Rewriting the 4th of July

President Trump is demanding that gas companies lower prices immediately. The problem is that gas prices aren’t set by presidential decree. They are driven primarily by global crude oil prices, refining capacity, inventories, taxes, and competition. This is reminiscent of President Biden blaming grocery stores and retailers for inflation. When prices are politically inconvenient, the temptation is always to blame the companies at the end of the supply chain. Oil prices have fallen sharply over the past week, nearly erasing the “war premium” that followed the U.S.-Iran conflict. But that drop appears to be driven more by market sentiment than by a meaningful improvement in supply. Commodity strategists warned Monday that traders may be pricing in an overly optimistic outlook while underestimating the remaining supply risks. During the conflict, the United States authorized the release of 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help stabilize markets.

Should a defense contractor get to enrich shareholders with stock buybacks while it’s behind schedule on taxpayer-funded government contracts? The House will debate exactly that question this week as lawmakers consider an amendment to the annual defense bill that would prohibit certain Pentagon contractors from buying back their own stock if they are failing to meet production and delivery requirements. The idea is simple: if taxpayers are paying you to build missiles, ships, and fighter jets, maybe build the missiles, ships, and fighter jets before rewarding Wall Street. Enter the lobbyists. America’s weapons makers have deployed their most powerful weapon yet: their lobbyists, sent to kill the bill before it can reach the battlefield. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, and major defense industry groups are urging lawmakers to kill the proposal, arguing that it amounts to the federal government dictating how private companies allocate

The U.S. and Iran traded bombs over the weekend, despite ongoing peace negotiations. By Sunday afternoon, both sides appeared ready to climb back down the ladder. Several outlets warned that “Iran” now says it has no choice but to build a nuclear bomb. Not true. Iranian media published an opinion piece making that argument. That is not the same thing as an official Iranian government position, an IRGC directive, or a policy announcement from Tehran. The piece argued that Iran needs nuclear deterrence to force the U.S. and Israel to negotiate from a position of equality. That is a domestic strategic argument, not a declaration that Iran is building a bomb. Iran’s official position remains that nuclear weapons are forbidden under Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa, first publicly reported in 2003 and later cited by Iran at the IAEA. So no, “Iran” did not announce that it is building a nuclear

It’s hard to imagine worse optics. As much of Europe baked under a heat wave, the European Commission reportedly shut off air conditioning on the lower floors of its Brussels headquarters on Friday while keeping it running on the upper floors. Temperatures climbed above 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Guess where European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her senior staff have their offices. The top floors. For years, Brussels has lectured Europeans that they must consume less energy, lower their expectations, and make personal sacrifices in the name of climate policy. But when the building got too hot, the sacrifice apparently wasn’t meant to be shared equally. The message couldn’t be clearer: austerity for the staff downstairs, comfort for the ruling class upstairs.

The Supreme Court just slammed the door on nearly 70,000 cancer victims. In a deeply disappointing 7-2 ruling, the justices shielded chemical giant Bayer-Monsanto from state-level product liability lawsuits over its weed killer, Roundup, and its failure to include a warning on the label about the risks of cancer. How exactly did this case come about? John Durnell, a St. Louis resident, sued Monsanto in 2019, alleging that decades of using glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Roundup, caused him to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. The jury sided with Durnell in 2023, awarding him $1.25 million in damages. But after an appeals court upheld the verdict, Monsanto petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case in April 2025. Impacting the recent ruling was Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s majority opinion that: The EPA has “repeatedly concluded that glyphosate is not likely to

Ford and General Motors are in discussions with defense contractors about converting some of their factories to produce military weapons. Interesting timing, considering we’re supposedly winding down the latest war. Speaking to reporters this week, President Trump said that companies, including General Motors and Ford, are discussing plans to manufacture weapons such as Patriot air-defense missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles as part of a major expansion of U.S. military production. “I know General Motors is all excited about building weapons now,” Trump said, adding that some civilian factories could be converted for military use as part of what he described as a “big strong economic push.” The proposal comes after reports that the Pentagon has been meeting with major manufacturers about shifting idle production lines toward weapons production, reviving a World War II-style strategy of turning America’s industrial base into a wartime machine. Why the sudden urgency? Years of wasting