06/23 -- Ukraine: Russian strikes injure six as fuel crisis deepens into Siberia; The Demented Origin of the War on Drugs and War on Terrorism Nexus
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Thomas L. Knapp
Jun 23, 2026, 6:31:51 AMJun 23
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 06/23/26
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Today's Freedom News:
1) Ukraine: Russian strikes injure six as fuel crisis deepens into Siberia
2) Iranian regime says no new commitments on nuclear sites after Vance says inspectors to be invited back
3) Judge blocks Trump regime’s overhauled heimatschutz database of Americans’ personal information
4) Alan Greenspan, 1926-2026
5) US Senate passes housing bill
6) US House unveils “bipartisan” Internet censorship scheme
7) Japan: Regime quintuples visa fees in first price hike since 1978
8) UK: Lawyer Faces Up To Two Years In Prison For Cleaning Polluted River
9) OpenAI signs deal to show Getty’s images in ChatGPT results
10) Qatar: At least 13 killed and dozens injured after gas explosion
11) Ireland: Former Head of Quisling Party found Guilty of Child Sex Offences
12) Bolivia: Roadblocks ease after state of emergency declared
13) China: Regime imposes trade curbs on dozens of US firms in retaliation for Pentagon blacklist
14) Trump: Repairs to algae-plagued Reflecting Pool to “begin immediately”
15) SCOTUS reinstates murder conviction in case of Etan Patz, missing New York City boy
16) South Korea: Former justice minister jailed for 25 years over martial law bid
17) Oil falls below $75 for the first time since March as Hormuz traffic begins to recover
18) Australia: Regime goons steal three tons of recreational pharmaceuticals
19) Kenya: Health minister found in contempt of court over US-backed Ebola facility
20) Romania: Nominated PM Asks Parliament’s Vote of Confidence Without Clear Majority
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) The Demented Origin of the War on Drugs and War on Terrorism Nexus
22) The United States of Underwriters
23) Trump’s Attempt to End the Iran War Infuriates the Uniparty
24) Borrowed Time: The “Extend and Pretend” Economy Must End
25) Americans Discovered How to End Poverty
26) The Conversion of JD Vance
27) Democrats want control of Congress, but what will they actually do with it?
28) Substantive Due Process Is Still Antidemocratic
29) “Is There No England Now?”
30) I, Chicken Sandwich
31) America Needs Fewer Performers and More Adults
32) Rich Americans Pay a Higher Share of Taxes Than the Wealthy in Most Countries
33) True Spirituality Confronts The Abuses Of Empire
34) Law professors say they support free speech. Many are afraid to practice it.
35) Good riddance to Keir Starmer’s tyranny of greyness
36) Our Property, Not Their Loot
37) The future of medicine should be built in America
38) The Social Security Crisis Is Real and Wealth Taxes Will Not Fix It
39) The Security State’s Middle East: Why Washington Keeps Choosing Pressure Over Diplomacy
40) The fax machine still works. Gather round, friends, and be amazed.
41) Donald Trump: President of Endlessly Stupid Wars
42) Who Do You Trust?
43) Why White Nationalism Is Full of Idiots
44) Political Repression by Any Other Name is Still Repression
45) Trump federal watchdogs doing job past IGs let slide, and the old guard hates it
46) Congress loves to buy failed jets and ships then make your kids pay
47) Liberal Elites Promote “Abundance,” But Democratic Voters Want Socialism
48) What Obama Meant
49) The Pro-Israel Super PAC Cinematic Universe
50) Speaking Precisely Is Useful
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Roundtable, 06/22/26
52) What Then Must We Do?, 06/22/26
53) AI Summer, 06/22/26
54) Zooming In, 06/22/26
55) Loot & Lobby, 06/22/26
56) EconTalk, 06/22/26
57) SolutionsWatch, 06/22/26
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 06/21/26
59) Fountainhead Forum, episode 461
60) William Van Wagenen on The Scott Horton Show
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Ukraine: Russian strikes injure six as fuel crisis deepens into Siberia
Source: AOL
“Six people were wounded in Russian air strikes on Ukraine overnight on Tuesday, local authorities said, while Russia’s ongoing fuel crisis deepened into parts of Siberia. The strikes came in the wake of a Ukrainian attack on a plant producing electronics for missiles in Russia’s border Voronezh region on Monday that killed five people and injured dozens, according to the local governor. … Ukrainian attacks on maritime logistics and supply roads have sparked a fuel crisis in Russia and areas of Ukraine it controls. … The Omsk region, about 2,500 kilometres southeast of Moscow, is limiting fuel sales and the nearby Novosibirsk region is preparing to do the same, local governors said on Telegram. … From Tuesday, Lukoil, Russia’s second biggest oil producer, was limiting gasoline and diesel sales in Voronezh region, the regional government said on Telegram.” (06/23/26)
https://www.aol.com/articles/ukraines-kyiv-issues-air-raid-223451000.html
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2) Iranian regime says no new commitments on nuclear sites after Vance says inspectors to be invited back
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Iran has denied a claim by Vice-President JD Vance that it will allow nuclear inspectors back into the country, after the first round of talks between Washington and Tehran to reach a final deal to end the war. Following negotiations in Switzerland, Vance said discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could be happening ‘as soon as today.’ But Iran’s foreign ministry told state media that Tehran had made ‘no new commitments’ on nuclear inspections. It came as the US temporarily waived sanctions, allowing Iran to sell oil in US dollars for the first time in decades.” (06/23/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vy3nr63gxo
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3) Judge blocks Trump regime’s overhauled heimatschutz database of Americans’ personal information
Source: CBS News
“A federal judge on Monday ruled the Trump administration acted unlawfully when it created a centralized database that contains Americans’ private information, which she said has since been used by some states to incorrectly remove U.S. citizens from their voter rolls. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, D.C., sided with a voting rights group and nonprofit that works to protect privacy in finding that the administration violated three different laws with its new system that includes Americans’ citizenship data. … The judge set aside the administration’s overhaul of a database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security to verify citizenship and immigration status, called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system.” (06/22/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-trump-database-save-system-voter-rolls/
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4) Alan Greenspan, 1926-2026
Source: The Hill
“Alan Greenspan, who served five terms as chair of the Federal Reserve, died on Monday at the age of 100. Greenspan’s wife, longtime NBC News journalist Andrea Mitchell, said in a statement to the network that her husband died from complications of Parkinson’s disease. … Greenspan served as the 13th chair of the central bank from 1987 to 2006, a tenure spanning four presidents — Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.” (06/22/26)
https://thehill.com/business/5933797-alan-greenspan-federal-reserve
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5) US Senate passes housing bill
Source: NBC News
“The Senate voted overwhelmingly Monday to pass a sweeping housing affordability [sic] bill aimed at lowering costs, putting Congress on the brink of a rare bipartisan victory in President Donald Trump’s second term. … The legislation, which would make it easier to build homes and slap limits on Wall Street investors’ buying up houses, now goes to the House, which hopes to vote on it in the next few days. Then, it would go to Trump’s desk to be signed into law. … The legislation would approve a series of funding and grant programs for constructing new homes. It would slash red tape and empower local governments to expedite reviews to build more housing. And a key section titled ‘Homes Are For People, Not Corporations’ would restrict any ‘large institutional investor’ from buying single-family homes.” (06/22/26)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-passes-bill-lower-housing-costs-restrict-wall-street-buying-hom-rcna350753
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6) US House unveils “bipartisan” Internet censorship scheme
Source: The Hill
“House lawmakers announced a bipartisan deal on a package for protecting [sic] kids [sic] online on Monday, months after negotiations on digital and social media regulation fell apart between the two parties. … The KIDS (Kids Internet and Digital Safety) Act includes portions from the landmark Kids Online Safety Act, dubbed KOSA, which aims to hold social media companies accountable for the alleged harms their platforms cause for minors and young kids.” [editor’s note: Censors always screech that their proposed restrictions are “for the chilllllllllllldren,” but we know better, don’t we? – TLK] (06/22/26)
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5934266-bipartisan-deal-kids-online-protection
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7) Japan: Regime quintuples visa fees in first price hike since 1978
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Japan has implemented a five-fold increase to visa fees for all foreigners, marking the first price hike in nearly 50 years. From 1 July, single-entry visa fees will be raised from the current 3,000 yen ($18.69; £14) to 15,000 yen, while multi-entry visas will now cost 30,000 yen, up from 6,000 yen. The visa fee revisions – the first since 1978 – were made to ‘reflect inflation and exchange rate fluctuations,’ Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters on Friday. ‘We do not anticipate that it will have an immediate impact on inbound tourism,’ he added. The Japanese yen has been weakening continually since 2021, and is now hovering near historic 40-year lows. This, along with a post-pandemic travel rebound, has led to a surge in tourists to Japan. The country welcomed a record 42.7m international tourists last year.” (06/22/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8d5e5e805o
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8) UK: Lawyer Faces Up To Two Years In Prison For Cleaning Polluted River
Source: NDTV [India]
“A UK lawyer who led volunteers to clean up a heavily polluted river in East London is now being probed and could face a prison sentence for doing the cleanup without official permission, The Guardian reported. Paul Powlesland, who is an environmental campaigner, spent 10 days in late February organising a community effort on Alders Brook, a tributary of the River Roding in Barking. Alongside the River Roding Trust, volunteers removed around 200 bags of litter, silt, weeds, and branches from a 250-metre stretch that had reportedly become choked and stagnant. The media outlet suggested that the cleanup worked, as within days, locals reported fish, dragonflies, herons, and reed beds returning to the revived section. … Within a week of the cleanup, Environment Agency investigators visited the site and sent Powlesland a letter saying the group was under investigation for ‘unpermitted works’ in breach of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.” (06/22/26)
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/uk-lawyer-faces-up-to-two-years-in-prison-for-cleaning-polluted-river-11672058
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9) OpenAI signs deal to show Getty’s images in ChatGPT results
Source: Engadget
“Getty Images has announced a multi-year partnership with OpenAI that will bring its licensed content libraries to the AI company. The agreement means Getty’s content will appear in OpenAI search and ChatGPT. … Getty, until recently, had taken a strong stance against working with AI companies. In September 2022, Getty banned all AI-generated art from its library. A few months later, it sued Stability AI, alleging copyright violations — a notion that was rejected late last year. A year after its AI-generated art ban, Getty announced its own generative AI tool, trained on its library and powered by NVIDIA’s Edigy AI model. Each of the resulting images came with a royalty-free license. But in October 2025, Getty signed a deal with Perplexity AI, allowing the latter’s AI search and discovery tools to access Getty’s library.” (06/22/26)
https://www.engadget.com/2198633/openai-signs-deal-with-getty-to-show-images-in-chatgpt-results/
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10) Qatar: At least 13 killed and dozens injured after gas explosion
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“At least 13 people have been killed and 66 injured after an explosion at Qatar’s largest gas facility. The city’s main liquified natural gas (LNG) processing site suffered ‘a technical accident’ in Ras Laffan industrial zone on Sunday night, the interior ministry said, with the city’s skyline turning orange because of the explosion. Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi said the explosion would not affect the country’s exports, adding ‘this was an accident and not sabotage or hostile in nature’. The Ras Laffan Port is the largest artificial harbour in the world and has the world’s largest LNG export facility. It was targeted by Iranian strikes earlier this year. The blast on Sunday rattled windows and was felt across central Doha, panicking residents more than 70km (43 miles) from Ras Laffan.” (06/22/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy05llpjpno
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11) Ireland: Former Head of Quisling Party found Guilty of Child Sex Offences
Source: US News & World Report
“The former leader of [British-occupied] Ireland’s largest [British quisling] party, Jeffrey Donaldson, was found guilty on Monday of historic child sex offences against two women when they were children in one of the highest-profile cases to be heard in the British-run region in recent times. A jury at Newry Crown Court found Donaldson guilty of one count of rape, 13 counts of indecent assault and four counts of gross indecency against two complainants at dates between 1985 and 2008. He denied all charges. … The jury found that Donaldson’s wife, Eleanor, aided and abetted her husband. She has also denied the charges. The court ruled her unfit to stand trial last month, due to mental health issues, meaning she could not face criminal conviction.” (06/22/26)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-06-22/jury-finds-northern-irelands-donaldson-guilty-of-historic-child-sex-offences
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12) Bolivia: Roadblocks ease after state of emergency declared
Source: United Press International
“Bolivia began the week with 11 active roadblocks remaining across the national highway network — a sharp decline from the dozens that had disrupted transportation and commerce for more than 50 days, according to a road accessibility report from the Bolivian Highway Administration. Local media outlets, including El Deber and La Razón, reported that reopening the country’s main transportation routes occurred shortly after President Rodrigo Paz declared a state of emergency Saturday in response to internal unrest. Vehicle traffic and essential goods distribution have gradually returned to normal after a joint deployment of the Bolivian National Police and the Armed Forces, officials said. The operation dismantled much of the network of more than 50 critical roadblocks that had pushed the country toward a logistical and economic crisis.” (06/22/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2026/06/22/latam-bolivia-roadblocks-cleared-state-of-emergency/2951782142823/
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13) China: Regime imposes trade curbs on dozens of US firms in retaliation for Pentagon blacklist
Source: CNBC
“China imposed fresh trade restrictions on dozens of U.S. entities on Monday, retaliating against Washington’s move to add more Chinese companies to a Pentagon list of businesses it accuses of aiding Beijing’s military. On Monday, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce placed 10 American industrial suppliers on its export control list, including rare earth miners MP Materials Corp and USA Rare Earth, and drone makers Teal Drones and Jaia Robotics — barring exports of any dual-use items originating in China to the companies. Other companies included on the list are California-headquartered electronics manufacturer Aveox Inc, Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp, and military equipment provider Oshkosh Defense. In a separate statement Monday, the Chinese Finance Ministry excluded 46 U.S. companies, mostly defense contractors, from participating in government procurement projects.” (06/22/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/22/china-trade-curbs-us-companies-export-controls-procurement-exclusion-pentagon-list-.html
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14) Trump: Repairs to algae-plagued Reflecting Pool to “begin immediately”
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“US President Donald Trump says he has ‘inspected’ the Reflecting Pool in Washington DC, and that ‘work will begin immediately’ to repair the American landmark. Despite a recent multi-million dollar renovation, including a fresh coat of blue paint, the historic structure continues to face issues – most prominently algae turning the water a bright shade of green. The pool may need to be drained and refilled for a second time this month, according to Trump, who flew over the site in a helicopter on Sunday while on his way back from Camp David. It comes as Trump claims the pool’s paint has been marred by vandals ahead of the 250th anniversary of the country’s 4 July independence day. US Attorney for Washington DC Jeanine Pirro has vowed to aggressively prosecute anyone found to have damaged the pool.” (06/22/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c872e8d9el1o
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15) SCOTUS reinstates murder conviction in case of Etan Patz, missing New York City boy
Source: Seattle Times
“The Supreme Court on Monday reinstated a murder conviction in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz. The justices, by a 6-3 vote, granted an appeal from New York prosecutors who had urged them to undo a federal appeals court decision that overturned the verdict. The three liberal [sic] justices dissented. Prosecutors had been preparing to try the man, Pedro Hernandez, for a third time. … Etan vanished while walking to his downtown Manhattan school bus stop on May 25, 1979. Hernandez worked at a nearby convenience shop at the time, but the Maple Shade, New Jersey, resident didn’t become a suspect until 2012. Etan was among the first missing children ever to appear on milk cartons, and the anniversary of his disappearance became National Missing Children’s Day. Hernandez already has been tried twice. A jury deadlocked in 2015, and then a different panel of jurors convicted him at a 2017 retrial.” (06/22/26)
https://archive.is/oxET6
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16) South Korea: Former justice minister jailed for 25 years over martial law bid
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“A court sentenced a former South Korean justice minister on Monday to 25 years in prison for his role in ex-president Yoon Suk-yeol’s brief and disastrous declaration of martial law in 2024. Park Sung-jae was found guilty of involvement in ‘insurrection,’ the Yonhap news agency reported from the Seoul Central District Court. Yoon’s December 2024 martial law declaration lasted only about six hours as lawmakers raced to the assembly building and voted it down in an emergency session. He has since been convicted of leading an insurrection, and is in detention while appealing a life sentence. Yoon was also given a 30-year jail term earlier this month for sending drones to North Korea to ‘manufacture a national crisis’ to justify his martial law.” (06/22/26)
https://archive.is/PjeNE
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17) Oil falls below $75 for the first time since March as Hormuz traffic begins to recover
Source: NBC News
“U.S. crude prices fell 2.7% Monday to about $74 per barrel, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a 60-day waiver of sanctions on the purchase of Iranian oil. It was the first time crude prices had broken below $75 since early March. International Brent crude prices fell 4% to about $77 per barrel, likewise a new low since the Iran conflict began. Both prices remain above their immediate pre-war prices of $62 and $68 a barrel, respectively. In a statement published on social media Monday, Bessent said Iran had ‘committed to free and open transit in the Strait of Hormuz.'” (06/22/26)
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/oil-prices-hormuz-sanctions-waiver-rcna351144
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18) Australia: Regime goons steal three tons of recreational pharmaceuticals
Source: Associated Press
“Police found 2.7 metric tons (3 tons) of cocaine on a property on Sydney’s outskirts in Australia’s largest ever seizure of the drug, officials said on Monday. The drug was found on June 19 in plastic tubs buried in underground bunkers hidden beneath three shipping containers on a semirural property in the suburb of Londonderry on Sydney’s western edge, the Queensland Joint Organized Crime Taskforce said in a statement. The containers had false floors that provided access to the cocaine, which police estimate had a street value of 816 million Australian dollars ($572 million). Two Sydney residents, men aged 21 and 25, were arrested at the property and charged with possessing a commercial quantity of an illicit drug.” (06/22/26)
https://apnews.com/article/australia-cocaine-record-seizure-drug-sydney-314a94fa0ce6dcd15dd56915a1b5bd97
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19) Kenya: Health minister found in contempt of court over US-backed Ebola facility
Source: SFGate
“Kenya’s Health Minister Aden Duale was found in contempt of court on Monday for failing to halt the construction of an Ebola quarantine facility intended for Americans, despite existing court orders. The High Court ordered Duale to appear on Tuesday for sentencing. Earlier this month, the minister defended the project, arguing that the facility at the Laikipia Air Base would benefit both Kenyans and international partners. The court had previously directed the government to suspend construction of the facility pending the hearing of a case filed by the Law Society of Kenya and the Katiba Institute, a constitutional watchdog. The petitioners argued that Kenya’s healthcare system is already overstretched and may be unable to manage foreign Ebola patients safely. Residents living near Laikipia Air Base reported seeing U.S. military aircraft landing after the court issued its suspension order on May 29.” (06/22/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/kenya-s-health-minister-found-in-contempt-of-22315076.php
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20) Romania: Nominated PM Asks Parliament’s Vote of Confidence Without Clear Majority
Source: US News & World Report
“Romania’s prime minister-designate Adrian Vestea asked parliament late on Sunday for a vote of confidence, banking on support from the country’s largest party, but his cabinet is unlikely to pass without support from the opposition far right. Centrist President Nicusor Dan nominated Liberal Party member Vestea earlier this week without consulting the party, in what analysts said was a forceful attempt to rebuild a pro-European government to carry out reforms and keep cutting the largest budget deficit in the European Union. … On Sunday, the Liberals reiterated they would no longer join a ruling coalition with the Social Democrats and voted to exclude Vestea from their ranks, as well as any party member who would back or join his government.” (06/22/26)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-06-22/romanias-nominated-pm-asks-parliaments-vote-of-confidence-without-clear-majority
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) The Demented Origin of the War on Drugs and War on Terrorism Nexus
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“If the U.S. government is entitled to summarily kill suspected drug traffickers abroad, there is no reason why the same prerogative would not eventually be invoked on the home front. If politicians truly want to protect Americans, why not authorize the U.S. military, state police, and county government dog catchers to summarily attack any boat suspected of transporting drugs on the nation’s lakes, rivers, or overgrown puddles? Actually, such warped logic has already been taken to absurd ends. The core follies of the Trump-Hegseth war of extermination on drug suspects were established almost a quarter-century ago. American illicit drug users miraculously became collectively guilty for every terrorist attack in the world.” (06/22/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-demented-origin-of-the-war-on-drugs-and-war-on-terrorism-nexus/
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22) The United States of Underwriters
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“It started in a London coffee house in the 1680s. Merchants and ship captains crowded the tables, and somewhere between the gossip and the gambling, they began betting on the things everyone else was afraid of. Hurricanes. Pirates. Ships lost at sea. Three hundred years later, the same place would ensure Bruce Springsteen’s voice and the legs of a Hollywood actress. It’s called Lloyd’s, and most people think it’s an insurance company. But it’s something stranger and far more interesting. Lloyd’s is a risk marketplace. And buried in how Lloyd’s works is a schematic for reinventing government itself.” (06/22/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/the-united-states-of-underwriters
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23) Trump’s Attempt to End the Iran War Infuriates the Uniparty
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul
“President Trump started a war on Iran against all sober guidance and in violation of the US Constitution’s requirement that only Congress can declare war. There must be a reckoning for our elected leaders who violate their oath of office, the Constitution, and simple common sense. However, what is more telling is the reaction when President Trump finally took the correct move and attempted to end the war. The neocons who had hailed him as a great leader – Levin, Bolton, Pompeo, etc. – suddenly turned against him when he turned against further escalation of the war. Even Trump’s top funder, Miriam Adelson, attacked Trump in her newspaper Israel Hayom.” (06/22/26)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/trumps-attempt-to-end-the-iran-war-infuriates-the-uniparty
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24) Borrowed Time: The “Extend and Pretend” Economy Must End
Source: The Daily Economy
by Laura Williams
“Trillions in hidden distress and deferred losses are emerging as borrowers run out of time and options. America’s debt reckoning has begun.” (06/22/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/borrowed-time-the-extend-and-pretend-economy-must-end/
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25) Americans Discovered How to End Poverty
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“During my favorite period in history — around 1870 to 1910 — the standard of living of the American people skyrocketed. Suddenly, poor people were going from rags to riches in one, two, or three generations. In fact, some poor people were becoming multimillionaires. Real wages were soaring — and not because of inflation because there was no inflation. Multitudes of European immigrants were flooding into America to get in on the action. New inventions were coming into existence every day. The world had never seen anything like it. And everyone in the world marveled at what was happening. But why? Why the United States and not some long-established foreign country? The answer lies in what happened about a century before — in 1776, when two revolutionary concepts were introduced to the world — and then in 1788, when the U.S. Constitution was ratified.” (06/22/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/06/22/americans-discovered-how-to-end-poverty/
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26) The Conversion of JD Vance
Source: Free Press
by Robert P George
“What makes J.D. Vance tick? Most Americans, whether or not they’ve read J.D. Vance’s 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, have some idea of his remarkable journey from poverty in Middletown, Ohio, to the vice presidency of the United States. In some ways it’s the Horatio Alger tale to beat all Horatio Alger tales. A gambler who knew James David Hamel (as he was then known) as a child would have given million to one odds against his attending Yale Law School, making a ton of money in tech investing, and then becoming a United States senator and vice president of the United States. But that’s exactly what he went on to do …. Another thing he managed to do before age 41: publish two memoirs. His second, released last week, is called Communion, and traces Vance’s decision, as an adult, to be received into the Catholic Church.” (06/21/26)
https://www.thefp.com/p/conversion-of-jd-vance-communion-book-robert-george?utm_campaign=realclearpolitics
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27) Democrats want control of Congress, but what will they actually do with it?
Source: The Hill
by William S Becker
“The possibility that Democrats will control the next Congress keeps improving, as the Republican majority capitulates to President Trump’s erratic and corrupt behavior. However, Democrats should be more transparent about what they would do with their power. So far, they seem to have followed Napoleon’s dictum, ‘Never interrupt an enemy when he’s making a mistake.’ It hasn’t won them much respect. More than 40 percent of voters are unhappy with both political parties. If Democrats intend to save democracy and civilized society, they will need control of the Senate as well as the House. They should make a stronger case than ‘We’re not Trump.'” (06/22/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5932081-restoring-faith-democracy-congress/
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28) Substantive Due Process Is Still Antidemocratic
Source: Law & Liberty
by Tal Fortgang
“Overturning democratically enacted laws based on vague notions of liberty does not promote democracy.” (06/22/26)
https://lawliberty.org/substantive-due-process-is-still-antidemocratic/
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29) “Is There No England Now?”
Source: American Greatness
by Stephen Soukup
“If news reports are accurate, by the time you read this, Keir Starmer may no longer be the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Depending on the source, he has either decided to resign or is seriously considering it. In any case, the events in Britain over the last few weeks—the murder, enabled by the police, of Henry Nowak by the Sikh Vickrum Digwa; the attempted beheading of a man in Belfast by a Muslim immigrant; the release of a report on the systematic and protracted rape of young women and girls by Muslim ‘grooming gangs;’ the subsequent (and understandable) renewal of unrest over largely unchecked immigration; and the government’s increased efforts to limit and control speech—have likely doomed Starmer and the Labour Party, making it impossible for them to maintain or regain the trust of the people. None of this should really surprise anyone.” (06/22/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/22/is-there-no-england-now/
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30) I, Chicken Sandwich
Source: Cato Institute
by Jeremy Lott
“Andy George, star of the YouTube channel How to Make Everything, spent $1,500 over six months to make a chicken sandwich from scratch. And by ‘from scratch’ I mean growing vegetables, milling wheat, milking a cow, and slaughtering a chicken. The result was … not great. ‘It’s not bad. That’s about it: It’s not bad,’ he judged after taking a few bites of the sandwich. … George thought of his chicken sandwich as an experiment in self-reliant living. It was that, but he was also getting a crash course in global supply chains, price signals, and spontaneous order.” (for publication summer 2026)
https://www.cato.org/regulation/summer-2026/i-chicken-sandwich
-----
31) America Needs Fewer Performers and More Adults
Source: Town Hall
by Jay Rogers
“Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil empire and meant it. He didn’t hedge, qualify, or wait for a focus group. He built the military, stationed Pershing missiles in Europe over fierce opposition, and helped accelerate the collapse of a system that had enslaved hundreds of millions. On American movie screens, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Sylvester Stallone played men who took responsibility, absorbed punishment, and didn’t apologize for their convictions. That wasn’t mere entertainment. It was a cultural argument, and it was winning. I arrived in California in 1990. The economy was thriving, the Republican Party was still competitive, and the state had a future worth arguing about. Thirty-five years of one-party rule later, California’s own Department of Finance confirms a net domestic loss of 216,000 residents in the year ending July 2025 alone — dead last in U-Haul’s outbound migration index for the sixth consecutive year.” (06/22/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/jay-rogers/2026/06/22/america-needs-fewer-performers-and-more-adults-n2678064
-----
32) Rich Americans Pay a Higher Share of Taxes Than the Wealthy in Most Countries
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“Like his progressive comrades, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has an ambitious big-government agenda he proposes to fund by forcing ‘rich’ people to pay their ‘fair share.’ While the word billionaires is often thrown around, smart people understand that wealth will have to be defined generously to pay for everything proposed, and that ‘fair share’ always means more. Even so, lots of Americans are on board with the idea of forcing people they consider rich to pay higher taxes. What they don’t understand, and what progressives won’t acknowledge, is that the U.S. already puts a heavier burden on high-income people than do most countries.” (06/22/26)
https://reason.com/2026/06/22/rich-americans-pay-a-higher-share-of-taxes-than-the-wealthy-in-most-countries/
-----
33) True Spirituality Confronts The Abuses Of Empire
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“A spirituality that is uninterested in ending war, genocide, poverty and injustice is a dead spirituality. If you hold your time on the meditation cushion as something separate from the weeping mother clutching a small body in Lebanon, you’re wasting your time. Sometimes I get asked why I only occasionally write about ‘spiritual’ matters like awakening, egoic delusion, inner work etc, but from my point of view everything I write is about that stuff. To oppose the injustices and abuses of our world is to directly interface with the mechanisms of humanity’s struggle to become a conscious species. The overwhelming majority of what people call ‘spirituality’ in our society is really just glorified escapism. It’s about avoiding reality by focusing on good vibes, nice feelings, and comforting stories about the nature of the cosmos.” (06/22/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/06/22/true-spirituality-confronts-the-abuses-of-the-empire/
-----
34) Law professors say they support free speech. Many are afraid to practice it.
Source: Expression
by Nate Honeycutt
“A libertarian law professor who responded to FIRE’s recent national survey of law faculty offered a striking admission: ‘Whether justified or unjustified, I regularly hide beliefs from colleagues who are openly discussing important topics in the public interest out of fear of retaliation, particularly as a junior faculty member.’ No administrator had disciplined him. No student had filed a complaint. Yet by his own admission, he and another colleague routinely conceal their views at faculty meetings and other public events, not because anyone ordered them to stay silent but because they worry that candor can carry professional costs. That kind of silence is tricky to measure, but carries serious implications. And new data suggest it is relatively common in American law schools.” (06/22/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/law-professors-say-they-support-free
-----
35) Good riddance to Keir Starmer’s tyranny of greyness
Source: spiked
by Brendan O’Neill
“So he’s gone. Keir Starmer has resigned. The adults are out of the room. He waltzed into Downing St two years ago to the effusive gushing of the liberal commentariat, and now he’s slinking out. He and his slack-jawed media cheerleaders promised us an era of blissful if boring stability. What they gave us were riots, division, betrayal after betrayal, and an unprecedented assault on the ancient liberties of our nation. The lesson of the Starmer epoch? Never trust a technocrat.” (06/22/26)
https://archive.is/OpN9W
-----
36) Our Property, Not Their Loot
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“It’s getting harder to hit innocent Coloradans over the head with civil forfeiture laws. If you live in the Rocky Mountain State and the police want to grab some of your stuff on the basis of a suspicion (or a claimed suspicion) that you have committed a crime, you’re better off today than you would have been a few weeks ago. Colorado has become the second state of the union to entitle you to a lawyer if police are seizing your property.” (06/22/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/06/22/our-property/
-----
37) The future of medicine should be built in America
Source: Fox News Forum
by Robert F Kennedy, Jr.
“America should continue to lead the world in clinical research and medical innovation. Instead, we are losing ground. A recent study found that China now conducts more early-stage clinical trials than the United States. In 2025, Chinese companies accounted for nearly half of global pharmaceutical licensing deal activity. Those trends should concern every American. For nearly 80 years, clinical trials have driven medical progress. They transform scientific discoveries into treatments that save lives. They establish whether new therapies are safe and effective. They generate the evidence that physicians, patients and regulators use to make decisions. But clinical trials do more than generate evidence. They attract investment, scientific talent and the infrastructure that supports future innovation. When clinical research moves overseas, those advantages often move with it.” (06/22/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/robert-f-kennedy-jr-future-medicine-built-america
-----
38) The Social Security Crisis Is Real and Wealth Taxes Will Not Fix It
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“Mother Jones claims seizing private wealth solves the 2032 shortfall. I show you why government plans to raid your retirement accounts violate individual liberty and ignore structural insolvency.” (06/22/26)
https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/the-social-security-crisis-is-real
-----
39) The Security State’s Middle East: Why Washington Keeps Choosing Pressure Over Diplomacy
Source: Antiwar.com
by Greg Pence
“For more than twenty years now, American leaders from both parties have talked about turning over a new leaf in the Middle East. One president pushed hard for democracy promotion, another tried diplomatic outreach, and someone else swore we’d finally end the ‘forever wars.’ Yet every time a crisis hits, Washington’s first move is rarely sitting down to hammer out a political deal. Instead, it reaches for sanctions, sends in more troops, ramps up deterrence, and leans on the threat – or actual use – of force. This pattern raises a tough question. If the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq didn’t create stable governments, if years of pressure haven’t really changed Iran’s behavior, and if coercion keeps delivering only mixed results, why does the U.S. keep relying on the same old toolbox?” (06/22/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/greg_pence/2026/06/21/the-security-states-middle-east-why-washington-keeps-choosing-pressure-over-diplomacy/
-----
40) The fax machine still works. Gather round, friends, and be amazed.
Source: Washington Post
by Rachel Manteuffel
“It’s difficult to say this without bragging, but I have faxed. This year. The earliest fax machines used telegraph lines; fax machines are (still!) transmitters of information over space, but also over time. Jules Verne, predicting 1960 from 1863, imagined fax machines all over Paris. Journalists, doctors and governments still demand to be faxed from time to time, as I found out. I have now done it twice since the heyday of faxing. The first time was last year, and it went okay after 45 or so minutes of squinting and with the help of two other office professionals. … The second came in the year of our Lord twenty-twenty-six. This time, I knew exactly what to do and could do it alone. But I didn’t. I walked over to some desks near mine. ‘Interns,’ I said, ‘want to watch me send a fax?'” (06/22/26)
https://archive.is/fjcve
-----
41) Donald Trump: President of Endlessly Stupid Wars
Source: Common Dreams
by Tom Engelhardt
“That subhead of mine is certainly repetitive of me (me, me), but how can you not be repetitive in the distinctly repeated world of Donald J. Trump (Trumped, Trumped)? I mean, twice already and who really knows what’s to come? Here’s the question nobody seems to be asking right now, though: What country will Donald Trump attack next? Yes, at the moment, he’s still wildly wound up in his Iran war/truce/peace/or you name it (tomorrow). Yesterday, it was, of course, Venezuela, and next week it might be Cuba or Greenland, or who on (or off) this planet knows where? … who knows what I’ve forgotten or what to expect in this increasingly bizarre world of ours from the president who swore repeatedly in his third election campaign that he would never, never, never go to… yes, of course, war?” (06/22/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/donald-trump-president-of-endlessly-stupid-wars
-----
42) Who Do You Trust?
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by George Ford Smith
“Trust: allow someone to have, use, or look after (someone or something of importance or value) with confidence: I’d trust you with my life. Most people don’t trust politicians, yet they dominate our lives. How did this arrangement come about? Trust is a critical consideration in every relationship. Do people mean what they say? Do they deliver on their promises? If enough people didn’t trust Amazon it would have folded long ago. Friends would cease being friends if they proved untrustworthy. We don’t trust politicians but we are stuck with them, at least for now.” (06/22/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/who-do-you-trust
-----
43) Why White Nationalism Is Full of Idiots
Source: The Dispatch
by Surya Gowda
“Identity-based movements are ‘the bat signal for every loser.’” (06/22/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/white-nationalism-elitism-hanania/
-----
44) Political Repression by Any Other Name is Still Repression
Source: CounterPunch
by Ron Jacobs
“In recent weeks, the misnamed US Department of Justice has indicted twenty-three activists on serious charges related to their organizing against institutional complicity in the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians and the kidnapping of US residents by militarized federal immigration enforcers. The indictments are connected to two different cases, one in Michigan and the other in Minnesota. From my vantage point, it seems fairly clear that the indictments are, among other things, designed to deflect the media and the public attention away from the crimes against humanity being perpetrated by the government and those institutions behind the prosecutions. In fact, these indictments are purposefully political and part of a broader repression against US residents and organizations opposed to the ultra-right government of Donald Trump.” (06/22/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/06/22/political-repression-by-any-other-name-is-still-repression/
-----
45) Trump federal watchdogs doing job past IGs let slide, and the old guard hates it
Source: New York Post
by Anthony D’Esposito
“A former federal inspector general has been sniping at President Donald Trump’s approach to rooting out government fraud — but his complaints sound less like a serious defense of oversight and more like a bitter kiss-off from a spurned ex-bureaucrat. ‘The watchdogs have crossed a dangerous line,’ Mark Greenblatt intoned in the Daily Beast. They’ve become lapdogs: ‘MAGA lapdogs,’ as his headline put it. He’s furious that my inspector general colleagues and I are joining the wide-ranging effort, led by Vice President JD Vance, to crack down on the fraud that’s looting our national treasury. Greenblatt’s argument rests on a flawed premise: He claims that supporting such a mission somehow prevents an inspector general from conducting independent oversight. That’s nonsense.” (06/22/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/06/22/opinion/trumps-federal-watchdogs-are-doing-the-job-past-igs-ignored/
-----
46) Congress loves to buy failed jets and ships then make your kids pay
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Dan Grazier
“As Congress debates the 2027 defense budget, members must confront an essential reality: their children and grandchildren will be left footing the bill. Many of the dollars that will be appropriated for military purposes in 2027 will be borrowed and tacked onto the ballooning national debt. But that is only part of the problem. Defense policies established today become spending obligations for future generations. If members of Congress are seriously considering $1.5 trillion in defense spending for 2027, it is in part because they must cover the expenses resulting from policy decisions made years ago by people who have long-since passed from the scene.” (06/22/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/military-spending-us/
-----
47) Liberal Elites Promote “Abundance,” But Democratic Voters Want Socialism
Source: The American Conservative
by Scott Greer
“Abundance liberals’ enthusiasm for growth faces a major obstacle with Democrats’ sharp turn against tech. AI and data centers are the enemy. Even though tech may be the biggest contributor to American economic growth right now, Democratic voters want it to stop. No amount of abundance rhetoric can convince them otherwise. These state and local contests offer a possible preview of what the 2028 Democratic presidential primary may look like. For all the efforts spent by Newsom and others to move to the center, they may all be forced to cater to their party’s radical elements to have any hope of winning the nomination.” (06/22/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/liberal-elites-promote-abundance-but-democratic-voters-want-socialism/
-----
48) What Obama Meant
Source: Persuasion
by Eboo Patel
“I recently got the chance to walk through the exhibits of the Barack Obama Presidential Center before its opening on Thursday. Looking at photos of the young Obama as a community organizer in Chicago, watching video clips of those iconic speeches that marked his dream-like rise from a nobody to leader of the free world, I was reminded of a time when our politics was more hopeful, our social sector was more constructive, and the two were aligned in the service of the nation.” (06/21/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/long-live-obama-ism
-----
49) The Pro-Israel Super PAC Cinematic Universe
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“Campaign finance disclosures released over the weekend provide a clearer picture of the millions of dollars pro-Israel PACs United Democracy Project (an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC) and Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) have spent thus far in the midterm primaries, and the lengths to which they have gone to hide their true influence. In 2026, more than 1 out of every 4 dollars in independent expenditures that the two groups have disbursed (almost $8 million out of a total of $30.66 million) have been funneled to nine different partners and shell PACs. Those numbers are likely higher, since the disclosures made to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) only go through the end of May, and they do not count possible outlays to dark-money PACs that do not have to disclose their spending.” (06/22/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/06/22/pro-israel-super-pac-cinematic-universe/
-----
50) Speaking Precisely Is Useful
Source: Pierre Lemieux
by Pierre Lemieux
“Writing to be understood is the name of the game, but there is a limit to dumbing down non-dumb ideas.” (06/21/26)
https://pierrelemieux.substack.com/p/speaking-precisely-is-useful
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Roundtable, 06/22/26
Source: Reason
"Why U.K. Socialism Could Soon Be America's Problem." (06/22/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/06/22/why-u-k-socialism-could-soon-be-americas-problem/
-----
52) What Then Must We Do?, 06/22/26
Source: What Then Must We Do?
“The Hows and Whys of Operating in the Private, with Common-Law Trust Solutions.” (06/22/26)
https://pdcn.co/e/www.buzzsprout.com/756260/episodes/19379989-the-hows-and-whys-of-operating-in-the-private-with-common-law-trust-solutions.mp3
-----
53) AI Summer, 06/22/26
Source: AI Summer
“Robert Wright on the global implications of powerful AI.” (06/22/26)
https://www.aisummer.org/p/robert-wright-on-the-global-implications
-----
54) Zooming In, 06/22/26
Source: The UnPopulist
“Trump Has Not Turned Americans Against Immigrants: A Conversation with Greg Sargent.” (06/22/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/trump-has-not-turned-americans-against
-----
55) Loot & Lobby, 06/22/26
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
“Mises Editor-in-Chief Ryan McMaken explains how the new Fed chairman faces a political problem with rising prices and the fact the Fed keeps fueling the inflation fire.” (06/22/26)
https://mises.org/podcasts/loot-and-lobby/feds-inflation-problem
-----
56) EconTalk, 06/22/26
Source: EconTalk
“Can a Phone Be a Cow? (with Philip Auerswald).” (06/22/26)
https://www.econtalk.org/can-a-phone-be-a-cow-with-philip-auerswald/
-----
57) SolutionsWatch, 06/22/26
Source: The Corbett Report
“You want the right to repair your own property, don’t you? Then, you have two options. Either you call your congressman to let him know you want him to pass the latest legislation going through the house (but not the fake legislation that’s designed to water down the real legislation!) … or you try this alternative strategy.” (06/22/26)
https://corbettreport.com/the-right-to-repair-solutionswatch/
-----
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 06/21/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Trump Threatens Iran During Switzerland Summit, US Announces Airstrikes in Somalia, and More.” (06/21/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M3kYk2geHE
-----
59) Fountainhead Forum, episode 461
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Jeremy Todd on running for Thomas Massie’s seat in Congress.” (06/21/26)
https://rumble.com/v7bln9a-ff-461-jeremy-todd-on-running-for-thomas-massies-seat-in-congress.html
-----
60) William Van Wagenen on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Scott interviews William Van Wagenen about what he’s been seeing in southern Lebanon as the fighting between Hezbollah and the IDF drags on. They also discuss the Western-backed bin Ladinite regime in Syria.” (06/21/26)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/6-19-26-william-van-wagenen-on-what-its-like-on-the-ground-in-lebanon/
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Today's Freedom News:
1) Ukraine: Russian strikes injure six as fuel crisis deepens into Siberia
2) Iranian regime says no new commitments on nuclear sites after Vance says inspectors to be invited back
3) Judge blocks Trump regime’s overhauled heimatschutz database of Americans’ personal information
4) Alan Greenspan, 1926-2026
5) US Senate passes housing bill
6) US House unveils “bipartisan” Internet censorship scheme
7) Japan: Regime quintuples visa fees in first price hike since 1978
8) UK: Lawyer Faces Up To Two Years In Prison For Cleaning Polluted River
9) OpenAI signs deal to show Getty’s images in ChatGPT results
10) Qatar: At least 13 killed and dozens injured after gas explosion
11) Ireland: Former Head of Quisling Party found Guilty of Child Sex Offences
12) Bolivia: Roadblocks ease after state of emergency declared
13) China: Regime imposes trade curbs on dozens of US firms in retaliation for Pentagon blacklist
14) Trump: Repairs to algae-plagued Reflecting Pool to “begin immediately”
15) SCOTUS reinstates murder conviction in case of Etan Patz, missing New York City boy
16) South Korea: Former justice minister jailed for 25 years over martial law bid
17) Oil falls below $75 for the first time since March as Hormuz traffic begins to recover
18) Australia: Regime goons steal three tons of recreational pharmaceuticals
19) Kenya: Health minister found in contempt of court over US-backed Ebola facility
20) Romania: Nominated PM Asks Parliament’s Vote of Confidence Without Clear Majority
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) The Demented Origin of the War on Drugs and War on Terrorism Nexus
22) The United States of Underwriters
23) Trump’s Attempt to End the Iran War Infuriates the Uniparty
24) Borrowed Time: The “Extend and Pretend” Economy Must End
25) Americans Discovered How to End Poverty
26) The Conversion of JD Vance
27) Democrats want control of Congress, but what will they actually do with it?
28) Substantive Due Process Is Still Antidemocratic
29) “Is There No England Now?”
30) I, Chicken Sandwich
31) America Needs Fewer Performers and More Adults
32) Rich Americans Pay a Higher Share of Taxes Than the Wealthy in Most Countries
33) True Spirituality Confronts The Abuses Of Empire
34) Law professors say they support free speech. Many are afraid to practice it.
35) Good riddance to Keir Starmer’s tyranny of greyness
36) Our Property, Not Their Loot
37) The future of medicine should be built in America
38) The Social Security Crisis Is Real and Wealth Taxes Will Not Fix It
39) The Security State’s Middle East: Why Washington Keeps Choosing Pressure Over Diplomacy
40) The fax machine still works. Gather round, friends, and be amazed.
41) Donald Trump: President of Endlessly Stupid Wars
42) Who Do You Trust?
43) Why White Nationalism Is Full of Idiots
44) Political Repression by Any Other Name is Still Repression
45) Trump federal watchdogs doing job past IGs let slide, and the old guard hates it
46) Congress loves to buy failed jets and ships then make your kids pay
47) Liberal Elites Promote “Abundance,” But Democratic Voters Want Socialism
48) What Obama Meant
49) The Pro-Israel Super PAC Cinematic Universe
50) Speaking Precisely Is Useful
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Roundtable, 06/22/26
52) What Then Must We Do?, 06/22/26
53) AI Summer, 06/22/26
54) Zooming In, 06/22/26
55) Loot & Lobby, 06/22/26
56) EconTalk, 06/22/26
57) SolutionsWatch, 06/22/26
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 06/21/26
59) Fountainhead Forum, episode 461
60) William Van Wagenen on The Scott Horton Show
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Ukraine: Russian strikes injure six as fuel crisis deepens into Siberia
Source: AOL
“Six people were wounded in Russian air strikes on Ukraine overnight on Tuesday, local authorities said, while Russia’s ongoing fuel crisis deepened into parts of Siberia. The strikes came in the wake of a Ukrainian attack on a plant producing electronics for missiles in Russia’s border Voronezh region on Monday that killed five people and injured dozens, according to the local governor. … Ukrainian attacks on maritime logistics and supply roads have sparked a fuel crisis in Russia and areas of Ukraine it controls. … The Omsk region, about 2,500 kilometres southeast of Moscow, is limiting fuel sales and the nearby Novosibirsk region is preparing to do the same, local governors said on Telegram. … From Tuesday, Lukoil, Russia’s second biggest oil producer, was limiting gasoline and diesel sales in Voronezh region, the regional government said on Telegram.” (06/23/26)
https://www.aol.com/articles/ukraines-kyiv-issues-air-raid-223451000.html
-----
2) Iranian regime says no new commitments on nuclear sites after Vance says inspectors to be invited back
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Iran has denied a claim by Vice-President JD Vance that it will allow nuclear inspectors back into the country, after the first round of talks between Washington and Tehran to reach a final deal to end the war. Following negotiations in Switzerland, Vance said discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could be happening ‘as soon as today.’ But Iran’s foreign ministry told state media that Tehran had made ‘no new commitments’ on nuclear inspections. It came as the US temporarily waived sanctions, allowing Iran to sell oil in US dollars for the first time in decades.” (06/23/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vy3nr63gxo
-----
3) Judge blocks Trump regime’s overhauled heimatschutz database of Americans’ personal information
Source: CBS News
“A federal judge on Monday ruled the Trump administration acted unlawfully when it created a centralized database that contains Americans’ private information, which she said has since been used by some states to incorrectly remove U.S. citizens from their voter rolls. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, D.C., sided with a voting rights group and nonprofit that works to protect privacy in finding that the administration violated three different laws with its new system that includes Americans’ citizenship data. … The judge set aside the administration’s overhaul of a database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security to verify citizenship and immigration status, called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system.” (06/22/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-trump-database-save-system-voter-rolls/
-----
4) Alan Greenspan, 1926-2026
Source: The Hill
“Alan Greenspan, who served five terms as chair of the Federal Reserve, died on Monday at the age of 100. Greenspan’s wife, longtime NBC News journalist Andrea Mitchell, said in a statement to the network that her husband died from complications of Parkinson’s disease. … Greenspan served as the 13th chair of the central bank from 1987 to 2006, a tenure spanning four presidents — Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.” (06/22/26)
https://thehill.com/business/5933797-alan-greenspan-federal-reserve
-----
5) US Senate passes housing bill
Source: NBC News
“The Senate voted overwhelmingly Monday to pass a sweeping housing affordability [sic] bill aimed at lowering costs, putting Congress on the brink of a rare bipartisan victory in President Donald Trump’s second term. … The legislation, which would make it easier to build homes and slap limits on Wall Street investors’ buying up houses, now goes to the House, which hopes to vote on it in the next few days. Then, it would go to Trump’s desk to be signed into law. … The legislation would approve a series of funding and grant programs for constructing new homes. It would slash red tape and empower local governments to expedite reviews to build more housing. And a key section titled ‘Homes Are For People, Not Corporations’ would restrict any ‘large institutional investor’ from buying single-family homes.” (06/22/26)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-passes-bill-lower-housing-costs-restrict-wall-street-buying-hom-rcna350753
-----
6) US House unveils “bipartisan” Internet censorship scheme
Source: The Hill
“House lawmakers announced a bipartisan deal on a package for protecting [sic] kids [sic] online on Monday, months after negotiations on digital and social media regulation fell apart between the two parties. … The KIDS (Kids Internet and Digital Safety) Act includes portions from the landmark Kids Online Safety Act, dubbed KOSA, which aims to hold social media companies accountable for the alleged harms their platforms cause for minors and young kids.” [editor’s note: Censors always screech that their proposed restrictions are “for the chilllllllllllldren,” but we know better, don’t we? – TLK] (06/22/26)
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5934266-bipartisan-deal-kids-online-protection
-----
7) Japan: Regime quintuples visa fees in first price hike since 1978
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Japan has implemented a five-fold increase to visa fees for all foreigners, marking the first price hike in nearly 50 years. From 1 July, single-entry visa fees will be raised from the current 3,000 yen ($18.69; £14) to 15,000 yen, while multi-entry visas will now cost 30,000 yen, up from 6,000 yen. The visa fee revisions – the first since 1978 – were made to ‘reflect inflation and exchange rate fluctuations,’ Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters on Friday. ‘We do not anticipate that it will have an immediate impact on inbound tourism,’ he added. The Japanese yen has been weakening continually since 2021, and is now hovering near historic 40-year lows. This, along with a post-pandemic travel rebound, has led to a surge in tourists to Japan. The country welcomed a record 42.7m international tourists last year.” (06/22/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8d5e5e805o
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8) UK: Lawyer Faces Up To Two Years In Prison For Cleaning Polluted River
Source: NDTV [India]
“A UK lawyer who led volunteers to clean up a heavily polluted river in East London is now being probed and could face a prison sentence for doing the cleanup without official permission, The Guardian reported. Paul Powlesland, who is an environmental campaigner, spent 10 days in late February organising a community effort on Alders Brook, a tributary of the River Roding in Barking. Alongside the River Roding Trust, volunteers removed around 200 bags of litter, silt, weeds, and branches from a 250-metre stretch that had reportedly become choked and stagnant. The media outlet suggested that the cleanup worked, as within days, locals reported fish, dragonflies, herons, and reed beds returning to the revived section. … Within a week of the cleanup, Environment Agency investigators visited the site and sent Powlesland a letter saying the group was under investigation for ‘unpermitted works’ in breach of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.” (06/22/26)
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/uk-lawyer-faces-up-to-two-years-in-prison-for-cleaning-polluted-river-11672058
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9) OpenAI signs deal to show Getty’s images in ChatGPT results
Source: Engadget
“Getty Images has announced a multi-year partnership with OpenAI that will bring its licensed content libraries to the AI company. The agreement means Getty’s content will appear in OpenAI search and ChatGPT. … Getty, until recently, had taken a strong stance against working with AI companies. In September 2022, Getty banned all AI-generated art from its library. A few months later, it sued Stability AI, alleging copyright violations — a notion that was rejected late last year. A year after its AI-generated art ban, Getty announced its own generative AI tool, trained on its library and powered by NVIDIA’s Edigy AI model. Each of the resulting images came with a royalty-free license. But in October 2025, Getty signed a deal with Perplexity AI, allowing the latter’s AI search and discovery tools to access Getty’s library.” (06/22/26)
https://www.engadget.com/2198633/openai-signs-deal-with-getty-to-show-images-in-chatgpt-results/
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10) Qatar: At least 13 killed and dozens injured after gas explosion
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“At least 13 people have been killed and 66 injured after an explosion at Qatar’s largest gas facility. The city’s main liquified natural gas (LNG) processing site suffered ‘a technical accident’ in Ras Laffan industrial zone on Sunday night, the interior ministry said, with the city’s skyline turning orange because of the explosion. Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi said the explosion would not affect the country’s exports, adding ‘this was an accident and not sabotage or hostile in nature’. The Ras Laffan Port is the largest artificial harbour in the world and has the world’s largest LNG export facility. It was targeted by Iranian strikes earlier this year. The blast on Sunday rattled windows and was felt across central Doha, panicking residents more than 70km (43 miles) from Ras Laffan.” (06/22/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy05llpjpno
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11) Ireland: Former Head of Quisling Party found Guilty of Child Sex Offences
Source: US News & World Report
“The former leader of [British-occupied] Ireland’s largest [British quisling] party, Jeffrey Donaldson, was found guilty on Monday of historic child sex offences against two women when they were children in one of the highest-profile cases to be heard in the British-run region in recent times. A jury at Newry Crown Court found Donaldson guilty of one count of rape, 13 counts of indecent assault and four counts of gross indecency against two complainants at dates between 1985 and 2008. He denied all charges. … The jury found that Donaldson’s wife, Eleanor, aided and abetted her husband. She has also denied the charges. The court ruled her unfit to stand trial last month, due to mental health issues, meaning she could not face criminal conviction.” (06/22/26)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-06-22/jury-finds-northern-irelands-donaldson-guilty-of-historic-child-sex-offences
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12) Bolivia: Roadblocks ease after state of emergency declared
Source: United Press International
“Bolivia began the week with 11 active roadblocks remaining across the national highway network — a sharp decline from the dozens that had disrupted transportation and commerce for more than 50 days, according to a road accessibility report from the Bolivian Highway Administration. Local media outlets, including El Deber and La Razón, reported that reopening the country’s main transportation routes occurred shortly after President Rodrigo Paz declared a state of emergency Saturday in response to internal unrest. Vehicle traffic and essential goods distribution have gradually returned to normal after a joint deployment of the Bolivian National Police and the Armed Forces, officials said. The operation dismantled much of the network of more than 50 critical roadblocks that had pushed the country toward a logistical and economic crisis.” (06/22/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2026/06/22/latam-bolivia-roadblocks-cleared-state-of-emergency/2951782142823/
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13) China: Regime imposes trade curbs on dozens of US firms in retaliation for Pentagon blacklist
Source: CNBC
“China imposed fresh trade restrictions on dozens of U.S. entities on Monday, retaliating against Washington’s move to add more Chinese companies to a Pentagon list of businesses it accuses of aiding Beijing’s military. On Monday, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce placed 10 American industrial suppliers on its export control list, including rare earth miners MP Materials Corp and USA Rare Earth, and drone makers Teal Drones and Jaia Robotics — barring exports of any dual-use items originating in China to the companies. Other companies included on the list are California-headquartered electronics manufacturer Aveox Inc, Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp, and military equipment provider Oshkosh Defense. In a separate statement Monday, the Chinese Finance Ministry excluded 46 U.S. companies, mostly defense contractors, from participating in government procurement projects.” (06/22/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/22/china-trade-curbs-us-companies-export-controls-procurement-exclusion-pentagon-list-.html
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14) Trump: Repairs to algae-plagued Reflecting Pool to “begin immediately”
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“US President Donald Trump says he has ‘inspected’ the Reflecting Pool in Washington DC, and that ‘work will begin immediately’ to repair the American landmark. Despite a recent multi-million dollar renovation, including a fresh coat of blue paint, the historic structure continues to face issues – most prominently algae turning the water a bright shade of green. The pool may need to be drained and refilled for a second time this month, according to Trump, who flew over the site in a helicopter on Sunday while on his way back from Camp David. It comes as Trump claims the pool’s paint has been marred by vandals ahead of the 250th anniversary of the country’s 4 July independence day. US Attorney for Washington DC Jeanine Pirro has vowed to aggressively prosecute anyone found to have damaged the pool.” (06/22/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c872e8d9el1o
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15) SCOTUS reinstates murder conviction in case of Etan Patz, missing New York City boy
Source: Seattle Times
“The Supreme Court on Monday reinstated a murder conviction in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz. The justices, by a 6-3 vote, granted an appeal from New York prosecutors who had urged them to undo a federal appeals court decision that overturned the verdict. The three liberal [sic] justices dissented. Prosecutors had been preparing to try the man, Pedro Hernandez, for a third time. … Etan vanished while walking to his downtown Manhattan school bus stop on May 25, 1979. Hernandez worked at a nearby convenience shop at the time, but the Maple Shade, New Jersey, resident didn’t become a suspect until 2012. Etan was among the first missing children ever to appear on milk cartons, and the anniversary of his disappearance became National Missing Children’s Day. Hernandez already has been tried twice. A jury deadlocked in 2015, and then a different panel of jurors convicted him at a 2017 retrial.” (06/22/26)
https://archive.is/oxET6
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16) South Korea: Former justice minister jailed for 25 years over martial law bid
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“A court sentenced a former South Korean justice minister on Monday to 25 years in prison for his role in ex-president Yoon Suk-yeol’s brief and disastrous declaration of martial law in 2024. Park Sung-jae was found guilty of involvement in ‘insurrection,’ the Yonhap news agency reported from the Seoul Central District Court. Yoon’s December 2024 martial law declaration lasted only about six hours as lawmakers raced to the assembly building and voted it down in an emergency session. He has since been convicted of leading an insurrection, and is in detention while appealing a life sentence. Yoon was also given a 30-year jail term earlier this month for sending drones to North Korea to ‘manufacture a national crisis’ to justify his martial law.” (06/22/26)
https://archive.is/PjeNE
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17) Oil falls below $75 for the first time since March as Hormuz traffic begins to recover
Source: NBC News
“U.S. crude prices fell 2.7% Monday to about $74 per barrel, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a 60-day waiver of sanctions on the purchase of Iranian oil. It was the first time crude prices had broken below $75 since early March. International Brent crude prices fell 4% to about $77 per barrel, likewise a new low since the Iran conflict began. Both prices remain above their immediate pre-war prices of $62 and $68 a barrel, respectively. In a statement published on social media Monday, Bessent said Iran had ‘committed to free and open transit in the Strait of Hormuz.'” (06/22/26)
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/oil-prices-hormuz-sanctions-waiver-rcna351144
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18) Australia: Regime goons steal three tons of recreational pharmaceuticals
Source: Associated Press
“Police found 2.7 metric tons (3 tons) of cocaine on a property on Sydney’s outskirts in Australia’s largest ever seizure of the drug, officials said on Monday. The drug was found on June 19 in plastic tubs buried in underground bunkers hidden beneath three shipping containers on a semirural property in the suburb of Londonderry on Sydney’s western edge, the Queensland Joint Organized Crime Taskforce said in a statement. The containers had false floors that provided access to the cocaine, which police estimate had a street value of 816 million Australian dollars ($572 million). Two Sydney residents, men aged 21 and 25, were arrested at the property and charged with possessing a commercial quantity of an illicit drug.” (06/22/26)
https://apnews.com/article/australia-cocaine-record-seizure-drug-sydney-314a94fa0ce6dcd15dd56915a1b5bd97
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19) Kenya: Health minister found in contempt of court over US-backed Ebola facility
Source: SFGate
“Kenya’s Health Minister Aden Duale was found in contempt of court on Monday for failing to halt the construction of an Ebola quarantine facility intended for Americans, despite existing court orders. The High Court ordered Duale to appear on Tuesday for sentencing. Earlier this month, the minister defended the project, arguing that the facility at the Laikipia Air Base would benefit both Kenyans and international partners. The court had previously directed the government to suspend construction of the facility pending the hearing of a case filed by the Law Society of Kenya and the Katiba Institute, a constitutional watchdog. The petitioners argued that Kenya’s healthcare system is already overstretched and may be unable to manage foreign Ebola patients safely. Residents living near Laikipia Air Base reported seeing U.S. military aircraft landing after the court issued its suspension order on May 29.” (06/22/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/kenya-s-health-minister-found-in-contempt-of-22315076.php
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20) Romania: Nominated PM Asks Parliament’s Vote of Confidence Without Clear Majority
Source: US News & World Report
“Romania’s prime minister-designate Adrian Vestea asked parliament late on Sunday for a vote of confidence, banking on support from the country’s largest party, but his cabinet is unlikely to pass without support from the opposition far right. Centrist President Nicusor Dan nominated Liberal Party member Vestea earlier this week without consulting the party, in what analysts said was a forceful attempt to rebuild a pro-European government to carry out reforms and keep cutting the largest budget deficit in the European Union. … On Sunday, the Liberals reiterated they would no longer join a ruling coalition with the Social Democrats and voted to exclude Vestea from their ranks, as well as any party member who would back or join his government.” (06/22/26)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-06-22/romanias-nominated-pm-asks-parliaments-vote-of-confidence-without-clear-majority
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) The Demented Origin of the War on Drugs and War on Terrorism Nexus
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“If the U.S. government is entitled to summarily kill suspected drug traffickers abroad, there is no reason why the same prerogative would not eventually be invoked on the home front. If politicians truly want to protect Americans, why not authorize the U.S. military, state police, and county government dog catchers to summarily attack any boat suspected of transporting drugs on the nation’s lakes, rivers, or overgrown puddles? Actually, such warped logic has already been taken to absurd ends. The core follies of the Trump-Hegseth war of extermination on drug suspects were established almost a quarter-century ago. American illicit drug users miraculously became collectively guilty for every terrorist attack in the world.” (06/22/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-demented-origin-of-the-war-on-drugs-and-war-on-terrorism-nexus/
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22) The United States of Underwriters
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“It started in a London coffee house in the 1680s. Merchants and ship captains crowded the tables, and somewhere between the gossip and the gambling, they began betting on the things everyone else was afraid of. Hurricanes. Pirates. Ships lost at sea. Three hundred years later, the same place would ensure Bruce Springsteen’s voice and the legs of a Hollywood actress. It’s called Lloyd’s, and most people think it’s an insurance company. But it’s something stranger and far more interesting. Lloyd’s is a risk marketplace. And buried in how Lloyd’s works is a schematic for reinventing government itself.” (06/22/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/the-united-states-of-underwriters
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23) Trump’s Attempt to End the Iran War Infuriates the Uniparty
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul
“President Trump started a war on Iran against all sober guidance and in violation of the US Constitution’s requirement that only Congress can declare war. There must be a reckoning for our elected leaders who violate their oath of office, the Constitution, and simple common sense. However, what is more telling is the reaction when President Trump finally took the correct move and attempted to end the war. The neocons who had hailed him as a great leader – Levin, Bolton, Pompeo, etc. – suddenly turned against him when he turned against further escalation of the war. Even Trump’s top funder, Miriam Adelson, attacked Trump in her newspaper Israel Hayom.” (06/22/26)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/trumps-attempt-to-end-the-iran-war-infuriates-the-uniparty
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24) Borrowed Time: The “Extend and Pretend” Economy Must End
Source: The Daily Economy
by Laura Williams
“Trillions in hidden distress and deferred losses are emerging as borrowers run out of time and options. America’s debt reckoning has begun.” (06/22/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/borrowed-time-the-extend-and-pretend-economy-must-end/
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25) Americans Discovered How to End Poverty
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“During my favorite period in history — around 1870 to 1910 — the standard of living of the American people skyrocketed. Suddenly, poor people were going from rags to riches in one, two, or three generations. In fact, some poor people were becoming multimillionaires. Real wages were soaring — and not because of inflation because there was no inflation. Multitudes of European immigrants were flooding into America to get in on the action. New inventions were coming into existence every day. The world had never seen anything like it. And everyone in the world marveled at what was happening. But why? Why the United States and not some long-established foreign country? The answer lies in what happened about a century before — in 1776, when two revolutionary concepts were introduced to the world — and then in 1788, when the U.S. Constitution was ratified.” (06/22/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/06/22/americans-discovered-how-to-end-poverty/
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26) The Conversion of JD Vance
Source: Free Press
by Robert P George
“What makes J.D. Vance tick? Most Americans, whether or not they’ve read J.D. Vance’s 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, have some idea of his remarkable journey from poverty in Middletown, Ohio, to the vice presidency of the United States. In some ways it’s the Horatio Alger tale to beat all Horatio Alger tales. A gambler who knew James David Hamel (as he was then known) as a child would have given million to one odds against his attending Yale Law School, making a ton of money in tech investing, and then becoming a United States senator and vice president of the United States. But that’s exactly what he went on to do …. Another thing he managed to do before age 41: publish two memoirs. His second, released last week, is called Communion, and traces Vance’s decision, as an adult, to be received into the Catholic Church.” (06/21/26)
https://www.thefp.com/p/conversion-of-jd-vance-communion-book-robert-george?utm_campaign=realclearpolitics
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27) Democrats want control of Congress, but what will they actually do with it?
Source: The Hill
by William S Becker
“The possibility that Democrats will control the next Congress keeps improving, as the Republican majority capitulates to President Trump’s erratic and corrupt behavior. However, Democrats should be more transparent about what they would do with their power. So far, they seem to have followed Napoleon’s dictum, ‘Never interrupt an enemy when he’s making a mistake.’ It hasn’t won them much respect. More than 40 percent of voters are unhappy with both political parties. If Democrats intend to save democracy and civilized society, they will need control of the Senate as well as the House. They should make a stronger case than ‘We’re not Trump.'” (06/22/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5932081-restoring-faith-democracy-congress/
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28) Substantive Due Process Is Still Antidemocratic
Source: Law & Liberty
by Tal Fortgang
“Overturning democratically enacted laws based on vague notions of liberty does not promote democracy.” (06/22/26)
https://lawliberty.org/substantive-due-process-is-still-antidemocratic/
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29) “Is There No England Now?”
Source: American Greatness
by Stephen Soukup
“If news reports are accurate, by the time you read this, Keir Starmer may no longer be the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Depending on the source, he has either decided to resign or is seriously considering it. In any case, the events in Britain over the last few weeks—the murder, enabled by the police, of Henry Nowak by the Sikh Vickrum Digwa; the attempted beheading of a man in Belfast by a Muslim immigrant; the release of a report on the systematic and protracted rape of young women and girls by Muslim ‘grooming gangs;’ the subsequent (and understandable) renewal of unrest over largely unchecked immigration; and the government’s increased efforts to limit and control speech—have likely doomed Starmer and the Labour Party, making it impossible for them to maintain or regain the trust of the people. None of this should really surprise anyone.” (06/22/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/22/is-there-no-england-now/
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30) I, Chicken Sandwich
Source: Cato Institute
by Jeremy Lott
“Andy George, star of the YouTube channel How to Make Everything, spent $1,500 over six months to make a chicken sandwich from scratch. And by ‘from scratch’ I mean growing vegetables, milling wheat, milking a cow, and slaughtering a chicken. The result was … not great. ‘It’s not bad. That’s about it: It’s not bad,’ he judged after taking a few bites of the sandwich. … George thought of his chicken sandwich as an experiment in self-reliant living. It was that, but he was also getting a crash course in global supply chains, price signals, and spontaneous order.” (for publication summer 2026)
https://www.cato.org/regulation/summer-2026/i-chicken-sandwich
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31) America Needs Fewer Performers and More Adults
Source: Town Hall
by Jay Rogers
“Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil empire and meant it. He didn’t hedge, qualify, or wait for a focus group. He built the military, stationed Pershing missiles in Europe over fierce opposition, and helped accelerate the collapse of a system that had enslaved hundreds of millions. On American movie screens, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Sylvester Stallone played men who took responsibility, absorbed punishment, and didn’t apologize for their convictions. That wasn’t mere entertainment. It was a cultural argument, and it was winning. I arrived in California in 1990. The economy was thriving, the Republican Party was still competitive, and the state had a future worth arguing about. Thirty-five years of one-party rule later, California’s own Department of Finance confirms a net domestic loss of 216,000 residents in the year ending July 2025 alone — dead last in U-Haul’s outbound migration index for the sixth consecutive year.” (06/22/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/jay-rogers/2026/06/22/america-needs-fewer-performers-and-more-adults-n2678064
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32) Rich Americans Pay a Higher Share of Taxes Than the Wealthy in Most Countries
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“Like his progressive comrades, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has an ambitious big-government agenda he proposes to fund by forcing ‘rich’ people to pay their ‘fair share.’ While the word billionaires is often thrown around, smart people understand that wealth will have to be defined generously to pay for everything proposed, and that ‘fair share’ always means more. Even so, lots of Americans are on board with the idea of forcing people they consider rich to pay higher taxes. What they don’t understand, and what progressives won’t acknowledge, is that the U.S. already puts a heavier burden on high-income people than do most countries.” (06/22/26)
https://reason.com/2026/06/22/rich-americans-pay-a-higher-share-of-taxes-than-the-wealthy-in-most-countries/
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33) True Spirituality Confronts The Abuses Of Empire
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“A spirituality that is uninterested in ending war, genocide, poverty and injustice is a dead spirituality. If you hold your time on the meditation cushion as something separate from the weeping mother clutching a small body in Lebanon, you’re wasting your time. Sometimes I get asked why I only occasionally write about ‘spiritual’ matters like awakening, egoic delusion, inner work etc, but from my point of view everything I write is about that stuff. To oppose the injustices and abuses of our world is to directly interface with the mechanisms of humanity’s struggle to become a conscious species. The overwhelming majority of what people call ‘spirituality’ in our society is really just glorified escapism. It’s about avoiding reality by focusing on good vibes, nice feelings, and comforting stories about the nature of the cosmos.” (06/22/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/06/22/true-spirituality-confronts-the-abuses-of-the-empire/
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34) Law professors say they support free speech. Many are afraid to practice it.
Source: Expression
by Nate Honeycutt
“A libertarian law professor who responded to FIRE’s recent national survey of law faculty offered a striking admission: ‘Whether justified or unjustified, I regularly hide beliefs from colleagues who are openly discussing important topics in the public interest out of fear of retaliation, particularly as a junior faculty member.’ No administrator had disciplined him. No student had filed a complaint. Yet by his own admission, he and another colleague routinely conceal their views at faculty meetings and other public events, not because anyone ordered them to stay silent but because they worry that candor can carry professional costs. That kind of silence is tricky to measure, but carries serious implications. And new data suggest it is relatively common in American law schools.” (06/22/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/law-professors-say-they-support-free
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35) Good riddance to Keir Starmer’s tyranny of greyness
Source: spiked
by Brendan O’Neill
“So he’s gone. Keir Starmer has resigned. The adults are out of the room. He waltzed into Downing St two years ago to the effusive gushing of the liberal commentariat, and now he’s slinking out. He and his slack-jawed media cheerleaders promised us an era of blissful if boring stability. What they gave us were riots, division, betrayal after betrayal, and an unprecedented assault on the ancient liberties of our nation. The lesson of the Starmer epoch? Never trust a technocrat.” (06/22/26)
https://archive.is/OpN9W
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36) Our Property, Not Their Loot
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“It’s getting harder to hit innocent Coloradans over the head with civil forfeiture laws. If you live in the Rocky Mountain State and the police want to grab some of your stuff on the basis of a suspicion (or a claimed suspicion) that you have committed a crime, you’re better off today than you would have been a few weeks ago. Colorado has become the second state of the union to entitle you to a lawyer if police are seizing your property.” (06/22/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/06/22/our-property/
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37) The future of medicine should be built in America
Source: Fox News Forum
by Robert F Kennedy, Jr.
“America should continue to lead the world in clinical research and medical innovation. Instead, we are losing ground. A recent study found that China now conducts more early-stage clinical trials than the United States. In 2025, Chinese companies accounted for nearly half of global pharmaceutical licensing deal activity. Those trends should concern every American. For nearly 80 years, clinical trials have driven medical progress. They transform scientific discoveries into treatments that save lives. They establish whether new therapies are safe and effective. They generate the evidence that physicians, patients and regulators use to make decisions. But clinical trials do more than generate evidence. They attract investment, scientific talent and the infrastructure that supports future innovation. When clinical research moves overseas, those advantages often move with it.” (06/22/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/robert-f-kennedy-jr-future-medicine-built-america
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38) The Social Security Crisis Is Real and Wealth Taxes Will Not Fix It
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“Mother Jones claims seizing private wealth solves the 2032 shortfall. I show you why government plans to raid your retirement accounts violate individual liberty and ignore structural insolvency.” (06/22/26)
https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/the-social-security-crisis-is-real
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39) The Security State’s Middle East: Why Washington Keeps Choosing Pressure Over Diplomacy
Source: Antiwar.com
by Greg Pence
“For more than twenty years now, American leaders from both parties have talked about turning over a new leaf in the Middle East. One president pushed hard for democracy promotion, another tried diplomatic outreach, and someone else swore we’d finally end the ‘forever wars.’ Yet every time a crisis hits, Washington’s first move is rarely sitting down to hammer out a political deal. Instead, it reaches for sanctions, sends in more troops, ramps up deterrence, and leans on the threat – or actual use – of force. This pattern raises a tough question. If the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq didn’t create stable governments, if years of pressure haven’t really changed Iran’s behavior, and if coercion keeps delivering only mixed results, why does the U.S. keep relying on the same old toolbox?” (06/22/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/greg_pence/2026/06/21/the-security-states-middle-east-why-washington-keeps-choosing-pressure-over-diplomacy/
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40) The fax machine still works. Gather round, friends, and be amazed.
Source: Washington Post
by Rachel Manteuffel
“It’s difficult to say this without bragging, but I have faxed. This year. The earliest fax machines used telegraph lines; fax machines are (still!) transmitters of information over space, but also over time. Jules Verne, predicting 1960 from 1863, imagined fax machines all over Paris. Journalists, doctors and governments still demand to be faxed from time to time, as I found out. I have now done it twice since the heyday of faxing. The first time was last year, and it went okay after 45 or so minutes of squinting and with the help of two other office professionals. … The second came in the year of our Lord twenty-twenty-six. This time, I knew exactly what to do and could do it alone. But I didn’t. I walked over to some desks near mine. ‘Interns,’ I said, ‘want to watch me send a fax?'” (06/22/26)
https://archive.is/fjcve
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41) Donald Trump: President of Endlessly Stupid Wars
Source: Common Dreams
by Tom Engelhardt
“That subhead of mine is certainly repetitive of me (me, me), but how can you not be repetitive in the distinctly repeated world of Donald J. Trump (Trumped, Trumped)? I mean, twice already and who really knows what’s to come? Here’s the question nobody seems to be asking right now, though: What country will Donald Trump attack next? Yes, at the moment, he’s still wildly wound up in his Iran war/truce/peace/or you name it (tomorrow). Yesterday, it was, of course, Venezuela, and next week it might be Cuba or Greenland, or who on (or off) this planet knows where? … who knows what I’ve forgotten or what to expect in this increasingly bizarre world of ours from the president who swore repeatedly in his third election campaign that he would never, never, never go to… yes, of course, war?” (06/22/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/donald-trump-president-of-endlessly-stupid-wars
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42) Who Do You Trust?
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by George Ford Smith
“Trust: allow someone to have, use, or look after (someone or something of importance or value) with confidence: I’d trust you with my life. Most people don’t trust politicians, yet they dominate our lives. How did this arrangement come about? Trust is a critical consideration in every relationship. Do people mean what they say? Do they deliver on their promises? If enough people didn’t trust Amazon it would have folded long ago. Friends would cease being friends if they proved untrustworthy. We don’t trust politicians but we are stuck with them, at least for now.” (06/22/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/who-do-you-trust
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43) Why White Nationalism Is Full of Idiots
Source: The Dispatch
by Surya Gowda
“Identity-based movements are ‘the bat signal for every loser.’” (06/22/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/white-nationalism-elitism-hanania/
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44) Political Repression by Any Other Name is Still Repression
Source: CounterPunch
by Ron Jacobs
“In recent weeks, the misnamed US Department of Justice has indicted twenty-three activists on serious charges related to their organizing against institutional complicity in the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians and the kidnapping of US residents by militarized federal immigration enforcers. The indictments are connected to two different cases, one in Michigan and the other in Minnesota. From my vantage point, it seems fairly clear that the indictments are, among other things, designed to deflect the media and the public attention away from the crimes against humanity being perpetrated by the government and those institutions behind the prosecutions. In fact, these indictments are purposefully political and part of a broader repression against US residents and organizations opposed to the ultra-right government of Donald Trump.” (06/22/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/06/22/political-repression-by-any-other-name-is-still-repression/
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45) Trump federal watchdogs doing job past IGs let slide, and the old guard hates it
Source: New York Post
by Anthony D’Esposito
“A former federal inspector general has been sniping at President Donald Trump’s approach to rooting out government fraud — but his complaints sound less like a serious defense of oversight and more like a bitter kiss-off from a spurned ex-bureaucrat. ‘The watchdogs have crossed a dangerous line,’ Mark Greenblatt intoned in the Daily Beast. They’ve become lapdogs: ‘MAGA lapdogs,’ as his headline put it. He’s furious that my inspector general colleagues and I are joining the wide-ranging effort, led by Vice President JD Vance, to crack down on the fraud that’s looting our national treasury. Greenblatt’s argument rests on a flawed premise: He claims that supporting such a mission somehow prevents an inspector general from conducting independent oversight. That’s nonsense.” (06/22/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/06/22/opinion/trumps-federal-watchdogs-are-doing-the-job-past-igs-ignored/
-----
46) Congress loves to buy failed jets and ships then make your kids pay
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Dan Grazier
“As Congress debates the 2027 defense budget, members must confront an essential reality: their children and grandchildren will be left footing the bill. Many of the dollars that will be appropriated for military purposes in 2027 will be borrowed and tacked onto the ballooning national debt. But that is only part of the problem. Defense policies established today become spending obligations for future generations. If members of Congress are seriously considering $1.5 trillion in defense spending for 2027, it is in part because they must cover the expenses resulting from policy decisions made years ago by people who have long-since passed from the scene.” (06/22/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/military-spending-us/
-----
47) Liberal Elites Promote “Abundance,” But Democratic Voters Want Socialism
Source: The American Conservative
by Scott Greer
“Abundance liberals’ enthusiasm for growth faces a major obstacle with Democrats’ sharp turn against tech. AI and data centers are the enemy. Even though tech may be the biggest contributor to American economic growth right now, Democratic voters want it to stop. No amount of abundance rhetoric can convince them otherwise. These state and local contests offer a possible preview of what the 2028 Democratic presidential primary may look like. For all the efforts spent by Newsom and others to move to the center, they may all be forced to cater to their party’s radical elements to have any hope of winning the nomination.” (06/22/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/liberal-elites-promote-abundance-but-democratic-voters-want-socialism/
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48) What Obama Meant
Source: Persuasion
by Eboo Patel
“I recently got the chance to walk through the exhibits of the Barack Obama Presidential Center before its opening on Thursday. Looking at photos of the young Obama as a community organizer in Chicago, watching video clips of those iconic speeches that marked his dream-like rise from a nobody to leader of the free world, I was reminded of a time when our politics was more hopeful, our social sector was more constructive, and the two were aligned in the service of the nation.” (06/21/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/long-live-obama-ism
-----
49) The Pro-Israel Super PAC Cinematic Universe
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“Campaign finance disclosures released over the weekend provide a clearer picture of the millions of dollars pro-Israel PACs United Democracy Project (an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC) and Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) have spent thus far in the midterm primaries, and the lengths to which they have gone to hide their true influence. In 2026, more than 1 out of every 4 dollars in independent expenditures that the two groups have disbursed (almost $8 million out of a total of $30.66 million) have been funneled to nine different partners and shell PACs. Those numbers are likely higher, since the disclosures made to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) only go through the end of May, and they do not count possible outlays to dark-money PACs that do not have to disclose their spending.” (06/22/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/06/22/pro-israel-super-pac-cinematic-universe/
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50) Speaking Precisely Is Useful
Source: Pierre Lemieux
by Pierre Lemieux
“Writing to be understood is the name of the game, but there is a limit to dumbing down non-dumb ideas.” (06/21/26)
https://pierrelemieux.substack.com/p/speaking-precisely-is-useful
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Roundtable, 06/22/26
Source: Reason
"Why U.K. Socialism Could Soon Be America's Problem." (06/22/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/06/22/why-u-k-socialism-could-soon-be-americas-problem/
-----
52) What Then Must We Do?, 06/22/26
Source: What Then Must We Do?
“The Hows and Whys of Operating in the Private, with Common-Law Trust Solutions.” (06/22/26)
https://pdcn.co/e/www.buzzsprout.com/756260/episodes/19379989-the-hows-and-whys-of-operating-in-the-private-with-common-law-trust-solutions.mp3
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53) AI Summer, 06/22/26
Source: AI Summer
“Robert Wright on the global implications of powerful AI.” (06/22/26)
https://www.aisummer.org/p/robert-wright-on-the-global-implications
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54) Zooming In, 06/22/26
Source: The UnPopulist
“Trump Has Not Turned Americans Against Immigrants: A Conversation with Greg Sargent.” (06/22/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/trump-has-not-turned-americans-against
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55) Loot & Lobby, 06/22/26
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
“Mises Editor-in-Chief Ryan McMaken explains how the new Fed chairman faces a political problem with rising prices and the fact the Fed keeps fueling the inflation fire.” (06/22/26)
https://mises.org/podcasts/loot-and-lobby/feds-inflation-problem
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56) EconTalk, 06/22/26
Source: EconTalk
“Can a Phone Be a Cow? (with Philip Auerswald).” (06/22/26)
https://www.econtalk.org/can-a-phone-be-a-cow-with-philip-auerswald/
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57) SolutionsWatch, 06/22/26
Source: The Corbett Report
“You want the right to repair your own property, don’t you? Then, you have two options. Either you call your congressman to let him know you want him to pass the latest legislation going through the house (but not the fake legislation that’s designed to water down the real legislation!) … or you try this alternative strategy.” (06/22/26)
https://corbettreport.com/the-right-to-repair-solutionswatch/
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58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 06/21/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Trump Threatens Iran During Switzerland Summit, US Announces Airstrikes in Somalia, and More.” (06/21/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M3kYk2geHE
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59) Fountainhead Forum, episode 461
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Jeremy Todd on running for Thomas Massie’s seat in Congress.” (06/21/26)
https://rumble.com/v7bln9a-ff-461-jeremy-todd-on-running-for-thomas-massies-seat-in-congress.html
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60) William Van Wagenen on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Scott interviews William Van Wagenen about what he’s been seeing in southern Lebanon as the fighting between Hezbollah and the IDF drags on. They also discuss the Western-backed bin Ladinite regime in Syria.” (06/21/26)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/6-19-26-william-van-wagenen-on-what-its-like-on-the-ground-in-lebanon/
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