GOD & COUNTRY SLUMPS: What are the consequences of a culture increasingly devoid of principles and spiritual meaning? The Wall Street Journal reveals the ominous corollaries: “The values that Americans say define the national character are changing, as younger generations rate patriotism, religion and having children as less important to them than did young people two decades ago, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey finds.” The rate reductions range from nine to 16 percentage points. The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro deduces, “If you get rid of patriotism … get rid of religion … and then you get rid of even a care for the future … the question becomes: What exactly are the ties that are supposed to bind us together other than watching the Super Bowl on TV once a year?”

COLLEGE QUID PRO QUO: “The company that administers the SAT college admissions test is replacing the so-called adversity score with a tool that will no longer reduce an applicant’s background to a single number, an idea that the College Board’s chief executive now says was a mistake,” according to Time magazine, which goes on to explain that “the revised tool will provide a series of data points from government sources and the College Board that are seen as affecting education.” Dropping the adversity score is good. But replacing it with yet another affirmative-action tool is still beyond the scope of what the College Board’s role should be.

ANNALS OF THE ABSURD: “A federal appeals court has ruled that Idaho must pay for a transgender inmate’s surgery,” reports The Daily Caller. “Thirty-one-year-old Adree Edmo is a convicted sex offender who is scheduled to be released from jail in 2021. The sex offender was diagnosed with gender dysmorphia in 2012, identifies as a woman, and is currently housed in a men’s prison.” According to Edmo’s attorney, “They treat a prisoner with diabetes, or other chronic conditions. So, we have a medically recognized condition that’s very treatable and we have been trying to get her [sic] the treatment that she [sic] very much needs.” In other words, you will be made to care.

ABORTION RESTRICTIONS BLOCKED: “A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked a Missouri law banning abortions after eight weeks, one of the most restrictive proposals nationwide. … ‘The various sections specifying prohibitions on abortions at various weeks prior to viability cannot be allowed to go into effect on August 28, as scheduled,’ U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs, a Carter appointee, wrote in an 11-page opinion. … Sachs wrote in his ruling that the law conflicts with Supreme Court precedent, which said that states could not interfere with a woman’s right to abortion until a fetus is viable after 24 weeks of pregnancy.” (The Hill)

Business & Economy

NEW SECURITIES LEADER: According to CNSNews.com’s Terence Jeffrey, “Entities in Japan have surpassed entities in Mainland China as the top foreign holders of U.S. Treasury securities, according to the latest estimate published this month by the Treasury.” As of June, Japan owned $1,122,900,000,000 in Treasury securities, which is slightly higher than China’s $1,112,500,000,000. “That marked the first time since May 2017 that entities in Japan have owned more U.S. Treasury securities … than entities in China,” Jeffrey notes. Better an ally than an enemy.

SEEING THE WRITING ON THE WALL: “The maker of OxyContin, Purdue Pharma, and its owners, the Sackler family, are offering to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits against the company for $10 billion to $12 billion,” NBC News reports. The timing isn’t coincidental. On Monday, Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $572 million over its role in the opioid epidemic.

National Security

IMMIGRATION UPDATE: Twenty miles of new border barriers were authorized this week by Defense Secretary Mark Esper, according to The Hill. “The Army Corps of Engineers determined that lower-than-expected contract costs could allow for another 20 miles of barrier.” Meanwhile, The Washington Free Beacon reports, “Thousands of would-be illegal immigrants are being returned to await asylum hearings in Mexico as part of a program the Trump administration has credited with curbing the recent wave of family migration at the southwestern border.”

RUSSIA’S HARD FEELINGS: “Republican and Democratic U.S. senators said Russia refused to grant them visas for a visit to Moscow next week, amid disagreement within Washington and among U.S. allies over whether the country should be readmitted to the Group of Seven,” Reuters reveals. The two senators are Chris Murphy and Ron Johnson, both of whom sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Murphy and Johnson also support levying sanctions on Russia.

Other Notables

SCALIA NOMINATED: “President Trump on Tuesday officially tapped Eugene Scalia, son of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, to be his administration’s next secretary of labor. The president forecast his nomination of Scalia last month, just days after Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta resigned amid criticism of his kid-gloved handling of Florida prostitution charges against the late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.” (National Review)

TFCC SINKS: CNSNews.com reports that the U.S. Navy’s Task Force Climate Change (TFCC) was surreptitiously shuttered in March. The decade-old TFCC was a pet project of Barack Obama tasked with gauging “how climate change affects or could affect Naval and national security operations.” Retired Navy Rear Admiral Jon White, a former TFCC director, groused, “It all goes back to the White House.” Yes it does. Because the Trump administration wants to focus on actual military readiness.

Closing Arguments

POLICY: The racist origins of minimum-wage laws (Foundation for Economic Education)

POLICY: Why climate action flopped at the G7 summit (National Review)

HUMOR: CNN apologizes to Stalin and Mao after comparing them to Trump (The Babylon Bee)

For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit In Our Sights.

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