The receptionist asked me to verify my date of birth.

I gave her Gracie’s.

For years, I have encouraged fellow caregivers to pay attention to their own health rather than waiting until a crisis forces the issue. This experience has only reinforced that conviction.

She glanced down at the chart in her hand and then back at me with a puzzled expression. Before she could say anything, I caught myself.

“Oh … that’s my wife’s birthday.”

After 40 years as a family caregiver through surgeries, appointments, hospital admissions, medications, insurance forms, and enough medical paperwork to clear a small forest, I had automatically answered with the date I have given thousands of times before.

This time, however, I was the patient.I was at the cancer center for imaging and treatment planning in preparation for radiation therapy for prostate cancer. Thanks to routine screenings and excellent physicians, it was caught early. The prognosis is excellent.

Still, it felt strange.

I have spent most of my adult life in hospitals because of someone else. This time, they called my name.

Looking around the waiting room, I realized I was easily the youngest man there. That does not happen to me very often anymore. Later, one staff member told me most of their patients are in their 70s and beyond. Sometimes, they see men in their 60s like me, and every so often someone in his 50s.

For this visit, I was the new kid.

I took a chair off to the side, careful not to intrude on this fraternity of men who seemed to know the ropes. They reminded me of the old men who gathered at Nick’s grocery and gas station near my childhood home in rural South Carolina. As a boy, I would stop in for a soda and candy bar while they held court around the coffee pot, solving problems that ranged from weather and crops to politics and church business.

The subjects changed from day to day. The cadence never did.

Men of a certain age possess a remarkable conversational gift. They can begin with trout streams and end with urologists without anyone noticing where the turn occurred.

RELATED: Caregivers should not have to lie to prove compassion

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True to form, this conversation drifted toward prostate cancer, treatments, and the assorted indignities that accompany aging. One fellow described an examination during which the sheet covering him slipped.

Before he could react, the nurse matter-of-factly told him, “Don’t worry. If I see something I’ve never seen before, I’ll kill it.”

Such is the sort of thing you expect to hear in a cancer clinic in Montana.

The men laughed.

I raised an eyebrow and thought, “How comforting.”

But I still laughed.

Soon enough, they called me back. The technicians positioned my legs, explained the process, and slid me into a machine that looked remarkably like something from an old “Star Trek” episode. If memory serves, it resembled the device that kept Spock alive after somebody stole his brain.

After the instructions were complete, they eased me into position and left the room.

A few minutes later, one of the technicians returned looking slightly sheepish.

“We have a bit of a challenge.”

“Do tell,” I replied.

“There’s a gas bubble.”

The expression on my face evidently communicated that I was not following.

She delicately clarified.

“It’s in … you.”

“Oh.”

I considered several responses, including one with my outstretched index finger that would have made my four brothers proud and the medical staff considerably less appreciative. Fortunately, decades of maturity prevailed.

“What do you recommend?” I asked.

“Maybe take a walk and see if anything happens.”

So there I was, strolling through the halls of a cancer center, trying to solve a problem that five boys growing up under one roof would have regarded as entirely manageable without professional consultation. At times, our household rivaled the campfire scene in “Blazing Saddles.”

The problem was that they had instructed me to drink a substantial amount of water beforehand to achieve the proper imaging. Solving one problem too enthusiastically threatened to create another.

Men over 50 approach certain situations with caution for good reasons.

Eventually, however, everything worked itself out.

Ahem.

The imaging was completed, the planning was finished, and in a few days, I will return to begin treatment.

As I left, I noticed the bell hanging in the hallway. I have seen bells like that before. Patients ring them when treatment ends.

Lord willing, I will ring that bell myself within a month.

RELATED: The song that lets sorrow tell the truth

Sanghwan Kim/iStock/Getty Images

Driving home, I thought about those older men in the waiting room. None of them appeared eager to be there, but neither did they seem intimidated by it.

They knew where to park. They knew where the coffee was. They knew which jokes were worth telling.

In short, they knew the territory.

Eventually, if you stay on any road long enough, you stop asking for directions and start giving them.

One day, perhaps sooner than I would like to admit, I may be the guy telling stories to the new kid who walks through the door — even if the story involves a gas bubble that needed to be walked off.

For years, I have encouraged fellow caregivers to pay attention to their own health rather than waiting until a crisis forces the issue. This experience has only reinforced that conviction.

Prostate cancer is often called a silent disease.

Mine was.

Fortunately, silent does not have to mean deadly.

​Cancer, Caregiving, Hospitals, Opinion & analysis, Waiting room, Aging, Mortality, Family, Faith, Health care 

The United Kingdom is constitutionally a Christian nation.

Its king, Charles III, is “supreme governor” of the Church of England — England’s established church — and an ordinary member of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Anglican bishops serve as members of the House of Lords, and the Anglican church’s legislation requires parliamentary oversight.

‘If we’re serious about the future of this country, we shouldn’t shy away from that heritage.’

The United Kingdom — whose flag is an amalgam of Christian crosses — is not, however, a majoritively Christian nation.

A Labour Force Survey survey conducted in summer 2025 found that only 44% of adults in Britain identified as Christian, down from 54% in early 2018. The 2025 British Social Attitudes survey found that just 5% of all adults attend a Christian service on a weekly basis.

Elements of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party and Rupert Lowe of Restore Britain have discussed in recent months bolstering or at least maintaining Britain’s Christian identity. If serious about such a project, they might have to consider the matter of Christian representation in top government leadership roles.

RELATED: ‘Beyond evil’: Nightmarish report reveals full scale of mass Islamic rapes of ‘250,000’ white British girls

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The home secretary is the fourth most senior political office in the U.K. government after the prime minister, chancellor of the exchequer, and the foreign secretary. Yet a publicly self-identified Christian has not held the position for nearly a decade.

The current home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is an avowed “practicing Muslim.” Her six immediate predecessors were either non-Christians or individuals who do not appear to have publicly identified as Christian:

Yvette Cooper, the current foreign secretary who in 2015 chose to affirm allegiance to the Crown rather than swear an oath on a holy book, which Christian Today noted at the time is usually done by nonbelievers;James Cleverly, the current shadow secretary of state for housing, communities, and local government, who identified himself in a parliamentary debate last year as “an atheist” and “a humanist”;Suella Braverman, a practicing Buddhist who served in the post from Sept. 6, 2022 to Oct. 19, 2022, and again from Oct. 25, 2022 to Nov. 13, 2023;Grant Shapps, a Jewish politician who was in the role for only a few days during Liz Truss’ tumultuous final days as prime minister, then later served as secretary of state for defense;Priti Patel, a practicing Hindu from an Indian family who migrated to the U.K. via Uganda, who now serves as shadow secretary of state for foreign, commonwealth, and development affairs; andSajid Javid, the son of Pakistani Muslim immigrants who reportedly referred to himself as a “Muslim Home Secretary” but also claimed “not to practice any religion.”

Blaze News did not receive comment from Cooper or the Home Office.

While the religiosity of Amber Rudd — home secretary from 2016 to 2018 — has not been publicly advertised, there is no mystery about former home secretary and Prime Minister Theresa May’s affiliation. May — in the post from 2010 to 2016 — made clear on multiple occasions that she is a practicing Anglican.

Of the current and past seven chancellors of the exchequer dating back to 2016, two have been self-identified Christians; two hail from Muslim backgrounds; one is a practicing Hindu; and the other two have kept their religiosity out of the public eye.

Of the eight foreign secretaries the U.K. has had dating back to 2016, one — Cleverly — is an avowed atheist; one — Cooper — has signaled she might be a nonbeliever; four — David Lammy, David Cameron, Boris Johnson, and Jeremy Hunt — have identified as Christians; one — Liz Truss — has said she shares Anglican values but doesn’t practice the faith; and one is an apparent enigma — Dominic Raab, who has a Jewish father, was raised in the Anglican Church, and married a Catholic, has expressed uncertainty about which boxes to check for “diversity questionnaires” with regard to his family.

As for prime ministers going back to 2016, half — Johnson, May, and Cameron — have been Christian, and the other half — Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak, and Liz Truss, are, respectively, an atheist, a Hindu; and what statisticians refer to as a none.

The character of these so-called great offices of state have — like the public they represent — tended in recent years not to be Christian in character. The Christian character of the nation is, however, something that politicians right of center have fixated on in recent months despite polling indicating that the public is generally unfussed about the nation’s de-Christianization.

Reform’s Home Affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf said in a February interview with the Times (U.K.) that renewing Britain’s Christian faith was essential to tackling the “crisis of meaning culturally,” especially among young men.

Yusuf emphasized that Christianity was “core to the history and the DNA of the country” and the country was losing its Christian values because of the “sheer quantities of people that came to the country in a short period of time.”

“Regardless of whether somebody is of faith or not, or which faith they follow, I think the Christian heritage of this country is very important, and protecting our heritage and our culture is important. Otherwise the country is not a country; it’s just an economic zone,” added Yusuf.

Danny Kruger, a Reform UK member of Parliament, said months earlier that he would “love us to be a more confidently Christian country that acknowledges its Christian heritage. A society aligned more closely with the teachings of Jesus would be a happier one.”

Reform UK is not the only outfit signaling a keenness to reverse the U.K.’s atrophying Christianity.

Rupert Lowe, leader of the Restore Britain party, stated earlier this year, “Britain is a Christian country, and under a Restore Britain Government — it will remain a Christian country.”

Like Reform’s Yusuf, Lowe has identified mass immigration — particularly from Muslim countries — as a factor driving Britain’s de-Christianization. He has, accordingly, advocated for halting mass immigration and reversing the “islamification of Britain.”

Neither Reform UK nor Restore Britain immediately responded to Blaze News’ requests for comment.

Even the Conservative Party has expressed a need to return to Christianity — if not to the roots then to its fruits.

Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch stated in April, “Britain was built on a foundation of Christian values that have guided our institutions, our laws, and our sense of right and wrong. If we’re serious about the future of this country, we shouldn’t shy away from that heritage, we should be confident enough to embrace, promote, and defend it.”

David Jeffrey of the University of Liverpool published a dashboard last year that provides some sense of how many members of Parliament are Christian on the basis of their public affiliation, their public speech about their affiliation, and what text they swore in on. The dashboard suggests that as of last year, 54.7% of MPs were Christian; 36.4% were nones; 3.9% were Muslims; 2% were Jewish; 1.9% were Sikh; 0.9% were Hindu; and 0.2% were Buddhist.

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​Religion, Christianity, Britain, United kingdom, Rupert lowe, London, Parliament, Faith, Nigel farage, Reform uk, Restore britain, Politics 

Steven Spielberg’s 2026 sci-fi thriller “Disclosure Day” about a whistleblower exposing a government cover-up of extraterrestrial life is performing strongly at the box office with over $160 million worldwide to date.

BlazeTV host Rick Burgess has been suspicious about this summer blockbuster since he first saw the previews. Not only is the timing a bit odd in light of the government’s ongoing declassification of UFO-related files, but Spielberg’s own comments about how real disclosure could rattle the faith of many people has Rick’s guard up.

The movie reflects this theory, as many characters wrestle with doubts about God’s divinity and humanity’s place after learning about aliens.

Rick, who argues “aliens” are most likely angels or demons, believes that even if aliens proved to be otherworldly beings, it would not affect believers like Spielberg predicts.

“If it turns out like in the movie that they’re straight up people from somewhere else and they’re not demonic and they’re not angelic, this notion that somehow that’s going to rattle our faith … it’s just not so,” he assures.

True Christians, Rick argues, know that everything is created by God.

“The Scriptures tell us even in Genesis that God is the creator. He is the beginning and the end of all things. If space people show up from another planet or another galaxy, it doesn’t change what we believe about God,” he says.

Believers already know that a great cosmic celestial war between God’s forces of good (angels) and Satan’s forces of evil (demons) rages invisibly all around us.

“So if there’s another bunch from somewhere else, I don’t know what their situation with God may or may not be, but their existence doesn’t equal God doesn’t exist,” says Rick.

But one thing is certain, he says: “What Satan is hoping that we’ll take from this … is that if space people show up, and they’re really something, they must have created us, not God.”

To hear more of Rick’s analysis of Spielberg and “Disclosure Day,” watch the full episode above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Strange encounters, Rick burgess, Steven spielberg, Disclosure, Spiritual warfare 

When President Trump emerged from a recent meeting with automotive executives and said he found it strange that some industry leaders oppose Americans repairing their own vehicles, most coverage focused on the politics.

I was more interested in what happened afterward.

If manufacturers truly support independent repairs, why remove provisions governing the very data modern repairs increasingly depend upon?

Because the deeper you dig into the latest right-to-repair fight, the more one question keeps surfacing: Why are automakers fighting so hard to control information generated by vehicles consumers already own?

Follow the money

Follow the money, and the picture becomes much clearer.

The U.S. automotive service market generates roughly $200 billion annually. Service departments are among the industry’s most reliable profit centers. As vehicles become more software-driven and connected, automakers have discovered that selling the car no longer has to end the customer relationship. Software subscriptions, connected services, maintenance plans, warranty work, and dealership repairs all create recurring revenue long after the vehicle leaves the showroom.

There’s nothing wrong with companies pursuing new revenue streams. The problem begins when protecting those revenue streams limits consumer choice.

That’s why the latest legislative fight deserves attention.

Stripped for parts

The debate centers on H.R. 7389, the Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026. Supporters describe it as a way to modernize regulations while preserving independent repair access. On the surface, that sounds like good news for consumers.

Then something interesting happened. One of the most important parts of the broader right-to-repair debate disappeared.

Language covering telematics — the wireless vehicle data increasingly needed for diagnostics, calibrations, software updates, and repairs — was stripped from the bill before it advanced through committee. For many independent repair advocates, that wasn’t a technical detail. It was the entire fight.

That raises an obvious question. If manufacturers truly support independent repairs, why remove provisions governing the very data modern repairs increasingly depend upon?

The answer may have less to do with repairs than with control. For decades, owning a vehicle meant deciding who repaired it. Consumers chose their mechanic. Independent shops competed with dealerships. Competition kept prices down and choices open.

Modern vehicles work differently.

Data-driven

Today’s cars constantly generate data. They monitor component performance, transmit diagnostics, receive software updates, and communicate through manufacturer-controlled networks.

Control the data, and you gain influence over the repair process. That’s why automakers, dealers, independent repair shops, aftermarket suppliers, consumer advocates, and lawmakers are all fighting over the same issue.

Manufacturers argue that unrestricted access creates cybersecurity risks. Those concerns shouldn’t be dismissed. Modern vehicles are vastly more complex than the cars many of us grew up driving.

But independent repair shops aren’t asking for access to nuclear launch codes. They’re asking for the information needed to diagnose, repair, calibrate, and maintain vehicles consumers legally purchased. This is key in an era when more and more repairs require access to software rather than simply a wrench.

Viewed alongside other industry trends, the picture becomes even clearer. Vehicle telematics continue expanding. Subscription-based features are becoming common. Driving data has become valuable to insurers and analytics companies. Manufacturers can now change vehicle functionality through over-the-air software updates.

Each development can be defended on its own. Taken together, they suggest an industry steadily increasing its influence over vehicles long after they are sold.

RELATED: Cheap Chinese cars: Trojan horse built to undermine US security?

Jade Gao/Bettmann/Getty Images

Taking ownership

That’s why the right-to-repair debate increasingly looks less like a repair issue and more like an ownership issue.

Farmers confronted the same problem years ago as manufacturers restricted repairs on modern agricultural equipment. Purchasing expensive machinery no longer guaranteed the ability to fix it without manufacturer involvement.

The auto industry now appears headed toward a similar crossroads.

Technology has unquestionably made vehicles better. They’re safer, more efficient, and more capable than ever before. But technology also changes incentives. Every connected system creates opportunities for convenience, recurring revenue, data collection, and greater manufacturer control.

What makes H.R. 7389 so important isn’t what remains in the bill — it’s what was removed. The fight over telematics reveals where this debate is headed next.

The future isn’t really about brake pads or oil changes. It’s about who controls vehicle data, who profits from it, and ultimately who decides what owners are allowed to do with products they have already purchased.

The fix is in

For more than a century, vehicle ownership had a simple meaning. You bought the car. You decided who repaired it, how long you kept it, and what modifications you made.

Today, that definition is becoming less clear. The question isn’t whether modern vehicles should be secure. Of course they should. The question isn’t whether repairs have become more complicated. They have.

The real question is whether ownership still means what consumers think it means. Because if automakers are willing to fight this hard over repair data today, consumers should pay close attention to what comes next.

The right-to-repair battle may ultimately be remembered as the moment Americans discovered that ownership in the connected-car era no longer carries the assumptions previous generations took for granted.

​Right to repair, Telematics, President trump, Lifestyle, Drivers, Auto industry, Repair, Oem, Automotive 

The ladies of “The View” have once again proven that objective truth is not on their list of priorities.

On a recent episode, the panel discussed the case of Karmelo Anthony, who was recently sentenced to 35 years in jail for fatally stabbing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet in April 2025 after the two had a verbal confrontation.

Whoopi Goldberg noted that all qualified black prospective jurors were struck from the jury pool — a move Anthony’s defense team challenged under a Batson ruling. The judge overruled the objection, however, after prosecutors provided a race-neutral explanation: The three jurors were educators whose profession made them too closely connected to a school-related incident involving high school students.

“The case has a lot of people divided. Some people believe that race was a factor in the trial because there were no black jurors. … Some folks think, ‘No, no, he got a fair trial.’ But is this a jury of his peers?” asked Goldberg.

Co-host Sunny Hostin then replied, “I don’t think so. And you know this has been an issue for such a long time in the judicial system where prosecutors use what are called, you know, Batson challenges.”

Pat Gray is disgusted by Hostin’s sneaky half-truth.

“Prosecutors and defense attorneys use [Batson challenges],” he corrects.

The other factor Hostin conveniently left out, says Pat, is the fact that “there were more than three black people in the jury pool.”

Some of those black candidates were struck, he argues, because they made statements of obvious bias.

They were “saying things like, ‘Yeah, I’d have a real hard time with putting a brother in jail.’ OK, well, then get out. Obviously, that’s not going to work,” Pat scoffs.

Sadly, Hostin wasn’t done lying.

She went on to claim that Batson challenges are loopholes for racism.

“It’s a challenge that is used to strike a juror, generally a juror of color,” she declared.

“No, it’s not generally a juror of color. It could be white … it could be anybody!” exclaims Pat, accusing Hostin of playing the race card.

To make matters even worse, Hostin, producer Kris Kruz points out, has a law degree from Notre Dame Law School and even served as a federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice.

But despite her prestigious education and high-profile government experience, Hostin still doesn’t seem to understand what a jury of one’s peers really means.

“You’re supposed to have a jury of your peers, and you’re not supposed to just strike someone because they’re black,” she said, arguing that striking jurors for being educators was not “an appropriate reason.”

“A jury of your peers does not mean that they’re all your same color or same age. That’s not what a jury of your peers means,” says Pat.

But perhaps Hostin’s worst take came next.

Citing the recently released footage where Anthony told cops, “He put his hands on me. I told him not to,” Hostin said, “[Metcalf] was 200 pounds. [Anthony] was 130 pounds.”

Anthony’s weight has been a point of contention throughout the trial. While he was frequently described as weighing roughly 130 pounds in the trial, his high school football bio listed him at roughly 160 pounds.

Pat couldn’t care less what Anthony weighs, though. “Just because Austin was bigger than him doesn’t mean it’s OK to kill him!”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Pat Gray?

To enjoy more of Pat’s biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Pat gray unleashed, Pat gray, The view, Sunny hostin, Whoopi goldberg, Karmelo anthony, Austin metcalf 

Oratory is out of fashion. The word itself sounds archaic to our ears, denoting something people used to practice in antiquity and at long length in 19th-century America. Even the more down-to-earth sounding “rhetoric” is heard to mean “mere” rhetoric — words false or deceptive by definition. Politicians talk about “messaging,” and the more significant politicians have layers of staff for “communications.”

This does not bode well for the forthcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Every politician in America will feel obliged to say something for the occasion. Whoever can — with perhaps some rare exceptions — will deploy a staff member or staff members to draft his remarks.

The American people declared to the world and under God principles constituting not just the foundation and purpose of their political existence, but the only foundation for legitimate government.

The staff members themselves, products of American universities where American history is frowned upon or given the 1619 treatment, will have to do original research to prepare for the task. A significant percentage of them will rely on artificial intelligence. Patriots have reason to wonder whether there is a politician (or comms team) in America today who understands and can articulate for his fellow citizens and the world the meaning of July 4, 1776.

John Quincy Adams took July 4, 1776, with the utmost seriousness. The Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution became the north star of his politics over a 60-year career of devotion to his country and its cause.

He understood that man is a political animal because he is endowed by nature with logos (speech, reason) and that in American politics, the statesman’s first task is to understand the logos — the word fitly spoken, the apple of gold — of the Declaration of Independence.

He articulated his understanding of the Declaration and its principles beautifully, often, and at length in formal orations and other speeches and writings from the early to the late years of his remarkable political career. He served for a few years in his late 30s and early 40s, when he was also a United States senator, as the first Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard. Later, in what his biographer Samuel Flagg Bemis called his “second career” of nine outspoken terms in the House of Representatives, he became known as “Old Man Eloquent,” in great part for his faithful championing of the principles of the Declaration. He was an avid, lifelong student of Cicero.

Adams was born into the American Revolution to a mother and father who were revolutionaries. When he was 7 years old, the Battle of Bunker Hill took place (Saturday, June 17, 1775) within earshot of the farm in Braintree, Massachusetts, where he lived with his mother, Abigail, and three siblings.

On the morning of the battle, his mother took him with her and climbed to the top of nearby Penn’s Hill. From there, the two could see fire and smell the smoke from houses burning in Charlestown. John Quincy remembered the moment vividly to the end of his life. His father, John, was 400 miles away in Philadelphia as part of the Massachusetts delegation to the Second Continental Congress. Braintree was in a war zone.

RELATED: America turns 250 with a broken heart

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Weeks before, as militia streamed into the area in the wake of the battles of Lexington and Concord, Abigail Adams had collected the family’s pewter dishes and melted them down to make bullets in a large kettle held over the kitchen fire. From time to time, she heard alarms, warning that the Royal Navy was about to land forces along the coast. She had good reason to fear that the British would try to seize rebel leaders and their families.

The best John Adams could do at the time was to write to his wife from Connecticut: “In Case of real Danger … fly to the Woods with our Children.” July 4, 1776, was still more than a year away, undefined in the uncertain future. But young John Quincy Adams was already learning its lessons.

On July 4, 1785, less than two years after the peace settlement ending the American war for independence, 17-year-old John Quincy, who had served as his father’s private secretary during the peace negotiations, was sailing back to America after six life-forming years in Europe. He wrote in his journal, slightly misquoting James Thompson’s “Rule Britannia,” that July 4 was:

The greatest day in the year, for every true American. The anniversary of our Independence. May heaven preserve it: and may the world still see:
A State where liberty shall still survive
In these late times, this evening of mankind
When Athens, Rome, and Carthage are no more
The world almost in slavish sloth dissolv’d.

The mature John Quincy would come to believe that on that date the American people declared to the world and under God principles constituting not just the foundation and purpose of their political existence, but the only foundation for legitimate government. He held that these principles of reason emerged in the providence of the Christian God through centuries of oppression and superstition and were destined in the providence of God to spread across the earth.

In God’s good time, the feudal monarchies of Europe would be overthrown and replaced by regimes based on the true principles of the American Revolution. The same providential fate awaited all the world’s barbarous, savage, or tyrannical regimes.

These facts, in his mind, were perfectly compatible with the maxim he would make famous, that America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy — and equally compatible with the reality he faced throughout his political career, that America itself, in its freedom, might abandon its principles and descend into barbarous tyranny.

In Fourth of July orations over four decades, Adams would explain to his fellow citizens why and how, in fidelity to the laws of nature and nature’s God, America should, in all weathers, steer its course by the north star of the principles of the Declaration.

These orations and other speeches and writings are conveniently collected in “John Quincy Adams: Speeches and Writings,” recently edited by David Waldstreicher, the distinguished professor of history at the City University of New York Graduate Center, for the Library of America. They are full of history, reasoning, learning, and even oratory that should come in handy for those hoping to say something that rises to the occasion of the coming semiquincentennial.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at the American Mind.

​America 250, Declaration of independence, Fourth of july, John quincy adams, Semiquincentennial, Rhetoric, Politicians, American revolution, Consent of the governed, Europe, Opinion & analysis