Source: Washington Post
by Gonzalo Schwarz
“As America turns 250 years old, many people say the American Dream is at risk. Last month, an Associated Press-NORC poll found that only one-third of Americans believe the American Dream still exists. A CNBC poll the same month found that a majority of people consider the American Dream out of reach. But most public polling captures what people believe about the accessibility of the American Dream for others. In their own life, they are far more optimistic.” (07/02/26)
https://archive.is/qhiQX
Source: EconLog
by Hans Eicholz
“Yes, Thomas Jefferson had read Smith, but before 1776, he could only have read The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and he read it for much the same reason he read all the other Scottish theorists of his day: Because each, in his own way, had illuminated reasons for confidence in the ability of individuals to exercise personal and political self-government. In other words, each had argued that by either convention (e.g. Hume) or nature (e.g. Kames), human beings were apt to use their individual liberty in ways that promoted a prosperous and orderly society, uncoerced by princes or prelates.” (07/02/26)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/1776-and-all-that
Source: SFGate
“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)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/the-declaration-s-forgotten-non-signer-john-22329690.php
Source: CNN
“The Vatican announced Thursday that priests and members of a breakaway Catholic group that ordained four new bishops in defiance of Pope Leo XIV’s wishes are in schism and excommunicated. The Society of Saint Pius X, an ultra-traditionalist group, went ahead with the ordinations on Wednesday without papal approval and despite appeals from Leo to reverse the decision. In response, the Vatican’s doctrinal office on Thursday published a decree saying that the four bishops are excommunicated, along with the two bishops who participated in the ordination ceremony. Excommunication means they are excluded from the sacraments of the church. It added in an explanatory note that priests belonging to the society and lay members who ‘formally adhere’ to the group are also in schism and excommunicated.” (07/02/26)
https://archive.is/3KS6i
Source: Underthrow
“Why Every Empire Dies After 250 Years. Is America Next?” (07/02/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkPafdv2TJc
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Charles A Kupchan
“Internationalists are once more doing battle with America Firsters, cleaving the body politic between two incompatible approaches to global affairs.” (07/02/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/america-first-foreign-policy/
Source: Common Dreams
by Paul Rogat Loeb
“After musician after musician pulled out from President Donald Trump’s ‘Freedom 250’ concert, he was left with Lee Greenwood, an opera tenor, a couple of military bands, and Kash Patel’s girlfriend. The anthem that made Greenwood a star, ‘God Bless the USA,’ was written in 1985 during the height of the Cold War. It begins with the specter of loss: ‘If tomorrow, all the things were gone, I’d worked for all my life/ And I had to start all over with my children and my wife . Then the wounds disappear before they’re felt: ‘I’d thank my lucky stars to be living here today/ Because the flag still stands for freedom and they can’t take that away’. Ronald Reagan made the song his campaign theme while launching a new age of American inequality by systematically busting unions and cutting taxes for the wealthiest.” (07/02/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/hollow-song-for-hollow-president
Source: CBS News
“Three members of a four-person MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter crew were rescued at sea after an ’emergency water landing’ in the Arabian Sea early Wednesday morning, according to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. A search continues for the fourth and final crew member. There is ‘no indication’ the helicopter was shot down by hostile action, the military said. The helicopter is assigned to the USS George H.W. Bush.” (07/01/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-helicopter-goes-down-in-arabian-sea-crew-member-missing-navy-says/
Source: Show-Me Institute
“The Case for an Education Outsider in Missouri with Andy Smarick.” (07/02/26)
ider-in-missouri-with-andy-smarick/
Source: New York Times
“A Quiet Surge in ICE Arrests, and Trump’s First Flight on Plane Given by Qatar.” (07/02/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPZ05amCl-0
