One of the goals of this newsletter is to elevate important stories that the news cycle has simply missed. Yes, I’ll comment on the headline news, but there’s more news out there, and some of it demands more attention. And so it is today. You may not realize this, but days ago the Supreme Court took a case that has a chance to influence the 2020 presidential election. The underlying issue perfectly sums up the political flaws of a presidential frontrunner and the case has a chance to help restore balance to America’s separation of powers. 

In other words, to paraphrase Joe Biden, this case is a big frickin’ deal. 

That’s just the beginning of this Tuesday edition of my as-yet-unnamed newsletter (thank you for the more than 100 suggestions so far). We’ll also talk about the welcome demise of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Kanye West and the power of the new convert, and why we should have great humility before we confidently assert that our chosen public policies will benefit humanity.

But first a brief word about the prepared testimony of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the accumulating evidence and testimony are demonstrating that Donald Trump not only meant what he said in his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but also that his demand for investigations into the Bidens and into nonsensical 2016 conspiracy theories were part and parcel of American diplomacy for months. Trump’s demands weren’t just impulsive, stream-of-consciousness musings (the “Trump being Trump” defense). They were American policy, and that policy represented a blatant abuse of presidential power.