Below 
is my column in The Hill on our 250th Anniversary. Most of us will be celebrating with fireworks and cookouts today. Yet, some will celebrate not with fanfare but fury today. Rep. Al Green was asked whether he was proud to be an American on this holiday on the steps of the Capitol. He responded, “I am very proud to tell you that impeachment is an option to remove a reckless, ruthless, lawless president. I’m proud that it exists.” Well, at least he is celebrating something. For the rest of us, we celebrate a unique Republic that has brought prosperity and freedom to generations of Americans. Happy Fourth of July to all of the patriots across our political spectrum. E pluribus unum.
Here is the column:
Across the country today, Americans are celebrating a common article of faith: the belief that a free people can govern themselves under rights given to them not by the government but by their creator.
Two hundred fifty years ago, the Republic was founded as the first major Enlightenment Revolution. The Enlightenment had started roughly 100 years earlier. Many in Europe had long argued for a society based on the writings of figures like John Locke. But it would happen thousands of miles away, among a collection of colonies where a people came together and put those principles to the test. They believed that they were entitled to rights of free speech, free exercise, and property as human beings, not as subjects.
We became the fascination of Europe among writers and intellectuals who could not understand how the world’s first Enlightenment Revolution could be brought about by a people with little connection to each other or the land; with no calcified class structure or fixed institutions.
It led one Frenchman, who wrote under the name John Hector St. John, to ask, “What then is the American, this new man?”
In my book, Rage and the Republic, I ask whether we can answer that question today. Who were we then, and who are we now?
In 1776, two revolutions were developing in America and in France. One would become the world’s oldest and most successful republic The other, in France, would become “the Terror,” in which tens of thousands would die on guillotines and in the streets.
The true miracle of Philadelphia was the creation of a system that could harness the self-destructive powers of a democracy. The framers, and particularly James Madison, would create a constitutional system that forced moderation and compromise through checks and balances.
Many wanted a less restrained democratic system, but the Framers understood that such systems stretching back to ancient Athens had become little more than what Benjamin Rush called a “mobocracy.”
In France, such voices prevailed. They unleashed a blood-letting that would ultimately even devour the Jacobins themselves. They first turned on the wealth and aristocrats, then on the priests and then each other. It would lead French journalist Jacques Mallet du Pan to write that “like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.”
Those voices are with us today. Many, including Democratic and socialist leaders, are denouncing the Declaration and the Constitution as tools of repression.
This week, various Democrats went public to call for radical revolutionary changes or criticize our founding. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani used an occasion with newly admitted citizens to trash the country, oligarchs, ICE, and our “arena of supremacy.”
Socialist Mamdani described a virtual hellscape of a country run by “oligarchs who buy elections” as “children go to sleep hungry.” He added, “We see monopolies that dominate every industry, and oligarchs who buy elections. We see masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans.”
Mamdani mocked the narrative of the republic, telling the new citizens that “the irony is that the story of America has so often been written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional.”
Others joined the celebrations with their own condemnations. Pennsylvania socialist Chris Rabb, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District, has joined the chorus of critics.
Speaking at “America at 250 — Trump Fascism, Historical Erasure, and the Battle Over Truth” in Philadelphia, the unopposed Rabb lashed out at a country built on “stolen land and stolen labor.” He also mocked the “lofty” “screeds” that “were notoriously catering to a performative aspect of collective genius that purposely erased indigenous and black peoples.” He denounced this country as based on harmful “myths” supporting white supremacy and fascism: “Fascism is not new. These systems of harm are built into the very fabric of this nation.”
Others, such as former MSNBC host Joy Reid, declared that black Americans don’t celebrate the Fourth.
Reid dismissed celebrating what she called “MAGA America” which she described as “sad, pathetic, boring.”
Others, like Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), used the anniversary to praise Cuba as the true model of success (something Mamdani had also done in his inaugural address).
Blue states — Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Pennsylvania—declined to participate in the 250th anniversary celebrations on the Mall.
In Massachusetts, a historic church ended its long-standing celebration of the Fourth of July to focus on the “on-going process within the congregation to better understand our own whiteness.”
This is the home of John Adams and other patriots. Adams wrote his wife Abigail that this day would be “celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”
We are seeing not a constitutional crisis but a crisis of faith. Polls show that fewer than half of Democrats are now proud to be Americans.
For many of us, this day remains, as Adams described it, that day of deliverance. These are revolutionary times, but we remain a revolutionary people who believe that free speech and other rights belong to us as human beings. Our belief in individual rights and the free market built the greatest engine of prosperity and freedom in the history of the world.
Many of these critics cite our flaws, including slavery, in a country based on inalienable rights. But what the framers gave us was a system that allows an imperfect people to form a “more perfect union.”
It was here that citizens could pursue their own manifest destiny. It is here that a black minister could speak on our National Mall about his unrealized dream and galvanize a nation to fight for the civil rights of every American.
It is here that an African American, and the child of a Kenyan, could become president.
It is here that the son of Vietnamese immigrants could rise this year to be Navy Secretary.
It is here that a black child growing up in a home with a dirt floor and no plumbing could become one of the longest-serving justices of the Supreme Court.
It is here that a people could survive economic meltdowns, global wars, and natural disasters, based on the simple belief that we share a common article of faith: “E pluribus unum” — “out of many, one.”
“What, then, is this American?” Look around you.
Kate Smith’s immortal “God Bless America”
http://www.jimramsburg.com/uploads/1/0/7/4/10748369/kate_smith-god_bless_america_1938.mp3
2nd try 🙂
https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/variety/kate-smith/god-bless-america-1938-11-10
Trump is scheduled to give his big Independence Day address on the National Mall in just over an hour.
An evacuation order has just been issued to evacuate the National Mall, because severe thunderstorms are moving in.
I have been a life long atheist.
I am now having serious doubts.
Maybe there really is a god, and he is sending a clear message.
Typical liberal. Hates America so much, is happy we can’t celebrate America’s founding.
This is clearly an example of weather modification by George Soros using his Jewish space lasers that Marjorie Taylor Greene so cleverly exposed.
Trump should just detonate a few nuclear bombs over DC to disperse the storms.
Problem solved !!!
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
I offer the following as food for thought for the MAGA people here.
It is excerpts from an essay, not written by me.
To many, Donald Trump feels good, but he can’t fix America’s growing social and cultural crisis, and the eventual comedown will be harsh.
During this election season, it appears that many Americans have reached for a new pain reliever. It promises a quick escape from life’s cares, an easy solution to the mounting social problems of U.S. communities and culture. It demands nothing and requires little more than a modest presence and maybe a few enablers. It enters minds, not through lungs or veins, but through eyes and ears, and its name is Donald Trump.
What Trump offers is an easy escape from the pain. To every complex problem, he promises a simple solution. He can bring jobs back simply by punishing offshoring companies into submission. As he told a New Hampshire crowd—folks all too familiar with the opioid scourge—he can cure the addiction epidemic by building a Mexican wall and keeping the cartels out. He will spare the United States from humiliation and military defeat with indiscriminate bombing. It doesn’t matter that no credible military leader has endorsed his plan. He never offers details for how these plans will work, because he can’t. Trump’s promises are the needle in America’s collective vein.
Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.
I’m not sure when or how that realization arrives: maybe in a few months, when Trump loses the election; maybe in a few years, when his supporters realize that even with a President Trump, their homes and families are still domestic war zones, their newspapers’ obituaries continue to fill with the names of people who died too soon, and their faith in the American Dream continues to falter. But it will come, and when it does, I hope Americans cast their gaze to those with the most power to address so many of these problems: each other. And then, perhaps the nation will trade the quick high of “Make America Great Again” for real medicine.
Who wrote this?
None other than J.D. Vance in 2016.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/opioid-of-the-masses/489911/
This is not the time for that.
Au contraire!!
Now is absolutely the time for this.
The truth sucks sometimes, doesn’t it.
You are the one who sucks. You wouldn’t know the truth if it hit you in the head, imbecile.
Come now, don’t hold back.
Tell me what you really think !!!
Huh? Who’s stacking my chest?
No. No. Your dogs! Dogs biting staff!
Huh? Half Mast? Someone die? Not me! Lol!
Wha? We don’t have hogs. Sausage and hogs. You kidding me. I’ll fight you right here. Secret Service!! Get my dogs You idiots. I’ll show em
People are speculating that J.D. Vance may be his party’s Presidential nominee in 2028. That was an impressive essay excerpt shared by anon. I believe Vance could make it to the top if rhe ticket if he hires experienced strategists.
Hello, Anonymous filled with the Woke Mind Virus… you are way behind, digging up rubbish from 2016 that JD VANCE threw in the trash after he admitted that he had been under the same sick Fake News influence that still has you in its grip…. JD Woke Up.. saw the Truth, and became a Big Supporter of Donald Trump, to the degree that he became his Vice President.. so.. are we impressed that you have to dig thru the trash to find something now out of context to dump on Prof. Turley’s Forum on this Glorious Anniversary of the USA which allows you to speak your locked up mind that refuses to expand and grow like JD Vance’s mind…? Hardly… we feel sorry for You and all those TDSer’s like you for living in Darkness when the Light is so Expansive and Fantastic.. Just ask JD!
I offer only Biden’s official response–in his own words, to all with ears to hear:
Mr. President! Mr. President! Your dogs are attacking staff and guests!
Huh? Who’s stacking my chest?
No. No. Your dogs! Dogs biting staff!
Huh? Half Mast? Someone die? Not me! Lol!
No! Mr. President! Mr. President! People are being bitten and injured by your dogs!
Wha? We don’t have hogs. Sausage and hogs. You kidding me. I’ll fight you right here. Secret Service!! Get my dogs You idiots. I’ll show em
This was before Vance got his spine removed.
The Left doesn’t want E Pluribus Unum. It does not want assimilation.
The Left hates America. The Left is on a mission to destroy America.
The Left ruins everything it touches.
Leftists are mentally-deranged monsters.
Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Don’t equate pride in your country with pride in your politician.
Politicians are like diapers; they need regular changing and for the same reason
Nobody’s doing that.
This thread alone should wake up anyone using the “Anonymous” moniker to immediately change theirs to something unique or be forever pigeonholed in with the trolling “Anonymous” moron that’s stalking and spamming this thread.
“Anonymous” is a trolling moron, period.
Steve, you should know that Estovir is writing about 70% of the posts under different names; including ‘Anonymous’. And Estovir is the reason certain others go by ‘Anonymous’ when they’d rather use regular names.
^ The moron who suffers from Estovir Derangement (as well as the other kind of ED) ^
Steve, be aware, as well, that Estovir loves to post false-flag liberal nonsense under ‘Anonymous’. He’s doing that for two reasons. To smear liberals and any liberal here using ‘Anonymous’. ….And watch for Estovir to respond to this post with, “This is the moron who thinks everyone is Estovir’.
At this point in time, I consider anyone that posts using “Anonymous” as all being the same moron.
So true Steve…
Anonymous opinion is a time-honored American tradition.
Pro-Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness… without Diversity, Congruence, redistributive change schemes, and other wicked solutions. #HateLovesAbortion
The Trump-deranged America haters must really feel threatened by this day of celebrating life and liberty. The intensity and volume of their hate is even greater than usual today. Poor tortured souls. I hope some day they free themselves from the grip of evil forces.
Interesting observation: America the Beautiful is a map of America’s geography:
A ticket to Russia with a return after 6 months might make a difference! This is an exceptional country — who is breaking the line to go to Russia, China, Cuba, etc? When the hate America, the rich and famous go to France, Italy and England. Only they think they are courageous. The take their fortunes and think they are so bold and brave. They are just spoiled and privileged. It’s easy leave when you don’t have empty pockets. Bravery is when you come here knowing that life won’t be easy; hope and dreams and hard work are your guiding lights. These are the people who have built this country.
My family of immigrants were forever thankful to this country for the blessings of freedom and knowing that there was hope built into the American story. But they all worked hard and never complained because they saw the devil where they came from. They passed this pride in this country on to their children and grandkids. When, years ago an Uncle’s friend was spewing this hate against America and touting Communism, I asked my uncle, WHY? He said that his friend had not achieved what he felt deserving of so complaining and hating was easier than doing and admitting that sometimes we always don’t get what we want! But the fellow never left to go to a Communist country. Does that say it all? Let’s be honest — life isn’t easy for many — but wherever I look, there are people worse off than me and many, better off. But, isn’t that life?
“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything … grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Many attorneys and media commentators have said Trump’s statements described sexual assault.
Many attorneys and media commentators have said your IQ is below 60 because you’re a total blithering idiot.
Trump was describing a truth that many woment throw themselves at famous men and men of status. He wasn’t endorsing it, you stupid moronic dunce imbecile blithering idiot. Women whose brains are not addled by TDS have agreed with Trump that they also observe that same tendency. Those women didn’t endorse it, you stupid, moronic, dunce, imbecilic moron.
That you go to this on this day is proof of the corrosive effect of TDS
Many idiots and Trump deranged individuals cannot handle that Trump is the greatest President of their lifetimes.
First, Al Green is a corrupt bitter criminal who is on his way out. Second, my family celebrated the Fourth of July hoeing corn.
Now the narcissist moron “Anonymous” commenter is spam trolling the blog comments thread.
Yes. The evil anonymous one is furious because he knows his time is short.
If only a good anonymous one could rise up and troll the bad ones….
U.S. President Donald Trump was accused of sexually assaulting an underage girl in an email exchange released by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the Epstein files today. The DOJ released a six-page-long email exchange dating back to Aug. 6-7, 2025, between an unknown contact and the FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force in New York that includes several sexual assault and rape allegations against the president in connection with the late sex offender and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. It comes after the DOJ said in a December statement that “untrue and sensationalist” claims against Trump were included in the files, “and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.” The White House Press Office directed The Mirror US back to the previous DOJ statement from December in response to the fresh sexual assault allegations against Trump included in the three million Epstein Files released Friday. “This production may include fake or falsely submitted images, documents or videos, as everything that was sent to the FBI by the public was included in the production that is responsive to the Act,” the DOJ previously said. “Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.” Trump and Epstein were friends before falling out. In the email exchange, the FBI asked the unknown contact for the full [redacted] FBI National Threat Operation Center [NTOC] report to conduct interviews about a separate case relating to Epstein. The criminal history and disposition attached by the unnamed correspondent includes a complaint summary including sexual assault and rape allegations against Trump. Trump has always denied any wrongdoing relating to the Epstein case, has not been accused of any crimes by law enforcement and has never been identified as the subject of any investigation. The email lists multiple instances in which Trump was accused of engaging in illicit activity with Epstein. The unnamed contact notes that some of the individuals were making second-hand accusations in the report. The complaint summary attached in the email said that an unnamed person “reported an unidentified female friend who was forced to perform oral sex on President Trump approximately 35 years ago in NJ. The friend told Alexis that she was approximately 13-14 years old when this occurred, and the friend allegedly bit President Trump while performing oral sex. The friend was allegedly hit in the face after she laughed about biting President Trump. That friend said she was also abused by Epstein.” The complaint summary also claims that Epstein had parties at Mar-a-Lago, where he would allegedly “bring in children and auction them off.” The document, published by the DoJ as part of the Epstein files on Friday, includes allegations from an unnamed person, who claimed: “He (Trump) measured the children’s vulva and vaginas by entering a finger and rated the children on tightness.” The guests at these parties were elder men and included Elon Musk, and Trump’s eldest children, Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, the documents allege. “We were taken in rooms, forced to give oral sex to Donald J. Trump,” the unverified account continues. “Forced to allow them to penitrate [sic] us. I was 13 years old when Donald J. Trump raped me. Ghislaine Maxwell was also present.” “Epstein would bring in the children and Trump would auction them off. He measured the children’s vulva and vaginas by entering a finger and rate the children on tightness.” “We were taken in rooms, forced to give oral sex to Trump. Forced to allow them to penetrate us. I was 13 years old when Donald J Trump raped me. Ghislane Maxwell was also present.” After an earlier release of 30,000 files, the Department of Justice said “untrue and sensationalist” claims against Trump were included.”Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election,” the statement said. “To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already. “Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DOJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein’s victims.”
***
Crimes get denied all the time. Does this mean there is no such thing as crime?
^ More typically hateful lies and slander from America haters and TDS sufferers. Ignore them. Celebrate this day. Love your nation in the light of the liberty others died for you to have. The darkness of these haters cannot swallow up the light of your love, but your light can swallow up their darkness. ^
Just saw Young Washingon. Inspiring. Large crowd there for the matinee too. I was pleasantly surprised. And long applause at the end. Just before they rolled the credits, they put the text up:
On July 4th, 1775, Washington issued commands to the ‘Troops of the United Provinces.’
One army forged from thirteen colonies, raised to defy the empire he once defended.
One year later, those colonies declared themselves a new nation independent and free.
A land they called the United States of America.
As we see today, haters gonna hate . . . but . . . there ain’t no doubt I love this land . . .
You can’t handle the truth. Are you the official censors of the free speech blog? You’re the morons.
I’m a second class citizen so when I look around I see more of the same. Being a second class citizen in 1st class country ain’t that bad. ☺
Thanks to the SCOTUS, we’re all birthright citizens now.
It’s a childish hoax. It’s beyond anything an educated, intelligent Justice would ever write. The problem is the hoax sticks.
Right. Citizenship means–> can’t deport. It was necessary to actually make the Obama, Jackson hoax work.
Believe it or not.
^^^ Oh, It’s not a 1st class world anymore. 2nd class, there’s still a sewage system.
Toodles
One singular sensation. Every little step she takes.
WordPress Censored:
Elided Anti-Slavery Passage, Declaration of Independence
“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”
– Thomas Jefferson, 1776
_____________________________
Jefferson’s position herein is that slavery is a cruel, unchristian violation of human rights forced upon the colonies by the British King, who hypocritically blocked anti-slave trade laws and incited slave revolts.
As is the fundamental desire of all abductees, the long-suffering captives in America deserved nothing less than compensatory compassionate repatriation to their homeland which Abraham Lincoln advocated vigorously.
To wit,
“[Racial separation] [is necessary], and [though difficult] must be effected by colonization… The enterprise is a difficult one, but ‘where there is a will there is a way’; and what colonization needs most is a hearty will… Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and at the same time [not against] our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it.”
– Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857
This finally appeared after “WordPress Censored” was added.
Free speech, you say?
I read something different.
AI algorithms feed people what they like or hate. Prices also change depending on how you’ve been profiled.
DISSOLVE THE INDISSOLUBLE
Thomas Jefferson advocated “to dissolve the political bands” as secession in the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
The eminently corrupt Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase decided America to be an “indissoluble union, composed of indestructible states,” denying secession in 1869 as an apologist for the wholly unconstitutional Lincoln tyranny, carnage, legacy, and nascent progressive agenda.
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AI Overview
The opening line of the Declaration of Independence states that it is necessary for one people to “dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.”
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AI Overview
The 5-3 decision established that the U.S. is an “indissoluble union, composed of indestructible states”, declared acts of secession legally void, and affirmed that Texas remained a state during the Civil War. Texas v. White (1869) is a landmark Supreme Court case that ruled states cannot unilaterally secede from the United States.
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
Agree, traitors
This collective of Marxists, Progressives and extremist Environmentalists are a horde of misanthropes that will soon enough turn on one anther. None recognize a reality that exists outside that which they have formed out of their hate and arrogance. They will not tolerate any deviation from these distortions they have created, and will regard those who disagree as “existential” threats deserving punishment. One can only hope that they expend their much vaunted energy purging one another. It seems to me that there is a drab and grinding meanness that lies at the core of this alleged movement.