American Thought Leaders

It’s rare to see large-scale bronze installations built today. In Washington, D.C., as part of America’s 250th anniversary celebration, Matthew Taylor has transformed the long-neglected Freedom Plaza with a beautiful new memorial celebrating Revolutionary War heroes. He is an artist, filmmaker, and senior adviser at the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Among those featured in the new Spirit of ‘76 installation is Samuel Whittemore, who was 78 when he decided to join the Revolutionary War effort against the British.
“They bayoneted him 13 times. They shot him in the head and left him for dead, and yet he lived another 18 years to the age of 96,” says Taylor.
“The great thing about these soldiers is most of these people either don’t have statues [or] are not very well-known, and this shows that this is the common citizen,” he says.
These were “ordinary people doing extraordinary things to help create and build this nation,” he says.
The equestrian statue of Caesar Rodney—which had been taken down in Wilmington, Delaware, during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests—is now also on display on a new pedestal in Freedom Plaza.
He epitomizes the extraordinary determination of those who secured American independence.
“He had facial cancer and emphysema, and he rode 80 miles overnight in a storm to sign and … be the tiebreaker, Delaware, which would ultimately create the Declaration of Independence,” Taylor says.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Ian Rowe is a charter school founder who believes hard work and accountability—and rejecting victimhood—are the secrets to a good education.

His school Vertex Partnership Academies just celebrated its first graduating class, with students moving on to college, the military, and futures that once felt out of reach in an area where only 7 percent of kids typically graduate college-ready.
His newest project, Westchester Aerospace and Virtues Academy (WAVA), pairs a classical education with a surprising real-world specialty: aviation and aerospace training.
Students will study great books and Western civilization while also learning air traffic control, piloting, aircraft maintenance, airport management, and related trades. The school will sit right next to Westchester County Airport in New York, so students can watch planes and hear real air traffic control, making technical training part of everyday school life.
So why aerospace—in an age when AI is upending every industry?
“While artificial intelligence is going to affect every industry … there will always be a need for some kind of aircraft to transport people from one location to the other,” Rowe says.
“The best defense against the worst excesses of artificial intelligence is to ensure that our students are steeped in the other form of AI—and that is ancient intelligence … virtue, moral formation, character development.”
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Ahead of the Republican Senate primary runoff tomorrow in South Carolina, I’m sitting down with Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) as he and Sen. Darline Graham make their final appeals to South Carolinian voters.

In this episode, Norman dives into his core political priorities, emphasizing fiscal conservatism, securing the integrity of elections through the SAVE America Act, and reforming major entitlement programs.
Drawing on his background in the private sector, Norman said Washington needs more business-minded leaders who understand how to balance a budget and tackle national debt.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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In this episode, Adm. Brian Christine, assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), joins me to break down a major new HHS report on gender medicine, the unspoken consequences of transgender procedures, the incentives involved, and how investigators uncovered potentially millions of dollars in fraudulent billing.
Christine reveals how certain diagnostic codes were used to circumvent both the difficulties of insurance reimbursement and laws in certain states that prohibited transgender procedures. Investigators found that coding for unspecified endocrine disorders accounted for more than $40 million in potentially fraudulent billing for puberty blockers. And a diagnosis of “precocious puberty” was used for over $11 million in billing for patients aged 13 to 17.
Financial incentives combined with the ideological capture of medical institutions create a dangerous mix, Christine warns. But this report, he said, is tremendously hopeful in spotlighting the bad science and bad actors that made the alleged abuses possible.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

A trove of newly released documents, colloquially known as the “Fauci Diaries,” offer an unusually revealing window into the decisions and dynamics that shaped the COVID-19 era.

Jeffrey Tucker spent days reading all the documents—over 1,100 pages of materials—which were prepared within the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and appear to have been intended, at least in part, as the foundation for an autobiography.
Tucker argues that these records offer key insights into what Dr. Anthony Fauci knew, when he knew it, and how that knowledge influenced public messaging and policy.
We discuss the early push for an mRNA vaccine, the influential WHO delegation to China in February 2020, the origins and consequences of lockdown policies, and Fauci’s relationship with the media.
Why did so many countries adopt elements of China’s COVID response? What do the documents reveal about the debate over the lab-leak theory? And why did the vaccination push intensify even as breakthrough infections became increasingly apparent?
We also examine the clash between Fauci and President Donald Trump, the treatment of dissenting scientists behind the Great Barrington Declaration, and the broader question of how the official history of the pandemic will be written.
Dr. Fauci did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.