Source: The American Conservative
by Spencer Neale
“Against the wishes of his doctors, Rep. Tom Kean (R-NJ) returned to Congress on Tuesday, his first appearance there in more than 100 days. Addressing the House floor, Kean began by noting that he is a ‘private person’ before explaining his multi-month absence from his duties in Washington, DC. ‘Several months ago, due to health concerns, I entered the hospital for some testing,’ said the 57-year-old Kean. ‘I was given the diagnosis of depression.’ It was a stark admission for a politician whose critics have long questioned his absence but were met with silence. Though depression is not disqualifying in and of itself, the lack of transparency from a person who was elected to provide it is worrying. Furthermore, if a disability keeps you off the job for four months …. then the job likely isn’t compatible with the disability Kean is currently navigating.” (07/06/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-tom-kean-question/
Source: The Daily Economy
by Nicolas Cachanosky
“Monetary policy deserves insulation from politics, but regulation and emergency lending powers may not. Can Congress and the Courts differentiate?” (07/06/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-fed-needs-independence-not-immunity/
Source: New York Times
“The Israeli government threatened on Sunday to disregard an order by Israel’s highest court, escalating a long-running clash between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a judiciary whose authority he has vowed to weaken. … On Sunday, the members of Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet passed a resolution attacking the court over a decision issued last month in a case involving Israel’s broadcast regulator. In apparent defiance of the decision, they said they would not recognize actions taken by the regulator for the time being and would use ‘every legal means’ to annul it. … At the heart of the latest legal dispute is Israel’s broadcast regulator, known as the Second Authority. The agency is still staffed by a board of commissioners from the previous government, which was run by Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents.” (07/05/26)
https://archive.is/sClm9
Source: Liberal Currents
“Samantha and guest Allyson Shortle, professor at the University of Oklahoma, talk about the current state and long history of the movement which forms the hard core of Donald Trump’s support: Christian Nationalism.” (07/05/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-power-of-christian-nationalism-neon-liberalism-81-with-allyson-shortle/
Source: Libertarian Institute
by José Niño
“A state that invades the same neighbor across eight decades, covets its water and land, punishes its civilians as a matter of doctrine, and then defies its own superpower sponsor is not behaving like a normal nation. It is behaving like a rogue one. Washington has spent those decades underwriting the behavior, supplying the aircraft, bombs, and diplomatic cover that make each new occupation possible. The honest response to a partner that treats American requests as optional is to stop financing and eventually break ties with it. The United States should end military aid to Israel and begin economically decoupling from it, and the wider international community should treat a serial occupier the way it treats other states that seize territory by force, with isolation rather than embrace.” (07/06/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/washington-must-stop-arming-a-serial-occupier
Source: Town Hall
by Derek Hunter
“As someone born in Michigan, and whose family all still live there, you never really fully leave your home state, even when you live somewhere else. As such, I’ve been watching the Senate race there with keen interest. I have to wonder: are Democrats about to nominate a terrorist sympathizing anti-Semite? I know that doesn’t really narrow the field much when dealing with Democrats, as this seems to be about half their candidates these days. But in this case I’m thinking of Abdul El-Sayed. Abdul is allegedly a doctor, though I’m not sure he’s ever really practiced medicine, or at least that much. He’s mostly been a left-wing bureaucrat for Democrats – a diversity box-checker who happily will do whatever the ‘progressive’ wing of the party demands. Like most people in that basket, he would’ve made a great Nazi – following orders without question.” (07/06/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2026/07/06/are-michigan-democrats-about-to-nominate-a-monster-for-senate-n2678832
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“The Indian government has directed Meta to immediately disable advertisements and content on Instagram that promote or facilitate child sexual abuse material, a senior official said. It comes after a BBC Eye investigation found that Instagram has been running paid adverts promoting child sexual abuse material in India, some of which linked users to Telegram channels where the material was offered for sale. The government has also sought an explanation within a week on how advertisements containing such material were allowed on the platform, the official said. Meta has said it has a zero-tolerance policy on child sexual abuse material and is continuing to strengthen its detection and defences. Telegram said it had removed more than 274,000 groups and channels related to child sexual abuse material in 2026.” (07/06/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cql11969g2qo
Source: LP Alliance
“LNC Monthly Meeting.” (07/06/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf2L5iyaH3I
Source: Antiwar.com
by M Reza Behnam
“The 250th anniversary of American independence is fundamentally incompatible with a foreign policy defined by overwhelming civilian casualties and global devastation. As the United States commemorates its semiquincentennial with celebratory pageantry, this milestone forces a reckoning. How can a nation built on the promise of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ justify its role in upending and extinguishing millions of lives across the Middle East?” (07/06/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/reza_behnam/2026/07/05/the-united-states-at-250-an-ode-or-goad/
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Sometimes, the confluence of disparate events unexpectedly illuminates ideas and ideals that have universal and enduring resonance. Three occasions that come to mind this July Fourth, fittingly, revolve around the essential nature of Americanness, of what it is to be American: the weekend celebrations of 250 years of independence, the Supreme Court ruling this week on birthright citizenship, and the annual recognition of ‘Great Immigrants, Great Americans’. The thread of citizen rights and responsibilities weaves through each of these, uniting evolving conceptions of freedom, self-government, and individual achievement from the nation’s past through to its present. In their 1776 Declaration of Independence from British rule, the Founding Fathers claimed for all future Americans the ‘unalienable Rights’ of ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’. In Tuesday’s court ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts affirmed that all individuals born on U.S. soil have a constitutional right to citizenship, which he described as ‘the right to have rights – to freely participate in our political community’.” (07/04/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0704/The-principle-of-Americanness
