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Last week, the Israel Defense Forces announced it will no longer train female soldiers to serve in infantry mobility units due to concerns about their physical preparedness. It is no small announcement that after two years of sustained warfare, the prime example of a modern sex-integrated military decided to backtrack. As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth noted in a tweet last weekend, this is major news for militaries around the world that are reconsidering the role of women in combat.

Israel’s decision highlights the obvious. Proper physical fitness is imperative for soldiers operating in combat roles—not only so they may achieve their objectives effectively, but also so they do not cause undue danger to themselves or their teammates. Soldiers must be able to trust each other. Real-world experience, from Israel to U.S. Army Special Operations Command, demonstrates that it is entirely reasonable to wonder if such trust can be maintained in co-ed military combat units.

This is a free piece of Notes on the Crises. I will not be paywalling any coverage of this crisis for as long as it persists, so please take out a paid subscription to facilitate performing that public service. You can also leave a “tip” if you want to support my work but hate emails cluttering your inbox or recurring payments. If you’re rich, take out the Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025 Platinum Tier subscription. 

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

There are few pieces of literature that remain as prescient and relevant throughout history as John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Thomas Jefferson, Malcolm X, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Paine and dozens more drew inspiration from and studied Milton’s grand work and the revolutionary themes within it.

Professor Orlando Reade, in his book, What in Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Afterlife of Paradise Lost, examines the epic poem’s influence in the four centuries since its publication and joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to discuss this history.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss the latest quarterly GDP figures, why the above-inflation increase to minimum and award wages is a good thing, and the latest from Tariffland.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 5 June 2025 and things may have changed since recording.

Our independence is our strength – and only you can make that possible. By donating to the Australia Institute’s End of Financial Year appeal today, you’ll help fund the research changing Australia for the better.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute and Centre for Future Work // @grogsgamut

Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @elinorjohnstonleek

Show notes:

The good news? Household living standards are on the rise. The bad news? Just about everything else by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (June 2025)

The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

White-Collar Bots | The Roundtable Ep. 270

Artificial Intelligence threatens to storm the office as tech companies compete to replace entry-level workers with “agent” underlings. Will this be the next major technological displacement in the workforce? And to what end? Meanwhile, this “Pride month” has lacked the eruption of rainbows typical of June. Is a Pride Shift to go along with the Vibe Shift underway? This week, Blaze Media editor-in-chief and now Claremont Washington Fellow Matthew Peterson joins the guys to discuss the ramifications of AI, the containment of Pride, and to dispense good bad movie recommendations!

Recommended reading:

Jaison R. Abel, Richard Deitz, Sebastian Heise, Ben Hyman, and Nick Montalbano

At various moments in my career, I was the Director of the first-year composition program, and so dealt with grade complaints. My sense was that about 1/3 of the complaints were misunderstandings; in about 1/3 the instructor had really screwed up. For both of those, I was grateful that a student (or several) had complained, since it was an issue that needed to be resolved at the institutional level.

When the 28-year-old Bill Buckley wrote to his new pen pal, Whittaker Chambers, asking permission to come and meet him for the first time, Chambers, recovering at his Maryland farmhouse from another heart attack, replied cheerily, “By all means come. Come anytime of the day.” The letter included driving directions and what Sam Tanenhaus calls “a taste of Chambers’s signature gloom.” Chambers could not sign off without noting, “The score, as the points are chalked up, clearly and boldly, more and more convinces me that the total situation is hopeless, past repair, organically irremediable.”

By the “total situation” he referred not merely to his own ailments, though Buckley found him in bed and forbidden by the doctor “even to raise his head.” No, Chambers meant the whole situation of modern man, especially in the West. As he wrote in his invitation to Buckley, “Almost the only position of spiritual dignity left to men, therefore, is a kind of stoic silence, made bearable by the amusement of seeing, hearing, and knowing the full historical irony that its victims are blind and deaf to, and disciplined by the act of withholding comment on what we know.”

Buy my new book “A Genocide Foretold"

While experts have long dismissed large-scale Medicaid fraud as improbable, evidence from New Mexico tells a different story. This discovery presents an unprecedented opportunity to offset part of the $880 billion budget deficit without cutting healthcare services for enrollees.

As the most powerful stakeholders, insurers frame fraud as an issue with hospitals, physicians, and enrollees while quietly escaping scrutiny themselves. A 2020 Health and Human Services report claimed that fraud in Medicaid fee-for-service stood at 12.3%, compared to just 0.3% in Medicaid managed care, reinforcing the industry’s message that managed care is highly efficient. However, the Government Accounting Office offers a starkly different interpretation, arguing that fraud in managed care is simply escaping detection.

Unlike fee-for-service, managed care payments are issued in advance based on projected costs. When actual costs turn out to be lower, insurers are legally required to return excess funds. The failure to do so amounts to fraudulent retention—and this is where a massive financial recovery opportunity lies.

New Mexico’s Medicaid program provides a striking case study:

On this episode of Follow the Money, Walkley Award-winning journalist Stephen Long and Elinor Johnston-Leek discuss the Federal Government’s decision to sign a provisional extension to Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project and the impact that will have on the irreplaceable Murujuga rock art.

Our independence is our strength – and only you can make that possible. By donating to the Australia Institute’s End of Financial Year appeal today, you’ll help fund the research changing Australia for the better.

Host: Stephen Long, Stephen Long, Senior Fellow and Contributing Editor, the Australia Institute // @StephenLongAus

Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @elinorjohnstonleek

Show notes:

The fight to save Murujuga, the Australia Institute (May 2025)

Gas export approval puts gas corporations before Australians, the Australia Institute (May 2025)

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

View our 2025 End of Financial Year Impact Report here.

Our 2025 End of Financial Year Impact Report looks summarises Per Capita’s work over the past 12 months, including policy changes we have helped secure, the Community Tax Summit we hosted, research projects we have worked on, our media coverage and public events.

May 2025 marked the beginning of a new era, both for Per Capita and for Australian progressive politics.

At Per Capita we farewelled our long-standing Executive Director,Emma Dawson. Emma’s commitment and expertise have built Per Capita into the respected, influential think tank we are today. As we enter a new era, our staff and board have a renewed commitment to our vision for a more equal Australia, under the leadership of newly appointed Acting Executive Director, Sarah McKenzie.

Nationally, the recent federal election has returned the Labor Party for a second term, opening new opportunities to advance a progressive policy agenda. Labor must view this emphatic result as a mandate for bold reform: to tackle the housing crisis head on, to spearhead meaningful action on climate change, to reorient the economic future of Australia’s younger generations through tax reform, and to restore Australia as the land of the Fair Go.

Free-to-air TV shows more than a million gambling ads a year – and this is not to mention the online torrent.

If 85 per cent of 12-17 year olds have seen a gambling ad on TV in the past month, is it any wonder that young people talk about betting odds like they once did player stats?

The $244.3 billion in bets made by Australians in in 2022-23 makes us the world’s biggest gamblers, and the saturation level of advertising is probably one reason that since 2019, average gambling losses have increased to almost $2500 a year – that’s more than the average home pays for a year’s worth of electricity.

As a nation we lost a collective $31.5 billion, which is comparable to the size of the entire Northern Territory economy ($33.1 billion), and greater than the $21 billion lost to gambling in all of Las Vegas.

As if the harm gambling causes to adults isn’t bad enough, analysis by the Australia Institute shows that large numbers of Australians start gambling well before they reach the legal minimum age of 18.

Almost one in three (30 per cent) 12-17-year-olds gamble, and this increases to almost half (46 per cent) when young people turn 18. More than 900,000 teenagers (aged 12-19) gambled in the past year.

By Cameron Murray and Tim Helm This article was originally published on Fresh Economic Thinking. Posted here with permission. A recent working paper by Schuyler Louie, John A. Mondragon, and Johannes Wieland has been making waves in urban economics circles. The paper title might provide a clue as to why— “Supply Constraints do not Explain House Price […]

They exceed those voting for the Liberal and National Coalition – which is, at least theoretically, the “alternative government”.

At 33.6 per cent of the vote, independent and minor party voters are almost as numerous as the 34.6 per cent who cast their first preference for the Labor government.

Of course, independent and minor party candidates represent a variety of ideologies, approaches and personalities – although, as the last fortnight has demonstrated, the same is true for major party candidates.

The Australian electoral system allows every voter to express their preferences, without reducing the effectiveness of their vote.

Some Greens voters prefer an independent to the Labor candidate; others prefer Labor. Some Liberal voters would settle for a non-Labor candidate such as a Green or independent; others will plump for Labor if the Liberal doesn’t make it to the final two.

This system, called full preferential voting, is why you must number every box on your ballot paper. You must express a preference between every candidate running to be your local member.

It means that in most cases you do not need to worry about voting “tactically” – your vote will still help decide between the final two candidates.

The trade-off is that counting votes takes a bit longer than it does in the US or Britain, where they use “first past the post” voting.

It was the 30^th of December, and I was driving the Natchez Trace Parkway, looking for Bobbie Gentry.

I didn’t want to find her. I only wanted to know she was out there, eluding everyone.

I wanted her to outwit every man who did her wrong. Many are dead: Bobbie Gentry is in her 80s. She hasn’t appeared on stage since 1981, when, after a series of music industry disputes, she left public life behind with a steadfastness unrivaled.

I was not the first to explore Chickasaw County, Mississippi and other Gentry haunts, hoping for a glimpse of the singer. For over forty years, no stranger has tracked her down. Gentry wanted to disappear and she got her way. She is rumored to be happy. I am likely angrier about the treatment of Bobbie Gentry than Bobbie Gentry is.

It’s only fair when a trailblazing woman gets burned that younger women pick up the torch.

Bottom-Up Shorts: How To Humbly Observe Where People Struggle

 — Organisation: Strong Towns — Tuesday 3rd June 2025

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