News of the Week for July 19th, 2026
- 2026 Election
- Abortion
- Gun Rights
- Hide the Decline
- Socialized Medicine
- War & Terror
- National News
- Economy & Taxes
- International News
- Opinion
2026 Election
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez fires campaign manager over finance filing inaccuracies
Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez has fired her campaign manager after discovering what her campaign described as serious mismanagement and inaccuracies in campaign finance filings.
Gov. Henry McMaster Chooses Lindsey Graham’s Sister Darline to Fill Seat
President Donald Trump recommended that McMaster pick Graham’s beloved sister Darline.
Democrats Far Outraising Republicans in Key Senate Races
“Strong fund-raising showings in the second quarter, combined with a dominant performance in the first quarter, mean that Democrats now hold a cash inflow advantage in all of the key Senate races except Iowa.”
Mace, Norman still eyeing Senate bids despite Trump snub
Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) are both still considering bids for the U.S. Senate despite President Trump endorsing Darline Graham Nordone for a full six-year term.
Abortion
Court Cases & Legislation
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche commits to ending abortion pills by mail
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche committed to ending abortion pills by mail during a Wednesday Senate hearing to confirm him as head of the Department of Justice.
Gun Rights
Appeals court strikes down New Jersey’s assault weapons ban, magazine limits
The 3rd Circuit opinion strikes at the heart of the state’s gun laws, among the most restrictive in the nation.
Second Amendment Roundup: Seventh Circuit Decides Barnett
After the Supreme Court grants cert on the identical issue, the circuit court offers a last hurrah
Hide the Decline
Environment &“Green Energy”
California’s Packaging Law: Fees, Nonprofits, and Higher Consumer Prices
17 states are suing over SB 54, which imposes “impact fees” that are collected by a “Producer Responsibility Organization” as part of the Newsom-Nonprofit Complex.
Socialized Medicine
Government in Healthcare
Bipartisan Call for Federal Oversight over Hospice Assisted Suicides
Assisted suicide legalization is bad medicine and even worse public policy. It abandons the sick, destroys human equality by creating a killable caste of people, and cheapens the intrinsic dignity of human life. Moreover, the supposed “strict safeguards” are neither strict — for example, relying on doctor self-reporting — nor particularly protective. Besides, as soon as the law goes into place, the safeguards are quickly redefined as “obstacles” to a good death and the process of loosening the law commences.
Trump Drops Shipping Transit Fee, Says Hormuz Strait ‘Open to All Except Iran’
President Trump: “Oil is flowing like never before, thanks to the awesome Power of the United States Military.”
France’s lower house of parliament adopts final text of right-to-die law
France’s National Assembly on Wednesday adopted a bill that will ?create a legal right to assisted dying for adults with incurable illnesses, ?capping ?years of intense ethical ?and political debate. French President Emmanuel Macron, who promised such a law during his re-election campaign, hailed lawmakers’ “respectful debate” on the issue following the vote.
War & Terror
Is Iran Trump’s ‘Forever War?’
America is “drifting into a new kind of forever war,” Georgetown University adjunct and senior fellow at the Stimson Center Kelly Grieco proposed over the weekend: “a forever air war.”
Iran-backed Houthis accuse Saudi Arabia of striking Yemen’s international airport
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen accused Saudi Arabia of carrying out airstrikes on Sanaa International Airport on Monday. The internationally recognized government in Yemen said the strikes were meant to prevent an Iranian plane from landing.
Strait talk
The Institute for the Study of War has posted its Iran Special Report Update (July 15) as of yesterday afternoon. It is a dry recitation indicating that the current hostilities continue.
Taiwan Is No Berlin – It’s More Important for US Deterrence
What is Taiwan to the United States? Is the security of that beleaguered island a peripheral issue for the US, in which the stakes would be too low to risk nuclear escalation in a fight with China? Or does the defense of Taiwan bear directly on the American way of life?
US Navy 2 years behind on hypersonic missile installation on Zumwalt destroyers
The U.S. Navy’s expensive effort to install hypersonic missiles on three Zumwalt-class destroyers is two years behind schedule, according to government auditors.
National
Trump administration tried to ‘manipulate the judicial process’ with its IRS settlement, judge says
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams said the lawsuit and settlement were pursued in “bad faith,” recommending disciplinary action against some of the president’s lawyers.
This California Town Voted Its Council Out of Office. They’re Refusing to Leave.
Avenal is in political crisis as four recalled officials, including the mayor, cling to control in one of the more unusual power struggles to hit the state
Federal Appeals Court Revives Over 500 Lawsuits Linking Prenatal Tylenol Use to Autism, ADHD
The appeals court’s ruling hinged on whether the plaintiffs’ scientific evidence was sufficiently credible and reliable.
Vance Goes Down the Epstein Rabbit Hole
You knew that when Vice President JD Vance appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast on Wednesday, the veep would make some news. You probably didn’t expect that Vance would lay out his theories about how notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein got away with his crimes and lament that all the evidence to affirm these theories has long since been destroyed. Elsewhere, a Democratic Socialist gubernatorial candidate chose to not pay her bills for a few decades.
William Shatner, 95, to Launch His Heavy Metal Band The *uckers with Debut Performance at Riot Fest
The ‘Star Trek’ icon will trade the final frontier for the mosh pit on Sept. 20
The New Washington Temptation: Inside Information and a Prediction Market Account
White House officials are grappling with how deeply political betting has worked itself into fabric of government
Short Circuit: An inexhaustive weekly compendium of rulings from the federal courts of appeal
Financial surveillance, impaired contracts, and games of gotcha.
Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate arrested in Miami, US Marshals Service tells AP
Influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, whose social media empire promoting wealth, male dominance and misogyny has made them among the world’s most polarizing internet personalities, were arrested Saturday in Miami as British authorities sought their extradition on rape and sex trafficking charges.
Scientists Just Discovered That Fog Is Alive
There’s an ocean of bacteria lurking in the mist outside your window.
Economy & Taxes
Tariff exemptions: Ford, Nestlé and others seek relief from proposed levies
Companies are urging the Trump administration to protect additional imports from potential Section 301 levies due to a lack of domestic availability.
This Is Still Not the Inflation Rate You Want in a Midterm Election Year
The latest inflation number is an improvement on paper but is unlikely to represent much of a change in Americans’ perception of the economy. The president . . . really wants to talk about the 2020 election. I offer a short rant in defense of “the Establishment” and against the idiotic swooning for outsiders because of their so-called “charisma.” And it’s time to throw some cold water on certain mainstream media institutions’ intense desire to believe that Hunter Biden is making some sort of comeback.
Trump’s Tariffs Have Been Particularly Costly for Small Businesses
The Federal Reserve reports that small businesses were less likely to be able to avoid tariff costs during 2025 and are more pessimistic about employment and revenue in 2026.
Tariffs are (still) taxes on Americans
One way to find out who pays tariffs is to look at who wants exemptions from them.
Top Treasury Tax Official Ousted After Clashes With White House Over IRS Audits
Kenneth Kies warned that political officials risked breaching a law that limits who can influence tax enforcement
International
Giorgia Meloni Emerges as a Champion for Western Unity
No Western leader understands and embraces our cultural inheritance more fully than the Italian prime minister.
E.U. tells Caribbean nations: Stop selling citizenship or we’ll require visas
The bloc is giving five nations two years to phase out citizenship by investment or lose visa-free travel to the 29-country Schengen area.
Andy Burnham, Prime Minister (Very Soon)
Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester, has become the Labour Party’s new leader and is set to become Britain’s prime minister on Monday. A fierce critic of whatever “neoliberalism” is meant to be, he says that “we must recognize that this generation of politicians, myself included, have failed to challenge a political culture and an economic model that simply doesn’t work well enough for ordinary people.”
The new oligarchs of El Salvador: How Bukele’s inner circle got rich
As the presidential family expands its real estate empire, lax fiscal controls and suspect loans open the way for a new club of millionaires in the Central American country
Opinion
Small Inventors Are Being Squeezed by a Convoluted Patent Process
Nearly a year after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office proposed reforms to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), patent-rights defenders are still waiting for the agency to act on changes they say are necessary to restore the patent-review system to its original purpose.
Lindsey Graham Gets the Last Laugh
Just as Americans were prepared to receive bad news about the hospitalized Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell . . . the shocking news arrived that South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham had suddenly died, reportedly from “an aortic dissection, in which a tear occurs in the inner layer of the main artery.” (Considering the enemies Graham had, and the propensity of certain hostile regimes to use poison in assassinations, it’s understandable to have suspicions, but so far no evidence points in that direction.) This morning, a wide-ranging collection of appreciations for Graham and his legacy; meanwhile, one of my distinguished colleagues has developed . . . the pro-life Kardashian beat.
The Comfort of the Grand Conspiracy
Lindsey Graham died Saturday night. His office says it was a brief and sudden illness. He was seventy-one, he had just come home from his tenth wartime trip to Ukraine, and he was scheduled to sit for Meet the Press on Sunday morning. He was, for a generation, the Senate’s most relentless hawk on Iran—so relentless that Tehran’s state media took the occasion of his death to celebrate.
Africa’s Hypocritical Reparations Demand
The historical record on slavery implicates nations far beyond the West.
Trump Decrees Illegal Toll on Hormuz Strait Transit
On his private Truth Social platform (where else), the president of the United States has announced a new government policy: American armed forces will henceforth ensure the safe transit of trade vessels through the Hormuz Strait, but, as a matter of “fairness,” our government will compel shippers to pay the U.S. a toll of 20 percent of the value of their cargo.
The era of ‘civilization-states’ is here. It’s up to the world’s middle powers to respond
Beware when the world’s most powerful leaders talk of “civilization.” Their abuse of the term could spawn a new international order.
Does JD Vance Think Trump Is an Agent of Foreign Influence?
Typically, an embattled administration looking to shore up support within what it views as influential elements of its base will dispatch its principals on goodwill tours designed to convince skeptics to support the administration’s policies. In JD Vance’s interview with Joe Rogan, however, the vice president lobbied the podcaster on his own behalf, not Donald Trump’s.
Say It Isn’t So, Mr. President
I admit it. I am an egghead. I am a product of the same elite cultural milieu from which come most of Trump’s most vehement critics.
Trump Doesn’t Have the Stomach for This
The president should spare the country another protracted humiliation in Iran and rip the Band-Aid off now.
Drain the Swamp, Don’t Recycle the Water for Our Side
The problem with the swamp was never that it broke a law. It was that it broke our trust.
What JD Vance Said on Rogan Should Worry Conservatives
he Vice President sits down with Joe Rogan, and unspools a series of contentions on free markets, foreign policy, and conspiracies that have me…concerned; we discuss what the VP’s 2028 strategy actually is; and we examine just why conservatives need a candidate who rejects Left-wing positions and can win.
Trump Sure Doesn’t Act Like China Created an ‘Election Security Nightmare’
I don’t know how many Americans still take the president seriously, or whether they see him addressing the country from the Oval Office, offering an extremely familiar rant about stolen elections, and just tune him out and focus on summer vacations, baseball, and arguing about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey movie. (Spoiler alert for the post-credit scene revealed here.) You can argue that if the president was taking his arguments seriously, the evidence for all the foreign interference would be laid out clearly on a website with as few redactions as possible. You can also argue that if the president believed what he said last night, our foreign policy toward China and Xi Jinping would look dramatically different. But let’s be generous to the president and take his arguments seriously.
The Progressive Right is as Indecent as the Progressive Left
Amy Coney Barrett sat before the House and did something that should have been unremarkable. She told the truth about what it costs to serve. She described sending her twelve-year-old son out of a doorway after her security detail handed her a bulletproof vest around the time of the Dobbs leak. She described a teenage son opening the front door to a street full of police cars after a swatting call reported gunshots inside their home. She described the anonymous deliveries sent in the name of Judge Salas’s murdered son, a twenty-year-old who took the bullet meant for his mother. And she said what all nine justices believe, left and right, unanimously: the threat level against the Court is real, it has grown worse, and the justices need more security to keep doing their jobs without fear or favor.
The JD Vance Experience
Vice President JD Vance recently made waves during a wide-ranging interview on The Joe Rogan Experience. But Noah, on today’s edition of The Editors, is especially concerned by his stance on Israel.
