JUPITER, Fla. – Almost a century ago, in a famous Supreme Court dissent, Justice Louis Brandeis provided an enduring definition of the role of states in the American political system. They were, in a metaphor contained in his 1932 minority opinion in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, laboratories of democracy.

Geraldo Lunas Campos died at a Texas detention center on Jan. 3 while pleading for air as guards choked him, according to a fellow detainee.

We’re pleased to report the American middle class is indeed “hollowing out” — because ever more Americans are earning their way into higher income brackets. That runs counter to today’s populist gloom on the left and right, so thanks to economists at the American Enterprise Institute for setting the record straight.

There have been two parts to the political world’s reaction to the American operation that deposed and captured Nicolas Maduro. The first part was to marvel at what Brit Hume called the “extraordinary level of skill, technology and daring” on the part of American forces and leadership. Hume noted that the U.S. performance, when considered alongside the flawless attack on Iran’s nuclear program, sent to the world “precisely the opposite signal from that sent by the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.”