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Monday Miscellany, 6/1/26

Monday Miscellany, 6/1/26

Last updated on: June 1, 2026 at 10:10 am by Gene Veith

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Monday Miscellany, 6/1/26 2026-06-01T10:10:26-04:00 Gene Veith

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What nihilism looks like. Gasoline prices are up 56% since the war started. And the Trump administration will enforce medical conscience rights.

What Nihilism Looks Like

On May 18 in San Diego, two teenagers–Cain Clark (17) and Caleb Vazquez (18)–shot up an Islamic Center, which includes both a mosque and a school, killing a security guard, a teacher, and a caretaker before killing themselves.

They obviously hated Muslims. And yet their 75-page manifesto says that the Jews are “to blame for all the wrong in the world.” They went to say, “after the Jew, the most evil creature in this world is the woman. This is because, after Jews, women tend to cause all the problems in the world.”

The document, according to journalists Daniel Arkin and Pilar Menendez is “replete with neo-Nazi ideology, incel rage and racist meme culture drawn from the darkest corners of the internet.” Its vitriol also targeted blacks, LGBTQs, immigrants, and Hispanics (even though one of the shooters appears to be one), among many others. It both denied the Holocaust and called for the killing of all Jews, as well as the killing of President Trump and Vice President Vance.

All of this is to say they hated virtually everybody to the point of wanting to kill them. Arkin and Menendez report,

“They didn’t discriminate on who they hated,” Mark Remily, the FBI special agent in charge in San Diego, told reporters at a news conference Tuesday. “It covered a wide aspect of races and religions.”

The writings also “illustrate general misanthropy and an immersion in online nihilistic violent extremist ecosystems,” according to a review conducted by the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, which tracks online and offline activity.

We discussed nihilism as an option to the “existential crises” of our day. This is what nihilism looks like. This is what nihilism does to children.

Gasoline Prices Are Up 56% Since the War Started

Despite the repeated claims that peace is at hand, the economic impact of the Iran War is intensifying. As you will notice in any road trips you take this summer.

As energy expert Zachary Shahan points out, we started bombing that country in late February. The nationwide average price for gasoline back then was $2.89 per gallon. Today, after three months, the price is $4.517 per gallon. That’s an increase of 56%.

And it’s likely to get much worse. Newsweek reports, in an article with a title to that effect, that America’s Emergency Oil Reserve Is Shrinking Fast.

There are three reasons, which you can read about in detail at the link:

(1) Domestic inventory is way down. Oil companies have been drawing down their stockpiles to ease the rising fuel costs.

(2) To keep prices as low as possible, the government has also released millions of gallons from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, intended to protect the nation from fuel shortages in the event of an emergency.

(3) At the same time, our oil exports have shot up, part of our nation’s efforts to help our allies who are facing an even greater fuel crisis–which one official calls the “largest energy crisis in history”–thanks to Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, which the rest of the world relies on for 20% of its oil.

Even though we Americans complain about high fuel prices, our oil reserves have buffered us from much of the supply shortage and soaring prices experienced by much of the rest of the world. But once we draw down those reserves, prices will skyrocket and supplies may be hard to come by. Then we too will feel what the director of the International Petroleum Agency is calling the “largest energy crisis in history.”

The Trump Administration Will Enforce Medical Conscience Rights

The Trump administration has brought back the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division at the Department of Health and Human Services.

This office defended pro-life healthcare workers and others who face repercussions for refusing to participate in abortions and other procedures that violate their moral conscience and their religious faith.

The Biden administration shut down the office, deprioritized complaints, and stopped enforcing statutes protecting health care workers’ conscience and religious liberty.

The office will be brought under the department’s Civil Rights division. Department of Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy said in an official statement:

This reorganization restores the HHS Civil Rights Division and the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division and strengthens the Office for Civil Rights’ ability to defend religious liberty, enforce conscience protections, and combat unlawful discrimination. Under President Trump’s leadership, HHS will defend these rights with clarity, accountability, and resolve.

attack on San Diego Islamic Center

gasoline prices

nihilism

pro-life medical workers' conscience rights

Trump and life issues

War in Iran

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