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By Jeevna Sheth

On July 1, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the U.S. president is above the law.

In Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court was presented with the specifics of the case against former President Donald Trump for his alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and inciting an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2020. Rather than use this opportunity to affirm the nation’s founding principle that a president is not a king and that no one is above the law, the far right-wing supermajority of the court rejected that foundational idea. Instead, the court radically expanded the powers of U.S. presidents—allowing them to use “official acts” to shield illegal actions from prosecution—and laid the foundation for authoritarianism in America. -- CLICK STORY TO READ MORE

By Nick Wilson

Gun violence is falling at a historic rate for the second year in a row after surging nearly 30 percent during former President Donald Trump’s final year in office. However, rather than build on the success of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act by passing stronger gun laws and increasing investments in the root causes of violence, far-right extremists are attempting to defund federal law enforcement and invalidate state gun laws that save lives. Their radical policy agenda would make the country less safe by making it easier for people who want to commit violence to carry guns and harder for law enforcement to solve violent crimes.

Background

In its extremist Mandate for Leadership, dubbed “Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project,” the far-right Heritage Foundation has outlined an extreme policy vision to put power—and profits—back in the hands of the corporate gun lobby at the expense of public safety. -- CLICK STORY TO READ MORE

By Allison McManus

On Saturday, July 27, a rocket struck a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, killing 12 children. The Israeli government attributed the attack to Hezbollah and, despite U.S. warnings to avoid the Lebanese capital—carried out a strike on Tuesday in the Dahieh neighborhood of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold. Early in the morning on July 31, Israel carried out a strike on Iranian soil, killing the political head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh. These developments underscore the precarious situation on Israel’s border with Lebanon and the risk of Iran and Israel entering into a wider war in the Middle East. Even carefully calibrated escalations risk spiraling out of control. U.S. officials must take urgent action to avoid wider conflict, including continued efforts toward an immediate ceasefire in the short term and steps to bolster Lebanon’s state institutions as an alternative to Hezbollah in the long term.

-- CLICK STORY TO READ MORE

By Kyle Ross

In March, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) released its fiscal year 2025 budget proposal, which includes significant cuts to Social Security. The committee’s membership comprises roughly 80 percent of all Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives as well as the entirety of House Republican leadership, indicating that the policies outlined in their budget proposal are major priorities for the House Republican caucus. One policy that has continually been included in RSC budget proposals for years is an increase to Social Security’s full retirement age (FRA), the age at which seniors become eligible to access Social Security retirement benefits without a financial penalty for retiring early. The FRA is 67 under current law, but the RSC plan would push it back to 69, leading to drastic benefit cuts for a large majority of Americans. -- CLICK STORY TO READ MORE