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rob wittman
EU Fines Google for Violating Digital Markets Act With Search Engine, App Store Practices
Regulators announced the penalty as President Donald Trump is considering new tariffs against the European Union.
Jul 23, 2026
A day before President Donald Trump was expected to announce new trade tariffs on the European Union, the bloc's regulators on Thursday announced it had fined Google for anticompetitive business practices related to its search engine and app store.
Google has violated the Digital Markets Act (DMA), said the European Commission, by giving priority to its own services in search results and by preventing app developers from steering customers to cheaper products or app stores other than Google's Play Store.
The commission fined Google €460 million ($524 million) for its breach of search engine rules and €430 million ($490 million) for the app store violation, bringing the total fine to more than $1 billion—a fraction of the tech giant's assets. The fine was announced a day after Google parent company Alphabet reported a quarterly profit of $112.1 billion.
Brussels-based journalist Dave Keating quoted Alexandra Geese, a member of European Parliament representing the Green Party, as saying that "the size of this fine is disappointing and bears no relation to the damage Google has done to the European economy."
"Plenty of people would dodge the fare if the fine were cheaper than the ticket," said Geese.
The fine comes weeks after the European Court of Justice upheld a $4.67 billion fine from 2018 over the unfair advantage it gave to its own apps by pre-installing the apps on smartphones.
Teresa Ribera, the commission's executive vice president for a clean, just, and competitive transition, said Thursday that the DMA promises protections for "fairness, choice, and innovation in digital markets for the benefit of all European citizens.”
“The best products should succeed because they’re better, not because they’re owned by the company running the search engine,” said Ribera.
Kent Walker, Google's president of global affairs, claimed the fine would cause "product degradation" and said the company is evaluating a possible appeal.
The fine, he said, will force Google "to strip away real-time search features Europeans love—like instant pricing and direct availability for hotels, flights, and restaurants—and dismantle safety protections on Google Play."
The company has 60 days to comply with the penalty and could face further fines of up to 5% of its global revenue if it fails to do so.
Google has been fined more than $10 billion euros by the EU for anticompetitive behavior since 2017.
Ribera called on the company to return to the negotiating table with European regulators to determine its full compliance with the DMA.
“It is quite a strong message to Google to say: We expect from you a serious proposal in terms of compliance,” she said. “The intention of our regulation is to ensure well-functioning markets, not to punish anyone. But, of course, in certain cases, we need to come up with sanctions.”
The fine was announced hours before Trump's tariffs against 60 countries were set to expire; the president has threatened new tariffs against the European Union in retaliation for what he and Republican lawmakers view as unfair targeting of US tech companies.
But Ribera told reporters that the European Commission is "bound by the law" and announced the fine despite fears in the EU that Trump could retaliate with higher tariffs than the ones he levied last year.
“I don’t think that any of us being part of the Commission could be respected," said Ribera, "if we could decide whether to do or not to do because someone else is trying to tell us what to do.”
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Who Wants to Be Tied to the Energy of War?
Renewable energy comes without the emissions, without the climate consequences, and without the oil wars that have plagued the last 30-plus years.
Jul 23, 2026
Renewables are not just for highfalutin hippies, they’re cheaper and avoid the volatility of wars and chaotic leaders. We are not living the 1970s oil shock moment; there are alternatives to fossil fuels. Those who embrace renewable energy will be better off—from health benefits for communities to reducing energy shock burdens for households. The reality unfolding during this latest oil war is that many nations really do not want to be tethered to volatile energy resources. And who can blame them?
With yet another peace process collapsing and conflict renewed, the Iran war will continue to create the largest disruption to oil markets since the Covid-19 pandemic. In mere months, it’s increased the costs of oil and gas, food, and everything in-between, amplifying the global cost of living crisis. We’re at the beginning of a very bumpy ride ahead.
New pipelines that would avoid the Strait of Hormuz altogether are underway. But this type of infrastructure can take up to a decade or more to come online. In the meantime, national petroleum stockpiles are at an all-time low. Governments have a limited amount of time to buoy oil prices and stave off high fuel costs. If the Strait of Hormuz does successfully open and peace is achieved, it could take years for petroleum output to stabilize back to pre-war levels, thanks to destroyed infrastructure. Liquefied natural gas and oil processing facilities have been targets for bombing by both sides—amounting to $58 billion in damages so far.
Adding to this tableau is the reality that the days of so-called "easy oil" are now in the rearview mirror. Shell CEO Wael Sawan recently forecast that oil prices will continue to rise long after peace is achieved due to a combination of energy infrastructure damages and a need to access more expensive, more environmentally risky oil reservoirs. It’s worth calling out here that we’ve already burned through enough fossil fuels to achieve 1.5°C of warming. Every year has been another record-breaking year for global warming and global climate damages to the tune of billions of dollars.
The US and Israeli war with Iran is making renewable energy more attractive, more economically competitive, and may help us achieve our global climate targets to triple renewables by 2030.
In a world where we are witnessing the climate consequences of burning fossil fuels—where renewables like wind and solar are cheaper—just why should nations continue to rely on petroleum?
Before the Iran War, renewable energy was already growing at a rapid speed. It’s now cheaper to employ solar and wind than oil and gas. Now that petroleum costs are more volatile and associated infrastructure is in duress, the pivot to renewables will be inevitable. This March in the US, renewable energy accounted for half of all energy generation. Globally, solar energy is making up the largest share of new energy projects. If oil is the energy of warmongering and dramatic cost fluctuations, perhaps renewable energy could be the energy of peace and economic security.
Spain, China, and others leading on renewable energy power generation have seen costs remain relatively stable during this time. Now other nations are seeking that same stability. Since the war started, many fossil fuel dependent nations increased their renewable energy targets to levels that exceed their national climate goals. Egypt announced a goal to increase renewable energies like wind and solar from 10% today to 45% of energy needs in just two years. This new target overshoots any climate goal Egypt has previously set during annual United Nations climate conferences. South Korea, India, and others have likewise elevated their renewable energy targets to help lessen energy cost burdens for citizens, decrease dependency on the ebbs and flows of oil and gas, and the military whims of chaotic leaders. Now Turkey and Australia are pushing for a commitment at the next UN climate conference for nations to reach 35% renewable energy use by 2035.
The path toward a renewable energy economy will not be easy. Petroleum interests are doing everything possible to wed us all to fossil fuels through a long-established playbook of climate denial, climate skepticism around emissions and renewable energy, and wielding political influence. In the US at least, those actions have paid off. The second Trump administration has been all about tying us to oil and gas. A mere $445 million in campaign contributions to the Trump presidential campaign and related political action committees gifted a windfall of deregulation and incentives to what should be a declining energy industry on the way out.
Many Biden-era renewable energy incentives have been revoked in the second Trump administration, diminishing the potential for America’s solar, battery, and wind manufacturing to compete with China. Instead, incentives and kickbacks for oil and gas companies are everywhere, from opening public lands to reducing environmental reviews and even connecting trade agreements to oil and gas. These actions have not stymied renewable energy uptake. Last year, solar overtook coal in overall global energy consumption for the first time.
While the United States is focused on controlling the energy of the past, China has been laser focused on the energy of the future. A rapid global pivot away from fossil fuels will benefit China’s burgeoning renewable energy industries the most. Today, 80% of all renewable energy—like wind, solar, and battery storage—is manufactured by Chinese companies, with US companies a faraway second at 10% of the market.
The US and Israeli war with Iran is making renewable energy more attractive, more economically competitive, and may help us achieve our global climate targets to triple renewables by 2030. The reality is no one wants to rely on economically toxic energy sources. Renewable energy comes without the emissions, without the climate consequences, and without the oil wars that have plagued the last 30-plus years. Embracing renewable energy today means being more resilient and better prepared to weather future petroleum shocks; all while helping to reduce emissions and lessen climate impacts—a win-win if ever there was one.
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Voters Are Realizing that Trump Doesn’t Care About Them
Attempting to rig elections, fighting wars nobody wants, and constructing gaudy vanity projects are apparently more important to him than whether his own voters can afford food, housing, and healthcare for their families.
Jul 23, 2026
This month, the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law—without President Donald Trump's signature, exactly as he'd threatened. It's a small, recent example of a much bigger habit: Trump keeps showing voters exactly how little he thinks of them. The bill wasn’t controversial at all. It was negotiated by both parties’ top committee members and aimed squarely at lowering housing costs. But Trump let it sit for weeks rather than sign it, hoping to extract an unrelated voter-suppression bill in return.
At this point, childish behavior from the president shouldn’t be surprising.
In his first inaugural address, President Trump claimed to be the champion of America’s “forgotten men and women.” But it was a lie from the start. He never cared about the poor and marginalized. He cared about cutting taxes for his friends; scapegoating immigrants for the struggles of the working class; and restoring a mythical era of American “greatness” characterized by the supremacy of straight, white, Christian males.
Although his lie was obvious, it was also effective. In 2016, Trump won around one-eighth of voters who’d supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Democratic primaries. In 2024, he significantly increased his share of the Black and Hispanic vote. It might seem surprising that supporters of a democratic socialist would vote for a Reagan-style tax cutter or that minorities would support someone who campaigned on mass deportations, but desperation and repeated betrayals make voters do unnatural things. They (rightly) believed that the establishment of both parties had failed to serve their interests, so they voted for the candidate who portrayed himself as the enemy of that establishment.
Trump is perfectly happy to sacrifice the well-being of Americans, including his own supporters, to serve his own ego.
Thankfully, Americans are waking up. Trump’s approval rating has dropped to around 36% as it’s become increasingly obvious where his priorities lie. One source described as a “White House ally” recently told Politico that Trump “doesn’t care about anything beyond SAVE, Iran, and the ballroom.”
Attempting to rig elections, fighting wars nobody wants, and constructing gaudy vanity projects are apparently more important to him than whether his own voters can afford food, housing, and healthcare for their families.
He doesn’t even try to hide it anymore.
He said that the housing bill he recently refused to sign was just “of minor importance.” A few months earlier, he explicitly said he wants to keep housing prices high, favoring elderly GOP voters sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars in unearned equity over young families struggling to buy their first home. These gaffes give Democrats an opening they can’t fail to ignore—and a path forward to lead on housing, which is the No. 1 issue for young voters according to a CNBC survey released in July.
Democrats should skip the smaller fixes, like banning rent-pricing algorithms—that’s kind of like blaming the weather forecaster for the rain, and it’s why Colorado Gov. Jared Polis vetoed such a ban. Instead, they should marshal public and private funds toward large-scale building projects with generous affordable-housing quotas, the approach Mayor Zohran Mamdani is pursuing in New York.
They should also seize on the opportunity that Trump’s highly unpopular war in Iran presents.
Trump revealed his total apathy on this front when he told a reporter in May that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation” when conducting his war with Iran.
In this case, he’s telling the truth. Trump is perfectly happy to sacrifice the well-being of Americans, including his own supporters, to serve his own ego.
All he cares about now is being remembered as “a capital G, Great Man of history,” Jonathan Swan, co-author of the new book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, explained in a recent interview. "He wants to reshape the world. I don’t think he would have gone to war in Iran in the same circumstances in Term 1. I don’t think he would have rolled the dice on what he did in Venezuela… He wouldn’t have started a trade war with the whole world.” But now that he has no more elections to win, Trump is perfectly willing to show his true colors.
Democrats running for office can seize this opportunity as well by throwing Trump’s “no new wars” campaign promise back in his face and by promising to banish the liberal warmongers who staffed previous Democratic administrations.
Republicans have done everything they can to give themselves an edge in the midterms: racist redistricting, a new court ruling that injects even more money into politics, and contrived fearmongering about communism. But if Democrats can finally convince voters that Trump doesn’t care about them—which shouldn’t be too hard since he’s constantly saying exactly that—we’ll get the blue wave we’re hoping for and then some.
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Our Healthcare System Is Failing; Medicare for All Is the Solution
When everybody has guaranteed access to high-quality care without financial barriers, physicians can focus solely on their patients’ needs and patients can trust that our recommendations are based on science.
Jul 23, 2026
The following remarks were delivered as testimony to the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Medicare for All Shadow Hearing on July 22, 2026.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak about our urgent need for Medicare for All. My name is Dr. Diljeet Singh, and as a practicing gynecologic oncologist, I do not exaggerate when I say our healthcare system is in dire straits. Every day in my clinic, I see patients struggling with the cost of healthcare: a woman on chemotherapy who cannot afford her anti-nausea prescription, or a patient forced to choose between an MRI copay and groceries for her family. If you walked through my clinic, you would know that this is no time to be tinkering with unproven reforms or complex regulations. It is long past time for Medicare for All.
I care for a part-time elementary school teacher whose health plan did not cover routine preventive care. Instead of getting regular Pap smears over the years, she arrived in my office with advanced cervical cancer. She underwent radical surgery followed by chemotherapy and radiation that fundamentally changed her body and her life—and she still has no guarantee of a cure.
Or consider another patient of mine who works two part-time jobs, with no health insurance. She ignored severe abdominal pain until it doubled her over. In the emergency room, she was told she had a potentially cancerous mass. She came to me for care, and thankfully, it turned out to be a non-cancerous ovarian cyst, cured by surgery. Yet, even in this best-case medical scenario, she still owes thousands of dollars. A treatable, curable medical problem absorbed her children’s college savings and her retirement money.
When the drive for profit outweighs patient health, professionals and patients alike are betrayed.
I am speaking to you today as president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), an organization of more than 25,000 health professionals nationwide. We are working to achieve universal single-payer healthcare—free from corporate middlemen, copays, deductibles, prior authorization, and the risk of medical debt. Similar countries around the world provide care to all while spending only half of what we spend—yet we die younger, face higher maternal mortality, and lose more newborns. We already spend enough money, but at least 35 cents of every healthcare dollar is wasted on insurance administration and corporate profit instead of patient care.
The root cause of this failure is the corporate takeover of healthcare, where financial interests take precedence over the sacred oath we swore as physicians—to prioritize our patients’ health and make evidence-based, patient-centered decisions free from third-party interference.
At PNHP, we conducted a two-year research project speaking with doctors about working in a profit-driven system where financial goals dictate clinical care. We found that doctors, like nurses, suffer from profound “moral injury”—the acute psychological harm caused by systemic barriers that prevent us from providing compassionate, evidence-based care. When the drive for profit outweighs patient health, professionals and patients alike are betrayed, driving clinicians out of medicine in increasing numbers.
Reversing this crisis requires recentering healthcare on patients and aligning with its true mission. The most commonsense solution is single-payer Medicare for All. When everybody has guaranteed access to high-quality care without financial barriers, physicians can focus solely on their patients’ needs and patients can trust that our recommendations are based on science and their healthcare needs—not corporate bottom lines.
Doctors, nurses, and patients understand that we need Medicare for All. Now we need Congress to understand the same thing—and to act with all of the urgency that this moment requires.
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We Are Closer Than We Think to Losing Our Wild Neighbors
You do not need to fire a shot to kill an animal and imperil its entire species’ existence—you only need to take away the place it lives. A Trump administration Endangered Species Act rollback would do just that.
Jul 23, 2026
There is a vision of this country that still exists to anyone who grew up near its wild places: manatees drifting beneath a dock, Florida leafwing butterflies fluttering through the wind, yellow-billed cuckoos migrating in the spring and fall. For generations of Americans, these were not rare sightings. They were proof that people and wildlife could share the same natural inheritance
That inheritance is now under direct threat, and the erosion is no longer incremental. It is accelerating at an unprecedented pace.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration formally rescinded the regulatory definition of "harm" under the Endangered Species Act (ESA)—a single word that has helped to protect this nation's imperiled wildlife for more than 50 years. For decades, "harm" was understood to include not just the direct killing or injuring of an endangered animal, but the destruction or degradation of the habitat that animal depends on to breed, feed, migrate, or shelter. That understanding was not a bureaucratic technicality. It was the legal recognition of a basic ecological truth: An animal cannot survive the loss of its home and its resources for daily living any more than a person can. Each of these species has a story that will end the same way without habitat protection: not a quick death by bullet but a slow death by a thousand cuts.
Remove that definition, and you remove the government's ability to regulate clear-cutting old growth forest filled with an endangered bird’s nesting sites, draining a wetland key for an endangered frog’s breeding, or dumping pollution into the lagoon where sea turtles and marine mammals graze. You do not need to fire a shot to kill an animal and imperil its entire species’ existence. You only need to take away the place it lives.
Habitat destruction is already the leading driver of species decline in the US, and this rollback removes one of the few legal tools available to slow it.
Congress enacted the ESA in 1973 with overwhelming bipartisan support, and Republican President Richard Nixon signed it, "to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved." In the more than five decades since, the ESA has prevented the extinction of an estimated 99% of the species placed under its protection—one of the most successful conservation records in the world.
Rescinding the definition of harm will eviscerate the ESA. And it does so under the pretense of streamlining obstacles to American economic growth, as if the nation's economy runs on oil, gas, logging, and mining alone. But our national economy—and our national welfare—are inextricably linked to healthy, thriving wildlife and habitats. Wildlife watching, for example, supports a $250.2 billion industry in the US. Commercial and recreational fisheries generate $319 billion in sales and sustain 2.1 million jobs. Hunting and fishing support $400 billion in annual economic value. And the ecosystem services nature provides for free—clean water, crop pollination, flood control, pest suppression—are valued at an estimated $5 trillion a year.
Habitat destruction is already the leading driver of species decline in the US, and this rollback removes one of the few legal tools available to slow it.
Consider the Florida manatee, listed as threatened under the ESA. Manatees lack blubber and cannot fully regulate their own body temperature; in winter, their survival depends on access to water near 72°F. Coastal development and polluted runoff have devastated the seagrass beds manatees depend on and degraded the natural springs that once kept them warm through the winter. More than half of Florida's manatees now survive only because they cluster near the artificial warm-water discharge of aging power plants. Without the harm definition, it will be exponentially harder to protect and restore their foraging and sheltering habitats they need to survive and recover.
The same pattern will repeat across the country. The North American wolverine depends on vanishing high-elevation snowpack at risk of being lost to development and expanding winter recreation. The whooping crane, one of the rarest birds in North America, needs undisturbed wetland corridors to complete its migration. In the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, polar bears depend on undisturbed denning sites; seismic testing, vehicle traffic, and aircraft noise associated with oil exploration can cause mother bears to abandon their dens and cubs. For five decades, the ESA enabled economic activities in the habitats species need to survive and recover, with permitting guardrails to ensure adequate protections. Now that the administration has eliminated those guardrails, it’s open season for industry to sacrifice habitat—and the future of our imperiled wildlife species. Defenders of Wildlife, along with other conservation organizations, has already gone to federal court to challenge this unlawful action.
At the same time, we’re standing up to defend the ESA itself from anti-wildlife members of Congress who favor unfettered logging, mining, grazing, and drilling, no matter the cost to endangered animals—or to our irreplaceable natural heritage. One of the most effective actions concerned citizens can take right now is to call their representative and senators and oppose any effort to undermine this bedrock wildlife law.
We are closer than most people realize to losing the manatees in our canals, the whooping cranes in our wetlands, and the wolverines in our mountains. What remains to be seen is whether we act while there is still habitat left to save.
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Samuel Alito's Anger Problem
The right-wing Supreme Court justice has a well-established pattern of outbursts that has not subsided with his remarkable success in dragging this country backward.
Jul 23, 2026
You might think that an archconservative who has used his lifetime seat on the Supreme Court to send US law back to the 1920s would take a victory lap and maybe chill just a bit. But no. Despite his success in helping to dismantle abortion rights, attacking public-sector labor unions, elevating gun rights, promoting “religious liberty,” and destroying the Voting Rights Act, Justice Samuel Alito Jr. is still seething mad, motivated by ideological extremism and a stack of personal grievances, some dating to his childhood in Trenton, New Jersey.
Alito’s well-established pattern of outbursts was on full view during the court’s June 26 announcement of several late-term rulings. He set the tone for the session by reading a summary of his cruel 6-3 majority opinion that denied political asylum-seekers the right to enter the country before reaching the US-Mexico border (Mullin v. Al Otro Lado). Finishing quickly, he paused before moving on to summarize another of his opinions. Justice Sonia Sotomayor apparently took the break in the action as a cue to read a synopsis of her dissent. Dissenters often refrain from reading their summaries, but there is nothing unusual about them opting to speak up, provided they give advance notice of their intentions.
Sotomayor blasted Alito’s handiwork. “The consequences of today’s decision are predictable,” she said. “More people will die. More people will attempt to cross the border illegally, and some will make it while others will not.” Her remarks apparently enraged Alito, making him look, in the words of NPR’s legal affairs correspondent Nine Totenberg, like “he had just bitten into a lemon.”
“There is much that I would have added to my bench statement had I known there would be a dissent read,” Alito said, uttering remarks that, in the staid confines of the nation’s most august judicial body, were veritable obscenities that prompted audible gasps from spectators and reporters in the gallery. A court spokesperson later clarified that Alito was in fact notified of Sotomayor’s plans, but to date, he has not publicly apologized. Like the president whose policies he almost always supports, Alito invariably overreacts and never recants.
The problem is not that Alito has personal hang-ups—we all do—but that so many of his hang-ups have become the law of the land.
Who can forget Alito sneering on live TV during Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address, mouthing the words “not true” as the president decried the court’s Citizens United opinion and the impact it would have on future elections, including greater foreign influence? Since then, Alito has only gotten more unhinged and offensive, becoming a regular featured speaker at Federalist Society events, railing against the legalization of gay marriage, labeling the Second Amendment and freedom of religion as “unfavored” constitutional rights, and condemning liberals as a threat to civil liberties.
In September 2021, Alito went ballistic after The Atlantic magazine staff writer Adam Serwer penned a column accusing the court’s right-wing majority of releasing a 5-4 shadow-docket ruling on Texas’ newly enacted vigilante abortion law in the middle of the night to minimize public outcry. In an hour-long live-streamed speech delivered at University of Notre Dame, he excoriated the press for portraying the court’s conservatives as “a dangerous cabal that resorts to sneaky and improper methods to get its ways,” and for feeding “unprecedented efforts to intimidate the court or damage it as an independent institution.”
In June 2023, Alito again went off the rails with an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that lambasted a ProPublica report that in 2008 he took a luxury fishing trip to Alaska, flying for free aboard a private jet owned by Republican megadonor Paul Singer. The problem, according to ProPublica, wasn’t just that Alito had failed to recuse himself from reviewing lawsuits involving Singer’s hedge fund, but that he also failed to note anything about the excursion on the annual financial disclosure forms required under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.
Claiming he had no duty to reveal the junket, he argued that his spot on the private jet “would have otherwise been an unoccupied seat” if he had not accepted the billionaire’s offer of a free ride, and that gifts of “hospitality” need not be reported. In a follow-up interview with the Journal, he added, “Congress did not create the Supreme Court” and “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period.”
Alito’s official court opinions have been equally acerbic and hyperbolic. They arguably reached a crescendo in his 2022 majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization). Not content with simply overruling the 50-year-old precedent on which US women had come to rely as an essential part of their healthcare, he wrote: “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.”
When used by a high court justice, the phrase “egregiously wrong” is an insult and a sign of contempt. And to add further insult, Alito reached deep into the bowels of Anglo-American common law to override Roe, citing the work of Henry de Bracton, a 13th-century English cleric and judge who condemned abortions as homicide, and a 17th-century English jurist who sentenced at least three women accused of using witchcraft to death.
What’s behind Alito’s fury and habit of issuing norm-breaking invective? As Georgia State University law professor Eric Segall told The Wall Street Journal in an article published this month, “Alito thinks of the other side as the enemy.” And true to Segall’s observation, Alito unwittingly admitted as much at the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner in 2024, when documentary filmmaker Lauren Windsor asked whether there was any way the country could overcome its terrible polarization, then surreptitiously recorded Alito’s answer that “there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.”
Like most extremists, Alito has views that derive not just from his abstract political beliefs, but from his lived experiences growing up in a predominantly white Christian community as the son of deeply religious Catholic Italian immigrants, and later as an out-of-place right winger at Princeton University and Yale Law School.
In a revealing new biography, Revenge for the Sixties: Sam Alito and the Triumph of the Conservative Legal Movement, journalist Peter S. Canellos offers a compelling psychological portrait of Alito as a man dismayed by the demographic and secular changes that have transformed and, by his estimation, degraded the country of his boyhood. Alito has been on a mission to reverse those trends ex cathedra from his perch on the Supreme Court.
The problem is not that Alito has personal hang-ups—we all do—but that so many of his hang-ups have become the law of the land. On June 30, NPR’s Totenberg erroneously reported that Alito planned to retire so that President Donald Trump might nominate a younger right-wing zealot to the bench. The story turned out not to be true and was promptly retracted. Too bad for her—and even worse for the country.
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As Families Struggle to Afford Groceries, House GOP Approves Billions More for Illegal Iran War
"By voting for this budget resolution, Republicans are saying that this war is more important than lowering Americans’ costs."
Jul 23, 2026
House Republicans on Wednesday approved a $95 billion budget framework that would pump more money into US President Donald Trump's illegal Iran war and push states to adopt restrictions on voting rights, all while Americans struggle to afford groceries and other necessities.
Every present House Democrat and just three members of the GOP caucus—Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Warren Davidson of Ohio, and Kevin Kiley of California—voted against the budget measure, which would yet again set in motion the filibuster-proof reconciliation process that the Republican majority has used to ram through tax cuts for the rich, attacks on safety net programs, and other unpopular agenda items.
The new budget blueprint, which is seen as facing tougher prospects in the narrowly Republican-controlled Senate, would provide up to $73 billion in additional funding for the US military, mostly for the Iran war. The measure also includes $10 billion to prod states to adopt voter ID requirements, a top priority of the Trump administration ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Leor Tal, campaign director at the Unrig Our Economy coalition, said in response to Wednesday's vote that "once again, Republicans in Congress chose to put their unnecessary war in Iran over the American people."
"It is unconscionable that any member of Congress would vote to put a cent of taxpayer money towards this war that is raising Americans’ costs and costing servicemembers their lives," said Tal. "By voting for this budget resolution, Republicans are saying that this war is more important than lowering Americans’ costs. It’s time for Republicans in Congress to put an end to this seemingly endless war."
Analysts have placed the financial cost of the Iran war at roughly $1,100 per American household so far, accounting for higher prices for energy, groceries, and other essentials. With families across the country reeling from federal food aid cuts implemented under an earlier Republican budget package, a recent poll found that two-thirds of Americans say they would describe the cost of groceries as unaffordable—up from 45% prior to the US assault on Iran.
The budget measure that House Republicans adopted on Wednesday would do nothing to alleviate the nation's worsening cost-of-living crisis, which Trump has repeatedly dismissed as a hoax perpetrated by his political opponents.
"With grocery bills on the rise and skyrocketing gas prices at the pump, working families are struggling to make ends meet, and Republicans have no plan for them," Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said Wednesday. "Taxpayer dollars should be used to support the American people, not double down on this president’s failed agenda and foreign wars. Congress needs to cut off funding for the war before more Americans are killed, not write a multi-billion-dollar blank check to the Pentagon."
In a separate vote on Wednesday, House Republicans voted to authorize an unprecedented $1.15 trillion military budget for the coming fiscal year. Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), co-chairs of the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus, said in a joint statement that "while millions of Americans are struggling to afford basic necessities, Congress is choosing to authorize over $1 trillion for the Pentagon, once again funneling billions of taxpayer dollars to defense contractors instead of investing in the needs of working people."
"The American people are sick and tired of funding atrocities abroad and want this war with Iran to end," said Omar and Pocan. "Yet year after year, the Pentagon fails its audit with virtually no accountability, while Congress continues to increase military spending. We should be investing in affordable housing, healthcare, education, and good-paying jobs—not bankrolling defense contractors."
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13 Dems Help House GOP Pass Stock Trading Ban That Includes Trump Attack on Voters
"If Republicans actually wanted to stop congressional stock trading, they’d pass our bipartisan Restore Trust in Congress Act," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
Jul 22, 2026
The US House of Representatives on Wednesday held a series of key votes, including one in which over a dozen Democrats helped Republicans pass a purported congressional stock trading ban, even though the GOP tacked on a voter suppression provision demanded by President Donald Trump.
The chamber passed the Stop Insider Trading Act (HR 7008) in a 232-198 vote. The Democrats who voted in favor are Reps. Kathy Castor (Fla.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Don Davis (NC), Jared Golden (Maine), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), Susie Lee (Nev.), Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Chris Pappas (NH), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), Darren Soto (Fla.), and Derek Tran (Calif.).
Taking aim at Trump on Wednesday, Congresswoman Sydney Kamlanger-Dove (D-Calif.) said that "the Stock Trader in Chief made 21,000 stock trades in his first year back in office. I 100% support a stock trading ban for Members of Congress AND the president and VP. But the bill Republicans brought to the floor was only about appeasing Trump."
"It caters to Trump's election conspiracy theories by enacting haphazard voter ID restrictions, and it conveniently excludes him and JD from the ban," she added, referring to Vice President JD Vance. "I voted no."
Many other House Democrats joined voting rights advocates in opposing the bill in the lead-up to Wednesday's vote, with Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-NY) denouncing it as "a Trojan horse—using the premise of congressional ethics reform to advance a broader effort to restrict access to the ballot box."
In a letter to Congress earlier this week, the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) warned that "the Voter ID Act—which mostly mirrors a section of the deeply unpopular SAVE Act—aims to impose onerous new requirements on voting. It would demand Americans provide ID to cast a ballot but only accept an unreasonably narrow list of acceptable types of documentation. It excludes widely held and reliable forms of ID that young people and voters of color disproportionally rely on, while failing to account for the diversity of tribal identification practices."
As for the stock portion of the bill, CLC wrote, it "would not actually ban lawmakers from trading stocks or stop members from unduly profiting from their official positions," and "contains exceptions that regrettably swallow the few new rules it does try to enact."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) on Wednesday renewed her call for passing the bipartisan Restore Trust in Congress Act.
In addition to HR 7008, the House on Wednesday passed an annual military spending package and a budget reconciliation framework that includes $10 billion for election-related grants.
By adding SAVE America Act provisions to unrelated measures, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is trying "to placate Mr. Trump and far-right House Republicans who are furious that the voting restriction bill has run aground in the Senate," The New York Times noted. "The moves are unlikely to budge Senate Republicans; they consider the bill dead, given that it cannot draw the 60 votes needed to move forward in that chamber."
As for the chamber's Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) and his party's Election Protection Task Force on Wednesday brought together various experts, including Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy, former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen, lawyer Marc Elias, Vanita Gupta of New York University School of Law, and Skye Perryman of Democracy Forward.
"We all know that Donald Trump wants to steal America's elections, plain and simple. And Democrats won't let it happen," Schumer said. "We are looking at every very way to prevent him from stealing the elections. He's desperate. He's made life harder, more difficult for Americans. He wants to steal the election because he knows he can't win the election. Our job is to stop it. And so, we are doing many things. This month we're talking about Trump's corruption."
"But one of the things we are doing is a tabletop exercise where some of the experts on election reform will challenge us with certain scenarios that Trump might use. We're looking at things he would do to undo elections before Election Day, on Election Day, and after Election Day," he explained. "And we had one tabletop exercise three, four weeks ago. And it greatly strengthened our knowledge and ability to anticipate what he might do and how to thwart him. That's what we're doing here today. And whatever he does, we will be ready to respond."
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As Trump Renews Assault on Iran, Dems Prepare Another War Powers Resolution
Congress already passed one resolution last month, but Trump has defied it, claiming that his latest attacks are part of a new war against Iran.
Jul 22, 2026
Democrats introduced another war powers resolution in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday that they hope will strengthen their efforts to stop President Donald Trump from continuing to escalate his war with Iran.
Both houses of Congress already passed a war powers resolution in June, but it was not signed by Trump and lacked the force of law.
Trump has refused to comply with its order to withdraw troops from hostilities in the region, claiming that his renewed attacks on Iran this month constitute a new conflict that resets the 60-day countdown before Congress can intervene.
According to Politico, Rep. Gregory Meeks (NY), the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expects the resolution to come to the floor for a vote on Thursday, just before Congress adjourns for a five-week summer recess.
The resolution, introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) on Wednesday, is expected to have the support of every Democrat, as well as Reps. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who voted for the last resolution.
A co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Col.), said on Wednesday that Democrats, as well as these "Republicans of courage and conscience," were united in their goal of sending "a message that this war has got to stop."
Jayapal said recent developments, including the deaths of four US soldiers over the past week, had raised the urgency of ending the war now.
"This war has killed 18 US service members, cost billions of taxpayer dollars, and displaced millions of civilians," she noted.
A new resolution may also strengthen a separate effort by Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), who is planning to introduce legislation that would block any additional federal funding for attacks against Iran not authorized by Congress. He also said he was preparing a lawsuit challenging Trump's continuation of the war without congressional approval, which he has called "legally baseless."
As the administration requests tens of billions more in military spending in order to fund the war, Democrats in the Senate last week blocked debate on the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The House passed the NDAA on Wednesday with limited Democratic support, though it did not contain the separate Iran War funding package.
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Warning of Partisan Takeover, Senate Democrat Demands Freeze on Trump Postal Board Nominees
"This imbalance in representation would be unprecedented and would undermine public confidence in the board’s ability to serve the public interest above any partisan political aims."
Jul 22, 2026
Sen. Gary Peters on Wednesday warned that the independence of the United States Postal Service Board of Governors is at risk thanks to President Donald Trump.
Peters (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, called for a pause on efforts to confirm two Trump USPS nominees until the president puts forth a Democratic nominee to maintain partisan balance on the board.
In a letter to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), chairman of the committee, Peters said it appeared as though Trump was trying to stack the deck of the board by only nominating Republicans to serve.
"Congress designed the Board of Governors to represent the public interest, and enacted specific requirements regarding governors’ qualifications and political affiliations," wrote Peters. "The statute authorizing the board dictates that no more than five of the nine Senate-confirmed governors be members of the same political party."
Peters said that, if Trump kept refusing to make any Democratic nominations, it would eventually result in Republicans having a five-to-one advantage on the board.
"This imbalance in representation would be unprecedented," said Peters, "and would undermine public confidence in the board’s ability to serve the public interest above any partisan political aims."
The Save the Post Office Coalition on Tuesday sent a letter to senators urging them to reject Jeffrey Brodsky and William Gallo, Trump's two nominees to the board, whom they argued "do not have a record of public service" and "do not reflect the public interest in protecting the public service mission of the Postal Service."
"Mr. Brodsky and Mr. Gallo are wealthy businessmen with close ties to President Trump who both come from corporate insider backgrounds," the coalition emphasized. "They lack the qualifications needed to lead the nation’s oldest and most cherished public institution."
Control of the USPS Board of Governors has taken on particular importance given Trump's efforts to use the Postal Service as a weapon against mail-in voting.
In March, the president signed an executive order that instructed the USPS to not deliver ballots in any states that have not given the federal government access to its voter lists. A federal court earlier this month blocked implementation of the Trump order, which is being challenged legally by congressional Democrats and all 23 Democratic state attorneys general.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that a coalition of eight nonprofit groups involved in voter education and advocacy have valid constitutional and statutory claims in their lawsuit against the Trump mail-in voting executive order.
Specifically, the court found that some of the groups' members may be directly harmed by the Trump order "because those members include individuals who must rely on mail voting as they live overseas, reside out of state, have disabilities, or are unable to travel to the polls and vote in person."
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Leading Collins in New Poll, Jackson Says Maine Can't Afford 6 More Years of GOP Senator's 'Concern'
"For 30 years, Susan Collins has told us that she's concerned, she's told us that she's troubled, and she's told us that she's disappointed, but when the stakes are the absolute highest, too often, she stood with Donald Trump."
Jul 22, 2026
With three days to go until Maine's statewide convention, where delegates will officially nominate the Democratic US Senate candidate who will face Republican Sen. Susan Collins, presumptive nominee Troy Jackson is hitting the ground running—denouncing Collins' repeated claims of "concern" over the MAGA agenda she's enabled as he points to recent polling in his favor.
"Working Mainers can’t afford six more years of 'concern,'" Jackson said on social media Tuesday evening after the University of New Hampshire released polling from July 15-20 that showed 49% of respondents backing the former state Senate president and logger, compared with 46% who supported the five-term senator.
The poll was released days after Jackson swept last weekend's 16 county-level nominating meetings, where voters selected the delegates who will go to the convention on Saturday. Jackson won 478 out of 500 delegates who were voted on last weekend; 100 state committee members will also take part in the convention, and how they intend to vote is unknown, but Jackson has emerged as the clear front-runner after former candidate Graham Platner dropped out of the race due to sexual assault allegations, which he denied.
Following the county meetings, Jackson's top opponents, including Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, epidemiologist Nirav Shah, and activist Jordan Wood, dropped out of the race and endorsed him.
Jackson, who ran for governor earlier this year, has also received endorsements from top labor unions in Maine and current and former state lawmakers, while garnering $1 million from more than 25,000 donors since he first expressed interest in succeeding Platner as the Democratic candidate just over two weeks ago.
"Susan Collins has billionaires. We have a movement," said Jackson on Wednesday.
He also posted a video of a recent speech he gave in York County, emphasizing his desire to include all working people in his push to unseat Collins.
"There is a place for you in this movement, because we're not going to defeat Susan Collins by making this movement smaller," said Jackson. "I know what happens when working people decide that they've had enough. When we do, we stand up, we lock arms, we fight back, and then we win."
I know what happens when working people decide that they've had enough. Together, we'll make sure Susan Collins and the Republicans find out soon. pic.twitter.com/6p5S5EHtdm
— Troy Jackson (@TroyJackson207) July 22, 2026
Jackson also sought on Wednesday to tie Collins, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to President Donald Trump. He has previously pointed to Collins' vote in favor of funding US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, particularly in light of an ICE agent's killing of Biddeford, Maine resident Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, and on Wednesday posted a photo of Collins with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
The senator presided over a committee hearing Tuesday regarding the cost of Trump's $37.5 billion war on Iran, and signaled a willingness to provide $33 billion more.
"For 30 years, Susan Collins has told us that she's concerned, she's told us that she's troubled, and she's told us that she's disappointed, but when the stakes are the absolute highest, too often, she stood with Donald Trump," said Jackson at a recent rally. "We need courage, we need a fighter, and we need someone who remembers exactly who sent them to Washington."
Since announcing his candidacy, Jackson has also spoken out in favor of Medicare for All—supported by 78% of Democrats, 71% of Independents, and nearly half of Republicans in a Data for Progress poll last year—and on Tuesday Collins attacked him as "firmly aligned with the democratic socialists."
Candidates who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America and who back universal social programs have won recent elections in New York, Colorado, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
Jackson told NBC News Tuesday: "I see myself as a Mainer and a working-class person. You know, we have socialism in the state with public schools, with plowing the roads... I don’t see myself as anything but a guy that wants to make good change for people I care about.”
On social media, he turned Collins' frequent refrain back around on her.
"Very concerned," he said.
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