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Quote of the Month

That America is an exceptional nation is unclear only to one who has not been taught its true history. It ceases to be exceptional only when its representative leaders cease to be exceptional. America, it has been said, is a nation of laws, not of men. The more it becomes a nation of men, the less it remains America.

~Ron Brackin

News of the Month

The notion that the US is unique and superior and has a special destiny among nations has long been an article of faith in American political culture. American exceptionalism is the idea that the US is unique and distinctive from other nations, often with the belief that it is destined to play a special role on the world stage. The term American exceptionalism is often traced back to the writings of French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville, who observed and wrote about the unique characteristics of American society in the 19th century. The concept is rooted in the belief that the nation's founding principles, political system and historical development are unparalleled. It often implies a sense of moral superiority and a belief in the universal application of American values. Proponents argue that the American Revolution, the nation's founding and its subsequent development created a unique and exemplary society. American exceptionalism often emphasizes values like liberty, democracy and individual rights, suggesting they are more fully realized in the US than elsewhere. The concept frequently implies a sense of mission to spread these values and principles to the rest of the world. Some interpretations of American exceptionalism suggest that the US is morally superior to other nations, justifying its actions and policies on a global scale.

[I want to make a few quick points here so that we are on the same track. Believing or not believing in American exceptionalism has nothing to do with patriotism. That's an entirely different concept. You can deeply love America and be a true patriot whether or not you believe in American exceptionalism. Too, American exceptionalism has nothing to do with religion. True, some speak of American exceptionalism as being divinely inspired but, just as with the Declaration's idea of Creator-endowed rights, that is not a Christian, Muslim, Jewish or any other religion's idea. Finally, American exceptionalism has nothing to do with capitalism or any other economic system. It refers to how we relate to each other as a society and to our system of governance, not to how we have designed our economy. Some of what makes American exceptional - both positively and negatively - does have to do with our economic successes and failures and it's possible we would have had neither with a non-capitalist economic system. That, however, is a different discussion. An exceptional political system that is governed by the people and for the people does not require a specific type of economy. For the rest of this discussion, then, remember that we are talking about how we relate to each other and how we govern ourselves, not patriotism or religion or capitalism.]

There are distinctive strands within the overarching idea of American exceptionalism - conservative, neoconservative and liberal, for example - but what they all share is the unshakeable conviction that America is qualitatively different from all other nations, and that this difference has a quality of divine intervention. Exceptionalism, therefore, has always been expressed in moralistic terms. US democracy, institutions and constitutional arrangements are believed to be inherently superior to those of other nations because they are the conscious creation of the people and not of some distant and arbitrary state. There have always been scholarly arguments over whether or not America is truly exceptional. And even among those who believe it is, there have always been arguments over whether exceptionalism is a positive or negative concept and over what exactly makes America exceptional. Almost everyone agrees that America's founding values and principles made it historically exceptional. The question is whether America has tried to live up to those values and principles. We have most definitely had our dark periods as a nation and have sometimes failed each other but do we have a pattern of progress over time? Given the chaos of America’s current situation - both domestically and globally - the purpose of this discussion is to point out some of the specific ways in which America is currently, truly exceptional … and not all of them are good. What I have given below are facts. (For brevity’s sake, I have not included many references but a quick internet search can verify all of the following statements.)

   The US does not have the largest military in the world in terms of active personnel but it has been considered the most powerful military due to its significant military spending, advanced technology and global presence. Recent events, however, seem to indicate that in today’s military environment the level of US military spending is not delivering the expected military results and the quality of US military leadership has declined significantly.

   The US does not have the most nuclear weapons but the combined arsenals of the US and Russia account for over 90% of the world’s total. It should be noted that China is rapidly closing the gap.

   The US is a leader in technology, with Silicon Valley being the most iconic tech hub globally. Other major US tech hubs include New York City, Seattle and Boston. The US benefits from a concentration of large tech companies, venture capital and a strong talent pool, particularly in areas like software, biotechnology and artificial intelligence. However, US technology leadership is increasingly benefitting only a tiny number of individuals and may ultimately harm large portions of American society.

   The US leads the world in the number of immigrants residing within its borders, one-fifth of all international migrants. These immigrants come from just about every nation in the world. Immigration has been a major contributor to US population growth, especially as US birth rates have declined in recent years. Immigrants come to the US through diverse channels, including family sponsorship, employment opportunities and humanitarian programs. Among US immigrants, 49% are naturalized US citizens, 24% are lawful permanent residents, 4% are legal temporary residents and 23% are unauthorized immigrants. Nearly 44% of all immigrants in the US arrived prior to 2000. 22% entered between 2000 and 2009, and 35% have come since 2010.

   The US is different in this respect from any other nations. All the other great powers have a comparatively homogeneous population, close kindred in race and blood and speech, and commonly little divided in religious beliefs. The US is made up of the pioneering stock of nearly every nation in the world, with a variety of races, languages and religious beliefs. And that diversity makes - and has always made - America exceptional.

   Immigrants give the US an economic advantage. They boost overall economic growth by expanding the labor force and increasing consumer spending. The foreign born also start new businesses at higher rates than US-born individuals. Immigrants were involved in the development of 30% of patents in strategic industries in recent years, and more than 40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants. Higher-than-expected immigration drives job growth and productivity. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that a greater level of immigration between 2024 and 2034 will boost gross domestic product (GDP) by $8.9 trillion. Immigrants constitute close to 18% of the US civilian labor force. Immigrants’ share of the labor force has more than tripled since 1970, when they accounted for approximately 5%. The largest share (38%) works in management, professional and related occupations. (At the federal level, immigrants pay more in taxes over time than they receive in government services and benefits. At the state and local level, immigrants tend to cost more than they pay, primarily due to the cost of their children’s public schooling.)

When we look at socioeconomic indices, American exceptionalism is found mostly in its low rankings vis-à-vis other nations.

   The US ranks 26th in economic freedom according to the 2025 Index of Economic Freedom by The Heritage Foundation. Its score is 70.2, placing it in the mostly free category but it remains outside the top 25 nations compared to its peers.

   America consistently ranks near the bottom on income and wealth equality. The World Bank found that in equitable distribution of wealth, the US ranks 45 out of 48 high-income nations, being much less equal than even nations such as the United Arab Emirates, Hungary, Qatar and Russia. The difference between incomes of the top 10% and the bottom 50% is significantly higher in the US than in European nations or in China. The top 10% captures 45.5% of total income while just 13.3% goes to the bottom 50%. The share of national income going to American workers has been trending down for decades, hitting a record low in the first quarter of 2026. The wealth gap in the US is at a modern-day high. The US is home to 989 billionaires. They own more than $9.2tn in wealth in 2026, up 31.8% since 2025. The wealthiest 1% of Americans owns 32% of the wealth and has seen far greater gains in the past 25 years than the bottom 50%. The share of total wealth owned by the poorest half of the US population is extremely small (1.5% of the total). While average household wealth in the US is 3.5 times higher than in China, the bottom 50% of the US population owns less wealth than the Chinese bottom 50%. Oxfam’s Global Inequality Report ranks the US at 99 out of 169 nations. [Since these figures are a year or two old, US statistics of income and wealth inequality are likely worse in 2026.]

   Nothing in US national life has so undermined our confidence in American exceptionalism as the erosion of economic mobility. From the 1940s until 1970, American GDP grew at an average annual rate of 2.7%. From 1970 to 1994, GDP slid to a growth rate of only 1.54%, recovered briefly to 2.26%, and then began sliding to its pre-Trump level of 1.21%. From 1948 until 1972, Americans in the lower 90% of income-earners saw their incomes rise by 2.65% annually. Thus, during that period, the incomes of the lower 90% rose at a rate comparable to the growth in GDP. Since 1972, though, the growth rate for the 90% has collapsed and turned negative, so that middle-class workers who began their careers in the center of the earnings curve have seen their fortunes decline by 20% since 1980. Even when America’s GDP is rising, the only incomes rising are those at the top. The US has become economically immobile despite myths to the contrary. The US has only moderate income and occupational mobility compared with other rich nations. US workers do not enjoy opportunities for upward mobility compared with people born in other rich nations. Americans believe that upward mobility is much more prevalent in the nation than it actually is. Their faith in mobility is exceptional among developed nations, but actual levels of mobility are not.

   Particularly for those at the bottom of the income distribution, the US is less successful than other rich nations in equalizing opportunities for children.

   US rates of poverty are substantially higher and more extreme than those found in other high-economy nations.

   The overall US poverty rate is 17.8%, compared to a high-economy nation average of 10.7%. The poverty gap - the percentage by which the average income of the poor falls below the poverty line - gives us an overall gauge of the depth and severity of poverty in a nation. Once again, the US is at the very high end, with the distance between the US poor’s average income and the poverty line at 39.8%.

   The US has a higher child poverty rate compared to other wealthy nations. The US child poverty rate is higher than the average rate in similar developed nations, 20.8%, compared to an average for other wealthy nations of 11.2%. Child poverty rates are significantly higher than adult poverty rates within the US.

   Not surprisingly, the US has the highest standards of living at the middle and upper ends of the income distribution scale, yet for those at the lower end, their standards of living fall behind most other industrialized nations. The reasons for such a discrepancy are twofold. First, the social safety net in the US is much weaker than in virtually every other nation. Second, the US has been plagued by low wages at the bottom of the income distribution scale when compared to other developed nations. These factors combine to contribute to both the relative and absolute depths of US poverty in comparison to other industrialized nations. Our rich are richer but our poor are poorer.

   America’s low-income population receives smaller incomes than the poor in nearly all other industrial nations, while America’s rich receive much higher incomes than the rich anywhere else. By international standards, the programs the US government has established to reduce poverty are relatively small. Among the seven largest industrial nations, the US spends the smallest percentage of its national income on direct government provision of social-welfare benefits, preferring instead to use (much more than other nations do) a variety of tax preferences to induce the private provision of welfare benefits, especially health care and occupational pensions. And the US welfare system has become more different from Europe's in recent decades. No European government has been willing to impose the measures that are now common in the US, such as time limits on benefits or cessation of benefit payments to mothers who can’t work.

   Political support for government redistribution is much greater in Europe than in America. When Americans are asked to report their priorities, economic inequality ranks quite low, and much lower than it does in other advanced democracies. A large majority of Americans believe that individuals should bear primary responsibility for supporting themselves. Voters in other rich nations are more inclined to believe that governments have an obligation to assure that everyone is provided for.

Can a nation which calls itself exceptional really feel good about reducing or eliminating programs that make life more bearable for millions of people? Can a nation be exceptional if it neglects its own?

   The US is the only high-income nation that does not guarantee health coverage.

   The US healthcare system is characterized by high costs, low access and poor outcomes compared to other high-income nations. While the US spends significantly more on healthcare, it lags behind in key health outcomes, such as life expectancy and infant mortality, and the US ranks last among high-income nations on access, equity and health outcomes. Nations with universal healthcare systems provide more equitable and affordable access to care, and for less money.

   Health spending per person in the US is two times higher than in the closest nation, Germany, and four times higher than in South Korea. (This is due in large part to high monopolistic hospital prices from an increasing lack of competition.) In the US, health spending includes spending for people in public programs (CHIP, Medicaid, Medicare, military), spending by those with private insurance (including employer-sponsored coverage or other private insurance), and out-of-pocket health spending.

   Medical debt is uniquely severe in the US compared to other high-income nations, where it is largely nonexistent. While other developed nations have universal coverage and strictly cap patient costs, 41% of US adults report having debt from medical or dental bills. As of 2026, about 66.5% of bankruptcies in the US are linked to medical expenses, compared to much lower rates in Canada (19%), Australia (10%), and the UK (8.2%). The high debt burden in the US is driven by lack of universal coverage, high costs and high deductibles.

   The US spends over $1,000 per person for administrative costs - almost five times more than the average of other wealthy nations and more than it spends on long-term healthcare.

   The US is the only high-income nation where a substantial portion of the population (9%) lacks any form of health insurance, leading to barriers in accessing care due to cost. Over 80% of uninsured individuals are in low-income families, with high costs being the primary barrier to coverage.

   Americans see physicians less often than people in most other nations, and the US has among the lowest rate of practicing physicians and hospital beds per 1,000 population.

   The US has experienced stagnant life expectancy growth for decades. The US has a lower life expectancy at birth (78.4) than most other high-income nations for both men and women. US life expectancy at birth is over 4 years lower than the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) average. Life expectancy varies considerably within the US, though life expectancy in all US states falls below the average for comparable nations. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the US comes in 31st for life expectancy. In 1980, the US and comparable nations had similar life expectancies and similar health spending, but the trends have diverged in the last few decades.

   US life expectancy statistics mask racial and ethnic disparities. For example, in 2021, the life expectancy of men in Bangladesh was 73.6 years. For that same year, estimated life expectancy for Black men in Washington DC was 65.2.

   The US has the highest death rates for avoidable or treatable conditions. It has the highest rate of people with multiple chronic conditions and an obesity rate nearly twice the OECD average. Avoidable mortality refers to deaths that are preventable and treatable. Preventable deaths can be avoided through effective public health measures and through primary prevention, such as nutritional diet and exercise. Treatable mortality can be avoided mainly through timely and effective health care interventions, including regular exams, screenings and treatment. Avoidable deaths have been on the rise in the US, which has the highest rate of all high-income nations.

   US elder care stands out among developed nations for its lack of universal long-term care (LTC) insurance, heavier reliance on out-of-pocket costs, and more frequent rationing of care due to affordability. US elderly are sicker and more economically vulnerable, despite having Medicare, and they struggle to afford care and medications, and face more financial barriers to care than in other developed nations. Many elderly Americans pay a substantial amount out of pocket that is not paid by people in other developed nations where there is no coinsurance or deductibles. Family caregivers provide the vast majority of elder care in the US but receive little systemic compensation, training or subsidized respite care compared to international peers. (The loss of income and retirement contributions family caregivers experience then contributes to their own eventual loss of income when they age.)

   With regard to maternal mortality, the US has ranked last among industrialized nations (and 46th globally) for many years. In the US in 2021, there were 31 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births (a 40% spike from previous years). In comparison, the average maternal death rates in the UK and in Western Europe were 4, in Eastern Europe 12, and in Central Asia 24 per 100,000 for 2021. No wonder some argue that the US is the most dangerous place in the developed world to give birth.

   The US has a significantly higher infant mortality rate compared to other high-income nations. For example, in 2022, the US rate was 5.6 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, while other high-income nations have rates as low as 1.7 deaths per 1,000 live births. The US ranked 33rd out of 38 OECD nations in 2021 for infant mortality rate, with Japan and Norway having the lowest rates.

   The US K-12 education system is among the most expensive globally, particularly on a per-pupil basis, but that doesn't translate to superior outcomes compared to other developed nations. While the US spends a large amount on education, particularly in comparison to its GDP, studies indicate that other nations with lower spending per pupil achieve better results on standardized tests. In 2021, the US spent $20,387 per pupil, compared to an average of $14,209 across OECD nations. (Most US K-12 funding comes from state and local governments, with the federal government contributing a smaller share.)

   US teachers and other school personnel generally have higher salaries than in other nations. US schools often have advanced facilities and invest heavily in technology. US schools also have a wider range of extracurricular activities and programs compared to other high-income nations. All of this contributes to the high cost.

   In the US, high school graduation rates are relatively high (around 87%), but there are concerns about the quality of education received by some students, as evidenced by declining scores on standardized tests and achievement gaps. Significant achievement gaps exist in the US education system, with lower scores for students from certain racial and ethnic minority groups and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

   Despite high spending, the US has not consistently shown superior academic outcomes compared to nations with lower per-pupil spending, particularly in areas like standardized test scores. Some studies show stagnation or even declines in scores on standardized tests, even while spending has increased. The US generally underperforms in math compared to other developed nations. The US performs better in science, often ranking above the OECD average, but still behind high-performing nations like Japan and Korea. In 2022, the US ranked 12th out of 37 OECD nations in science. There are also concerns about the development of critical thinking, problem-solving and innovation skills in US students, which are crucial for future success in STEM fields. The US performs close to the OECD average in reading literacy.

   The US is the only high-income nation without substantial government support for child care. High childcare costs in the US are a significant barrier for parents, particularly low-income families, making it difficult for them to afford care and potentially impacting their ability to work or pursue education. Other high-income nations typically have robust, publicly funded systems that subsidize or provide free, high-quality child care. This can involve direct government funding, tax breaks or other forms of financial assistance to make childcare more affordable.

   According to the 2024 Environmental Performance Index, out of 180 nations, the US ranks 26 on water and sanitation, 31 on lead exposure and 71 on solid waste management. (Other EPI rankings can be found here.)

   The US has the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world. America has 4.4% of the global population but 22% of global prisoners. And the vast majority of the incarcerated are Black, Latino or Indigenous. The next four nations on the list? Rwanda, Turkmenistan, El Salvador and Cuba.

   The US leads the world in recidivism (re-offending) and re-incarceration. While the US sees recidivism rates around 70% within 5 years of release, nations like Norway have rates such as 20%. This difference is often attributed to variations in criminal justice approaches, with the US primarily focusing on punishment and other nations emphasizing rehabilitation.

   The US is consistently in the top 10 nations with the most confirmed executions per year, along with China and several Middle East nations.

   The US has the highest rate of juvenile incarceration among developed nations. While the US has seen a decline in youth incarceration rates in recent years, it still incarcerates significantly more young people than any other nation. As with adult incarceration, the majority of juveniles incarcerated are Black, Latino or Indigenous.

   The US has 121 firearms per 100 residents, making it the only nation with more civilian-owned firearms than people.

   Among high-income nations, the US has the highest rate of firearm homicides and the highest percentage of child deaths caused by firearms (a figure that has been increasing over time). Globally, the US ranks in the 93rd percentile for overall firearm mortality, the 92nd percentile for child and teen firearm mortality, and the 96th percentile for women. The US has the highest overall firearm mortality rates, as well as the highest firearm mortality rates for children, for adolescents and for women, both globally and among high-income nations.

   Nearly all US states have a higher firearm mortality rate than most other nations. Death rates due to physical violence by firearms in US states are closer to rates seen in nations experiencing active conflict. Americans are 26 times more likely to be shot and killed than those in other high-income nations.

   While accounting for 4.4% of the world’s population, the US makes up 35% of global firearm suicides.

   The US stands out among Western democracies for its high degree of police militarization, in terms of both the equipment and the tactics used, and in the perception of police as a force separate from the communities they serve. While some other nations also utilize military-style equipment and tactics, the scale and intensity of militarization in the US, particularly in the context of its policing culture, are notable. Police in the US have adopted tactics and training methods originally developed for military operations, leading to a more confrontational approach to policing.

   US local law enforcement agencies have received billions of dollars worth of military-grade equipment from the DOD, including armored vehicles, assault rifles and tactical gear, through programs like the 1033 program.

   The US has a significantly higher rate of fatal police shootings compared to other Western democracies, with some studies suggesting a correlation between militarization and increased police violence. For example, in a 24-day period in 2015, police in the US shot more people than the police did in England and Wales in 24 years.

   The US is often recognized as a top destination for its universities and research institutions, attracting students from around the world. One of the secrets of American exceptionalism is not so much that the US gives birth to talented people, but that the US is a huge attractor of talented people. Increases in international student enrollment lead to increases in innovation and patent creation. In Massachusetts, for example, immigrants account for about 27% of entrepreneurs, who contribute about $3.1 billion in business income. But those things that make the US a highly desirable destination for students and researchers from around the globe - high-quality education, abundant research opportunities, strong career prospects, a diverse environment, high investment in research and development, academic autonomy - are the things the current US administration is dismantling, leaving many to wonder about the future exceptionalism of American universities and research institutions.

   The US has a prominent history in medical research, evidenced by the high number of Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine awarded to American scientists. Between 1901 and 2024, 106 Americans were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This represents a significant portion of the Nobel Prizes awarded in that field during that period. However, those things which contribute to the success of US medical research are the things the current US administration is dismantling.

American exceptionalism can also be found in measures of civil and political rights, and in the level of democracy.

   The US has lower voter registration rates compared to many other developed democracies. For example, while nations like Germany, Australia and Canada have registration rates exceeding 90%, the US registered only 73% of eligible voters in the last presidential election. Unlike many peer nations where the government automatically registers eligible voters, the burden of registering largely falls on individuals in the US … and many don’t know where or when or how.

   In the US, increasing numbers of states, which are responsible for voter registration laws and implementation, are engaging in voter suppression practices. Voter suppression refers to efforts, both legal and extralegal, to prevent or discourage specific groups of people from registering to vote or casting their ballots. These practices (restrictive voter ID laws, reduced polling places and hours, elimination of early voting, purging voter rolls, voter intimidation, gerrymandering, language barriers, etc) aim to interfere with election outcomes by hindering access to the ballot, particularly for certain groups.

   The US stands out globally for the extent to which it denies voting rights to citizens due to criminal convictions, with over 4.4 million citizens banned from voting due to felony convictions. This figure significantly surpasses other nations. In the US, disenfranchisement often results automatically from a conviction and can be mandatory and permanent, which contrasts with the approaches taken in other nations.

   Voter turnout in the US remains consistently lower than most other democracies, hovering around 60% in presidential elections and 40% in midterm elections. Turnout soars to 90% in democracies with mandatory voting and reaches around 70% overall in developed democracies. When comparing turnout in the 2020 presidential election against recent national elections in 49 other nations, the US ranked 31st, between Colombia and Greece. US voter turnout may soon begin to lag even farther behind due to voting-law changes that have rolled back early, absentee or mail-in voting, and other rule changes that make voting more difficult or inconvenient in the US.

   America’s growing income and wealth inequality is greatly weakening the principles of accountability and political equality. The fortunes of the wealthiest 20 Americans are equivalent to 12% of the nation’s annual economic output. Such enormous fortunes inherently distort the US economic and political systems, giving a small group too many ways to avoid regulation, taxation and oversight. It’s the power to influence markets, to buy competitors, and to influence policymaking. It distorts democracy, as well as markets. (And some of those express open contempt for democracy.) But the problem goes well beyond those few individuals. Study after study has shown that large donations from wealthy individuals, companies and interest groups have a large impact on how elected officials vote while the opinions expressed by average constituents has no influence. In the 2024 elections, billionaires alone accounted for 20% of all donations, and they’re on track to break that record in 2026. Watchdogs warn that the wealthification of politics (where massive, often undisclosed billionaire donations dictate election outcomes) has effectively turned modern American democracy into an oligarchy. And nations with economic inequality are up to seven times more likely to suffer democratic erosion, as their governments increasingly respond to inequality with repression instead of redistribution.

   The US ranks 26 out of 142 nations on the rule of law, below the majority of other high-income nations. Faltering confidence in government accountability remains an area of particular concern. Whether government officials are sanctioned for misconduct is down 16% since 2016. The US now ranks 36 globally. Since 2016, constraints on government powers has declined by 15% while the US fundamental rights score declined by nearly 10%. Even as checks and balances remain significantly weakened, the biggest driver of rule of law decline in the US in 2023 were problems in the criminal and civil justice systems. The US ranks in the bottom 20% of nations in accessibility and affordability of the civil justice system (115 out of 142) and absence of discrimination in the civil justice system (124 out of 142), and ranks in the bottom 25% of nations in the impartiality of the criminal justice system (109 out of 142). Both the civil and criminal justice systems declined between 2016 and 2023, specifically impartiality of the criminal justice system and discrimination in the civil justice system, down 26% and 22% respectively.

   The US has the third largest decline in support for free speech rights in the world (behind Israel and Japan) and has fallen from third to ninth place in the global rankings for support of free speech rights since 2021.

   The US has dropped almost 11 points and 12 places (to 57 out of 180 nations) since 2020 in global freedom of the press rankings.

   The US has been added to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, a research tool that publicizes the status of freedoms and threats to civil liberties worldwide. Other nations on the watchlist include the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and Serbia. CIVICUS outlines the state of civil rights through five categories - open, narrowed, obstructed, repressed, and closed. The US was recently classified as narrowed, reflecting the assessment that while most people are able to exercise their rights of expression, free speech, press and assembly, there are attempts to violate these rights by the US government.

   The US scores 64 on human rights, ranking 59 out of 195 nations, due to issues with torture, police violence and labor rights. US law enforcement agencies far too often utilize interrogation techniques that cross over into torture. Police also kill more than 1,000 people every year, disproportionately Black Americans. Moreover, the lack of effort to pass policing reform at the federal level, failure to develop national tracking of police killings and failure to update use-of-force laws to comply with international standards signal that these deaths seem to be accepted by policymakers as status quo.

   Obstacles to unionization and collective bargaining, as well as failures to guarantee safe working conditions, decent wages and benefits are violations of labor rights. There is also frequent use of child labor, particularly in US agriculture, where children as young as 12 years old can work up to 60 hours per week.

   The US ranks poorly on measures of racial equality and inclusion compared to other developed nations. It consistently underperforms in global rankings assessing racial equality and inclusion, particularly in areas like economic opportunity, social mobility and treatment of marginalized groups. The US has been ranked as low as 118th in the world for racial inclusion (2023). Another ranking placed the US on the list of the 10 worst nations for racial equality.

   The US lags behind many other nations in terms of gender equality and inclusion, particularly in political representation and health outcomes. While the US scores well in areas like educational attainment (although only in undergraduate degrees and women hold 2/3 of student debt), it faces significant challenges in areas like political empowerment, adolescent birth rates, maternal mortality and political violence against women. The US ranks well below both its North American neighbors (Canada and Mexico) in gender equality indices. And gender equality isn’t just a score or a DEI point … Studies show that closing gender gaps accelerates economic growth for an entire nation.

   The US Constitution does not have an explicit guarantee of gender equality, unlike 85% of constitutions worldwide. Many systemic issues affecting women could be remedied with the adoption of an equal rights amendment. It would add an explicit prohibition on gender-based discrimination at the highest level, directly impacting the rights of all women by making it harder for legislative bodies or courts to weaken or overturn established human rights. For example, when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it said that no right to abortion is implicitly protected or conferred by any constitutional provision. And not only did women then lose a decades-long right over their own bodies, that decision has been the basis for the loss of a host of other rights at the state level. For the past two decades, as much of the world has expanded access to abortion, the US is one of three nations (including Nicaragua and Poland) actively rolling back rights. Though most Americans support legal abortion, overtly unconstitutional laws now glide through state legislatures and are met with staggering indifference by the courts.

   The US ranks significantly lower than many other developed nations in the proportion of women holding positions in federal legislatures and as heads of state. For example, the US is 55 out of 148 nations in gender equality rankings due to a widening gap in political empowerment.

   The US loses points in global rankings due to a lack of laws guaranteeing equal pay. The US ranks poorly, with one of the widest pay gaps among surveyed nations. Although women constitute almost half of the US workforce and have increased their representation in many professions, the average compensation for female workers is roughly 82% of that for male workers, a gap that has remained relatively constant over the past several decades. Meanwhile, the wage gap between white and Black workers has grown in recent decades, meaning Black women, who are affected by both the gender and racial components of wage inequality, make about 69% of that earned by white male workers.

   The US is rated as below average in support for working women. It is the only nation with no federally-mandated paid parental leave. Other nations mandate an average of 31.6 weeks. The US also ranks as an expensive nation for parents, with childcare consuming roughly 30% of an average wage. European nations have been more successful in closing the gender gap than the US due to investments in affordable childcare, paid parental leave and universal healthcare. Too, American women provide the vast majority of caregiving for children and elders but are not compensated, including as credit for Social Security earnings. American women are much more likely to live in poverty and economic insecurity, especially older women.

   The US is 58 (out of 148 nations) in terms of women’s health and survival. Only after the passage of Obamacare did women gain close to comparable healthcare, including preventative services. (Even that is problematic since the government continues to look for ways to cut healthcare). Still, the US is the only nation where a considerable percentage of women are uninsured. Women in the US have among the lowest rates of access to a regular doctor or place of care, among the highest rates or the highest rate of skipping or delaying needed care because of the cost, and the highest rate of having medical bill problems. Although life expectancy is falling for both men and women in the US, it is falling at a faster rate for women. Maternity and child birth are much more dangerous for American women and obstetrics care is increasingly hard to find due to state anti-choice laws. Violence against women in the US, including domestic violence, has been rising for some time. (The new administration has removed all relevant statistics, though.) Women are also most often affected by sexual harassment and assault in the workplace. US adolescents have higher rates of pregnancy and STDs, including HIV, than in other wealthy nations.

   There is some indication that the status of women in the US is declining, and rather quickly. The Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks gender gaps in 148 nations. The US ranks 42, behind nations such as Rwanda, Liberia and Columbia. And the score has been dropping for over a decade … it was 17th in 2011. Women’s rights may be the canary in the coal mine!

   Compared to other developed nations, the US holds a moderate (although worsening) position in terms of LGBTIQ+ equality and inclusion. While the US had made strides in LGBTIQ+ equality and acceptance in the recent past, it lags behind many other developed nations, particularly in the realm of legal protections and consistent nationwide inclusion. This is a complex issue with both legal and social dimensions, and further progress is needed to ensure full equality and safety for all LGBTIQ+ Americans. The US has a quality index score of 70, a legal index score of 83 and a public opinion index score of 56.

   The US was included for the first time in 2024 on the annual list of backsliding democracies published by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, defined as democracies exhibiting “gradual but significant weakening of checks on government and civil liberties.” The group reported that the US shows significant lapses in effective legislative bodies and freedoms of expression and assembly. In 2026, the V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute said democracy in the US was deteriorating at an unprecedented rate and that the US has lost its long-term status as a liberal democracy for the first time in over 50 years.

   The US earned 83 of 100 points on the Freedom House’s 2024 Freedom in the World Index, which stated that it’s unclear whether or not US norms and institutions can withstand the assault of its bad actors. Nor is it clear that America’s democratic norms and institutions are fundamentally any more rock solid than those of, say, Hungary or Venezuela. As bad as? No. But stronger? I don’t know.

Part of the idea of American exceptionalism stems from the values that Americans hold. Yet when it comes to taking an international leadership position on those values, America is often absent.

   The US is the only nation in the world not to have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. (A decade ago, Somalia was the only other nation on the list but it signed in 2015.)

   The US has not ratified important international human rights treaties such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the only industrialized democracy not to do so (along with Iran, N Macedonia, Somalia, Sudan and 3 Pacific islands).

   The US is in the minority in not having signed the Rome Statute and joined the International Criminal Court despite policies advancing human rights around the world.

   The US withdrew from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change (again), joining Iran, Libya and Yemen.

   Other international agreements/organizations in which the US has refused participation: Human Right to Water and Sanitation, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials,  the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement, the UN Human Rights Guidance on Less-Lethal Weapons in Law Enforcement (Focuses on how less-lethal weapons, like batons, pepper spray, TASERs, acoustic weapons, truncheons, crowd control weapons, kinetic impact projectiles/rubber bullets, pepper spray, policing assemblies, projectile electric-shock weapons (pesws)/tasers, tear gas/chemical irritants, use of force, water cannons should be used to respect human rights principles. The US did not adopt the guidance nor do the DOJ or DHS have standardized domestic guidelines.), the Basel Convention (a global treaty regulating hazardous waste)

Some Americans argue that criticizing our nation openly is unpatriotic. However, there is nothing more patriotic than loving a nation so deeply that you’re willing to criticize it for its shortcomings in order to improve on them, even when you know that change may take generations to come to fruition. Is America great? Perhaps … but an unquestioning belief in America’s unrelenting greatness without acknowledging the tragedies of the past and misdeeds of the present sets a dangerous precedent. The US has made great gains due to our propensity to dream and strive for a better world. But imagine a generation of young adults more educated and aware of their nation’s successes and failures. Imagine the impact that could have on society, cultural norms, race/gender/orientation relations and overall empathy. This is the America we must work toward - an imperfect group of imperfect individuals constantly striving together to build a more perfect union.

Central to the idea of exceptionalism is the fundamental belief that America is different, and that its core values are worth fighting to protect. In contrast, the extreme right’s dismissal of America’s norms, its unwillingness to acknowledge and work to improve America’s mistakes, its love of isolationism and authoritarians, diminishes and trivializes American exceptionalism. Americans may have differing political philosophies but we can come together around common values and create an exceptionalism that is not self-serving or politicized, but is uplifting, a nation that has integrity and reliability. It’s a chance to redefine what makes America exceptional. It’s about holding ourselves accountable to our ideals and demanding a future that includes everyone. In the end, American exceptionalism must be about more than patriotism. It’s about recognizing the potential and the pitfalls of a nation that prides itself on being a leader. It’s about asking tough questions and demanding better answers. It’s about willingly and optimistically embracing the complexity of what it means to be American.

Then and Now

   07/01/1862 - The first federal polygamy legislation was enacted.

   07/01/1863 - The Civil War battle of Gettysburg began.

   07/01/1867 - Canada became a country.

   07/01/1896 - Abolitionist and author Harriet Beecher Stowe died.

   07/01/1898 - During the Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders waged a victorious assault on San Juan Hill in Cuba.

   07/01/1904 - The first Olympic Games held in the US opened in St. Louis.

   07/01/1943 - 'Pay-as-you-go' income tax withholding began.

   07/01/1944 - Delegates from 44 countries began meeting at Bretton Woods, NH, where they agreed to establish the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

   07/01/1946 - The US exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

   07/01/1963 - The US Postal Service first began using Zip Codes.

   07/01/1968 - The US, Britain, Soviet Union and 58 other countries signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

   07/01/1991 - President GHW Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court ... and the battle began!

   07/01/1997 - Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule after 156 years as a British colony.

   07/01/2024 - In Trump v. US, the US Supreme Court remanded the case back to the district court and ruled 6-3 the following. (1) Former presidents can be criminally prosecuted for unofficial acts committed while in office. (2) The constitutional scheme for the separation of powers requires that former presidents have some immunity from criminal prosecution for acts taken while in office. (a)  Immunity is absolute with respect to a president’s exercise of his core Article II powers. (b) Where the president’s power is shared with Congress, “Precedent necessitates at least a presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for a President’s acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility… [T]he President [is] immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no ‘“dangers of intrusion on the Executive Branch.’” (c) In deciding whether an act is official or unofficial, courts cannot inquire into a president’s motives. (d) Courts may not deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law. (3) Communicating with the Attorney General is clearly an official act and Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution involving discussions with Justice Department officials. (4) Although the VP is performing a legislative function when presiding over the Senate, as he does in counting the electoral vote, the president must ordinarily work so closely with the VP that the lower court should on remand determine whether prosecuting Trump for attempting to influence the VP’s counting of the electoral vote poses a danger of intruding on the authority and functions of the executive branch. On remand it will be the “Government’s burden to rebut the presumption of immunity.” (5) The president plays no role in a state’s appointment of presidential electors and whether Trump’s attempt to influence state legislators was campaign conduct or protected official activity would be remanded to the lower court for resolution. (6) Because questions regarding Trump’s communications before and on January 6 are so intertwined and fact specific, the decision as to whether these communications were official statements or statements made by Trump in his private capacity, is for the district court to make on remand. (7) If the president is tried for unofficial acts, evidence of his official acts may not be used to shed light on the criminality of his unofficial actions. (8) Former presidents may be tried criminally even if they have not been impeached. The result? Trump disrupts the balance of power between the president and Congress, and lawmakers need to reclaim Congress’ role as a check on the presidency and rebalance the power between the two branches. Too, by delaying its consideration of Trump’s case for as long as it did, and by issuing the opinion it did, the Court’s majority ensured that even if Trump was not immune from trial for some of the charged crimes, he would not be tried for any crimes before the 2024 election, and voters would not be able to incorporate any judicial findings in their decisions.

   07/02/1776 - The Continental Congress adopted a resolution saying that these United Colonies are, and of right, ought to be, Free and Independent States.

   07/02/1926 - The US Army Air Corps began.

   07/02/1937 - Amelia Earhart disappears on round-the-world flight.

   07/02/1961 - Ernest Hemingway, the winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in literature, died at 62 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

   07/02/1962 - Businessman Sam Walton opens first Walmart store in Rogers AR.

   07/02/1964 - President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

   07/02/1976 - The US Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was not inherently cruel or unusual in Gregg v. Georgia.

   07/02/2026 - World UFO Day

   07/03/1608 - Samuel de Champlain founded the city of Quebec.

   07/03/1775 - General George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge MA.

   07/03/1884 - Dow Jones published its first stock average.

   07/03/1930 - Congress created the US Veterans Administration.

   07/03/1962 - Algeria became independent after 132 years of French rule.

   07/03/1971 - Jim Morrison, American singer, songwriter, poet, and lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the rock band the Doors, died at age 27 in Paris. The official cause of death was heart failure. Morrison remains one of the most legendary and mysterious rock stars of all time. His outlandish stage presence and darkly poetic and eloquent odes to rebellion, set to the unique and eclectic brand of psychedelic music of the Doors, inspired a generation of disaffected youth.

   07/03/2026 - St Thomas Day – Christian

   07/04/1776 - The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

   07/04/1802 - The US Military Academy officially opened at West Point NY.

   07/04/1831 - Dr. Samuel Francis Smith, a Baptist minister in Boston wrote America. He scribbled his original words to a melody he found in a German songbook not realizing the tune was that of the British national anthem. Hours later, the congregation of Boston's Park Street Church sang it for the first time.

   07/04/1826 - Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, died at Monticello VA.

   07/04/1826 - John Adams died in Quincy MA.

   07/04/1884 - France presented the Statue of Liberty to the US as a gift.

   07/04/2026 - Happy US Independence Day!

   07/05/1811 - Venezuela became the first South American country to declare its independence from Spain.

   07/05/1865 - William Booth founded the Salvation Army in London.

   07/05/1946 - The bikini made its debut during an outdoor fashion show at the Molitor Pool in Paris.

   07/05/1975 - Arthur Ashe became the first black man to win a Wimbledon singles title as he defeated Jimmy Connors.

   07/05/1984 - In United States v. Leon, the Supreme Court weakened the 70-year-old "exclusionary rule," deciding that evidence seized with defective court warrants could be used against defendants in criminal trials.

   07/05/2016 - FBI Director James Comey held an infamous press conference at the height of the 2016 presidential election, in which he announced that although Hillary Clinton hadn’t committed any crimes in using a private email server as secretary of state, she’d still done things Comey personally thought were “extremely careless.” The announcement may well have helped tank Clinton’s campaign, leading to the election of Donald Trump.

   07/06/1854 - The first official meeting of the Republican Party took place in Jackson MI.

   07/06/1923 - The Central Executive Committee of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) formally ratified its first federal constitution.

   07/06/1933 - The first All-Star baseball game took place at Chicago's Comiskey Park. The American League defeated the National League 4 to 2.

   07/06/1945 - President Truman signed an executive order establishing the Medal of Freedom.

   07/06/1967 - The Biafran War erupted. The war lasted over two years and claimed over 600,000 lives.

   07/06/2026 - International Kissing Day

   07/06/2026 - Birth of the Dalai Lama – Buddhist

   07/07/1865 - Officials hanged four people in Washington for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Lincoln.

   07/07/1898 - The US annexed Hawaii.

   07/07/1958 - President Eisenhower signed the Alaska statehood bill.

   07/07/1981 - President Reagan announced he was nominating Arizona judge Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice on the US Supreme Court.

   07/07/2019 - US women’s national soccer team wins World Cup for a record fourth time.

   07/07/2026 - World Chocolate Day

   07/08/1663 - King Charles II of England granted a charter to Rhode Island.

   07/08/1856 - Charles Barnes of Lowell MA patented the first machine gun.

   07/08/1889 - The Wall Street Journal was first published.

   07/08/1950 - General Douglas MacArthur became commander-in-chief of UN forces in Korea.

   07/09/1868 - The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution - which guarantees birthright citizenship, bars states from depriving anyone of life, liberty or property without due process, and ensures equal protection of the laws for all individuals - was ratified.

   07/09/1872 - John Blondel of Thomaston MN patented the doughnut cutter.

   07/09/1877 - First Wimbledon tournament began.

   07/09/1893 - The first successful open-heart surgery was performed by Dr. Daniel Hale Williams at Provident Hospital in Chicago.

   07/09/1896 - William Jennings Bryan delivered his famous Cross of Gold speech at the Democratic national convention in Chicago.

   07/09/2026 - Martyrdom of the Bab – Baha’i

   07/10/1850 - Vice President Millard Fillmore assumed the presidency following the death of President Taylor.

   07/10/1919 - President Wilson personally delivered the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate and urged its ratification.

   07/10/1991 - Boris Yeltsin took the oath of office as the first elected president of the Russian Republic.

   07/10/1992 - A federal judge in Miami sentenced former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, convicted of drug and racketeering charges, to 40 years in prison. The sentence was later cut to 10 years.

   07/11/1533 - Pope Clement VII declared that the marriage of England's King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn was null and void, as was the annulment that had been declared by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. The pope also restored Catherine of Aragon (Henry’s first wife) to her “royal state” and ordered the king to abandon the newly crowned and pregnant Anne Boleyn and return to Catherine. If he didn’t then Pope Clement would issue the bull of excommunication that he had drawn up.

   07/11/1798 - A congressional act formally re-established the Marine Corps and created the Marine Band.

   07/11/1804 - Former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and long-time political rival VP Aaron Burr fought a duel of honor in Weehawken, NJ. Hamilton was mortally wounded by Burr's shot during the duel, and died 31 hours later at a friend's home in Manhattan. The nation was shocked. Charged with murder in NY and NJ, Burr, still vice president, returned to Washington DC, where he finished his term immune from prosecution.

   07/11/1864 - Confederate forces led by General Jubal Early began an abortive invasion of Washington DC, turning back the next day.

   07/11/1960 - To Kill a Mockingbird was published. It was American author Harper Lee’s first novel, and was based on her memories of her family, her neighbors and an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville AL when she was 10 years old.

   07/11/1977 - The Medal of Freedom was awarded posthumously to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

   07/11/2026 - World Population Day

   07/12/100BCE - Roman Dictator Julius Caesar was born.

   07/12/1817 - Naturalist-author Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord MA.

   07/12/1962 - The Rolling Stones performed their first concert at London’s Marquee Jazz Club.

   07/12/1984 - Geraldine Ferraro became the first American female major-party VP candidate.

   07/13/1960 - John F Kennedy won the Democratic presidential nomination at his party's convention in Los Angeles.

   07/13/1977 - A blackout lasting 25 hours hit the New York area. (There were a lot of kids born 9 months later!)

   07/14/1798 - Congress passed the Sedition Act making it a federal crime to publish false, scandalous or malicious writing about the US government.

   07/14/1881 - William H Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner NM.

   07/14/1933 - The German government passed the Law against the Founding of New Parties, which banned all political parties except the Nazi Party.

   07/14/1958 - The army of Iraq overthrew the monarchy.

   07/14/2026 - Pilgrimage to Saut d' l'Eau (through the 16th) - Vodún

   07/15/1606 - Dutch painter Rembrandt Van Rijn was born.

   07/15/1870 - Georgia became the last Confederate state readmitted to the Union.

   07/15/1964 - Senator Barry Goldwater won the nomination for president at the Republican national convention in San Francisco. In accepting the presidential nomination the next day, Goldwater said, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."

   07/15/1998 - The Congressional Budget Office estimated federal surpluses of $1.55 trillion over the following decade. That outlook quickly changed. The economic downturn, the Republican tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explained most of the deficit over the next ten years. Just prior to Barak Obama’s inauguration, the deficit was the largest deficit relative to the economy since the end of WWII. Unfortunately, tax cuts and war costs do lasting harm, and subsequent Republican tax cuts and wars have made the situation much, much worse.

   07/15/2006 - The San Francisco-based podcasting company Odeo officially released Twttr (later changed to Twitter), its short messaging service (SMS) for groups, to the public.

   07/15/2026 - National Hot Dog Day

   07/16/1790 - The District of Columbia became the seat of the US government.

   07/16/1918 - The Bolsheviks executed Russian Czar Nicholas II and his family.

   07/16/1945 - The US exploded its first experimental atomic bomb in the desert near Alamogordo NM. The code name for the test was Trinity.

   07/16/1951 - JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye was first published.

   07/16/1979 - Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq.

   07/16/1995 - Amazon officially opened for business as an online bookseller. Within a month, the fledgling retailer had shipped books to all 50 US states and to 45 countries. Founder Jeff Bezos’s motto was “get big fast,” and Seattle-based Amazon eventually morphed into an e-commerce colossus, selling everything from groceries to furniture to live ladybugs, and helping to revolutionize the way people shop.

   07/17/1821 - Spain ceded Florida to the US.

   07/17/1945 - President Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill began meeting at Potsdam in the final Allied summit of WWII.

   07/17/1955 - The first theme park of Walt Disney Studios was opened in Anaheim, California. Disneyland was built on former orange groves and brought a lot of economic growth to Southern California. Walt Disney wanted to create a place where all families could go and see stories come to life.

   07/17/2026 -   World Emoji Day

   07/18/64CE - The Great Fire of Rome began.

   07/18/1947 - President Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act, which placed the speaker of the House and the Senate president pro tempore next in the line of succession after the vice president.

   07/18/1947 - General Dwight D Eisenhower appointed Florence Blanchfield to be a lieutenant colonel in the US Army, making her the first woman in US history to hold permanent military rank.

   07/18/1969 - Ted Kennedy drove off the Dike Bridge (on Chappaquiddick Island in MA) killing Mary Jo Kopechne. He later received a two-month suspended sentence for leaving the scene of the accident.

   07/19/1848 - A pioneer women's rights convention opened in Seneca Falls NY.

   07/19/1969 - Apollo 11 and its astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, went into orbit around the moon.

   07/19/1979 - The Nicaraguan capital of Managua fell to Sandinista guerrillas under Daniel Ortega two days after President Anastasio Somoza fled the country.

   07/19/1993 - President Clinton announced a compromise allowing homosexuals to serve in the military if they refrained from all homosexual activity ... the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. It probably should have been called "don't ask, don't act."

   07/19/2026 - National Ice Cream Day

   07/20/1861 - The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States began holding legislative sessions in Richmond VA, after voting to relocate the capital from Montgomery AL. The sessions took place in the VA State Capitol, sharing the building with the VA General Assembly.

   07/20/1881 - Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull, a fugitive since the Battle of the Little Big Horn, surrendered to federal troops.

   07/20/1941 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill launched his V for Victory campaign in Europe.

   07/20/1942 - The first detachment of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, later known as WACs, began basic training at Fort Des Moines IA. This marked the first time women were permitted to train for US Army service in capacities other than as nurses.

   07/20/1944 - Operation Valkyrie, an attempt by a group of German military officers and civilians to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb, failed.

   07/20/1969 - Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon.

   07/21/1861 - The South won the first Battle of Bull Run at Manassas VA.

   07/21/1925 - The Monkey Trial ended in Dayton, TN with John Scopes (high school science teacher) convicted of violating state law for teaching Darwin's Theory of Evolution. (The conviction was later overturned.) The trial attracted intense national publicity, as reporters converged on Dayton to cover the well-known, charismatic lawyers representing each side (legendary defense attorney Clarence Darrow and fundamentalist orator William Jennings Bryan), and it was the first trial to be broadcast on radio. The case was seen as a conflict between fundamentalism and modernity, as well as the right to teach modern science in schools under the 1st Amendment.

   07/21/1949 - The US Senate ratified the North Atlantic Treaty ... which created NATO.

   07/21/1954 - France surrendered North Vietnam to the Communists.

   07/21/1980 - Draft registration was reinstated in the US for 19- and 20-year-old men, in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

   07/22/1934 - Federal agents shot John Dillinger to death in Chicago.

   07/22/1937 - The Senate rejected President Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court.

   07/22/1975 - The House joined the Senate in voting to restore the American citizenship of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

   07/22/2026 - Tisha B'av begins at sunset and ends at nightfall tomorrow – Judaism

   07/23/1846 - Protesting slavery and the US involvement in the Mexican War, Henry David Thoreau refused to pay his $1 poll tax and the Concord MA constable jailed him. This experience moved him to write Civil Disobedience.

   07/23/1904 - Frank and Charles Menches invented the ice cream cone during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. They also invented the hamburger and (perhaps) Cracker Jack!

   07/23/1914 - Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia following the killing of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Serb assassin. The dispute led to WWI.

   07/23/1979 - Ayatollah Khomeini banned all music from Iranian radio and television because it corrupts Iranian youth.

   07/23/2026 - Birthday of Haile Selassie I – Rastafari

   07/24/1929 - President Hoover proclaimed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which renounced war as an instrument of foreign policy.

   07/24/1974 - The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in United States v. Nixon that President Nixon had to turn over subpoenaed White House tape recordings to the Watergate special prosecutor. The Court held that neither the doctrine of separation of powers, nor the generalized need for confidentiality of high-level communications, without more, could sustain an absolute, unqualified, presidential privilege. The Court granted that there is a limited executive privilege in areas of military or diplomatic affairs, but gave preference to "the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of justice." The Court required the president to obey the subpoena and produce the tapes and documents. Nixon resigned shortly after the release of the tapes.

   07/24/2026 - Pioneer Day – LDS

   07/25/1593 - France's King Henry IV converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.

   07/25/1946 - The US detonated an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in the first underwater test of the device.

   07/25/1952 - Puerto Rico became a self-governing Commonwealth of the US, allowing the island to adopt its own constitution and elect its own governor and legislature. This status, known in Spanish as Estado Libre Asociado (Free Associated State), marked a significant increase in internal autonomy while maintaining a formal, subordinate relationship with the US Congress.

   07/25/2026 - Papa Ogou (St Jacques le Majeur) – Vodún

   07/26/1775 - Benjamin Franklin became the first Postmaster General of the United Colonies. He oversaw a network of mail routes from Massachusetts to Georgia, earning an annual salary of $1,000.

   07/26/1947 - President Truman signed the National Security Act, creating the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

   07/26/1953 - Fidel Castro began his revolt against Fulgencio Batista with an unsuccessful attack on an army barracks in eastern Cuba. Castro ousted Batista in 1959.

   07/26/1990 - President GHW Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act.

   07/26/2026 - Parents’ Day

   07/26/2026 - Gran'Dlai et Gran'Aloumandia (Sainte Anne) – Vodún

   07/27/1794 - French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre was overthrown and placed under arrest. He was executed the following day.

   07/27/1953 - The Korean War Armistice was signed at Panmunjom, ending three years of fighting.

   07/27/1974 - The House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend President Nixon's impeachment on a charge that he had personally engaged in a course of conduct designed to obstruct justice in the Watergate case. Over a month later, President Ford issued a full and absolute pardon of Nixon for all offenses.

   07/27/2026 - Korean War Veterans Armistice Day

   07/28/1868 - The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing due process of law, took effect.

   07/28/1945 - A US Army bomber crashed into the 79th floor of NY's Empire State Building, killing 14 people. Despite the destruction, the building did not collapse due to its robust steel construction.

   07/28/2016 - Former Secretary of State, Senator and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton made history by accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president, becoming the first woman to lead a major US political party.

   07/29/1030 - The patron saint of Norway, King Olaf II, died in battle.

   07/29/1890 - Artist Vincent van Gogh died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in France.

   07/29/1958 - President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which created NASA.

   07/29/2026 - Maitresse Silverine – Vodún

   07/29/2026 - Guru Purnima or Vyasa Purnima – Hindu

   07/29/2026 - Asalha Puja (Dharma Day) – Buddhist

   07/30/1729 - The city of Baltimore was founded.

   07/30/1942 - President Roosevelt signed a bill creating a women's auxiliary agency in the Navy known as the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service).

   07/30/1965 - President Johnson signed into law the Social Security Amendments of 1965, which resulted in the creation of two programs: Medicare and Medicaid.

   07/30/2026 - Earth Overshoot Day (Ecological Debt Day) is the day on which the world will have exhausted the resources our planet can renew this whole year. Tomorrow we will begin consuming more resources than the planet can regenerate in the year. Earth Overshoot Day has been calculated since the early 1970s when the world first fell into ecological deficit. ANNOUNCED ON JUNE 5.

   07/31/1777 - The Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, became a major-general in the American Continental Army.

   07/31/1919 - Germany adopted its Weimar Constitution.

   07/31/1991 - President GHW Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in Moscow. The framework was extended and renamed New START in 2010. It limited each country's deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550. The New START treaty officially lapsed and expired on February 5, 2026. Prior to its expiration, Russia proposed that Russia and the US continue to observe New START’s numerical limits for one year after February 5. Washington ignored the Russian offer.

Online Resource Links

   How Wobbly Is Our Democracy? | The American Abyss | US is polarizing faster than other democracies. | The Ballad of Downward Mobility | A Crisis Coming … The Twin Threats To American Democracy: (1) A Growing Movement to Refuse to Accept Defeat in an Election and (2) Policy and Election Results that Are Increasingly Less Connected to What the Public Wants | America’s Surprising Partisan Divide on Life Expectancy | ‘Freedom’ Means Something Different to Liberals and Conservatives. Here’s How the Definition Split - and Why That Still Matters.| Politics is personal. | For elites, politics is driven by ideology. For voters, it’s not. | Trust and Distrust in America | One America is thriving; the other is stagnating. How long can this go on? | America Is Growing Apart, Possibly for Good - The great “convergence” of the mid-20th century may have been an anomaly. | Are we really facing a second Civil War? | How ‘Stop the Steal’ Captured the American Right | Conspiracy theorists want to run America’s elections. These are the candidates standing in their way. | Two Americas Index: Democracy deniers | Where will this political violence lead? Look to the 1850s. | American Democracy Was Never Designed to Be Democratic | Yes, the economy is important, but we found that election subversion attempts appear to matter more to voters than polling suggests. | Donald Trump’s 2024 Campaign, in His Own Menacing Words | A Warning | We Are in a Five-Alarm Fire for Democracy | According to Freedom House, the US, whose aggregate score for political rights and civil liberties fell 11 points between 2010 and 2020, now falls near the middle of the free spectrum, behind Slovenia, Croatia and Mongolia. | The Looming Contest Between Two Presidents and Two Americas | Why Losing Political Power Now Feels Like ‘Losing Your Country’ | Here Is One Way to Steal the Presidential Election | In tense election year, state officials face climate of intimidation. | In the GOP’s new surveillance state, everyone’s a snitch. | Political scientists want to know why we hate one another this much. | How Civil Wars Start: Three factors come into play, and the US demonstrates all of them. | Political violence may be un-American, but it is not uncommon. | The Political Violence Spilling Out of Red States | A powerful Christian conservative legal group is quietly reshaping America through the courts. Here’s what it’s after. | In Texas and elsewhere, new laws and policies have encouraged neighbors to report neighbors to the government. | An honest assessment of rural white resentment is long overdue. | This is the unspoken promise of Trump’s return. | American Democracy in its Final Death Throes | Mandate for Leadership (Project 2025) | Project 2025: Summary and Chapter Breakdown | Are we sleepwalking into autocracy? | How to Destroy What Makes America Great | Trump Just Bet the Farm | The question of the day is whether the US is embroiled in a constitutional crisis. | Are We Losing our Democracy: 12 Markers of Democratic Erosion | Support for political violence is not as high as it may seem. | How the Billionaires Took Over | A majority of Americans understand just how unequally wealth is distributed in the country and they’re not happy about it. | Justice Sotomayor is trying to warn us about the Supreme Court’s dirtiest open secret. | The 2025 State of the Nation Project provides an overall assessment of how the US is doing on a wide range of factors that the American people believe are important. | The US is currently in a period of diminished democracy, according to three recently released reports from Bright Line Watch, Freedom House and V-Dem. According to the latter, the speed with which American democracy is currently dismantling is unprecedented in modern history. However, V-Dem says in 70% of the cases where a country was becoming more autocratic, that process had been reversed. The recipe for renewing democracy usually involves: other institutions checking the executive, particularly courts; an organized civil society mobilizing people against the regime; and aggressively contesting the autocrat in the first election after he takes power. | The average score for the 180 countries assessed by the World Press Freedom Index is the lowest in the index’s 25-year history. Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on the press and journalists are described as a “systematic policy,” pushing the US down to 64th place (from 55th in 2025) in the index and fuelling a decline across the American continents. | Actually, Democracy Dies in H.R. | The white working class knows rightwing conservatism isn’t working but that will never matter to them. | Oligarchs don’t just want to be rich. They want to kill democracy too. | The Real Reason Trump Never Stops Talking About Voter Fraud | They’re some of the most famous words ever written. Have you ever really read them? | Seven Everyday Founders | In 2025, Trump quietly established a new office, the National Design Studio staffed by Doge veterans, which installed surveillance software on some of the federal government’s most sensitive websites (including those connecting Americans with prescription drugs, children’s savings accounts, passports, voter registration) in violation of federal law.

   At The Brink: A Series about the Threat of Nuclear Weapons in an Unstable World | The Brink: If it seems alarmist to anticipate the horrifying aftermath of a nuclear attack, consider this: The US and Ukraine governments have been planning for the scenario for at least two years. The possibility of a nuclear strike, once inconceivable in modern conflict, is more likely now than at any other time since the Cold War. | A nuclear weapon strikes. What happens next? (8:10) | 72 Minutes Until the End of the World? | The Doomsday Clock 2024: It’s 90 seconds to midnight. The Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has left the hands of the Doomsday Clock unchanged due to ominous trends that continue to point the world toward global catastrophe. (Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The Doomsday Clock is set every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes nine Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to global catastrophe caused by man-made technologies.) | The Toll: The Threat of Nuclear Weapons in an Unstable World | Proud Prophet: The Secret Pentagon Nuclear War Game That ​Offers a Stark​ Warning for Our Times | Overmatched: Why the US Military Needs to Reinvent Itself

   Visualizing the State of Global Debt, by Country: The debt-to-GDP ratio is a simple metric that compares a country’s public debt to its economic output. By comparing how much a country owes and how much it produces in a year, economists can measure a country’s theoretical ability to pay off its debt. The World Bank published a study showing that countries that maintained a debt-to-GDP ratio of over 77% for prolonged periods of time experienced economic slowdowns.

   What ISIS Really Wants: The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy and for how to stop it  |  ISIS Claims Responsibility, Calling Paris Attacks First of the Storm  |  Syria Iraq: The Islamic State Militant Group  |  Isis: The Inside Story  |  Frontline: The Rise of ISIS  |  Council on Foreign Relations: A Primer on ISIS  |  Cracks in ISIS Are Becoming More Clear  |  How ISIS’ Attacks Harm the Middle East |  Timeline: the Rise, Spread and Fall of the Islamic State

   Keeping the Shi'ites Straight Based on the opinion that no story has been more confusing for the Western news media to cover in postwar Iraq than the politics of the country's Shi'ite majority, this article provides a basic outline of Shi'ite religious history. Discusses the Sadr family (Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr, Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, and Muqtada as-Sadr), Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim and other figures.

   What it’s like to live on $2 a day in the United States (PDF)

   Check out Today's Front Pages. Each day, you can see the front pages of more than 800 newspapers from around the world in their original, unedited form.

   PBS's 30 Second Candidate allows you to view more political ads than you ever knew existed. Choose the Historical Timeline link to see how political ads have changed over the years. Start with the infamous Daisy Ad that Lyndon Johnson used against Barry Goldwater. Click on Watch Johnson ads. Then click on either the QuickTime link or the Real Video link next to Daisy.

   Check out the Political Compass. The site does a good job of explaining political ideologies (although with definitions different from those I use) and gives you a chance to discover your own political philosophy.

   Law Library of Congress: North Korea: Collection of links to websites on North Korean government, politics and law. Includes legal guides, country studies and links to constitutions and branches of government (where available). Council on Foreign Relations: North Korea: Background, articles and opinion pieces about North Korea government and politics. Many of the articles focus on North Korea's nuclear program. From the Council on Foreign Relations, "an independent membership organization and a nonpartisan think tank and publisher."

   State of the Union (SOTU): The site uses an interactive timeline to provide a visual representation of prominent words in presidential State of the Union addresses by displaying significant words as "determined by comparing how frequently the word occurs in the document to how frequently it appears throughout the entire body of SOTU addresses." The Appendices section describes the statistical methods used. Also includes the full text of addresses.

   Small Town Papers: This site provides access to scanned images of recent issues of dozens of small town newspapers from throughout the United States. Newspapers are updated periodically, 2-3 weeks after publication. The site also includes a searchable archive (of articles, photos and advertisements), which covers different periods for each paper, some as far back as the 1890s. Access to the archives requires free registration.

   This website serves as a centralized location to learn about the Congressional Research Service and search for CRS reports that have been released to the public by members of Congress. (CRS Reports do not become public until a member of Congress releases the report.) Features a searchable database with more than 8,000 reports, a list of recently released reports, other collections of CRS reports and a FAQ about CRS.

   Stem Cell Research: See the official NIH resource for Stem Cell Research. In 2005, NOVA aired an overview of The Stem Cell Issue.

  Instances of the Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798 - 2020: This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes. It was compiled in part from various older lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough survey of past US military ventures abroad, without reference to the magnitude of the given instance noted. | Here's How Bad a Nuclear War Would Actually Be | This is What It’s Like to Witness a Nuclear Explosion

   Government Product Recalls

   Homeland Security Knowledge Base

  If you're worried about retirement, try some of these sites: IRS Tax Information for Retirement Plans | Social Security Retirement Planner | Retirement Planning Resources from Smart Money

   This commercial site presents brief information about dozens of Black Inventors from the United States. Some entries include portraits and images. Also includes a searchable timeline covering 1721-1988. Does not include bibliographic information.

  Annenberg Political Fact Check: This site describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit, consumer advocate for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in US politics. The site provides original articles, with summaries and sources, analyzing factual accuracy in TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Searchable. From the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

   The State of State and Local Finances: New studies afford a state-by-state or city-by-city analysis of fiscal well being. The Year of Living Dangerously: While leaders in a growing number of states appear to believe they're serving the public good by squeezing government dry, there's little question that minimizing management carries a host of dangers that directly affect the lives of citizens.

   First Amendment Library: Provides info on Supreme Court First Amendment jurisprudence,  including rulings, arguments, briefs, historical material, commentary and press coverage.

Community Service

If you need a presentation or workshop for your group,

use this Community link or the link at the top of the page.
The link will take you to a list of the topics I currently have available.
To schedule a date or for more information, feel free to contact me at dramyglenn@gmail.com