The news is currently flooded with stories about Belarus, where mass demonstrations have taken place following rigged elections won by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Why are world leaders and the press so invested in this particular bit of oppression out of everything going on in the world? Because Belarus occupies a strategically significant position between Russia and NATO/the EU.

Lukashenko has been President since Belarus’s first post-communist elections in 1994, and is sometimes called “Europe’s last dictator.” Belarus is sandwiched between Russia on one side and Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia on the other. The Russian Oblast (an administrative region similar to a province or a state) of Kaliningrad is on the Baltic sea, cut off from the rest of Russia but separated from Belarus by the “Suwalki gap”, a plain about 70 miles across. …

When Fidel Castro died in 2016, California Congresswoman Karen Bass hailed him as “Comandante en Jefe” (a familiar phrase for Cuban refugees), and lamented his death as “a great loss to the people of Cuba.” As a possible Biden VP choice, those remarks have drawn renewed scrutiny. Bass could have pled ignorance of the extent of the regime’s tyranny and apologized. Instead, she simply said she had not realized the difference between how he was perceived in Florida as opposed to California, and that she would use different words if she could do it again.

Her lack of remorse is unsurprising, given that in 1973 she joined the Vencemeros Brigade. Named for a Castro slogan and founded to provide American support for his regime, the brigade organizes regular labor trips to Cuba, has been suspected of ties to Cuban intelligence, and remains committed to “the struggle against capitalism.” According to Bass herself, she was aware even during her many visits as part of the Brigade that Cuban citizens did not have the same rights that she did in America — yet she continued to support and praise him and his brutal regime. Bass also raised eyebrows with her decision to enter a eulogy into the Congressional record for a top member of the Communist Party USA, calling him “a mentor” without whose help “my life would have taken a very different path.” Her main response to the total controversy? A Nixonian “I am not a communist” before arguing that Floridians don’t really care about communism anyway. …

Mississippi is choosing a new flag, ending the last official usage of the Confederate battle flag by a State. Supporters have long claimed the emblem as a symbol of heritage, a memorial to their ancestors who fought and often died on the Southern side of the civil war. It had also become a general symbol of rebelliousness and opposition to authority, from Hollywood to Italy to northern States that had fought for the Union. Even I felt a pang when the issue became prominent enough that I had to think about it, despite neither I nor my family ever having flown or worn or otherwise used that flag. …

155 years ago today in Galveston, Texas, the last slaves in America were told that they were legally free. Commemorated as Juneteenth, it is the oldest known celebration of the end of slavery, sometimes called Black Independence Day. I have seen this term, and the celebration itself, bother some people. It certainly gave me pause when I first heard it. We already have an Independence Day, after all, and the point of such a national celebration is to unify us. Having two “independence days” is inherently divisive, go the grumbles. Our celebrations of liberty should be unified on July 4th — after all, Independence was not achieved then, it’s just the day on which we celebrate its pronouncement and eventual success. Yet when someone agrees and suggests that celebrations of the 4th should include mention of the fact that the blessings of liberty were wholly denied to black Americans for another 89 years, the grumbles arise again. Stop changing the subject, they say. The point is a unified celebration of our shared blessings, not a rehashing of everything bad that ever happened. …

This National Review article by Kevin D. Williamson sent me searching for more information on Sohrab Ahmari and Catholic Integralism, leading to articles by the New Yorker and Church Life Journal. Essentially, some California libraries allowed drag queens to read stories to children, prompting Ahmari to launch a public crusade in support of Integralism. Integralism holds that the church should be an integrated part of the government, and that the government should legislate & execute in order to enforce Christian moral law. Ahmari wants the government to prevent drag queen story hours by force, and if that requires amending the Constitution to give the government more power to interfere with the freedoms of religion, speech, and association, so be it. …