As US nears 250th birthday Americans doubt it will last another 250 years

BY Gary Varvel

“Will America’s 250th birthday be a celebration or a funeral?”

This sobering question was posed by syndicated columnist Cal Thomas in his book, America’s Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires and Superpowers . . . and the Future of the United States.

Thomas wrote the book as a stark, prophetic warning for America to change its current trajectory. He observed that American history is tracking with terrifying precision alongside The Fate of Empires, a landmark 1978 essay by Sir John Glubb. 

Glubb analyzed the lifecycles of eleven historical empires across centuries and discovered an undeniable pattern: 

they all shared seven distinct stages of development, and they consistently collapsed after an average lifespan of roughly 250 years.

As America reaches its own monumental 250-year milestone, we are forced to confront Glubb’s timeline.

Glubb’s 7 Ages of Empire—and Where America Stands Today

Looking back across our history, it is easy to see how seamlessly the American story maps onto Glubb’s historical lifecycle:

The Age of Pioneers: The rugged exploration of a continent, from Christopher Columbus to Lewis and Clark.

The Age of Conquests: When our Founding Fathers boldly fought for independence from Great Britain to establish a nation of free men.

The Age of Commerce: When our ancestors built great, industrious cities and mastered global trade.

. The Age of Affluence: From the late 1800s onward, which established the robust American middle class and created unprecedented material wealth.

The Age of Intellect: The 20th century, where American technological triumph took mankind from the horse-and-buggy to the moon in less than 70 years.

The Age of Decadence: The mid-20th-century turning point, where the sexual revolution went mainstream, eroding traditional moral boundaries and family structures.

The Age of Decline and Collapse: The final stage, marked by internal defensiveness, deep cultural pessimism, intense materialism, frivolity, a massive influx of an assimilation-resistant culture, the rise of the welfare state, and a severe weakening of religion.

According to a poll by the Trafalgar Group, nearly 80 percent of voters believe that “American society and culture is in decline.” Nearly everyone, regardless of political affiliation, intuitively feels that something is terribly, fundamentally wrong with the country.

But what can be done to stop a historical countdown?

A Spiritual Problem Needs a Spiritual Solution

Politicians consistently act as though the solution to every civilizational crisis is to pass another piece of legislation or spend billions more in taxpayer money. 

But Thomas notes a reality that Washington refuses to acknowledge: more government laws cannot stem the tide of corruption and violence on our streets when we have systematically rejected God’s moral law.

America has a deeply rooted spiritual problem, and it cannot be fixed with material solutions. The Bible provides clear, unyielding warnings about what happens to any nation that chooses to forget God (Deuteronomy 8). If we are to survive past the historical expiration date, the call cannot just be for political reform—it must be a call for the remnant to remember, repent, and return to the God who blessed this nation in the first place.

Reclaiming the Watchtower

To stop the bleeding, Thomas offers a radical but entirely necessary step for families:

 “Remove your children and grandchildren from the public schools and liberal universities that have become progressive socialist re-education camps.”

 We would never dream of sending our military recruits to be trained in the camps of our geopolitical adversaries. Yet, for decades, we have willingly entrusted our children to a educational system that spends eight hours a day dismantling the very faith, values, and history we teach them at home. It is time for parents to aggressively take advantage of school choice. As Thomas brilliantly points out, the secular left is fiercely “pro-choice” when it comes to abortion, but strictly anti-choice when it comes to educating the children who survive.

The clock is ticking on our 250th year. It is time to wake up, step into the gap, and turn America right-side up.

Mullas More Powerful Than Ever! Iran Declares Total Victory! Will Control Hormuz

 

Drudge Report Headline

From the Financial Times

As Iran’s state television blasted out victory anthems after announcing the deal with the US, a new narrative began taking shape in Tehran: the regime believes it has not only survived its greatest crisis in decades, but emerged stronger.

Within the highest ranks of the Islamic republic, nobody would deny Iran is nursing devastating losses. US and Israeli strikes destroyed crucial infrastructure, took the lives of about 3,500 civilians, and killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several senior military commanders.

But regime insiders, Iranian analysts and western diplomats in Tehran agree on one thing: the war failed to bring the radical transformation sought by Iran’s enemies. In fact, the regime, which at the start of the year appeared to be at its most vulnerable, seems more confident than before the war began in February.

“The US made a big mistake. It awakened the sleeping dragon,” said a regime insider. “We paid a huge price, but we activated capacities that we had previously hesitated to use.”

Years of economic hardship, public discontent and the deadly unrest of January had convinced many, both inside and outside Iran, that the 47-year-old theocracy would struggle to survive a full-scale confrontation involving the US and Israel. Two years of regional conflict had dealt devastating blows to Tehran and its proxies.

Now, it has managed its leadership transition and taken charge of a priceless geopolitical weapon that it previously hesitated to deploy: asserting control over the narrow waterway through which one-fifth of global oil and gas passed before the war.

It has also struck energy infrastructure and riled Washington’s allies in the Gulf, while the US and Israel have failed to convince Iranians to rise up against the regime.

“The war fitted perfectly into their ideology and what they had been preparing for over decades,” said a senior western diplomat in Tehran. “It strengthened them.”

Trump Announces Qatar Will be investing $19.4 Trillion in the USA!

 

🚨WATCH: Trump announces Qatar will be investing around 19.4 Trillion Dollars into the US... because the money they invested so far in promoting Jew Hatred and hate of Israel wasn't enough, they need more... pic.twitter.com/AlB2Xr6BZe

— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) June 16, 2026

Trump’s Iran deal gives the Islamic Republic big wins upfront — and America nothing

 

NYP editorial

Vice President JD Vance’s sales pitch for the Iran deal is simply terrible — but President Donald Trump’s may be worse.

Maybe the reporting on what’s in the Memorandum of Understanding is wrong, but Team Trump keeps confirming some of the worst news.

As best we can tell, the deal does nothing to achieve the aims America started the war with — but does hand Tehran a whole series of gains.

Iran gets at least a few billion in immediate funds and can start selling oil right away, with at least some other sanctions dropped as well.

More, Tehran wins unprecedented authority over the Strait of Hormuz and likely locks in Hezbollah’s dominance of Lebanon.

Recall our goals: The prez opened combat seeking to permanently end Iran’s nuclear threat, and also eliminate its missiles and other offensive capabilities, and we also hoped for regime change.

In this handout provided by the White House, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance sit in the Situation Room as they monitor the mission that took out three Iranian nuclear enrichment sites, at the White House on June 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.

The bombing set back its nuke programs, took out a lot of missiles and missile factories and decapitated most of the regime’s top leadership.

All the talks since the start of April have done nothing more — indeed, have only let new Iranian leaders rebuild and regroup, even as the populace suffers.

Why think they’ll change in another 60 days of talking?

Vance’s happy case is that the big prizes for Iran are contingent on its behavior; as he said on “Hannity”: “If they’re willing to behave like a normal country,” quit chasing nukes and funding terror, “then we are willing to actually fundamentally transform our relationship with them.”

But that’s been true ever since the 1979 revolution, and the regime has never gone for it.

Trump, talking with Qatar’s ruler (!), actually claimed the regime has changed, since we killed off so many leaders and those who wound up in charge “are very rational people,” “nice to deal with,” “not radicalized.”

Huh? It’s the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps calling the shots over there now — the goons most committed to the radical agenda.

Trump says he ‘never cared’ about Iran regime change, claims new leaders are ‘not radicalized’

Vance says Iran won’t get $300B reconstruction fund ‘unless they totally transform themselves’

Trump will allow Iran to sell its oil under deal — giving financial boost to Tehran’s regime

Vance, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner never talked to them, only to political fronts for the real powers.

And it’s easy to be “nice” when the negotiations are handing you win after win.

Trump’s proud that Tehran promises to stick to only peaceful nuclear programs, but it’s never stopped making that promise even as it’s never ceased doing the opposite.

“We’ve never had this level of direct communication with the Iranian leadership,” Vance bragged on “Hannity.”

Again: They weren’t talking to the real leaders, just front men.

Sadder still, he claimed: “We’re seeing even people that I would have assumed are hardliners who are kind of saying, ‘Maybe it was a mistake for us to do the things that we’ve done over the last 40 years. Maybe we should turn over a new leaf in the relationship with the United States of America.’”

They were slaughtering 40,000 of their own civilians just months ago; suddenly they’re going to get “normal”?

No: “Hardliner vs. moderate” is just a good cop-bad cop schtick the Iranians have pulled on Westerners for decades — right along with pretending regret over the past.

It’s beyond foolish to think the Iranians have changed just because they say so.

It seems to us that Team Trump doesn’t want to use force to open the Strait, it’s panicking over oil prices and the midterms and just wants to forget its promises to help the Iranian people.

We’d love to be proven wrong, and they haven’t given away the whole store yet.

Other than the cash Tehran takes in at the start, Washington can withdraw its promises as readily as the Iranians always do theirs.

Cross your fingers that the next 60 days show that Iran really has changed — or that the prez and his braintrust have come to their senses.

Lakewood Rav allegedly sent graphic pic, according to explosive sex-assault suit

Miryam Malachi

 A prominent New Jersey rabbi sexually assaulted a single mom — and even sent her a pic of his genitals, admitting, “Not great. But works” — before launching a cyber-smear campaign against her, court papers allege.

Married Rabbi Avraham Appel — who runs an elite rabbinical seminary in the tight-knit Lakewood Orthodox community — used “his position as a rabbi, mentor, and trusted community leader to sexually assault and exploit” mom-of-two Israeli immigrant Miryam Malachi for months, according the explosive Ocean County lawsuit.

Malachi, then a single mom, had approached Appel for financial help with daycare bills “during a period of acute financial distress” in 2020, says her suit filed earlier this year in Ocean County Civil Court.

Appel helped her financially, the lawsuit says. But things took a dark turn in June 2022, when Appel sexually assaulted her as she was home alone, court documents allege.

Appel “forced himself” on Malachi and “took sexual advantage of her” multiple times afterward, the suit claims.

He also sent her lewd texts with “incredibly crude and graphic sexual content,” including descriptions of oral sex, his desire to “squeeze your breasts” and an image of his genitals, the lawsuit says.

Appel wrote under the genitals image, “Not great. But works,” court documents claim.

When Malachi finally threatened to sue last fall, a vicious smear website popped up calling her “A DANGER TO KLAL YISROEL” — roughly meaning a threat to all Jewish people, her suit says.

Malachi claims Appel’s allies even plastered defamatory flyers at her children’s private school, according to the court papers.

Appel allegedly offered $50,000 to buy her silence before his lawsuit threat, a move she “vehemently rejected,” the suit says.

Appel and his lawyers have denied all of the accusations, claiming that the pair only had a “business relationship,” court papers show.

His lawyer, Ian Goldman, told The Post on Tuesday that Malachi’s “credibility, motives, and factual assertions are not only disputed but entirely fabricated.”

Goldman added that the “screenshots are fabricated and form part of what he contends is an extensive extortion and smear campaign directed against him,” and that Appel claims “even a cursory examination of the photographs at issue demonstrates that the individual depicted is not him.”

Appel’s court papers also accuse Malachi of fraud and extortion — and deny any connection to the website.

But subpoenaed records from GoDaddy revealed that the smear site was registered directly to Appel’s cell phone, his brother’s email and his business partner’s credit card, Malachi’s suit claims.

Rabbi Dov Landau orders Wednesday's mass protest cancelled

Rabbi Dov Lando, a preeminent authority in the haredi community, ordered the cancellation of a mass protest planned for tomorrow (Wednesday) over the arrest of deserters, which was expected to involve tens of thousands of haredim.

The decision was made last night (Monday), while preparations for the mass event had already ramped up and had been approved by another haredi leader, Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch.

At a meeting attended by representatives from the Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael political factions, planners were to discuss the detailed arrangements for the demonstration, which was intended to block major roads with massive convoys of slow-moving vehicles.

However, during the discussion an urgent message arrived from Rabbi Dov Lando's home, with an explicit instruction to immediately halt preparations for the event.

Two Charedei Beit Shemesh Girls will have to pay their classmate that they maligned ....80,000 Shekels

 

Two students who spread malicious rumors about their friend at a Chardeie school in Beit Shemesh were ordered to pay her 80,000 shekels. The students spread  word through a dedicated Instagram page that she had sex with her boss, became pregnant with him, and broke up from him. 

In their defense, the students claimed that this was a "prank" and that the responsibility lies with the school for allowing smartphones to be brought into its premises. 

The victim testified in court that her life was harmed as a result of the publication and that she feared for her future.

 She said she felt "her neshama left her body" and that it felt "like I had been shot." 

After the publication throughout the high school, she said that she avoided inviting friends, with some of whom she cut off contact with, and did not even return to school regularly

שתי תלמידות חרדיות יצטרכו לשלם פיצוי בסך 80,000 שקלים לתלמידה חרדית שלמדה איתן בבית הספר, לאחר שהפיצו עליה שמועות שקריות. כך קבע בית משפט השלום בבית שמש.

השמועות שהפיצו הנערות על התלמידה הן שקיימה יחסי מין עם הבוס הגרוש שלה, נכנסה ממנו להיריון ועברה הפלה. את השמועות הן הפיצו דרך חשבון אינסטגרם ייעודי, ואף תלו דפים עם ברקודים בבית הספר שבו למדו.

השופט אלדד לגג התייחס לכך שהפגיעה חמורה במיוחד מכיוון שמדובר באוכלוסייה חרדית. בפסק הדין כתב: “הביטויים שנכללו בפרסום היו משפילים ומבזים באופן מיוחד בענייננו, בשים לב לגילה הצעיר של התובעת כמו גם לכך שהיא נמנית עם המגזר הדתי-חרדי שבו, כידוע, חל איסור חברתי-מוסרי חמור לקיים מערכת יחסים עם בני המין השני לפני הנישואים, קל וחומר לקיים יחסי מין, להיכנס להיריון ולעשות הפלה, כל זאת עם גבר גרוש עם ילדים, בגיל הכפול מגילה”.

בבית המשפט העידה התלמידה שחייה נפגעו קשות בעקבות השמועות הכוזבות, וכי הרגישה “כאילו ירו בי” ושה”נשמה יצאה מגופי”. התלמידות הנתבעות טענו מנגד כי מדובר ב”מעשה קונדס” בלבד שנועד לשעשע את חברותיהן.

In Meah Shearim ,the Tzaddikim are handing out sweets in the shuls because of Israel's "Defeat by Iran"

I have no words how low Chardeim have sunk that they are celebrating what they call "the defeat of the wicked" 

They live in this country and benefit from its infrastructure and the majority get grants from the Zionists directly for each child they have, the pay very little for health care, their garbage is picked up, and they enjoy the street lightings at night and yet they have no hakoras hatoiv.

If Iran should bomb the Zionist State,c"v, do they think that they will be spared? They will be wiped out with their farshtinkina rugelich in seconds together with the Zionists that are frolicking on the beach in Tel Aviv! 

כיון שנתנה רשות למשחית לחבל אינו מבדיל בין צדיק לרשע 

Bnei-Torah block an Old Lady in Wheelchair trying to get treatment

 

Their Rosh Yeshiva are schnorring in the USA to support these Hooligans, and one of the Roshei Yeshiva in the "schnoring contingency" is none other than Rav Bunim Schreiber that called IDF Soldiers "Garbage Cleaners" and this was just weeks after October 7! 

Now Schreiber is spreading a lie that Chilonie Doctors refused to treat him. 

Rav Soleveitchik is now in a hospital, may he have a refuah, and he never complained that someone refused him treatment! 

Rav Landau who is heading this schnorrerei described the baal chesed Shai Groucher  as a mazzik gamur, a “totally destructive person.” And he declared that this should be publicized.

R' Shai Groucher was very close to R' Chaim Kanievski and has written sefarim based on R' Chaim's teachings, but that didn't stop Rav Landau from slandering this Baal Chesed!

So if those on the very top have no respect and see nothing wrong with slandering and speaking Loshon Hara of Shoimrei Torah Umitzvois, why are we surprised that grown men will stop an elderly lady in a wheelchair from getting treatment! 

Harav Bunim Schreiber that called IDF Soldiers "Garbage Men" Alleges He Was Denied Treatment by Doctor Over Charedi Appearance

 

I doubt he is telling the truth, hundreds of thousands of Charedim have been to hospitals and no one has ever complained.... the fact is that he hates the State of Israel, and just two weeks after October 7 when asked by a student if he (the student) should express "hakoras hatoiv" gratitude for the IDF, the Rosh Yeshiva answered with arrogance 

"“There’s no need to express gratitude to soldiers fighting in Gaza any more than to Street Cleaners.”

I sincerely wish him a רפואה שלימה both physically and mentally. I understand he has "yene" machla, and I pray that he recover! 

הפרגוד: כעת בעצרת אלפים בלייקווד: הגאון ר' בונים שרייבר מספר בכינוס של קרן עולם התורה, סיפור מזעזע על השנאה שיש בארץ ישראל ללומדים: הוא מספר שלא עלינו בגלל המחלה הוא הוצרך לרופא, כשהרופא נכנס וראה שהוא חרדי ושמע שהוא רב, הוא יצא ואמר שהוא יחזור ושלח מישהו במקומו, בגלל שהוא בעצמו… pic.twitter.com/F9st6acRp7

— הפרגוד (@moshepargod) June 14, 2026

 A prominent Charedi Israeli rabbi told thousands gathered in Lakewood on Saturday night that he believes he was subjected to discrimination during a medical treatment in Israel because of his appearance as a member of the charedi community.

Rabbi Bunim Schreiber, the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Nesiv HaDaas in Jerusalem and a prominent Israeli Torah scholar who is currently battling a serious illness, told thousands gathered in Lakewood on Saturday night that he believes he experienced religious discrimination during a medical treatment in Israel.

According to Schreiber’s account, he concluded that the doctor did not want to personally treat a charedi rabbi. He did not identify the physician or the medical facility where the incident allegedly occurred.

The rabbi’s remarks drew a strong reaction from attendees and quickly circulated on social media. The allegations could not be independently verified, and no response from the doctor or hospital was immediately available.

The Israeli charedi news outlet Kikar HaShabbat commented on the allegations, describing the account as deeply troubling and saying it evoked historical periods in which Jews faced discrimination and exclusion. The publication noted, however, that Schreiber did not identify the doctor or hospital involved, making independent verification difficult.

Kikar HaShabbat also said that if identifying details became available, it would seek a response from the medical institution regarding the allegations, which it characterized as potential discrimination and disrespect toward a patient based on his religious identity.

The incident comes amid ongoing debate in Israel over tensions between secular and religious communities, particularly regarding the role of Torah study and the charedi sector in public life.

Schreiber is currently visiting the United States as part of a campaign by leading rabbinic figures to raise support for Torah institutions in Israel. His comments were delivered before a crowd of thousands in Lakewood, one of the largest Orthodox Jewish communities in the United States.