Kelly Shackelford heads First Liberty Institute, a Texas-based nonprofit dedicated to defending religious liberty. First Liberty has aided the American Legion in its fight to keep in place the Peace Cross, which stands 40 feet tall on state-owned land in Bladensburg, Md. The Supreme Court will be issuing an opinion on that case sometime in June. Here are edited segments of our Q&A in front of students at Patrick Henry College.

The cover story in our last issue showed the dangers of socialism—but New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pooh-poohs the notion that American socialism could lead to “Soviet-style central planning, or Venezuela-style nationalization of industry; … there is essentially nobody in American political life who advocates such things. … Scaremongering over socialism is both silly and dishonest.”

Congratulations to the legislatures and governors of Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and other states. Congratulations to Donald Trump, who has surprisingly spoken with clarity about what the left would obfuscate: He said accurately that a baby now can be “ripped from the mother’s womb moments from birth.” The uneasiness of the left about new personhood and heartbeat laws is evident in the mid-May reactions of two New Yorkers: the wise guy named Stephen Colbert, and the newspaper that some readers consider the wisest, The New York Times. 

Sixth (and last) in a series on changing cities

In March 31, 1755, the curtain rose for the first time at Lisbon’s Casa da Opera, said to surpass “in magnitude and decorations all that modern times can boast,” with spectators gaping at “the richness of the house and all the gilded decorations.” Its stage was 180 feet long, twice the length of a modern NBA basketball court. King José had assembled “the greatest singers then existing”: Domenico Luciani, Giuseppi Morelli, Gaetano Majorano, and more. 

David Block and Kenneth Freeman in God and Galileo (Crossway, 2019) throw light on the battle between Roman Catholicism and the scientist who became known as “the father of observational astronomy.” They show how political maneuvering at the Vatican contributed to the infamous decision to force Galileo to recant publicly while still holding to what his scientific observation told him: that the Earth moves.

Pierre Omidyar had the Midas touch. In 1995 he founded what became eBay. I don’t doubt that Omidyar worked hard, but his $11 billion fortune may be a case (compared to the typical toiler) of easy come, easy more—and that may mean trouble for the rest of us.

Editor’s note: Marvin Olasky continues his monthly biographical series on key individuals from late 19th and early 20th century American history. In February and March, we looked at the life of John D. Rockefeller. In April, we presented Part 1 on the life of Grover Cleveland. Here’s the concluding second part.