Small businesses are the backbone of America — but right now, tariffs are breaking their backs
As a former small business owner for 27 years and a longtime board member of the Monroe Street Merchants Association in Madison, I've spent decades working to strengthen the small businesses and Main Streets that make our communities thrive. Today, I'm deeply concerned — because Main Streets across America are under threat like never before.
The sweeping tariffs imposed by the current administration are already fueling inflation, disrupting supply chains, and pushing small businesses to the brink. Local retailers, independent producers and small manufacturers — the very backbone of our neighborhoods — are being hit hardest.
Carol 'Orange' Schroeder, our board chair at the Monroe Street Merchants Association and owner of Orange Tree Imports, a favorite Madison store, understands this better than most. This year, Orange is celebrating 50 years in business — an incredible milestone. Over the decades, she's helped independent retailers nationwide weather many challenges, including fierce online competition. But as she recently wrote, not even the pandemic has matched the level of economic turmoil small businesses are facing today.
The problem is clear and devastating: suppliers can't get the goods they need, vendors are questioning whether they can stay afloat and customers — grappling with rising prices and financial anxiety — are pulling back from shopping locally. Sales reps are going unpaid as orders are canceled, and stores of all sizes are bracing for empty shelves. In short, the social fabric that binds our communities is beginning to fray under the weight of uncertainty.
The National Retail Federation recently warned that these tariffs threaten the American dream — and they're right. Small businesses aren't just part of our economy; they're central to our national identity, job creation, innovation and the strength of our local communities.
Now more than ever, Congress must step up and act. Policymakers have a critical opportunity to end these harmful tariffs, restore stability, and reassert balance in our trade policies. Just as importantly, Congress must reassert its constitutional authority over the power of the purse — a responsibility that rests with the legislative branch, not the executive alone.
The stakes couldn't be clearer. Without immediate action, we face shuttered storefronts, lost jobs and an avoidable recession. According to Gallup, Americans' economic outlook is now worse than at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic or the global financial crisis — a sobering indicator of just how fragile the moment is.
This is not a partisan issue. It's a matter of economic survival, community resilience and protecting the American dream for generations to come.
Congress must act now. Small businesses, workers, and families across the country are counting on bold leadership. It's time to end the tariff chaos, restore stability, and ensure Main Street can keep doing what it does best: creating jobs, driving innovation and strengthening the communities we all call home.
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Growing number of Jewish American groups speak out over Gaza famine
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'We urge Israel, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the UN, and all responsible parties involved in aid distribution to increase cooperation and coordination in order to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches Palestinian civilians in Gaza.' The GHF is an Israel- and US-backed aid group that has attracted condemnation for the killings of hundreds of civilians seeking food at the hands of Israeli forces and private contractors. The AJC statement reflected a cautious critique of Israel's aid blockade echoed by other groups noteworthy for their typically staunch support of the country, even as their statements condemned Hamas for refusing to release the Israeli hostages it continues to hold. The Reform movement in North America, which represents the largest Jewish denomination in the US, also issued a lengthy statement: 'Neither escalating military pressure nor restricting humanitarian aid has brought Israel closer to securing a hostage deal or ending the war,' it read. 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'Our tradition teaches us that if we can protest [against] our people's actions and we don't, we are responsible,' said IfNotNow's executive director, Morriah Kaplan, in a statement to the Guardian. The group is helping organize Monday's action. 'As Jews and as Americans, whose government is funding this atrocity, we all must choose whether we want to bear responsibility for a policy of forced mass starvation.' The shift is also playing out within institutions whose members want their leaders to take a tougher stance on a country many had long reflexively supported. More than 200 alumni from Young Judaea, a Zionist youth group, this week called on the organization in an open letter to depart from its pro-Israel line to speak out against starvation in Gaza and call for a permanent ceasefire, including a release of the hostages. 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an hour ago
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What are the Jeffrey Epstein files and will they be released?
A trove of documents related to the child sexual abuse offender Jeffrey Epstein are at the center of a splinter between Donald Trump and his rightwing allies. While campaigning, Trump said he would release the so-called 'Epstein files', the documents about criminal investigations into his former friend, who died in jail by hanging in 2019. But since taking office, Trump has appeared to have broken that promise, rankling ardent Maga allies who have spent years calling for the documents' release. Epstein knew powerful people of all political persuasions and counted them as friends. Releasing the documents has become a rallying cry to reveal more details about Epstein, including how he made his money, and the extent of involvement by those who supported him in his criminal activity, especially those with wealth and political sway. 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A memo released by the justice department in July said the agency searched through its databases, hard drives and physical areas to find Epstein-related information, locating 'more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence'. Within those files were images and videos of Epstein and his victims, some of whom are minors, and more than 10,000 downloaded videos and images of 'illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography'. Some documents related to Epstein are under court-ordered seals. For instance, a federal judge this week denied a request from the justice department to unseal grand jury transcripts in a south Florida criminal investigation. Some of those that were once sealed have been unsealed, including some unsealed in early 2024 that identified names of people included in depositions and motions who previously were listed as John Does. 'Much of the material is subject to court-ordered sealing,' the justice department memo said. 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After Epstein's death by suicide, Trump shared a tweet that claimed the Clintons were involved in his death. He also told reporters at the time that he had questions about whether Bill Clinton went to Epstein's infamous island. While campaigning for the 2024 election, Trump said, when asked, that he would declassify the Epstein files, though he prioritized them below files about September 11 and the John F Kennedy assassination. 'You don't want to affect people's lives if there's phoney stuff in there, because there's a lot of phoney stuff with that whole world,' he said then. Bondi said earlier this year that the justice department would be releasing a list of Epstein's clients, telling Fox News that it was 'sitting on my desk right now to review' – though she later said she was talking about case files and not a client list. The department released some information, dubbed a 'first phase of files', to rightwing influencers, though those files did not contain much new information. Trump has grown increasingly angry at those calling for the files to be released, and dismissed the entire controversy as 'boring' and a 'hoax', something that 'nobody cares about'. 'I have had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country's history, and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax,' he wrote on Truth Social on 16 July. Is Trump named in the files? Recent reporting by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal said that the justice department briefed Trump that his name and the name of other well-known people were found as the department searched through the files. The Journal said Trump's name 'appeared multiple times'. Trump is known to be a one-time friend of Epstein's. His name's inclusion in the documents does not mean he was a party to any of Epstein's criminal activity. Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew are expected to be named among the documents, as both were known to be in Epstein's circles to some degree. Elon Musk, the world's richest man who was a Trump cheerleader until the two fell out, tweeted in early June amid a fight over the Trump tax bill that Trump 'is in the Epstein files' and 'that is why they have not been made public'. He has since deleted the tweet. What questions could these files help answer? There are many legitimate questions that the files could shed light on about Epstein and his circle. How Epstein made his money is still of much interest, as is how he financed his extensive sex-trafficking operation. Often referred to as a financier, he had vast wealth, owning expensive real-estate including two private islands, and a private jet. Ron Wyden, the Democratic senator from Oregon who is the ranking Democrat on the Senate finance committee, told the New York Times that four major banks had 'flagged more than $1.5bn in transactions – including thousands of wire transfers for the purchase and sale of artwork for rich friends, fees paid to Mr Epstein by wealthy individuals, and payments to numerous women'. Questions still swirl over potential ties to the intelligence community. Bondi told reporters: 'To him being an agent, I have no knowledge about that. We can get back to you on that.' The former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett denied Epstein was an Israeli agent, a frequent claim made without evidence. 'The accusation that Jeffrey Epstein somehow worked for Israel or the Mossad running a blackmail ring is categorically and totally false,' Bennett said. And suspicion over the manner of Epstein's death is still in the mix. The justice department released an 11-hour video of jail footage in the hours before and after his death, though there seems to be almost three minutes of footage missing, leading to further scrutiny. Bondi has said that missing footage is because the Bureau of Prisons was resetting video. There is also much to be discovered on how Epstein was able to evade justice for so long. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter, told the Atlantic her 'one nagging question' goes back to 2008, when the justice department decided not to fully go after Epstein after local and state authorities first were looking into his crimes. 'Who were the people behind that in the beginning?' Brown said. 'Because if they had done their jobs, of all these people in 2006, 2007, and 2008 – if all those people working for us, the American public, had done their jobs, we wouldn't be sitting here right now. A lot of those victims would've never been victimized.' Solve the daily Crossword
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an hour ago
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Ghislaine Maxwell demands immunity before testifying to Congress
Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and associate of Jeffrey Epstein, says that she is willing to testify before Congress but only if certain conditions are met, including being granted immunity, according to a new letter sent to the House oversight committee by her lawyer on Tuesday. Last week, the House committee on oversight and government subpoenaed Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence, to testify via deposition next month at a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida, where she is currently in custody. But in a new letter on Tuesday addressed to James Comer, a Republican who chairs the House committee, Maxwell's lawyer, David Markus, said that Maxwell was willing to testify but that testifying 'from prison and without a grant of immunity' were 'non-starters'. Markus wrote that their initial reaction to the subpoena was that 'Maxwell would invoke her Fifth Amendment rights and decline to testify at this time.' 'As you know, Ms Maxwell is actively pursuing post-conviction relief – both in a pending petition before the United States Supreme Court and in a forthcoming habeas petition,' Markus wrote. 'Any testimony she provides now could compromise her constitutional rights, prejudice her legal claims, and potentially taint a future jury pool.' But, in the following paragraph, he states: 'However, after further reflection, we would like to find a way to cooperate with Congress if a fair and safe path forward can be established,' adding: 'Several conditions would need to be addressed for that to be possible.' Related: Ghislaine Maxwell asks US supreme court to overturn conviction The conditions in the letter include a grant of 'formal immunity', that the interview not take place at the correctional facility, that the committee's questions be given to her in advance, and that the deposition not be scheduled until after the 'resolution of her Supreme Court petition and her forthcoming habeas petition'. 'Ms Maxwell cannot risk further criminal exposure in a politically charged environment without formal immunity,' the letter states. In the letter, Maxwell's lawyer said that if the demands were not met, Maxwell 'will have no choice but to invoke her Fifth Amendment rights'. In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, a spokesperson for the oversight committee said that the committee 'will respond to Ms Maxwell's attorney soon, but it will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony'. At the end of the letter from Maxwell's lawyer on Tuesday, her lawyer also made a plea for clemency. 'Of course, in the alternative, if Ms Maxwell were to receive clemency, she would be willing – and eager – to testify openly and honestly, in public, before Congress in Washington, DC,' the letter states. 'She welcomes the opportunity to share the truth and to dispel the many misconceptions and misstatements that have plagued this case from the beginning.' Last week, officials from the Department of Justice met with Maxwell over two days, amid growing pressure on the Trump administration to disclose more details about the Epstein case. This comes as earlier this month, the justice department drew bipartisan backlash, including from some Trump supporters, after announcing that it would not be releasing further documents from the Epstein case, despite earlier promises by Trump and the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, to do so.
