Dear Progressive Reader,

Looming large in the news this week was President Joe Biden’s lackluster performance in the presidential debate on Thursday night. Right out of the gate, Biden seemed confused and very low-energy. Trump, on the other hand was animated as he delivered lie after lie, while usually avoiding actual responses to any question. Our colleagues at the Wisconsin Examiner and their parent organization States Newsroom provided blow-by-blow reporting on the event. As Jennifer Schutt and Jacob Fischler wrote, Biden’s “performance, filled with stumbles, prompted a torrent of questions after the debate about replacing him with another Democrat.” But as progressive columnist Jim Hightower noted on his blog the Lowdown, “Of course I wish Biden had performed better Thursday night, but we’re not choosing ‘debater of the year.’ It’s We The People who’re being tested in this election—will we pursue the democratic values and progressive policies the great majority of us want for our children? Or will we fall into the egomaniacal autocracy and corporate kleptocracy that Trump is openly promising? Biden’s got his weaknesses, but we at least have a shot at pressuring him to enact good policy and holding him accountable when he doesn’t. A future with Trump’s special brand of authoritarianism and tyranny holds zero chance for us.” Meanwhile, the Biden campaign is reporting that the hour following the debate was its highest fundraising period so far in the campaign.

Other news this week came in the form of some very damaging rulings issued by the U.S. Supreme Court. Perhaps the most far reaching of these is the decision in case called Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. Which undercuts a doctrine known as Chevron deference and could impact countless federal agencies. As Anthony Grasso writes, “A decision about fishing regulations could lead to a massive rollback of progressive policies across the board.” Grasso continues, “Loper Bright’s repercussions for American democracy are profound, sweeping, and deeply troubling.” The decision, he explains, “represents a fundamental shift in the balance of power between branches of government and could lead to a significant and alarming rollback of progressive policy achievements of all kinds.” The Court is not done yet, more rulings will be released on Monday, including an anticipated decision on Donald Trump’s immunity from prosecution for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Elsewhere on our website this week, Jeff Abbott reports on the arrival of a Kenyan peacekeeping force in Haiti; Arvind Dilwar looks at the potential threats of nuclear conflict in the Middle East; Robert McCoy discusses the new Louisiana law that mandates the display of the Ten Commandments in schools; and Mary Dickson pens an op-ed on the urgency of approving the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Act would “set aside a fraction of [federal] funds to care for our own citizens harmed by these [nuclear] weapons” built and tested by our government. The victims, called downwinders, are a population of survivors of this testing who, due to “the latency period between exposure and diagnosis,” are “still getting sick.”

In another piece of news this week, WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange was finally able to negotiate his release from custody and has returned to his home country of Australia. The case against Assange represented serious threats to press freedom and has often been covered by The Progressive. In 2021, I interviewed Assange’s father and half-brother, and in 2023 we hosted a screening and discussion of the film Ithaka that tells the story of his imprisonment and the campaign to get him released. Additional information on the case is contained in a great book by Kevin Gosztola, Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange.

Finally, next weekend The Progressive is again participating in the annual Netroots Nation conference. From July 11-13, activists and strategists will gather in Baltimore, Maryland for this in-person networking event. More than 4000 attendees and 400 featured speakers are expected to participate in 100 panels and events during the three days. For more information on the event and how to register to attend in person, or to view all of the sessions online, visit the registration page.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

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