A Big, Beautiful Bill by the Fourth?

It’s possible. The Senate continues to make progress as they debated through the weekend. On Saturday, the upper chamber advanced the bill to the floor by a 51-49 vote. Trump applauded the progress: Tonight we saw a GREAT VICTORY in the Senate with the “GREAT, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,” but, it wouldn’t have happened without the Fantastic Work of Senator Rick Scott, Senator Mike Lee, Senator Ron Johnson, and Senator Cynthia Lummis. They, along with all of the other Republican Patriots who voted for the Bill, are people who truly love our Country! As President of the USA, I am proud of them all (White House). Forbes: Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine who still voted to advance the bill, said she would file several amendments, telling reporters Saturday “if the bill is not further changed, I would be leaning against the bill” (Forbes). On Sunday, Leader Thune made the case anew for the legislation: We have the opportunity to take the gains the Trump administration has made in securing our border and deporting criminal—and make that progress permanent … (Thune). Trump was rallying those with concerns over the fiscal impact of the bill: For all cost cutting Republicans, of which I am one, REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected. Don’t go too crazy! We will make it all up, times 10, with GROWTH, more than ever before (Truth). Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH): The OBBB is the first bill that any Congress in my lifetime will have passed that starts to control our spending. We end the Green New Scam. We can get all of this done today (Moreno).

Supreme Court Puts an End to the Nationwide Injunction Madness

SCOTUS Blog: By a vote of 6-3, the justices repudiated the concept of universal or nationwide injunctions, which prohibit the government from enforcing a law or policy anywhere in the country. The justices did not, however, weigh in on the question at the center of the three lawsuits before the court: whether the birthright citizenship order itself is constitutional. The Trump administration will also likely continue to be barred from enforcing the order – which will not go into effect for 30 days – against the individual pregnant plaintiffs who had challenged it. But the court’s opinion, by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, left open the prospect of additional litigation in the lower courts about how much more the injunctions should be narrowed, as well as the possibility of class action litigation to challenge the order on behalf of groups of plaintiffs who were not part of the litigation before the court but would be affected by the order….  In her 26-page opinion for the majority, Barrett stressed that courts would have the power to issue universal injunctions only if courts had provided similar remedies in early English and U.S. history. But there is no such history, Barrett concluded. Indeed, she noted, “universal injunctions were not a feature of federal-court litigation until sometime in the 20th century,” and they “remained rare until the turn of the 21st century.” (SCOTUS Blog). From the decision: Held: Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts (Supreme Court). Stephen Miller explains: (X).

High Court Ruling Protects Parental Rights to Opt Their Children Out

Of Sex Ed curricula with LGBTQ themes. National Review: The 6–3 opinion by Justice Samuel Alito is yet another of the fruits of the Court’s conservative majority, its fidelity to the Constitution, and its fundamental common sense. Mahmoud v. Taylor is a standout case for parental rights, especially as lower courts and parents nationwide try to stop public schools from effectively proselytizing on issues related to gender identity, sexuality, and more. The parents, and their Becket Fund for Religious Liberty representation, deserve widespread applause for standing up to the woke, incredibly well-funded behemoth that is Montgomery County Public Schools. It is particularly valuable that the Court explicitly acknowledged, a decade after Obergefell v. Hodges, that its 5–4 decision in that case does not constitute an official public orthodoxy that the government is entitled to impress upon young children (National Review). Background on the case: In November 2022, the Montgomery County School Board announced its approval of “over 22 LGBTQ+-inclusive texts for use in the classroom.” Some of the books promoting radical gender ideology are meant to be used in classrooms with children as young as three and four years old…. Not only do these books advocate for radical gender ideology hostile to the religious beliefs of many parents, they also include topics that many parents believe are not age-appropriate for young children. When the books were first introduced in March 2023, the Montgomery County School Board said it would notify parents when the books were being taught and allow them to opt their children out. But the board abruptly reversed course and announced it would no longer inform parents when the books were taught, let alone allow them to opt their children out (Alliance Defending Freedom). Justice Thomas, from his concurring opinion: Teaching young children about sexual and gender identity in ways that contradict parents’ religious teachings undermines those parents’ right to “direct the religious upbringing of their children” (Supreme Court).

Supreme Court Rules States Can Protect Kids From Porn

SCOTUS Blog: In a major First Amendment decision, the Supreme Court on Friday upheld a ruling by a federal appeals court that allowed Texas to enforce a state law requiring pornography sites to verify the age of their users before providing access. By a vote of 6-3, the justices ruled that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit should have used a more stringent standard of review, known as intermediate scrutiny, to determine whether the Texas law passes constitutional muster. But, as Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority, the Texas law passes that test.” The power to require age verification is within a State’s authority to prevent children from accessing sexually explicit content,” Thomas concluded (SCOTUS Blog). Brad Littlejohn: The implications of this decision are potentially momentous, particularly given the broad scope of the majority opinion. By ruling that only “intermediate scrutiny” need apply, and that age verification laws should be evaluated on the straightforward logic of the “necessary and proper” clause, Justice Thomas knocked Big Tech’s best sword out of its hand. If the state has a right to protect children from obscene content (and no one denies it does), it has a right to use the most reasonable means to do so: age verification…. Today’s ruling clears the way for nearly two dozen state laws, many of them currently enjoined, to come into effect, and puts fresh wind in the sails of similar bills introduced in many more states and in Congress. More significantly, it energizes two broader national—and indeed global—movements. The first is a push to tighten the screws of law and public pressure on the shameless pornography industry, which has long flourished by avoiding polite conversation or common-sense regulation. The second is a campaign to wrest childhood from the grip of addictive technologies more broadly—social media, AI, and the infinite scroll of cyberspace  (First Things).

Trump Is on a Winning Streak

And even his opponents have to admit it. Charlie Kirk: President Trump had a historically good week. In fact it might be the best week of President Trump’s presidency. Don’t take my word for it, take CNN’s. Watch: “By any objective measure, Trump has his opponents on the run” (Kirk). Bloomberg: The US Supreme Court’s just-completed term had a clear winner: President Donald Trump. With a 6-3 ruling Friday restricting the power of judges to issue nationwide blocks on presidential initiatives, the court put an exclamation mark on a term dominated by Trump victories. The court’s conservative supermajority sided with Trump on both broad legal questions and an unprecedented barrage of emergency requests to let his policies take effect right away. The end result was a stack of decisions deferring to Trump. The court let him discharge transgender people from the military, fire top officials at government agencies and open hundreds of thousands of migrants to deportation. The Supreme Court repeatedly reinstated Trump policies found by lower courts to be illegal, and it undercut judges who said the administration had violated their orders (Bloomberg).

Twelve Americans Murdered in Gaza

American workers with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as Hamas seeks to targets the workers that threaten their control over aid. Jerusalem Post: Hamas had placed bounties on American security workers in the Strip, and that twelve of the organization’s workers had been murdered, in its latest update on the situation in Gaza on Sunday. GHF, an Israeli and US-backed NGO, began operating in the Strip in May to distribute humanitarian aid. “Hamas has placed bounties on both our American security personnel and Palestinian aid workers—offering cash rewards to anyone who injures or kills them,” the Sunday GHF statement said…  “The targets of Hamas’s brutality are heroes who are simply trying to feed the people of Gaza in the middle of a war,” GHF stated. “Our US security personnel—some of America’s most elite and decorated veterans—are on the ground to protect people. And our local staff, who keep these operations running, have already paid the ultimate price: twelve murdered, others tortured, and now more threats emerging by the day,” GHF continued. GHF added that in recent days, Hamas has also “pre-positioned armed operatives near humanitarian zones in an effort to disrupt the only functioning aid delivery system in Gaza” (Jerusalem).

Ireland’s Ignoble Distinction: Nation Considers Legislation Banning Imports From Israel

The first time since the defeat of Nazi Germany that any European gov has promoted a law to specifically boycott Jewish produced goods.” Daily Wire: The Irish government, which has openly displayed its hatred for Israel in recent years, took another step targeting the Jewish state, becoming the first country in Europe to introduce legislation forbidding imports from the Biblical areas of Judea and Samaria. Irish Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister and former Prime Minister Simon Harris introduced a bill titled the General Scheme of the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill. It was passed by the Irish government and now must be approved by the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade for Pre-Legislative Scrutiny, the Jerusalem Post reported…. Former Justice and Equality Minister and Defense Minister Alan Shatter ripped Harris on X, writing, “Only Simon Harris and our current government could be so foolish as to create the acronym PIGS to reference a new law that targets & boycotts Jewish-produced goods. … The gov has now proudly published its own farcical version of the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB), the first time since the defeat of Nazi Germany that any European gov has promoted a law to specifically boycott Jewish produced goods & criminalise those who import them” (Daily Wire).

British Music Festival Chants “Death to the IDF” and “Free Palestine from the river to the sea”

After October 7, 2023, the civilized world faced a choice. Melanie Phillips: Did it support civilisation or barbarism? On Saturday, the Glastonbury festival provided an unambiguous answer. It turned itself into a death cult. A rap duo called Bob Vylan shouted “Death to the IDF” and then: “Hell, yeah, from the river to the sea, Palestine must be, will be, inshallah, free.” The crowd of several thousands, many waving Palestine flags, roared their approval and took up the chants “Death to the IDF and “Free Palestine from the river to the sea”. They also chanted: I heard you want your country back? Shut the f*ck up (you can’t have that)…. Palestinianism has not just become the cause of causes for the young and progressive classes. It has also become viewed — obscenely — as a moral dividing line between those who lay noisy claim to conscience and those who they claim side with evil. The very reverse is the case. We are watching the performative moralisation of mendacity and murderous hatred. In Britain, this has now reached critical mass. And both the BBC and the Labour government have played a key role in bringing about this wholesale hijack of conscience and repudiation of justice and rationality, and fuelling this current pre-pogrom climate of hatred of Israel. Day in, day out the BBC pumps out Hamas propaganda — either from Gaza “sources” or laundered through the utterly compromised and complicit humanitarian and human rights establishment — that twists demonstrable facts in order to represent, entirely falsely, the Israeli targets of genocide as aggressors and human rights abusers (Phillips). Brendan O’Neill: Let’s speak frankly – our moral crisis is too pressing for pussy-footing. ‘Death to the IDF’ means the death of Jews. First, because the soldiers of the IDF are predominantly Jewish. But more importantly because this is the force tasked with defending the Jewish homeland from the armies of anti-Semites that surround it. The IDF is the only thing standing between the Jewish State and its genocidal obliteration by the apocalyptic bigots on its borders (Spectator). What is Glastonbury? From their site: Glastonbury Festival is the largest greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world …. It’s like going to another country; a thrilling and vibrant cultural melting-pot and inspirational Brigadoon that appears every year or so….  British law still applies, but the rules of society are a bit different, a little bit freer. Everyone is here to have a wild time in their own way (Glastonbury).

Bibi’s Big Risk Paid Off

Much of the American audience has been most aware of what the U.S. did to Iran’s nuclear facilities on June 22. But the predecessor to our “Operation Midnight Hammer” was what began from Israel on June 13, their “Operation Rising Lion.” Wall Street Journal: Benjamin Netanyahu has spent three decades sounding the alarm about Iran’s nuclear program. With the ferocity of a biblical prophet, he warned that Iran was an existential threat to Israel. But his dire rhetoric was always balanced by a wily tactician’s caution, especially in gauging the military and political ramifications of acting against Iran. On June 12, that calculus changed. Netanyahu made what was undoubtedly the biggest gamble of his long political career, ordering the Israeli air force to strike Iran alone, without any assurance that the U.S. would join and help him finish the job. So far, the decision appears to have paid off (WSJ). Wall Street Journal: At midnight on June 13, Israel’s generals gathered in a bunker beneath Israeli air force headquarters and watched as jets descended on Tehran in an operation they called “Red Wedding.” Hours later and 1,000 miles away, Iran’s top military commanders were dead—a mass killing much like the famous wedding scene from the show “Game of Thrones.” The combination of intelligence information and military precision that enabled the attack surprised people around the world. But it wasn’t the only improbable success at the outset of Israel’s 12-day campaign.   Another key part of the initial attack—considered so fantastical by even its planners that it was called “Operation Narnia,” after the fictional C.S. Lewis series—successfully killed nine top Iranian nuclear scientists almost simultaneously at their homes in Tehran. Pulling off the attacks required elaborate ruses to ensure surprise. At the last moment, they nearly fell apart… Israel took a huge risk in launching the attack. Either Israel would hit the human targets all at once, or they would scatter. If they did, Iran’s retaliation would’ve been far more severe, and its nuclear ambitions intact. And had President Trump not been inspired by Israel’s early success to bomb Iranian nuclear sites, it isn’t clear how Israel would have achieved its chief aim of the operation (WSJ).

America’s 250th Celebration Starts Now

Yes: Friday this week marks 249 years since the signing of the Declaration, but immediately thereafter we’ll start to see plans for the 250^th come forward. Andy Kessler: This week kicks off a yearlong celebration and hootenanny for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—the semiquincentennial. That’s an awful name, a seven-syllable mouthful. Let’s change it now and instead call it the quarter-millennium. Even quarter-mill. Much better….  For me, it starts with freedom. Individualism. A nation of builders (American for entrepreneur). A certain ruggedness and resilience with an extra-large dollop of dignity, caring and giving. Martin Luther King Jr. thought the American dream required “a tough mind and a tender heart.” I like that…. Reach out to others to share the experience. Mentor someone young. Inspire. Donate and volunteer so you positively affect a stranger’s personal life. Younger folks could ask elders for advice probably not seen on TikTok. America isn’t all baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. It’s freedom to do, freedom to grow, freedom to believe, freedom to live and let live. That’s something to be proud of (Wall Street Journal). Connor Boyack for National Review: America is drifting into collective amnesia regarding our history. Ask a middle-schooler (or young adult, for that matter) why 56 men pledged “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” in 1776, and you’ll likely get a blank stare — or worse, a lecture reducing the Founders to nothing more than an oppressive patriarchy. That indifference isn’t accidental; it’s hard-wired into a system that prefers compliant subjects to informed citizens… With Independence Day approaching and our nation’s 250th anniversary just a year away, Jefferson’s warning should ring in our ears: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be” (National Review). Our Founding Father John Jay writing on June 29, 1826, anticipating our celebration of 50 years: The most effectual means of securing the continuance of our civil & religious liberties, is always to remember with reverence & gratitude the (divine) source from which they flow (Dreisbach).