In a recent interview with Tara Palmeri, Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., was unexpectedly asked about the life-threatening ectopic pregnancy she experienced in 2024. The discussion the interview sparked between pro-life and pro-abortion advocates online uncovered the dangerous spread of misinformation surrounding abortion laws. The video interview, titled “What Happens When Pro-Life Congresswoman Cammack Needs an Abortion?”, drew the attention of every major pro-life organization. Cammack quickly addressed the interview on social media, explaining the medical emergency further. https://t.co/td2GexJygh— Congresswoman Kat Cammack (@RepKatCammack) June 24, 2026 According to Cammack, after hemorrhaging, her approximately 5-week-old baby did not have a heartbeat. The doctors told her this was “one of the rarest and most dangerous forms of ectopic pregnancy that exists,” and that she faced “catastrophic internal bleeding, permanent organ damage, and potential death.” Doctors told her if she ruptured, the window to save her life could be “measured in minutes,” and they hesitated to give her the lifesaving drug methotrexate, out of fear they would be breaking the law—based on ads they had seen from pro-abortion groups. According to Florida Statutes Section 390.011, abortion is banned after six weeks, and a procedure to “remove a dead fetus” is not classified as an abortion. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an abortion is an “intervention” intended to “terminate” a pregnancy “that does not result in a live birth,” excluding pregnancy loss and ectopic pregnancy. “The facts here are clear. No professional medical organization, and no state law, classifies treatment for a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy as an abortion,” Rafael Struve, communications director for Cammack, told the Daily Signal. “Congresswoman Cammack’s experience exposed how dangerous it is when that line gets blurred. During her medical emergency, hospital staff shared messaging they had seen suggesting providers could face prosecution for treating these emergencies. That kind of confusion has no place in an emergency room,” he continued. Since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a landmark Supreme Court decision from 2022, pro-abortion groups have lobbied doctors and spread misinformation about the laws surrounding saving a mother’s life in situations like Cammack’s. They created the ad Cammack’s nurse showed her. What’s at stake if Congressional Republicans let Planned Parenthood get millions on America’s birthday?Some members of Congress, like @PeteRicketts, have promised to do everything they can to prevent the resumption of abortion funding on July 4. “I will work with my…— Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell (@TheElizMitchell) June 25, 2026 Cammack’s Legislative Action Following her personal experience, “the congresswoman turned her experience into legislation,” Struve told the Daily Signal. Cammack introduced the Truth in Women’s Healthcare Act. Struve said the bill will “reaffirm the importance of accurate medical information and clear guidance for emergency departments, patients, lawmakers, and the public so that no woman is left in danger because of confusion about what the law does and does not allow.” “[Cammack] also introduced the Bereaved Parents Rights Act to ensure parents experiencing a miscarriage or stillbirth are informed of their rights and treated with dignity and compassion,” he continued, describing the congresswoman’s focus as “straightforward accurate information, clear guidance for providers, and real support for women and families.” Speaker Mike Johnson and the House Budget Committee are planning how to eliminate waste fraud and abuse, defund planned parenthood, and pass the SAVE America Act. Today Johnson called an impromptu Budget Committee meeting to plan Reconciliation 3.0. Johnson calls this a must… pic.twitter.com/Wxle0l7ajp— Virginia Grace McKinnon (@virginiagmck) June 24, 2026 The Medical Facts Behind the Political Debate In an interview with the Daily Signal, Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, described the Palmeri interview as “a political move.” “The procedures to treat ectopic pregnancy are completely different than procedures used either to treat a miscarriage or to perform an abortion,” she said. Treating an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion, and it never has been. Pro-life laws do not prevent women from receiving this care. Medically and legally, ectopic pregnancies have never been classified as induced abortions; even the @CDCgov definition of induced abortion does… https://t.co/88TEMBD84l— AAPLOG (@aaplog) June 24, 2026 “From her report, she had actually a very dangerous kind of ectopic pregnancy called a cornual ectopic,” Francis said. “That’s where the embryo implants in the area where the tube connects to the uterus, and that actually carries an even higher risk of life-threatening hemorrhage than a tubal pregnancy does. And so, it very definitely needed to be treated immediately.” According to Francis, “Florida law and medical ethics actually would dictate that we would need to treat [Cammack], because if we lose her, we lose both her and [the] baby.” She added, “It’s not pro-life laws that are leading the delays of care for women; it’s the lies that are being told about the laws that are causing some doctors to hesitate when they really shouldn’t.” American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Francis said, saw a need to inform physicians “that they still could act to save women’s lives.” The group offers courses and educational conferences led by doctors and medical malpractice attorneys to explain the law. They have also endorsed medical education legislation passed in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Texas that requires physicians to receive education on the law “so that they know they can act immediately.” Standing by ‘Abortion’ The Daily Signal contacted Palmeri about the language she chose in the interview when describing Cammack’s procedure. When asked why she chose to use the term “abortion,” she said it was because the term is more “commonly understood.” “My reporting focused on accurately conveying Rep. Cammack’s account of her medical experience and the public policy questions it raised,” Palmeri told the Daily Signal. “The term ‘abortion’ was used because the procedure and medications discussed are commonly understood and medically described as abortion care in many contexts, even though legal and public health definitions can vary depending on the jurisdiction and the purpose for which they are being used,” she added. Palmeri noted “ambiguity in how the term is used across medicine, law, and politics,” and said she wasn’t trying “to adjudicate competing political narratives about abortion law or advocacy groups.” “My goal was to present the congresswoman’s experience in full, allow viewers to hear her account directly, and let the audience evaluate the implications for themselves,” she said. “The interview itself demonstrates why precision in language matters—which is why I chose to air the conversation rather than summarize it or characterize it myself.”

RealClearWire—Just a few years ago, wearing a sombrero on Halloween could get you banished from polite society for the social crime of “cultural appropriation.” Nutrition experts argued that preventing obesity was a form of racialized “fatphobia,” even as scientific names of songbirds were purged in a moral campaign presumably aimed at white supremacy. Meanwhile, a slew of studies, papers, and articles argued that punctuality, excellence, and other forms of professionalism are “the systemic, institutionalized centering of whiteness.” Today, as universities are dismantling their DEI bureaucracies, corporations are scaling back antiracism training, and academic trigger warnings and diversity pledges have become punch lines rather than cudgels, it is tempting to believe that the excesses of the woke movement have not just peaked but are a thing of the past, a passing fever dream of a peculiar era. Such thinking, however, underestimates the power and persistence of “wokeness,” which was never a spontaneous outburst of moral righteousness born of COVID-19 lockdowns and rage over George Floyd’s death, but a philosophy and a worldview that were decades in the making.  The success of candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America in recent congressional primaries in New York and mayoral races in Los Angeles and the District of Columbia underscores the enduring appeal of a leftist moral framework that casts American society as a Machiavellian struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed. Although the DSA’s ascendancy in Democratic Party politics is a relatively new phenomenon, RCI’s analysis of high-profile issues that have defined the movement in recent years—from slavery reparations and polyamory to transgender advocacy and anti-colonialism—reveals that this dogma is still percolating through the culture, with some new outbreak almost every week. These deeper currents indicate that the DSA is not a driver but a reflection of wokeness—a worldview that continues to make advances and succeeds at the ballot box.  Major League Baseball’s official condemnation this month of San Francisco Giants players who wore caps with Bible quotes on Pride Night is one example of enforcing ideological conformity that harkens back to the Great Awokening of 2020. A recent newspaper headline, “Minneapolis City Hall dances into Pride Month with a drag show,” is further evidence of woke’s staying power.  Cultural Paradigm In some ways, the social justice activists and politicians who envisioned diversity, equity, and inclusion as the pillars of American society have moved on to flirting with the moral imperative of micro-looting, lionizing Luigi Mangione for murdering a health care company executive, and celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk. However one understands wokeness, it is not a mere hodgepodge of slogans and sporadic Twitter mobs. It is, instead, a cultural paradigm shared by millions of people in the West who espouse the inherent moral supremacy of the underdog and doubt the moral legitimacy of their own societies. These ideas have been homed in volumes of academic scholarship and backed by nonprofit funding over the past half-century, and they are increasingly codified into law and policy (see accompanying sidebar article).  “People have the idea that it’s a fad. They don’t understand the antecedents and the roots,” said Jason Hill, a philosophy professor at DePaul University who specializes in political philosophy and moral psychology.  “The moral grammar of the movements we call wokeness comes out of political liberalism,” Hill said. “Liberalism is ultimately a perfectionist and utopian project. It’s a never-ending project.” Liberalism assumed its modern form in the 1960s, Hill said, when liberals abandoned the ideal of individual rights for group rights, in response to persistent Jim Crow-era discrimination. This shift led to a commitment to “radical egalitarianism,” in which discrimination and injustice are measured not by individual bigotry but by unequal group outcomes, and “the state has a responsibility to rectify those disparities.” Supporters refer to this commitment in a variety of ways—leveling the playing field, positive discrimination, or dismantling structures of oppression.  ‘Gestating Parents’ The critique of racism actually intensified after American society committed to fighting it—progressive scholars have described the scourge as “systemic racism” and “racism without racists”—expanding into a broader assault on other institutions and social norms, such as colorblindness, binary gender, colonialism, capitalism and other supposed legacies of European culture. John McWhorter, a Columbia University linguist and longtime social commentator on race, said on a podcast this month that “the era of a particularly abusive kind of wokeness”—where opinions and speech were policed by the “excommunicator” and the “defenstrator”—has peaked in academia and in the arts. McWhorter said this militancy is “applied to different subjects” now—such as the Israel-Palestine debate, and in transgender advocacy.  “It’s obvious that the leaders of the trans movement, especially since ’20, have taken on that prosecutorial, anti-reasoning attitude,” McWhorter said. “And I hate to say that a lot of them are still doing it, and they’re modeling that on what they hoped would work in 2020 and 2021.” The continuing wave of social justice consciousness-raising will sound familiar to anyone who has been following the issue. State governments in states controlled by Democrats remain committed to establishing slavery reparations programs. The city of New York has issued a 375-page equity plan that sounds as if it were written in 2020 by Ibram X. Kendi—the bestselling author who argued that “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” And academic conferences by groups like the Modern Language Association and the American Academy of Religion continue to indulge in agitprop chic, featuring such topics as “Unpacking White Dominance” and “Structural Violence and Gendered Resistance.”  In the realm of gender politics, the normalization of polyamory is making inroads in municipal governments and in progressive churches. New York State this month replaced the words “mother” and “father” in the state’s family law with “gestating parent” and “non-gestating parent.” Biological males who say they are girls continue winning trophies in girls’ high school sports. And a federal court recently ruled that a biological male with fully intact male genitalia who identifies as a woman must be granted access to an all-women’s nude spa (see sidebar). Even the Daughters of the American Revolution has been swept up in the rapid social changes. The patriotic heritage group has voted to continue granting membership to transgender daughters who were born as sons.  The persistence and strength of this activism is underscored by the fact that it is happening as the Trump administration, Republican-controlled states, and conservative legal advocates are doing everything they can to stop these ideas from spreading. President Donald Trump has threatened to withhold billions of dollars of federal funding from institutions that don’t comply with his demands to remove DEI, antisemitism, and other social justice activism from the curriculum. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the nation’s leading medical schools for allegedly giving black applicants racial preferences over whites and Asians. Conservative states and a number of private universities have resumed using standardized tests in college admissions. Alabama and Texas have essentially put the state university systems in receivership in a bid to stop professors from teaching Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory to undergraduates.  But not all is as it seems. Some colleges that use standardized testing have different cutoffs for Asians, whites, and African Americans, based on proxies such as school district or other “holistic” indicators. Universities have slashed DEI programs, but subsequently a number of them were forced to fire diversity officers who were caught on camera bragging that their campus is still fully committed to DEI, and university officials have merely rebranded, not eliminated, race-based and queer-advocacy programs.  Core Beliefs The core philosophical premise of wokeness is that social structures and cultural norms privilege some groups and harm or oppress others, creating power asymmetries and inequitable outcomes. Specific to the United States and Europe, males, heterosexuals, whites, and Christians continue to hoard power, privilege, and resources, benefiting from unfair advantage. The way to address this unjust dominance is through redistribution—by affirmative action, by diversity programs, by inclusive language, and by education that emphasizes the imperceptible workings of privilege and power—in order to equalize group outcomes. The criteria expand over time for what counts as harm and oppression, so that even challenging progressive beliefs or questioning black and queer peoples’ “lived experience” becomes an offense against the moral order. Meanwhile, the number of victimized identity groups multiplies, creating an endless mission creep that inevitably leads to culture wars and political conflicts.  Reparations for African Americans and descendants of slavery are one of the original progressive social justice commitments. For decades, it was a pipe dream of black activists, but in recent years, it has been taken seriously by policymakers. At least five states and more than a dozen cities have created task forces or commissions to study slavery reparations, according to the Associated Press, and there have been more than 460 reparations initiatives in this country, from commemorations to restitution. This year, Maryland became the latest state to vote in favor of studying slavery reparations for African Americans, establishing a 23-member reparations commission to formulate an apology, assess collective responsibility, and calculate monetary compensation. Last fall, California became the first state to create a Slavery Descendants Bureau to certify black beneficiaries who will receive reparations in “recognition and healing for the savagery of forced human slavery in the United States.” Internationally, the United Nations General Assembly recently passed a reparations resolution declaring the European enslavement of Africans as the “gravest crime against humanity.” Racial equity advocates are keeping a low profile to evade unwanted attention from the Trump administration. One can only assume that these activists have not abandoned their goals but are merely biding their time. However, they have not completely exited the public stage, as evidenced by an ambitious equity plan issued by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Office of Equity & Racial Justice. Among the plan’s statements: “New York’s history has been one of colonization, exploitation, and racial oppression.” The 375-page document lauds Black Lives Matter, honors George Floyd, celebrates “intersectionality,” and describes racism as a “public health crisis.” Citing “grave injustices,” “atrocities,” “other forms of violence” committed against “Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and other People of Color, women, religious minorities, immigrants, people who are LGBTQ+, and people with disabilities” over the centuries, the plan declares: “Because racism is a race-explicit system, anti-racism requires race-explicit strategies.” Land Acknowledgements Another front in the progressive playbook is the recognition of reparations for indigenous tribes that were displaced by European settlers. The wish list for this movement runs the gamut from reciting “land acknowledgments” at public gatherings to the Land Back movement’s pursuit of sovereignty over ancestral lands.  The movement’s ethos is captured in the science journal Nature, a once-prestigious and now highly politicized publication in print since 1869, which ran a piece last summer written by eight indigenous scholars advocating for an “indigenous agenda in science” rooted in indigenous “lived experience.”  “White scholars must recognize, read and cite Indigenous scholarship,” the essay says. “But they must also engage with it in deep, relational ways and be open to fully understanding its messages, even if it makes them uncomfortable—especially, we argue, if it makes them uncomfortable.” The scholars echo the spirit of Ibram X. Kendi and critical race theorists who insist that political neutrality is a myth, and that reluctance to endorse their cause is tantamount to endorsing white supremacy:  “Scientists must also attend to their own racism,” the scholars state. “It is not enough to be non-racist. Structural issues and inequities exist in the Western academy. Those who avoid engaging with racism and colonialism in scientific works and spaces merely promote the status quo.” Transgender politics has now eclipsed racial equity as a rallying point for progressives. Trans “rights” has been a core commitment for Democrats at least since 2012, when then-Vice President Joe Biden first declared that trans rights are “the civil rights issue of our time,” a claim Biden repeated over the years and turned into the moral cornerstone of his presidency while in the White House. The list of the movement’s demands is encyclopedic in scope. It includes puberty blockers with few questions asked, cross-sex hormones for adolescents, and access to sex-change surgeries. Activists also insist on the constitutional right of biological males who identify as women to access women’s sports, changing rooms, and other facilities. Hundreds of K-12 schools ban “misgendering” and conceal student gender transitions from parents if the student requests it. These positions are underpinned by years of scholarship in queer theory and gender theory, which question the moral and scientific legitimacy of binary gender and biological sex (see sidebar).  Of the many political conflicts involving transgender advocacy, one involves Catholic nuns in New York who operate a care facility for dying cancer patients. The nuns were threatened with fines by state authorities who demanded that the nuns assign transgender patients to rooms based on stated gender identity rather than biological sex, even over the opposition of a roommate. The state also says the nuns must use patients’ preferred pronouns, including when the patient is not present, or presumably even alive. The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne have sued New York state officials in federal court to seek an exemption from state policy.  Polyamory Rising Closely related to transgender activism is the push for full legal recognition for polyamory. Consensual non-monogamy is said to be as central to queer identities and the queer “lived experience,” so that discriminating against polyamory becomes a proxy for discriminating against LGBTQ+ people. The mainline Presbyterian denomination, PCUSA, considered a proposal this summer on whether its clergy should be required to be monogamous or if they can engage in consensual extramarital relations or non-monogamous sex. Notably, the denomination did not reject the idea outright but referred it to further study.  The queer-affirming group, More Light Presbyterians, released a statement saying that enforcing monogamy is tantamount to discrimination  and that a Presbyterian vote for monogamy “will inevitably be experienced and enacted as an attack on queerness.” The normalization of polyamory continues generating breathlessly supportive coverage from elite media that legitimizes and glamorizes free love: Scientific American (“An anthropologist’s detailed research shows polyamorists focus on intimacy and honesty, not sleeping around”), Los Angeles Times (“People in polyamorous relationships fight ‘shame,’ demand legal protections”), and The Guardian (“Polyamorous Americans are celebrating new laws establishing their ‘inherent worth and dignity’”).  Not everyone in the world of arts and letters is so sanguine about the imminent demise of a protean ideology that seems to have nine lives.  As the sombrero-flaunting novelist Lionel Shriver has observed: “This dogma has infected all our institutions like a fungus. It won’t be easy to eradicate. Ever notice how quickly, after a full complement of treatments, athlete’s foot comes right back?” This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

RealClearWire—In 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency tried to make it harder for hospitals to obtain essential sterilized medical equipment by threatening to regulate the American industry out of business. Two years later, the EPA is finally safeguarding the medical equipment supply chain by rescinding a damaging and badly conceived rule. The rule centers on a substance known as Ethylene Oxide. Although it causes cancer when inhaled at unsafe levels, EtO is a critical chemical used to sterilize half of all medical equipment such as bandages, pacemakers, and surgical kits that cannot withstand other sterilization methods. In a 2024 Final Rule, the EPA tried to force medical sterilization centers to build near-perfect infrastructure to reduce their EtO emissions to 0.1%. Under the previous standard, the EPA allowed only 1% into the atmosphere. To meet the new, more stringent standard, the 2024 Final Rule mandated Permanent Total Enclosure requirements that the EPA is now acknowledging were too expensive and risked shutting down small sterilization facilities. Most PTE systems are custom-designed, and the EPA estimates the annualized costs to implement would be $9.4 million per year, spread across 28 facilities. For larger businesses, adding over $335,000 in annual compliance costs is manageable, but slapping on such a large expense on a small business risks driving them out of business. PTE requirements have also never been tried on such a large scale. The 2024 Final Rule incorrectly assumed that PTE rules in small-scale food and candy packaging warehouses (which are often as small as an average living room) could be applied to facilities that are 25 to 50 times larger. Forcing manufacturing buildings that span tens of thousands of square feet to redesign their sterilization facilities to comply with the new PTE rules would require months of facility shutdowns. This would put a major strain on medical supply chains by shuttering smaller sites that can’t handle that kind of delay. It would also prevent hospitals from procuring the sterilized tools and medical devices they need. The 2024 rule was never implemented and was actually delayed due to industry concerns over its feasibility and the national security imperative to maintain the U.S. medical supply chain. Essentially, the EPA concluded that additional controls beyond existing standards would produce minimal risk reduction at substantial cost. When Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1990, it recognized EtO as a hazardous chemical, while giving the EPA discretion on how to limit EtO emissions. When implementing the EtO regulations decades ago, the EPA originally ruled that the medical sterilization industry was not a significant source of these emissions, as part of its comprehensive plan to reduce EtO emissions nationwide. Currently, there are only 88 commercial sterilization facilities in the entire U.S. Together, these 88 facilities account for less than 3% of total nationwide EtO emissions. When an industry that emits less than 3% of EtO is responsible for sterilizing 50% of the nation’s life-saving medical gear, as a matter of public health it is necessary to balance the needs of the medical supply chain against the minimal EtO emissions caused. Finally, and most critically, there is no other immediate replacement chemical that can deeply sterilize sealed, bulk-packaged medical devices and supplies without destroying delicate plastics or electronics inside. Excessive regulation of an essential chemical may cause firms to relocate their operations abroad. Regulating away the domestic use of the only currently known effective sterilization chemical in many contexts, for questionable environmental and health reasons, exposes U.S medical supply chains to unnecessary risks and artificially reduces economic competitiveness. One only needs to recall the supply shortages of personal protective equipment at the height of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, to appreciate the short-sightedness of regulating such an important medical industry overseas. The EPA is right to reevaluate and rescind the 2024 Final Rule. Overly burdensome regulations would suffocate this vital industry and risk forcing a transition to foreign supply chains for medical sterilization when a domestic industry is already in place and flourishing. Removing this regulation will restore a balanced, scientific evidence-based approach to rulemaking that will boost economic growth, maintain existing environmental protections for surrounding communities, and safeguard our country’s medical supply chains. This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.

For many families, summer often means scoping out childcare options while parents continue to work. Some families in low-income neighborhoods turn to Head Start, a program whose very name suggests children should expect to finish their time at one of these centers better prepared for school. But today, after more than 60 years and over $240 billion in spending, the program has fallen well short of that goal.    A new Heritage Foundation report reveals a harsh reality: Head Start centers are overregulated, unsafe, expensive, and fail to deliver lasting results for children.   Head Start sits under a thick, strict set of rules. A recent analysis compared federal Head Start rules with state childcare rules. It found that nearly all Head Start settings are stricter than state settings.  Moreover, the program is also burdened with bureaucratic red tape that does nothing to help children and families. The second Trump administration is trying to help. In May 2026, the Department of Health and Human Services released a notice of proposed rulemaking to scrap burdensome wage and benefit rules from the Biden administration.   The Biden administration rule imposed sweeping wage and benefit mandates, adding an estimated $2.3 billion in costs. The Trump administration has since proposed rolling back those requirements, noting that the “requirements are beyond statutory authority, in addition to being overly prescriptive and costly.”   On top of that, taxpayers spend more per child for Head Start than for many other childcare options. A recent report from HHS found that the median spending per child is $20,294 in Early Head Start and $14,532 in Head Start preschool, which serves children ages 3 to 5. These sums match or exceed the cost of many private centers.   In some states, Head Start spending even tops K-12 public school spending per pupil. In Idaho, federal taxpayers spend $20,400 on the average Head Start slot, compared with approximately $13,300 in average public K-12 spending per child. In Utah, the average Head Start figure is more than $18,600, which is $4,500 more than the state’s average K-12 per-pupil.  Given these costs, taxpayers and families should expect strong outcomes. But the most rigorous research shows otherwise.   Congress mandated a large-scale evaluation of Head Start in 1998 using randomized controlled trials, the gold standard in social science. The results, released in 2010 and 2012, found that the program produced little to no lasting academic or behavioral benefits for participating children. More recent studies that have found positive outcomes used less rigorous research designs than the longitudinal study that began in 1998.  Beyond effectiveness, Head Start has also faced serious concerns about oversight and child safety. In 2011, the HHS Office of Inspector General reviewed 24 grantees covering more than 175 centers in nine states. None fully met federal or state rules for protecting children from unsafe materials or equipment. Almost 90% failed to fully follow rules for criminal background checks or child abuse registry checks.   Heritage research from 2020 highlighted media reports of abuse at Head Start centers in seven states, five of which were not included in the 2011 report. A 2022 OIG report found that roughly one in four grantees had instances in which children were abused, left alone, or sent home with the wrong adult.   Policymakers should sunset Head Start and prioritize policy changes that give parents more choices and improve transparency. The Trump administration should continue to reduce regulations, including fewer degree and credit-hour requirements for teachers and changes to staff-to-child ratios and group-size limits. HHS officials should also consider regulatory reforms to lower program costs and improve accountability. The reforms in the White House’s fiscal year 2027 budget request and in the administration’s most recent notice of proposed rulemaking are a good start.    Congress should end the program, but federal officials can improve options for children and families through deregulation in the meantime. 

THE DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION— In a late-night speech capping the semiquincentennial anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, President Donald Trump invoked familiar themes of patriotism, bravery, and sacrifice to declare that the story of the United States of America is worth cherishing while being far from over. Though the threat of severe weather delayed the planned conclusion to Independence Day festivities in the nation’s capital, large crowds of determined Americans and visitors were observed surging towards the National Mall to view what the president teased as a record-breaking fireworks display, if not also his speech. The president, originally expected to give remarks around 10 p.m. EDT, took the stage at 11:15 p.m. “That show tonight, you heard it was over. And what happened? You came back,” Trump observed. “And this American flag still waves, proud and free and beautiful. We have thrived and flourished because our founders were great. Our cause was just. Our people are brave. Our culture is exceptional. And our destiny is written by God.” “And as we can see here tonight, after 250 years, the spirit of 1776 still lives within us all,” he continued. “It still roars in the hearts of our nation’s capital. It still burns in the heart of every patriot, thunders through every city and town. And it still lights the entire world with the glow of American liberty. And there is nothing like that.” Punctuating the president’s remarks were numerous living and material manifestations of that enduring spirit. The commander in chief, in a characteristic flair, displayed “flags that have seen a lot,” including one of the nation’s earliest, dating back to 1777. Bearing 13 stars and 13 stripes to represent the number of American colonies who declared their independence from Great Britain 250 years earlier, Trump highlighted a “real deal” flag which flew victorious at the Battle of Saratoga in New York. The battle, considered a turning point in the Revolutionary War, was a key American victory which secured a French alliance. “One out of every 100 Americans gave their lives in the fight for independence,” he reflected while noting the flags “remind us of who these heroes were and what they gave us.” The president then recalled the heroism of William Carney, who escaped slavery to become a Union soldier in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry during the Civil War. Carney was participating in the 1863 assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina when his regiment’s color bearer was shot. Despite suffering multiple severe wounds, he kept the flag raised. When he returned to Union lines, Carney famously stated, “The old flag never touched the ground!” Carney became the first African American to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Likewise, the flag which draped over the casket of Abraham Lincoln in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall was displayed before Saturday’s crowd. Trump then noted the bravery and selflessness of Vietnam veteran and Medal of Honor recipient Colonel Parris Davis as he saluted the colors. Davis, then a captain with the 5th Special Forces Group, led U.S. advisers and an inexperienced South Vietnamese company in a June 18, 1965 assault against a Viet Cong regional headquarters. Facing heavy fire after the strike, Davis refused multiple medical evacuations after being wounded to stay with his troops and directed a counterattack while preventing the loss of any American soldiers. He famously said, “Sir, I’m just not gonna leave. I still got an American out there.” Vietnam Medal of Honor recipient Colonel Paris D. Davis just joined @POTUS on stage and saluted the flag that was draped over President Abraham Lincoln's casket. pic.twitter.com/4DzIguBo4R— DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) July 5, 2026 Trump noted 11 Gold Star families were present at the night’s event and that he would present medals to them recognizing the sacrifice of their loved ones. “In this special 4th of July, we give you our undying gratitude and promise to redeem the sacrifice of your heroes by preserving the America that they love,” he said. “They loved our country. They sacrificed, they sacrificed it all, and these people have sacrificed at all. They’ve been through hell. We love you. Thank you very much. Thank you.” President Trump just brought out eleven Gold Star family members.We honor their sacrifice, and we will never forget the heroes they represent. pic.twitter.com/9mfhiWLxDG— DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) July 5, 2026 Other flags on display for the night’s celebration included one of the first flags to be carried as the fledgling U.S. sought to expand its borders towards the west: one from the famous Lewis and Clark expedition from 1803. In addition to the first flag to fly over the Brooklyn Bridge in New York was the banner which flew atop the U.S. Navy’s flagship after sinking the Spanish fleet to the bottom of Manila Bay in the Phillipines during a May 1, 1898 battle of the Spanish-American War. Drawing especially enthusiastic support was Ken Schubring, a 103-year-old World War II veteran who saluted the flag recovered from the U.S.S. Arizona — “a symbol of American defiance” — which was sunk during the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Schubring, then 19 years old, was serving as an airplane mechanic at Wheeler Field, Oahu, Hawaii and resolved to strike back. He made good on his ambitions to fly B-29 bombers in the Pacific theater, serving from the war’s first day to its last. President Trump just brought Pearl Harbor survivor Captain Ken Schubring on stage to salute the flag that went down on the USS Arizona but was raised again with the help of great patriots.GOD BLESS AMERICA. pic.twitter.com/zftGRx7NVf— DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) July 5, 2026 Saluting one of the most iconic flags in American history, the one famously raised on Feb. 23, 1945, during the Battle of Iwo Jima, was 101-year-old Marine Corporal Don Graves, one of the last survivors of that brutal Feb. 19 – March 26 amphibious assault. President Trump just brought out Iwo Jima survivor Marine Corporal Don Graves to salute the flag that was heroically raised by U.S. Marines over Iwo Jima. pic.twitter.com/Nu7cmZfogH— DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) July 5, 2026 Likewise, the American flag which flew atop the first landing craft of the Allies’ D-Day invasion of Normandy was saluted by 107-year-old Navy Lieutenant Arthur Rose, “who commanded 36 landing craft as part of the largest naval armada in history.” President Trump just brought out Navy Lieutenant Arthur Rose to salute the flag that flew aboard the first landing craft on D-DAY and led the first Americans onto the beaches of Normandy. pic.twitter.com/8r2VVCm8Xd— DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) July 5, 2026 Trump then recalled a story of a mother and daughter in Nazi-occuppied Belgium stitching together a homemade American flag as a plea for liberation in 1944. On the day they were freed, they gifted the flag to an American soldier who’s grandfather was the famous Francis Scott Key, who authored “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the U.S. National anthem. Present decades later to salute the flag was the next generation of the Key family, including Major Kyle Key, an Army veteran of 23 years. Trump then turned to another battle against a threat to America’s founding principles of freedom and self-determination: communism. “Ever since, the entire world has been on notice that Americans will never let anyone take our freedom away — won’t happen,” he declared. “America will never be a communist country — won’t happen. Communism is a loser, and it always will be. The communist system is the opposite of the American system, and the communist system has never worked.” “Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world, only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America,” Trump continued. “We’re not going to let it happen. We like to stop a threat like that immediately and before it begins. It’s like a cancer: you got to cut it out … fast.” The president also championed flags from America’s technological advancement, from the first flight to ambitions to set foot upon Mars. Joining the crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission, which carried four astronauts farther away from the Earth than any other attempt, was Apollo 17 astronaut Jack Schmitt. Schmitt, who had just reached 91 of age on July 3, was the twelfth and final person to walk on the Moon during the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. These pioneers saluted the flag flown on the Wright brothers’ airplane which marked the beginning of air travel, piloted by Orville Wright on Dec. 17, 1903. Trump then revealed the flag which would be brought upon the planned Artemis IV mission to return Americans to the lunar surface was also on display, having been flown atop the U.S. Capitol earlier that day. “Americans must never forget that we are a historic and heroic people, with a heroic spirit and a heroic purpose on this beautiful earth of ours,” Trump declared. “We are made the courage and the fire and the flesh and the blood of the best and the bravest people this world has ever produced. We are the bravest and the best. Tonight we pledge allegiance to the flag they gave us. And we say, ‘God bless the immortal patriots of 1776,’ and ‘Long live the cause of independence!’ May it reign forever and ever and ever.” “At 250 years old, we may be the oldest constitutional republic on earth, but our country is just getting started because the best is yet to come, he added. “This is only the dawn of the golden Age of America.” Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.