that he was a single attack vector — a middleman between a sender and the media. Get that middleman and stop the project, they thought. And that’s just what they did. What’s insidious about Assange’s treatment is that he was always the recipient of sensitive government secrets and unseemly private emails (Hilary Clinton) but never the sender. Yet he rots in Belmarsh prison, awaiting a miracle pardon. What if there were a decentralized version of Wikileaks that would allow anonymous whistleblowers to upload sensitive or embarrassing information directly to a viewable blockchain?” (06/16/24)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/crowdleak-a-secure-whistleblower
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26) We Approach State Singularity
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Bruce Pardy
“We are approaching state singularity: the moment when state and society become indistinguishable. In physics, a ‘singularity’ is a single point in space-time. Inside black holes, gravity crushes volume to zero and mass density is infinite. In computer science, ‘technological singularity’ is unitary artificial superintelligence. At the singularity, everything becomes one thing. Data points converge. Normal laws do not apply. At state singularity, the state becomes society and society is a product of the state. Legal norms and expectations become irrelevant. The state’s mandate is to do as it judges best – since everything and everyone are expressions of its vision.” (06/15/24)
https://brownstone.org/articles/we-approach-state-singularity/
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27) A Real-World Dr. Evil: Big Pharma’s Conspiracy to Game Medical Literature
Source: Racket News
by Matt Bivens, MD
“A never-surfaced litigation exhibit shows an opiate producer used the ‘Dr. Evil’ character to describe plans to popularize addictive drug use.” (06/15/24)
https://www.racket.news/p/a-real-world-dr-evil-big-pharmas
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28) Behold The World Gently
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The dead children don’t affect me like they used to. The images. The videos. They still disturb and horrify, but not like they did in the beginning. Not anywhere close. And, honestly, I hate it. I hate that that part of me has been stolen. As much as I hated having my heart kicked around all day and having nightmares all night, I’d rather have that than this decreased sensitivity. People should not become desensitized to such horrors. People should not become accustomed to decapitated babies and small, mangled bodies. To corpses run over by tanks. To body parts carried in plastic bags by loved ones. These things should jar you. They should rattle you to your core. But they don’t anymore.” (06/14/24)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/06/14/behold-the-world-gently/
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29) Courts, guns, and trouble
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“The Blaze reports on the SCOTUS 6-3 decision to overturn the Trump-Biden regulatory interpretation for the BATFE to classify bump-stocks as a method of turning semi-automatic weapons into ‘machine guns.’ The Blaze (and many others) labels this as overturning a ‘bump-stock ban’ that The Donald put into place after the Las Vegas massacre a few years ago. One could call this a victory for common sense. But think about it.” (06/15/24)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2024/06/15/courts-guns-and-trouble/
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30) “Media Reporting” Now Just More Censorship & Suppression Of Information
Source: The Federalist
by Eddie Scarry
“As the left-wing Media Matters for America buckles under the weight of a delightfully crushing defamation lawsuit brought by Elon Musk — hope he wins! — it’s probably a good time for that trash outlet’s deep-pocket donors to consider spending their money elsewhere; not just because MMFA is a satanic organization that employs a bunch of otherwise unskilled dopes, but because so much of what was formerly known as ‘media reporting’ is now simply more censorship and suppression of right-wingers, which is exactly what MMFA does.” (06/14/24)
https://thefederalist.com/2024/06/14/media-reporting-is-now-just-more-censorship-and-suppression-of-information/
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31) What the Swiss “peace summit” can realistically achieve
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Anatol Lieven
“The Ukraine ‘Peace Summit’ in Geneva this weekend is not really a summit and is not really about peace. The agenda has been scaled back to discussions of limited measures aimed not at ending the war, but at softening some of its aspects. Outside Europe, very few international leaders are attending — including President Biden, who is sending Vice President Kamala Harris and national security adviser Jake Sullivan instead. Of the 10 points in the Ukrainian government’s ‘peace plan,’ only three will be formally discussed — though President Zelensky will presumably still seek to promote all of them at the meeting. Ukraine’s demands for complete Russian military withdrawal, war crimes trials, reparations for war damages, and security guarantees have all been omitted from the agenda.” (06/14/24)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-peace-summit-2668521120/
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32) Dead Man’s Hand: Betting on Biden and Trump
Source: CounterPunch
by Matthew Stevenson
“Since presidential voting leads to such unhappiness (Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six races, but it has hardly slowed them down), perhaps the Constitution should be amended so that the winning candidate is the one with the best betting odds at midnight on election night? Maybe to lend the exercise the air of republican virtue, the Electoral College — in making its decision — could weigh all of the major online betting sites, such FanDuel, DraftKings, and Bet365.” (06/14/24)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/06/14/dead-mans-hand-betting-on-biden-and-trump/
-----
33) Biden Prioritizes US Imperial Ambition Over Palestinian Rights
Source: Foreign Policy In Focus
by Edward Hunt
“While Israel continues its military siege of Gaza, the United States is trying to exploit the situation with the goal of strengthening U.S. power in the Middle East. Rather than seeking a long-term solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, the United States is prioritizing its longstanding goal of normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. With such a deal, which would require calm in Gaza to bring Saudi Arabia on board, the United States would further marginalize the Palestinians while more tightly integrating Israel into its regional network of alliances and partnerships. … For decades, the United States has dominated the Middle East. A key to U.S. power has been the U.S.-led network of alliances and partnerships that includes Israel and the Arab states.” (06/15/24)
https://fpif.org/despite-possibility-of-ceasefire-u-s-imperial-ambitions-may-doom-palestine/
-----
34) Equalize, or Minimize?
Source: EconLog
by Kevin Corcoran
“Suppose you live in a world where there is a military draft. In addition, let’s stipulate that a military draft is unjust. (If you’re in favor of a draft and find yourself resisting the thought experiment on those grounds, just substitute the draft for some other policy you would consider unjust.) However, not every citizen is eligible for the draft. Only half the population can be drafted. Let’s say the basis for who is eligible is something completely arbitrary – those who were born on even numbered days are eligible to be drafted, while those who are born on odd numbered days are exempt from the draft. Let’s say that ending the draft is outside the Overton window – there is no realistic chance this policy can be revoked. However, you are in the unique position of being able to modify the draft with some kind of executive order.” (06/14/24)
https://www.econlib.org/equalize-or-minimize/
-----
35) How to End the War in Gaza
Source: The Jolly Libertarian
by Marco den Ouden
“Amid all the recriminations tossed back and forth in the current Gaza imbroglio, the obvious solution for a lasting peace has been overlooked. It’s a solution that has been used before with much success. And it can be used again. But first a short lesson from history.” (06/14/24)
https://jollylibertarian.blogspot.com/2024/06/how-to-end-war-in-gaza.html
-----
36) Of 15s and the Man
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Our commander-in-chief has obviously contemplated whether or not ‘We, the People’ are capable of replacing or ‘tak[ing] out’ the current regime, should Mr. Biden and his administration ‘get out of line.’ He doesn’t think we can do it. Because Joe has F‑15s at his disposal and … well, we do not. As with many issues, however, our president is sorely mistaken. You see, unlike the citizenry of most countries, Americans united have a firepower advantage over our government. That is the way it should be — how, with the Second Amendment, our founders designed the system.” (06/14/24)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2024/06/14/of-15s-and-the-man/
-----
37) Are the Dark Ages Returning?
Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis
“81% of Biden supporters say getting married and having children is not a high priority. That’s horrendous, but not terribly surprising. What left me aghast was that 41% of Trump supporters agreed with them. Only 59% understand that the family is the most crucial foundation of any civilized society. What do they think — that government is? A nation in decline has never fully recovered its former glory. Many disappear completely (Babylon, Assyria), and some remain but only as weak shells of their former splendor (Greece, Rome, Britain). America will need a complete moral rejuvenation, a return to God and virtue, to rise again to true greatness, and that revival is nowhere in view at present.” (06/15/24)
https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2024/06/15/are-the-dark-ages-returning-n2640511
-----
38) The Calculation Of J.D. Vance
Source: The Weekly Dish
by Andrew Sullivan
“[B]laming of social media for an election loss is more than a little ironic since that was precisely Clinton’s sad story in 2016 — with the charge that the Kremlin had somehow made the critical difference in electing Trump by its own propaganda campaign in social media. By Vance’s own standards of election interference, therefore, Hillary was robbed. But she wasn’t, of course. She ran a predictably shitty campaign as the worst politician of her generation.” (06/14/24)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-calculation-of-jd-vance-06e
-----
39) “We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us”
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman
“The famous line ‘We have met the enemy and he is us’ is from Walt Kelly’s comic strip, Pogo. Kelly adapted the line from a U.S. naval commandant who, during the War of 1812 against Great Britain, reported to his superior, ‘We have met the enemy and they are ours.’ Kelly did the parody for the first Earth Day in 1970, a pro-state, antimarket, antihuman occasion. More constructively, we can apply Kelly’s slogan to a bigger matter, namely, who’s to blame for the bad policies that representative democracy turns out?” (06/14/24)
https://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2024/06/tgif-we-have-met-enemy-and-he-is-us.html
-----
40) The Taiwan Aid Bill Won’t Fix the Arms Backlog
Source: Cato Institute
by Eric Gomez
“In April, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a trio of emergency supplemental spending bills, including one focused on the Indo‐Pacific that is commonly referred to as the Taiwan aid bill. The new legislation seeks in part to address Taiwan’s roughly $19.7 billion backlog of arms sales from the United States — a hot‐button issue given China’s increasingly provocative military activities around Taiwan and the perception among some U.S. analysts that Taiwan is not as much of a priority as Washington claims.” (06/14/24)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/taiwan-aid-bill-wont-fix-arms-backlog
-----
41) Taming the Pricing Beast
Source: The American Prospect
by Bilal Baydoun
“The responsibility for reining in high prices has in recent decades been relegated to a single body: the Federal Reserve. Since May 2022, the Fed has raised interest rates to slow the economy by making it more expensive to borrow money. When businesses can’t borrow, the story goes, they’re less likely to expand operations and hire people — and when families can’t borrow, they buy less. The goal is to ensure people have less money to spend ‘chasing goods,’ thereby cooling the economy. Of course, this theory falls flat when it is collusion, price-maximizing algorithms, and opportunistic price-gouging driving up prices, as opposed to high demand.” [editor’s note: yet another “progressive” ignoring inflation and blaming “corporate greed” – SAT] (06/14/24)
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-14-taming-the-pricing-beast/
-----
42) Journalists Shouldn’t Depend on the State for Their Wages
Source: Quillette
by Jonathan Kay
“[S]ince 2019, many Canadian journalists — including those who regularly cover the country’s federal government — have come to owe their livelihood to the politicians they write about. We know this because newspaper owners themselves have, for years, been forthright in declaring that their continued corporate operations now depend on generous public bailouts. From an ethical point of view, this is obviously a troubling arrangement, as it creates a clear conflict of interest for journalists, especially with a federal election on the horizon.” (06/14/24)
https://quillette.com/2024/06/14/governments-shouldnt-be-paying-journalists-salaries/
-----
43) Fauci’s “Don’t Blame Me” Testimony and the Government Accountability Problem
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jon Miltimore
“Dr. Anthony Fauci was at the Capitol recently following revelations that his top adviser, Dr. David Morens, and other National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases officials took active steps to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests, including destroying records and intentionally misspelling names to avoid searches. Fauci conceded that mistakes were made, just not by him. … The fact that Fauci was running the department didn’t seem to bother him. Indeed, Fauci’s deflection of responsibility for anything was the primary theme of the hearings.” (06/14/24)
https://fee.org/articles/faucis-dont-blame-me-testimony-and-the-government-accountability-problem/
-----
44) Gaza Ceasefire Proposal: Diplomacy or Magic Trick?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Snider
“On June 10, the Security Council adopted a U.S. resolution for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza. The vote was 14-0 with Russia abstaining. There are many odd features of the resolution: especially who proposed it and who has accepted it. At stage left and stage right are the Israeli and Hamas negotiating teams. At center stage is the United States. The U.S. has kept the audience’s attention focussed on Israel and Hamas. Not enough of the focus is on the maneuvers and performance of the United States.” (06/14/24)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider/2024/06/13/gaza-ceasefire-proposal-diplomacy-or-magic-trick/
-----
45) Dems’ denialism of Biden’s cognitive decline isn’t just unconvincing, it’s cruel
Source: New York Post
by staff
“Enough denialism: Democrats (and their media enablers) need to face the facts on President Biden’s cognitive decline. After The Post reported on Biden wandering away from the pack of G-7 leaders watching a parachuting demonstration, the White House jumped into ‘fake news’ mode; Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates called it ‘a lie,’ claiming the prez was just ‘saying congratulations to one of the divers and giving a thumbs up.’ Thing is, Biden wasn’t supposed to do that, but to stay with the group, an instruction every world leader but him seemed to remember. … There is nothing usually wrong with going a little off-script. But what was most telling was the ‘what is he doing?’ reaction of his peers.” (06/14/24)
https://nypost.com/2024/06/14/opinion/democrats-denialism-of-bidens-cognitive-decline-is-cruel/
-----
46) Questions for the Biden-Trump “debate” that might be useful
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“The Joe Biden-Donald Trump collisions, although dignified as ‘debates,’ are dark alleys where the remnants of America’s political dignity are mugged by both participants. Voters might, however, glean useful information if certain questions are asked on June 27.” (06/14/24)
https://archive.is/0IfX0
-----
47) The Tragedy and Triumph of The Killing Fields
Source: Law & Liberty
by Bradley J Birzer
“As far as we know (and historians are still trying to document these things), there was no more intense genocide in the twentieth century than that committed by the Khmer Rouge. Though reported numbers vary, the Khmer Rouge murdered anywhere from 25% to 47% of the seven million-strong Cambodian population in the three years it ruled. As the Khmer Rouge openly stated: ‘All we need to build our country is a million good revolutionaries. No more than that. And we would rather kill ten friends than allow one enemy to live.’ Officially possessing no prisons, the entire country of Cambodia became a gulag, a death camp, between 1975 and 1979.” (06/14/24)
https://lawliberty.org/the-tragedy-and-triumph-of-the-killing-fields/
-----
48) Sympathy for Hunter Biden
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“The Bible tells us we are supposed to pray for our enemies — even the worst of them. Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden — there isn’t an asterisk that says, ‘… unless they’re really bad, in which case, never mind.’ … Hunter Biden isn’t even my enemy. He’s just a garden-variety dumbass with a very famous father. But it still isn’t easy to be sympathetic. Not for me, anyway. That isn’t something to be proud of. Whatever the madding crowd may try to convince you in 2024, hatred is not a marker of moral seriousness, clarity, or urgency. It’s just a natural itch that it feels good to scratch, and we happen to live in a society that feels the need to moralize its pleasures.” (06/14/24)
https://thedispatch.com/article/sympathy-for-hunter-biden/
-----
49) No Coincidence: Those Who Hate Public Sector Unions Also Hate Democracy [sic]
Source: In These Times
by Hamilton Nolan
“There is perhaps no odder sight in American politics than Republicans who owe their careers to the celebration of cronyism suddenly becoming good government defenders who criticize public sector unions as protection rackets. In fact, the longstanding Republican practice of treating public unions as Public Enemies has a simple explanation: In red states, those unions are often the strongest interest groups backing the Democratic Party, and sometimes the only interest groups capable of pushing for policies that benefit the working class. When Republican governors take control of a state, they tend to view public unions as the last stubborn opponents standing in the way of transforming that state into a Koch Brothers fever dream.” [editor’s note: I love it when a “progressive” pundit states the real truth, accidentally – SAT] (06/12/24)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/fairfax-virginia-teachers-public-sector-union-labor
-----
50) Boosters Beware: Stadiums Aren’t Magic
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Art Carden
“Another day, another push to give many millions to multimillionaires. The Jacksonville Jaguars are pushing hard for the city to renovate their stadium. Not far away, St. Petersburg, Florida is shoveling money at the Tampa Bay Rays. As economists never tire of pointing out, however, government funding for stadiums throws bad money after good. Instead of going after what C. Montgomery Burns called ‘the American dream: a billionaire using public funds to build a private playground for the rich and powerful,’ cities would put the money to better use filling potholes, improving schools, or just cutting taxes. The ‘economic impact studies’ on which stadium subsidies are based have another name: lies.” (06/14/24)
https://www.aier.org/article/boosters-beware-stadiums-arent-magic/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Why Are We Funding Harvard?
Source: Reason
“Andrew Heaton fixes Ivy League college funding.” (06/14/24)
https://reason.com/video/2024/06/14/why-are-we-funding-harvard/
-----
52) Unattended Baggage, episode 250
Source: International Guild of Professional Anarchists
“Alex goes full Karen, Jackie Gleason gets Adrian banned from Reddit, the Military-Industrial-Phar[m]eceutical Complex dis-infos China, Fauci covers up puppy abuse, crime down but police killings up, ‘Ban This Book’ gets banned for mentioning banned books, sober Hulkster hawks patriotic suds, Shaboozy culturally appropriates, and police street gangs are actually a thing.” (06/15/24)
https://alexandersnitker.substack.com/p/unattended-baggage-episode-250-great
-----
53) The Anarchist Experience, episode 480
Source: The Anarchist Experience
“Rich, MC, and KS discuss the convictions of Hunter Biden and the long term ramifications if any, and these HEADLINES: California Is Doubling Down on Banning Plastic Bags … Robert Reich is Wrong, and Dangerous.” (06/15/24)
https://theanarchistexperience.wordpress.com/2024/06/15/the-anarchist-experience-480/
-----
54) Free Talk Live, 06/15/24
Source: Free Talk Live
“What is Porcfest? :: House passed bill :: Which country are we going to war with first? :: Pine tree riot flag protest update in New Hampshire :: Banned books in Florida :: Gell-mann Amnesia :: Don’t put your kids in government schools :: We should be free to buy tanks if we want :: Roger Ver arrest and crazy aspects of it :: Trump thinking of libertarians? :: Would the Ukraine war have happened if Trump was president? :: How were Bush and Gore even different? :: 2024-06-15 Hosts: Bonnie, Colin, Kumo.” (06/15/24)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/free-talk-live-2024-06-15
-----
55) Everyday Samurai, episode 62
Source: Everyday Samurai
“The Cartel’s War of Terror.” (06/15/24)
https://pod.co/everyday-samurai-life/62-the-cartels-war-of-terror
-----
56) The Fifth Column, episode 459
Source: The Fifth Column
“The Horns of Hamas / Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (w/ Olivia Reingold).” (06/14/24)
https://wethefifth.substack.com/p/459-the-horns-of-hamas-gentlemen
-----
57) The Bryan Hyde Show, 06/14/24
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“Paul Rosenberg is back with another deeply relevant insight on how we are returning to serfdom. He says it starts with the corporatization of everything.” (06/14/24)
https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-mrut3-1640530
-----
58) The Climate Realism Show, episode 114
Source: Heartland Institute
“Heatwave Alarm Season is Here, Same Old Climate Claims, Different Year.” (06/14/24)
https://heartland.org/podcasts/heatwave-alarm-season-is-here-same-old-climate-claims-different-year-the-climate-realism-show-114-2/
-----
59) Meme Wars, 06/14/24
Source: Lions of Liberty
“Bump Stock Ban No More.” (06/14/24)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/meme-wars-bump-stock-ban-no-more
-----
60) Politics Politics Politics, 06/14/24
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“The Case for a Biden Landslide (featuring Ettingermentum and Kevin Ryan).” (06/14/24)
https://shows.acast.com/politicspoliticspolitics/episodes/the-case-for-a-biden-landslide-featuring-ettingermentum-and-
-----
61) Conflicts of Interest, episode 615
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Israel Attempts to Burn Southern Lebanon.” (06/14/24)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-615-israel-attempts-to-burn-southern-lebanon
-----
62) The New Abnormal, 06/14/24
Source: The Daily Beast
“The Most Surprising Thing About SCOTUS’[s] Abortion Pill Ruling.” [06/14/24)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-most-surprising-thing-about-scotus-abortion-pill-ruling
-----
63) There’s A Policy For That with Susan Pendergrass, 06/14/24
Source: Show-Me Institute
“Build More Housing with Bryan Caplan.” (06/14/24)
https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/economy/build-more-housing-with-bryan-caplan/
-----
64) Beg to Differ, 06/14/24
Source: The Bulwark
“The ‘Absurdly Normal’ President.” (06/14/24)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-absurdly-normal-president
-----
65) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 06/14/24
Source: Antiwar.com
“G7 To Give Ukraine $50 Billion With Russian Assets, Israel Hurls Fireballs Into Lebanon, and More.” (06/14/24)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvYogK-OZnw
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Today's Freedom News:
1) Oil steady as downbeat Chinese data offset demand hopes
2) Disgraced former president promises to cut cost of US military adventurism in Ukraine if returned to office
3) Palestine: Israeli regime to “strengthen” illegal squats in occupied West Bank
4) Russia: Hostage drama unfolds at Rostov detention centre
5) China: Communist Party warns members not to criticise policy ahead of major economic policy meeting
6) Pride designers slam Target’s product cuts, claim it’s avoiding backlash
7) ME: Police kill armed man after a night of gunfire and burned homes
8) Report: US executive pay rises at fastest rate in 14 years
9) New Caledonia: French colonial regime reopens international airport, shortens curfew
10) PA: As presidential election looms, partisan gridlock prevents fixes to state voting laws
11) Haiti: Regime to replace offical gang’s top shot-caller in effort to counter rival gang violence
12) France: Jordan Bardella could soon be PM at 28
13) South Africa: Ramaphosa reelected president after coalition deal
14) CA: Some cities to pay up to $10k for information about home burglaries
15) UK: Historic writer’s desk could be “knackered” old fake
16) Yemen: US military destroys radars that allowed Houthis to target ships
17) NY: MS-13, Russian mobsters use migrants in elaborate injury scam
18) EU diplomat, Iranian prison official freed in hostage exchange
19) Study: Men really do eat more meat than women
20) UK: Middleton makes first public appearance since cancer announcement
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Injustice for Trump … and for Hunter Biden
22) SCOTUS Gives Trump’s Anti-Gun-Rights Record an Inconvenient Election-Year Bump
23) Home-testing boom leaves worriers clutching their pearls
24) Government Subsidies Keep Your Food Boring
25) Crowdleak: A Secure Whistleblower Concept
26) We Approach State Singularity
27) A Real-World Dr. Evil: Big Pharma’s Conspiracy to Game Medical Literature
28) Behold The World Gently
29) Courts, guns, and trouble
30) “Media Reporting” Now Just More Censorship & Suppression Of Information
31) What the Swiss “peace summit” can realistically achieve
32) Dead Man’s Hand: Betting on Biden and Trump
33) Biden Prioritizes US Imperial Ambition Over Palestinian Rights
34) Equalize, or Minimize?
35) How to End the War in Gaza
36) Of 15s and the Man
37) Are the Dark Ages Returning?
38) The Calculation Of J.D. Vance
39) “We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us”
40) The Taiwan Aid Bill Won’t Fix the Arms Backlog
41) Taming the Pricing Beast
42) Journalists Shouldn’t Depend on the State for Their Wages
43) Fauci’s “Don’t Blame Me” Testimony and the Government Accountability Problem
44) Gaza Ceasefire Proposal: Diplomacy or Magic Trick?
45) Dems’ denialism of Biden’s cognitive decline isn’t just unconvincing, it’s cruel
46) Questions for the Biden-Trump “debate” that might be useful
47) The Tragedy and Triumph of The Killing Fields
48) Sympathy for Hunter Biden
49) No Coincidence: Those Who Hate Public Sector Unions Also Hate Democracy [sic]
50) Boosters Beware: Stadiums Aren’t Magic
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Why Are We Funding Harvard?
52) Unattended Baggage, episode 250
53) The Anarchist Experience, episode 480
54) Free Talk Live, 06/15/24
55) Everyday Samurai, episode 62
56) The Fifth Column, episode 459
57) The Bryan Hyde Show, 06/14/24
58) The Climate Realism Show, episode 114
59) Meme Wars, 06/14/24
60) Politics Politics Politics, 06/14/24
61) Conflicts of Interest, episode 615
62) The New Abnormal, 06/14/24
63) There’s A Policy For That with Susan Pendergrass, 06/14/24
64) Beg to Differ, 06/14/24
65) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 06/14/24
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Oil steady as downbeat Chinese data offset demand hopes
Source: Reuters
“Oil was steady on Monday after Chinese economic data underscoring a bumpy recovery for the world’s biggest crude importer offset hopes for a boost to demand from the summer driving season in the northern hemisphere. Apart from retail sales that beat forecasts due to a holiday boost, the flurry of Chinese data on Monday was largely downbeat. The data followed a survey on Friday showing U.S. consumer sentiment fell to a seven-month low in June. … Last week, both benchmarks posted their first weekly gain in four weeks on elevated confidence that oil inventories are set to plunge as the summer season gets under way in the northern hemisphere. ‘The move higher was not unreservedly convincing,’ said Tamas Varga of oil broker PVM of last week’s gains. ‘Further weakness is observed this morning due to sluggish Chinese factory activity.'” (06/17/24)
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-prices-inch-down-weaker-us-consumer-demand-ahead-china-data-2024-06-17/
-----
2) Disgraced former president promises to cut cost of US military adventurism in Ukraine if returned to office
Source: Politico
“Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday blasted the scale of U.S. support for Ukraine and said that if he is reelected in November he would immediately ‘have that settled.’ At a campaign rally in Detroit, Trump criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling him ‘the greatest salesman of all time’ for Kyiv’s push to secure U.S. support in its effort to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression more than three years after Moscow’s all-out invasion. ‘He just left four days ago with $60 billion, and he gets home, and he announces that he needs another $60 billion. It never ends,’ Trump said. ‘I will have that settled prior to taking the White House as president-elect,’ said Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the U.S. election.” (06/16/24)
https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-ukraine-russia-war-threatens-cut-aid-election-2024/
-----
3) Palestine: Israeli regime to “strengthen” illegal squats in occupied West Bank
Source: CNN
“Israel’s government says it is looking to ‘strengthen’ [illegal squats] in the occupied West Bank after several countries unilaterally recognized a Palestinian state. In a statement issued on Sunday, the Prime Minister’s Office said all of the proposals for strengthening [the squats] in what Israel biblically refers to as Judea and Samaria would be voted on at the next Security Cabinet meeting. Norway, Ireland, Spain and Slovenia have each recognized an independent Palestinian state in recent weeks, a move motivated at least in part by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s open refusal to commit to a two-state solution. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the move was a reward for terrorism and would strengthen Hamas. The statement also said Israel would look at what actions to take against the Palestinian Authority as it took actions against Israel in international bodies” (06/16/24)
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/16/middleeast/israel-west-bank-settlements-intl-latam/index.html
-----
4) Russia: Hostage drama unfolds at Rostov detention centre
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Several hostage takers have been killed in an operation to free two prison guards who they were holding in the southern Russian city of Rostov, Russia media report. The guards are said to be unhurt after special forces stormed the centre. The six men, who were being held in a pre-trial detention centre, were said to be armed with knives. They were facing terrorism charges, including links to the Islamic State (IS) group. They had been demanding a vehicle, firearms and free passage out of the centre. Police and national guard were called to the scene when reports of the hostage taking first emerged on Sunday morning. … The detainees said they were members of IS and that their actions were ‘not spontaneous.’ Reports say they managed to smuggle knives, IS flags and mobile phones into their cells.” (06/16/24)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd11p0j80j9o
-----
5) China: Communist Party warns members not to criticise policy ahead of major economic policy meeting
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“The Chinese Communist Party’s watchdog has issued a stern reminder to members not to criticise party policy ahead of a major party meeting that is likely to set the direction of economic policy for the next five years. But analysts warned this effort to ‘unify thought,’ to use the party’s own jargon, amid challenging economic conditions may further damage Beijing’s credibility and erode business confidence if it is seen as ‘unreasonably trying to control the storyline.’ The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection published a special report via state news agency Xinhua on Wednesday that warned against ‘openly speaking ill of the party on major issues’ as part of the watchdog’s latest internal disciplinary drive.” (06/16/24)
https://archive.is/r2yq5
-----
6) Pride designers slam Target’s product cuts, claim it’s avoiding backlash
Source: Seattle Times
“A number of artists Target tapped to design part of its 2024 Pride collection have taken to social media to lament the retailer’s product development process, including last-minute cuts, drastically altered designs, wasted products and little recognition. This is the latest controversy for the Minneapolis-based company that has struggled to find even footing on LGBTQ+ issues after conservative backlash about some Pride items last year contributed to the retailer’s dipping sales. In response, Target decided this month to sell a smaller selection of Pride merch in fewer stores, though all items are available online. It is a regression to pre-2021, when Target first began offering the collection in honor of June’s Pride Month in all stores.” (06/16/24)
https://archive.is/70eKO
-----
7) ME: Police kill armed man after a night of gunfire and burned homes
Source: SFGate
“A Maine State Police tactical team fatally shot a man on a rooftop early Saturday after an hourslong standoff in which authorities said he opened fire at officers, two homes burned down and a person who fought with him apparently died. Police issued a shelter-in-place order, evacuated homes and closed a section of the street in Auburn, trigging memories of the mass shooting in neighboring Lewiston less than eight months ago, when a gunman killed 18 people and injured 13 others in the deadliest shooting in Maine’s history. … Fire investigators later Saturday said human remains were found in the charred wreckage of the home and had yet to be identified. Police said Leein Hinkley, 43, had been released on bail days earlier on a probation violation. He tried to break into a home just before 1 a.m. Saturday, and got into a fight with a man inside.” (06/16/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/explosions-heard-as-maine-police-deal-with-armed-19515964.php
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8) Report: US executive pay rises at fastest rate in 14 years
Source: Financial Times [UK]
“US bosses’ pay is increasing at the fastest rate for at least 14 years, according to new figures which critics say illustrate how ballooning reward packages such as Elon Musk’s risk exacerbating social inequality. So far in 2024, median chief executive pay at S&P 500 companies has risen by 12 per cent, according to ISS Corporate, part of proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services. That compares with a 4.1 per cent year-on-year increase in US wage growth, according to official figures.” (06/16/24)
https://archive.is/gR0nO
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9) New Caledonia: French colonial regime reopens international airport, shortens curfew
Source: SFGate
“The French Pacific territory of New Caledonia is shortening its overnight curfew and reopening its international airport that was closed to commercial flights for more than a month because of deadly violence that wracked the archipelago where pro-independence Indigenous Kanaks want to break from France. La Tontouta airport that links New Caledonia’s capital, Nouméa, to Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore and other Pacific hubs will reopen Monday, the territory’s high commissioner announced in a statement Sunday. The overnight curfew is also being shortened by two hours, its start pushed back from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., because of ‘the improvement in the situation and in order to facilitate the gradual return to normal life,’ the high commissioner said. Violence that flared on May 13 over controversial voting reforms led to nine deaths, including two gendarmes, and widespread destruction of shops, businesses and homes.” (06/16/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/new-caledonia-reopening-its-international-airport-19516839.php
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10) PA: As presidential election looms, partisan gridlock prevents fixes to state voting laws
Source: SFGate
“Pennsylvania is seeing lots of action targeting gaps in its vote-by-mail laws. The problem is that it’s in the courtroom and not the legislature. That could make the most populous presidential swing state a hotbed of challenges and conspiracy theories if the November election is close, as expected. The state also has a U.S. Senate contest between Democratic incumbent Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick that will help determine control of the chamber, increasing scrutiny on election offices if lawmakers can’t break a partisan stalemate and vote-counting is slowed by mailed ballots. … Political gridlock in Pennsylvania over election laws dates to 2019, when a Republican-controlled legislature greatly expanded voting by mail in a compromise with then-Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.” (06/16/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/partisan-gridlock-prevents-fixes-to-19515728.php
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11) Haiti: Regime to replace offical gang’s top shot-caller in effort to counter rival gang violence
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“The newly installed government in Haiti has announced the replacement of the head of the beleaguered national police force, in the latest effort to respond to [rival] gang violence in the crisis-wracked country. Police chief Frantz Elbe will be replaced with former chief Rameau Normil, the prime minister’s office has confirmed. The move comes as Haiti’s new prime minister, Garry Conille, has faced increased pressure to strengthen the Haitian National Police. The force has remained woefully underfunded and ill-equipped despite being at the forefront of the battle against powerful armed [rival] gangs in the Caribbean country.” (06/15/24)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/15/hait-to-replace-national-police-chief-amid-gang-violence
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12) France: Jordan Bardella could soon be PM at 28
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“The French would dearly love to know who is the real Jordan Bardella. The question was interesting when Mr Bardella was merely president of the country’s biggest party, the far-right National Rally (RN). Now that he is being openly spoken of as the country’s next prime minister, it has become a matter of urgency. In two weeks the country goes to the polls in a snap election called by President Emmanuel Macron following his humiliation by the RN at the European elections last Sunday. If the RN has pulled off another big win after the second round of voting on July 7, then Macron will have no choice but to offer it a chance to govern. And if that happens, Mr Bardella – who shares the party leadership with Marine Le Pen – is expected to be named as prime minister.” (06/16/24)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvvlp096eko
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13) South Africa: Ramaphosa reelected president after coalition deal
Source: CBS News
“South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was reelected by lawmakers for a second term on Friday, after his party struck a dramatic late coalition deal with a former political foe just hours before the vote. Ramaphosa, the leader of the African National Congress, won convincingly in Parliament against a surprise candidate who was also nominated — Julius Malema of the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters. Ramaphosa received 283 votes to Malema’s 44 in the 400-member house. The 71-year-old Ramaphosa secured his second term with the help of lawmakers from the country’s second biggest party, the Democratic Alliance, and some smaller parties. They backed him in the vote and got him over the finish line following the ANC’s loss of its long-held majority in a landmark election two weeks ago that reduced it to 159 seats in Parliament.” (06/15/24)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cyril-ramaphosa-reelected-coalition-deal-south-africa/
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14) CA: Some cities to pay up to $10k for information about home burglaries
Source: SFGate
“Residents in some areas of San Mateo County could be paid up to $10,000 for reporting information leading to arrests and convictions of home burglaries. On Tuesday, the five-member San Mateo County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the program as a pilot in District 3, which includes Atherton, Half Moon Bay, parts of Menlo Park and Belmont, Pacifica, Portola Valley, San Carlos, Woodside and several unincorporated areas. Ray Mueller, the district’s supervisor, told SFGATE he introduced the program following a rash of home burglaries in his district and the county as a whole from January to June. So far during that period, he said, there have been more than 90 such incidents in the county.” (06/16/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/san-mateo-county-cities-pay-10k-reporting-home-19514958.php
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15) UK: Historic writer’s desk could be “knackered” old fake
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“The desk of the writer Dr Samuel Johnson is to be returned to his former London home for the first time in more than 260 years. Except, in a strange twist, its owner is now uncertain whether it really is the desk of the famous 18th Century dictionary author. It’s been suggested that despite many years of being treated as a literary relic, it could have been part of a Victorian hustle to make money. It will be the star attraction of a new museum exhibition, but visitors will be asked whether they now believe it’s authentic. Dr Samuel Johnson was an 18th Century literary giant, remembered for compiling in 1755 what was then the most comprehensive dictionary of the English language. In the TV comedy Blackadder the Third, Dr Johnson was portrayed by Robbie Coltrane, with the painstakingly researched dictionary ending up on the fire.” (06/16/24)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8995q12z8eo
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16) Yemen: US military destroys radars that allowed Houthis to target ships
Source: United Press International
“U.S. forces have launched a barrage of attacks destroying Houthi radar sites that helped the group target commercial shipping vessels, according to U.S. Central Command. CENTCOM said in a post on X Friday that the U.S. military over the past 24 hours destroyed seven radars in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, as well as several of their sea and aerial drones. … The strikes come after Houthi rebels [sic] on Wednesday damaged the M/V Tutor, a 44,000-ton Greek-owned bulk carrier while it was navigating the Red Sea about 66 miles southwest of the port of Hudaydah.” (06/15/24)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2024/06/15/attack-houthi-radars-drones/6441718488105/
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17) NY: MS-13, Russian mobsters use migrants in elaborate injury scam
Source: New York Post
“Russian gangsters, MS-13 members, and a cadre of corrupt surgeons, lawyers and lenders are pulling off the latest big con in the city: bogus personal-injury lawsuits where immigrants go under the knife to help their twisted ruse. Migrants and other desperate New Yorkers are pressured into getting unneeded spinal fusion surgery and other operations to boost the value of their fake-accident claims, according to court records, insurance investigators and law-enforcement sources. Doctors cash in on the sick swindle by performing back and neck fusions, allowing fraudsters to swipe billions through bogus insurance filings, according to court filings and sources. The racket typically involves a healthy person taking a seemingly minor tumble on the street or at a construction site, then claiming a devastating injury that requires multiple surgeries.” (06/16/24)
https://nypost.com/2024/06/16/us-news/ms-13-russian-mobsters-use-migrants-in-elaborate-injury-scam-even-getting-spinal-surgery-to-pull-it-off-sources/
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18) EU diplomat, Iranian prison official freed in hostage exchange
Source: Politico
“Swedish EU official Johan Floderus, who has been held in an Iranian prison for more than two years, was released as part of a deal with Tehran, the Swedish government announced Saturday. Saeed Azizi, another Swedish citizen, who was arrested by Iran in November 2023, will also be permitted to leave the country as part of the swap, with Stockholm handing over a former Iranian prison official convicted of crimes against humanity.” (06/15/24)
https://www.politico.eu/article/johan-floderus-iran-eu-diplomat-freed-hamid-nouri-prisoner-exchange-sweden/
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19) Study: Men really do eat more meat than women
Source: SFGate
“Vacationing in Chicago this week from Europe, Jelle den Burger and Nirusa Naguleswaran grabbed a bite at the Dog House Grill: a classic Italian beef sandwich for him, grilled cheese for her. Both think the way their genders lined up with their food choices was no coincidence. Women, said Naguleswaran, are simply more likely to ditch meat, and to care about how their diet affects the environment and other people. ‘I don’t want to put it in the wrong way, that male people feel attacked,’ said Naguleswaran, of Netherlands, laughing. She said she used to love eating meat, but giving it up for climate reasons was more important to her. ‘We just have it in our nature to care about others.’ Now, scientists can say more confidently than ever that gender and meat-eating preferences are linked.” (06/16/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/living/article/it-s-not-your-imagination-men-really-do-eat-19512806.php
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20) UK: Middleton makes first public appearance since cancer announcement
Source: Axios
“Kate Middleton, Britain’s Princess of Wales, made her first public appearance Saturday since surgery five months ago revealed the presence of cancer. … Crowds lining the streets waved and cheered as Kate went past in a covered carriage with her three children in a military parade marking King Charles’ birthday, Reuters reports. In a rare personal written message Friday, she said she was making good progress but is ‘not out of the woods.'” (06/15/24)
https://www.axios.com/2024/06/15/kate-middleton-princess-wales-public-appearance-cancer
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Injustice for Trump … and for Hunter Biden
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“Last column, I pointed out the injustice of Donald Trump’s conviction for violating nonsensical, arbitrary legislation. If such legislation even exists. Last week, it happened to someone else. Once again someone prominent has been convicted of a victimless ‘crime’ while those in Congress and other government positions continue to victimize Americans with their felonious regime. Hunter Biden, the president’s son, has been convicted of breaking a federal gun rule — they wish we’d call it a ‘law’ — that the federal government is explicitly prohibited from making or enforcing. This is tied in with him breaking drug prohibition rules government has no authority to make up or enforce. This is what injustice looks like. The jury involved in this verdict should be ashamed, as should the jury that convicted Trump.” (06/16/24)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2024/06/16/voices/opinion-injustice-for-trump-and-for-hunter-biden/178731.html
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22) SCOTUS Gives Trump’s Anti-Gun-Rights Record an Inconvenient Election-Year Bump
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“On June 14, the US Supreme Court overturned former US president Donald Trump’s 2018 ‘bump stock ban.’ Like many SCOTUS rulings, this outcome turned on neither the plain text and meaning of the US Constitution (under which the ban was clearly illegal) nor common sense (under which the ban was clearly idiotic — everyday objects as mundane as belt loops and rubber bands can be used as ‘bump stocks’). Instead, the court ruled (in the negative) on the question of whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has the power to magically change the definition of the term ‘machine gun’ on the whim of the president. … close enough for government work, I guess. Perhaps the most useful outcome of the ruling is its tendency to highlight Donald Trump’s actual record on gun rights as he seeks a second term in the White House.” (06/15/24)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/18745
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23) Home-testing boom leaves worriers clutching their pearls
Source: Orange County Register
by Steven Greenhut
“Thanks to clever inventions and investments from venture capitalists, the average American can head to CVS and purchase kits to test for drug use, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDs, diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol. This should strike normal people as a blessing. But this remarkable development has upset the professional worriers. The Washington Post recently spotlighted a ‘shadow system’ of such tests. ‘Buoyed by regulatory vacuums, Silicon Valley is building a booming online wellness market that aims to leave the doctor’s office behind,’ it explained. … This sounds so, well, ominous, but there’s no reason DIY tests will cause anyone to avoid a doctor. I had recent health concerns and made a doctor’s appointment. Given our overburdened system, the soonest appointment I could get was months away. I bought test strips at the pharmacy, which helped alleviate my worries.” (06/14/24)
https://www.ocregister.com/2024/06/14/home-testing-boom-leaves-worriers-clutching-their-pearls/
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24) Government Subsidies Keep Your Food Boring
Source: Reason
by C Jarrett Dieterle
“The feds’ focus on large-scale crops hinders the resurgence of heritage grains and results in less food diversity.” (06/15/24)
https://reason.com/2024/06/15/government-subsidies-keep-your-food-boring/
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25) Crowdleak: A Secure Whistleblower Concept
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“The thing that tripped up Julian Assange is that he was a single attack vector — a middleman between a sender and the media. Get that middleman and stop the project, they thought. And that’s just what they did. What’s insidious about Assange’s treatment is that he was always the recipient of sensitive government secrets and unseemly private emails (Hilary Clinton) but never the sender. Yet he rots in Belmarsh prison, awaiting a miracle pardon. What if there were a decentralized version of Wikileaks that would allow anonymous whistleblowers to upload sensitive or embarrassing information directly to a viewable blockchain?” (06/16/24)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/crowdleak-a-secure-whistleblower
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26) We Approach State Singularity
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Bruce Pardy
“We are approaching state singularity: the moment when state and society become indistinguishable. In physics, a ‘singularity’ is a single point in space-time. Inside black holes, gravity crushes volume to zero and mass density is infinite. In computer science, ‘technological singularity’ is unitary artificial superintelligence. At the singularity, everything becomes one thing. Data points converge. Normal laws do not apply. At state singularity, the state becomes society and society is a product of the state. Legal norms and expectations become irrelevant. The state’s mandate is to do as it judges best – since everything and everyone are expressions of its vision.” (06/15/24)
https://brownstone.org/articles/we-approach-state-singularity/
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27) A Real-World Dr. Evil: Big Pharma’s Conspiracy to Game Medical Literature
Source: Racket News
by Matt Bivens, MD
“A never-surfaced litigation exhibit shows an opiate producer used the ‘Dr. Evil’ character to describe plans to popularize addictive drug use.” (06/15/24)
https://www.racket.news/p/a-real-world-dr-evil-big-pharmas
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28) Behold The World Gently
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The dead children don’t affect me like they used to. The images. The videos. They still disturb and horrify, but not like they did in the beginning. Not anywhere close. And, honestly, I hate it. I hate that that part of me has been stolen. As much as I hated having my heart kicked around all day and having nightmares all night, I’d rather have that than this decreased sensitivity. People should not become desensitized to such horrors. People should not become accustomed to decapitated babies and small, mangled bodies. To corpses run over by tanks. To body parts carried in plastic bags by loved ones. These things should jar you. They should rattle you to your core. But they don’t anymore.” (06/14/24)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/06/14/behold-the-world-gently/
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29) Courts, guns, and trouble
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“The Blaze reports on the SCOTUS 6-3 decision to overturn the Trump-Biden regulatory interpretation for the BATFE to classify bump-stocks as a method of turning semi-automatic weapons into ‘machine guns.’ The Blaze (and many others) labels this as overturning a ‘bump-stock ban’ that The Donald put into place after the Las Vegas massacre a few years ago. One could call this a victory for common sense. But think about it.” (06/15/24)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2024/06/15/courts-guns-and-trouble/
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30) “Media Reporting” Now Just More Censorship & Suppression Of Information
Source: The Federalist
by Eddie Scarry
“As the left-wing Media Matters for America buckles under the weight of a delightfully crushing defamation lawsuit brought by Elon Musk — hope he wins! — it’s probably a good time for that trash outlet’s deep-pocket donors to consider spending their money elsewhere; not just because MMFA is a satanic organization that employs a bunch of otherwise unskilled dopes, but because so much of what was formerly known as ‘media reporting’ is now simply more censorship and suppression of right-wingers, which is exactly what MMFA does.” (06/14/24)
https://thefederalist.com/2024/06/14/media-reporting-is-now-just-more-censorship-and-suppression-of-information/
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31) What the Swiss “peace summit” can realistically achieve
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Anatol Lieven
“The Ukraine ‘Peace Summit’ in Geneva this weekend is not really a summit and is not really about peace. The agenda has been scaled back to discussions of limited measures aimed not at ending the war, but at softening some of its aspects. Outside Europe, very few international leaders are attending — including President Biden, who is sending Vice President Kamala Harris and national security adviser Jake Sullivan instead. Of the 10 points in the Ukrainian government’s ‘peace plan,’ only three will be formally discussed — though President Zelensky will presumably still seek to promote all of them at the meeting. Ukraine’s demands for complete Russian military withdrawal, war crimes trials, reparations for war damages, and security guarantees have all been omitted from the agenda.” (06/14/24)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-peace-summit-2668521120/
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32) Dead Man’s Hand: Betting on Biden and Trump
Source: CounterPunch
by Matthew Stevenson
“Since presidential voting leads to such unhappiness (Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six races, but it has hardly slowed them down), perhaps the Constitution should be amended so that the winning candidate is the one with the best betting odds at midnight on election night? Maybe to lend the exercise the air of republican virtue, the Electoral College — in making its decision — could weigh all of the major online betting sites, such FanDuel, DraftKings, and Bet365.” (06/14/24)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/06/14/dead-mans-hand-betting-on-biden-and-trump/
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33) Biden Prioritizes US Imperial Ambition Over Palestinian Rights
Source: Foreign Policy In Focus
by Edward Hunt
“While Israel continues its military siege of Gaza, the United States is trying to exploit the situation with the goal of strengthening U.S. power in the Middle East. Rather than seeking a long-term solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, the United States is prioritizing its longstanding goal of normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. With such a deal, which would require calm in Gaza to bring Saudi Arabia on board, the United States would further marginalize the Palestinians while more tightly integrating Israel into its regional network of alliances and partnerships. … For decades, the United States has dominated the Middle East. A key to U.S. power has been the U.S.-led network of alliances and partnerships that includes Israel and the Arab states.” (06/15/24)
https://fpif.org/despite-possibility-of-ceasefire-u-s-imperial-ambitions-may-doom-palestine/
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34) Equalize, or Minimize?
Source: EconLog
by Kevin Corcoran
“Suppose you live in a world where there is a military draft. In addition, let’s stipulate that a military draft is unjust. (If you’re in favor of a draft and find yourself resisting the thought experiment on those grounds, just substitute the draft for some other policy you would consider unjust.) However, not every citizen is eligible for the draft. Only half the population can be drafted. Let’s say the basis for who is eligible is something completely arbitrary – those who were born on even numbered days are eligible to be drafted, while those who are born on odd numbered days are exempt from the draft. Let’s say that ending the draft is outside the Overton window – there is no realistic chance this policy can be revoked. However, you are in the unique position of being able to modify the draft with some kind of executive order.” (06/14/24)
https://www.econlib.org/equalize-or-minimize/
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35) How to End the War in Gaza
Source: The Jolly Libertarian
by Marco den Ouden
“Amid all the recriminations tossed back and forth in the current Gaza imbroglio, the obvious solution for a lasting peace has been overlooked. It’s a solution that has been used before with much success. And it can be used again. But first a short lesson from history.” (06/14/24)
https://jollylibertarian.blogspot.com/2024/06/how-to-end-war-in-gaza.html
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36) Of 15s and the Man
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Our commander-in-chief has obviously contemplated whether or not ‘We, the People’ are capable of replacing or ‘tak[ing] out’ the current regime, should Mr. Biden and his administration ‘get out of line.’ He doesn’t think we can do it. Because Joe has F‑15s at his disposal and … well, we do not. As with many issues, however, our president is sorely mistaken. You see, unlike the citizenry of most countries, Americans united have a firepower advantage over our government. That is the way it should be — how, with the Second Amendment, our founders designed the system.” (06/14/24)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2024/06/14/of-15s-and-the-man/
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37) Are the Dark Ages Returning?
Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis
“81% of Biden supporters say getting married and having children is not a high priority. That’s horrendous, but not terribly surprising. What left me aghast was that 41% of Trump supporters agreed with them. Only 59% understand that the family is the most crucial foundation of any civilized society. What do they think — that government is? A nation in decline has never fully recovered its former glory. Many disappear completely (Babylon, Assyria), and some remain but only as weak shells of their former splendor (Greece, Rome, Britain). America will need a complete moral rejuvenation, a return to God and virtue, to rise again to true greatness, and that revival is nowhere in view at present.” (06/15/24)
https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2024/06/15/are-the-dark-ages-returning-n2640511
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38) The Calculation Of J.D. Vance
Source: The Weekly Dish
by Andrew Sullivan
“[B]laming of social media for an election loss is more than a little ironic since that was precisely Clinton’s sad story in 2016 — with the charge that the Kremlin had somehow made the critical difference in electing Trump by its own propaganda campaign in social media. By Vance’s own standards of election interference, therefore, Hillary was robbed. But she wasn’t, of course. She ran a predictably shitty campaign as the worst politician of her generation.” (06/14/24)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-calculation-of-jd-vance-06e
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39) “We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us”
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman
“The famous line ‘We have met the enemy and he is us’ is from Walt Kelly’s comic strip, Pogo. Kelly adapted the line from a U.S. naval commandant who, during the War of 1812 against Great Britain, reported to his superior, ‘We have met the enemy and they are ours.’ Kelly did the parody for the first Earth Day in 1970, a pro-state, antimarket, antihuman occasion. More constructively, we can apply Kelly’s slogan to a bigger matter, namely, who’s to blame for the bad policies that representative democracy turns out?” (06/14/24)
https://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2024/06/tgif-we-have-met-enemy-and-he-is-us.html
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40) The Taiwan Aid Bill Won’t Fix the Arms Backlog
Source: Cato Institute
by Eric Gomez
“In April, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a trio of emergency supplemental spending bills, including one focused on the Indo‐Pacific that is commonly referred to as the Taiwan aid bill. The new legislation seeks in part to address Taiwan’s roughly $19.7 billion backlog of arms sales from the United States — a hot‐button issue given China’s increasingly provocative military activities around Taiwan and the perception among some U.S. analysts that Taiwan is not as much of a priority as Washington claims.” (06/14/24)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/taiwan-aid-bill-wont-fix-arms-backlog
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41) Taming the Pricing Beast
Source: The American Prospect
by Bilal Baydoun
“The responsibility for reining in high prices has in recent decades been relegated to a single body: the Federal Reserve. Since May 2022, the Fed has raised interest rates to slow the economy by making it more expensive to borrow money. When businesses can’t borrow, the story goes, they’re less likely to expand operations and hire people — and when families can’t borrow, they buy less. The goal is to ensure people have less money to spend ‘chasing goods,’ thereby cooling the economy. Of course, this theory falls flat when it is collusion, price-maximizing algorithms, and opportunistic price-gouging driving up prices, as opposed to high demand.” [editor’s note: yet another “progressive” ignoring inflation and blaming “corporate greed” – SAT] (06/14/24)
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-14-taming-the-pricing-beast/
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42) Journalists Shouldn’t Depend on the State for Their Wages
Source: Quillette
by Jonathan Kay
“[S]ince 2019, many Canadian journalists — including those who regularly cover the country’s federal government — have come to owe their livelihood to the politicians they write about. We know this because newspaper owners themselves have, for years, been forthright in declaring that their continued corporate operations now depend on generous public bailouts. From an ethical point of view, this is obviously a troubling arrangement, as it creates a clear conflict of interest for journalists, especially with a federal election on the horizon.” (06/14/24)
https://quillette.com/2024/06/14/governments-shouldnt-be-paying-journalists-salaries/
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43) Fauci’s “Don’t Blame Me” Testimony and the Government Accountability Problem
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jon Miltimore
“Dr. Anthony Fauci was at the Capitol recently following revelations that his top adviser, Dr. David Morens, and other National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases officials took active steps to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests, including destroying records and intentionally misspelling names to avoid searches. Fauci conceded that mistakes were made, just not by him. … The fact that Fauci was running the department didn’t seem to bother him. Indeed, Fauci’s deflection of responsibility for anything was the primary theme of the hearings.” (06/14/24)
https://fee.org/articles/faucis-dont-blame-me-testimony-and-the-government-accountability-problem/
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44) Gaza Ceasefire Proposal: Diplomacy or Magic Trick?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Snider
“On June 10, the Security Council adopted a U.S. resolution for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza. The vote was 14-0 with Russia abstaining. There are many odd features of the resolution: especially who proposed it and who has accepted it. At stage left and stage right are the Israeli and Hamas negotiating teams. At center stage is the United States. The U.S. has kept the audience’s attention focussed on Israel and Hamas. Not enough of the focus is on the maneuvers and performance of the United States.” (06/14/24)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider/2024/06/13/gaza-ceasefire-proposal-diplomacy-or-magic-trick/
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45) Dems’ denialism of Biden’s cognitive decline isn’t just unconvincing, it’s cruel
Source: New York Post
by staff
“Enough denialism: Democrats (and their media enablers) need to face the facts on President Biden’s cognitive decline. After The Post reported on Biden wandering away from the pack of G-7 leaders watching a parachuting demonstration, the White House jumped into ‘fake news’ mode; Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates called it ‘a lie,’ claiming the prez was just ‘saying congratulations to one of the divers and giving a thumbs up.’ Thing is, Biden wasn’t supposed to do that, but to stay with the group, an instruction every world leader but him seemed to remember. … There is nothing usually wrong with going a little off-script. But what was most telling was the ‘what is he doing?’ reaction of his peers.” (06/14/24)
https://nypost.com/2024/06/14/opinion/democrats-denialism-of-bidens-cognitive-decline-is-cruel/
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46) Questions for the Biden-Trump “debate” that might be useful
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“The Joe Biden-Donald Trump collisions, although dignified as ‘debates,’ are dark alleys where the remnants of America’s political dignity are mugged by both participants. Voters might, however, glean useful information if certain questions are asked on June 27.” (06/14/24)
https://archive.is/0IfX0
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47) The Tragedy and Triumph of The Killing Fields
Source: Law & Liberty
by Bradley J Birzer
“As far as we know (and historians are still trying to document these things), there was no more intense genocide in the twentieth century than that committed by the Khmer Rouge. Though reported numbers vary, the Khmer Rouge murdered anywhere from 25% to 47% of the seven million-strong Cambodian population in the three years it ruled. As the Khmer Rouge openly stated: ‘All we need to build our country is a million good revolutionaries. No more than that. And we would rather kill ten friends than allow one enemy to live.’ Officially possessing no prisons, the entire country of Cambodia became a gulag, a death camp, between 1975 and 1979.” (06/14/24)
https://lawliberty.org/the-tragedy-and-triumph-of-the-killing-fields/
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48) Sympathy for Hunter Biden
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“The Bible tells us we are supposed to pray for our enemies — even the worst of them. Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden — there isn’t an asterisk that says, ‘… unless they’re really bad, in which case, never mind.’ … Hunter Biden isn’t even my enemy. He’s just a garden-variety dumbass with a very famous father. But it still isn’t easy to be sympathetic. Not for me, anyway. That isn’t something to be proud of. Whatever the madding crowd may try to convince you in 2024, hatred is not a marker of moral seriousness, clarity, or urgency. It’s just a natural itch that it feels good to scratch, and we happen to live in a society that feels the need to moralize its pleasures.” (06/14/24)
https://thedispatch.com/article/sympathy-for-hunter-biden/
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49) No Coincidence: Those Who Hate Public Sector Unions Also Hate Democracy [sic]
Source: In These Times
by Hamilton Nolan
“There is perhaps no odder sight in American politics than Republicans who owe their careers to the celebration of cronyism suddenly becoming good government defenders who criticize public sector unions as protection rackets. In fact, the longstanding Republican practice of treating public unions as Public Enemies has a simple explanation: In red states, those unions are often the strongest interest groups backing the Democratic Party, and sometimes the only interest groups capable of pushing for policies that benefit the working class. When Republican governors take control of a state, they tend to view public unions as the last stubborn opponents standing in the way of transforming that state into a Koch Brothers fever dream.” [editor’s note: I love it when a “progressive” pundit states the real truth, accidentally – SAT] (06/12/24)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/fairfax-virginia-teachers-public-sector-union-labor
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50) Boosters Beware: Stadiums Aren’t Magic
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Art Carden
“Another day, another push to give many millions to multimillionaires. The Jacksonville Jaguars are pushing hard for the city to renovate their stadium. Not far away, St. Petersburg, Florida is shoveling money at the Tampa Bay Rays. As economists never tire of pointing out, however, government funding for stadiums throws bad money after good. Instead of going after what C. Montgomery Burns called ‘the American dream: a billionaire using public funds to build a private playground for the rich and powerful,’ cities would put the money to better use filling potholes, improving schools, or just cutting taxes. The ‘economic impact studies’ on which stadium subsidies are based have another name: lies.” (06/14/24)
https://www.aier.org/article/boosters-beware-stadiums-arent-magic/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Why Are We Funding Harvard?
Source: Reason
“Andrew Heaton fixes Ivy League college funding.” (06/14/24)
https://reason.com/video/2024/06/14/why-are-we-funding-harvard/
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52) Unattended Baggage, episode 250
Source: International Guild of Professional Anarchists
“Alex goes full Karen, Jackie Gleason gets Adrian banned from Reddit, the Military-Industrial-Phar[m]eceutical Complex dis-infos China, Fauci covers up puppy abuse, crime down but police killings up, ‘Ban This Book’ gets banned for mentioning banned books, sober Hulkster hawks patriotic suds, Shaboozy culturally appropriates, and police street gangs are actually a thing.” (06/15/24)
https://alexandersnitker.substack.com/p/unattended-baggage-episode-250-great
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53) The Anarchist Experience, episode 480
Source: The Anarchist Experience
“Rich, MC, and KS discuss the convictions of Hunter Biden and the long term ramifications if any, and these HEADLINES: California Is Doubling Down on Banning Plastic Bags … Robert Reich is Wrong, and Dangerous.” (06/15/24)
https://theanarchistexperience.wordpress.com/2024/06/15/the-anarchist-experience-480/
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54) Free Talk Live, 06/15/24
Source: Free Talk Live
“What is Porcfest? :: House passed bill :: Which country are we going to war with first? :: Pine tree riot flag protest update in New Hampshire :: Banned books in Florida :: Gell-mann Amnesia :: Don’t put your kids in government schools :: We should be free to buy tanks if we want :: Roger Ver arrest and crazy aspects of it :: Trump thinking of libertarians? :: Would the Ukraine war have happened if Trump was president? :: How were Bush and Gore even different? :: 2024-06-15 Hosts: Bonnie, Colin, Kumo.” (06/15/24)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/free-talk-live-2024-06-15
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55) Everyday Samurai, episode 62
Source: Everyday Samurai
“The Cartel’s War of Terror.” (06/15/24)
https://pod.co/everyday-samurai-life/62-the-cartels-war-of-terror
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56) The Fifth Column, episode 459
Source: The Fifth Column
“The Horns of Hamas / Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (w/ Olivia Reingold).” (06/14/24)
https://wethefifth.substack.com/p/459-the-horns-of-hamas-gentlemen
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57) The Bryan Hyde Show, 06/14/24
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“Paul Rosenberg is back with another deeply relevant insight on how we are returning to serfdom. He says it starts with the corporatization of everything.” (06/14/24)
https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-mrut3-1640530
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58) The Climate Realism Show, episode 114
Source: Heartland Institute
“Heatwave Alarm Season is Here, Same Old Climate Claims, Different Year.” (06/14/24)
https://heartland.org/podcasts/heatwave-alarm-season-is-here-same-old-climate-claims-different-year-the-climate-realism-show-114-2/
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59) Meme Wars, 06/14/24
Source: Lions of Liberty
“Bump Stock Ban No More.” (06/14/24)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/meme-wars-bump-stock-ban-no-more
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60) Politics Politics Politics, 06/14/24
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“The Case for a Biden Landslide (featuring Ettingermentum and Kevin Ryan).” (06/14/24)
https://shows.acast.com/politicspoliticspolitics/episodes/the-case-for-a-biden-landslide-featuring-ettingermentum-and-
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61) Conflicts of Interest, episode 615
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Israel Attempts to Burn Southern Lebanon.” (06/14/24)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-615-israel-attempts-to-burn-southern-lebanon
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62) The New Abnormal, 06/14/24
Source: The Daily Beast
“The Most Surprising Thing About SCOTUS’[s] Abortion Pill Ruling.” [06/14/24)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-most-surprising-thing-about-scotus-abortion-pill-ruling
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63) There’s A Policy For That with Susan Pendergrass, 06/14/24
Source: Show-Me Institute
“Build More Housing with Bryan Caplan.” (06/14/24)
https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/economy/build-more-housing-with-bryan-caplan/
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64) Beg to Differ, 06/14/24
Source: The Bulwark
“The ‘Absurdly Normal’ President.” (06/14/24)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-absurdly-normal-president
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65) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 06/14/24
Source: Antiwar.com
“G7 To Give Ukraine $50 Billion With Russian Assets, Israel Hurls Fireballs Into Lebanon, and More.” (06/14/24)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvYogK-OZnw
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