Source: American Greatness
by Stephen Soukup

“Years ago, when my oldest son was a Boy Scout, he was asked to write a report/make a presentation on a modern American ‘hero.’ He chose Elon Musk, and I, of course, rolled my eyes so hard they nearly popped out of my head. I knew Musk was a successful businessman, but I also knew that he was both an advocate for and a seasoned manipulator of Big Government. Tesla, for example, received a $465 million Department of Energy loan in 2010 under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, a Big Government scheme to encourage private companies to advance Big Government priorities (namely, fighting Climate Change by reducing carbon emissions). Likewise, Tesla was, at least at the time, commercially viable only because of the more than $1 billion ($7,500/vehicle) in federal EV tax credits claimed by its buyers.” (06/15/26)

https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/15/elon-musk-vs-the-democrats-outcomes-vs-process/

Source: USA Today
by Dace Potas

“Democrats have a nasty habit of criticizing President Donald Trump for the wrong reasons. They latch onto the most visceral thing he has done lately and let it crowd out more legitimate criticisms. The latest example is the renovation of the National Mall’s Reflecting Pool. Crews painted the bottom a deep blue, which Trump claimed would improve reflectivity – and by most accounts, it has. His opponents say otherwise. California Gov. Gavin Newsom insisted the project was a mess, the Democratic Party maintained it was ineffective, and the media sought out historians who spoke against the project. Trump is often difficult to attack precisely because there is so much noise. Democrats reach for the most trivial targets, and in doing so, the more important points can get lost. They should spend less time on the nonsense and more on what actually matters.” (06/15/26)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/06/15/trump-paint-lincoln-memorial-white-house-ballroom-criticism/90506951007/

Source: Law & Liberty
by Daniel L Dreisbach

“On June 12, 1776, Virginia’s Fifth Revolutionary Convention unanimously passed the Virginia Declaration of Rights. A trenchant, post-colonial statement affirming humankind’s inherent rights, limited government, and republican principles, the Declaration is arguably the nation’s most imitated founding document and a pillar of American founding principles. George Mason, the Declaration’s principal draftsman, boasted that it was the first of its kind on the American continent. It distilled the great principles of liberty and constitutionalism that revolutionary Americans believed were derived from England’s ancient constitution, common law, and natural rights theory.” (06/15/26)

https://lawliberty.org/the-virginia-declaration-of-rights-at-250/

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Joseph Solis-Mullen

“Perhaps fearful of abandonment, or of being treated as a mere ‘bargaining chip’ in negotiations with Beijing, Taiwan has worked diligently to ingratiate itself with President Donald Trump’s inner circle. Just last month, Taipei hired Checkmate Government Relations, a firm whose founder, Ches McDowell, enjoys close ties to Donald Trump Jr. and access to the president himself. The six-month contract is worth roughly $300,000. The move follows Taiwan’s 2025 decision to retain Ballard Partners, another well-connected Washington firm led by prominent Trump fundraiser Brian Ballard. Yet Taiwan’s influence operation is hardly confined to one party.” (06/15/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/taiwan-trump/

Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman

“Many people have compared our current era to the Gilded Age. But that analogy is deeply unfair to the Gilded Age. Like the robber barons of yore, today’s oligarchs are immensely wealthy — even wealthier, relative to the economy as a whole, than their predecessors. And extreme wealth corrupts our democracy. But the corruption is deeper and more destructive now than it was then: The mitigating factors that once put some brakes on the harm done by excessive wealth concentration are now mostly gone.” (06/15/26)

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/meet-the-new-bosses-worse-than-the