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** Daily Newsletter: JUNE 10, 2026
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** In today’s newsletter:
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JOSH HAWLEY: The American Covenant’s Answer to AI ([link removed])

LEAH LIBRESCO SARGEANT: Worth Beyond Our Works ([link removed])

GEORGE WEIGEL: The Strength of Jimmy Lai and the Weakness of Emperor Xi ([link removed])
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** The American Covenant’s Answer to AI ([link removed])
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** JOSH HAWLEY
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U.S. Senator Josh Hawley lays out his vision of artificial intelligence and its relation to the nation. He frames more concrete considerations of policy with a history of the American project: “Our forefathers hoped for something better. They looked for the liberty, as [John] Winthrop said, ‘between God and man,’ where every man can stand before God and act as his partner.”

He warns that American conservatives ought not attach themselves to a free-market vision of AI that trades the future of workers for ever-greater IPOs. “Conservatism is not, in the first place, the defense of any particular economic arrangement. It is the defense of the permanent things: the moral order, the dignity of the individual person, the family. Those permanent things are the covenant, handed down. Left to itself, artificial intelligence could dissolve every one of them.”

For further reading: In 2019, Senator Hawley wrote “The Big Tech Threat ([link removed]) .”
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** Worth Beyond Our Works ([link removed])
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** LEAH LIBRESCO SARGEANT
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Artificial intelligence raises the quesiton of human value. If AI can, for example, play chess better than the greatest grandmaster, of what value is he? Of what value is anyone whose work is replaced by AI? Leah Libresco Sargeant, and Pope Leo XIV, have an answer.

“The Church sees human dignity as springing from our being, not our doing. As Pope Leo writes: ‘The dignity of every human being can be described as infinite . . . for two reasons: first, because the love of God, who calls us to friendship with him, is infinite; and second, his love is absolutely unconditional, in the sense that, even if we search endlessly, we will never find anything that can erase or deny it.’”
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** The Strength of Jimmy Lai and the Weakness of Emperor Xi ([link removed])
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** GEORGE WEIGEL
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Columnist George Weigel revisits the case of Catholic activist Jimmy Lai, who is still being held in solitary confinement for violating China’s national security law. According to Weigel, his “conviction has no more legal or moral validity than that of the Lord by Pontius Pilate.”

For further reading: Under Mao, China’s suppression of the Catholic Church was nearly absolute. (Interestingly, a number of early CCP gatherings were held in Franciscan missionary churches, often the largest structure in rural towns.) After Mao’s death, there was something of a Spring, but only under the thumb of the CCP. To better understand that history, I would highly recommend reading “The Serpent and the Dove ([link removed]) ,” from the March 2026 issue.

Upcoming Newsletters
* June 15: The Fourth Watch by James F. Keating | Subscribe here ([link removed]) .

* June 17: The Jew From Nowhere by J. J. Kimche | Subscribe here. ([link removed])

* June 23: The Protestant Mind by Dale M. Coulter | Subscribe here ([link removed]) .

Until next time,


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JACOB AKEY
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Associate Editor
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