“Pete Buttigieg and his family should never have endured a malicious false report that brought police and Child Protective Services to their home, temporarily separated him from his young children, and forced his family through a needless ordeal. Authorities quickly determined the allegations were baseless. The bipartisan condemnation that followed was appropriate. Political leaders from across the country spoke with one voice. Commentators expressed outrage. The message was unmistakable: there are lines that should never be crossed. They were right. But watching the response unfold left me asking a question I have carried since my daughter Katie was killed. Why does our political class know exactly how to respond when one of its own is harmed, yet struggle to summon the same moral urgency when ordinary Americans are actually buried?” (07/01/26)
“Among the slew of decisions being released in the days before the United States Supreme Court adjourns for the summer, two focus on the key issue of presidential or executive power. Each ruling relates specifically to a U.S. president’s ability to remove officeholders in agencies established under acts of Congress. In Trump v. Slaughter, the court ruled 6-3 that the president can fire at will the heads or staff of independent regulatory agencies (in this case, the Federal Trade Commission). In Trump v. Cook, however, the court determined 5-4 that the president could not fire a governor of the Federal Reserve Board without cause or due process. On the surface, the two rulings seem to be in opposition to each other. Yet both underscore a defining characteristic of American democracy – the delicate yet shifting equilibrium among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches that underpins the business of governing.” (06/30/26)
“President Donald Trump used red-scare rhetoric to denounce the progressive winners in New York’s Democratic primary last week as ‘godless communists’. Rather than explaining that the progressives are not communists in the vein of the Soviet Union or communist China but social democrats in the vein of Scandinavia, a group of so-called ‘moderate’ Democratic politicians piled on to Trump’s red-baiting. Two days after the primaries, this group of 15 corporate Democrats (let’s just call them what they are) attacked the winning Democrats in an open letter drafted by Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York proclaiming, ‘we are capitalist, not socialist’. In an interview with the New York Times, Suozzi added ‘that message from Tuesday is not the message that I embrace’.” (07/01/26)
“The Supreme Court ruling that upholds states’ rights to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls and women’ sports provoked wailing from the usual suspects. New York Attorney General Letitia James denounced what she called ‘cruel and discriminatory laws targeting the trans community’, and accused the court of deciding to continue on a ‘dangerous and harmful path’. Oh, please.” (06/30/26)
“Italy on Tuesday put on display one of the best known examples of Etruscan painting, panels from a tomb that it acquired for 15 million euros ($17 million) in the Culture Ministry’s buying spree of big-ticket pieces of the country’s cultural heritage. The ministry announced in May that it had acquired the fresco panels, dating from the 4th century, from members of the Torlonia family, one of Italy’s ancient noble families whose vast collection of antiquity has long been kept out of the public domain. The Francois Tomb was discovered in 1857 by the French archaeologist Alessandro Francois in Vulci, on land owned by the Torlonia family. The frescoes were detached from the necropolis in 1863 and became part of the Torlonia private collection, while the contents of the tomb were divided up among Francois, colleagues and the family.” (06/30/26)
“When Congress passed the Sherman Act in 1890, John Sherman told the Senate, ‘If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life’. The act intended to keep concentrated private power from becoming a sovereign authority unto itself. It lasted five years before the Supreme Court took it apart. In United States v. E.C. Knight (1895), the Court held that manufacturing was not commerce and therefore lay beyond the reach of federal antitrust law. The case concerned the American Sugar Refining Company, which by acquisition controlled more than 90 percent of the nation’s sugar refining capacity. The Court drew its commerce line precisely where the largest industrial concentration in the country sat, and the trust walked free.” (07/01/26)
“On the advent of America’s 250th anniversary, the conventional narrative is that our country is deeply divided. Typical takes on the state of disunity in the United States include this headline from a guest op-ed that recently appeared in USA Today, ‘America celebrated together at 200. We won’t at 250’, and ‘We still had a sense of oneness then. We no longer do’. In a related news article, the publication cited major national surveys that ‘consistently show an anxious nation’ and ‘a divisive president’. These observations aren’t wrong, but the divisions they cite (partisan politics, old vs. young, racial polarization, bitter disagreements over social issues) are missing the biggest source of alienation of all, which is diminished economic opportunity. Fully half of American households report living paycheck to paycheck.” (07/01/26)
“It was the deadliest reported strike in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, and most of the victims were children. Yet over four months since a U.S. missile struck an Iranian primary school, there is no final accounting of what happened. The Trump administration has not directly accepted the blame, though the military possessed evidence almost immediately that the site had been struck, a U.S. official with knowledge of the situation, speaking anonymously to discuss an ongoing investigation. told The Associated Press. Drawing from interviews with U.S. officials, human rights workers and Iranians in direct contact with rescuers and families of victims, the AP reconstructed the strike and its aftermath to reveal new details of what happened. Most requested anonymity for fear of retribution against them and their sources.” (07/01/26)
“A Wisconsin high school graduate is alleging religious discrimination after school officials barred her from including a Bible verse in a graduation ceremony slideshow due to the district’s neutrality policy. Sarianne Beronja, a 2026 graduate of Arrowhead High School in Waukesha County, said she submitted Proverbs 3:6 as her personal message to appear beside her photo in a slideshow playing during the commencement ceremony. The verse reads: ‘In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path’. Beronja said that less than 24 hours before the ceremony, an associate principal told her she could not use the verse because religious messages are prohibited. The student said school officials also told her she could not share an alternative message thanking God for being ‘beside me through these last four years’.” (07/01/26)
“This summer, a seismic wave ripped through the foundations of an ossified Democratic establishment as a swell of left-wing challengers channeled disgust at party elites to jolt the entire political system. On June 23, a slate of candidates emerged victorious with endorsements and support from the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani. They toppled longtime incumbents and added fuel to the economic populist electoral movement that has been sweeping the country. Union organizer Claire Valdez won a race for an open seat in New York’s 7th District, encompassing swaths of Brooklyn and Queens, by more than 20 points while community activist Darializa Avila Chevalier took out Adriano Espaillat in NY-13, in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, and former comptroller Brad Lander (endorsed by Mamdani but not DSA) beat out Rep. Dan Goldman in NY-10, in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, by more than 30 points.” (06/30/26)
