Trump calls bluff of critics in July 4th speech  —  (CNN)President Donald Trump was as good as his word Thursday: He saluted America.  —  In one of the least polarizing speeches of his presidency, Trump paid tribute to America's armed forces at a July Fourth appearance before the Lincoln Memorial …

CNN Exclusive: Joe Biden says he wasn't prepared for Kamala Harris to confront him the way she did  —  Des Moines, Iowa (CNN)Former Vice President Joe Biden said in an exclusive interview with CNN airing Friday that he wasn't prepared for California Sen. Kamala Harris to confront him on issues …

How the Supreme Court will upend 2020  —  The Supreme Court is already poised to drop some big political bombshells right into the heat of the 2020 campaign.  And there are even more waiting in the wings.  —  Why it matters: The court will likely hand down rulings on some of the most contentious issues …

The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity  —  Last week, Ralph Reed, the Faith and Freedom Coalition's founder and chairman, told the group, “There has never been anyone who has defended us and who has fought for us, who we have loved more than Donald J. Trump.  No one!”

'This doesn't look like the best economy ever': 40% of Americans say they still struggle to pay bills  —  Sommer Johnson thought everything was finally coming together for her last year.  She was engaged, working full time and doing well in online college classes when her fiance's mother died …

Strong job growth is back: Payrolls jump in June well above expectations  —  KEY POINTS  — Nonfarm payrolls rose 224,000 in June, well above market expectations of 165,000, according to the Labor Department.  —  US adds 224,000 jobs in June, vs 165,000 expected

Valuing the Work of Women of Color  —  Our society and our economy demand so much of women — but they place a particular burden on Black, Latina, Native American, Asian, and other women of color.  More than 70% of Black mothers and more than 40% of Latina mothers are their families' sole breadwinners …

Trump's Not-Crazy Speech Just Highlighted Norms He's Crushed  —  It was a speech that had all the excitement of an excerpt from one of Bill O'Reilly's YA history books.  —  It was a triumph of low expectations.  —  Donald Trump's “Salute to America” speech could have easily devolved into chants of …

It's Not Just the White House in 2020.  The Power to Draw Maps Is Also at Stake.  —  DALLAS — Only hours after the United States Supreme Court said it could do nothing to stop partisan gerrymandering of the nation's political maps, Eric H. Holder Jr. had a message for his fellow Democrats in downtown Dallas.

Trump Couldn't Ignore the Contradictions of His Foreign Policy Any Longer  —  Vyacheslav Molotov served in senior positions in the Soviet Union for more than a quarter century, including 10 years as Stalin's foreign minister.  He was dismissed in 1949 when he fell out of favor with Stalin …

Trump's sad, strange, somewhat Soviet Fourth of July spectacle  —  Let's get an obvious point about President Trump's Independence Day speech out of the way right at the top.  It was a bad speech.  —  It wasn't bad in the way most of Donald Trump's speeches are bad, in that it was not overtly objectionable.