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By Ashley Vaughan

My name is Ashley Vaughan, and I am a disabled person who uses mobility devices. Resistance has a long history in my family. My grandmother survived the Holocaust, and she believed in fighting against fascism, protecting the vulnerable, and ending genocide. Her story remains a guiding light in my and my family’s life, which is what led me to the protests at Broadview, Illinois.

At 1930 Beach Street in Broadview, there is a boarded up building that is used to inhumanely detain people. The building is made of dark brick, shut off from the outside world. On September 12, 2025, in Franklin Park—just miles away—Silverio Villegas Gonzalez was killed by ICE. That horrific act of violence devastated the local community and sparked protests.

This facility, heavily guarded by local, state, and ICE officials, does not permit individuals to go inside unless pre-ordained. Some clergy, legal representatives, and family members have been allowed to go inside on occasion. Those that do report what they’ve seen, which includes uninhabitable and inhumane conditions. The inside lacks proper basic necessities like sanitation, food and medical care. Advocates and attorneys face significant barriers in communicating with detainees.

Outside of the facility, there are constant protests that family members, religious leaders, and regular civilians like myself partake in. On the evening that Silverio Villegas Gonzalez was murdered, I was protesting at Broadview, and I was assaulted.

I made it known to ICE that I was disabled. Still, while protesting with my mobility cane, I was struck on the forehead by a member of ICE firing so-called “less lethal” rounds from the roof. I fell back, I could not see, and I couldn’t breathe or speak due to the chemical projectiles getting into my eyes, mouth, throat, and lungs. The sting swarmed my body. In a desperate attempt for relief, I reached out for my cane. I then reached for my sign—the sign that had a picture of my Grandma in a Nazi camp—to protect me from the additional shots of “less lethal” rounds by being fired at my body by ICE agents. I tried to get behind the nearby dumpster. This was all captured on camera by bystanders who were filming.

The other protestors helped me get out of the way as ICE continued to close in on us, gave me medical attention, and called an ambulance. We continued to shield ourselves from the attacks, and when the ambulance finally arrived, it could not reach me immediately due to the continued firing and pepper spray. Once I was able to get in the ambulance, the paramedics could not drive away until they were cleared of the pepper spray fumes coming off my body.

If you live in Illinois or in Chicago: there is a federal facility in your community, protected by your local police, and funded by your tax dollars, that operates without transparency to detain immigrants or those who are suspected of being immigrants. Advocates have quite bluntly summed up what’s taking place: People are “being kidnapped off the streets, packed in hold cells, denied food, medical care, and basic necessities, and forced to sign away their legal rights.” This is happening here, in America, right now, in all of our names.

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I went to Broadview to show up for members of the disability community who could not be there. I went there to exercise my First Amendment freedoms as an American and fight for people like my grandmother, people subject to needless violence by the hands of the government and police. Because that’s what this all was: needless. I never expected to be shot at for peacefully protesting. What happened to me is devastating, but it is nothing in comparison to the cruelty inflicted on people inside ICE facilities—torn from their families, deprived of their liberty, and held in inhumane conditions.

We cannot allow ICE to continue these abuses. We must keep pushing for people to be released, and we must close down Broadview and work to end the abuses that are being committed against our friends and neighbors in communities across America. To keep ourselves safe, we must do everything in our power to protect the most vulnerable people among us.

It is our job as citizens and human beings to shine a bright light on the darkness of places like the Broadview detention facility. The wave of state-inflicted violence that has met our peaceful protests only demonstrates the dire need for more of this kind of courage and determination. These things cannot be permitted to take place away from public view, in the shadows, out of sight and out of mind. I went to Broadview because as long as the detention center is operating there, we must each do our part to bear witness against everything it stands for.

History has its eyes on us.

Ashley Vaughan is a Chicago area resident who was harmed by ICE agents while taking part in the peaceful protests at the Broadview detention center.

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By Glenn Schatz

When I decided to join the Navy, the deal was pretty simple. My fellow service members and I would give up pay, family time, and sometimes our lives. In exchange, the institution promised that advancement would be earned—perform, and a board of our seniors would judge us on our records. Not politics. Not patrons. Our records.

The New York Times reported recently on how Admiral Daryl Caudle became the Navy’s top officer. Navy leadership recommended three candidates to replace the fired Admiral Lisa Franchetti. Caudle was not one of them. According to the reporting, when the list reached Secretary Hegseth, he asked, “Where’s Caudle?” Then he told his staff to talk to Tim Parlatore.

Parlatore was his personal lawyer, newly commissioned into the Navy Reserve, and he vouched for an admiral he had never met. Defense officials told the Times that Caudle had offered to help Hegseth prepare for his confirmation hearing before Hegseth was sworn in, and that a senior officer on Caudle’s staff later lobbied Hegseth’s team to give him the job. Officials called both contacts breaches of the military’s apolitical ethic. This was the same stretch in which Franchetti reportedly gathered her four-star admirals and told them to put the Navy’s integrity ahead of their ambitions. Caudle was in the room.

Then it gets worse. Before the nomination could move, Caudle had to clear a stalled inspector general investigation into remarks he made to sailors about the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program. Sailors told the Times he compared assault victims to a man walking naked through bear country covered in honey, or wearing gold chains into a neighborhood where he might get robbed. Caudle declined to comment on the remarks.

To handle the inquiry, he hired a lawyer: Tim Parlatore. The same Parlatore who had just recommended him for the job. The same Parlatore who negotiated the Secretary’s $50,000 settlement with a woman who accused him of rape in 2017, and whose commissioning skipped White House vetting and Senate oversight. The IG found the allegations unsubstantiated. Caudle got the job. When Rep. Jason Crow asked whether Parlatore represented officers up for promotion, Parlatore wrote him a letter saying he did not. The letter left out Caudle, who Parlatore now admits was the one military client he kept.

Caudle is a fellow submariner. I have no reason to doubt he is technically proficient or even that he is qualified to be Chief of Naval Operations. The submarine force doesn’t promote people who can’t do their jobs. That is exactly why the way he got the job matters. When even qualified officers advance through back channels and the Secretary’s personal lawyer, nobody can tell the earned stars from the granted ones anymore. And the granting is now the system.

In 18 months, Hegseth has fired or sidelined more than two dozen senior officers and struck roughly 40 board-selected names from promotion lists. Nine came off the Navy’s one-star list in June alone. For the first time in more than a decade, not one active-duty woman is on track for admiral this year, in a service where women are a quarter of the officer corps. Pentagon policy says a board-selected member should only be stricken for moral, mental, physical, or professional failings. Secretary Hegseth has never even publicly attempted to do this. Every ambitious senior officer in the military is smart enough to read between the lines—that stars flow through patrons and the right attorney. A simple read of history teaches us that militaries that succumb to patronage do not stay professional for long.

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I have a personal reason for alarm, too. I served as a sexual assault victim intervention advocate when I was a midshipman at the Naval Academy. I sat with midshipmen on the worst nights of their lives, as they were deciding whether or not the institution would take them seriously. As a senior leader at many different commands, I have repeatedly asked people to trust the institution we serve in these matters. That trust is the whole program. The program only works when victims trust it. Now sailors hear the future Chief of Naval Operations describe prevention in what-was-she-wearing terms, then watch the inquiry get resolved by the defense secretary’s own lawyer on the way to a fourth star. Survivors hear that loud and clear. So do parents, the ones deciding whether to let a recruiter in the door.

The Senate should refuse to confirm any name added or elevated through political intervention until it receives a written, for-cause justification for every name struck. Routine promotions should clear without delay—officers who earned their place on a board’s list should not wait a day longer because of what was done above their heads. The Senate has the tools. Individual senators have already placed targeted holds on individual nominees they believed unfit. What the Senate has not done is apply that scrutiny to the lists Secretary Hegseth altered, which keep clearing by voice vote with no questions asked.

The Armed Services Committees should require Parlatore to disclose his past and present military clients as a condition of keeping his Pentagon role, and should ask hard questions about the independence of the Caudle inquiry. And the Navy’s flag officers should reread the instruction Admiral Franchetti gave them in December 2024: The institution outranks your ambition. Some of them heard it the first time. The rest need to hear it from us. Earned rank built the most professional fighting force the world has ever known. Patronage will destroy it.

Glenn Schatz is a Naval Academy graduate, a former Navy submarine officer, a Navy Reserve commander, and Vice President of Veterans for Responsible Leadership. He served as a sexual assault victim intervention advocate at the Naval Academy. The views expressed are his own and VFRL’s, not those of the Department of Defense.

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Harry Sisson is a content creator providing daily political commentary and analysis, with 2.3 million TikTok followers and 590K YouTube subscribers. Sarah Matthews is advisory board member and spokeswoman for Home of the Brave, and previously served as White House deputy press secretary.

By Tara Fannon

Do I spend money figuring out why my arms and legs keep breaking out in itchy welts? Do I finally investigate the hip pain that’s been nagging me for months? Do I splash out on the ultrasound that my doctor ordered? Do I restart therapy? I can’t do it all. The world keeps spinning while I’m trying to convince recruiters and managers that I’m worth a shot. It’s not how I imagined life one year after losing my job—or life at all, really.

None of this is an accident. I didn’t lose my job as a government contractor, or face everything that came after, because of anything I did wrong. Elon Musk—Trump’s largest political donor and the world’s richest man, with no meaningful experience in government—was granted extraordinary authority as a “special government employee.” With that authority, he simply decided that the federal contracts my colleagues and I were servicing were expendable. And just like that, our positions and many others were eliminated.

I knew finding another full-time position would be a challenge. I was entering a job market unlike anything I’d experienced before. The Trump administration’s decisions triggered a cascade of layoffs across sectors and industries, displacing highly qualified workers whose jobs were tied directly or indirectly to federal funding, contracts, and programs. The market was, and continues to be, overflowing with highly qualified talent applying for a shrinking number of open jobs.

I had no idea that I’d still be looking for full-time work over a year after being laid off.

In this market, positions disappear without explanation. Hours are spent tailoring resumes, writing cover letters, networking, interviewing, following up, hearing nothing or making it through multiple rounds to learn the position has been put on hold, canceled, or filled internally. Career coaches have advice: Network. Build your personal brand. Optimize your LinkedIn. Keep your chin up. Stay the course. You only need one yes. And my favorite, treat finding a job like a full-time job. Every email could be an interview request or another rejection. I wonder how much longer I can keep doing this. I worry about what I’ll do if my “yes” doesn’t come soon.

Meanwhile, my body doesn’t care that I’m unemployed, and the job search itself becomes a source of declining health. As most know, when you lose a full-time job, you also likely lose your health insurance. COBRA exists, but at those inflated prices it might as well not. So, like so many unemployed people, I had to purchase marketplace insurance last year because it was the only option. Let me be clear. I’m mostly insured on paper. I chose the “cheapest” plan that allowed me to keep some but not all of my doctors. Last year, that plan cost just over $400 a month. In January, it increased to $805. Copays and other out-of-pocket costs also went up, and fewer services are covered. Two of my doctors have since stopped taking my plan, and my insurance company apparently is petitioning to increase my premium by another 12%.

I’ve gone from paying more for insurance and thinking twice about using it, to wondering if I should drop it altogether. Every ache, symptom, or side effect comes with a potential price tag, and every decision to address it has become a calculation. Can I afford the specialist? Can I also afford the lab work that the specialist orders? Can I afford the follow-up appointment to discuss the lab work? Can I afford the imaging the follow-up appointment recommends? Can I afford not to? I catch myself ranking my medical problems. Maybe the hip can wait. Maybe the rash will resolve on its own. Maybe I don’t need the ultrasound after all. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

And no one seems to know how things work in our health care system.

“We don’t handle that.”

“Check with your insurance provider.”

“The doctor’s office needs to give you that answer.”

“Talk to the lab about that.”

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I’ve spent hours on the phone trying to understand what’s covered, who’s in network, whether I need a referral, and what the next appointment will actually cost me. Sometimes the answers change depending on who answers the phone.

Navigating our health care system (just like navigating the current job market) is an unpaid job. And I get it; when I had employer-sponsored health care I still had to navigate this unnecessarily complicated system, but somehow the frustrations were offset by the knowledge that in the end I’d be able to access and afford the care I needed.

People talk about unemployment as if it’s just a financial problem. It’s not. It’s also a health problem. It’s a mental health problem. The physical toll is obvious. The mental toll sneaks up. It shows up as sleepless nights, racing thoughts, elevated blood pressure, a nervous system stuck in fight or flight. Eventually, your health starts to slip away, not always because you’re sick but because staying healthy is prohibitively expensive—in one of the wealthiest, most medically advanced countries in the world, I might add.

WATCH—“I feel like I’m doing everything I can, and it’s still not enough.” Tara’s story in her own words:

Despite famously claiming to have “concepts of a plan“ to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with something better, a promise I never believed would materialize, Trump has done nothing to expand health insurance coverage. Quite the contrary; the administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill cuts billions in health care funding, a move that is projected to leave millions of Americans without insurance, while offering no comprehensive alternative to the ACA.

The effects are widespread. Provisions in the bill affect Medicaid, Medicare, and ACA marketplace plans in a variety of ways (e.g., higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs, fewer covered services and participating providers, hospital closures that will lead to health care deserts, and rising prescription drug costs). Even people with employer-sponsored insurance are likely to feel the downstream consequences through higher costs, reduced capacity, and increased strain on the health care system.

Losing a job doesn’t just mean losing a paycheck. It means losing the ability to solve health problems before they become emergencies. It’s how people end up living with chronic pain and illness, ignoring symptoms, going into debt, and hoping things don’t get worse than they already are. The irony is that unemployment is exactly one of those times when you need access to affordable health care the most.

Until you’ve lived through long-term unemployment, it’s hard to understand how every system in our country seems to assume you’ll be back on your feet in a few months. What if you’re not? What if you do everything you’re supposed to do and life still doesn’t cooperate? What if you’re not deciding between luxuries, but between legitimate medical concerns, knowing you can only afford to address one, maybe two? That’s where I find myself today.

Tara Fannon, a former government contractor and research director, was laid off after DOGE canceled most of her company’s contracts, leading to mass layoffs.

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The Home of the Brave Podcast featuring Harry Sisson and host Sarah Matthews. Addressing the floundering attempt to prosecute an Olympian for “vandalism,” the latest on Todd Blanche’s confirmation fight, tariffs, and a new video from Home of the Brave.

Harry Sisson is a content creator providing daily political commentary and analysis, with 2.3 million TikTok followers and 590K YouTube subscribers. Sarah Matthews is advisory board member and spokeswoman for Home of the Brave, and previously served as White House deputy press secretary.

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Don’t suffer in silence. Call the law offices of Sticker Shock & Associates at 1-866-2PRICEY (yes, that’s a real number—try calling it). Or go to our website to learn why this administration’s policies are making your summer more expensive.

This is the message that we’re bringing directly to millions of Americans across the country, starting this week. We’re running this digital video advertisement on YouTube across the country, to remind the American people who’s to blame for their sizzling summer prices.

It’s all part of Home of the Brave’s ongoing education and mobilization campaign, which we call Sticker Shock Summer. All summer long, we’re reaching the American people with these messages—and we’re getting creative with how we’re doing it.

Plus, this week we’re also rolling out brand-new billboards across 16 different heartland states, making a simple and straightforward case to people who are struggling in this economy: $37 billion on war. Higher prices at the store.

We’ve already reached millions with our ads, and we currently have more than 400 billboards up across the country. And we’re not slowing down. Because as long as Americans are feeling this level of economic pain, we can’t afford to stand by silently.

Here’s our only ask: If you want to support efforts like these, consider donating to Home of the Brave or becoming a paid subscriber today. Behind the scenes, we have an entire team that’s working everyday to reach people with these important messages. Your support makes this all possible:

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Thank you, and remember: For all those struggling right now, Sticker Shock & Associates is here to help.

Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

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Listen now to It’s Happening Here, a Home of the Brave podcast.

The US military is a microcosm of American society. Within its ranks, there exists a diversity of economic, educational, racial and ethnic, gender, family, and religious backgrounds. We know from history and experience that the various members of a unit can only succeed if they function and fight as one. Morale, cohesion, and esprit de corps are the result of mutual respect, appreciation of differences, selfless intent, and fulfilling commitments. Leaders must address and eliminate any barriers, such as discrimination and prejudice, to individual and team effectiveness.

It is for these reasons the US military practices religious pluralism—acknowledging the history that members of the military find strength to perform difficult tasks, and comfort from the horrors of war, in their respective faith traditions. Nevertheless, the Secretary of Defense is undermining one of the foundational and constitutional principles of the US military: the provision of free exercise of religion with neither favoritism toward nor bias against any faith group.

What has he done to sabotage the free exercise of religion?

Soon after assuming his position as the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth launched a “Secretary of Defense Christian Prayer & Worship Service” in May 2025, held monthly during work hours in the Pentagon auditorium, and broadcast on the building’s internal TV network. It is billed as voluntary, open to both civilian employees and uniformed personnel. Although some may appreciate the religious practices of the senior leader of the US military, his actions are harmful to religious pluralism.

First, performing and providing for the free exercise of religion falls under the role and responsibility of the chaplaincy. In the military, a chaplain advises the unit commander on matters of religion, morale, and morality, and develops and executes the commander’s religious support plan. This involves supervising and sponsoring all religious support activities that occur within a unit or on an installation.

As an installation chaplain and as the Pentagon Chaplain, followers of a variety of faith groups often approached me to request religious accommodation and the ability to conduct religious activities. We interviewed and thoroughly vetted the applicants and their request to ensure adherence to values and standards. Every religious activity has a chaplain sponsor who ensures the free exercise of religion and that there are no discriminatory or derogatory practices.

To my knowledge and based on publicly available information, no chaplain is sponsoring and supervising Hegseth’s prayer services. Instead, these prayer services are being planned and executed directly from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Without a chaplain sponsor, there is no subject matter expert to offer advice, to ensure free exercise protection, to ensure accountability against disrespectful or derogatory practices, and to provide feedback on the impact of the prayer services on the morale of the armed forces. He has effectively sidelined the chaplaincy.

Second, in planning and conducting these prayer services himself, Secretary Hegseth has elevated one faith group above the others. Here we have a senior leader hosting a religious activity that is clearly biased toward one religious perspective. The implied message is that his brand of religion is to be favored.

This is not to say that senior leaders cannot publicly practice their faith. It is to say that senior leaders must account for how their personal religious practices impact the morale and cohesion of the force, and allow individuals discretion to practice their chosen religion. Favoring one group over the others not only violates the establishment clause in the Constitution but undermines morale and cohesion.

The message Hegseth’s prayer program sends to me is that since he is the senior leader of the military, he has the authority to disregard law and policy, and ignore the adverse impact of his biased religious practice on his subordinates. As a chaplain, I would advise any commander against engaging in this kind of activity.

Third, the speakers at these prayer services are exclusively of one segment of ultraconservative, evangelical Protestantism, and are primarily his former or current pastors associated with the denomination the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC). Speakers have included:

• Brooks Potteiger, Hegseth’s current CREC pastor in Tennessee.

• Chris Durkin, Hegseth’s former pastor, who leads a Southern Baptist church in Colts Neck, New Jersey.

• Doug Wilson, the Idaho pastor and founder of the CREC, who has espoused abhorrent views on topics including women’s suffrage and slavery. Per Politico, he has offered a “qualified Biblical defense of slavery” and used vulgar language to defend “a masculinist and explicitly patriarchal style of evangelicalism.”

• Franklin Graham, CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, whose message on December 17 included statements that God “also hates” and is “a god of war,” reading a passage about the destruction of the Amalekites without mercy for women, children, or animals. The implication is the faith he professes and practices is the one for all members of the Department of Defense.

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When I served at the Pentagon Chaplain’s Office, we had a standardized policy of vetting every speaker that we considered inviting. Our intent was to ensure that speakers’ messages were consistent with the values and mission of the Department of Defense, that they were focused on building up and not disparaging any individual or group, and that they would not have an adverse effect on morale and operational effectiveness. We were also concerned about not reinforcing favoritism toward one specific faith group. We were strongly committed to religious pluralism, respecting all faith groups, and providing religious support to each of the over 25,000 military and civilian workers of the Pentagon.

Why does this matter? Why should you care?

We must be concerned about anything or anyone that is a threat to unit cohesion, morale, individual and team effectiveness, and operational readiness. The actions of Secretary Hegseth have had an adverse effect. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) reports that complaints involving religious discrimination have tripled, with about 200 focused on the promotion of Christian nationalism. MRFF Executive Director Mikey Weinstein has argued that Secretary Hegseth’s service is inherently coercive. I agree.

An emailed invitation for one of the prayer services featuring “SECWAR” and a cross resulted in a flurry of complaints from active-duty members, veterans, and contractors, with one complaint describing the invitation “stark, depressing, almost threatening.” Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued the Pentagon over a records request about the services’ cost, guests, and complaints, alleging Hegseth is “abusing the power of their government position … to impose their preferred religion on federal workers.” No ethical leader—no military commander with the best interests of our armed forces at heart—would intentionally disrupt unit cohesion and operational readiness by promoting a singular, personal, religious ideology. But this Secretary of Defense does.

These are not chaplain-run, denominationally neutral services. They are Hegseth-organized events featuring his personal CREC-affiliated pastors and allied evangelical figures, several with documented Christian nationalist views. The pattern (one-faith programming, military venue, workday timing, livestream to the whole building) is driving both the “coercion” complaints from service members and the Establishment Clause litigation, rather than any single incident alone.

Secretary Hegseth demonstrates a persistent pattern of undermining the systems of the military. He has undermined the chain of command, good order, and discipline by ending investigations and reversing disciplinary action involving misconduct and unsafe actions—including by helicopter crew members and Blue Angels conducting low-level flyovers. He has corrupted the merit-based promotion system with discrimination by removing women and minorities from promotion lists and assignments, resulting in the loss of experience and expertise. He has ordered the removal of rank from display on the uniforms of chaplains. He has revised the list of recognized faith groups from 211 to 31, resulting in consolidating or eliminating distinctive practices.

I served as a chaplain for 30 years, overlapping the service of 12 Secretaries of Defense. Almost without exception, I saw each of them as unifying figures who provided a strategic vision and ensured we had the training, the equipment, the resources, the weapons, and the culture and climate to function, fight, and win. With Secretary Hegseth, I have sincere concern for our military, observing his divisiveness, self-exaltation, and promotion of a personal agenda, rather than the operational readiness of the members of the military. Religious practice must not result in division but unity and empowerment.

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Ken Williams is a veteran with over 30 years of service as a chaplain in the U.S. Army. His assignments include the Pentagon Chaplain and Senior Military Fellow of Ethics and Leadership at the National Defense University. He holds a PhD in Leadership and Organizational Change and has taught graduate level courses in ethical leadership in foreign affairs. He is a member of Veterans for Responsible Leadership.

A live recording of The Home of the Brave Podcast, featuring Sarah Matthews and Aaron Parnas. Covering Todd Blanche’s abortive hearing, the ICE surge into new cities, and a sham Congressional hearing targeting Anthony Fauci that flopped.

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Aangad Singh knows way more about American government than most 15-year-olds—more than most Americans of all ages.

He knows so much, in fact, that he reached the national finals of the Presidential 1776 Award competition, a high school civics contest held through the Department of Education and President Trump’s Freedom 250 organization in honor of our nation’s 250th birthday. Wearing a gray suit with an American flag lapel pin, the Connecticut teenager was a dominant force on the Kennedy Center stage, nailing question after question. Out of 8,000 students from across the country, Aangad made it to the top eight.

Watching him gave me a flash of nostalgia for my time in high school quiz bowl, which culminated in a national championship in 2017. For a kid whose brand is their brain, and who maybe doesn’t excel in gym class, acing an academic trivia contest in front of a cheering crowd is exhilarating. Winning is all the more thrilling when you’re defying expectations. When I won my national final, I was the only girl on stage. When Aangad appeared in his, most of his fellow competitors were white.

But the magical thing about academic competitions is that if you get enough questions right, you win, and no one can argue you didn’t deserve victory. And the magical thing about America is that if you’re born here, or if you work hard to earn a place here—if you believe in the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and strive toward justice for all—you are American, and no one can argue you don’t belong.

That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway. At the Presidential 1776 Award contest, things worked differently.

According to reporting from NOTUS this month, the competition audience thought Aangad was going to win. The judges’ scorekeeping wasn’t public, but one of his opponents told him, “You clearly knew everything.” Yet when host Mario Lopez announced the top three, Aangad wasn’t in it.

Instead, the top finishers were all white. One went to a private Catholic school, one was homeschooled, and one publicly adulated Trump before the contest and dreamed of attending Hillsdale College, an ultra-right-wing Christian school in Michigan. These students all worked hard, and should all be celebrated. However, by their own admission (per NOTUS), it sure seemed like Aangad knew more than them.

Aangad, the first-born, first-generation American child of parents from India, has devoted his childhood to American ideals. This spring, his speech about the Constitution won first place in his state’s American Legion Oratorical Contest. America’s given his family a lot. His parents did everything they could to give their children a good life, which meant moving halfway around the world to the United States for economic opportunities and quality education. They even gave Aangad a name starting with two ‘A’s so he’d always be at the beginning of school lists, according to the family. Despite their sacrifices, when their son missed the podium, they weren’t disappointed in him. They were just confused.

The competition website states that “all U.S. Department of Education and judge decisions are final and not open to appeal,” but Aangad’s family still wanted to understand. According to NOTUS, when his parents asked for the final scores, the government refused. So they did their own tally based on the June 30 CBS broadcast. By the end of the show, his parents’ calculations confirmed their suspicions: The judges had made a mistake. When red marks popped up on the television rejecting two of his answers, a dumbfounded Aangad pointed to the language in Article III of the Constitution proving that those answers were right. According to the family’s accounting, Aangad should have won. For the administration-appointed contest judges, being right hadn’t been enough.

If Aangad’s result wasn’t a verdict on his performance in the Presidential 1776 Award competition, it feels like a verdict on how the judges rated his American-ness.

In the United States, our national identity isn’t supposed to be based on bloodline. It’s supposed to be based on belief. We aren’t supposed to rank people’s American-ness here. No one is supposed to get extra points because of their background, their religion, or the color of their skin. Just because historically we’ve failed to live up to those ideals doesn’t make them any less essential. In fact, striving toward a more perfect union is one of the most American things we do.

The kids competing for this award—all of them—represent our highest hopes for America’s next 250 years. They are brilliant. They are diligent. And they love their country. Denying one of them the recognition he earned is a microcosm of this administration’s agenda. Striking Black officers from military promotion lists, trying to strip babies of their birthright citizenship, whitewashing American history, enabling and excusing ICE’s murders of civilians in the street: They’re all based on the idea that this administration gets to decide who really counts in this country. But keeping their scorecard hidden from the American public won’t trick us into believing their math.

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Compared to deportations and drone strikes, maybe this whole story doesn’t seem like a big deal to you. The stakes are admittedly much lower. Besides, we don’t know if these mistakes were intentional or accidental. Maybe you think we should give the judges the benefit of the doubt and get over it. Aangad is smart. He’s already accomplished a lot, including making it to the final rounds of this very competition, and it seems like he has a lot more to look forward to in life.

But I can tell you from personal experience that for a bright high school kid trying to fit in, the stakes of academic competitions can feel infinite. According to a 2025 article from Pew, academic performance is by far the biggest source of stress for American teens, with nearly 70% reporting they feel pressure to earn high marks. Studies have consistently shown that many students suffer from impostor syndrome, reflecting pervasive self-doubt about their accomplishments. It’s easy to judge from the outside looking in, but while you’re in the thick of it, proving you’re smart feels life or death.

When I was studying for quiz bowl competitions, I’d sometimes stay up for 48 hours at a time. When I got a question wrong, that kept me up for nights, too. I lost weight. I had panic attacks. I started taking antidepressants to cope. And all of that was without a $150,000 scholarship, a trip to the White House, and my right to my own American identity on the line. (All I won was a little statuette.)

I pushed myself to the breaking point because I trusted that if I worked harder than everyone else, and crammed more information into my adolescent brain, I would be rewarded. That’s what’s supposed to happen in this country: If you’re exceptional, you succeed. We know it’s not always true, of course—but an academic competition is supposed to be different. It’s supposed to be a clear meritocracy. For Aangad, it wasn’t. And ironically, that’s fundamentally un-American.

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True confession: We have attended White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) Dinners in the past, and they can be inspiring and a lot of fun. The tradition, which began more than a century ago, started out with about 50 White House reporters—all men of course—sitting down to break bread with top presidential aides.

These days, more than 2,500 journalists, government officials, and even Hollywood stars cram into one huge hotel ballroom for an evening intended to celebrate freedom of the press and the First Amendment. Promising journalism students win coveted scholarships; journalists win awards for their reporting. It’s traditional to invite the president.

The event has been increasingly criticized by those who argue it undermines journalistic independence by presenting reporters as far too cozy with the government officials they report on. In fact, the New York Times stopped attending the dinners nearly 20 years ago for that very reason.

Now, this long-standing Washington tradition, as imperfect as it is, has reached a crisis point. How can an event designed to celebrate freedom of the press invite as its guest of honor the man who does everything to undermine it? But that’s exactly what the WHCA did. And President Trump, for the first time, agreed to attend.

Weijia Jiang, president of the WHCA, described the Association as a “bridge between the press corps and the administration.” But too often, under this administration, it is a one-way bridge from the White House to the press corps.

Let’s be clear: There has always been a natural tension between the Oval Office and the media. Richard Nixon included reporters on his secret enemies list and threatened the New York Times and Washington Post over the publication of the Pentagon Papers. Bill Clinton was furious over coverage of the Monica Lewinsky affair. Barack Obama aggressively went after government officials who leaked stories to journalists.

But what we are seeing with the Trump administration is an unrelenting and all-out assault on press freedom and a ceaseless attack on the First Amendment.

We have a president who verbally attacks journalists when he doesn’t like the questions asked, especially female reporters, whom he has called everything from “piggy” to “stupid” to “a horror show.”

We have an administration that tells Pentagon reporters that they must only report news that is cleared and released by the Defense Department as a condition for keeping their press credentials. That sounds more like Russia, China, and North Korea than America.

We have a president who habitually sues newspapers and broadcast networks for defamation. Unfortunately, in today’s world, the corporations that own those outlets often have business dealings before the government and many choose to capitulate under political pressure.

We have a president who urges federal agencies to go after comedians, television shows, networks, and individual journalists (and their relatives) whose content the administration doesn’t like.

And we have a president and administration that labels any news they don’t agree with as “fake news.”

So, what could possibly go wrong when the president is invited to this dinner? Plenty, as it turns out. This year’s WHCA dinner was originally scheduled for April. The event ended abruptly and horribly when a gunman breached security. The president wanted a do-over and the WHCA agreed, holding a much smaller and more secure dinner this past Friday night.

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As former journalists, we have been sounding the alarm over the administration’s attacks on press freedom. In advance of the dinner, we circulated an open letter urging the Correspondents’ Association to “forcefully stand up for freedom of the press in front of the president, publicly defend the journalists he attacks, and vow to resist his administration’s concerted effort to undermine the First Amendment.” We called it “hypocritical to celebrate the First Amendment in front of the man who relentlessly attacks it.”

True to form, even as President Trump delivered a few conciliatory remarks at the dinner—saying he had “tremendous respect for the people in this room” and “for your profession”—he quickly revealed he was indeed the fox in the hen house. He threatened, insulted, and mocked journalists and revealed how little respect he has for them and the work they do.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins won an award for her coverage of the contentious February 2025 meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During his rambling hour-plus speech at the dinner, the president singled out Collins, saying of her reporting, “It’s a fake. She shouldn’t get the award.” He then moved on to his familiar misogynistic rant about the accomplished CNN anchor and reporter: “She’s a young, attractive woman. She never smiles. I said, ‘Kaitlan, do you ever smile? Smile.’”

The assembled journalists sat in stunned silence. They shouldn’t have been surprised. It’s the kind of fraught evening we had predicted when we implored the WHCA to speak out against Trump’s attacks as he sat at the head table.

During her speech before the president took to the podium, Jiang, the Association president and also a White House correspondent for CBS News, told the president, “The First Amendment is a done deal” and that there is “an existential difference between criticizing the press and trying to undermine it.” Both are important messages. In this moment, what we needed was a very public and full-throated denunciation of the administration’s actions. We needed a vow to resist its efforts to undermine the First Amendment. That’s what we had hoped for and what the country deserves.

These are not normal times, and we cannot treat them as such. If the White House Correspondents Association believes that maintaining its bridge between reporters and the Trump administration is more important than taking on the forces that undermine press freedom at its signature dinner, then we must all speak out—former and current journalists, concerned citizens, in fact all Americans. We, the people, need to stand in unison in defense of freedom of the press and the First Amendment—two of the essential pillars of our democracy.

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Ahead of the originally scheduled WHCA dinner in April, the authors co-wrote a petition opposing the administration’s anti-First Amendment actions, which collected more than 500 signatures.

This month, ahead of the re-scheduled dinner, they co-wrote another open letter calling on the White House Correspondents’ Association to “forcefully stand up for freedom of the press in front of the President, publicly defend the journalists he attacks, and vow to resist his administration’s concerted effort to undermine the First Amendment.”

I was in 12th grade when I first laid eyes on it. It was a cool fall evening and the sky had gone dark by the time my classmates and I arrived, wrapping up a long day of an obligatory school trip to the nation’s capital. From the top of The Ellipse, I stared up the South Lawn at the altogether gracious and imposing structure. From outside the gates, you could hardly tell a West or East Wing existed—all the focus was on the historic residence. It was elegantly lit so nighttime viewers like me could take in the beauty and wonder of the house we were promised was ours: the White House.

Since that evening in 2014, changes to the White House have been many. While much stayed the same during the first Trump administration, and certainly the Biden administration, Trump’s second term in the White House has demonstrated an insatiable urge to leave an imprint.

At first, the changes seemed almost comical. Baroque-style gilding was added to the Oval Office, with different pieces of applied moulding appearing on a near-daily basis. These additions are in direct conflict with the neoclassical style in which the White House is designed—an architectural style that intentionally avoids the ornamentation found in the palaces of Europe. Gold, cursive signage was added around the grounds. Photos of past presidents in thick, gold frames with semi-accurate biographies—many of which were written by Trump himself—were added to the West Wing Colonnade. It was Trumpian, it was gaudy, but it was—for the most part—cosmetic.

And then, the bulldozers arrived.

The shock of the swift demolition of the East Wing was only second to the renderings of what was to take its place: a colossal 90,000 square foot ballroom, nearly double the size of the main residence itself. The East Wing, similar to the West Wing, hid low and to the side, never impeding or competing with the balanced and symmetrical design of the main residence. The new ballroom design does the precise opposite. And renderings of the inside? More gilding, more grandeur, more similarities to the palaces of eastern Europe that housed kings.

The ballroom—and the pile of rubble where it’s set to be built—are the most visible, but hardly the only changes to the White House. The en-suite bathroom of the Lincoln Bedroom was ripped out and replaced with a full statuary marble bathroom featuring gold fixtures. Trump has touted this as more historically accurate to the time of Lincoln; never mind the fact that bathrooms during Lincoln’s time typically featured wooden toilet seats above cisterns and copper bathtubs. The famous Rose Garden was paved over. The South Lawn became the temporary site of a UFC cage match, and now a permanent granite helicopter pad is set to take its place. And most recently, scaffolding and tarps covered the north portico for “repairs.” Only when they come down will we learn what these repairs entail.

As we watch gold leaf go up and historic structures come down, we are faced with a question—what does it all mean? And does it even matter? On face value, the changes to the White House are tacky, garish, and ill-conceived. They are the physical manifestation of the president’s persona—the capstone of lifelong efforts to brand, build, and gild as much as possible. The architecturally incongruent design changes are a clear example of his disregard for history. The pile of rubble that was once the East Wing is a shockingly visible metaphor of his ability to tear down, but inability to truly build.

These facts may lead us to write it all off; to conclude that these changes don’t mean anything. But it does all mean something. Because these changes are not to the house of a man, they are to the house of the people. A house that tells us who we are. And when we lose that awareness, when someone tells us who we are, when someone imposes it onto us, we then begin to lose the central democratic tenets on which this country was founded. On which that house was built. Design is a messenger. It is paramount that we listen to what it has to say.

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The White House had an impact on me that day in 2014 that I hardly expected. From that moment on, I had such a great respect for the White House—for the structure itself and what it meant to our country. I began to understand the power of design in a nation. How it helps to tell us who we are, and who we want to be. I haven’t been that close to the White House since that evening late in the second Obama administration. At the time, it didn’t feel like the Obamas’ house. It didn’t feel like anyone’s house. It felt like our house. It felt like an embodiment of democracy, of our ideals as a nation. Of who we are, and who we want to be.

I wonder what it would feel like now. I wonder what my 17-year-old self would take from it today. Part of me is glad I’ll never know.

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It’s Happening Here is a Home of the Brave podcast.

By Cheryl Schreier

As we look back on all America has accomplished over its 250 years, our national park and public land system stands out. Often called “America’s best idea,” national parks and monuments have conserved iconic landscapes, protected historical fact, saved dwindling species, and offered the opportunity for all Americans to connect with nature.

This administration claims to support this history, even opening a new presidential library for President Teddy Roosevelt—the greatest champion of our national parks—this year on July 4th. But in reality, their actions have put our national parks and public lands in crisis, endangering the very future that President Roosevelt envisioned.

As the former superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, I understand the connection between our country’s legacy and the preservation of our parks. To put it simply: Our public lands maintain pieces of our history alongside some of the most beautiful places we have the privilege to explore in America.

President Roosevelt experienced this firsthand. First visiting the Dakotas on a bison hunting trip in the early 1880s, he was immediately taken with the badlands there, valuing “the silent places … unworn of man, and changed only by the slow change of the ages through time everlasting.” After returning upon the death of his wife and mother, he also found the healing power of nature, solidifying a lifelong love for the wilderness, and ultimately inspiring him to initiate our national parks system.

Since taking office last year, this administration has taken step after step to dismantle this system. One of its first actions was to begin cutting National Park Service staff, ultimately letting go of about 25% of the workforce—which was already struggling to manage record-breaking visitation rates. The administration also has attempted to slash the National Park Service budget. In its most recent proposal, the administration suggested eliminating $870 million in funding, while allowing $10 billion for “beautification” projects just around Washington, D.C. Thankfully, Congress rejected such egregious proposals, but the threat remains.

But it’s not just the National Park Service. The administration is also going after our National Monuments. Earlier this month, the president signed an executive order shrinking Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments. This is a grave mistake, eliminating protections for lands honored by Native Americans, reducing opportunities for recreation for all Americans, and putting critical wildlife habitat at risk—including more than 1.2 million acres of big game migration corridors.

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The Antiquities Act has always been a cornerstone of America’s public land policy, signed into law by President Roosevelt himself, allowing for the president to designate national monuments as important protected areas. Over its history, the Act has been used by an equal number of Republican and Democratic presidents to conserve some of our most treasured places. Many of our national parks, from the Grand Canyon to Death Valley, began as monuments themselves.

The massive NPS cuts we’re seeing were made possible by a Justice Department opinion issued last year, claiming that the president has the authority to rescind or abolish national monuments. The Supreme Court itself has repeatedly rejected challenges to the Antiquities Act, but this administration is doing its best to find a way around these judicial findings. Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante are likely only the first step: The Washington Post reported last year that this administration is looking to scale back six national monuments in total.

The administration is taking aim at our national parks in order to enrich the fossil fuel industry at the expense of the American people. All six monuments reported to be in danger, including Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, are considered ripe for oil and gas extraction. This, even though in a poll earlier this year, 76% of Western voters prefer to protect public lands rather than maximizing energy production.

Americans’ desire to protect our public lands makes sense not just because of our national legacy, but because these spaces are economically important for local communities. A 2020 study of communities near monuments established in recent decades found that they brought more business and more jobs, encouraging local economies.

It’s not just President Roosevelt; there is a long and ongoing tradition of bipartisan support for conservation and public lands. As we look at what brings us together on our 250th anniversary, this is an important aspect of our shared history as Americans. Our representatives must protect laws like the Antiquities Act, protect our National Park Service, and protect the lands that Teddy Roosevelt believed were worth preserving for future generations to come.

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Cheryl Schreier retired as Superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial after nearly 40 years of service with the National Park Service (NPS) in May 2019. Prior to her tenure at Mount Rushmore, she also served as superintendent of Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, and completed a detail as acting superintendent at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. She is currently the chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.

Covering this administration’s designs on Cuba, the rapid re-escalation of the war in Iran, Ukraine’s prospects for victory over Russia, and an international order that is looking beyond the US as a global leader.

Everyone knows things cost more than they did a year ago. But did you know that this administration’s tariffs are personally costing you $100 per month?

We want every American to know the real price they’re paying for this administration’s tariffs. So the Home of the Brave team hit the streets—donning a $100 bill costume—to spread the word.

We quizzed Americans about how this administration’s economic policies are affecting their wallets, and we reimbursed them for getting the right answers—up to, you guessed it, $100.

Watch the video here, and see if you can answer all the questions. We are now running a version of this video nationwide as part of our Sticker Shock Summer advertising campaign.

(Sadly, we cannot reimburse every American who answers our questions about tariffs correctly.)

Presidents can use economic policies to make life more affordable for Americans. But this president and his administration have other ideas:

They started a war in Iran that caused gas prices to spike. They cut taxes for the richest Americans but made healthcare more expensive for those people who need care the most. And they enacted a sweeping array of tariffs that have increased the cost of goods that Americans buy everyday.

To learn more about how—and how much—this administration’s tariffs are costing you, visit StickerShockSummer.org.

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Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

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Featuring Kori Schake, Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, in conversation with Sarah Matthews.

Covering this administration’s designs on Cuba, the rapid re-escalation of the war in Iran, Ukraine’s prospects for victory over Russia, and an international order that is looking beyond the US as a global leader.

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That was just the beginning for Bob. He spent the eight subsequent decades speaking truth to power, and helping shape the public institutions in America that are tasked with keeping us informed about the world around us, helping realize our Founders’ vision for an active and engaged citizenry.

Bob was early to many of the trends that shape American life today. In the 1980s and ‘90s, he foresaw the power of the internet as a force that anti-democratic actors could use to organize and recruit. For the past decade, he has been calling out—with increasing urgency—the threat that Donald Trump and his administration pose to American democracy.

Last month Bob celebrated his 101st birthday. He has seen war, depression, the creation of the post-war order, and—more recently—our retreat to nativism and authoritarian populism. Just as during World War II, he has a message for Americans. He is calling on us to channel our better angels, and not give in to nihilism and complacency. It is our patriotic duty to listen.

By Dr. Robert L. Hilliard

My 16th year was a momentous one. I graduated from Boys High School in Brooklyn, New York. I held my first paying job, delivering telegrams to and running errands for Postal Telegraph customers for 30 cents per hour. My family moved from New York to Wilmington, Delaware, where my father got a job for $40 per week, which enabled my family to rent a small house where, for the first time in my life, I had a room of my own. Euphoria. Anyone growing up in a room of their own may find it difficult to understand the significance of that.

For the first time in my life that I can remember, I saw my father most evenings and on Sundays. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, I rarely saw him. He worked 18 hours a day as proprietor of a small retail shop, my mother spelling him during the day so he could get a few hours of sleep. But it enabled us to have a place to live and food on the table.

The Great Depression had a lasting impact on my life’s commitments. I recall several incidents that affected me especially. One of my classmates in elementary school came to class only every other day. He and his brother had only one pair of shoes between them and they alternated wearing them so they could attend school.

In another incident, a man and wife in an adjacent apartment building who were behind on their rent left early in the morning when their children went to school, seeking any kind of work for the day or even an hour. While they were gone, the landlord legally evicted them, hauling everything in their apartment to the street. Evicted belongings were considered abandoned property without the owners present to guard them. By the time they returned, everything they owned had been taken. They were homeless, penniless and had nothing but the clothes they were wearing.

In another incident, I saw a man pounding his fists into the steel pillars of the Third Avenue elevated trains, blood spurting from his hands, his voice plaintively screaming, “My kids are starving, we got no place to live, may family is dying, won’t anybody help me, please help me!” Those incidents had a lifelong impact on me. I decried an economic system that allowed such degradation of human beings, and I vowed to do whatever I could in the future to prevent that from happening again.

The euphoria of a room of my own was heightened by the prospect of enrolling that fall at age 17 at the University of Delaware, a campus that I had only dreamed about from reading young adult novels about college. My major was clear. I would become a lawyer to help the victims of our economic system.

My college education was interrupted by World War II. At 18, I was inducted into the Army, and by the time I was 19, I was in combat with the 9th Regiment of the Second Infantry Division in the Battle of the Bulge. A few days after the battle was technically over, I was wounded as our troops pushed back into Belgium and Germany, but not bad enough to be sent home, so I returned to my outfit.

I was wounded again shortly afterward, and this time I was declared unfit for combat and was reassigned to an Army Air Force unit: the Second Air Disarmament Wing, charged with disarming the German air force and capturing German air force personnel. Having been a sportswriter for the Delaware Star while still in college, I was assigned to start a newspaper for my base and other US Army facilities in that part of Bavaria.

In that role on May 27, 1945 I covered a liberation concert held by Holocaust survivors at a makeshift hospital at the Archabbey of St. Ottilien near Landsberg, Germany. Thousands of Holocaust survivors, including those freed from concentration camps, died due to lack of adequate food, clothing, shelter and medical facilities on the part of the American occupation forces in the aftermath of the war in Europe.

I watched with horror the sick and dying survivors. I spoke with the survivor-doctor who had by subterfuge obtained some buildings at the abbey, which had been turned into a hospital for wounded German officers. To save the lives of the rapidly dying survivors, I organized fellow soldiers on my base to obtain food and clothing for the patients at what became known as the Jewish Hospital at St. Ottilien. For example, I borrowed a uniform from one of our officers, removed the insignia so I wouldn’t be accused of impersonating an officer, and with my two years of high school German browbeat the German burgermeisters—the mayors, many the same individuals who served the Nazi regime in the same positions—into providing food the for the survivors.

Our efforts were ecumenical, soldiers of different ethnic and religious backgrounds working together. With winter coming, we had to do more. A fellow GI, Edward Herman, and I decided that if the American people knew of the continued genocide by neglect by the American occupation force, they would do something to remedy the situation. We wrote a long pleading letter, surreptitiously got 800 copies printed, and got fellow soldiers to send them to friends, families, and organizations in the United States, asking for food, clothing and medical supplies. We had no authorization to do so and were certain we would be court-martialed.

Not long afterward, Edward and I received a personal visit from a colonel who said he had a personal message to us from Commanding General Dwight D. Eisenhower. He said the general wanted us to know that we had gone beyond the call of duty and no longer needed to send out more of the accusing letters. He said the general ordered us to stop or he would hold up our upcoming army discharges, and would send us to the Aleutian Islands, noting that would not be good for the frozen feet I had incurred during the harsh winter of the Battle of the Bulge.

We sent out more letters. Ed and I didn’t know what was happening until we received a copy of The New York Times of September 30, 1945, which read “President orders Eisenhower to end new abuse of Jews ... likens our treatment to that of the Nazis.” President Harry S. Truman had received a copy of the letter, ordered an investigation, found our allegations to be true, and censured Eisenhower. We were not court-martialed or otherwise punished. As Ed Herman said, “We’ve got the President of the United States at our backs.”

This experience had a profound impact on the rest of my life. No matter how unimportant one feels they are, no matter how lacking in status and power, when one sees people less fortunate than themselves needing help, they can and should take whatever personal risk necessary to help them.

I write this at 101 years of age. For the past 80 years, I have tried to fulfill my humanist commitments in my professions of theater, journalism, media, public broadcasting, government, academia and in my books, plays, and poetry.

As a government official in Washington, DC during the Vietnam War, I did not hesitate to participate in anti-Vietnam War protests despite the risks to my job status and tenure. As Chair of the Federal Interagency Media Committee, I went against protocol and I effected rules that offered equal grant opportunities for women and minority- and women-led companies. In the early 1960s I was active in civil rights protests and demonstrations in North Carolina. As a college dean and professor in New York, I created and taught courses on hate groups’ use of the media, and on the Holocaust and the growth of Nazism.

With co-author Michael Keith I wrote “Waves of Rancor: Tuning In The Radical Right,” an exposé of hate groups’ use of the media, the most controversial of 12 books selected by President Bill Clinton on his 1999 annual reading list. Implied threats forced me to remove my name from the telephone book, but that didn’t stop threats from reaching me.

During the Era of McCarthyism, in the early 1950s, I lost career opportunities for speaking out. In more recent years my op-eds and letters to the editor, in addition to my public speeches, have drawn real and implied threats and vilification on social media sites, ranging from accusations of senility to dementia. Warning threats included the traditional dead rat at my front door and deliberately punctured tires on my car in my driveway.

But the letters of support—most recently, after my speech at the closing of Alligator Alcatraz, which was recorded and carried on social media and received hundreds of thousands of views—convince me, at age 101, to continue my fight for democracy: Make America a democracy again. I am pleased to have the opportunity to work with organizations such Floridians for Democracy and Home of the Brave.

I opposed the fascists in America and fought them in Europe in World War II. I will continue to fight fascists wherever they are, here or abroad, until I cannot fight any longer.

Dr. Robert L. Hilliard is a World War II veteran, activist, academic, playwright, author, professor, and American hero. He is 101 years old and lives in Florida with his wife.

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