“This Fourth of July matters more than most for three reasons. First, it is the historic 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration is the most radical political document ever written. It challenged millennia of thought about monarchs having rights and commoners being mere subjects, peasants or even slaves. Suddenly, people on the edge of a continent decided that they would challenge the entire system that dominated their world. Kings, czars and emperors were put on notice that power did not come from them; it came from God. The single phrase, ‘We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’, enunciated a transfer of authority and power from the head of government to the citizen.” (07/04/26)
“The history of the government of the United States in this century, especially under this president, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all tending to the establishment of a corporate despotism over the American people. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. On repeated occasions, the current government has manipulated elections from which officials have assumed their offices. A government whose character is thus marked by actions that exhibit such arrogance is unfit to be the government of a free people. Its current president has allowed his subordinates to suggest a postponement of the constitutionally required date of a presidential election, a step unprecedented in United States history, even in times of war and civil rebellion. While doing so, he has suggested that no further national elections will be necessary.” [editor’s note: This began with a paraphrase of the actual D of I, and went downhill into this partisan from there – SAT](07/04/26)
“America’s educational system has clearly failed, judging by the recent comments of 29-year-old lawyer Melat Kiros, who just won a Democratic primary in Colorado and is now a sure bet for Congress. And if we fail to fix that system (and to dispel young folks of the absurd notion that America and Israel are, essentially, the root of all the world’s problems) the nation faces a rocky road ahead for sure. Kiros, a member of the radical Democratic Socialists of America, just dethroned Rep. Diana DeGette (D), despite (or maybe because of) her repugnant assertions. She has claimed, for example, that 9/11 was ‘inevitable’ because the United States ‘destabilized a lot of the Middle East’, which convinced people that ‘violence was the only response’.” [editor’s note: Is it significant or just ironic that Dr. Ron Paul said almost the same thing when the plane attacks happened, yet this is now considered leftist ravings? – SAT] (07/04/26)
“While Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemed to maintain a low profile while the Iran war’s violence was at its apex, content to focus on projects closer to his heart in the Americas, he has now re-emerged at the helm of Israel-Lebanon diplomacy. That diplomacy has produced an agreement that is roiling Lebanese society, perceived as a functional surrender to the ongoing Israeli occupation. Many commentators were impressed by Vice President JD Vance’s candid rebukes of Israeli excesses, but Rubio’s Lebanon track demonstrates how the pro-Israel wing of the White House is reasserting itself, peace with Iran be damned. The Lebanon front may receive far less media attention than the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and its economic fallout, but it has been no less central to the helter-skelter effort to end Trump and Netanyahu’s war.” (07/03/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“As self-styled ‘democratic socialists’ make some advancements in blue states, Republicans have launched a renewed fearmongering campaign about the urgent threat of ‘communism’ — an ideology with no meaningful political existence in the United States. At a speech on Wednesday, President Trump said that ‘communism is the greatest threat to our country’ and would lead to ‘the ultimate annihilation of civilization’. This is just the latest in a string of rhetoric from the president as he tries to drum up fear about progressive Democrats to prevent massive losses in the midterms. Democratic socialist politicians are still a small minority in US politics, and conflating them with communists is absurd. Communism seeks the complete dismantling of capitalism and the imperialist world order it holds in place at gunpoint, while western ‘democratic socialists’ typically just seek a gentler, more photogenic capitalist empire where things like healthcare and public transportation are funded by taxes.” (07/02/26)
“In an era of information overload, genuinely fresh news and concepts can occasionally get obscured by the ‘slop’. But eventually, thought-expanding data and perspectives rise to the surface and into wider public attention. This appears to be the case with a Yale University study on aging in America published in an academic journal in early March. The findings of ‘Aging Redefined’, now being reported in mainstream media, defy – and can help redefine – long-held and limiting views about the United States’ older demographic. Collecting data on some 11,000 participants over a 12-year period, the researchers found that nearly half of American adults age 65 or older became physically stronger, mentally more acute, or both. ‘If this finding was extrapolated to the entire US population, it would suggest that more than 26 million older persons are experiencing [such] improvement,’ the study’s authors noted.” (07/01/26)
“The Trump administration concluded a recent mineral deal with Kazakhstan that, not surprisingly, enriches not only President Donald Trump’s own family but that of his secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick. Trump’s two eldest sons, part owners of Dominari Securities, are set to profit from the Kazakh tungsten deal. So is Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment firm run by Lutnick’s two sons. As The New York Times pointed out in its investigation of the scheme, ‘Their sons were soon doing business with partners in a deal that their fathers were negotiating, continuing a pattern of self-enrichment in the second Trump administration that has few precedents in American history.’ The phrases (‘self-enrichment’ and ‘few precedents’) are interesting ways of characterizing this latest instance of the administration’s corruption. Isn’t self-enrichment a good thing, in the sense of profiting from your own hard work?” (07/01/26)
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
by Michael Waldman
“How will we remember this Supreme Court term? For Louisiana v. Callais, which demolished the 1965 Voting Rights Act. For near misses, too, as when the Constitution’s plain-language guarantee of birthright citizenship was recognized by only a bare majority of the justices. (As JD Vance crowed, that core protection is now ‘hanging by a thread’.) I think the term may be remembered most as a time when the supermajority of very conservative, very pro-business justices bent the shape of American government. It was a power grab in legal garb, undermining Congress, granting presidents more authority, but with key decisions ultimately in the hands of the nine unelected officials now redesigning government. In 2005, The New York Times Magazine published a story about a cadre of intense anti-government legal activists. They bemoaned ‘the Constitution in exile’, what they saw as an epic wrong turn in the 20th century.” (07/02/26)
“While it is difficult to generalize, many current and would-be socialist officeholders share several common traits. Most of them represent a relatively small slice of American life. Almost all are urban, with little knowledge of small-town or rural existence. Their world is subways, buses, high-rises, Uber, taxis, and proximity to corporate, academic, and financial institutions—yet often with little understanding of where their food, fuel, water, or everyday goods originate, or where their waste and sewage ultimately go. Their worldview is shaped more by consumption than production, as though goods simply arrive in and depart from cities on autopilot. A disproportionate number of our most prominent radicals are either first- or second-generation immigrants, most originating from failed or illiberal states in what was once called the Third World. They or their parents left their homelands in search of wealthier countries, fairer societies, greater opportunity, and, in many cases, safety and freedom.” (07/02/26)
“For a quarter century, Jane Calvert has been on a mission shared by few scholars of the Revolutionary War era. She has championed a founder mostly remembered, when remembered at all, as the man who wouldn’t sign the Declaration of Independence — the lawyer and statesman John Dickinson. ‘It has been a constant struggle’, says Calvert, a former associate professor at the University of Kentucky who has written often about Dickinson and is the founder of the John Dickinson Writings Project, which aims to make his works widely available. For much of the country, the 250th anniversary of independence on Saturday is a time for celebrating and debating the country’s birth. But for Calvert and others, it’s also a moment to challenge the lingering image of a man who at times has been ignored, ridiculed or literally cast aside.” (07/02/26)
