Ten years ago, the Treasury Department announced that Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill. After years of delays, the Trump administration has now put the Tubman redesign on ice. At the same time, Republican lawmakers and Trump administration officials are promoting a new $250 bill bearing Donald Trump’s likeness. Congress has not authorized the denomination, and current federal law permits only deceased people to appear on American currency.

The contrast could hardly be more offensive.

Harriet Tubman was born enslaved and escaped to freedom, then repeatedly risked her life to return south and lead others out of bondage. She served the Union as a nurse, scout and spy. In 1863, she helped lead the Combahee River Raid, which liberated hundreds of enslaved people. Later, she advocated for women’s suffrage. She gave her life to the proposition that freedom was worth fighting for, even when the fight brought her neither wealth nor comfort.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, is a billionaire president who has repeatedly blurred the line between public power and private enrichment. He has put his name on buildings, products and public institutions. Now his image is being proposed for a new denomination meant to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary.

This is more than vanity. It is the currency of oligarchy.

Oligarchy is what happens when wealth buys political power, political power protects and multiplies wealth, and public institutions are bent toward the glorification of people who already possess both. In a democracy, money is a public instrument. In an oligarchy, even public money becomes another surface on which the ruler may write his own name.

The Tubman $20 would tell a different story.

A $20 bill is not a rare commemorative object locked in a collector’s case. It is ordinary money. It passes across grocery counters and restaurant tables. It is slipped into church collection plates and handed to grandchildren. It pays for haircuts, prescriptions, school supplies and rides home. It is folded into a child’s birthday card by an auntie who wants the child to have “a little something.”

Imagine Harriet Tubman making those journeys.

Imagine a child opening that birthday card and asking who the woman on the bill is. Imagine generations of Americans encountering Tubman not only during Black History Month, but every day—at the ATM, the corner store and the kitchen table.

That is why representation on currency matters. It is history placed into circulation.

Andrew Jackson, whose portrait remains on the $20 bill, was an enslaver whose policies drove Native people from their lands. Tubman, who liberated enslaved people and served this nation, was supposed to take his place on the front. Earlier plans even retained Jackson on the reverse. Yet even that modest adjustment to our national memory has proved too much for those determined to preserve the old racial hierarchy.

Tubman was not merely an inspirational figure. She challenged an economic system. Enslavement was not only racial terrorism; it was coerced labor that created enormous wealth for white people while treating Black people as property. Each time Tubman led another person to freedom, she stole labor away from enslavers and disrupted the economics of bondage.

That makes her especially appropriate for American currency.

She also understood that freedom without economic power is fragile. After the Civil War, despite her service to the Union, she struggled for years to receive adequate compensation and a pension. The nation benefited from her courage more readily than it paid its debt to her.

That pattern is painfully familiar. Black people build, serve, sacrifice and create. The country applauds us symbolically while withholding material justice. Tubman is praised in speeches while being kept off the money. Meanwhile, a president who converts attention, office and access into personal advantage may receive a denomination designed around his image.

The issue is not merely whether one likes Donald Trump. It is a question of ownership. Does American currency belong to the American people? Does it reflect a shared history, including the people who expanded the boundaries of freedom? Or is it another possession of a president who treats public institutions as extensions of his personal brand?

Harriet Tubman belongs on the $20 bill because she represents the best of this nation—not the nation as it was, but the nation generations have struggled to make it become. She chose liberation over submission, collective freedom over personal safety and service over self-enrichment.

Donald Trump does not need another monument to himself. The man who lives in the house that enslaved people built has already had far too much access to the nation’s power, attention and money.

The last thing we need is his face on it.

Written by Julianne Malveaux

Official website; https://www.juliannemalveaux.com

Somehow, this has yet to sink into the national consciousness.

The precise timing is a projection. The cuts are not. They’re activated automatically following the law: Once the trust fund is empty, Social Security can pay out only what it collects. And the zero hour keeps moving toward us. This year’s trustees report pulled the projection forward a full year. The program has promised to pay out roughly $30 trillion more than it will take in over the next 75 years.

Yet few candidates are talking about this in any serious way. It pays to say nothing. Evidently, lots of legislators believe that the political cost of telling voters the unhappy news today exceeds the cost of letting the cuts occur tomorrow. That’s how we ended up just one term from disaster.

When politicians do raise the issue, they make the fix sound easy. Sens. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) want you to believe that eliminating the cap on payroll taxes would fix the problem. That solution fails on its own terms.

Using data from the Social Security Administration’s own actuaries, my colleague Jack Salmon demonstrates that scrapping the taxable maximum closes only 58% of the gap. National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru noted last month that it would push the federal marginal rate on top wages to an untenable 49.4%, and overall rates would climb past 60% in high-tax states like California and New York.

The senators aren’t alone in wanting to tax our way out of this problem. In one recent survey, 89% percent of Americans aged 65 and older favored protecting current retirees’ benefits even if doing so requires higher taxes on younger workers.

That position is popular only because it rests on the image of retirees living off nothing but Social Security. That image, partly an artifact of bad data, fails to capture the situation.

In a March 2025 government survey, 24% of seniors reported that Social Security supplies 90% or more of their income. But when Census Bureau researchers matched responses with IRS filings and benefits records, they found that retirees frequently omitted their 401(k) and IRA withdrawals, making the real figure only about 14%. Meanwhile, 58% of retirees draw less than half their income from the program.

The remaining 42% are the retirees that Social Security reform of any kind should protect. They already receive a raw deal under the current formula, which does a much better job of protecting wealthier seniors.

As the Cato Institute’s Romina Boccia and Ivane Nachkebia documented last month, seniors aged 65 to 74 had a median net worth of $410,000 in 2022, compared with only $135,600 for those aged 35 to 44 (who pay a significant share of the taxes). Roughly 34% of Social Security dollars go to filers with adjusted gross incomes above $100,000. Too often, Social Security is less a need-based program than a transfer of wealth from the young and unpropertied to the old and comfortable.

A March 2026 paper from the Committee for a Responsible Budget puts it plainly: Despite facing large deficits, Social Security now pays the wealthiest couples roughly $100,000 in annual benefits, more than five times the poverty threshold for a retired household. “In inflation-adjusted terms,” it adds, “the maximum couple’s benefit has doubled since 1990 and is projected to double again around 2070. By that point, the wealthiest couples will receive $200,000 in combined benefits.”

The best reform is one proposed by Boccia: Return Social Security to a mission of poverty prevention. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that giving new beneficiaries a flat benefit at 125% of the poverty level (roughly $1,660 a month) would erase the entire 75-year deficit while raising benefits for the lowest earners.

Next, index eligibility ages to longevity and allow workers to own compounding assets through personal accounts rather than relying on a political promise that the next generation must be conscripted to keep.

Many people will dislike reading this, I’m sure, and wonder why we can’t just borrow to pay for the benefits. The answer is that between Social Security, Medicare and interest payments, we’re short by $115 trillion over 30 years. The moment Congress commits to that much borrowing, the likelihood of a historic inflation burst increases. Even this painful hike in the price level would not manage to devalue enough debt to save us, since Social Security benefits are indexed to inflation. The obligation would survive; retirees’ bond portfolios and other assets would lose value.

The senators we elect this year will not be able to avoid these decisions. Don’t let them avoid the question, either.

Written by Veronique de Rugy

Official website; http://twitter.com/veroderugy

How could anyone sue an entity he controls and derive a benefit from the amicable resolution of such a lawsuit at the expense of others who are not parties to the lawsuit?

Here is the backstory.

During President Donald Trump’s first term in office, an IRS employee unlawfully released the tax returns of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers, among which was Trump’s. The employee pleaded guilty to this crime and served a lawfully appropriate portion of his five-year sentence.

Trump was furious at the revelation, as anyone would be who reasonably expected federal employees to comply with the laws they are sworn, and legally obliged, to uphold.

All those whose rights have been violated by the criminal acts of a government employee have a cause of action against the government seeking to compensate them for the demonstrable harm the government employee caused them.

Congress and the federal courts have insulated the federal government from liability for the consequences of its ordinary, rational, good-faith enforcement of federal laws — but not from the harm caused by the crimes committed by its employees.

Much of this immunity has unleashed extreme violence on its victims — the recent murders of fishermen on the high seas by the Department of Defense unlawfully purporting to engage in domestic law enforcement and the on-street murders of innocents by ICE agents in American cities purporting to enforce immigration laws come to mind.

The government killings of innocent persons are objectively criminal, but due to the Department of (Political) Justice dragging its feet on the revelations of its investigations and excluding state prosecutors and investigators, we await a judicial determination.

In the case of Trump suing the IRS — an entity that he controls, and which is represented by the DOJ that he also controls — we wait no longer.

Earlier this week, the U.S. District Court in Miami excoriated both Trump’s present personal lawyers and his former lawyers who now run the DOJ for engaging in a false cause of action.

What is a false cause of action?

State courts are courts of general jurisdiction. They can hear any matters that in which the litigants have minimum contacts with the state. Many state courts can hear claims under federal law, and all can hear claims under the U.S. Constitution. Some state courts can even render judicial opinions of legislative or executive behavior in the abstract — before and without any complainant alleging harm.

But federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. They can only hear cases that arise under the Constitution and federal laws, or where expressly authorized by Congress or where there is diversity of citizenship — meaning, a cause of action between citizens of different states where more than $75,000 is in dispute.

But the trigger for all cases in federal courts is the existence of a case or controversy. The Case or Controversy Clause of the Constitution was insisted upon by James Madison so as to limit the power of federal judges to the resolution of real, genuine disputes; prevent the courts from becoming a super legislature; and prohibit the use of federal courts for collusive litigation wherein both sides secretly seek the same result.

When both sides seek or purport to negotiate for the same result — here the liberty of the plaintiff Donald Trump to file any tax returns he wishes without fear of audit, and the defendant who works for the plaintiff agrees — there is no real case or controversy because there is no adversity, the lawyers involved acted in bad faith, and their agreement to resolve the case is a nullity.

To avoid the Constitution’s case or controversy requirements, Trumps’s lawyers – his personal lawyers who filed the lawsuit against the IRS and his former personal lawyers now running the DOJ — entered into a settlement agreement before the DOJ filed an answer to Trump’s complaint.

Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, if parties to federal litigation reach an amicable resolution — a settlement — before the defendant files any responsive pleadings, the court has no role to play, except in the case of a manifest injustice.

Trump’s complaint demanded $10 billion in damages from the IRS. His DOJ lawyers agreed to give his personal lawyers a fund of $1.776 billion from the federal Treasury to disburse to Trump’s supporters at Trump’s personal discretion; and his IRS lawyers agreed that neither Donald Trump personally nor his family or closely held corporations could ever be audited by the IRS.

The $1.776 billion was not expressly authorized by Congress. Theoretically, it came from a fund used by the DOJ to settle legitimate — not collusive — litigation in which bona fide, demonstrably provable claims were made or monetary judgments were judicially entered against the federal government.

According to the DOJ, none of the $1.776 billion has been spent and the fund is now dormant.

The federal court to which the case was nominally assigned would have none of this. In a blistering ruling, the court found that there was no case or controversy here because there was no true adversity between the parties. The DOJ lawyers and the IRS lawyers were all seeking to please their boss, who is the plaintiff in the case.

The court found that the lawyers involved in this subterfuge, the lawyers who handled this case and crafted its purported resolution, did not act in good faith. Thus, Trump’s present personal lawyers and his DOJ and IRS lawyers have been referred to their state licensing authorities for disciplinary proceedings.

Lawyers in litigation have a duty of zealous advocacy and unimpeachable loyalty to their clients. They cannot secretly or openly aid their client’s adversary. If they are morally or personally or legally conflicted, they must withdraw from the case.

What about Trump’s legally legitimate claim against the IRS for the criminal revelation of his personal tax returns? Had he sued as a private citizen and asked the court to shelve his case until he leaves office, he’d have had a real claim. Now, that claim is gone.

What a legal mess. Trump effectively sued himself and lost! And he grievously jeopardized the legal careers of those who sought to please him. No Trump pardon can help these lawyers. They are now at the not-so-tender mercies of the state entities that issued their licenses to practice law.

Written by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

Official website; https://twitter.com/Judgenap

My cousin, like Wells, allegedly died from drowning. His body was found near the Horn Island in Gulf Coast waters. Officials quickly ruled his death accidental. However, many of my family members weren’t convinced. He was known to be an excellent swimmer. But the greatest reason for doubt was that he had gone on his swimming outing with a group of whites he knew. None of them were injured. It wasn’t clear at the time just how promptly his associates had reported his death, or worse.

This certainly did not prove that my cousin was the victim of foul play. Nor that the perpetrators were his white companions. But it was more than enough to create doubt and suspicion about his death.

The controversy over Wells’s death is a near pitch perfect carbon copy of the same grim, and doubtful scenario that shadowed my cousin’s death. It’s also the same one that has fueled the controversy over the deaths of more than a few other young Blacks in recent years. All of them died under seemingly murky circumstances. Nearly a dozen of these deaths have drawn intense, but brief media and public attention—and questioning.

They had several things in common. They were young African Americans. They stirred intense speculation and anger that their deaths were anything but accidental. They put officials on the spot to prove that there was no foul play. In each case authorities ultimately ruled their deaths as either accidental or self-inflicted. Their parents and relatives had no choice but to accept the official ruling that the deaths were anything other than accidental.

It’s precisely because of these circumstances that many Blacks have loudly cried foul about Wells. They are convinced that officials are covering up a murder.

It’s hard to say how many more official probes it will take before the parents of Wells believe that their son’s death was a horrid accident. They have hired a prominent attorney to raise questions. Several notables including former NFL star Colin Kaepernick are bankrolling the independent autopsy the family authorized. A bevy of civil rights activists have demanded answers. Legions of Blacks and others have burned up social media outlets charging cover-up and foul play in his death. They will never buy the at least initial response from officials of “no evidence of foul play.”

Once the dust settles Well’s death may indeed prove to be accidental. But that still won’t alter the painful reasons many say it isn’t. I say painful because of three things that weigh heavily on me and can never be erased.

The first as mentioned is the drowning death of my cousin under still questionable circumstances. He did not have attorneys, civil rights activists, and thousands of Blacks demanding answers to the cause of his death. Officials quickly closed the case. It wasn’t said but, in that era, it was just routinely considered just another Black life gone and nothing special about it.

The second is the current Trump fueled polarized racial climate. The ongoing assault on DEI, racial profiling, continuing dubious police shootings of young Blacks and Hispanics, and the grotesque racial disparities in the prison and criminal justice system. Many Blacks are firmly convinced that they are under sustained, venomous racial assault.

The third reason is the savage racial history of Mississippi toward Blacks. It was the runaway leader for decades in lynchings, assaults, bombings, and imprisoning of Blacks, especially young Black males. In nearly all cases, officials either turned a blind eye toward the violence or gave it the most cursory look and then a shrug off. That tortured history is still fresh in the minds of many Blacks.

The parents of Wells demand and deserve a thorough, impartial and most importantly honest investigation into his death. Unlike him, my cousin never had that luxury. That’s why to this day my family members remain unconvinced about the cause of his death. The clamor over Wells death shows that other Blacks will always have the same feeling that something just wasn’t right about how their loved ones died.

Written By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

One can find more info about Mr. Hutchinson over at the following site; TheHutchinson Report.

Also feel free to connect with him through twitter; http://twitter.com/earlhutchins

He is also an associate editor of New America Media. His forthcoming book is From King to Obama: Witness to a Turbulent History (Middle Passage Press).

Sanders had been waving off concerns about the guy. Then suddenly, he called on Platner to leave the campaign.

Two problems with Bernie’s new directive: One, Sanders is why Democrats got saddled with Platner to begin with. Two, the new revelations come on top of previous revelations about his piggish behavior.

Sanders evidently thought he could ignore all this until more startling charges came to light. The dam holding back Democratic demands to replace Platner finally gave way. If Sanders didn’t jump in and pretend to have problems with the candidate he pushed onto the party, he wouldn’t be in a strong position to choose his own left-fringe replacement with a colorful story.

The road to socialist victories, Sanders knows, runs through infiltrating the Democratic Party, of which he’s not a member. His objective is not to help Democrats take over Congress but for his socialists to take over the Democratic Party.

Sanders, the “Independent ” senator from Vermont, is not a Mainer. He’s not much of a Vermonter, either. He’s a New Yorker, spending large amounts of time back home in hardcore Democratic districts trying — and succeeding — to get his followers to knock off liberal Democrat incumbents in primaries. One of his winning primary offers called former President Joe Biden “a rapist.”

Thing is, the Democratic Socialists of America are heavily represented by college-educated voters who don’t have to worry about losing their health coverage. They don’t like the rents they have to pay to live in the neighborhoods they’re busy gentrifying. They think socialists can fix that.

Now listen to a Platner defender back in Maine. Joanie Monteith told AP, “I’m heartbroken for him and his wife.” Rest assured that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, is well practiced in the art of handling humiliation, with the world knowing her husband sent raunchy texts to assorted women before the couple reached their second anniversary.

If finding plausible Democrats to represent the party requires a Democratic rumble, let’s have it. So far, few prominent Democrats have spoken forcefully about the far-left’s boutique nominees. The exception is Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman. He let loose, calling Platner a “predator” and “Bona fide dirtbag,” and referring to him as “P-Hustle,” his old Reddit handle.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, more gentle in his rebuke, joins Fetterman as a Democrat who won office in a state that’s been turning Republican. Democrats shouldn’t need a lot of magic to get one of their own elected in Blue New England, and in a year favoring their party.

Sanders, age 84, might consider retirement. But another leftist string-puller at the other end of the age spectrum, 27-year-old campaign adviser Morris Katz, should also look for another line of work. Katz won some fame as the mind behind New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s adorable internet storytelling campaign.

Looking to repeat his act in Maine, Katz pushed the utterly unqualified Platner over the primary win line, despite Platner’s “imperfections” being widely known. Katz then made the dumb mistake of personally threatening a woman who left the Platner campaign, demanding she refute the things she knew about his abuse of women.

Democrats need to replace the internet-savvy fringe operatives with internet-savvy mainstream operatives of their own. Above all, they need to take the car keys away from Bernie Sanders.

Written by Froma Harrop

Official website; https://twitter.com/FromaHarrop

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But it’s really the second reason Glover’s public disclosure hit like a sledgehammer, and I rejoiced. He is one of the more than one in five African Americans who are either at risk or likely to be afflicted with Alzheimer’s. A 2007 study by Boston University researchers focused specifically on African Americans and the higher incidence of Alzheimer’s They confirmed the alarming disparity.

The researchers sought an answer to why that was. The researchers zeroed in on genetic causes. However, they found no conclusive evidence of differing genetic malfunctions in the brain between Blacks and whites.

A more recent study also examined differences in dementia by race. It tracked a broad sample of nearly forty thousand persons nationally drawn from nearly forty different Alzheimer’s research centers across the U.S. A substantial number of participants had dementia. The study found a smaller percentage of Blacks than whites with a dementia diagnosis. However, the gaping flaw was that Blacks were far less likely than whites to be tested specifically for dementia in follow-up visits to a doctor.

Both the earlier Boston University study and the more recent study fell back on the standard explanation for the gaping racial disparity in Alzheimer’s between Blacks and whites. That is unequal access to healthcare, lower quality education, and higher rates of other health problems such as heart disease and diabetes. It’s the unequal access to health care, though, that ultimately determines who and what kind of treatment an individual suffering from a catastrophic disease such as Alzheimer’s receives. The picture here isn’t pretty.

A major university research study in 2000 on the impact of racial bias on mental health diagnosis and treatment, Racism and Mental Health: the African American Experience, noted, “The stigma of racial inferiority may also adversely affect the treatment of black patients in the mental health system. Black clinicians have long argued that popular misconceptions, inaccuracies, and stereotypes of the psychology of African Americans could lead to the misdiagnosis of Black patients.”

The study went further and observed that African Americans were more likely to be misdiagnosed. It specifically cited schizophrenia. Blacks were more likely to be diagnosed with the malady of paranoid schizophrenia. And at the same underdiagnosed with other affective disorders. The researchers chalked this up to “conscious or unconscious acceptance of negative stereotypes of Blacks.” The inaccurate diagnosis clinicians seemingly routinely made over time of many Blacks with a mental health affliction had serious consequences in terms of tailoring the correct and most effective treatment to the patient. More recent studies on racial health disparities confirm the pattern is still widespread.

That certainly applies to Alzheimer’s diagnosis and treatment. A 2019 study that looked at nearly three thousand people with Alzheimer’s that spanned twenty years confirmed that. It also found that the prevalence of Alzheimer’s in Blacks was about twice that of whites. But it also found in addition that they had worse symptoms. They included delusions, hallucinations, agitation, aggression, anxiety, mobility, poor sleep, and eating. They pointed to the lack of a timely diagnosis of Alzheimer’s that Blacks get as the major cause. That ensures the symptoms worsen.

Glover has drawn massive media and public attention to his battle with Alzheimer’s precisely because he is a famed and highly acclaimed actor, and activist. The same can’t be said for the huge number of Blacks who are at heightened risk from the disease. They largely fall through the media and public looking glass crack.

This compounds the tragedy. Alzheimer is a dread disease with yet no cure. I can testify to that from watching in almost helpless agony the many behavior, personality, and physical changes that my family member goes through. It is not named the long goodbye for nothing. It is long, persistent, debilitating, and takes a toll on other family members and those tasked with caregiving.

Glover is fortunate in many ways. He has a warm, supportive family, and legions of concerned admirers. He has the resources to ensure he receives top quality treatment and caregiving.

Unfortunately, many others who suffer from the disease do not have that advantage. That certainly includes many African American sufferers and their families.

Fortunately, Glover, and my afflicted family member, are receiving the best medical attention available. And even more importantly, the love and support of family members. Hopefully Glover’s public coming out about this condition will ensure that others in need get the same support and attention.

Written By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

One can find more info about Mr. Hutchinson over at the following site; TheHutchinson Report.

Also feel free to connect with him through twitter; http://twitter.com/earlhutchins

He is also an associate editor of New America Media. His forthcoming book is From King to Obama: Witness to a Turbulent History (Middle Passage Press).

The fireworks have dimmed, and the Fourth-of-You-Lie sales are waning. In this country, we commemorate through commerce and celebrate through retail activity, so even though we are just a few days into July, back-to-school signs are already shouting from store windows and websites.

Who is going back to school, and under what circumstances?

As with every milestone in this country, inequality roars. Some students will return to school with new laptops, quiet rooms, family-paid tuition, and networks that cushion every stumble. Others will return carrying debt, doubt, family obligations, food insecurity, transportation challenges, and the accumulated disadvantages of underfunded schools and under-resourced communities.

The back-to-school season is marketed as a fresh start. For too many students, it is also a reminder that opportunity in America has always been rationed.

That is why Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) still matter. Indeed, that is why HBCUs remain the vanguard.

The vanguard is not always the largest part of the army. It is the front edge. It moves first. It absorbs blows. It clears the path. By that definition, HBCUs have always been the vanguard. They were built because this country’s higher education system excluded Black people by law, custom, violence, and contempt. Their founding question was not, “How do we reproduce privilege?” Their founding question was, “How do we cultivate genius where America has refused to see it?”

That question remains urgent.

HBCUs enroll only a fraction of Black college students, but their impact is outsized. In 2022, HBCUs enrolled about 9 percent of Black college students, yet they produced 16 percent of the bachelor’s degrees earned by Black students in 2021–22. UNCF reports that HBCUs generate $16.5 billion in annual economic impact, support more than 136,000 jobs, and that the 2021 HBCU graduating class is projected to earn $146 billion over their lifetimes.

These are not sentimental institutions. They are economic engines, leadership factories, and community anchors.

Still, HBCUs are too often asked to do transformative work with transactional support.

That contradiction is especially sharp now, as federal student loan policy shifts under the feet of students and families. The Biden-era SAVE plan — Saving on a Valuable Education — was designed to make repayment less punishing by tying payments to income and family size, reducing monthly payments for many borrowers, limiting runaway interest, and creating a shorter forgiveness path for some small-balance borrowers. Now SAVE has ended, and millions of borrowers have been told to move into other repayment plans.

The change lands first on borrowers already in repayment, but current students are not untouched. Undergraduates will face a narrower repayment landscape when they leave school. Families will confront new Parent PLUS limits. Graduate and professional students will face new borrowing caps just as advanced credentials remain expensive and often necessary. Graduate PLUS loans, which previously allowed many graduate students to borrow up to the cost of attendance, are being phased out for new borrowers. Grad PLUS was the backstop many students used when tuition and living costs exceeded unsubsidized loan limits.

These numbers are not abstractions. They determine who can become a nurse practitioner, a physical therapist, a psychologist, a professor, a public health leader, a lawyer, a dentist, a physician, or a minister. They determine who can move from the first degree to the next rung. They determine whether talent is nurtured or stranded.

For Black students, the stakes are higher because the debt burden is heavier. Black students are more likely to borrow for college, more likely to borrow more, and more likely to struggle in repayment because the racial wealth gap follows them from home to campus and from campus to workplace. A loan policy that may look race-neutral on paper can still deepen racial inequality in practice.

That is the context in which HBCUs do their work. They educate students through inequality, against inequality, and beyond inequality. They do not merely polish privilege. They cultivate possibility. They take seriously the students America too often treats as afterthoughts, and they turn potential into leadership.

Having led an HBCU, I know both the miracle, the math, and the myth. At Bennett College, I saw daily what HBCUs do with too little: stretch dollars, nurture brilliance, hold students close, and insist that Black women’s futures were worth fighting for. I know the devotion of faculty, the exhaustion of administrators, the anxiety of families, and the constant scramble for resources. I also know this: HBCUs cannot be praised in February and underfunded in July. They cannot be applauded at commencements and ignored in appropriations. They cannot be celebrated as cultural treasures while their students are left to navigate a debt system that punishes aspiration.

The country loves the symbolism of back-to-school season. New backpacks. New notebooks. New slogans. But the real question is not what is on sale, it’s what is at stake.

If HBCUs are the vanguard, then the question is not whether they have earned our admiration. They have. The question is whether they will receive the investment, protection, and respect that their record demands.

Back to school should not mean back to debt, back to rationed opportunity, or back to the same old inequalities dressed up in fresh retail packaging. It should mean back to possibility. Back to purpose. Back to institutions that have carried us when the broader society would not.

HBCUs are still carrying us. The question is whether public policy will finally carry its share.

On one side stands the Democratic Socialists of America, whose influence within the Democratic Party has grown dramatically. This is no longer simply a debate over tax rates or entitlement programs. The party’s activist wing has become increasingly hostile to the ideas that have undergirded the country for 250 years: freedom of speech, religious liberty, private property, free markets and the belief that America is an exceptional nation worth preserving.

The political consequences are no longer hypothetical. Democrats have a realistic chance to regain control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. Competitive Senate races across North Carolina, Ohio, Maine, Texas, Alaska and Iowa underscore how narrow the margins have become. If Democrats were to reclaim both the House and Senate, the ramifications would extend far beyond the next two years.

The federal judiciary is the clearest example.

Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are both in their late 70s. Should vacancies arise while Democrats control the Senate, the ideological balance of the court could shift for a generation. A new liberal majority would influence constitutional interpretation on everything from executive authority and religious liberty to economic regulation and the administrative state. At the same time, Democrats would accelerate confirmations throughout the federal judiciary, leaving an imprint that would outlast any single administration.

Those stakes make recent developments on the right especially consequential.

Tucker Carlson has spent recent weeks floating the idea of launching a third political party, arguing that Republicans and Democrats are effectively indistinguishable on issues of war, spending and finance. He portrays America’s two-party system as little more than a single political establishment masquerading as democracy.

That argument ignores the most significant policy differences in American politics. Republicans and Democrats remain sharply divided over taxation, judicial appointments, regulation, free markets, energy policy and the proper role of government. Pretending those distinctions no longer exist requires overlooking the very issues that define modern elections.

Carlson’s broader political philosophy has also drifted away from traditional conservatism. Over the past several years, he has increasingly criticized free-market capitalism, questioned longstanding American foreign policy, and adopted a form of economic nationalism that bears little resemblance to the conservative movement’s traditional commitment to limited government and free enterprise.

More than likely, Carlson is not seriously preparing to build a viable third party. American political history offers little reason to believe such an effort would succeed. Ross Perot’s independent 1992 campaign remains one of the strongest third-party performances in modern history, yet his Reform Party, launched in 1995, quickly collapsed. The structural realities of American elections overwhelmingly favor two major parties with established fundraising networks, ballot access and national organizations.

Rather than constructing an alternative party, Carlson appears to be positioning himself for the aftermath of the 2026 elections. If Republicans lose seats — as the president’s party often does during midterm elections — he can argue that the defeats occurred because Republicans ignored his vision for the party. Electoral losses then become evidence that the GOP should move in his ideological direction.

That makes his current rhetoric politically significant even if no third party ever appears on the ballot. Republicans already face the historical disadvantages of defending Congress during a president’s midterm. Voices on the right openly rooting for Republican defeats only increase the likelihood that Democrats, increasingly influenced by their progressive wing, will gain power.

Following the nation’s semiquincentennial, the debate should return to first principles rather than political personalities.

For 250 years, America’s strength has rested on enduring ideas: constitutional government, individual liberty, private property, free enterprise, religious freedom and peace through strength. Those principles have survived wars, economic crises and political upheaval because each generation chose to defend them rather than discard them.

The greatest challenge facing the country may not come from a single ideological movement but from competing factions that, despite their differences, are increasingly willing to abandon those foundational principles. If the United States is to thrive to its 300th anniversary, its 500th and beyond, it will depend not on charismatic personalities or political factions but on whether Americans remain committed to the ideals that made the republic possible.

Written by Ben Shapiro

Official website; https://x.com/benshapiro

Nearly 700 years old, the series of fresco paintings includes a depiction of a bustling city that illustrates the effects of good government, as well as representations of the decay that results from arbitrary and unjust rulers. The visual treatise on political economy holds important lessons for us today.

Lorenzetti’s city isn’t thriving because its government is energetic or ambitious. It’s thriving because a wise government knows its place.

The people creating its wealth aren’t politicians. They’re merchants opening shops, artisans practicing their crafts, builders raising new homes, farmers bringing goods to market, families walking safely through the streets and a couple getting married. Prosperity comes from their voluntary cooperation. The government appears as the guardian of the rules that make prosperity possible: justice, security, predictable laws and limits on arbitrary power.

That distinction is everything. America did not become the richest nation in history because Washington, D.C., was exceptionally good at directing the economy. It thrived because its institutions largely prevented Washington from interfering. The rule of law and constitutional limits have allowed millions of individuals to make sound decisions that no central authority could possibly coordinate.

Lorenzetti understood that institutions shape incentives, and incentives shape civilization. When political institutions protect a people’s liberty, property and contract rights, they will invest, innovate, trade, build and cooperate. When institutions become vehicles for arbitrary power, society reorganizes itself around politics instead of production, and everything decays.

That’s why the most troubling trend in American politics today isn’t just how remarkably bloated the government has become. It’s that both major political parties are now comfortable using their power to direct private economic life, and they seem unbothered by whether this undermines the rule of law.

Federal spending and debt continue their relentless rise because politicians prioritize today’s voters over future generations. They support industrial policy to prop up their favorite industries. The Trump administration is taking equity stakes in companies like Intel and USA Rare Earth, with some members enriching themselves in the process.

Meanwhile, many Democrats champion taxes on held wealth and unrealized capital gains, challenging the principle that property exists independently of political permission. Genuine socialists who aspire to subordinate property rights and voluntary exchange to political power are now winning elections.

Today, Democrats and Republicans share an understanding that the government should actively allocate resources, direct investment and determine economic outcomes, which can translate to votes, campaign contributions or other benefits.

That’s a shift Lorenzetti’s frescos implicitly warned against. The danger is not poorly executed government; it’s that society’s rules eventually begin to break down. Businesses learn that political influence matters as much or more than serving customers. Investors devote increasing attention to Washington rather than to innovation. Entrepreneurs spend more time competing for subsidies than for customers. Citizens become clients of the state instead of participants in a free society. Political discretion displaces voluntary cooperation.

This transformation rarely arrives dramatically. It instead comes one exception at a time: one bailout, one industrial policy, one new entitlement, one emergency spending bill, another emergency bill that no one feels any need to repay, one “golden share,” one creative tax hike. Together, these changes reshape the relationship between citizen and state.

Lorenzetti’s companion depiction of a bad government is often interpreted as a portrait of tyranny. Justice lies bound at the feet of a horned, demonic ruler, her scales broken and cords cut. Around them, the city decays: Buildings crumble, the streets are empty of commerce, stores are looted, and the only workshop still doing business belongs to the armorer. Soldiers seize a woman — a dark reflection of the happy bride processing through the city on the opposite wall — while a man lies slain at her feet.

Similarly, in one painting of the countryside, the figure of Security, guaranteed by law and not by whim, flies above cultivated fields. In another, Fear hovers over villages burning and barren ground. Same land, same people, different institutions.

But tyranny isn’t simply oppression. It’s the condition under which political power, no longer constrained by enduring principles, becomes society’s organizing force. That’s where bad becomes worse. High taxes become levies meant to punish and confiscate. Regulating industries becomes the locking down of an economy. Constraints on speech become censorship and book burning.

That’s why institutions matter. A constitutional government’s purpose is not to directly produce prosperity. It’s to prevent political power from suffocating the countless acts of creativity, exchange, investment and cooperation through which free people produce prosperity themselves.

America’s greatness has never rested on the brilliance of its politicians. It rests on institutions that leave enough room for people to flourish. The lesson from Siena is that we must restore and preserve what keeps political power in check. Without it, the government does not merely redistribute wealth; it coarsens and corrupts the character of the people, leading to its destruction.

Written by Veronique de Rugy

Official website; http://twitter.com/veroderugy