Jacob Bogage, in a Friday Reuters article, pointed out an uncomfortable truth for Trump as Trump continues boasting about stock market gains. “Trump has increasingly cast Wall Street’s gains as a measure of his presidency, treating record stock prices as proof ​that his policies are working even as many Americans remain squeezed by high living costs and millions own no stock at all,” explained Bogage. Just over half of capital market investments are owned by one percent of American earners, while the bottom half of American earners own just one percent. In fact, notes Bogage, roughly 40 percent of Americans do not own even a single share of stock.

Meanwhile, most Americans are perceiving significant economic problems. In a Tuesday The Guardian article, Gaya Gupta related that a new Harris Poll survey found that an astounding 95 percent of Americans, which would include most American stock owners and nonowners, “believe the US is suffering an affordability crisis.” Further, noted Gupta, Americans’ assessment of the direction the economy is moving has been becoming more negative over the last few months. Wrote Gupta:

Despite stable employment and record-high stock markets, more Americans believe the overall economy is getting worse (57%) than in February (46%), when the poll was last conducted and before the war in the Middle East sent gas prices soaring. Fewer people today also believe the economy is getting better (16%, compared with 28% in February) and more say their financial security has gotten worse.

The economic pessimism reflected in the polling, Gupta further wrote, extends even to Republicans and rural voters who have been comparatively supportive of Trump and other Republican candidates.

Yet, when the US missiles started flying, it soon appeared that little effort had been made to ensure they would strike military targets instead of just bring death, destruction, and terror on a grand scale. The US government has since largely kept mum on the matter. But, a Tuesday report by Zachary Cohen at CNN indicates that the US military’s initial attack on Iran relied largely on targeting information that had not been updated in over 10 years.

The targeting was further marred, wrote Cohen, by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth having “made deep cuts to the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response programs and slashed CHMR staff at military commands by more than 90%.” The drastic reduction applied to the military group responsible for overseeing the Iran war initial attack targets as well. Cohen explained, “That included removing civilian harm specialists from target development strike teams and reducing the team of 10 at Central Command to only one full-time staffer, sources told CNN.”

Here is how Cohen sums thing up in the beginning of his article:

Senior US military commanders bypassed warnings in critical databases that intelligence about potential targets in Iran was severely out of date and approved some strikes — including one that hit a school, killing nearly 200 hundred children and adults, according to three sources familiar with the decision-making process.

Messages indicating the intelligence was based on years-old intelligence that needed to be re-vetted were embedded in a system used for developing targets and required a senior officer to approve adding a site to the strike list, according to the sources.

The decision by senior commanders to ignore the warnings was made for “expediency,” two of the sources said, in a rush to provide targets at the start of the war. But it also directly contributed to the accidental strike on the school, the sources added.

The strike killed at least 168 children and 14 teachers, according to Iranian state media. Those numbers would make the strike one of the worst civilian casualty incidents in recent US military history. The US military launched an investigation in the days after the strike.

US military officials “knew within days (of the strike on the school) how the mistake happened,” one of the sources said. “It was obviously old info.”

Months later, the Pentagon has not released its investigation into the incident.

Continue reading Cohen’s article here.

CrossTalking with Daniel McAdams, Julia Roknifard, and Leila Hudson.

While the Texas government’s action and Trump’s declaration indicate progress toward kei truck freedom, being able to buy and legally drive a new kei truck across America still seems like a proposition that will be fulfilled neither soon nor for sure. In a Tuesday Independent Institute article “It’s Time to Legalize Kei Trucks,” Scott Beyer provided a good update on the legal situation of and potential benefits from kei trucks in America. “Ultimately, kei trucks serve as a reminder that government regulations make everyday life more expensive,” commented Beyer, placing kei truck related political developments in a larger context.

Looking through polling results, Stephen Semler presented this conclusion:

Based on my updated analysis of 153 public opinion surveys across 7 major U.S. conflicts, the Iran War is the most unpopular U.S. war in history in at least three ways:

1. The Iran War started with lower public support than any other U.S. war. At negative 13%, it’s the first to begin with negative net support.

2. The Iran War currently has lower public support than any other U.S. war. At negative 32%, it trails even the infamous Vietnam War in popularity.

3. At no point have more Americans supported the Iran War than opposed it. In terms of net public support, it’s the first U.S. war to be fought entirely under water.

Read Semler’s article here.

But, it is also important to remember that, about 20 years before he became Federal Reserve chairman, Greenspan was challenging the state, including by criticizing the abandonment of the gold standard in America that went on to be replaced largely by actions of the Federal Reserve.

In 1966, Alan Greenspan’s essay Gold and Economic Freedom was published in novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand’s newsletter The Objectivist. It was also reprinted a year later in Rand’s book Capitalism: The Uknown Ideal.

In the first two paragraphs of his essay, Greenspan stated his assessment that a gold standard advances freedom, while its elimination is a tactic for suppressing freedom. Wrote Greenspan:

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense — perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire — that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other.

In order to understand the source of their antagonism, it is necessary first to understand the specific role of gold in a free society.

For many free market and liberty supporting individuals attracted to the ideas espoused by Rand, Greenspan’s essay provided an introduction to the importance of a gold standard for advancing both liberty and prosperity. You can read the essay here.

Read here Jacob Sullum of Reason’s informative analysis of the court’s decision.

A new report from the Pew Research Center indicates that an American family with children under 18 years old having mom, or sometimes dad, either not working or working only part time has transitioned to being the situation in just a minority of households. The June 16 report at the Pew Research Center website relates:

The work arrangements of moms and dads who are married or living together have changed considerably in recent decades. As of 2025, just over half (52%) of different-sex couples with children under 18 consist of two full-time working parents. This is up from 46% a decade ago and 31% in 1975, according to Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

If this trend reverses so that the percentage of households where one parent is not working full time increases over coming years, we will have a strong indication of economic improvement in American households. Such a reversal should also yield benefits for the children who as a result will have more time with and more guidance from parents.

Asked at the press conference how the US military “hitting bridges, electrical infrastructure” in Iran “would not be a war crime potentially targeting civilian infrastructure,” Hegseth did not answer the query. Instead, he complained that the query was “precisely the kind of disingenuous question that I’m used to from the media, impugning the motives of folks on our side who are incredibly professional and incredibly effective.” Continuing, stated Hegseth, “We will hit them hard on our terms on the targets that improve the environment for us to operate in and undermine the capabilities that Iran wants to have.”

This answer suggests that the US secretary of defense does not think that avoiding war crimes is a significant part of deciding how to engage in military actions. Instead of explaining how war crimes would be avoided or how the questioner is misinterpreting what would constitute war crimes in the situation, Hegseth just declared that everyone involved in the US government’s war effort is beyond reproach and that any actions they take that advance the US position in the war relative to the position of Iran is fine.

Americans have had special reason to become aware of reasons to dislike Israel given that the United States government has been working as a coconspirator, funding and otherwise assisting Israel’s mayhem. Indeed, a new Pew Research Center poll of the views of people across 36 countries found that in America 60 percent of queried individuals have a very or somewhat unfavorable opinion of Israel, while only 37 percent have a somewhat or very favorable opinion of Israel.

Still, Americans, compared with other people questioned across the world, come in as less critical of Israel than most. The figures for median views of people in the 36 surveyed countries came in at a 67 percent unfavorable view of Israel and a 25 percent favorable view.

In each of the 36 surveyed countries where people were questioned, the opinion regarding Israel tilted negative except for in India and three African nations — Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria — where the positive opinion regarding Israel came in on top.