The preliminary hearing for Tyler Robinson, the man accused of assassinating Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, has turned into a tense and emotional weeklong courtroom drama. What was expected to be a procedural step has instead revealed a detailed timeline, new evidence, and raw grief from the Kirk family.

Two hundred and fifty years. It’s a number that feels almost too large to grasp — a quarter of a millennium since a group of determined colonists gathered to declare that the people of this land would chart their own destiny. As we celebrate this Fourth of July, we’re not just marking another holiday on the calendar. We’re honoring 250 years of courage, struggle, innovation, and hope that have shaped the United States into the nation we know today.

America has already made up its mind about weed. People smoke it, bake it, vape it, rub it on their elbows, meditate with it, and swear it cured everything from stress to their cousin’s mysterious knee pain. Weed is mainstream. Weed is normal. Weed is practically a cultural accessory at this point. Yet somehow, on the federal level, it’s still treated like a dangerous relic from a government training video in the 1970s.

I may get heat for this, but I genuinely do not care.

There are certain things you do not have to explain to people who were born in the 80s or 90s. We grew up in a different kind of world. A world where we played outside until the streetlights came on, drank water from the water hose, rode bikes without checking in every five minutes, and learned common sense not from a screen, but from life itself.

There comes a time when America has to stop apologizing for enforcing its own laws.

Building a business sounds exciting when people talk about it from the outside.

There is something very telling about people who would rather sneak around behind your back than come directly to you.