Defense beat: Digging for Mineral Independence

For the first time in 70 years, “the United States opened a rare earth mine,” reports RealClearInvestigation’s James Varney. “Ramaco’s Brook Mine in Ranchester,” Wyo., is “part of a critical effort to free the U.S. from China’s stranglehold on the minerals.” “China is the top producer of 30 of the 50 minerals the U.S. considers critical, and of 90% of the 17 that comprise rare earths.” Team Trump wants change, hence Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s presence at the mine opening. But mineral independence won’t be easy. “It takes more than seven years to secure a permit for mining something other than coal or gravel on public land.” The prez is “trying to remove some of the industry’s obstacles,” yet “the future pace and success of rare earth extraction in the U.S. remains decidedly uncertain.”

Foreign desk: UK Regime Change Is Coming

“Britain’s regime forfeited its people’s trust by bungling the economy, bringing in millions of immigrants, and failing to defend the borders,” argues Dominic Green at The Wall Street Journal. “It now suppresses legitimate responses by trying to interdict private communications and isolate the British from their free-speaking American cousins. But any teenager with a virtual private network can get around the Great Firewall of London.” So Brits “have turned against the regime,” and “the regime is turning against the people” — but “it can’t silence them all.” Prime Minister Keir Starmer & Co. “will go down with the ship. It’s still unclear what kind of regime can refloat Britain and restore its traditional freedoms. Still, regime change is coming.”

Liberal: Dems’ Disastrous Denial on Disorder

“It’s just a fact,” warns the Liberal Patriot’s Ruy Teixeira, “that most Americans think the social order is falling apart.” Polls show that 66% “flat-out believe ‘society is broken,’” which “raises troubling questions about the current state of the Democratic Party.” Democrats “don’t recognize” that voters who observe the “rolling crisis of the social order” also think “Democrats are utterly useless at resolving it.” That Dems won’t even acknowledge the problem leads many to suspect “most Democrats are basically okay with their place in the broken social order.” Dems must admit that they, and “not just Republicans,” bear “grave responsibility” for a collapsing social order. Instead, “things fall apart and Democrats are currently just poking around in the wreckage.”

Culture watch: Academia’s Sydney Problem

That Sydney Sweeney ad campaign ”didn’t “threaten academia because it was political. It threatened academia because it wasn’t political at all,” claim Kevin Waldman & Forest Romm at The Hill. “In showcasing her ‘great jeans,’ Sweeney doesn’t posture. She doesn’t apologize for her ‘privilege’ — whether attractiveness, ‘whiteness’, or able-bodiedness.” She “simply exists.” The ensuing furor “was incubated in elite institutions,” where “today’s curricula often encourage students to devalue and disavow any aspect of identity not classified as ‘marginalized,’ such as maleness or heterosexuality.” “A figure like Sweeney — marked by ease, absence of political dog whistles, and comfort in a traditionally beautiful body — quietly opposes this climate” and so “represents a loss of control for the prevailing ideological apparatus, which demands punishment.”

Libertarian: An Unconstitutional Alcohol Ruling

Though the “Supreme Court has struck down protectionist state wine and liquor laws,” this week “a federal appellate court upheld an Indiana law that forbids out-of-state retailers from shipping wine directly to Indiana consumers,” fumes Reason’s Damon Root. The Constitution’s “Dormant Commerce Clause” forbids states “from erecting their own interstate economic barriers,” and the new ruling also “would seem to be at odds with the principles of interstate free trade embraced by” the Supreme Court in two prior decisions. This “may not sound like the most pressing legal dispute of the day,” but “the Constitution does protect the right to earn a living free from arbitrary and unnecessary government interference.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board