The year is 1790 …

And President George Washington, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson are about to sign the United States government’s first ever patent, the first of over 12 million that will be issued by the U.S. Patent Office in roughly the next two-and-a-half centuries.

Patent No. 1 was granted to Samuel Hopkins, of Philadelphia, for an improvement “in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process.”

Potash was “America’s first industrial chemical,” an “impure form of potassium carbonate, mixed with other potassium salts,” according to the late scientist and MIT professor Henry M. Paynter. During the Revolutionary War, potash was a crucial component in the making of gunpowder, which required saltpeter, or potassium nitrate. The potassium nitrate was made with potash and a nitrogen-rich dung, oftentimes the nutrient-rich poop of bats.

Before Hopkins’ patent, potash was mainly a backwoods production process carried out by colonial settlers, according to Paynter. “In brief,” he wrote, “ashes from huge open fire of hardwood logs were gathered and leached and the resulting solution was then simply boiled down and melted into a crude black potash.”

Hopkins invented a new process by “burning the raw ashes in a furnace before they were dissolved in water.”

“This second burning resulted in much greater carbonate formation, apparently because the free carbon in raw ashes (which partly accounts for the black color) was more completely oxidized and because of exposure to concentrated carbon dioxide gas from the fire,” Paynter wrote.

Potash became a lucrative export for the United States, and, according to Paynter, during the 14-year term of Hopkins’ patent, at least twenty million dollars worth of potash was traded abroad. By 1860, America was the world’s leading producer.

But that would change when Germans discovered they could mine potash directly from natural deposits, wiping out the U.S. industry. For a time, America was fully dependent on potash imports from Germany and other countries before discovering its own mineral deposits in New Mexico, California, and Utah.

Today, though, America produces only 2% of its own potash while importing the rest from Canada.

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Government officials love a roundtable.

Here’s how they usually go: reporters get invited for the beginning, the host offers opening remarks, the key guests take turns thanking the host for having them and advocating for the issue at hand. Then the press gets ushered out so the “real talk” can begin without pesky reporters reporting on every detail.

So what actually happens once the door closes? On Thursday, I flew to Columbia, South Carolina, to find out.

There, the DOJ’s Fraud Division hosted a roundtable with eight U.S. attorney’s offices, seven state attorneys general, five federal law enforcement partners, and more than 50 state officials from seven southeastern states.

They’d come to sign a Memorandum of Understanding, entering them into a data-sharing partnership that gives the DOJ access to “publicly available corporate registration and public benefits payment data held by these state agencies.” The idea is that pooling it will help the department spot fraud patterns faster.

Before any of this was announced to reporters at a press conference, those 50-plus officials packed into a cavernous conference room for the “real talk.” I was the only reporter in it.

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The year is 1975 …

And Jimmy Hoffa, the famous American labor union leader who served as the president of the Teamsters, is pacing around in a restaurant parking lot in Bloomfield Township, Michigan. He is about to disappear and will never be seen again.

Long believed to have ties to the mafia, Hoffa’s disappearance is one of the most mysterious criminal cases in American history. The day he went missing, Hoffa planned to meet with two well-known mafia figures: Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano and Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone.

Tony Pro was a New Jersey Teamster leader and a caporegime (captain or “capo”) in New York’s Genovese crime family. Tony Jack, long acquainted with Hoffa, was also a high-ranking captain, but in Detroit’s mafia, known as the Detroit Partnership.

Hoffa had served prison time from 1967 to 1971 following a conviction on charges of jury tampering, attempted bribery, and wire and mail fraud. He was released early, though, after President Richard Nixon commuted his 13-year sentence. It is believed that Hoffa wanted to meet with Tony Pro and Tony Jack to settle old disputes and regain control of the Teamsters Union.

However, it is also believed that the mafia had much different plans for the Teamsters. Although organized crime previously supported Hoffa’s presidency, they now favored his successor, Frank Fitzsimmons.

Hoffa set up the meeting with Tony Pro and Tony Jack on July 30, 1975. Early in the afternoon, Hoffa left his home in Lake Orion and stopped in Pontiac to visit his friend, former Teamster official Louis Linteau. Linteau was not at his office, so Hoffa left a message, then drove on to the restaurant, Machus Red Fox.

Sometime between 2:15 and 2:30 p.m., Hoffa called his wife from a nearby payphone to complain that they were late and he was getting stood up. His wife said that no one had called his home phone, and he told her he’d be home by 4 p.m. to grill steaks for dinner. Hoffa also called Linteau. Linteau later said this call happened around 3:30 p.m., though the FBI believed it happened earlier. The FBI also believed that Hoffa left the parking lot without a struggle between 2:45 and 2:50 p.m., while one witness said he was last seen getting into a maroon car with three other people.

Hoffa never made it home.

It is widely believed the mob whacked Hoffa. In his 2004 book, I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran and the Closing of the Case on Jimmy Hoffa, author Charles Brandt wrote that Frank Sheehan, an alleged mob hitman and Hoffa’s friend, confessed to killing Hoffa. But this account has been disputed.

Hoffa was declared dead in absentia July 30, 1982, but the case remains open to this day. One rumor is that he was buried in concrete poured for the New York Giants’ football stadium, which opened in 1976. If so, he was never found. The location of his corpse, as well as the identity of his killer(s), is still shrouded in mystery.

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Asia is buying America.

For decades, American and Western capital flowed into Asia. American companies bought Asian firms, as well as Asian assets, fueling the region’s rapid economic growth.

But now, that trend is beginning to reverse: Asian capital is flowing into America and the West more than ever before. The shift has profound implications for the global economy and geopolitics. Yet, nobody’s really paying attention.

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The year is 1862 …

And Union soldiers are about to arrest 18-year-old Isabelle “Belle” Boyd for spying on behalf of the Confederacy.

Working out of her father’s hotel in Front Royal, Virginia, Belle had been wooing Union troops to pry out any valuable secrets that she could then pass on to the rebels. The information she gathered proved quite useful, and in one instance, she gave it to the famous Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, helping him secure victory in the First Battle of Winchester.

Belle would be arrested six times and imprisoned on three occasions. Her willingness to spy for the Confederates appears to stem from an early encounter with Union soldiers at the start of the war in 1861. A group of soldiers had gotten word that she was hanging a Confederate flag in her bedroom. The men came to her house to investigate, at which point one of them cursed out her mother. Furious, Belle pulled out a pistol and shot him dead. She was exonerated, but from then on, sentries were stationed outside the house to keep a close eye on her activities.

After the war, Belle married a Union captain who had previously captured her. She later became an actress, dying on stage in Wisconsin in 1900. She was 56. To say she lived an interesting life would be an understatement.

Over the years, newspapers have had a field day with Belle’s story, dubbing her the “Cleopatra of the Secession”, “The Siren of the Shenandoah”, and “The Confederate Mata Hari”.

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The year is 1794 …

And Maximilien Robespierre, a French lawyer and radical who is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures of the French Revolution, is about to meet his bloody fate – perhaps a fate he fully deserves. His rise and fall, and the most unsavory and barbaric aspects of the revolution, bear a striking resemblance to several modern American political figures and movements, as well as the general atmosphere of paranoia that has engulfed the country in 2026.

Born in 1758 to a lawyer and the daughter of a beer brewer, Robespierre demonstrated a great deal of talent and literary ability early in his life. He was fascinated by the ancient classics and the ancient world, deeply admired the Roman Republic, mimicked the rhetorical skills of Cato, Cicero, and Lucius Junius Brutus, and won a rhetoric contest in 1776 during his school years. He was academically gifted and studied law at the Sorbonne for three years. After passing the bar, he became a judge on a criminal court in 1782, but – in an ironic twist – resigned over ethical concerns stemming from his opposition to the death penalty.

By 1789, Robespierre had secured a position in France’s Estates-General, representing the French-Flanders region. At the beginning of the revolution, Robespierre closely associated himself with the Society of the Friends of the Constitution, a radical political club later known as the Jacobin Club (or simply, the Jacobins). He rose through the ranks and in 1792 was leading the charge against King Louis XVI, fervently pushing for his trial and execution. The Jacobins eventually overpowered another major faction of the revolution, the Girondins, who were appealing for clemency. The king was found guilty of the crimes of conspiracy and attacks on the “public safety,” and in January 1793, the revolutionaries sent him to the guillotine. It is believed that during Louis’ trial, Robespierre looked on from the front row.

This was the peak of Robespierre’s influence. From here, the revolution devolved even further into political infighting, paranoia, and ultimately terror and bloodshed. The country was on the brink of civil war as numerous aristocrats and federalists led uprisings in Lyon, Normandy, and elsewhere. After the assassinations of Louis-Michel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau, the revolutionary who cast the deciding vote in Louis’ execution, and Jean-Paul Marat, a Jacobin leader who was stabbed to death by a young woman as he lay in his bathtub, Robespierre lived in constant fear that he would be the next to die – and he had every reason to be paranoid. Marat’s assassin, Charlotte Corday, was only 24 years old when she committed the murder in July 1793. Corday detested the Jacobins, especially Marat, whom she believed was evil, and was sympathetic to the moderate Girondin faction. When asked during her trial how she knew to strike Marat’s heart, she swiftly replied, “The indignation that swelled my own showed me the place.”

Historians have debated the exact beginning of the French Revolution’s infamous “Reign of Terror,” but many point to September 1793 when the Revolutionary Tribunal began hearing more criminal cases against political opponents under the paranoid “Law of Suspects.” The Committee of Public Safety, established in early 1793, also played a monstrous role in fueling the revolutionary paranoia that swept through France. With broad administrative and spying powers, the committee acted as the state police, forming local networks to root out any perceived domestic enemies of the newly formed republic. Fears that foreign agents were working from within France to sabotage the nation and destroy the revolution’s “progress” worsened what was already a violent and chaotic time.

It is estimated that between 1793 and 1794, approximately 17,000 people were officially executed. Another 10,000 died awaiting their trials in prison, while tens of thousands were killed in unrecorded mass murders in regions that had rebelled against the revolutionary government. The preferred method of execution? The guillotine, which has since become synonymous with the French Revolution, as well as a symbol of the often violent, brutal nature of revolutions and their unintended consequences.

Along with the thousands of commoners and peasants who were convicted of sham crimes and sentenced to death by beheading, Robespierre would also face the music, eventually, in July 1794. At this point, dozens of members of the National Convention had been executed in the Reign of Terror, including the Girondin Georges Danton. Robespierre had turned on Danton after he called for moderation and the pace of terror executions to be slowed and ended altogether, pushing for his arrest and accusing the Girondin of corruption and treason. Danton also faced an unfair trial because Robespierre’s allies refused to allow witnesses to testify in his defense. He was executed in April 1794. All the surviving members now feared that others would turn on them and have them brought before the sham tribunal, as was the case with Danton, or else assassinated in their sleep. Several members feared Robespierre the most, as he was considered to be a particularly ruthless and vengeful man in the wake of Danton’s death.

But it came to pass that Robespierre would be the next Jacobin to receive his violent comeuppance. In what would be his final appearance at the National Convention in Paris on July 27, Robespierre was shouted down by his fellow members but lost his voice and could not muster a response. “The blood of Danton chokes him!” shouted one member, Antoine Marie Charles Garnier. Finally, Robespierre found his voice, yelling out, “Is it Danton you regret? ... Cowards! Why didn’t you defend him?” Robespierre and five of his deputies were later arrested, but managed to escape to the Hôtel de Ville. Accounts differ as to what happened next, but it is believed that as French soldiers stormed into the hotel, Robespierre attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head. He failed, however, when a security guard intervened, instead shooting himself in the mouth. He also failed to escape.

By noon the following day, the Revolutionary Tribunal assembled and sentenced Robespierre and other Jacobins to death without a cursory hearing. They were carted off to the public guillotine, where an angry crowd gathered, hurling insults as they passed. A sketch attributed to Jacques Louis David depicts Robespierre on the day of his execution, with a bandage wrapped around his face and mouth to cover his gunshot wound and secure his broken jaw. Right before the guillotine drops onto his neck, executioner Charles-Henri Sanson rips off the bandage. Robespierre cries out in pain. The heavy steel blade plummets. His head rolls. And the crowd cheers.

It is an entertaining, if extremely bloody story, to be sure. But it also gives us so many valuable insights applicable to modern America.

First, as we celebrate 250 years since Independence Day, we should count our lucky stars that the American Revolution succeeded in the manner in which it did. It just as easily could have spiraled out of control, like the French Revolution, and devolved into chaos and terror. The Founders had their fair share of bitter disagreements. Still, it never reached the boiling point where they imposed violent tyranny on commoners while purging political rivals through hoaxes and sham trials.

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Second, contrary to popular myth, the French Revolution was not a bottom-up rebellion waged against the king by farmers and peasants; it was very much driven from the top down. Robespierre is a prime example of how elites are usually the ones who trigger revolutions as they seek to usurp fellow elites — in Robespierre’s case, the monarchy and the clergy of the Catholic Church. In today’s world, look no further than caviar communist Hasan Piker, who wears luxury designer clothing while calling for America’s working class to seize the means of production, or members of the Democratic Socialists of America who have college degrees from top universities and Ivy League institutions but want to abolish police departments and even the U.S. Senate.

Finally, one way terror spread so rapidly through late 18th-century France was through accusations of treason and sabotage on behalf of foreign agents. This was a key smear tactic used by radicals to character assassinate their opponents, and, in some cases, get them literally assassinated. America is weathering a similar hurricane of paranoia surrounding foreign influence campaigns, commonly referred to as “ops.” “Ops” has probably become one of the most popular words in the political discourse, as “influencers”, pundits, and politicians use it to attack those with whom they disagree, rather than engaging with the substance of their arguments or policy ideas. Of course, foreign influence is a very real problem. On the right, there are, in fact, MAGA-aligned shills who are paid to propagandize for a foreign country. To say nothing of all the foreign money sloshing around Capitol Hill. However, this is a problem overshadowed by the countless – but ultimately baseless – “foreign op” smear campaigns waged by the hivemind of commentators and operatives jockeying for attention and political clout.

Karl Marx famously believed the first French Revolution was a tragedy, but the second, the 1848 coup led by Napoleon’s cousin Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, was a farce. If a coup in 1848 was considered farcical then, whatever sort of revolution is in the air in America in 2026 is uber-farce – a giant, raving carnival of social media clowns. But that is not to say it can do no harm to the country. Speaking for myself, I find clowns terrifying.

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The year is 1980 …

And the last shah of Iran, the “king of kings,” is on his deathbed, repeating the same phrase over and over – “Iran is Iran” – before slipping into a coma and passing away at 9:15 a.m. July 27. He was 60 years old.

After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was sent into exile, bouncing from country to country in what he hoped would be temporary stays. He first flew to Aswan, Egypt, where President Anwar El-Sadat warmly received him. He later stayed in Morocco, a guest of King Hassan II, before briefly settling in a private house in the Bahamas. He then moved on to Cuernavaca, Mexico, where Mexican President José López Portillo hosted him. There, he received a visit from former U.S. President Richard Nixon.

At this point, the Shah was in very poor health. An American doctor who examined the Shah in Mexico later said his appearance had grown “stunningly worse”, that he was “jaundiced”, “emaciated”, and “suffering from hard tumor nodes in the neck and a swollen spleen.” The Shah was offered treatment in Switzerland, but insisted on coming to America instead. After behind-the-scenes politicking and deliberation among government officials — they feared the new Iranian regime would retaliate if the Shah was allowed to enter the U.S. — President Jimmy Carter reluctantly granted permission for the Shah to receive surgical treatment at the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.

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According to a 2018 documentary, “A Dying King: The Shah of Iran,” the Shah was a victim of medical malpractice, which included a series of misdiagnoses, botched surgeries, and the complications stemming from an abscess and later an infection.

“The whole thing is a book of malpractice,” Dr. Jorge Cervantes, a surgeon and former medical advisor to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, said in the documentary.

Another doctor, Oncologist Morton Coleman, treated the Shah in New York. But he said there were “too many cooks boiling the broth and there were huge political ramifications,” referring to the countless government officials, diplomats, and doctors jockeying for influence over the Shah in his final year of life.

Even the Shah’s wife, Empress Farah, described his constant travels and medical interventions amid exile as a “chain of disasters.”

The Shah would succumb to an infection after a splenectomy operation. Shockingly, he did not receive any intravenous antibiotics after the surgery. A French surgeon was called in to do it, but by the time he arrived, it was too late: the Shah had entered a coma.

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White House press briefings are basically reality TV.

They’re built for spicy moments. Reporters use them to deliver monologues or, inexplicably, to audition for a cable news show of their own. For the press secretary, they’re about swatting down “fake news” reporters and skewering the president’s critics.

Which makes it tricky if you’re a reporter who actually wants a real answer.

That wasn’t a problem this week. In fact, on Thursday, I started a feud between the White House and one of the most powerful players in Congress.

While speaking at a rally in Georgia on Wednesday, Trump urged the crowd to call Senate Majority Leader John Thune and pressure him to get the SAVE America Act passed.

Back in May, the president told me he was “disappointed” in Thune for failing to eliminate the filibuster or move the bill forward. But that tension seemed to fade. Shortly after, a source familiar with the president’s thinking told me Trump actually liked Thune — and knew Thune was well-liked by members. It was actually those four or five stubborn senators who wouldn’t get on board that Trump was really frustrated with, the source said.

Wednesday felt different. The president sounded more upset, and this time he was calling on his base to do something about it.

So in the final question of the briefing, I asked Karoline Leavitt about this moment. Was the president’s patience with Thune running thin?

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She didn’t hold back:

“The president spoke about this directly yesterday. His patience is running out. He wants to see as much of the SAVE America Act passed as possible by the August recess. He knows that’s what the American people want to see passed. He was just traveling on the road yesterday, spoke about this, and there was very loud applause from the people in the audience, the everyday Americans, because voter ID is common sense. They want proof of citizenship in our elections, and the president feels very strongly about that,” Leavitt said.

“And I would just add, the American people elected Republicans overwhelmingly to lead not just this White House but also the House and the Senate. The House did its job. The Senate needs to do its job too.”

And with that, she ended the briefing.

On my way out, a few reporters high-fived me. You could feel the tension. The answer was newsy. We started to discuss what the next question would be. Would Thune remain in power? Does Trump want him replaced? And at what point does he take more of an active role on Capitol Hill?

Then came a text from my editor:

“Look what you’ve done.”

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Earlier in July, President Donald Trump, Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Dave McCormick, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon gathered in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, for the first-ever Defense and Innovation Summit to yuck it up with investors about how they are all working overtime to revitalize American industry and defense manufacturing.

Sounds good on the surface, right?

Salena Zito of the Washington Examiner was at the event and covered it – to put it politely – breathlessly. She must have been hyperventilating when she heard Dimon tell Trump, “You reignited that arsenal of democracy that we have in this country, and it’s just critical.” Here’s how she characterized the banking mogul, who was announcing JP Morgan’s $24 million investment in a state-of-the-art submarine facility and worker training programs in Philadelphia’s Navy Yard (a quick side note: Dimon’s total compensation for the fiscal year of 2025 was $43 million):

Dimon’s unvarnished assessment is that of a man who understands that national strength is found in places like Pennsylvania, where laborers, investors, and innovators are at the heart of creating jobs and keeping the country safe.

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I don’t blame Zito for being excited about this at all. She’s from Pennsylvania, and this is good for Pennsylvania’s economy. If I lived there, I’d be excited, too.

The problem is, Zito barely scratches the surface of Dimon’s past and what he has done as CEO of the world’s largest bank. There is an entirely different story to be told here, one that does not treat Dimon as a cartoon superhero swooping in to save American industry with a $24 million investment.

So before any more people give Dimon the histrionic “Titan of Industry” treatment, let’s rewind the clock a bit so we can set the record straighter – and more honestly. There’s a reason Dimon feels the need to

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At first, Karoline Leavitt’s maternity leave barely left a dent. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stepped behind the podium and wooed the press corps. Reporters were still talking about his briefing days later.

Vice President JD Vance filled in twice. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took his swing, earning some chuckles with that dry humor of his. Even Dr. Oz popped by to take our questions.

Over the last month, though, the briefings had simply stopped. And truthfully? Trump doesn’t really need a press secretary. He takes so many questions on his own that briefings can start to feel redundant.

But there’s something about the anticipation of gathering for a briefing. The buzz in the room. The jockeying for a question.

And as much as President Donald Trump takes questions, he rarely takes 40 in one sitting. Karoline does. Her schedule is predictable, too. Which is to say, I like knowing there’s a guaranteed shot at questioning the press secretary. I miss the routine.

Wednesday night, as I was about to head to bed, the White House daily guidance hit my inbox. I scrolled the schedule. And there, at the bottom, was something I hadn’t seen in a while: Press briefing. 1 p.m. With Karoline Leavitt.

She was back.

By Thursday morning, the briefing room was packed again. In a weird way, it felt like a reunion. I exchanged hellos and hugs with White House reporters I hadn’t seen since the last briefing in June.

Then that little voice came over the intercom, and the room hushed.

“Two minutes until the briefing.”

Two minutes later, Leavitt took the podium. She was dressed in pink, like she never left.

I liked my chances of getting a question. I’d worn a red and white dress that stood out in a room of black and gray suits. But right as the briefing began, a tall man sat directly in front of me. Not even my booster seat could lift me over his head.

Panic set in. I leaned all the way to the left, practically into my neighbor’s seat. Annoying, I’m sure. But you do whatever you can to get called on.

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To the Israeli government, enlisting former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale to claw back support among young conservatives who increasingly hold negative or downright hostile views of the Jewish state and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu probably seemed like a brilliant idea. Parscale’s digital influence campaign would all be kept under wraps; none would be the wiser. MAGA social media stars would keep pumping out the posts, and Americans would, after all was said and done, have a rosier picture of Israel and Bibi. In other words, a psyop was needed to convince America that Israel was still an ally.

But boy, did it backfire.

Responsible Statecraft, a publication of the Quincy Institute, first broke the story about Parscale’s registration as a foreign agent of Israel and his pro-Israel psyop, all the way back in September 2025. Since then, more and more stories have been written about the burgeoning scandal, which also involves paid MAGA influencers, though it has not quite reached the levels of scrutiny it truly deserves. Both the Daily Caller and the Daily Caller News Foundation have covered it several times, as well as a Parscale firm’s operation to harvest data from unwitting World Cup fans. Tuesday marked yet another report, characterized by some as a “bombshell.”

Indeed, something feels different about the latest revelations. The scandal seems to be picking up much more steam than it has in previous news cycles. It might be because

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