News of the Week for July 6th, 2025
- Abortion
- Gun Rights
- Hide the Decline
- Socialized Medicine
- War & Terror
- National News
- Economy & Taxes
- International News
- Opinion
Abortion
Court Cases & Legislation
Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority strikes down 176-year-old abortion ban
The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority struck down the state’s 176-year-old abortion ban on Wednesday, ruling 4-3 that it was superseded by newer state laws regulating the procedure, including statutes that criminalize abortions only after a fetus can survive outside the womb.
Gun Rights
Obama-Appointed Judge Delivers Second Amendment Win
A District Court judge ruled on Tuesday that California should allow non-residents to apply for concealed carry weapons (CCWs) licenses.
Hide the Decline
Environment &“Green Energy”
A megabill mystery: New solar and wind tax comes as a surprise to Republican senators
“I don’t know where it came from,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chairman of the Budget Committee, told NBC News after he released the 940-page legislation.
Socialized Medicine
Government in Healthcare
US Weighs Defunding Hospitals Doing Sex Changes on Minors
President Donald Trump’s administration is weighing cutting off funds to hospitals that it says provide gender-related treatments for children and teenagers, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Dem Makes Bombshell Claim About Hegseth’s Excuse for Slashing Ukraine Aid
A Democratic congressman has rejected the Pentagon’s claims that it halted shipments of U.S. military weapons and munitions to Ukraine over concerns about dwindling American stockpiles.
War & Terror
Women can be drafted into the Danish military as Russian aggression and military investment grow
Peering across a dense stretch of woodland outside of Denmark’s capital with camouflage paint smeared across her face, 20-year-old Katrine scans the horizon for approaching threats.
IAEA: Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities ‘Have Been Destroyed to an Important Degree’
On the menu today: Believe it or not, we’re almost halfway through the year. The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency tells Face the Nation that the U.S. attack inflicted “a very serious level of damage” on the Iranian nuclear program. Meanwhile, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson runs a clinic on how to not win friends and influence people. Elsewhere, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard continues to not get invited to the sorts of events you would think she would attend. And an update on what I’ve done in the past week. Read on.
Who’s Blowing Up Oil Tankers That Carried Russian Oil?
The publication Maritime Executive reports, “a Greek-managed crude tanker has suffered an explosion at a position off the coast of Libya, according to maritime security consultancy Vanguard.”
Chinese military-tied company appears to be choosing new hires at Ford battery plant company
The Chinese military affiliated battery manufacturer CATL appears to be in charge of hiring for roles at the Ford plant that executives said would be wholly owned and operated by the American company.
Explosion Reported on Crude Tanker Off the Coast of Libya
A Greek-managed crude tanker has suffered an explosion at a position off the coast of Libya, according to maritime security consultancy Vanguard.
Europe is building a new ‘Iron Curtain’– with millions of landmines
With the threat of Russia on their doorstep, five nations are bolstering their defences by turning to a tactic the world tried to ban
What is Putin doing in space? Secretive Russian ‘killer satellite’ detected launching mystery probe near US spacecraft
Russians last year launched a terrifying weapon system into space capable of killing other satellites
China’s Huawei must face US criminal charges, judge rules
A U.S. judge on Tuesday rejected Huawei Technologies’ bid to dismiss most of a federal indictment accusing the Chinese telecommunications company of trying to steal technology secrets from U.S. rivals, and misleading banks about its work in Iran.
Inside the Dysfunction at Rubio’s Shrunken National Security Council
In Cutting Off Ukraine, Trump Discredits the Message He Sent with the Iran Strikes
In the hours that followed U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear targets, the president’s critics devoted themselves to arguing that the attacks had been a tactical failure. Of course, they limited themselves to arguing tactics — whether the strikes could have been marginally more effective given the right intelligence, targeting information, ordnance — because claiming that the operation was a strategic failure would have been a hard sell.
Prepare for Cuba regime change
U.S. officials fear regime change. They dread instability and the unknown. In reality, naysayers are seldom right. Post-World War II Germany and Japan show that regime change can work. The problem in Afghanistan and Iraq was less regime change than misguided nation-building and wishful blindness to Iranian and Pakistani interference. Regardless, today, Iraq is not the failed state many Americans assume; it has a booming economy and youthful energy, even if it has a Wild West-meets-1930s Chicago vibe. The verdict is not yet in on Syria as Ahmad al-Sharaa’s sectarian vigilantism and his family’s monopolization of the economy suggest he is little more than a Sunni version of Bashar Assad.
Trump Stiffs Ukraine on Arms
The decision means more death and more Russian gains.
Defense Tech: Star Nudges
The increasing militarization of space is hardly news by now (or at least it should not be). Nevertheless this story from Fast Company’s Jesus Diaz is a reminder of the speed at which it is progressing and makes grim reading despite a fairly lighthearted beginning
Hegseth halted weapons for Ukraine despite military analysis that the aid wouldn’t jeopardize U.S. readiness
The move blindsided the State Department, Ukraine, European allies and members of Congress, who demanded an explanation from the Pentagon.
National
Bettors back Donald Trump to run again, win 2028 presidential election
President Donald Trump’s 2028 election betting odds improved this week after he launched airstrikes against Iran and subsequently saw a U.S. military base attacked by Iran, then announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.
Cartel Fighters Make a Desperate Alliance That Could Transform Underworld
The Sinaloa Cartel, the world’s most-feared fentanyl trafficker, is reeling from an internal war and a U.S.-Mexican crackdown. Its fate could upend global criminal networks.
Notorious cartel hired hacker to use surveillance cameras, phone data to track and kill FBI informants, U.S. says
A notorious drug cartel enlisted a hacker who was able to infiltrate phone data and Mexico City’s surveillance cameras to help track and kill FBI informants, the U.S. Justice Department has revealed.
Musk Associate Warns Trump: Elon Never Forgets
One Elon Musk associate said he expects the Tesla and SpaceX CEO to “do everything to damage” President Donald Trump following the two men’s public fallout.
White House eyes Kentucky state senator for Massie challenge
Reed, a former Navy SEAL, was first elected to the Kentucky state house last year.
Blackburn and Cruz reach AI pause deal
Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz and Sen. Marsha Blackburn have reached an agreement on a watered down AI moratorium.
Sound Familiar? Democrats Lay Groundwork for a ‘Project 2029’
The plan to write a policy agenda for the next Democratic president is at the center of a raging debate within the party: whether its biggest problem is its ideas or its difficulty in selling them.
Binghamton archaeologist calls for ‘explicitly queer science’
Says ‘heteronormative interpretations’ hinder science
Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations
A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirements, experts say.
Geoff Duncan weighs whether to run for Georgia governor – as a Democrat
Former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan is weighing a run for higher office as a Democrat. But is the party ready for him?
Interstellar visitor spotted hurtling through the solar system
An object thought to have come from another star has been seen entering the solar system at high speed, and is expected to whip around the sun in the coming months
Pastor sexually assaulted woman, saying he was ‘exorcising her demons’
Walter Masocha — known to parishioners as ‘Daddy’ — was found guilty of the attempted rape of one woman and the sexual assault of another
Utah man wrongfully detained by ICE for nearly 50 days, attorney says
A Utah man is speaking out after spending nearly 50 days in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Texas, despite being a lawful U.S. resident. His attorney says the federal government got it wrong — and taxpayers footed the bill.
US citizen seeks $1 million after arrest, detention for recording immigration raid
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) said Wednesday they were preparing to initiate a $1 million lawsuit on behalf of a U.S. citizen detained in Los Angeles after recording a raid at a local Home Depot store.
Trump ignored GOP warnings to gamble on a politically risky bill
In the president’s eagerness to score a win and extend tax cuts, he walked away from a key campaign promise on Medicaid.
Meet the influencers who say drinking bleach is a miracle cure-all
The ‘bleacher movement’ claims chlorine dioxide can remedy everything from measles to cancer, HIV and autism. Scientists disagree
Trump DOJ Drops Cases Against Top MS-13 Leaders
The deal with Bukele comes with significant strings attached, it turns out.
Elon Musk Blasts ‘Fat, Drunken Slob’ Steve Bannon: ‘Will Go Back To Prison and This Time for a Long Time’
Elon Musk and Steve Bannon’s public feuding shows no signs of slowing down with Musk once again calling for Bannon to be thrown in prison.
Today in Supreme Court History: July 4, 1776
Declaration of Independence is signed.
Short Circuit: An inexhaustive weekly compendium of rulings from the federal courts of appeal
Federal enclaves, false alarms, and pseudonymous lawsuits.
MAGA Congressional Candidate Calls Texas Floods ‘Fake’: It’s Murder
A MAGA congressional candidate is facing backlash after spreading conspiracy theories about the deadly flash floods in Texas and calling them “fake.”
Vegetarians Crave Power And Success More Than Meat Eaters Do, Study Finds
A surprising new study is turning our most basic assumptions about people who choose plant-based diets upside down. It turns out that vegetarians might actually be more power-hungry, achievement-oriented, and individualistic than their meat-eating counterparts.
Economy & Taxes
Trump trade whiplash sends investors abroad
President Trump’s flip-flop on trade with Canada last Friday is the type of policy volatility foundational to the Sell America trade, which is still driving gains in markets outside of the U.S
A Real Affordability Agenda
Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani says his agenda is about lower costs and affordability. It’s going to be hard to reduce prices without knowing what prices are.
The Republican shell game on tax cuts
Expiring tax cuts are yesterday’s news for deficit scorekeepers, but an exciting new policy in campaign pitches.
Josh Hawley, Friend of a Friend of the Working Man
His mistake is thinking that the way to win over working-class voters is by supporting policies favored by union leaders.
The ‘Too Big to Fail’ Beautiful Bill
It was clear from the House elections of 2024 that if Republicans wanted to get a big tax bill through Congress in 2025, they were going to have to play ball with blue-state House members and raise the deduction for state and local taxes from $10,000.
The Mother of All Fiscal Cliffs
We fall off it in 2025, and people aren’t worried enough
Trump Said Trade Deals Would Come Easy. Japan Is Proving Him Wrong.
Difficult talks with many nations cast doubt on next week’s deadline; ‘We can do whatever we want,’ Trump said.
The Senators’ Generational Choices
Some other changes the Senate made to the budget bill haven’t yet been noted here.
How Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ could impact gamblers
A Nevada lawmaker and a downtown Las Vegas casino owner are among those united in opposition to a provision in the proposed federal budget bill that would limit declarable losses for gamblers.
Gamblers Raise Alarm Over $1.1 Billion Tax Hike in Trump’s Bill
Gamblers are raising the alarm about a $1.1 billion tax hike buried in the Senate GOP’s tax bill that would slash their net winnings and potentially charge income tax when they break even or lose money.
GOP megabill littered with special tax breaks
GOP lawmakers said the provisions provided needed economic relief for some industries, while they took fire from deficit hawks.
International
China Steals Language and Home Life From Tibetan Kids as Young as 4
Beijing is building a broad network of preschools across Tibetan areas, seeking to inculcate loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party early in life
Manga doomsday prediction spooks tourists to Japan
Viral rumours of impending disaster stemming from a comic book prediction have taken the sheen off Japan’s tourism boom, with some airlines cancelling flights from Hong Kong where passengers numbers have plunged.
Massive Rent-Seeking in India’s Government Job Examination System
In India, government jobs pay far more than equivalent jobs in the private sector–so much so that the entire labor market and educational system have become grossly distorted by rent seeking to obtain these jobs. Teachers in the public sector, for example, are paid at least five times more than in the private sector. It’s not just the salary. When accounting for lifetime tenure, generous perks, and potentially remunerative possibilities for corruption, a government job’s total value can be up to 10 times that of an equivalent private sector job.
Opinion
The Road to Smurfdom
The greatness of man vs. the greatness of his manner.
The Big Beautiful Bill Is the End of the Trump Coalition
The Big Beautiful Bill has two features that are common to these “must pass” mega-bills that now dominate our Congress’s way of doing things.
The Obergefell Decision Has Harmed Marriage
Ten years ago last Thursday, the Supreme Court, in its 5–4 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, legalized gay marriage. Though the campaign for gay marriage was to a considerable extent elite-driven, it owed at least some of its popular success to arguments, such as those advanced by Andrew Sullivan starting in 1989, that gay marriage could be a bourgeois, even a small-c conservative thing.
Bacon and Carolina BBQ: Breaking Down Two Key Republican Retirements
Over the past few days, there have been a couple of important Republican congressional retirements: Rep. Don Bacon (R, NE-2) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC). Democrats are now favored to flip NE-2, which profiles as a difficult seat for the presidential party to hold in a midterm as an open seat. North Carolina’s Senate race remains rated as a Toss-up, but the Tillis retirement naturally makes the race more fluid.
Most Vulnerable Senate Seat Just Became a Lot More Vulnerable
On Sunday afternoon, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis announced that he would no longer seek reelection to the seat that he has held since 2014. In so doing the Senate seat most vulnerable to flipping to the other side became even harder for Republicans to hold. (The next two seats are Democratic-held Georgia and Republican-held Maine, followed by a rather precipitous drop-off to the next tier of seats.)
Even Presidents Have to Obey the Law
There are a bunch of times when the shrieking about an imperial presidency is overwrought, but in a couple of cases since taking office, President Trump has simply ignored the law. This never works out well for him, and he’s supposed to have a White House counsel’s office making sure that the administration follows the law.
Next Time, Get Your Facts Straight
Sean Davis invented a false history of my writings in order to smear me.
Congress Doesn’t Have to Work This Way
The reason the process has worked this way is that Republicans have exceedingly narrow congressional majorities but have chosen to pursue this bill — their only significant legislative objective in this Congress and perhaps in all of Trump’s second term — on a pure party-line vote.
Washington has crushed Trump’s Maga revolution
The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ is politics-as-usual reasserting itself, a Congressional mess Americans are all too familiar with
Remembering Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg is the great pivot on which American history turns. At Gettysburg, in July 1863, the Army of the Potomac under George Meade stopped Robert E. Lee’s invasion of the North. If the battle had gone the other way, as it very nearly did, Lee would have marched on some combination of Washington, New York and Philadelphia, England would have recognized the Confederacy, and the Union would likely have had to sue for peace, with disunion the result. While counterfactual history is rarely certain, those things seem highly probable. And it should be remembered that going into the battle, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was widely regarded as invincible.
On JD Vance, Restraint, and Reflexive Anti-Interventionism
A conservative American foreign policy is not one based on illusions or reflexive hostility to the use of power.
The Importance of the Fourth of July, According to John Quincy Adams
It is an occasion for American citizens to deepen their understanding of their independence and the principles of the republic.
The Meaning of the 4th, in Three Paragraphs
July 4th is Independence Day. It was also the day Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia evacuated the field at Gettysburg in 1863. Fought over four days in south-central Pennsylvania, the battle decided the fate of the American Civil War; it was Lee’s desperate attempt to secure a politically negotiated peace to the war by striking successfully at the heart of Union territory. Retrospective accounts sometimes depict the North’s victory in the Civil War as the inevitable product of numbers and manufacturing capacity; to do so is to forget the politics of 1863, after years of humiliating Confederate victories against the Union in the east had sapped the will to fight in many quarters (some of which were only dubiously anti-slavery to begin with). If the Army of the Potomac had faltered, so too might have our American future with it.
Why the Confederacy Failed to Recreate the American Revolution
The South invoked the Founders’ struggle for freedom — and ignored crucial differences in doing so.
Of Declarations and Independence
Today is the 249th anniversary of the publication of the Declaration of Independence. The Fourth of July is celebrated as Independence Day because it was on this date in 1776 that printers in Philadelphia issued the first public copies of the declaration. The Second Continental Congress had voted for independence two days earlier, but took time to revise and ratify the final wording of the declaration. As we approach the 250th anniversary of that event, there are a few key points about this which must be emphasized for the sake of historical accuracy and a true understanding of what our independence actually means.
What the Declaration of Independence Said and Meant
It officially adopted the American Theory of Government: First Come Rights; Then Comes Government to Secure These Rights.
Writings on the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution
Links to some of my previous writings on these topics, which remain relevant today.
