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This episode was recorded live on Thursday 4 June.

Support the research powerful interests fear. Make a tax-deductible donation to the Australia Institute’s End of Financial Year Appeal before 30 June.

Guest: Karina Lester, Yankunytjatjara Anangu woman and International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) Australia Ambassador

Guest: Leanne Minshull, co-Chief Executive Officer, the Australia Institute // @leanneminshull

Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @emmashortis

Host: Angus Blackman, Executive Producer, the Australia Institute // @angusrb

Show notes:

An independent public inquiry into the AUKUS security partnership

ICAN Australia

Polling – Australia, the US and Iran War, the Australia Institute (May 2026)

In April 2026, the Toronto Tenant Union was launched as a city-wide organization bringing together housing rights groups, neighbourhood associations, and climate activists under a common banner. A renters rights movement is growing and refusing to accept rising costs and poorer living conditions. This has also led to movement leaders hoping to push for electoral change, as 2025 Jack Layton Progress Prize recipient Chiara Padovani, former co-chair of the York-South Weston Tenants Union in Toronto, runs for City Council in upcoming elections in Fall 2026. To organize bigger, neighbourhood tenant unions are expanding city-wide, teaming up with other social movements, and finding new paths to power to change the livelihoods of renters.

Perspectives Journal contributor James Adair spoke with Toronto Tenant Union organizers Bruno Dobrusin and Sama Nanayakkara about building tenant power, the connection between housing and climate justice, and their vision for a movement capable of challenging landlords and reshaping housing politics.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

In November 1839, Joseph Smith traveled to Washington, D.C. Styled the prophet and president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he sought an audience with then-president Martin Van Buren. The Saints, popularly called “Mormons” after the reputed author of their holy writ, had been hounded by vigilante mobs in Missouri. Van Buren expressed his sympathy for the Mormons but said regretfully that “if I do anything, I shall come in contact with the whole State of Missouri.” A little over four years later, Smith, then running for president, would call Van Buren a “fop or a fool” and blame him for corrupting the principles of the American Founding.

Van Buren was one of many prominent politicians to whom Smith appealed during his meteoric rise to national attention in the 1830s and ’40s. He even once dined with a young Illinois state representative, Stephen A. Douglas, and predicted that Douglas would “aspire to the presidency of the United States.” In his exhaustively researched biography, Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, George Mason University Religious Studies historian John G. Turner tracks the Mormon leader’s astonishing trajectory.

Market Update Preview

Friday brought the sell-off we'd been flagging as a possibility — a hot jobs print spiked the VIX, dropped the Nasdaq nearly 5%, and sent yields jumping. The takeaway: the last argument for rate cuts (a soft labor market) just got dashed, and the market had to reprice valuations that were quietly still hoping for cuts.

We hit the 7300 zone I mentioned in the last update almost exactly. The question now is whether we hold it, bounce, or roll straight into the deeper sell-off I've been expecting around the mid-June-into-July window. I'll lay out exactly how I'm playing this, the level where I start moving defensive, and why I'm done chasing this move even if there's one more high left in it.

The longer-term picture hasn't changed: the deficit impulse keeps deteriorating in real terms with a 4.2% CPI consensus landing Wednesday, margin debt keeps accelerating toward danger levels, and credit is recovering from the oil shock exactly as we modeled. But — and this matters — I still don't think this is the end of the cycle. Full breakdown, including the levels and the playbook, below.

Revolutionary America, Hillsdale College’s new Ken Burns-style documentary on the founding, arrives at a fitting moment: the nation’s 250th anniversary. Though it resembles Burns’s work in its message, soundtrack (very much like the work of Hans Zimmer), maps, and pacing, it is far superior to anything Burns has done.

The documentary is a gorgeous, straightforward, non-ideological approach to a difficult and complex historical subject. While the film never shies away from explaining political philosophy, its main goal is to tell America’s history as a story, inviting the audience to encounter its drama, myth, and wonder.

Narrated by Tom Selleck and featuring an impressive lineup of Hillsdale professors and well-known political commentators, Revolutionary America is broken into two parts. Its first half explores the events leading up to the Battle of Lexington, the Revolution’s opening salvo, on April 19, 1775. The second half considers the move toward independence, George Washington’s masterful leadership of the Continental Army, and the Revolution’s fulfillment through the creation and passage of the Constitution. The documentary builds to a powerful close, with President Arnn observing that the American Revolution never really ended—that every generation must rededicate itself to the principles on which it was fought.

Prosper Australia is proud to sponsor the distribution of a compelling new Australian-made documentary, Common Wealth. Our team will be attending screenings across the country, participating in Q&As and other events. We would love to see you there. The following film screenings are where members of the Prosper team will be in attendance. Check out […]

The poll of 1502 people, conducted by YouGov, also found 8 in 10 voters support the creation of a Whistleblower Protection Authority.

The research, supported by the Human Rights Law Centre and Whistleblower Justice Fund, shows support for better whistleblower protections hit a record high level last year and has increased even further in this new poll.

It comes as the CEO of KPMG Australia quits over his mishandling of a whistleblower request, while the federal government continues to drag its feet on releasing a long-awaited second tranche of whistleblower reforms.

Key findings

Listen to the full conversation on the Perspectives Journal podcast, available to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, and all other major podcast platforms.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

The release of the Epstein Files has shocked the public with unimaginable stories of the pedophilia, exploitation of women and brash depravity of the ruling class. While these stories have been the major source of public outrage, a deeper dive into the Epstein Files reveals the inside world of how the billionaire class operates to control information and collude with each other - hide their crimes and gain massive wealth at the expense of the working class.

As we approach our nation’s 250th birthday, Americans will be doing a lot of celebrating. They will honor not only the fact of our independence and nationhood, but also the political thought that shaped America’s founding struggle for freedom. Special attention will be paid, of course, to our Declaration of Independence.

But some may be rather cool to celebrating the Declaration’s doctrine of universal truths, such as the equality of all human beings in their natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Declaration has become a source of controversy among some younger conservatives who came of age during the Trump era.

The New Right’s dissatisfaction with the Declaration’s universalism is an understandable—but mistaken—reaction to various political misuses of America’s founding creed in recent decades. The older generation of conservatives who grew up admiring Ronald Reagan loves to boast about America’s defense of universal truths. The New Right has rightly argued that this rhetorical approach has not served the conservative political movement or the country well.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss the decision to lift minimum and award wages and what the latest GDP figures mean for Australian households.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 4 June 2026.

Support the research powerful interests fear. Make a tax-deductible donation to the Australia Institute’s End of Financial Year Appeal before 30 June.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute // @grogsgamut

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

Show notes:

Australia’s GDP figures are meaningless when the boom in datacentres means destroying jobs and the climate by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (May 2026)

Clouded Future: Managing the risks of the data centre boom, Climate Council (June 2026)

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

The next time one hears of virtue, honor, and “the profession of arms” in the U.S. military, one should ask whether those words still mean anything. Consider a military in which the highest flag ranks sell influence for future employment, commanders conspire to steal optics before deployment, soldiers loot their own supply rooms, chiefs sell night-vision devices online, officers defraud grieving families, and bureaucrats steal money meant for military children. Petty theft below, influence peddling above, and a thick frosting of platitudes about honor everywhere.

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.

The Truth about Derek Chauvin | The Roundtable Ep. 320

It’s the third of June, another sleepy dusty Delta day. Of course I’m republishing this! — SK

* * *

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.