News That Was Overlooked: SCOTUS Strikes, RFK Rolls Forward & Trump Delivers

Beyond the Middle East, there was good news from the Supreme Court, RFK and Trump's other trade and diplomatic overtures. Here's the rundown...

The tensions in the Middle East have rightfully dominated the news for the last couple weeks, from the initial Israeli attack to the direct involvement by the U.S. and to its eventual (for now) conclusion. But there’s a lot that’s been happening beyond that. Here’s the rundown…

THE SUPREME COURT’S TOUR DE FORCE

From the perspective of this space, SCOTUS had a dominating week, highlighted by three outstanding decisions:

*The headline story was that the Court restricted the ability of lower-court judges in the federal system to issue sweeping injunctions to Trump policies. This was highlighted by Amy Coney Barrett, who had been on a disturbing trajectory of late, finding her judicial fastball again and absolutely smoking the Marxist judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson in an opinion that was direct, scathing and seemed more than a little personal.

*The Court also ruled that if public schools are going to push LGBTQ (or however many letters we’re using these days), then parents have the right to opt their children out of those programs. I suppose it’s unfortunate that we’ve really reached a place where we have to celebrate with relief the fact SCOTUS decided that parents, not public school teachers, are in charge of their children. But it’s where we’re at as a society and this was a big win.

*And pro-lifers won a huge victory. South Carolina had barred Planned Parenthood from receiving state Medicaid funds. The abortion giant sued. SCOTUS said that yes, states can indeed ban the multi-billion dollar corporation from getting taxpayer funds.

In all three cases, the six judges appointed by Republican presidents all came down on the right side. That was good to see, and the decisions themselves were even better.

A TRADE DEAL WITH CHINA

This news is a couple of weeks old and got immediately overshadowed by the 12-Day War in the Middle East. But it’s worth doubling back and revisiting. President Trump worked out a trade agreement with China.

Products imported from the Middle Kingdom will be subject to a 55 percent tariff, a sharp increase from the 10-20 percent that had hovered at pre-Trump. Moreover, our own exports to China will only be subject to a 10 percent tariff. The lucrative American consumer market is our biggest leverage point in trade negotiations, and we finally have a president willing to use it.

Corned Beef Catholicism is a strong supporter of tariffs in principle, not just as a negotiating tool, in part because it can have a positive impact on blue-collar wages. To illustrate this point, we have had one president in the post-World War II era who has been an unabashed supporter of tariffs. The chart below shows how blue-collar wages have fared under recent presidencies. You may notice a pattern in when they increased…

Blue-collar workers, along with all of us who log some overtime hours stand to get a further boost if Trump’s campaign promise of exempting OT pay from taxation passes as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” That promise took a big step forward last night when the bill won a key Senate vote.

RFK ON A ROLL

Ever since assuming office as the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy has been chipping away at Big Pharma’s sources of power. Over the past week, he took direct aim at the onslaught of childhood vaccines that America has been subjected to the since industry gained immunity from liability in the mid-1980s.

RFK first cleaned house, getting rid of the 17 members of the Center for Disease Control (CDC)’s vaccine advisory panel. This panel, like so much in HHS (and, for that matter, the entire federal government) had become infested by people who were apologists for the industry they were supposed to regulate. RFK got some good people on the revamped panel.

Now, this week, it was announced that the panel will revisit the entire program of mandatory childhood vaccination. They will vote on each one individually. Just as important, they will vote on the vaccines in the aggregate to assess cumulative impact, as well as whether it’s really necessary to jam all these shots so close together.

While some advocates in the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) have become agitated over the pace of change, RFK is moving along at exactly the right pace. If he moves to fast, Big Pharma could counter-sue and possibly end up with even more legal protections. But if he does it like this, he can build a case—all while changing the public narrative and opening up freedom for parents.

THE JFK FILES

I’ve been following what’s going on in the congressional hearings regarding the release of the JFK Files—not because I think there’s a document saying “Yes, I did it” anywhere in there. But because I think understanding the circumstances behind not just JFK’s assassination, but the likelihood of a government coverup is essential to understanding some of our most controversial issues today.

To that end, it was worth noting that the theory of a second shooter besides Lee Harvey Oswald, coming from a different angle, gained traction based on sworn testimony by one who was there at the time.

It may be easy to dismiss this investigation as something more about history than about the present. Just remember this—it was contesting the Warren Commission’s “lone gunman” theory that was the first modern case of something that seemed like common sense—or at least perfectly reasonable—getting smeared with the “conspiracy theory” label, a taunt that has now evolved to include “disinformation.”

Thus, if you’ve ever been frustrated by being accused of promoting conspiracy theories or peddling disinformation when you’re actually just trying to reasonably explore all possibilities, you have an interest in getting to the bottom of the JFK tragedy. Big props to Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) for leading the way on this investigation into the newly released files.

ENDING BLOODSHED IN AFRICA

There has been a bloody civil war in East-Central Africa going on between the Congo and Rwanda for some time now. This blood-soaked region even received a heavenly visit from the Blessed Virgin in 1981. President Trump was able to broker a peace between the two nations.

We won’t pretend the reasons are all humanitarian—the Congo is home to rare-earth minerals and there will be an economic relationship between the United States and the two nations. But if this space was dismayed by the President’s recent actions in the Middle East, the work in Africa represents Trump at his best—stopping the killing and brokering an agreement that can bring prosperity to all involved parties.

RUSSIA THUNDERS FORWARD

Russian forces continue to advance, gobbling up territory in Ukraine. Trump’s frustration with being unable to negotiate a peace is publicly showing—he put together a package for Russia and Ukraine similar to what he did with the Congo and Rwanda, but to no avail.

There’s a reason for that—Russia has no incentive to halt a war they are winning. Ukraine president Volodymor Zelensky has no incentive to end a war that keeps him in power by allowing him to forestall elections. The European nations—and the power apparatus of the United States—have no incentive to end a war that’s been about protecting their money laundering operations from the start.

Trump will soon be faced with a terrible conundrum. He inherited a losing hand in this fight. He’s going to eventually have to fold his cards and walk away from the table. But that will likely lead to the collapse of Kiev and immense media hysteria, as Trump is blamed for a war that everyone except him (and the America First movement that supports him) wanted.

WRAPPING IT UP

One of the many consequences of war or rumors of war is that they absorb all the energy in the room. While it’s admittedly far from the worst consequence, it does prevent attention from being focused on stories like these, where the Administration is doing so much of what they were elected to do (and we didn’t even cover the fact that illegal border crossings are now basically eliminated).

But to bring some closure to the hyper-intense Middle East focus of the last couple weeks, I’d like to refer you to several thoughtful pieces:

*Veteran Catholic journalist Phil Lawler wrote a thoughtful piece asking the same questions we’ve been troubled with here—whether or not striking Iran meets Just War criteria. Phil and his wife Leila did an excellent podcast on this same topic.

*Ilan Hulkower, my weekly Book Club friend, one of the smartest observers of Middle East politics and history I know, and who studied in Israel, offered his own perspective of the aftermath. It’s worth reading, as is Ilan’s entire Substack, which gives amazing historical and cultural perspective on several nations in this region of the world.

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