Earlier this month, three Sunni Muslim nations signed the Mecca Accord, a military alliance stating that “an armed attack against one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all.” The pact combines the military heft of Turkiye, the financial muscle of Saudi Arabia, and the nuclear weapons of Pakistan. Foreign policy experts speculate that the agreement reflects unease with neighbor Iran and shrinking confidence in the United States’ willingness or ability to ensure peace in the Middle East.

The world’s first known military alliance was the Treaty of Kadesh between the Egyptian and Hittite empires around 1259 B.C.E. Decades of conflict ended when both empires promised to help each other fight invaders and assist in crackdowns on rebellions.

A military alliance may have led to the founding of the U.S. France wanted revenge against Great Britain after losing the French and Indian War in 1763. When Britain’s American colonies declared independence in 1776, France recognized the new U.S. and created a military partnership with them against Britain. French troops, ships and money were critical to the colonies winning independence.

It can be argued that a military alliance maintained peace. After World War II, the U.S. and Soviet Union, allies in that war, entered the Cold War, an ideological battle between democracy and communism. To protect a Western Europe battered by war, the U.S. established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949, a military alliance in which the U.S. promised to protect its allies against communism. It worked. European nations largely avoided war until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

It also can be argued that military alliances caused war. Worried about militaristic Germany’s Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy, the Triple Entente was established in 1907 between Britain, France and Russia. When Austria-Hungary and Serbia went to war in 1914 over an assassination, these countries’ military alliances dragged them and their allies into a world war that killed 22 million people.

Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica, Oxford Reference, Warfare History Network, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, EBSCO, The American Revolution Institute, History Guild, The Week, me.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration proposed a dramatic overhaul of Head Start. The stated purpose is to reduce red tape by eliminating most federal regulations, leaving states to govern these federal early childhood education programs.

In addition to removing federal standards, draft rules would limit eligibility and participation by requiring more documentation from parents who are homeless or unemployed, blocking enrollment for families with high housing costs if they are above the federal poverty line, and barring parents in the U.S. illegally from enrolling their children, even if the children are U.S. citizens.

Further, draft rules call for closing half of Head Start’s regional offices and laying off a significant portion of federal support staff.

Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint authored by Trump’s budget chief, calls for eliminating Head Start. Trump’s 2025 budget proposed just that, but after public outcry, the program’s funding was continued at current levels.

Now, Head Start advocates, including the National Head Start Association and the Children’s Equity Project, say they fear the new federal rules are an attempt to weaken Head Start from within.

Each year, Head Start provides nearly 800,000 low-income children free preschool, medical, dental and vision screenings, and monitoring for developmental delays. Programs are run by school districts and non-profit organizations. Head Start teachers make on average $40,000 per year.

Head Start began in 1965 as a part of President Johnson’s War on Poverty. Conceived by pediatricians and child development experts, it was created to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty by providing comprehensive early education and health and nutrition services to low-income children from birth to age 5. It has served nearly 40 million children.

Experts long have considered Head Start the gold standard for early learning and anti-poverty programs, citing its child-to-teacher ratios, comprehensive family wraparound services, and rigorous federal performance standards. It has enjoyed robust bipartisan support among elected officials for decades.

Sources: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Head Start, National Head Start Association, The Brookings Institution, Center for American Progress, The New York Times, The New Yorker, PBS.

Following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, social media companies like Twitter and Facebook banned Donald Trump from their platforms. Trump responded by creating his own platform, Truth Social. In his second presidential term, Trump uses Truth Social as his primary vehicle for delivering public pronouncements. Now, Trump Media, of which Trump is the largest shareholder with a stake worth $1 billion, is charging $100,000 per month for early access to his Truth Social posts.

Trump uses Truth Social to disclose market-sensitive news, such as posts on tariffs and the war on Iran, and these posts trigger swings in stock and oil prices. Trump Media’s director touts the new early access subscription as a way to give businesses fast access to the platform’s “most market-moving” posts. He describes the service as a “high margin” product providing a “meaningful, ongoing source of revenue.” Indeed, Trump Media disclosed last week that the new service now has more than 10 subscribers, including high-frequency trading firms.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation and The Intercept sued Donald Trump last week, calling the arrangement “corrupt and unconstitutional.” The suit argues that the president will profit personally by selling privileged access to information generated in his official capacity.

At other times in U.S. history, people have tried to profit from early access to government information. In the mid-1800s, financiers bribed government telegraph line operators to intercept and leak market-moving news. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, wealthy industrialists regularly paid federal officials for close proximity, inside tips, and early notice of tariff debates and railroad subsidies.

However, there is no precedent in U.S. history of a president selling early access to information for personal profit. Some legal watchdogs say it might violate an Emoluments Clause of the Constitution that bans a president from receiving any profit from government other than his salary.

Last week’s suit against the president, though, is based on two other parts of the Constitution. Plaintiffs argue under the First Amendment that the public and the press have a right to equal and timely access to official government statements, and under the Fifth Amendment that creating tiered access to official government information violates equal protection principles.

Sources: AP News, The Guardian, Newsweek, BBC, The Independent, history.com, Brennan Center for Justice, International Comparative Legal Guides.

The Texas State Board of Education in late June established a list of mandatory readings for all Texas public school students. The list includes numerous Bible stories and works like Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and William Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Julius Caesar.

The plan specifies Bible stories to be read at different school levels, including Noah’s Ark and the Burning Bush in elementary school, the Sermon on the Mount and the parables of Jesus in middle school, and Adam and Eve and the Book of Job in high school.

In 2025, Texas required every public school classroom to display the Ten Commandments. This and the new Bible-reading mandate have triggered local and national arguments about separation of church and state. Supporters of the Texas actions say children should learn Christian traditions they claim are essential to the nation’s founding. Critics, noting that the required reading list includes no works from any other religious tradition, say the mandate infringes on religious freedom.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution addresses religion twice. The Free Exercise Clause allows citizens to hold religious beliefs freely without government interference. The Establishment Clause says the federal government cannot favor any one religion.

Historically, the Supreme Court has upheld both principles. Here are rulings affirming the Establishment Clause and restricting government interference in schools:

· West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 1943: Students cannot be forced to salute the American flag if doing so violates their religious beliefs.

· Engel v. Vitale 1962: State-sponsored prayer in schools is unconstitutional even if the prayer is called voluntary.

· Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971: Laws impacting schools must be secular and neither advance nor inhibit any religion.

· Wisconsin v. Yoder, 1972: States cannot require Amish students to attend school beyond eighth grade.

Sources: uscourts.gov, Legal Information Institute, Oyez, Justia, SCOTUSblog, The National Constitution Center, BBC, AP News, The New York Times, me.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee last month with two requests: an emergency $67 billion supplemental funding increase to finance the United States’ war against Iran, and a record-breaking $1.5 trillion baseline defense budget for fiscal year 2027. The latter would be an unprecedented 44% increase over the 2026 budget.

From its birth, the U.S. has had a Department of War or Defense. Under the 1789 Constitution, the federal government initially had just three executive departments: state (foreign affairs), treasury and war.

The U.S. followed an isolationist foreign policy for much of its early history, spending little on defense. Spending spiked only for occasional wars like the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War of 1846, the Civil War of 1861 and the Spanish-American War of 1898.

That pattern changed with the world wars. Defense spending shot up to the equivalent of 22% of GDP in World War I, and peaked at 40% during World War II, about 85% of the entire federal budget. After World War II, defense spending stopped experiencing standard peacetime reductions, remaining strong during the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

Defense spending fell significantly after the Cold War ended in 1991, falling to roughly 3% of GDP under President Clinton. It grew again after 9/11 with wars against Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s and the ongoing War on Terror.

In 2026, defense spending remains in the 3% of GDP range. However, defense spending as a share of GDP is higher in the U.S. than in any other major industrial country. The U.S. accounts for nearly 40% of global military spending. It spends more on defense than the next 10 greatest spending countries combined, including three times as much as China.

Sources: U.S. Department of War, usgovernmentspending.com, Econofact, Macrotrends, ebsco.com, Investopedia, Washington Post, me.

In their annual report released recently, the Social Security Trustees revealed that, absent program changes, Social Security will be insolvent by 2032, meaning it will not be able to pay full benefits and recipients will face a 22% benefit cut.*

The solvency gap is up 16% relative to last year’s projections. This deterioration is due to lower projected fertility rates, lower assumed immigration, and President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which reduced revenue from the taxation of Social Security benefits.

(Many Americans believe Social Security is like a savings account, with money paid into the program from paychecks being held for them until they retire. This is not the case. Today’s Social Security payroll tax revenues cover today’s Social Security payments.)

For much of its history, Social Security received more in revenue each month than it paid in benefits, and excess revenue was held in a trust fund to cover future payments. That changed in 2021, when payments first exceeded total revenues. Social Security has been gradually draining its trust fund since then. Under current conditions, the trust fund will be depleted completely in 2032.*

Why the change? The ratio of workers paying into Social Security per beneficiary has declined steadily, dropping from about 42 workers per retiree in 1940 to roughly 2.7 today. This is driven by longer life expectancies, the mass retirement of the baby-boom generation, and lower birth rates.

Social insurance was first established in Germany in 1889. It was viewed as a government effort to provide citizens economic security. At least 34 countries followed Germany’s example before the U.S. did in 1935. The U.S. Social Security Act was Franklin Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression’s dire impact on seniors. It created a social insurance program to pay workers over age 64 a continuing income after retirement.

About 97% of Americans age 60 and over will receive Social Security. For 43% of seniors, it provides the majority of their income.

*Viable actions can be taken to avoid Social Security payment reductions. Americans simply need to be willing to elect Congress members who will make hard choices instead of members who claim we can responsibly cut taxes and increase public benefits.

Sources: Social Security Administration, Committee for a Responsible Federal Government, American Association of Retired Persons, Roosevelt Institute, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Last month, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the government can stop asylum seekers from entering America. Effectively, this will prevent individuals from applying for asylum. The vote was 6-3, with all conservative justices supporting the opinion, and all liberal justices opposing it.

Asylum is legal protection for people fleeing persecution in their home countries. Under U.S. law, a person who “arrives in” the U.S. is entitled to apply for asylum and cannot be removed until their asylum application is addressed.

To prevent individuals from gaining legal protections under asylum, in 2018 the Trump administration began to turn asylum seekers away from the U.S./Mexico border before they could cross it. (The Obama administration also tried this. Lower courts blocked them because it denied asylum to people who would have qualified had they been allowed to cross the border.)

The court last month approved Trump’s strategy, reasoning that if an asylum seeker is turned away at the border, they did not “arrive in” the U.S. An opposing opinion countered that when an asylum seeker speaks with a border agent at a legal entry point, this is the first step in “arriving in” the U.S.

Why we are bound to accept asylum-seeking refugees.

The Refugee Convention was established in 1951 to protect Europeans displaced after World War II. It obligated signees to accept displaced Europeans. The United Nations expanded the convention to apply to all people of the world under the 1967 Protocol, which the U.S. signed.

The protocol defined a refugee as an individual forced to flee their country due to a “well-founded fear of being persecuted.” It declared that refugees have rights in host countries, including housing, employment, education and access to travel documents.

The U.S. Refugee Act of 1980 set asylum policy for the U.S. It established U.S. responsibility to protect those fleeing persecution by legally aligning the U.S. definitions of refugee and asylum with United Nations standards. It passed the Senate 98-0.

Sources: SCOTUS Blog, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, NPR, Center for Migration Studies, American Immigration Council.

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in the case Trump v. Barbara that the 14^th Amendment does indeed guarantee automatic birthright citizenship to virtually all children born on United States soil, no matter the immigration status of their parents. The ruling strikes a 2025 executive order by President Trump that attempted to deny citizenship to children born to parents in the U.S. unlawfully or temporarily.

Birthright citizenship is the legal right to national citizenship for all persons born in the United States, regardless of their parents’ citizenship status. Adopted in 1868, the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

The concept was defined first in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was passed after the Civil War to ensure the rights of Black Americans who formerly were enslaved. The law was passed by Congress, vetoed by President Andrew Johnson, then affirmed when Congress overrode Johnson’s veto, a rare feat that made clear Congress’ intent. Knowing it is much harder to change the Constitution than a law, Congress initiated the amendment process to enshrine in the Constitution key elements of the Civil Rights Act, including birthright citizenship.

Birthright citizenship was challenged in the Supreme Court case United States vs. Wong Kim Ark in 1898. Born in San Francisco, Ark traveled to China then returned to California, only to be denied entry under the Chinese Exclusion Act. The court confirmed that Ark was a U.S. citizen even though his parents were immigrants, upholding the principle of birthright citizenship.

In January 2025, Trump issued an executive order denying birthright citizenship to children born of undocumented immigrants or whose parents are in the country on temporary status. Federal courts blocked the order immediately, and it worked its way through the judicial appeals process before the Supreme Court ruled last month.

Sources: UC Davis College of Letters and Science, SCOTUSblog, American Immigration Council, Reuters, me.

When is Independence Day? Is it July 4, Sept. 3, or Jan. 14?

Americans call July 4 Independence Day. In fact, this is the day the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. The United States of America did not actually gain its independence until the Treaty of Paris was signed on Sept. 3, 1783, ending the Revolutionary War and securing international recognition for the U.S. Further, the U.S. Congress of the Confederation did not ratify the Treaty of Paris until Jan. 14, 1784, making U.S. independence legally binding in international law.

The Declaration of Independence was adopted in Philadelphia by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. It proclaimed that the 13 American colonies were severing their political ties with Britain to form an independent nation. Congress appointed a “Committee of Five” to draft a document explaining to the world exactly why the colonies were declaring independence.

Thomas Jefferson, 33-years old, was the principle author. He spent two weeks drafting it. It has three parts: a preamble stating the purpose of government, a list of 27 grievances charging King George III with “absolute tyranny,” and a formal declaration of independence.

The immediate value of the declaration was strategic. It allowed the colonies to secure an official military and financial alliance with France, which was vital to winning the Revolutionary War. The long-term value of the declaration cannot be overstated. Its principles of natural rights have been a foundational moral text for democratic movements and civil rights struggles across the world for centuries.

The preamble holds some of the most profound words in U.S. history, words I asked my government students to memorize: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government, becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”

In short, we have natural rights, government’s job is to protect those rights, and when government’s not doing its job, we can replace it. We do that regularly. It’s called elections.

Sources: National Archives, Office of the U.S. Historian, history.com, me.

Recently, the U.S. signed an agreement with Iran to cease hostilities, reopen sea traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and begin a 60-day negotiation over Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

As stated in last week’s article, the war has cost the U.S. substantially so far:

· 13 U.S. service members’ lives.

· An estimated $40 billion in direct military expenditures.

· An estimated $100 billion in indirect economic impacts on American households.

· A Department of War request for $1.5 trillion in 2027 to replenish weapons, a 44% increase over 2026. (U.S. spending already exceeds that of the next 10 largest spenders combined.)

There likely will be additional unmeasurable costs, like further instability in the Middle East and damage to the U.S. military’s reputation.

Since World War II, the U.S. has engaged in other wars with great costs and questionable gains. Tens of thousands American lives were lost; millions of lives globally. As for financial costs, exact amounts are impossible to identify. Considering long-term veterans’ benefits, interest on wartime borrowing, and lost economic productivity, ultimate economic burdens are profoundly high. Here are direct military costs only. Figures in parenthesis are adjusted for inflation in today’s dollars.

· Vietnam War, 1965-1973: $168 billion (over $1 trillion). Result? South Vietnam fell and all of Vietnam remains a communist government today.

· Persian Gulf War, 1990-1991: $96 billion ($180 billion). U.S. allies covered most of this cost; it is estimated the U.S. cost was $5 billion. Result? Kuwait was liberated from invading Iraqi forces.

· Afghanistan War, 2001-2022: $171 billion ($321 billion) in the initial phase to overthrow the Afghani government. The 20-year occupation took costs closer to $2.3 trillion. Result? The Taliban government overthrown in 2001 returned to power in 2021 and remains in control of Afghanistan today.

· Iraq War, 2003-2011: $648 billion (about $1 trillion). Fighting insurgencies and long-term occupation took costs closer to $1.8 trillion. Result? The removal of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship triggered a violent sectarian civil war for many years. Today, Iraq is a parliamentary democracy that battles high corruption, political fragmentation, and security challenges from armed factions.

Sources: Congressional Quarterly Almanac, Naval History and Heritage Command, U.S. Government and Accountability Office, Council on Foreign Relations, Brown University Costs of War Project, Encyclopedia Britannica, me.

Last week, the U.S. signed an agreement with Iran to cease hostilities, reopen sea traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and begin a 60-day negotiation over Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Here are the agreement’s stipulations:

· Fighting on all fronts will stop. Whether Israel will cease battles against Hezbollah, an Iranian-supported militia, in southern Lebanon remains to be seen.

· The Strait of Hormuz will reopen so 20% of the world oil supply again can travel through it. Iran now may attempt to charge ships to cross the strait. Before the war, there was no fee.

· Iran pledges it will not develop a nuclear weapon. Iran has promised this for decades, yet continues to enrich uranium, a material necessary for a nuclear weapon.

· Iran’s enriched uranium will be diluted so that it is not pure enough for a nuclear weapon.

· The U.S. will lift sanctions on Iranian oil sales.

· The U.S. will unfreeze $24 billion in Iranian assets.

· The U.S. will establish a $300 billion fund for Iran’s redevelopment.

The agreement, however, does not achieve President Trump’s war objectives. It does not:

· Prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

· Remove Iran’s weapons-grade uranium.

· Eliminate Iran’s ballistic missiles.

· Limit Iran’s support of proxy militias across the Middle East.

· Bring about Iran’s “unconditional surrender” and regime change.

· Offer comfort or relief for Iranians suffering under Iran’s despotic government.

Given what was and was not achieved, what has the Iran war cost the U.S. so far?

· 13 U.S. service members’ lives.

· An estimated $40 billion in direct military expenditures.

· An estimated $100 billion in indirect economic impacts on American households.

· A Department of War request for $1.5 trillion in 2027 to replenish weapons, a 44% increase over 2026. (U.S. spending already exceeds that of the next ten largest spenders combined.)

Since World War II, the U.S. has engaged in other wars with great costs and questionable gains. I’ll identify them next week.

Sources: The Economist, The Week, The New York Times, BBC, Forbes, Harvard Kennedy School, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Peter G. Peterson Foundation, The Heritage Foundation, me.

Thank you to Brian Clearman for sending me and other friends a World Cup cheat sheet and enticing me to take a one-week break from hard news.

The Men’s World Cup is a global soccer tournament. (The Women’s World Cup is next year in Brazil.) It is the brainchild of Jules Rimet, a former president of FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football* Association). Rimet wanted an international football championship independent of the amateur-only Olympics.

Athletes compete on behalf of their national teams. The first World Cup was between 13 teams in Uruguay in 1930. Host Uruguay won, defeating Argentina 4-2 in the final. Italy took the next two cups in Europe in 1934 and 1938, but the 1942 and 1946 tournaments were canceled because of World War II.

Brazil was a mid-century force under superstar Pele, winning in 1958, 1962 and 1970. The tournament expanded late in the century, including more teams from Africa, Asia and North America. The tournament grew to 24 teams in 1982, then 32 teams in 1998.

The United States hosted the tournament for the first time in 1994. This sparked growth in American soccer and led to the establishment of Major League Soccer, America’s professional soccer league.

Only eight countries have won the World Cup: Brazil five times, Germany and Italy four each, Argentina three, France and Uruguay twice each, and England and Spain once each.

This year’s tournament expanded to 48 teams. It begins with 12 groups of four. Each team plays three group opponents in a round-robin competition. The top two teams in each group advance to the Round of 32, along with eight third-place teams across the 12 groups with the most points. (Teams earn 3 points for a group win and 1 point for a group tie.) Beginning with the Round of 32, the tournament proceeds with elimination matches until the tournament final on July 19.

Spain and France are big favorites this year, followed closely by England, Argentina and Brazil. Watch for dark horses Norway, Morocco, Senegal, Ecuador, Japan, the Netherlands and Turkiye.

*What the U.S. calls soccer, much of the world calls football.

Sources: fifa.com, mlssoccer.com, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, history.com footballhistory.org, soccer guru Brian Clearman, me.

Last week, the Justice Department told federal judges the administration has abandoned President Trump’s “anti-weaponization fund.” The fund was conceived in May as a source of payouts to individuals who believe they were targets of unfair federal law enforcement investigations.

The proposal was met with bipartisan worry that it served as a slush fund for Trump’s allies. Many lawmakers were particularly concerned that payouts might go to rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The fund was proposed in a settlement agreement between the president and the Justice Department to end Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for the leak of his 2019 and 2020 tax returns. The settlement also bans the IRS from auditing the tax returns of Trump, his family members and his companies. While the Trump administration has scrapped establishing the slush fund, it has not backed off the ban on IRS tax audits.

Whether the federal government was “weaponized” under President Biden to conduct “lawfare” against allies of Trump is a subject of intense partisan debate. It is not debated that presidents have used federal law enforcement machinery against critics and opponents:

Warren G. Harding, 1920s: He appointed his campaign manager, Harry Daugherty, as attorney general. Daugherty protected corrupt associates, intimidated political rivals, and raided the offices of senators who questioned the president.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1940s: FDR had FBI director J. Edgar Hoover monitor opponents of his foreign policy and pursue tax prosecutions against critics, including newspapers.

Lyndon B. Johnson, 1960s: LBJ used the FBI and the CIA to spy on his opponent, Barry Goldwater, during the 1964 presidential campaign. This included bugging a campaign airplane, wiretapping top aides’ phones, and planting a CIA spy on the campaign committee.

Richard Nixon, 1970s: Nixon maintained an enemies list, as White House Counsel John Dean said, to “use the available machinery to screw our political enemies.” Nixon’s tools included IRS tax audits, manipulation of federal contracts, litigation, prosecution, and spying.

Sources: National Archives, Center for American Progress, Lawfare, Cato Institute, University of Virginia Miller Center, Heritage Foundation, history.com, Encyclopedia Britannica, CNN, Time, Smithsonian Magazine, The Week, NPR.

Today’s national debt stands at $39 trillion and counting. Annually, the United States spends about $7.4 trillion and takes in about $5.5 trillion, spending about one quarter more than it takes in. These annual budget deficits combined are the national debt.

The country’s national debt is now larger than its gross domestic product, meaning the debt is larger than the economy. This has happened in the U.S. just one other time, after World War II. Ray Dalio, billionaire investor who built one of the world’s largest hedge funds, warns this is a danger signal for the U.S.

In his recent book How Countries Go Broke, Dalio shows that, while rarely the sole cause, unsustainable debt played a critical role in the demise of historic empires:

The Roman Empire, first century: To fund military expansion and lavish public works, Roman emperors reduced the precious metal content of their coins, devaluing their currency and sparking massive inflation. This disrupted Roman credit systems, shredding the empire’s economic stability.

The Spanish Empire, 16^th and 17^th centuries: An influx of gold and silver from American colonies did not save the Spanish from repeated bankruptcies. Rulers funded endless European military campaigns by borrowing from Italian and German bankers, leading to crushing taxation and sovereign defaults.

The French Empire, 18^th century: Deficit spending, lavish court life at Versailles and support for the American Revolution left the monarchy in ruin, triggering the French Revolution in 1789.

The Ottoman Empire, 19 and 20^th centuries: After relying heavily on foreign loans to modernize its military, the Ottomans defaulted on the debt in 1875. This financial crisis severely weakened the empire’s geopolitical position before it dissolved after World War I.

The British Empire, 20^th century: Massive war debt after World War II forced Britain to abandon its colonies and lose its global geopolitical and economic supremacy. The United Kingdom made its final war debt payment to the U.S. in 2006.

Sources: U.S. Treasury, Congressional Budget Office, BBC, The Week, Business Insider, Bush Center, history.com, Encyclopedia Britannica, University of Oklahoma Professor J. Rufus Fears, me.

The United States Senate approved President Donald Trump’s appointment of Kevin Warsh to serve as the next chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, beginning May 22. It is customary for former chairs to leave the board, but Jerome Powell is choosing to remain on the board until his term expires in January 2028.

Trump has expressed frustration with Powell since returning to the presidency last year, and has threatened to fire Powell if he does not leave the board voluntarily. (It is unlikely Trump has the legal authority to do so.) Trump’s dissatisfaction stems from Powell’s unwillingness to lower interest rates as much as Trump wants.

The Board of Governors oversees the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), the central bank of the United States. The Fed’s primary focus is to foster economic conditions that keep inflation and unemployment low.

The Fed’s primary tool for this is setting interest rates on loans to influence the money supply. In general, the Fed might raise interest rates if inflation is high, making it more expensive to borrow money and, as a result, decreasing the money supply and contracting the economy. Conversely, the Fed might lower interest rates if unemployment is high, making it less expensive to borrow money and, as a result, increasing the money supply and expanding the economy.

Trump wants lower interest rates to boost the economy, although historically lower interest rates raise inflation. The U.S. inflation rate has climbed from 3.0% when Trump returned to office in January 2025 to 3.8% today.

In the late 1800s, the U.S. faced a number of financial crises. Sometimes these crises led to panics when people raced to their banks to withdraw deposits. Bereft of funds, banks sometimes closed, striking blows to the U.S. financial system.

A particularly severe panic in 1907 led Congress to create the Federal Reserve in 1913. Its initial purpose was to serve as a source of emergency reserves to prevent banks from going out of business during panics. Over time, the Fed’s mandate broadened.

The president can nominate governors to the board and Congress oversees the Federal Reserve System, but the Fed operates independently of the federal government. Congress designed the Fed with autonomy to fulfill its responsibilities without political pressure.

Sources: Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Bureau of Labor Statistics, BBC, NPR, CNBC, Investopedia, me.

Last week, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the United States has 4.3 fewer Americans on food stamps than in January 2025, a 10% decline. Rollins attributes the drop to an improved economy and a decrease in fraud.

Public health experts disagree. They provide evidence that fraud and economic gains cannot explain the fall. They say the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Congress in July 2025 is the cause. The act is projected to cut $186 billion over 10 years from food stamps, today known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. This is 20% of SNAP’s budget.

Under the act, changes in eligibility factors such as citizenship and work requirements make it more challenging for recipients to access and qualify for the program.

The Food Stamp Program began in 1939 during the Great Depression to alleviate hunger and utilize farm surpluses. Recipients purchased orange stamps at a discount to buy some foods, and received free blue stamps for other foods. The program helped 20 million Americans before ending in 1943 as the economy improved during World War II.

Food stamps relaunched as a pilot program in 1961 under President John Kennedy. It became permanent under the Food Stamp Act of 1964, as President Lyndon Johnson waged his war on poverty. The updated act helped low-income households buy, rather than be given, food. By 1974, the program was nationwide and recognized as a federal entitlement program.

By 2004, all states used electronic benefit transfers instead of paper coupons, providing recipients a debit card with which to purchase food. This reduced fraud and the negative stigma associated with using food stamps in public.

In 2008, the program was renamed SNAP under President George W. Bush, shifting its focus from distributing food to improving nutrition.

Sources: Congressional Budget Office, National Institutes of Health, USDA Food and Nutrition Service, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Bipartisan Policy Center, Associated Press.

In a recent 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled against a Louisiana congressional map with two majority-Black districts, calling it an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

The court’s six-vote conservative majority reasoned that the Voting Rights Act has worked and official discrimination is rare, so Louisiana was wrong to use race to intentionally create a majority-Black congressional district. The court’s three-vote liberal minority countered that the Voting Rights Act should not be gutted simply because it is doing what it was designed to do – prevent discrimination in places with a history of it.

Shortly after the Civil War ended in 1865, three amendments were added to the United States Constitution: The 13th abolished slavery, the 14th granted former slaves citizenship and guaranteed them equal protection under the law, and the 15th granted African American men the right to vote.

These amendments should have ended racial discrimination in voting. They did not. Over the next 100 years, some states, mostly southern, adopted Jim Crow laws and policies to entrench racial segregation and prevent Blacks from voting.

Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to stop this systemic discrimination. (Congress extended the act in 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992 and 2006.) Section 5 of the act requires states with a history of voter discrimination to get approval from the federal government before changing election rules to ensure changes would not fall harder on racial and ethnic minorities than whites. A 2013 Supreme Court decision largely neutralized this provision, deeming it no longer necessary.

Section 2 prohibits government practice that results in racial discrimination. It forbids both discriminatory intent and results, including restricting minority voice in elections. Critics of the court’s recent decision say it guts Section 2. This follows a 2021 Supreme Court decision that weakened Section 2, making it more difficult to challenge discriminatory voting laws.

Sources: Howard University School of Law, National Archives, U.S. Department of Justice, Democracy Docket, Brennan Center for Justice, SCOTUSblog, Common Cause, National Geographic Society, The New York Times, me.

In April 2025, President Trump declared he was “liberating America from the scourge of imports” by placing tariffs (taxes) on foreign goods imported into the United States. One year later, the results are not what the president projected:

• America’s overall trade deficit is down, but it varies significantly between individual countries. The U.S. trade deficit with China is down, but it is up with Mexico and India.

• About 95% of tariff costs are borne by American consumers, not foreign exporters.

• The U.S. has received about $200 billion in tariff revenue, but after the Supreme Court ruled in February that Trump’s tariffs are illegal, some importers are suing for refunds.

• The U.S. manufacturing sector has lost nearly 100,000 jobs since “Liberation Day.”

Industry has been the driving force of developed countries’ economies for centuries. Britain was the first nation to industrialize in the mid-1700s, thanks to three distinct advantages: plentiful natural resources like coal and iron ore, population growth, and capital wealth. Industrialization made Britain a major world power through World War II.

Industrialization also built the U.S. into a world power. In the mid-1880s, the U.S. passed Britain as the world’s top manufacturer. Like Britain, the U.S. had abundant natural resources, increased population through immigration, and technological innovation in steel production and electric power. In the 1880s, manufacturing was 15% of the U.S. workforce. The rate peaked at nearly 40% during World War II and has been falling since then. Today it is about 8%.

Every president since Ronald Reagan has tried to boost manufacturing jobs:

• Reagan’s approach in the 1980s was to stimulate industrial growth with tax cuts, deregulation of industry, military expansion and promotion of free trade. Under Reagan, manufacturing employment as a percent of total employment fell from 21% to 18%.

• George H.W. Bush focused on job training and trade liberalization, initiating and signing the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1992. Manufacturing fell from 18% to 16%.

• Bill Clinton sought increased exports through trade agreements, technology investments, job training and manufacturing incentives. Manufacturing fell from 16% to 13%.

• George W. Bush worked to expand free trade, reduce regulations, and lower taxes to encourage business investment. Manufacturing fell from 13% to 9%.

• Barack Obama emphasized tax incentives for domestic production, trade enforcement, and investment in high-tech manufacturing hubs. Manufacturing fell from 9% to 8.5%.

• Joe Biden incented domestic semiconductor production, green energy technology, and supply chain expansion. Manufacturing was somewhat steady at about 8%.

Sources: Council on Foreign Relations, Center for American Progress, Tax Foundation, Library of Congress, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, National Archives, George W. Bush White House Archives, U.S. Department of Commerce, World History Encyclopedia, The Economist, The Week, Fortune, NPR, me.

After Pope Leo XIV criticized the American and Israeli attack on Iran and appealed for peace, President Donald Trump responded critically, saying the pope is “very liberal” and “WEAK on crime and terrible for foreign policy.” Trump added that Leo likely would not be pope were it not for him being in the White House.

Leo is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, the world’s largest Christian denomination with 1.4 billion followers.

Historic conflicts between popes and political leaders generally have not gone well for the political leaders. In earlier times, popes wielded more political power than they do today.

• Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV tried to appoint bishops to the Catholic Church, so Pope Gregory VII excommunicated him. In 1077, Henry waited barefoot in the snow for three days to beg Gregory’s forgiveness.

• When Pope Clement VII refused to annul his marriage, King Henry VIII of England split from the Roman Catholic Church and declared himself head of the Church of England in 1534. This marked the Protestant Reformation in England.

• Napoleon Bonaparte tried to control the Catholic Church. Pope Pius VII refused to submit to French authority, and in 1809 Napoleon annexed the Papal States and arrested Pius. This caused outrage across Europe and bolstered resistance against Napoleon.

American presidents and Catholic popes also have clashed, typically over war:

• Pope Paul VI opposed the Vietnam War, and in 1965 he pressed for peace at the United Nations in New York. President Lyndon Johnson met with Paul and stated later that, while they disagreed on the war, they agreed on peace.

• Pope John Paul II spoke against President George W. Bush’s plan to invade Iraq in 2003, calling it “unjust and illegal.” Bush met with an envoy the pope sent to Washington, D.C., and emphasized respect for the Pope while calling the war necessary.

What sets these presidents apart from Trump is their public respect for the papacy. Johnson went out of his way to praise Paul. Bush held deep admiration for John Paul, calling him a “hero for the ages.”

Sources: Papal Artifacts, National Catholic Register, George W. Bush White House Archive, napoleon.org, history.com, CBS News, EBSCO, me.

Last month, the Trump administration announced that the United States government will pay French energy company TotalEnergies nearly $1 billion to stop construction of two major wind projects off the shore of the U.S. The company agreed to refocus on oil and natural gas projects.

This action comes one month after the Environmental Protection Agency repealed the 2009 “endangerment finding” that empowered the government to regulate greenhouse gases. The 2009 scientific determination found that carbon dioxide endangers public health and so could be regulated under the Clean Air Act. Serving as the cornerstone for climate change regulation, the finding spurred investment in low-carbon technologies like electric vehicles. With the finding scrapped, the government loses authority to regulate activity that contributes to global warming.

The “greenhouse effect” was first identified in the early 1800s. It occurs when solar radiation passes through our atmosphere, and greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane absorb this heat and release it in all directions. In the late 1800s, it was first theorized that human activity can emit greenhouse gases, and that these gases can alter the climate.

The first World Climate Conference to discuss the impact of carbon emissions on the climate was held in 1979. A decade later, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established to gather and report data every five years.

In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was established, the first global commitment to reduce CO2 emissions. Over time, 192 parties signed it. The United States signed under Bill Clinton in 1998, but the Senate never ratified the treaty and George W. Bush rejected it in 2001.

At the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference, parties agreed to reduce carbon emissions to keep the Earth less than 2.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels*, a goal considered necessary to prevent catastrophic flooding. Today, the Earth routinely reaches temperatures 1.5 degrees above that level and is expected to exceed 2.0 degrees soon.

*The U.S. signed the agreement under Barack Obama in 2016, withdrew in 2020 under Trump, and rejoined in 2021 under Joe Biden. Trump restarted the withdrawal process in 2025.

Sources: NASA Science, The Australia National Science Agency, U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, National Geographic Society, Senate Committee on Environment, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, The New York Times, NPR, Environmental Protection Agency, The Week, Sierra Club, me.