CHRISTMAS 2025

After a year of death, cruelty, and ongoing hatred, we’re about to observe a longstanding tradition.  We’ll step back, smile, and sing about peace on earth.  Then, after a few days, it will be back to business as usual.

For the last three years, I’ve penned an imaginary letter from Jesus, telling us what he sees happening here on earth.  This year won’t be any exception.

You can believe what you want or don’t believe what you want.  But here’s what I think Jesus would be telling us.

Hello again, everyone.  Yes, it’s me.  Another trip around the sun, when you arbitrarily declare a “new” year, and of course, do this birthday celebration thing.

I really don’t get it, and I’m not sure I ever will.  I didn’t ask for anyone to celebrate my birth any more than I wanted to start a new religion and have my name stapled to it.

Instead, what I talked about was peace and loving your neighbor.  Helping the poor, and caring for the sick and dispossessed.  Somehow that still gets lost in all the religious hoopla, doesn’t it?      

Oh, you still have that money thing going, don’t you?  Now it’s not just gold, silver and dollars.  It’s crypto, oil, and real estate.  Anything to make the rich richer.

Don’t you think there’s more than enough suffering to go around?  Sudanese are starving, Palestinians have had their Gaza homes blown to pieces and are being murdered in the West Bank, Jews are being killed in Australia, Ukrainians are still caught in a Russian death trap, Haitians are being slaughtered, and Uyghurs disappearing. 

And in America?  You’re abandoning anyone who’s hungry, dispossessed, and poor, no matter what they’ve done for you.  Just throwing them out of the country, sometimes to a certain death.  And you’re the ones who claim to be a “Christian” nation.

It makes me think of what that writer of yours, Mark Twain, supposedly said.  “If Christ were here today, there’s one thing he wouldn’t be—a Christian.”  Or that Indian guy, Ghandi.  “I like your Christ,” he said.  “I just don’t like your Christians.  Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Anyone who’s actually studied my teachings knows that I didn’t have much use for the rich and powerful.  I once said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  I told another rich man that if he wanted to follow me, he should sell everything he had and give it to the poor.

Spoiler alert.  He didn’t do it.  You might pass that along to your billionaire friends.

Don’t think I’m being serious?  Look, I’m the one who drove the money-changers and the wheeler-dealers out of the temple, remember?  And those guys weren’t even trying to sell crypto.

Sorry if I’m upsetting anyone, but don’t you get it?  If you’re going to start a religion and slap my name on it, couldn’t you at least try to follow just a few of my teachings?

And this isn’t just pointing a finger at Christians.  I was Jewish after all.  And Muslims call me ‘Isa and consider me a prophet.  Other faiths also recognize my teachings.

That’s all well and good, but I just wish more of you would actually do some of the things I taught.  You quote me a lot, but usually it’s completely out of context.

Speaking of out of context, what’s the story on this Peter Thiel guy, anyway?  He’s going around spending a small fortune lecturing about “the anti-Christ.”

Huh?  A selfish racist talking about an anti-Christ?  If the guy doesn’t have a clue about me, how’s he supposed to know anything about the anti-me?

Frankly, I don’t think he could recognize an anti-Christ if one slapped him up side of the head with a pitchfork.

But it’s the week of Christmas, and I don’t want to take up too much of your time.  You’ve got meals to prepare, gifts to wrap, plans to make.  Relax by the fire, and maybe take a sip or two. 

And some of you will go to one of those fancy buildings with those pointy things sticking up out of the top.  You’ll sing, listen to sermons, and pray. 

Fine.  But here’s all I ask.  Just do something for someone else.  Someone you don’t know.  Someone who can do absolutely nothing for you in return.  Someone who’s sick, or poor, or lonely, or suffering.  Someone who’s afraid.  That’s where I’ll be.

I’ll be somewhere in Gaza, with a family trying to find shelter because their home has been destroyed.  I’ll be with a family in the West Bank being threatened with death by Israeli settlers.

I’ll be shivering with Syrian refugees in Europe as they ponder whether to try to stay, or make the perilous trip home to a nation still in turmoil.

I’ll be with a mother in the Ukraine praying that her son makes it home from the war.  I’ll be with a wife in Russia who’s just learned her husband’s been killed in a suicide charge ordered by a greedy madman.

I’ll be with a terrified Rohingya girl caught somewhere between Myanmar and Bangladesh.   

I’ll be with a Uygur boy crying in China because he hasn’t heard from his father in months.

I’ll be with hungry Afghan women who have nowhere to turn for their daughters’ education and safety.  I’ll be with an Afghani refugee family in America praying that won’t be sent back to suffer at the hands of the Taliban.

I’ll be with Jewish families in Australia and elsewhere hoping a wave of antisemitism doesn’t destroy their children.

I’ll be with Muslim families in America praying that the tide of antiislamism won’t take away any of their loved ones.

I’ll be with a Pacific Island family whose home is slowly vanishing from rising sea levels.

I’ll be with an African family whose babies are dying because American Aid has been abruptly halted to provide tax breaks for billionaires.   

I’ll be sweltering in a crowded building in Cite Soleil with a Haitian family, trying to not even whisper while men with machetes run past.

I’ll be with immigrant families throughout the United States, afraid to stray from home because of some politician’s vicious lies.

I’ll be with thousands of others on either side of the Mexican border, uncertain of what the coming days will bring.

I’ll be with a father who’s just lost a daughter to an overdose.  A Mother who’s lost a son to suicide.  A family on verge of losing their health insurance.

I’ll be with that trans kid who’s been humiliated and threatened.  I’ll be with the girl who’s just found out she’s pregnant, and has nowhere to turn.

I’ll be with thousands of families who’ve lost loved ones to a gun.

I’ll be with an exhausted young single Mother, crying at the kitchen table because her job as a waitress didn’t bring in enough tips on Christmas Eve to pay for her child’s present.

But I’ll tell you where I won’t be.  I won’t be with Peter, Jeff, Mark, JD, Elon or any of the other tech-bros.  I won’t be with the crypto-daddies or the other billionaires.  I won’t be with the Proud Boys, the racists, the misogynists, or the haters.

Instead, I’ll be with people like me.

So think about this stuff between now and Christmas.  And maybe throughout the coming year, too.

Oh, and if you happen to bump into that Trump guy?  Tell him the next time he tries to use the bible as a prop for one of his speeches, at least have the decency to hold it right side up.  Thanks.

See you down the road.

Jesus

Of the many phony claims made by the current president, few are more outlandish that his promise to “Make America Healthy Again.”  After appointing a conspiracy-theorist attorney with a long track record of wildly inaccurate claims to head Health and Human Services, trump has been full steam ahead in attacking the health of Americans.

The title of this piece is probably a more accurate expression of what “MAHA” really means.

Does that statement seem exaggerated?  Fine.  Let’s lay out the case, point by point.

THE DENIGRATION OF THE NURSING PROFESSION.  As outlined in the “Big Beautiful Bill” that trump demanded, Nursing is no longer classified a profession.  This will make student loans harder to come by, discourage talented potential candidates from pursuing a career in nursing, and serve to further diminish the value of one of the most overworked and underappreciated professions in the country. 

For the record, nursing absolutely is a profession.  It requires brains, compassion, resolve, and muscle. Don’t think so?  Try moving a 400-pound patient who’s thrashing, hitting, and swearing at you.  This is what nurses deal with daily.

trump and junior couldn’t last 5 minutes in nursing.

America already has a shortage of nurses.  “MAHA” is only making it worse.

THE HYPOCRISY OF FOOD SAFETY.  Under trump, our ability to trace contaminated food has been made more difficult, school meal standards for salt and sugar have been rolled back, foodborne illness tracing has been gutted, and work-rules for meat and poultry processing loosened, all threatening food quality and safety.

This, of course, comes from an administration that claims to be focused on a healthy diet.  The facts speak otherwise.  Oh, yes, red dyes have been removed and a super-sweet corn syrup has been replaced by super-sweet cane sugar.  Whoop-di-doo.  It pales in comparison to the damage that’s been done.

WORSENING NURSING HOME CARE.  Skilled nursing care/Long Term Care (LTC)—call it nursing home care, if you’d like—is becoming increasingly important as America ages.  Go ahead, tell yourself you’ll never need it, and neither will anyone else in your family.  You’re probably wrong.

Across the country, as LTCs have been gobbled up by venture capital groups, nursing staffs have been severely cut, and quality compromised.  Under the last administration, standards were set for staffing minimum ratios.  Those have now been gutted under “MAHA,” placing patients at risk.

In addition, 28% of all LTC caregivers are immigrants.  How many are undocumented (or “illegal,” if you’re into that sort of judgmental thinking)?  It’s hard to say, but the numbers are unlikely to be insignificant.  And that doesn’t count those in food services, housekeeping, etc.

As ICE raids continue to become more aggressive, at what point will they enter health facilities?  At what point will they impact the availability of care?

Again, hard to say.  But if ICE drags away a caregiver and leaves your relative lying in a soiled bed that was about to be cleaned, remember that’s what you voted for.

KILLING AFFORDABLE INSURANCE.  Say what you want about the Affordable Care Act (ACA, Obama-Care, whatever you want to call it), but 20 million previously uninsured Americans are now covered with basic insurance.  But that may not last long.

trump—who seems to have an almost insane hatred for anything Obama did—has been working tirelessly to destroy the ACA.  The Big Beautiful Bill is a step in this direction.  Without assistance, millions will now be unable to afford coverage, or at best afford only what can be described as “junk insurance”—insurance with coverage so poor and with such high deductibles, as to render it largely unusable.

Cheap, affordable, and useless. 

Make no mistake.  A lack of insurance kills people.  Preventative care gets avoided, and emergency care is delayed—often until it’s too late.  Thousands of lives are now at risk.  Thank you, MAHA.

KILLING RURAL HOSPITALS.  Rural hospitals already deal with reduced revenue, higher rates of uninsurance, higher rates of Medicaid, and older patients than their urban counterparts.  By ruthlessly promoting Medicare Advantage ( which especially harms rural hospitals), throwing more people off the ACA, and negatively impacting long term care, MAHA is severely threatens care for rural America.

DEI or DIE?  The facts are straightforward, and we’ve known them for years—in America, your sex, your race, where you live, where you work, and what you do can be important factors in your health.  But oftentimes it’s not clear why.  Trying to understand these issues has always been important.

At least until now.  Today, research in the areas of health disparities has been halted, and government websites scrubbed of related information.  Apparently, truth and scientific facts are now considered “woke.”

Tracking disease outbreaks and progression is now much harder.  Understanding contributing circumstances to disease spread will be hampered.  Those of us who are caregivers will be hamstrung.

AIR AND WATER POLLUTION.  Regulations related to limiting air pollution have been gutted, and water pollution standards skewered.  The proven science of man-made climate change has either been denied, or simply ignored in favor of short-term corporate profits.  Your kid has asthma?  Sorry, not nearly as important as a coal company’s bottom line. 

Those who have followed junior’s early career as an environmental lawyer might think he would have something to say about all of this.  But so far, there hasn’t been a peep.  Apparently, his environmental values aren’t nearly as deep as his fealty to trump, without whom junior would just be yesterday’s news, much like any other former drug dealer with a worm-addled brain.

KILLING RESEARCH AND SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE.  Basic research, not just regarding vaccines (we’ll get to that next), but across the fields of biological sciences, has been slashed.  Programs have been eliminated.  Information stifled.  Truth subverted.  Funding for such absurd research programs as cancer treatment has been eliminated.

Not that this is unexpected.  junior has been saying crazy stuff for a long time.  Polio isn’t caused by a virus, but by “toxins.”  AIDS has nothing to do with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), it’s just “lifestyle.”

Then there’s that part about swimming in sewage-polluted water.

For all practical purposes, junior doesn’t believe in germ theory.  Oh, he’d probably deny it.  But his actions tell the story.

Maybe we should detour just a moment and talk about Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis.  In the 1850s, Dr. Semmelweis noted that women who delivered babies with the help of doctors who had recently treated other women with pelvic infections quickly developed the same infections and died.  Semmelweis came up with a radical idea.

There were tiny organisms, he said, in the bodies of the infected women called “germs.”  Doctors were transmitting the germs.  Semmelweis told them they needed to do something different.

 Wash their hands. 

They thought he was crazy.  But women who were cared for by physicians who actually washed their hands saw a dramatic reduction in mortality.  A few years later, newly developed microscopes were able to clearly identify those germs.  Our entire approach of washing, disinfecting, and yes, even mask wearing, arise from the work of Dr. Semmelweis.

Today we recognize him for what he did for women and the entire field of health care.

Well, most of us do.  Apparently not junior.

It’s not germs.  It’s all nutrition, or lifestyle, or toxins, or whatever.  I’d like to know what junior was doing with himself during junior high science.

Then again, maybe I wouldn’t.

Which brings us to:

VACCINES. A full discussion of junior’s insane tirade against vaccines would take days, but I’ll only hit the high points.  He doesn’t think they work. 

Spoiler alert.  They do.  Disease after disease, from small pox to polio to tetanus have been virtually eliminated.  The fall in cervical cancer since the introduction of the HPV vaccine has been so dramatic, we may be able to eliminate it in the next generation.  Some countries already appear to have wiped it out.

Still, junior doesn’t think vaccines are safe.  Spoiler alert.  They are.  Although very rare serious complications can occur, you’re more likely to get struck by lightning.

Of course, this hasn’t kept junior from distorting reality.  His hand-picked panel seems hellbent on delaying or excluding vaccines from children.   Hepatitis B is a potentially fatal virus that can be picked up during childbirth or shortly afterward from blood exposure, nail clippings, or other environmental surfaces that’ve been contaminated by blood or body fluids.  90% of infants infected at or around the time of birth will go on to develop either cirrhosis or liver cancer.  That’s why we give it to the child soon after they’re born.  They quickly develop immunity, and side effects are virtually non-existent.

But junior insists it shouldn’t be given until later.  Why?  Just because.

If you look at the facts you can tell junior is off-base.  When Hep B vaccines were simply “recommended” or implemented for populations deemed “high risk,” significant numbers of children still got infected.  After Hep B vaccine was added to the routine newborn immunization schedule, hepatitis B infections dropped by 99%, a remarkable achievement.  This is what junior wants to take away.

The fact that millions of Americans buy into junior’s dishonest claims that vaccines aren’t properly vetted and then go out and pay outrageous dollars for all kinds of bogus vitamins, supplements, cleanses, and other potions, which have far less research to back them up, would be funny if it weren’t so deadly. 

Influenza is real.  RSV is real.  They can kill you.  And if they don’t, you can spread them to someone you love, and it may kill or severely disable them.

Think about that.

And this just in.  Recent research indicates a significantly lower rate of Alzheimer’s dementia in patients who’ve received the shingles vaccine.  Nothing about it from junior, though.

And of course, there’s COVID.  I’ve written about that plenty of times (references at the bottom).  But let’s add one more thing.  The current junior-controlled CDC claims it’s written a memo describing 12 children who died from the COVID vaccine. 

What children?  When?  Where?  Or for that matter, what memo? They won’t say.  Usually, such concerns would be immediately released, reviewed by peers, and validated. Apparently, that’s not important anymore. 

Suffice it to say Americans will die because of our steps backward in science and medicine.  “MAHA” is proving to be nothing more than hollow words.  Even if we move on in the next election, it’ll still take years to make up our lost ground.   

It’s going to be a rough ride.  Hopefully, someday we can recover, and actually move forward toward a healthy America.

COVID Part 1:  The Virus

COVID Part 2:  The Vaccine

COVID Part 3:  The Masks

COVID Part 4: The Mandates

COVID Part 5:  The Wackos

COVID at 3 years:  Part 1

COVID at 3 years:  Part 2

A little over four years ago, for some odd reason or another, I started writing a blog.  I haven’t quite been able to give it up.

My first post was a tongue-in-cheek letter from the chinese communist party to the people of America.  Now, after four and a half years, maybe it’s time check in again with what The Party would be telling us, if they were being brutally honest.

Dear America,

Hello again, friends and neighbors!  We just thought it might be nice to drop by after four years and say hi.  A few things have changed on our end, but not a whole lot.  We’re still strengthening our military, advancing our technology, building our trade and diplomatic relationships around the world, and growing our economy.  Nothing new here.

But it’s sure been fun watching you guys!

Yeah, we won a few and lost a few when you had Biden in charge.  We strengthened some island bases in the South China Sea and made a little progress in developing trade.  We had a few back on forths on tariffs.  But you guys made real headway.  You cranked up your economic output and standard of living while pulling out of the pandemic better than just about anyone.  And you even eroded our influence in South America, too.

But then you answered our prayers and elected Donald Trump (OK, we didn’t actually pray. We don’t believe in God).

Sure, it’s what we’d hoped for, but we really didn’t think it would happen.  The January 6^th thing?  The sexual assaults?  The felony convictions?  The impeachments?  We’re not saying you guys are stupid, it’s just that. . .well, you are.

But since then, it’s been a lot of fun to sit back and watch you spin out of control.

That Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) that Trump pulled you out of in his first term?  We’re still not formally a member yet, but we’re hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit this year.  And we’ve also signed an upgraded free trade agreement with the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), a group that used to trade primarily with you guys.

So it’s only a matter of time before we’re in with the TTP for good, basically replacing America.

Of course, the South Americans are lining up to do business with us, too.  As soon as Trump started bellowing about tariffs, we inked deals with Argentina and Brazil for soybeans.  As you know (or certainly should know), we purchased over half of your exported beans last year.  But now?  Zippo.

Oh, yeah, we sorta “promised” to start buying again.  Maybe we will.  But if we do, it won’t be anywhere near what it used to be.

With an enormous budget deficit, how much longer do you think you can subsidize your farmers while their markets dry up?  How much longer will it take them to recover?

Your whole anti-vax, anti-climate, anti-science, anti-research approach is wonderful.  We’ve peaked our coal usage, and become one of the world’s innovation centers for green energy (yeah, we know you don’t “believe in it.”  Sort of like evolution, right?)  But regardless, we’re selling solar panels and electric vehicles around the world like hotcakes. 

Sorry Elon.

Which brings us to rare earth minerals.  We really have you in a quandary there, don’t we?  While you’ve been perseverating on “make coal and oil great again” we’ve been cornering the market on rare earths.  Go ahead, tell yourself it’s all about those left-wing electric cars.  The fact is, you need over four tons of rare earths just to build one submarine.

Do we really want to help you with that?  We’ll see.

In the meantime, we’re still developing vaccines (our mortality rate during COVID was less than 1% of yours, in case you’re interested), landing rovers on the moon, developing our own low-level satellite communications system (sorry again, Elon), and pulling in researchers and collaborators from all over the world (the way you guys used to).

And then there’s education. 

We’re expanding our capacity, building our infrastructure, and pumping up our universities.  All of this while you axe your department of education, refuse to teach evolution, deny climate change, defund your institutions, and focus instead on football and the ten commandments.  Oh, and whether or not your kids might catch site of a drag queen.

And our education focus pays off.  We don’t brag, we don’t boast, we don’t thump our chest like some orange-haired buffoon we could mention.  And that means no one sees us coming.

When we dropped DeepSeek on the world, you should have seen those shocked faces at ChatGPT and Google. 

But we’ve learned over millennia that you can’t get cocky.  So let’s just say we’re cautiously optimistic.  We’re expanding our middle class (along with lots of purchasing clout) while you’re eroding yours.  We keep our billionaires on a shock collar while yours roam free, gobbling up any tax cuts.  We keep our streets safe by judiciously using our resources.  You send your troops to cities where the crime rate is already falling, just to score political points.

We play our diplomatic cards close to our vest.  While you’re busy spreading racist nonsense about oppressed white south Africans, we’re building bridges with the rest of the continent.

And yes, at times we’ve cozied up to Russia.  We view Putin as a useful idiot, much like Putin views Trump.  But the fact remains, Russia needs us a lot more than we need Russia.

Or you.

We have to say, though, in a way we envy the whole immigration thing you guys are dealing with.  Plenty of people want to come to your country.  Here, we have foreign workers, but fewer than you.  But we have enough sense to deal with them realistically.  We don’t paint them all with the same brush and call them vermin and poison.

But the fact that you do gives us plenty of cover.  Sure, we’re not the nicest guys.  But increasingly, as the world sees images of troops in your cities, ICE agents beating protesters, children in Africa starving because you’ve cut off their aid, or your leaders posting asinine videos about needing to kill people who are “woke” (whatever that means), the more likely they are to overlook anything we might do.

So that’s where we see it.  You’ve sabotaged your best alliances, cozied up to hated leaders, clobbered your own middle class, diminished and disillusioned your military by purging actual leaders and replacing them at the whim of a clueless TV host (who renames your “Department of Defense” the “Department of War”—the world thought that was really cute), and demonstrated that your foreign and economic policy is completely unreliable. 

Tariffs today, no tariffs tomorrow.  Or maybe fewer tariffs.  Or maybe more.  Or maybe not.

Is it any wonder why no one in the world trusts you anymore?

So do they “trust” us?  Good question.  Isn’t “trust” just a philosophical word for predictability?  The world knows us and can predict where we likely stand.  They know who we are and how to deal with us.

And you?  No one knows who you are anymore.

So we’ll see what happens, America.  But for right now, it looks like you’re locked into your divisionary, economically ignorant, burgeoning police state for the next 3 years.  How much damage will you do to yourself and others in that time?  Who knows?

Oh, yes, and then there’s that gun thing.  Just keep bumping each other off.  You’ve really developed a skill for it.

But one thing is certain.  You’re giving us a great opportunity to grow our trade, our economy, our military, and our influence.

Donald Trump.  The gift that just keeps on giving.

Thank you, America.  Thank you so much!

Love and Kisses,

The Communist Party Central Committee/The People’s Republic of China/Beijing

When I started writing this Blog four years ago, I began with what I imagined an open letter from the Chinese government to the people of the United States might look like.  In a week or so I’ll have a new letter, outlining what America now looks like to the rest of the world.

In the meantime, the biggest news of the past week has been the election results, which were viewed widely as a repudiation of the self-proclaimed greatest president the nation has ever seen.  It wasn’t a good night for the MAGA-sphere.

One outcome was especially gut-wrenching for Trump supporters.  Zohran Kwame Mamdani will be the next Mayor of New York City.

Mamdani’s resume ticks all the boxes for MAGA-hatred.  He was born in Uganda.  He’s a practicing Muslim.  And he’s a self-proclaimed Democratic-Socialist.

Within minutes of the election, right-wing websites were blowing up with posts of 9-11 pictures, along with predictions of future terrorist attacks.  Also on display were predictions that New Yorkers would soon be fleeing the socialist enclave of New York to the south, where states happily live off federal dollars provided by the taxpayers of…well…places like New York.

And finally, there was the assertion that Jews would now be targeted.

Maybe after a few days, we should now confront these claims realistically—that because Mamdani’s a Muslim it makes him a terrorist, because he calls himself a Democratic Socialist, he’ll be a disaster, and because he’s openly opposed to Israeli government policy, he’s automatically antisemitic.

Let’s take them one at a time.  First, his religion.

Islam is nothing new in America.  Members of the Muslim faith have been here since the 1600’s.  Many came as slaves.  Some converted to Christianity.  Some didn’t.

Thomas Jefferson himself owned a copy of the Qur’an.  He specifically mentioned both Islam and Judaism when he spoke about the importance of religious freedom, and the need for “a wall of separation” between church and state. 

Despite what many want to believe, Muslims have contributed greatly to this country—in business, health care, and leadership.  I’ve trained lots of Muslim physicians over the years (along with members of just about every other religion you can think of).  Just like any other group, they are part of the American tradition.  Just like any other group, they’ve contributed to the history of this nation.

Today we have a decidedly right-wing Muslim directing our Medicare program, an extremist Jew functioning as a top Presidential advisor, a Buddhist serving in Congress, and a vice president married to a Hindu.  None of this has caused the sky to fall. 

It has, however, provided fodder to those who want to use religious and ethnic differences to foment bigotry.  Which brings us to John F. Kennedy.

For those too young to remember, John F. Kennedy was President of the United States from 1961 to 1963.  He was young, energetic, forward thinking, and aggressive.  He also had a serious flaw, according to millions of potential voters.

He was a Roman Catholic.

I can remember my Mother (a staunch Southern Baptist) and my Father (a man who took a dim view of just about any organized religion) discussing Kennedy’s candidacy around the kitchen table. 

As a Catholic, wouldn’t he be beholden to the Pope?  Wouldn’t the Pope secretly run the country?  Would Catholicism become our state religion, with students required to either attend Catholic schools, or Catholics put in charge of public education?

The pushback was so intense that Kennedy himself was forced to address it publicly.  At a national Baptist meeting, he said, “I am not the Catholic candidate for president.  I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.”

America listened, and Kennedy won the election.  Sixty years later, when another Catholic named Joe Biden ran for president, religion was barely an issue.

Today, is the anti-Islamic bigotry, the claim that a Muslim mayor must therefore be a de-facto terrorist, any different than the allegations made against Kennedy?  Think about it.

So what about the claim that Mamdani is antisemitic?

I’ve searched for such evidence but haven’t found any.  Mamdani has, however, expressed opposition to the Israeli government.  The two things are vastly different.

Being opposed to the Iranian government doesn’t make me anti-Muslim.  Nor does opposition to the Irish, Swedish, Indian, or Myanmar governments somehow make me anti Catholic, Lutheran, Hindu or Buddhist, respectively.

Although some try to make the case that opposition to Israel is equivalent to antisemitism, such an allegation isn’t supported by the facts.  Yes, some who speak out against Israel are certainly antisemitic (and have appeared on far-right talk shows), but many aren’t.  According to several surveys, a majority of American Jews believe Israel has committed war crimes.  39% agree that Israel is guilty of genocide.  A clear majority support Israeli General Tomer-Yerushalmi, who was recently arrested by the Netanyahu government for exposing horrific abuses of prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Are all of these folks antisemitic, too?  I somehow don’t think so.

Let’s be blunt. Both anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim hatred have no place in America. Both need to be called out and opposed. But neither should be used simply as a label to smear anyone with whom we disagree.

But all of that aside, what about the fact Mamdani calls himself a Democratic Socialist?  A major American city led by a Socialist?  It’s an outrage!  It’s never happened before!

Actually, it has.  Which brings us to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

Often overlooked by its larger neighbor just to the south, Chicago, Milwaukee was viewed as a backwater town on Lake Michigan until 1910.  Then it elected a Socialist mayor.

No, I didn’t say Democratic Socialist. The Mayor called himself a Socialist. Period.

What happened? In short order, the city established a Public Works Department, Fire and Police Commission, and a Park System.  Milwaukee grew and prospered.  Out of the next fifty years, the city would be led by a Socialist mayor for forty.  During that time, no one could argue with its growth, or its fiscal management.  Several years running, it was named “America’s healthiest city.”

It also led the country in beer production, for those interested.

This doesn’t serve as an endorsement of Socialism, Democratic Socialism, or any other political concept.  It does, however, indicate that when a Mayor is devoted to clean government that serves the needs of the people, and is committed to providing an infrastructure that allows both individuals and businesses to prosper, positive things can happen to a major American city.

Which brings us back to Mamdani.

Zohran Mamdani’s success or lack of success as Mayor will be due to his leadership, priorities, and decision making.  It will have nothing to do with his religion or party affiliation.  Those who want to prematurely crown him or condemn him based on either are off base.

But the New York election is a blow to the anti-immigrant hatred that continues to flow in the undercurrent of American politics.  The Great Replacement Theory advocates, who maintain that America is only for white conservative Christians, are undoubtedly seething right now.

In the meantime, Mamdani’s election is just one more indication that America continues to grow and diversify.  Just as it has done for the past 250 years.

donald trump WANTS YOU TO HATE. . .PART II:  THE TRUTH

To anyone paying even a moderate degree of attention, one fact is blatantly obvious.  donald trump has a real problem telling the truth.

Whether it’s Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs, windmills causing cancer, wars ending with a couple of phone calls, claims that top generals are committing treason, or stating Mexico will pay for a wall, trump likes to lie.  Whether he’s a deliberate liar, a compulsive liar, or a pathological liar is certainly up for debate.  But the indisputable fact is, the guy lies.  And he lies a lot.

According to multiple fact-checking source, trump told over 30,500 downright whoppers during his first term, and is just getting ramped up with his blatantly dishonest statements in his second. 

He’s even promoted a website to proclaim these fibs, a site ironically called “Truth Social.”

Given his proclivity for lying, just using the term “Truth” to describe his media site ought to be one more lie to add to the list.  But of course, it’s nothing new.  During the glory days of the Soviet Union (the era to which trump’s buddy putin wants to return), the two major newspapers in Russia were called PRAVDA (TRUTH) and IZVESTIA (NEWS). 

Most Russians were smart enough to see through it.  They had an expression:  “There is no izvestia (news) in PRAVDA, and no pravda (truth) in IZVESTIA.    

You can see where “Truth Social” possibly got its inspiration.

trump apologists always jump in at this point and say something like this.  “He’s not really lying, he’s just exaggerating!  Don’t take him literally!  Don’t even take him seriously!  Just watch what he does, not what he says.”

The problem, of course, is that lying destroys trust.  And trump’s lies—along with his actions based on those lies—are destroying trust here at home and around the world.  More importantly, confronting and calling out lies depends on the willingness of citizens to pursue the truth.

That’s why donald trump wants you to hate it.

Let’s take a look at just a few of the truths trump wants you to hate.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH:  Whether it’s working to destroy the Centers for Disease Control, killing funding for University research, decommissioning satellites that monitor atmospheric change, or replacing seasoned scientists who’ve dedicated decades to improving environmental and public health with political hacks (and calling it “Gold Standard Science”—a pretty big lie in and of itself), trump has used both words and deeds to derail research.

The impact of this attempt to expunge the truth will damage us in two major ways.  First, the direct impact of slowing discovery that could save lives will hurt us directly.  In fact, it will kill some of us.

And secondly, we’ll lose ground to our competitors.  China, the European Union, Japan, and even Canada will blow past us.  Scientists will leave America for other opportunities (it’s already happening).  Discoveries will be made elsewhere.  The lead time to evolve new technologies into marketable products that can grow our economy will shift toward our competitors and our enemies.

This truth is painful.  That’s why trump wants you to hate it.

ECONOMIC REALITY:  The truth is that donald trump inherited perhaps the most robust economy in the history of our nation.  That’s not somehow a “pro-Biden” claim.  It’s simply a statement of fact. 

From the outset, trump’s rabid hatred of this truth hasn’t just led to verbal lies about the economy, it’s led to instigating crackpot ideas that will do massive damage to our economic future.

Radical tariffs, imposed sometimes methodically, and at other times simply out of spite, will kill our trade with other nations.  A massive tax cut favoring the wealthy will skyrocket our deficit.  Leading economists throughout the world foresee worsening inflation, followed by increasing unemployment, and ultimately a recession.

Any soccer fan will tell you exactly what this is.  It’s called an “own-goal.”

Forget economic theory.  Pay attention to history.  It’s clear that cutting interest rates in the face of rising inflation is insane (just Google the Turkish economy under Erdogan).  Yet this is something trump is not only demanding, but trying to force by strong arming the federal reserve board.

Anyone who doesn’t go along, anyone who’s actually committed to the truth?  They’re fired.

Here’s the reality.  After a post-COVID spike in inflation, prices have been declining back to pre-pandemic numbers.  But recent data indicate prices once again increasing, the result, many economists maintain, of trump’s tariff and tax policy. 

trump’s response to this truth?  Kill the ones who tell the truth.    Erika McEntarfer, a widely respected economist in charge of gathering data as the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, because her reports didn’t align with trump’s fantasy view of the economy. 

Her replacement?  A dyed in the wool trump lackey.

Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve Governor who’s refused to march to trump’s tune, is being investigated for shocking crime of not properly filling out a mortgage application.  But no mention of the fact that multiple members of trump’s cabinet have done exactly the same thing.

Will they too be charged?  Don’t hold your breath. 

Let’s be blunt.  The truth is, neither the world—nor the business community—now trusts America’s economic data.  And to those unaware of how the world works, no one wants to do business with an entity that can’t be trusted. 

But that’s just one more truth trump wants you to hate.   

CLIMATE CHANGE AND RENEWABLE ENERGY

Whether it’s called climate change, global warming, or atmospheric science, trump wants you to hate it.  Early on, he called it a Chinese hoax.  Since then, he’s been even more adamant that any evidence supporting this truth should be eliminated.

The earth’s climate is rapidly warming.  Just ask any farmer honest enough to tell the truth.  Growing seasons are longer.  Crops that were impossible to grow at northern latitudes are now grown there routinely.  Lower latitudes are experiencing heat that makes agriculture much more difficult, if not impossible.

In the Rocky Mountains, marmots are coming out of hibernation 38 days earlier than just twenty years ago.

No legitimate climate scientist believes this is some random cycle, or some sort of “act of god.”  Humans are doing this, and the situation is growing more dire.

The potential economic and political fallout from all of this frightening.  Wide swaths of the world could soon become uninhabitable.  If you think people will simply lay down and die in the face of this, you’re crazy.  They’ll do everything they can to get out.

And if you believe we can isolate ourselves from all of this by just “building a wall,” you’re an idiot.

What’s trump’s response been to all of this?  You guessed it.  Lie.  Not just with words, but also with actions.

Shut down information coming in from atmosphere-monitoring satellites.  Demonize renewable energy.  Defund all research that investigates the health risks of climate change.  Withdraw from the Paris Accords, a climate alliance that consists of every developed nation in the world that has a leader with an even-moderate degree of competence. Withdraw from any joint research projects with these other countries that could provide the world with better climate insights.

Extreme weather events present a far greater risk to our security than immigrants.  But ignore that.  Slash funding for weather forecasting and instead throw it all to ICE.

Don’t look for the truth.  Just lie.

In the first half of the twentieth century, fossil fuel titans all but ruled this country.  The oil depletion allowance as well as benefits for the coal industry allowed rapid growth in this field of limited energy. 

Sure, there was some degree of development of hydro-electric power.  This had a significant impact, especially in the west. Thank god trump wasn’t president then.  The Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam, Bagnell Dam (which formed the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri), and many others would have never happened.  They would have been demonized as communist plots.

Today, even by conservative estimates, the oil industry receives $16 billion in federal support each year, while coal receives over $4 billion.  Whether it’s “drill baby drill,” subsidizing coal companies through the “Clean Coal Investment Credit (an oxymoron if there ever was one), or killing incentives for solar and wind power, trump has been doing everything in his power to damage the climate, and increase our dependance on limited sources of fuel.

Most recently, trump suddenly ordered the shutdown of a nearly completed wind energy project that employed over 2500 workers, and would have provide electricity to 350,000 homes.  His reason?  An unspecified “national security risk.”

What is this risk?  Trump won’t say.  But given his track record, I can only assume it will be a lie.

Look, the world can’t just flip a switch and convert to renewable energy overnight.  Everyone understands that.  But right now, with Artificial Intelligence (AI), as well as trump’s latest darling, the crypto industry, both demanding massive amounts of energy, we need every source we can get.  But the truth is, fossil feels are far more polluting and damaging.  We need to be doing all we can to develop alternative sources.

Every second, the world is pounded with 173,000 terawatts of solar energy, enough to meet the worlds energy needs many times over (that’s 173,000 trillion watts, if you’re interested).  Gale force winds are waiting to be harnessed.  Only a country run by idiots would want to deny this, and turn their back on such sources.

Yes, the mining of rare-earth elements has environmental consequences, and we should limit those impacts as much as possible.  But scientists (increasingly scientists in competitive countries) are already developing batteries using sodium chloride—that’s right, good old table salt—which is much more readily available.  How soon before it’s commercially available?  Who knows.  But it’ll probably be somewhere else first.

And maybe in a country that wishes us harm.

But one thing is certain.  It won’t happen here any time soon if we keep denying—and hating—the truth.

OK, THIS JUST SCRATCHES THE SURFACE:  There’s plenty more to say about other things trump wants you to hate.  Books.  Education.  Colleges and Universities.  History that happens to be inconvenient.  And especially anyone who doesn’t look, act, think, or love like him.  But we’re out of space.  More next time.

In the meantime, if you know someone who likes to hate, give them this advice.  Be very, very careful about who and what you hate.

Because that hate might just destroy you in the process.

And that’s a truth I wish our country would somehow acknowledge.

WWJS—WHO WOULD JESUS STARVE?

This post was supposed to be the second in the series “Donald Trump Wants YOU to Hate…”.  There’s plenty to say about that, and what’s happening to our country.  But it can wait.  Something far more pressing needs to be discussed.

Starvation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamen Netanyahu has now joined an exclusive club that also includes Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung, and Kim Il-Jung.  He is willfully, methodically, and deliberately starving people to death.

And no, that’s not an antisemitic statement.  It’s not an anti-Israeli statement (although I could go on and on about the immoral actions of the current Israeli government both in Gaza and against farmers in the West Bank).

Rather, it’s an anti-starvation statement.  But before we talk about the politics, the excuses, and the rationalizations, let’s talk bluntly about how people starve.

I’m not going to use cute little terms like “not enough to eat” or “malnutrition” or “suffering from hunger.”  I’m going to use the word starve.

Without food, the body goes into survival mode.  Energy drops dramatically.  Every ounce of stored fat (if you have any) is broken down for energy.  Once that’s finished, the body starts breaking down muscle, including the heart muscle.  By now, any amino acids that might be directed to the immune system have vanished.  You’re susceptible to any infection that comes your way.  If you’re “lucky” the infection will take you out first.  If not, your body continues to consume itself.

Your brain may come next.  As it deteriorates, you may suffer seizures and hallucinations.  And through it all will be a sense of weakness and fading that becomes overwhelming.

How long does it last?  Anywhere from 3 weeks to a couple of months, depending on the person.

Ever gone without a meal?  No food for a day?  Two days?  A week? How did it feel?

The first time I worked with a medical team in Haiti, I heard children sobbing in the evening.  What’s going on, I asked?  Are they OK?

It’s no big deal, I was told.  They’re just hungry.  They’ll fall asleep eventually.

I heard it night after night.  Those tiny voices have haunted me ever since.

But there’s another sound that’s even more haunting.  Silence.

When starvation progresses far enough, the child has no energy to cry.  They suffer silently.  But up close, you can see it in their eyes.

If nourishment arrives soon enough, the child may survive.  But irreversible brain damage may have already occurred.  And what about the emotional toll?  The fear, the confusion, the anger?

Around the world, people are increasingly pointing to what the Israeli government is doing and calling it for it is.

Genocide.

The outcry includes the voices of thousands of Jews here in the United States, as well as in Israel itself.  Influential Jewish leaders have also expressed their opposition.  As one Jewish history professor said, “I teach courses on the topic of the Holocaust.  I know genocide when I see it.  I’m seeing it now.”

But from the decidedly right-wing fundamentalist Christians of America, the ones who proudly wear bracelets proclaiming “What Would Jesus Do?”  Barely a peep.

General Stanley McChrystal, arguably the nation’s leading expert on counterterrorism, reportedly once said that for every non-combatant you kill in the war on terror, ten new terrorists will thereby be created.

Was he right?  It’s something the Netanyahu government should think about.  Even by conservative estimates, over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, at least half of them woman and children.  Over 400 aid workers, some from the Nobel Prize winning organization World Central Kitchen, as well as dozens of journalists have lost their lives, for doing nothing more than providing care.

And just who carried out those brutal attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023?  I spoke with a Palestinian-American, who knows people in the middle east.  What I was told should give us all pause.

The attackers were primarily orphans.  Young men whose parents had been killed by Israelis.  Young men who were angry, bitter, and hopeless.  Young men who could easily be manipulated by Hamas. 

Even if Israel is successful in crushing Hamas as a political and military entity, what then?  What happens when the children who’ve seen over 60,000 deaths, witnessed starvation, and watched their homes blown to pieces come of age?  What form will their anger, bitterness, and hopelessness take?

Over 30 years ago, Israel sought to undermine the governing body of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which itself had grown out of Yassir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).  They did so by supporting a splinter group that defied the PA.

The group’s name?  Hamas.  And if Hamas is, in fact, destroyed, but Gaza lies in rubble, Israeli settlers continue to murder West Bank Palestinians with no fear of consequences, and life for Palestinians continues to worsen, what does the future hold, especially if General McChrystal is right?

Try to be optimistic, if you can.  But I can see little good that will come out of this.  And more significantly, I doubt that all the military hardware that the tax-payers of the world’s richest country can dish out will forestall what’s coming.

But all of that’s political, isn’t it?  In the meantime, the children of Gaza are starving.  Is the world even listening to those tiny, shallow breaths?

donald trump WANTS YOU TO HATE. . .PART I: IMMIGRANTS

For the last 10 years, donald trump has been continually gaslighting the American people on immigration.  We’re being invaded!  We’ve had an OPEN BORDER!  Immigrants are Rapists!  Murders!  Thieves!  What’s more, “those countries” are sending us their rapists, murders, and thieves!  They’re emptying out their insane asylums!  They’re eating the cats and dogs!

We had an OPEN BORDER! AN OPEN BORDER for God’s sake!  Anyone could come in, no questions asked!  Anyone!  No one was stopped!  No one was sent back!

And all “those people” vote democratic!

If there’s any group of people that you need to fear, to avoid, to scapegoat, and more than anything else, to HATE, it’s immigrants.

These claims are, to be charitable, lies.  I could use a lot of other words here, some of which would begin with the letter “f,” but I won’t.

Trump learned a long time ago that if any single issue could get people enraged, fearful, hateful, and more likely vote for him, this would be it.

So if you’re someone who’s already made up your mind, someone who wants to marinate in your hate and shut off your brain, stop reading now.  Go back to facebook, X, or (gag) truth social, and immerse yourself in trumpisms.

And continue to hate.

For the rest of you who might actually be interested in a reasoned discussion on immigration, its impact today, and where we’re headed in the future, here we go.

America, of course, is a nation of immigrants.  We all came from somewhere.  The Protestant English hit town first, and established their own order.  Pretty much everyone else was denigrated, at least at first.

Germans were stinking kraut eaters.  Irish were illiterate.  Italians were diseased.  Chinese were good enough to build railroads, but then needed to go back.

Over time, all of these groups were able to amalgamate.  They learned English.  They worked.  They thrived.  They became successful.

But they all had to overcome enormous prejudice.  And many came from desperate circumstances.

The Irish arrived in the midst of the potato famine that obliterated their population.  For many, it was escape to America or starve.  For Italians, it was the political and economic upheaval around the turn of the twentieth century.  For Jews, Mennonites, Hutterites, and Amish, it was brutal repression.

Were they all model citizens?  Of course not.  Witness the organized crime elements that existed in every immigrant group.  But this was a decided minority.

Immigration to the U.S. peaked around 1920, fell off as racist laws were implemented aimed at non-whites, then picked back up in the 1960’s.  Along the southern border, people went back and forth to Mexico, regardless of citizenship, doing business (no, capitalism doesn’t recognize borders).  Through it all, though, non-Caucasians were subjected to a higher level of suspicion.  Enter the U.S. on a visitor’s visa and overstay?  No problem if you’re a European.  More significant if you’re not.

Along the way, the U.S. has established quotas for entering the country and legally becoming citizens.  The pathway can be long, arduous, sometimes impossible to understand, expensive, and frequently demanding of legal counsel.

U.S. policy has also long recognized that there will be those who face discrimination and death in their home country, and will seek political asylum in this country.  This has been the case for decades (look up the Cuban boat lift).  But no longer (unless you’re a white south African).

So what’s happening now?  Those seeking entrance to the U.S. are overwhelming confronted with an antiquated and dysfunctional immigration system.  As a result, more people are seeking entry without documentation.

Who’s fault is this?  Republicans blame Democrats for “letting too many get in” so they’ll presumably vote Democratic (evidence?). Democrats blame Republicans for refusing to reform an overwhelmed system because they’re looking for a cause célèbre to win elections, and an “invasion” of immigrants fills the bill.

So let’s look at some facts.

CLAIM:  WE HAD AN OPEN BORDER UNDER BIDEN!

FACT:  Nice try, but there was widespread apprehension of immigrants at the border from 2020 to 2024.  According to the Department of Homeland Security, trump deported 2 million undocumented non-residents during his first term.

Biden? 4,675,000.  Too many?  Too few?  Think whatever you want.  But it doesn’t spell “open border.”

To pacify trump supporters, I’ll even call them illegal, if you want.  It doesn’t change anything.  But if it makes you happy and you continue reading—fine.  Just so you’re also thinking.

CLAIM:  THIS IS AN INVASION!

FACT:  No.  Call immigrants whatever you want, but they aren’t invaders.  Look it up:  Invasion—“the incursion of an army for conquest or plunder.”  Looking for a better life may be something you disagree with, but doesn’t qualify as an invasion.  At its peak, immigrants may constitute 4 million per year—roughly 2 million documented and an estimated 2 million who are not.  Approximately another 2 million are apprehended at the border and sent back.   

Do the math.  In any year, that’s about 1 percent of our population.  It’s the main reason America is growing, and most Western countries aren’t.  At present, an estimated 11 million undocumented people live in the U.S.—barely 3 % of our population.  Hardly an invasion.

And despite the growth in our country’s overall population, the number of undocumented is lower now than it was in 2007, when it peaked at 12.3 million.

CLAIM:  BUT ILLEGALS ARE CRIMINALS!  THEY’RE VIOLENT!  Trump SAYS SO!

FACT:  Wrong again.  All authenticated data indicate that U.S citizens commit violent crimes more than twice as often as illegal immigrants, and property crimes more than 4 times as often.  Using this as a benchmark, in order to make America safer, we should deport all the citizens and keep the immigrants (Note: I tried to check these data on the U.S. Justice Department website, but the page that discussed this was listed as “unavailable.”  Gee, who would have thought?)

CLAIM:  OK, BUT THEY’RE STILL ILLEGAL!  AND TRUMP ONLY WANTS TO GET RID OF ILLEGALS!

FACT:  That’s not what Trump said.  He didn’t say illegal, he just said things like “invasion” “rapists, murders.”  He painted all immigrants with a broad brush.  Those immigrants he lied about and said were eating cats and dogs?  All legal. 

CLAIM:  FINE, BUT trump ONLY WANTS TO KICK OUT THE VIOLENT CRIMINALS!

FACT:  I wish.  So far masked, armor-wearing, rifle-toting ICE agents have arrested plenty of undocumented who have no criminal record in the U.S.  A U.S. citizen was arrested in California, his only “crime” seemed to be because he was Hispanic.  While in custody, he saw agents high-fiving and congratulating each other.  Right. Real tough guys.

Let’s get something straight.  An agency of the U.S. Executive branch has been weaponized in a way that allows it utter immunity.  Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, despite massive spending by their dog-killing leader Noem, have picked up darned few violent criminals.  But they’ve rounded up plenty of defenseless workers, along with anyone who tries to speak up and protest. We’ve never seen an internal threat to our freedom like this before.

White House staffer Stephen Miller, who’s made no bones about his openness to Great Replacement Theory, a racist idea that says only people of European ancestry should be citizens, has stated he wants to round-up and deport 3,000 people a day.  He’s nowhere close.  And he hates it.

What to do?  Change the rules.  Change who’s “really” an American.  500,000 refugees from such places as Afghanistan (some who served beside us in wartime), Venezuela, Cuba, and Haiti have had their status revoked.   They’re hard-working and law abiding.  But now Miller sees them simply as red-meat for his 3,000 a day quota.  And if they’re killed when they’re sent back?  Miller doesn’t care, so why should you, right?

Miller, Noem, and company are demanding massive increases in funding for ICE.  More troops (that’s basically what they are, even though some attacked officers on 1/6), more weapons, more jails, more money.

And don’t get me started on Noem’s new jet.  Maybe should could get one from the Qataris.

SO WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?  WE JUST LET ANYONE IN?  OPEN BORDERS?

No.  I’m saying we deal with immigration logically and not stupidly (which is what the Trump is doing right now).  Reform immigration.  Establish realistic numbers for immigration, based on something other than “them Mexicans is gonna replace us!” 

I’m saying we need to identify and arrest violent criminals JUST LIKE WE WOULD CITIZEN VIOLENT CRIMINALS and deal with them.  Streamline and simplify the process for legal immigration. 

I’m saying don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Go after violent offenders, but leave workers alone.  Give them a chance to apply for citizenship through a more effective process.  Suddenly remove over 8 million workers?  The economic consequences are going to be enormous.  They already are.

Democrats need to recognize we need better border security.  Republicans need to understand that it will never be perfect.  Build all the ridiculous walls you want, and some will still get through.

Demilitarize ICE and return it to its proper role.  Get rid of this 3,000 a day bounty nonsense.  It’s cruel, and it accomplishes nothing.  If anything, its impact is negative, because it encourages agents to go after non-violent immigrants over the violent ones because they are easier targets, and it will boost ICE’s numbers. 

Get back to the work of nation building.  Work to boost trade with countries that immigrants are leaving.  Even far-right Italian President Meloni is working to boost African economies (the source of most of their illegal immigration) in an effort to reduce the number of people trying to flee.

Would that work here?  Not if we’re building trade barriers with the world.

So you’re really serious about immigration?  These are the steps we must take.  It will be hard.  But it will have a lasting effect, and be much more effective than a bunch of high-fiving ICE arrests.

This is what we need to deal with.  But it will be easy to look the other way.  We’re in the midst of going to war with Iran, pouring money into Isreal, erecting trade barriers, implementing tariffs that will skyrocket inflation and destroy jobs, destabilizing the world economy, and making the world much more dangerous than 6 months ago. 

But the immigrant issue will remain with us.  Before we can deal with it, though, we have to stop hating them.   

“Stupid is as stupid does.”—from the movie Forrest Gump, 1994

Charlie Munger, who along with his fellow Omaha, Nebraska native Warren Buffet built Berkshire Hathaway into a multibillion-dollar enterprise, was often asked about the secret of their success.  One question was particularly interesting.

“Are you and Warren just smarter than everybody else?”

“No,” Charlie replied.  “We aren’t smarter than everybody.  We’re just less stupid.”

Those words echo what Mama Gump taught young Forrest (hopefully you’ve all had a chance to see the movie by now).

Forrest wasn’t a bright kid.  Sometimes people called him stupid.  His Mother taught him how to respond to such an insult.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Mama Gump wanted Forrest to understand it wasn’t how much you know, how “smart” you are, that matters.  It’s not how high you score on a test.  It’s the things you do that make you stupid.

God, could the president ever use a big dose of Mama Gump right now.

Since taking office, trump has done plenty of things that could be considered spiteful, corrupt, heartless, and maybe even downright evil. Sending children with cancer off to countries where they’ve never lived.  Spending tax dollars to accept white South Africans, while sending Afhgans who fought beside us back to be killed.  Pardoning fraudsters, thieves, corrupt politicians, gang leaders, and even those who assaulted police officers, if it’s politically (or financially) expedient.  Aiding and abetting the most massive armed invasion since World War II, because he “believes” the invader.  Promoting the idea of building condos over the graves of children.  Cutting staff at Veterans’ Hospitals.  Suddenly and without warning cutting off aid that has led to starvation, disease, and death throughout the world (a Boston University researcher estimates this has already led to the deaths of over 300,00 children).  Hawking everything from cryptocurrency to Teslas, like a slick snake oil salesman.

And that’s just getting started.  I could go on and on.  And each of you could add plenty more.  But today I want to talk about something else.

The things that Mama Gump and Forrest would call stupid. 

THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL (BBB)–OR THE BIG STUPID BILL (BSB).  From massively increasing the deficit to denying Americans health care to shifting even more wealth from the middle class to the rich, this bill might just be the biggest smoke and mirrors exercise in Washington history.  Medicaid is viciously cut on the premise that having a work requirement will magically reduce costs.

Of course it makes no sense.  And historically, there’s no evidence either.  States that have established work requirements have seen no reduction in costs and no increase in employment.  Most everyone who’s on Medicaid and able to work is trying to do so.  All that these state efforts have done is make the process of signing up and getting benefits more difficult and complicated, for both parents and their children. Consequently, more coverage is lost.  And more people suffer.

Look, I practiced medicine for over 40 years.  I saw people from all walks of life.  Some had great employment, others had lousy jobs.  But I never saw anyone who basically wanted to sit on a couch in front of a TV all day stuffing potato chips in their mouths.  But that’s the imagine MAGA wants you to believe.

As I’ve said many times before, anyone who wants to “fix” Medicaid without fixing our entire failing health care system is wasting their time.  And our money.

The Big Stupid Bill (BSB) will skyrocket the deficit, harm rural and safety-net hospitals and nursing homes that depend on Medicaid, trigger legislative cuts in Medicare, increase the number of uninsured, and perhaps worst of all, widen the gap between the rich and poor, which threatens our homeland security far more than any batch of immigrants.

THE STUPID WAR ON SCIENCE EDUCATION.  Slashing research for purely political reasons will bite this country in ways we can’t even imagine (I’ve already written about this).  Attacking education, threatening students, and withholding research funding is simply a political knife in the back of our country’s future.

Where once we were a leader, we’re now not even in the game.  In the past, America trained and influenced scientists and leaders who improved the lives of millions, both here and abroad. 

But quit the World Health Organization, deny the effectiveness of vaccines, quit the Paris Climate accords, deny the reality of climate change, kick out non-American scientists and students?  Someday there will be those who ask, “why did the world turn its back on America?”  The answer, of course, will be that the world didn’t.  It was America who turned its back on the world.

THE PHONEY MAHA MOVEMENT.  You don’t have to have a PhD in microbiology to know that swimming in sewage can make you sick.  You don’t have to have a degree in immunology to understand that vaccines have saved the lives of millions. You don’t have to be a virologist to know that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus.  You don’t have to be a genius to know that research is important to new discoveries that will keep us safer in the future, and that these findings should be shared in an honest, transparent fashion.

But apparently rfk, jr. somehow didn’t get the memo. In addition to cutting funding, spreading wild theories and inaccurate information, and threatening medical journals that publish articles that don’t meet his personal approval, junior also feels qualified to make medical recommendations.

Researchers have been fired recklessly for seemingly no reason.  Important discoveries have ground to a halt.  HIV studies have been halted.  Monitoring diseases no longer happens.  Think none of this affects you?  Check your health by this time next year.

The most recent decision to not recommend the COVID vaccine to otherwise healthy mothers and babies was made without the input from the doctors who usually recommend such changes.  So much for the guy who says, “don’t take medical advice from me” and then proceeds to give you medical advice.

The rollout of the official MAHA policy has also been marred by the fact that some of the references supporting the program don’t even exist.  That’s right.  They appear to be simply made up.

Axing pollution standards will do us far more harm than any benefit gained from banning a few food dyes.  Supporting nutritional programs (which the Big Stupid Bill cuts) would do far more to make America healthy than promoting beef tallow over canola oil. 

Really serious about this stuff?  Then attack it at its source.  Make healthy food available, cut subsidies for high fructose corn syrup (which would hit Nebraska farmers hard), increase taxes on junk food, maybe even treat fast food entities like tobacco companies.

It would all be a step too far for many, but it would be a much more honest approach than what currently is being sold to us as “MAHA.”

THE DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY “DOGE”–OR THE DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT STUPIDITY “DOGS” Common sense should be enough to tell you that turning loose a ketamine, Adderall, psylocibin, and Ecstasy-addled narcissistic billionaire and a group of his twenty-something so-called geniuses with no real-world experience beyond a keyboard and video games, giving them unparallelled access to private information, and then expecting them to somehow make the government more efficient would be a really stupid idea.  But there you have it.

The DOGS fiasco was supposed to save trillions.  At last count, that claim had dropped to around a hundred billion, but most analysts say it’s actually much less.  More importantly, when you factor in lost services, firing and rehiring and firing again and then hiring replacements that need further training, along with the lost productivity that goes with the “Hey, this is Elon!  Stop what you’re doing right now and send me a list of 5 things you did last week, or you’re fired” memos, DOGS saved nothing, but rather added to the budget deficit.

A surgeon who uses a chainsaw instead of a scalpel isn’t going to be more efficient, nor will he do you any favors.  But that’s what dr. musk has brought you.

By now Elon has slinked off to Texas, where I’m sure he’ll be busy building rockets that blow up and cars that no one seems to want.  But in the meantime, we are left with a government that is no more efficient, far less effective, and actually more costly.

THE STUPIDITY OF STARVING REVENUE If you owned a business that was losing money, would your knee-jerk solution be to get rid of your billing department?  Hopefully you’d recognize that that would be a really stupid way to try to save money.

But that’s exactly the approach of this administration.

Despite a tax structure already rigged in favor of the very rich, and evidence of large-scale tax avoidance (remember when trump bragged about it himself?) if not downright criminality, Washington seems intent on shooting itself in the foot when it comes to revenue.  Cutting the IRS budget will ensure more corruption and fewer services to honest Americans who are trying to do the right thing by paying their taxes to support our military and other programs.  It will also worsen a deficit that has brought about a lowering of our credit rating and threatens worsening inflation. 

But that’s less important than who gets to own a bigger yacht.  Or build a new golf course.

THE STUPIDITY OF A TRADE WAR WHERE EVERYONE LOSES So much has been written about the sheer lunacy of the arbitrary, poorly conceived, ever changing trump tariffs that there’s not much point in talking about it.  Threaten tariffs, back off, then do it again, then talk about deals that never happen, all the while sending the stock market on a roller coaster ride.  It’s occurring so often that some investors have even given it a name.

TACO, short for trump Always Chickens Out.

Whether trump follows through with any of this is unknown, but let’s be clear.  For every job (if any) that’s created, there will be others that will be lost.  Trust in America will evaporate (it’s happening already), and the American taxpayer will pay for every penny.  If this were happening under a Democratic president, the Republicans would be screaming that this is basically an added tax.

And they’d be absolutely right.

I have to use the same analogy I used in my last post.  A trade war is like two people taking turns bashing one another over the head with a sledgehammer.  One may finally “win,” but in terms of damage, both of them come out huge losers.

THE STUPIDITY OF REJECTING THE IMPORTANCE OF SOFT POWER Since World War II, America has become unquestionably the strongest nation in the world (although that’s now in severe jeopardy).  But only a small part of it has been due to our military might.  Engaging other countries, fostering economic growth, building relationships, living our values, aiding countries in need, standing up to dictators—these have made America great.  Now, of course, in a transactionally driven administration, none of that matters.  Get rid of foreign students, disengage from any country not run by wealthy despots with throwaway 747s, and put a price on every human transaction seems to be the order of the day.

No matter how strong our military, we can’t fight our way out of this hole.  And increasing isolationism makes it likely that we won’t.

Of course, there’s a lot more than just this.  Our sell-out of our allies and catering to dictators.  And I haven’t even touched on immigration, which is an emotional flashpoint that desperately needs rational discussion.  More on that another time.

In the meantime, consider one more thing about Mama Gump.  Remember why she gave her son the name Forrest?  It was to remind him that (as best I can remember the movie) “sometimes even smart people can do things that don’t make no sense.”

Forrest was named for Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the most disturbing figures in American history.

According to the historian Shelby Foote, the Civil War produced only two people who could be considered true geniuses.  One was Abraham Lincoln.

The other, Foote said, was Nathan Bedford Forrest.  He was the only person to enter the confederate army as a private and come out as a general.  His cavalry tactics have been described as brilliant.

He was also a vicious racist.

Prior to the war, he’d made himself into a millionaire in the slave trade.  He would later say this about the southern cause: “if we ain’t fightin’ this war to preserve slavery, then what the hell are we fightin’ it for?”  On the battlefield, he took captured white soldiers as prisoners and massacred the black ones.

And after the war, he helped start an organization that sadly lives to this day.  The Ku Klux Klan.

Despite this (or maybe because of it), Forrest had his name honored throughout the south well into the twentieth century.  It’s likely that the fictional Alabama town where the Gumps lived had a statue of Forrest somewhere.  Plenty of southern towns did.  It wasn’t until decades later that his legacy was confronted.

Which brings us back to today.  The trump administration is full of “smart” people.  They’ve graduated from all of those same fancy universities that trump now hates, and have all the connections those degrees can buy.  They’re smart enough to come up with all sorts of rationalizations for whatever they want to do.

But that hasn’t kept them from doing incredibly stupid things.  And we’ll all pay the price for this.  Especially the poorest among us. And especially our children and grandchildren.

Stupid is as stupid does.  And I’m afraid in the coming months we’re going to see just how much the wisdom of Mama Gump still holds true.

“When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.” -Lin Yutang, writer and translator (1895-1976)

“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace turns into a circus.” -Old Turkish Proverb

In my last blog post Trump Supporters, Where is Your Red Line? I asked a pretty straightforward question of Trump supporters:  At what point would you be forced to say the president’s actions were so cruel, so wrong, so unamerican, that you could no longer support him?  I gave plenty of examples of actions to which decent folks should say “Enough!  No more.”

Since that time, many of those lines have already been crossed.

What have I heard from Trump supporters?  Nothing.

All I can conclude is that they condone the actions that are causing millions to suffer, or maybe, just maybe, their buyer’s remorse is so great that they find it easier to just avoid the truth.  If it’s the latter, here’s something else they should keep in mind. 

Things are about to get a lot worse.  Just follow the downward trajectory.

As we speak, billions of dollars in additional taxes are slamming America.  But most people won’t see them, because they’re hidden.  But believe me, you’ll pay.

Let’s say you went to a store and picked up an item priced at $50, took it to the counter, and the clerk rang it up.  “$100,” she says.

“What?”  You’re outraged.  “It’s supposed to only be 50!”

“Yes,” the clerk says patiently.  “But the tax is 100%.  That brings the total to 100.”

Admit it.  You’d be mad as hell.  You’d call the mayor, your city council, your congressman, and whoever else you could get hold of.

This is exactly what happens with tariffs.  But it’s all hidden.

Tariffs can lead to what’s commonly called a “trade war.”  What’s a trade war?  Imagine two people standing toe to toe, each holding a sledgehammer.  They take turns bashing each other over the head.

Sooner or later, someone quits.  The other guy proclaims, “I’ve won!”

Maybe he has.  But that’s beside the point.  He’ll also have suffered an incredible amount of permanent damage along the way.  That’s a trade war in a nutshell.

But enough about that stuff.  We saw it coming and did nothing.  Let’s get back to what this post is really about.

What do I mean by a return to the Dark Ages?

I was a child of the cold war.  I was ten months old when America tested its first hydrogen bomb, a weapon so powerful it made Hiroshima look like child’s play.  It was supposed to make us secure for the next century.

It didn’t.  Nine months later, the Soviets exploded their own.  The United States was stunned.  Suddenly American technology wasn’t invulnerable.  In response, we poured money into education and research.

Barely 5 years later, a rocket suddenly launched from deep inside Kazakhstan.  The satellite Sputnik I had entered orbit.  Americans stood in their backyards and watched in awe as it passed overhead.  Suddenly, the most powerful nation in the world was losing its scientific advantage.

The Soviet scientific effort, however, had a significant flaw.  Despite possessing some brilliant scientists and outstanding facilities, the country was an ironclad dictatorship that allowed no dissent.  No matter how talented you were, you had to toe the Communist Party line.  Otherwise, your career was over.

Often, top scientific positions were dished out to party loyalists over those who were better qualified.  This meant that some of the very talent the Russians needed most was sidelined for purely political reasons, not unlike the Soviet military purges that nearly brought down the country in World War II     

America, of course, wasn’t completely free of this sort of political correctness.  Watch the movie “Oppenheimer” and see how some of our best and brightest were marginalized during the Red Scare of the 1950’s.  In addition, gay scientists had to stay rigidly closeted or lose their security clearances.  But for the most part, compared to the Russians, our scientific programs were free of rigid political orthodoxy.

This is why we didn’t just win the space race, but just about any other scientific “competition” you can think of, as well.  US scientists have blown the world away when it comes to Nobel Prizes.  Our discoveries have saved millions of lives and bettered the lives of billions more.

It didn’t happen by magic.  It took a concerted effort, a partnership between government, universities, and industry.  Basic research at the National Institutes for Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was carried forth in universities and private companies.  New discoveries were made.  New treatments were developed.  Diseases that had plagued the world for centuries were all but eliminated. 

And yes, despite what junior tries to tell you, vaccines played a significant role.

But it wasn’t just about medicine.  It was also water purification, crop development (the “Green Revolution, it was called), environmental science, a fuller understanding of the weather and predicting storms, the development of safer air travel.  And this just scratches the surface.

We didn’t view it as nanny state government over-reach.  It was an investment that was saving lives and making the world a better place.

And now all of this is collapsing.  Not unlike the onset of the Dark Ages.

Most of us learned about the Dark Ages somewhere in school, but here’s a brief refresher. Around 400 AD, the research and progress that had been occurring in Europe since the time of the Greeks and Romans collapsed.  It’s been described as a period of economic, cultural, and educational decline, with a healthy dose of superstition, bigotry, and cruelty also mixed in.

It lasted for 900 years.  Nearly a millennium of society moving backward.  It wasn’t until a turn-around we call the Renaissance that things began to improve.

It didn’t have to be this way.  Elsewhere, progress continued.  While Europeans were focused on burning witches, torturing Jews, and keeping the general population illiterate, science was flourishing in China, India, and throughout the Islamic World.  But in what we now proudly proclaim “the Western World” things were a mess.  It was a miserable time to be alive.

How far are we from those days returning?  During the Dark Ages, no learning could take place that contradicted The Church.  Teach that the Earth wasn’t at the center of the universe, and you could land in the slammer.

Before anyone gets rattled, I’m not saying the Catholic Church suppressed science, as many have claimed.  Rather, Science was delegated to a secondary role behind official orthodoxy.

Aren’t we seeing the same thing today?  Religious orthodoxy has now been replaced by far-right political orthodoxy.  Want to kill science?  Easy.  Smear it as “woke,” “leftist,” or “DEI.”

Cut off funding for cancer research at one of the world’s leading cancer research centers.  Make outrageous claims about vaccines.  Spread deliberate lies about infectious diseases, at a time when a virus that can kill a child or render her brain damaged spreads throughout the country.

Tell parents, don’t worry, just give your kid cod liver oil until it poisons their liver (don’t believe me?  Google Texas Vitamin A hepatotoxicity).  Ignore decades of progress, then say “do your own research.”  AIDS is a hoax.  Covid is a hoax.  No Covid isn’t a hoax, because it was caused by the Chinese.  No, it came from us and went to China.  No, it was all a pharmaceutical conspiracy to sell vaccines.  Vaccines are great if Operation Warp Speed developed them.  But no, don’t take them now.  Covid won’t kill you, but the vaccines will.  No, the vaccines won’t kill you if you decide to take them on your own, but the same vaccines will magically kill you if the government mandates that you take them.

That’s right.  Just pick your lie and call it “doing your own research.”

Today, Trump pulled his nomination of a FOX commentator for Surgeon General because his conspiracy theory advisor recommended it, and replaced her instead with someone WHO HAS NEVER EVEN PRACTICED MEDICINE (see, Trump isn’t the only one who can type in all caps).

What’s the qualification for this new, improved selection?  She’s an “Influencer.” 

You just can’t make this stuff up. 

If you’re a woman or a black researcher, you must be a DEI hire and have to go.  Doing any sort of environmental or atmospheric research?  You’re woke, and you’ll be shut down.  Protecting the environment?  You’re a hoax.  Especially if you could bring up any concerns about the Ketamine Kid himself, Elon Musk.

While scientists from all fields are being fired in droves, one area is untouchable—anything to do with SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla, or any other Musk owned entity.  Those are sacred.

This isn’t much different from the Dark Ages, when a privileged few controlled the resources.  The rich got richer.  Many of the rest simply disappeared. 

Whether you receive warning of an impending tornado, whether your home will be flooded during an ever-increasing “100-year event,” whether your air and water will be clean, and whether your food will be safe, are now at significant risk.

And no, none of that can somehow be outweighed by the fact that junior wants to get rid of a few food dyes.

New cures will be delayed, or simply not found.  Treatments will be politicized and withheld if they are deemed “woke.”  Precious resources will be squandered trying to disprove evidence that we’ve known for decades, if not centuries.  Quack cures will become mainstream. 

The superstition of “MAHA,” “anti-DEI,” and “anti-woke” will now trump science.

I’ll go out on a limb here, and say this:  Donald Trump hates science.  Anyone who feels they are beyond questioning, beyond even possibly making a mistake, and beyond being held accountable for anything they do, hates science.  Under Trump’s reign, science education and discovery will wither.  Opportunities will be missed.  Just like during the Dark Ages and the orthodoxic repression of the Soviet era. 

As American scientists flee to other countries, important research will continue elsewhere.  But unlike the Dark Ages, when science flourished outside Europe, the world is a much more connected place now.  Stifle research and science in our country, and it will impact similar work elsewhere.

So if you want to do your own research, go ahead.  But please check your sources.  Are they consistent?  Are they reliable? Are they science based and not politically focused?  Do they sound too good to be true?

And most of all, do they denigrate the very people who’ve spent their lives in labs, clinics, and research facilities, seeking out the actual truth?

This is about all we can do as the Dark Ages begin to return.  Speak up for the truth.

And hope a Renaissance comes soon.

On November 7, 1972, sometime between the hours of 5 and 8 PM Central Time, in a Weston, Missouri Ward I voting booth, my father, Ray Frey, proud union member, staunch supporter of organized labor, a man who never missed a day of work in over 30 years with the Burlington Railroad (though I can remember times when he picked up his lunch pail and trudged out to the car when he probably should have been in the hospital), someone who had known the personal hunger and humiliation of unemployment, a rough-hewn Midwesterner raised by a single mother at the peak of the depression and the dustbowl, an Army veteran of World War II who scratched out extra money on weekends on a tiny farm, and to top it all off, a guy who once rolled a 700 series at a Leavenworth, Kansas bowling alley, did something he otherwise would have considered unthinkable.

He actually voted for a Republican.

Not that he had any great fondness for Richard Nixon.  In fact, he would later describe Nixon using words that should not be repeated in any public forum.  But to him, George McGovern was simply a step too far.  Much to his chagrin, McGovern’s views were too far to the left for him to support.  They represented a red line he just couldn’t cross.

He put his values, his beliefs, and his electoral voice above his party affiliation.  He refused to cross his red line.

Today, with our country, our economy, and our very world spiraling into chaos, maybe it’s time for our nation to reflect on his decision.

To say the last three months of Trump 2.0 have been an immersion in chaos would be an understatement.  Health workers have been fired by the thousands, called back, then fired again.  Long time professionals have been fired (some illegally) simply because they were viewed as not “loyal enough” to Trump.  Law firms who investigated the lies of 2020 election fraud have endured retribution, for simply doing their job.

Those who violently attacked police officers and given years of prison time were immediately pardoned, along with internet drug dealers who caused untold deaths.

A convicted felon was named Ambassador to France.  He just happened to be Trump’s daughter’s father-in-law.  Just keep walking, no nepotism here.

Experienced former cabinet members, many who served under Trump previously, have had their security clearances revoked in Trumpian temper tantrums.  Inexperienced and arguably incompetent appointees have secured spots in government solely on the basis of blind loyalty.

The rule of law has been ignored.

Personal friendships with dictators who murder their own citizens have taken preference over world peace and security.  Aid that helped feed hungry black African children is now too expensive, but we have plenty to “resettle” rich white South Africans.

And of course, the economy.  Tariffs, threats, and tweets have sent a basic message to the world:  you’d have to be an idiot to trust America.  And through it all, a privileged billionaire has been given the keys to the U.S. Government.

Of course, all of this is somehow the fault of immigrants.

Although most Trump supporters would never admit it, they didn’t really think Trump would go this far.  “It’s all just talk.  Don’t take him literally.  He’ll just pardon ‘peaceful’ January 6^th rioters (an oxymoron, I know, but I heard it said quite often), he won’t pardon the violent ones.  Of course he won’t blow up all of our trade relationships, he’ll only impose tariffs judiciously.   He’ll only appoint qualified people.  He’ll only go after waste and fraud (right—one of his first acts was to fire auditors and inspector generals who seek out the fraud), not essential programs.”

Of course, he’s actually done all of this and more.  The only country he hasn’t ordered tariffs on is Russia.

And he’s just getting started.

The potential for economic collapse is real.  Relationships that took decades to build are being shattered.  Science has been denigrated.  Scientists have been fired.  Research has been gutted.  Free speech has been weaponized as an excuse to stifle dissent.  Misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies are tweeted out daily.

This isn’t the America you and I grew up in.  This isn’t making America great.  And if you’re a Trump supporter, down deep, you know this wasn’t what you signed up for.

And don’t give me the excuse of “well, he may be a jerk, but his policies are great.  Just give him some time.  Let this play out.” 

Sorry, In three months, his policies have already done immeasurable damage to our country and the world.

All rulers have adherents who are initially zealots.   The ruler can do no wrong.  We support them no matter what.  We stand behind them regardless of what they might do.

Until they cross our red lines.

So for Trump supporters I have a question.  What is your red line?  Maybe you should be thinking about it.

Will it be when your daughter loses her best teacher because he was fired for opening the wrong book?  When no financial aid is available for the college your son has always dreamed of attending, because the government didn’t like what someone said on campus?  When your kid’s expelled for asking the wrong question?

Will it be when the full impact of the tariffs kick in?  If you’re a farmer, will it be 2-dollar corn, or 5-dollar soybeans?  Canada, Argentina, and Brazil are already gearing up to take our place in the global market.

Or will it be when a tornado blows up without the weather warning that NOAA could have provided, flattening your home?  Can you afford homeowners insurance in such a scenario?  Could an insurer even afford to cover you?

Will it be when tariffs have doubled the price of your medications? When you can’t afford health insurance, and your employer can’t afford to offer it?  Don’t count on a weakened or systematically dismantled ACA to be there to help you out.

What happens when resistant TB hits our shores?  Worldwide, our TB treatment efforts have kept the disease at bay, but that’s ending.  TB today usually takes 9 months of treatment to cure.  Partially treat it, and it can mutate.  What happens when it does?  What happens when it’s someone in your town?

When the next pandemic hits, will we have the means to fight it?  Will we have a vaccine?  And if we do, will a gutted public health program be able to respond?

Will your red line be when the National Park you’ve always dreamed of visiting is closed to give Elon a tax break, or an oil company a spot to drill? 

When your neighbor who’s spent years in the U.S., served in the military, and is a legal resident, gets deported to El Salvador because of something he said?

Will it be when that neighbor kid, who’s really a decent person but sometimes hangs out with the wrong crowd, happens to be in the wrong place when a crime occurs, gets convicted, and sent to an El Salvador prison?  Sound far-fetched?  Trump has already said he’d consider sending Americans to foreign prisons, along with maintaining that the Supreme Court has no power to stop him.

Will it be when your veteran uncle can no longer receive care at an underfunded VA hospital?  When your rural hospital has to shut down because of Medicaid cuts, along with the local nursing home that cares for your aunt?

Or will it be when those wonderful tax cuts you were expecting are eaten up by the billionaire food chain long before they trickle down to you?  Will it be when the tariffs-inspired recession hits us? The one economists and business leaders are warning us about?

Will it be when we stab Ukraine in the back in favor of Russia (regardless of how many atrocities they commit) and call it a “peace treaty?”  Or maybe when Trump is building condos in Gaza over the bodies of dead children?

Will it be when journalists who are pursuing the truth are locked up, while corrupt politicians get off the hook by pledging loyalty to Trump, Eric Adams style?

Will it be when our civil rights are taken away by declaring martial law?  Sound improbable?  Trump is already using wartime rules to justify military occupation at the border.

Will it be when we realize that as a nation we’ve lost our collective soul?

My father served in India during the war.  He witnessed starvation and horrible suffering on the part of the Indian people.  It was gut-wrenching.

But only once did something shake him to his very core.  It was the morning he woke up, saw the horror that surrounded him, and realized it was no longer bothering him.

“My God,” he recalled thinking.  “Am I losing my sense of humanity?”

This from a man who was not highly educated, and certainly not religious.  He had no use for the idea of “souls.”  But he cared deeply for people.

He had his values, and he had his red lines.  And he knew the limits of who and what he would support.

Those on the MAGA bandwagon should think long and hard about all of this.  No matter how much you’d like to deny it, these things are indeed very possible. 

So where is your red line?

More importantly, where is America’s?