In the senate, she was a dependable supporter of President Donald Trump and GOP leadership, obediently voting the party line. Her letters to her constituents read like talking points from the Trump administration.

Most people who voted for her probably expected she would be an advocate for the citizens of Tennessee. An effective senator would help shape federal policies so they serve Tennesseans’ interests as well as the nation’s. Sadly, that has not been her playbook. A deep dive into the policies she supports and the impact on Tennesseans shows how those policies were detrimental to Tennessee farmers.

Keep in mind that farmers are the owners of a business; how her policies affect farmers differs only in the particulars versus how her policies impact other business owners.

Inflation and Interest Rates

Farms, like all businesses, require capital. The cost of borrowing money is always an issue, and the interest rate is strongly influenced by inflation, debt levels and the strength of the economy.

When Trump was elected, inflation was 2.7%. It bounced around that value until March 2026, when Trump’s Iran war created shortages and drove up energy prices. Since then (April - July) inflation has averaged 3.6%. This is well above the Fed’s target of 2.0% and will likely drive the Fed to raise interest rates. Bond markets and Fed speeches suggest interest rate increase are likely.

Marsha Blackburn has voted to support the Trump decisions which ignited inflation, increased debt through huge increases in the defense budget while shrinking revenue (tax cuts for the wealthy). With Marsha’s help, our debt swelled to $40 trillion, up from $36 trillion when Trump was inaugurated.

Agricultural Exports Take A Hit

Without any opposition from Sen. Blackburn, the Trump administration imposed tariffs against a wide range of countries — both allies and adversaries. Many of these countries were angered by what they perceived to be unfriendly, unfair and punitive policies from the U.S., and they quickly imposed retaliatory duties on U.S. goods. China as well as Canada, Mexico, the European Union and others restricted U.S. imports like corn, soybeans, cotton, wheat, beef, chicken and pork. Instead of renewing contracts with us, they found other suppliers who were perceived as friendlier and more dependable partners than the U.S.

Farmers have had to find new customers, sometimes at lower prices. The University of Tennessee estimates total losses of about $110 million for Tennessee soybean farmers alone in 2025 on sales of nearly $1 billion. The losses for all row crops (e.g., cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat) are said to total $430 million.

Efforts by the administration (supported by Blackburn) to soften the blow with a $12 billion nation-wide farm aid program has been strongly criticized as an inadequate, short-term non-solution.

When major customers find new suppliers, it takes years to win them back. Often, price concessions are required.

Many of our former trading partners placed retaliatory tariffs on “secondary” manufactured items such as liquor, wines and processed foods made from U.S. agricultural products. It will take a long time to recover that lost revenue.

Back in 2018, Marsha Blackburn expressed “caution and concern” about tariffs, but after briefly clutching her pearls, there is little evidence she actually worked to modify Trump’s policies.

It is worth noting that Republican officials who now criticize Trump are likely to primaried, and Trump’s vengeance can be career-limiting. During Trump’s second administration, Marsha has been especially obedient to Trump, expressing only admiration for him and his policies. It appears she is willing to sacrifice her constituent’s interests to further her own career in the Republican party. She was rewarded with Trump’s endorsement for governor. There are few Profiles In Courage likely to be written about Marsha.

Farm Equipment Costs

While Senator Blackburn’s support for tariffs limited Tennessee’s farmers’ ability to sell their products, other policies she supported added insult to injury — making basic farm supplies more expensive.

Tariffs

About 25% of farm equipment is imported, and tariffs on aluminum, steel and imported machinery increase the cost of such equipment. As tariffs make imports more expensive, U.S. manufacturers commonly react by raising their prices, too. After all, their competitors’ prices just jumped up 10% or 25%, and that gives U.S. manufacturers room to raise their own prices and increase their profit margins. That might be good for the stock market and politicians who actively trade stock, but it does so at great cost to beleaguered farmers.

Iran War

When Trump chose to attack Iran and start an ill-conceived war, Sen. Blackburn was all in. She has not criticized the war and has voted against the War Powers Resolution, which would have blocked military action. She has supported increases to the Department of Defense funding.

That war’s onset has caused the flow of goods through the Strait of Hormuz to be restricted, which has driven up the price of nitrogen fertilizer and other chemicals. Fertilizer normally accounts for 33-45% of operating costs for major row crops like corn. Specific nitrogen and urea products spiked by 25% to 87% as a result of the Iran War, which Blackburn supports.

Closing of the Strait of Hormuz also increased the price of fuel, which adds to the cost of operating farm equipment and delivering product to market.

Immigration and Farm Labor

When ICE enters a rural area and makes arrests, word travels quickly. In Minnesota, they famously swooped down on suspects in large numbers, with an appearance designed to attract attention — masks and a hodgepodge of different uniforms or even street clothes, wave guns in suspects’ faces and threaten by-passers who happen to be nearby. Under Secretary Mullen, that behavior has been partially moderated, but ICE continues to create fear and terror among their victims. Their behavior is modeled after militarized police in autocratic countries more than normal police officers in the U.S.

Michigan State University researchers released results of a survey in farming areas of California showing that under 1% of farmers reported losing workers as a result of direct ICE action (i.e., arrests). However, once an arrest occurred, other workers in the area stay home for an extended period of time out of fear. Both undocumented workers and their family members, regardless of status, avoid leaving their home in these situations. Even documented workers and citizens who should have nothing to fear from a lawful, orderly police force stay home, because ICE has a reputation for arresting people who “look illegal” and asking questions later. Victims of such practices find themselves held for long periods, moved incommunicado to remote locations and treated badly in terrible facilities.

While few farmers lose workers due to direct ICE action, 14% reported losing workers too fearful to show up after ICE action was reported nearby. The work of harvesting crops, milking, packaging meat and the like — simply slows down during the critical harvest window. Processing centers get backed up, forcing farmers to ship their produce to remote locations at great expense.

The effect of ICE activity on farm labor represents yet another burden farmers must bear under policies Sen. Blackburn has championed.

Marsha Blackburn has promoted ICE activity, voted to fund it in its current form, and refused to call for ICE to behave more like a traditional police force. She has promoted cooperation between Tennessee county sheriffs and ICE, which further extends ICE’s reach in the community.

Subscribe now

Hold Blackburn Accountable!

The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, ownership of the nation’s purse strings. Congress has the power to determine our nation’s budgets, tax rates and debt level. Marsha Blackburn has been a member of congress since 2003, first in the House, and then the Senate. During that time — on her watch — our debt has ballooned from less than $7 trillion to its current $40 trillion. This happened, in part, because she and others cowardly relinquished their power to the president as they tried to enhance their own career by “going along to get along.”

The policies Marsha Blackburn supports with her votes are bad for families and Tennesseans. These are not conservative policies; she helped cut needed public services while giving unnecessary tax cuts to the wealthy and squandering enormous sums on a foolish war, historic Department of Defense increases and ICE.

We cannot elect to the governor’s office a person who had a hand in promoting such chaos and economic damage.

Those who wish to vote for an alternative to Marsha Blackburn should check out Jerri Green’s web site; unlike Marsha Blackburn, Jerri Green clearly lays out the policies she supports.

The author has published a shortened, compact version of this article in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

In principle, that gives every American, including the ultra-wealthy, the same right — every citizen can donate as much money as they want to promote their favorite cause. In practice, however, it means an oligarch can donate vast sums so their candidate can essentially buy unlimited advertisements, but the voice of common citizens, who can donate maybe $25, gets lost in the noise. Is there really a level playing field?

An example hit home recently. Literally. A large postcard was mailed to my home this week. On one side has a face-and-shoulders image of a smiling Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee’s current senator, and candidate for Tennessee Governor. The card has a professional, polished appearance, with color-coordinated fonts and images. The 74-year-old Blackburn appears youthful and upbeat. Behind her stands a smiling President Donald Trump. The headline asks the recipient to thank Senator Blackburn for supporting the Regulatory Freedom Act.

The reverse side is set up similarly, but with an image of state senator Bobby Harshbarger (son of U.S. Rep. Harshbarger). The text asks us to thank him for the same reason: supporting the Regulatory Freedom Act.

The Regulatory Freedom Act is a little-known law passed by the Tennessee Legislature to make it more difficult for regulatory agencies to enact regulations, which are often good for citizens and the environment but cumbersome for industry. It was passed with the support of industry groups and organizations promoting small government, including Americans For Prosperity TN, whose name and logo appears on the back of the post card.

Americans For Prosperity (AFP) is part of a family of organizations created by the billionaire Koch brothers. AFP itself has a 501(c)(4) nonprofit IRS status. The IRS gives it a pass on paying income tax, but at the cost of not being permitted to advocate for the election of specific candidates. It has a kissing cousin, the AFP Foundation which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, tax-exempt charity. A third organization is AFP Action, which is a super PAC. AFP also has state branches in 30-odd states. These organizations share offices and staff.

AFP does not reveal who their donors are, although some donors have made their support public.

This sophisticated network of complex organizations was founded by Charles Koch and the late David Koch to avoid taxation and keep donor’s names secret, while permitting them to influence politics in the U.S. In addition to the Kochs, AFP receives funding from other billionaire families as well. Several industries have been reported to contribute, including Johnson & Johnson (pharmaceuticals), Reynolds American (tobacco) and the American Petroleum Institute.

Those donors are serious. AFP’s 2024 revenue was $223.7 million, which puts it in the same league as major political parties in the U.S.

AFP, in many ways, act like a secretive political party. They “adopt” politicians and then support them. But they keep their list of adopted candidates secret. They do publicize their support for programs and policies. Then, on the sly, they support candidates in such a way that they do not lose their 501 tax status. For example, they send citizens a photo of their favored politician, just weeks before the polls open, asking you to thank them for supporting some piece of legislation (wink, wink). Am I really supposed to believe they spent $0.61 on postage, plus the cost of designing, printing and addressing an elegant card, in the bizarre hope I would send a letter of gratitude?

There is nothing wrong with an organization supporting causes that its donors believe in. The problem here is scale. When one organization can insert $223.7 million into the public discourse, other points of view can be drowned out. Laws meant to restrict support of candidates to a reasonable sum of money are wildly ineffective, and the Supreme Court continues to further defang them. Voters watching the flood of advertisements prompted by one wealthy donor do not benefit from the natural back-and-forth of competing ideas that occur in normal human discourse.

Another problem is influence. A politician may listen to a citizen donating $25 who wants to express a concern. But concerns raised by an oligarch donating at a level that could make or break a candidacy — that piggy is more equal than the others.

The card I received was ostensibly sent in support of the Regulatory Freedom Act, which is old news…it was signed into law by Governor Lee months ago. In fact, it appears this mailing was really sent to support these two politicians, whom AFP has embraced by extending financial support. They do this in return for…who knows?

This White House effort is a continuation of a program begun with a call to redistrict Texas, designed to tilt the 2026 midterms and 2028 elections toward Republicans. Trump hopes to maintain control of Congress, not by convincing more citizens to vote Republican, but by sleight of hand, coercing states into manipulating district borders so that votes for Democratic candidates will be neutralized.

Both parties have gerrymandered districts ever since the mid 1800’s, maybe earlier. (A quick refresher on how gerrymandering works is here.) But gerrymandering was always done with a sense of shame, knowing it was wrong, unfair, cheating. Democrats and Republican states both tweaked the district lines for partisan advantage, or to reinforce Jim Crow laws. But nothing so out in the open, so shameless, as now demanded by President Trump.

After President Trump’s phone call, Gov. Lee called for an emergency session of the legislature to meet, and that occurred within just a few days. In order to pass a redrawing of the federal districts between censuses, the legislature first had to change a law restricting them from doing so. Then they had to change the house rules, and only then could they submit and pass HB7003, which was quickly ratified by the Republican Tennessee Senate and promptly signed by Republican Gov. Lee on May 7, 2026, only eight days after the Supreme Court decision.

Until now, the voters of Memphis, Tennessee fell into a single district, and they consistently reelected the popular Steve Cohen, a Democrat. Representative Cohen, a senior member of the House Judiciary and Transportation committees, is respected in Memphis for his advocacy of civil rights, transportation projects, and urban issues.

The legislature’s new redistricting map broke up the single Memphis district into three parts, each now embedded in a district containing enough Republican-voting rural Tennessee voters to outvote Memphis residents and ensure that only a Republican candidate would win in each district.

The district formerly encompassing Nashville, Tennessee, which had elected a Democrat since reconstruction, was similarly broken up in 2022. None of the three representatives who ostensibly now represent Nashville (Tennessee’s largest city), even bother to have an office in Nashville. The legislature is playing out the same scenario again, now in Memphis.

The newly elected officials will be focused on exporting corn and soybeans, access to inexpensive fertilizer, and regulation of herbicides, because they understand they will be reelected by the rural voters, not the ones from Memphis. Their district has been engineered not to depend on support from Memphis residents, who are probably more interested in public safety and civil rights, infrastructure and transportation and social programs.

Tennessee’s Democrats are concentrated in Memphis, Nashville and other cities. There was a time when congressional districts respected that fact and cities had the opportunity to vote as single district for the representatives they wanted. Now every one of those Tennesseans will be forced to vote in a district designed to neutralize their vote. This redistricting means that Memphis voters can cast a ballot if they want, but it will be unlikely to make a difference. Citizens of Memphis will be represented in name only.

In the 2024 elections, just under 2 million Tennesseeans voted Republican and just over 1 million voted Democratic. Despite more than a third of Tennesseans voting Democratic, the legislature has now rigged the district boundaries so all 9 of Tennessee’s Congresspersons will be Republican.

The Tennessee legislature, dominated by a Republican super-majority, is happy to engineer a government that only pretends to be a representative democracy. They do this as a GOP-dominated Supreme Court winks and nods, declaring the voter rights act to be an unnecessary anachronism. Our GOP president calls on the GOP governor of Tennessee to do his dirty work. The GOP-controlled legislature is happy to oblige, hoping to avoid being primaried like their counterparts in Indiana. Perhaps Gov. Lee, after his second term ends in January 2007, will have demonstrated he is sufficiently accommodating to qualify for an appointment in Trump’s cabinet. Lickspittles, all of them.

I am embarrassed for my country. Those of us who occasionally sing our national anthem will recognize the words, “Land of the free, Home of the brave.” My state representatives and senators don’t look very brave to me, as governors and legislators fall over themselves to please the president at the expense of their constituents.

Are the residents of Memphis really free? They are now blocked from selecting the representative they want, and will be represented instead by one of the legislature’s choosing. They will no longer have a voice in the U.S. House of Representatives to influence laws, taxes and urban programs as they wish.

I am saddened and embarrassed by what the state of Tennessee (and several other states) have become. I am saddened and embarrassed that our Supreme Court has intentionally set this course and that our elected leaders shamelessly advocate for it.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who is running to succeed Gov. Lee, wrote on X, “I urge our state legislature to reconvene to redistrict another Republican seat in Memphis. It’s essential to cement @realDonaldTrump’s agenda and the Golden Age of America.” She apparently wrote that tweet to please President Trump rather than for the benefit of her prospective constituents in Memphis.

Tennessee’s legislature is redistricting because they recognize President Trump’s unpopular policies, in a fair election, would cost him control of Congress. Our state officials are choosing Trump over their constituents.

We must tell our state and federal representatives we have had enough of this nonsense; we are ready to vote for new leadership that is focused less on accumulating personal power and money; we need federal and state officials with courage — people who would prefer to be primaried than to look in the mirror and see a lickspittle. We need to prohibit the vast quantities of private money from entering politics, and our tax system needs to stop favoring the concentration of immense wealth in so few hands. We need to abolish gerrymandering so everyone’s vote counts, and so that elected officials can be held accountable at the poll booth when they fail to do their job.

If you wish to call your members of Congress, try using 5calls.org as a resource. Also, you can find contact information here for nearly all federal, state and local elected officials. If you lack the time to compose a letter, just send them a link to this article by clicking on the “Share” button and entering your elected official’s email address.

Despite her outstanding service to this semi-rural county, she was publicly fired in a highly contested meeting of the Rutherford County library board.

Her offense?

It all started when Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 20, 2025, entitled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” A signing ceremony in the Oval Office might seem far removed from a library system in Rutherford County, Tennessee, but as we will see, the long arm of presidential power eventually reached the book shelves of public libraries all across America.

On September 8, 2025, Tre Hargett, Secretary of State for Tennessee issued a letter to all public library directors in his state. He reminded librarians that many of the state grants made to local libraries used federal dollars, and President Trump’s executive order set restrictions on how those dollars could be used. Specifically, they could not support “Gender Ideology” as defined in the executive order. Therefore, the Secretary of State demanded library contents be reviewed for violations of the executive order or the library would no longer receive state or federal funds.

Local groups of activists, including “astroturf” groups like Moms For Liberty, have examined books in public libraries across America. Rutherford’s public library found itself caught in this net, as 2,712 books were the subject of complaints. Those books had to be removed from the library shelves and shielded from public view while awaiting a determination of their fate.

The targeted titles covered a range of books; some might surprise you: Aesop’s Fables, multiple Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling, a Charlie Brown book by Charles Schultz and even a Winnie the Pooh book by Sally Walker.

Other books targeted included LGBTQ themed books, including those describing the history of the LGBTQ civil rights movement – as well as books detailing the experience of growing up gay in American society. Many of these books were serious treatises designed for teen readers.

The activist groups also denounced historical books covering subjects like the Jewish diarist Anne Frank and Black civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and books on slavery, racism and the history of suffrage. Even books on ancient civilizations were not safe.

Moms for Liberty claims teaching the history of civil rights has “traumatized” white children and so they attempt to protect children from such books by using Tennessee’s “critical race theory” law.

One book was flagged because “underpants shown during cartwheel.” Another because the “words ‘ass’ appears for donkey and ‘cock’ for rooster.” One book was targeted because of “implied breastfeeding.” One wonders if the people flagging these books had ever spoken with a 14-year-old boy.

Share

Finally, after back-and-forth discussions, the Rutherford County Library Board ordered 132 children’s books to be removed from the children’s section and placed in the adult section. This was designed to ensure that children were unlikely to find the books.

Librarian Luanne James refused to move the books. She wrote, in part:

“Public libraries serve as vital repositories of diverse ideas, both popular and unpopular. Restricting access to these materials through subjective relocation or removal constitutes a violation of the community’s right to information and a direct infringement on the principles of free speech. Our libraries are funded by and for the citizens; therefore, the right to access information—free from government interference—is a protected hallmark of our democracy.

“My duty to protect public access is not merely a personal opinion; it is a core tenet of the American Library Association’s Code of Ethics. As an arm of the county government, the Board cannot legally limit the public’s access to materials owned by the people based on the content of the ideas expressed within them.”

She further explained she would not move the books. She was then fired by the board. The board chairman said the move was to protect children from “gender confusion.” In a subsequent interview, James expressed no remorse, “I have to do what I have to do.”

Rutherford county is not an isolated incident. The Kingsport Times News reported that 72 and 141 books in the Kingsport, Tennessee and Johnson City, Tennessee libraries respectively were tagged by an unidentified “group of local activists.” Knox County Schools (includes Knoxville, Tennessee) released 113 titles that were banned from its school libraries in 2025, while 48 titles had been banned in 2024. The federal government is banning books from Department of Defense school libraries and curricula. Libraries across the country are being pressured to remove books that might displease Donald Trump or the Christian Nationalists who back him.

Some states (Illinois, New York, California, Minnesota, Delaware, New Jersey) and major cities (such as Boston, New York City and Chicago) have express policies prohibiting book bans, but otherwise the practice is now widespread throughout the United States. In fact, you can Google the name of most American cities followed by the words “books banned from library” and you will likely find a long list of books removed from the shelves.

When children go to the library, they generally are taken there by parents, grandparents or other guardians. If the guardian does not like the book selected by the child, of course the book can be returned to the shelves.

It is not the responsibility of a nanny-state to exclude books from which you and your child can select reading material.

Kids — especially teenagers — are information sponges. If a teenager wants to learn what “gay” or “trans” or “slavery” or “holocaust” means, how should they find out? They could ask their parent, of course. However, we all recognize that not every teenager is willing to discuss such matters with Mom or Dad, and oftentimes Mom or Dad lack the information being sought. The best option, of course, is to find an authoritative, age-appropriate book on the subject. That is exactly what libraries are for.

Those who would ban books condemn our children to learn from whatever is written on bathroom walls, provided by TikTok’s algorithm, or spoken by their equally ignorant friends.

A good book is better. Our government should not feed ignorance and misinformation by banning books.

If you wish to express your views to Tennessee’s Secretary of State, you can find his contact information here. If you wish to call your members of Congress, try using 5calls.org as a resource. Also, you can find contact information here for many federal, state and local elected officials.

Subscribe now

Because the licensing of attorneys is a state process, not a federal process, the enforcement of ethical behavior is also a state process.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department has posted a proposed regulation which would allow her office to block any “disciplinary authority of a State, Territory or the District of Columbia in response to allegations that current or former Department attorney violated an ethics rule…” The proposed regulation continues, “…the Department will have the right to review the allegations in the first instance and shall request that the bar disciplinary committee suspend any parallel investigations until the completion of the Department’s review.” There is no requirement that the Department’s review be completed within a specific timeline. In other words, the DOJ can protect its attorneys by simply saying it intends to conduct its own investigation and then sitting on it…and thereby tie the hands of the state’s disciplinary authorities. Moreover, if the DOJ did complete an investigation and judges itself innocent, the proposed regulation would then block the state from even investigating the alleged infraction.

One can speculate why the U.S. Attorney General, the chief law enforcement agent in the United States, would be seeking protection from accountability for herself and her staff. Perhaps some recent data points would prove illustrative.

• Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz (appointed by President George W. Bush) issued a finding that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement violated court orders 96 times in 74 cases during January 2026 alone.

• A long-time government lawyer testified to Congress that DOJ leaders — including Emil J. Bove III (acting U.S. deputy attorney general) — planned to knowingly defy court orders and withhold information from judges to promote the Trump administration’s deportation goals. Mr. Bove was subsequently defended by AG Bondi in Senate hearings. President Trump has since rewarded Mr. Bove by making him a federal judge. The whistleblower was fired by DOJ after admitting to a judge that an immigrant had been unlawfully deported. Mr. Bove denied any wrongdoing.

• Judges have accused ICE of violating court orders requiring ICE to provide due process prior to sending migrants to countries where they have no ties.

• An assistant DOJ attorney in North Carolina used “fabricated quotations and misstatements of case holdings” in a court filing, and then made “false or misleading statements” of how those misstatements got included, wrote Magistrate Judge Robert Numbers in a court order.

The data suggests this DOJ appears willing to bend ethical rules in order to serve the policies advocated by President Trump. The proposed regulation will enable the DOJ to shield its attorneys from accountability. It would also protect senior officials in the DOJ should they ask attorneys to violate ethics rules. In this administration, where the president routinely issues orders and “suggestions” to the DOJ, it will further embolden the president to operate outside the law.

This deeply faulted regulation would remove yet another institutional barrier to authoritarianism. It should not be adopted, and citizens have the opportunity to participate in that process by submitting their thoughts on the regulation (see below) until April 6, 2026. Also, citizens can appeal to their members of congress, who can require the proposed regulation to be rejected.

Subscribe now

If you wish to call your members of Congress, try using 5calls.org as a resource. Also, you can find contact information here for many federal, state and local elected officials.

Citizen comments on the proposed regulation are invited on the regulations.gov website. Use the search tool by writing “Review of State Bar Complaints”. The regulation will appear. Click on the rectangular blue “comments” button. Respectfully identify yourself as a concerned citizen and explain briefly why you oppose this regulation. Feel free to cut/paste from this article.

Because they follow these laws, as most police forces in democratic societies do, they receive a remarkable degree of support from the population that pays their salaries and depends on them for policing activity. Tennesseans gratefully call on their local law enforcement for help when they are in trouble, in need of protection, or when natural disasters occur.

Consider what a breach of faith it would be if your county sheriff’s office partnered and cooperated with a bunch of ruffians to enforce laws in our community — people whose training was questionable and failed to follow the rules required of sheriffs and their deputies. We would argue that the sheriffs were circumventing the laws of Tennessee. It would be a hair-on-fire moment if the gunmen actually payed the sheriff’s office for their assistance and protection.

That is exactly what is now happening, with the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (and perhaps U.S. Customs and Border Protection) in the role of the questionably trained outside people not following the rules required of sworn officers in Tennessee.

Todd Lyons, Acting Director of ICE, issued a memo claiming ICE does not need a judicial warrant to forcibly enter your home. They smash drivers’ windows to intimidate and drag drivers out of vehicles. They operate anonymously behind a mask and hide their badge numbers, thus avoiding accountability. When there is a shooting, they institute an internal investigation. In a complaint filed in District Court (Minnesota) on February 13, 2026, over 100 allegations of improper behavior by federal agents are described. ICE’s leadership have repeatedly mischaracterized their victims and the circumstances that lead to their injury, and they have refused to retract those statements even when videos clearly belie their statements. In some cases, ICE leadership have been forced by circumstances to reluctantly acknowledge their officers made “untruthful” statements. Such unfortunate behaviors make the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) management and the results of their internal investigations suspect.

The Kingsport TimesNews reported SCSO stands to receive about $200,000 for providing support to ICE. SCSO says six deputies have been trained and will work with ICE.

In order to earn the public’s trust — and the assistance of Tennessee’s sheriffs and police — ICE and CBP should agree to follow, at a minimum, the same rules that Tennessee’s sworn officers must follow. Absent that, Tennessee’s sheriff’s offices and police departments should decline to provide routine assistance. Tennesseans do not want their officers to be trained by experience to believe it is no longer necessary to abide by the statutory code of conduct.

In other words, Tennessee taxpayers should expect that our sheriffs will not aid an unaccountable police force when they do things our sheriffs and their deputies are not allowed to do. For example, ignore the Fourth Amendment (the requirement of a judicial search warrant); operate behind masks or work with obscured badge numbers. If a shooting or other serious harm is inflicted on a Tennessee resident, an investigation should be performed by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (as would be done if a sheriff was involved in a shooting). In addition, ICE officials and those assisting ICE should be required to wear cameras.

SCSO’s adherence to this statutory code of conduct has long served our community well. The rules are common to sworn officers throughout our nation, and ICE and CBP should follow them before Tennessee sworn officers agree to provide assistance.

The SCSO began participating in ICE’s 287(g) program in December 2025 and county commissioners and are scheduled to vote on funding resolutions at their regular business meeting Thursday, February 19, 2026. Citizens who wish to communicate their thoughts to county commissioners can find contact information here. Or, you may attend the meeting in person at the county courthouse, Blountville, Tennessee.

If you wish to call your members of Congress, try using 5calls.org as a resource. Also, you can find contact information here for many federal, state and local elected officials.

Below is a model letter you can use to write your Senator and Representative, specifically focused on the unfolding events in Minneapolis.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents have shot three and killed two unarmed American citizens in Minneapolis. The White House and Secretary Noem gave immediate statements about those killings, providing a partisan narrative designed to defend the federal agents and the administration’s actions. The statements contained factual errors, belied by numerous videos.

The Trump administration insists that only the DHS (not the FBI or Minnesota officials) will investigate these deaths, and DHS refuses to share evidence with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) that normally investigates any police shooting in Minnesota. Moreover, even after the BCA obtained a warrant from an independent judge, DHS agents still denied them access to the scene where Alex Pretti was fatally shot. This does not inspire confidence in DHS’s investigation of itself; indeed, that is exactly what one might expect if DHS is executing a cover-up.

It is bad enough that three people were shot in Minneapolis, but NBC News reports DHS officers have shot twelve people since September, killing four.

DHS claims they don’t need a warrant signed by a judge to drag people out of their homes; a violation of the Constitution’s fourth amendment.

DHS is detaining children who are U.S. citizens, some just 2 or 5 years old, even using them as bait to grab parents. DHS has forcibly moved 1,700 children and their families to distant detention centers which have been accused in a lawsuit of providing spoiled food, insufficient water and unsanitary conditions. Dozens of people have died while being held in ICE detention camps.

President Trump has announced he is sending Tom Homan to help lead ICE and U.S. Border Protection (CBP) activities in Minneapolis. “[Homan] will report directly to me,” Trump wrote on Instagram. This means the policies for ICE in Minneapolis will be determined by Donald Trump (through Homan) rather than through DHS with its attorneys and written procedures. ICE will even more closely resemble Trump’s private army/police force.

It is especially important that Republican members of Congress hear from their constituents this week. A bill is being considered in the Senate to provide funding for the Department of Home Security (DHS). This is a moment when Congress could demand reforms to DHS’s ICE and CBP as a condition of funding. The Senate may need an extra shot of courage to push back against the Trump administration — and we can help by offering encouragement!

Calling your senators is most effective, but feel free to copy/paste (or personalize) the letter below and email to your senators. The best time to send it is early this week.

Calling an elected official is often considered the most effective way for constituents to influence their officials. If you wish to call your members of Congress, try using 5calls.org as a resource. If you are more comfortable writing, you can find contact information here for nearly all federal, state and local elected officials.

***********************************************************

RE: Delay approval of FY2026 DHS Funding until related matters are addressed

Dear Senator ______________,

It is time for you, and your fellow senators, to reclaim the role of Congress in governing our country.

Senator, I ask that you not approve the FY2026 DHS Funding Bill. Please refuse to provide new funding for ICE or CBP and work to immediately revoke the billions already given through last summer’s reconciliation bill. These funds should be withheld until federal agents are properly trained and given orders that are consistent with constitutional rights enjoyed by all U.S. citizens and residents. America needs to see muscular Congressional oversight over DHS and deaths in Minnesota need to be independently investigated.

Stephen Miller, unelected advisor to the President, appears to be the driver behind many of the unethical/illegal approaches being used by DHS. I ask you to work to have him removed from any position of trust in the government.

Sincerely,

Our members of Congress are failing to do their job. As the Trump administration has run roughshod over congressional powers, the Republican controlled Congress has repeatedly succumbed to Trump’s demands. Members of Congress have shown themselves to be ambitious and spineless, a dangerous combination.

My three representatives are Representative Diana Harshbager, Senator Bill Hagerty and Senator Marsha Blackburn, who is now running for governor of Tennessee.

My delegation, like so many others, has earned a big fat F, and here is why:

Trump Goes On Empire-Building Romps

A few weeks go, President Donald Trump attacked Venezuela, dragged their head of state, President Nicolás Maduro, and his wife to New York. Trump proclaimed himself in charge, saying the U.S. would now “run” the country. No one explained how that might happen, but Trump said the U.S. would take up to 50 million barrels of oil, and the money from its sale will be “controlled by me.” Trump said the oil revenue will be “used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States,” without explaining why Venezuelan natural resources should benefit the people of the U.S. Few mourned Maduro’s downfall, but no one in Venezuela is holding their breath awaiting Trump’s largess.

Despite claims to the contrary, Trump is now in the nation-building business, an activity he disparaged while campaigning for President.

Trump's claim that Maduro’s drug dealing was the motivation behind removing Maduro does not hold water. Consider Trump just pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández who was convicted in a U.S. court of smuggling 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.

Trump never obtained congressional authorization to initiate his Venezuelan incursion. Like such interventions in the past, it is unlikely to end well.

Emboldened by having vanquished Venezuela, Trump has since hinted at similar jaunts into Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Iran — and as hard as it to believe — even Greenland, a territory held by a NATO ally where the U.S. already has the option to build additional military installations. Trump is giving up the entire post-WWII order to steal Greenland, thereby acquiring zero addition capabilities.

My representatives in Congress, Republicans all, refuse to have hearings or even question the wisdom of Trump’s behavior. They are failing to defend Congress’ constitutional power to declare war or Trumps apparent violation of the War Powers Act of 1973.

President Trump is doing an end run right past Congress, and Republican congressional leadership have just laid down in silence. Gosh, Congress is populated by wimps.

Federal Police Run Amok

Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol are stalking the land. Their faces are masked, their name and badge numbers hidden, and they skulk around in military gear while driving unmarked rental vehicles. They literally snatch U.S. citizens and others out of their homes, cars or workplaces and drag them away — disappear them into dungeons ill-equipped to cope with the numbers of arrestees. Federal officers smash car windows with abandon, drag pregnant women in the snow, and now, have even shot an unarmed U.S. citizen to death. Brown-skinned parents are so afraid to send their kids to school in Minnesota that school districts are resorting to online education.

Americans are protected from unreasonable search and seizure by the Constitution, but Trump’s federal police simply ignore the law. The administration claims ICE agents have “absolute immunity” and are beyond the reach of justice.

If Congress was doing its job, its members would hold hearings, and demand such behavior stop. Those responsible would be impeached or fired, including cabinet members, and referred to the Department of Justice for action, or even simply investigated. Yet my senators and representatives have done nothing. Talk is cheap, but my senators and representative won’t even denounce the abuse.

Presidential Appointments

A president needs competent, serious staff to help administer the executive branch of government. The Senate to responsible for helping ensure this goal is achieved. Consider the quality of appointees the Senate has approved in 2025.

Pete Hegseth, is a bloviating TV announcer who exhibited heavy drinking and embarrassing misbehavior. A twice-divorced philanderer and playboy, during his nomination hearings he was unable to point to a single organization he had successfully managed. But the Senate approved his nomination with the support of my two senators, and he is now responsible for the Department of Defense, the world’s largest military organization.

It is hard to envision a lightweight like Hegseth responding to Trump’s latest proposal with, “No, boss. That is not a good idea and here is why...”

A similar tale could be told about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (Secretary of Health and Human Services) with zero years of medical training and 14 years of heroin addiction, he has single handedly decimated our nation’s vaccination schedules and ignores widespread measles and whooping cough outbreaks resulting from vaccination hesitancy he contributed to.

Linda McMahon (Secretary of Education) was approved by the Senate despite giving speeches emphasizing the importance of “A-One” in education, apparently confusing the branded steak sauce name with artificial intelligence, AI.

Because Republican senators have refused to assert leadership, we now have ignorant and incompetent people running much of our government., They make good lickspittles for President Trump.

Presidential Pardons

When Donald Trump provided clemency (either a pardon or commuted sentence) to the more than 1,500 people arrested during the January 6 riots — even the ones who admitted assaulting police — none of my representatives said a word. You will recall that 140 policemen were injured and five died as a result of that day’s rioting, and many of the pardoned rioters were filmed attacking police officers.

Our Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has fired many FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors who put those Jan6-ers behind bars. Our senators and representatives had nothing to say about the firings or pardons. Going along to get along demands silence.

Emboldened, Trump has now pardoned a group of attorneys who helped promote the false narrative that Trump won the 2020 election. Some were convicted and/or disbarred for misrepresenting facts in court. Even the miscreants who misrepresented themselves as lawfully chosen electors were pardoned.

Not a word from our representatives.

Emoluments

The lack of leadership exhibited by our Republican members of Congress is not limited to matters of personnel.

Our Republican senators and representatives have nothing to say as the president openly and blatantly violates the emolument clause when he receives a $400 million dollar jet as a gift from a Qatari prince, orders his administration to outfit the jet at an estimated cost of a billion dollars, and arranges to transfer the plane to his presidential library (for his personal use) knowing it will only be ready as he leaves office. That is the very definition of an emolument.

Republicans in Congress were in an uproar when Hunter Biden inappropriately took a $50,000/month job based on his access to President Biden. There were multiple hearings, subpoenas, and press releases. But when Trump is given a $400,000,000 gift and then extracts $1,000,000,000 dollars from U.S. taxpayers to upgrade that gift, these same members of Congress actively shield him from investigation.

Our congressional delegation is silent when the president makes about $5,000,000,000 in the digital currency business while he simultaneously withdraws government regulation from the same.

President Trump decided he deserves a $250,000,000 payout because he was investigated. He says he will approve this payment to himself.

There appears to be no limit to the corruption our Republican members of Congress will accept without complaint, as long as the bad actor is one of their own.

And There Is So Much More

The list of Congress’ reluctance to act appears endless: tariffs, which Congress should oversee; policies reducing the affordability of healthcare, where Congress mindlessly did Trump’s bidding; Trump’s out-of-control spending, causing a further burgeoning national debt despite reducing services to citizens; Trump’s attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve and other Congressionally mandated independent agencies; the administration’s lack of compliance with the law that requires the Epstein files be released; Trump’s illegal use of the Department of Justice to pursue his perceived enemies…and more.

It is Congress’ Job to Fix This

Our representatives say nothing when any of this happens, even though it is Congress’ job to stop it. Supreme Court decisions have made it essentially impossible for the Department of Justice and civic-minded groups to pursue presidential violations of law, or abuse of office. Trump has decimated the corp of Inspector Generals through threats and actual layoffs. The citizens of America are left with Congress as our only hope and its members seem to be on permanent vacation. They focus on their own careers and getting along.

There was a time — just a year ago! — when the United States defended democracies around the world. We would advocate for freedom of speech and human rights, promote vaccinations, encourage free elections. We showed the world how a pluralistic nation could function. We protected democracies from neighbors who were authoritarians, fascists, and dictatorships.

As Mona Charen wrote in the Bulwark, “Not every U.S. military adventure has been noble, but no country has more often extended itself for good purpose around the globe.” But today, “Trump is turning the U.S. into an outlaw nation” that threatens neighbors, bullies allies, and kidnaps foreign leaders. “We are becoming the kind of nation against which America used to defend others.”

Both Representative Harshbarger and Senator Blackburn have expressed interest in running for governor in Tennessee. Why would anyone vote for such do-nothing toadies?

If you wish to call your members of Congress, try using 5calls.org as a resource. Also, you can find contact information here for nearly all federal, state and local elected officials.

We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action on Kimmel or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.

ABC’s affiliate owners, Nexstar and Sinclair took note and cancelled Jimmy Kimmel Live! on their stations. ABC and their owner, Disney, then “suspended” the show indefinitely. The result was that within hours of the Chairman’s comments, Kimmel was off the air.

Lest anyone think Chairman Carr had gone rogue, the next day President Trump backed him up:

[Broadcast networks] give me only bad press. They’re getting a license. I think maybe their license should be taken away. It will be up to [FCC Chairman] Brendan Carr. I think Brendan Carr is outstanding. He’s a patriot. He loves our country, and he’s a tough guy. So we’ll see.

After Disney silenced Kimmel, they received a lot of criticism from Democrats and performers; but also from Republican politicians like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell; and even the former CEO of Disney. The publicity caused such a spate of Disney and Hulu subscription cancelations, Disney’s cancellation web page crashed. Disney stock dropped for a market loss of nearly $5 billion.

Within a week, Disney brought Kimmel back. Sinclair and Nexstar finally relented a few days later.

Nexstar is attempting to purchase a rival, Tegna Inc. for $6.2 billion, an act that will require FCC approval. So, when FCC chairman advocated for Kimmel’s removal from the air, they had reason to please.

There is a long history of autocrats using the power of government to suppress free speech, and comedians in particular. A New York Times article published in 1939 details how Joseph Goebels, Hitler’s chief propagandist, had five comedians expelled from the Chamber of Culture (which prevented them from working) because “they displayed a lack of any positive attitude toward National Socialism and therewith caused grave annoyance in public and especially to party comrades.”

Germany, Iran, Russia, Hungary and others have all dabbled in silencing comedians whose message displeased the government.

I am not suggesting this history makes FCC Chairman Carr (or anyone else) a Nazi. Of course, privately owned TV stations have the right to air whatever content they choose. But our government is in poor company when it works to silence a speaker because of “bad press” or “grave annoyance” to the party faithful. Our government appears to be violating the First Amendment when it does so.

Americans decided such behavior is not acceptable from their government and they spoke up and defended our constitution’s first amendment. After suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Disney heard from their customers by mail, their website’s contract cancellation page was overwhelmed, and the value of their stock fell calamitously. Disney apparently made the calculation that while government could issue a license, it was of little value without enough customers. Disney (and ABC) relented; and a few days later, Sinclair and then Nexstar took a deep breath and joined the party.

The prospect of fewer customers is at least as fearsome to these broadcast companies as a government trying to silence them.

You can express your views (respectfully, please!) to Chairman Brendan Carr, and perhaps copy your senators and representatives. Below is a draft you are invited to use or customize. Chairman Carr’s address is: Federal Communications Commission, 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554.

Dear Chairman Carr,

I am disappointed you used your office to cause Jimmy Kimmel Live! to be removed from the air.

In the future, I hope you will use the power and influence of your office to protect the first amendment rather than to suppress freedom of speech.

Sincerely,

I am writing to express my disappointment that you ordered Tennessee National Guard troops to Washington, D.C.

Why It Is a Bad Idea

If our state’s National Guard is to continue to receive the support they deserve from citizens, we must keep them apolitical. Politicizing the military is a bad idea.

Furthermore, policing Washington, D.C. is not a core mission of our National Guard. Our soldiers are untrained for such operations, lack clear authority, and we might need them here at home if an actual emergency occurred (it is hurricane season, after all).

It Is Pointless

Most of the troops sent to Washington, D.C. have been ordered to appear in highly visible public locations, rather than the rougher neighborhoods where most crime occurs. There is little to be gained by having our troops stand in front of the Lincoln Memorial at great expense and inconvenience.

It might be a different story if the government of Washington, D.C. was asking for help to handle an emergency. But that is not the case.

The Trump administration has ordered the National Guard in Washington, D.C. to carry loaded weapons, enforce federal laws and make arrests. This may be in conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act. Moreover, soldiers are not trained for these tasks. An officer making arrests needs to know how to properly read the perpetrator their rights, handle evidence so it can be used in court, and understand the complex rules that govern when deadly force can be legally used. It is likely that many arrests made by the National Guard will fail to result in convictions.

Lessons Of History

Training administered to police is different than that given to soldiers in many ways. One difference is how police are trained to interact with citizens versus how soldiers are trained to deal with enemy combatants.

Our founding fathers were antagonistic to the concept of the military as police. They grew up with British soldiers walking the streets, limiting speech and commerce. They understood where this leads. Recall the Boston Massacre of 1770, where British troops fired upon a crowd of civilians. The resulting deaths served as a major talking point among colonialists seeking independence.

Two centuries later, the Kent State University killings occurred when National Guard soldiers were called to control demonstrations. Students were rambunctious, threw rocks, and guardsmen fired into a crowd of protestors, hitting thirteen and killing four. The event became a rallying cry in the anti-war movement, spurred by photographs that circulated throughout the world.

Let’s learn from the past. We don’t want to unnecessarily create circumstances that duplicate those unhappy times, just for political sport.

Those In Glass Houses…

Governor Lee, Memphis is a city in our state that has a higher rate of property crime, violent crime and homicide than Washington, D.C.

The fact that you have not sent troops to Memphis suggests you understand this is not the best response to crime.

If President Trump sends troops in response to Washington, D.C.’s problems, it is only a matter of time before he responds to Memphis. I doubt any serious person believes Memphis would benefit from having unaccountable, inappropriately trained, armed troops from various states — with arrest authority — swaggering up and down Beale Street. Business would be suppressed and, eventually, shots would likely be fired. During the resulting chaos, those troops would be taking orders from a president located 900 miles away without any knowledge of policing. Your support for Trump’s adventure in Washington, D.C. emboldens him and makes this scenario more likely.

There Are Better Ways To Spend Resources

If we actually are going to do something about crime, there are better alternatives than sending soldiers to strut around town. For example, programs to provide treatment for addiction and mental health, after-school youth programs to give kids a constructive outlet, job training programs, improved lighting in public spaces, housing assistance and job programs for the homeless. Increased police protection should be one arrow in that quiver.

The public is told such social programs are too expensive. Yet, we can afford to call up the military at enormous expense, and even afford to convert ICE into the largest police force America has ever seen to the tune of $170 billion — over three times the annual cost of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Trump is already talking about the militarization of Washington, D.C. as a model for use in other cities, such as Chicago, New York and Baltimore.

Better Choices

I would encourage you to read the comments offered by Vermont’s Republican Governor, Phil Scott, as he “politely declined” the federal request to send Vermont National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. Also, you may find it informative to read the letter of appreciation written to Gov. Scott by a group of six courageous, retired 4-star generals/admirals and a former Secretary of the Army. They wrote, in part:

“By rejecting the Department of Defense’s request to activate the Vermont Army National Guard as an inappropriate use of military resources, you stood up for the security of Vermonters and the healthy civil-military relationship envisioned by our nation’s founders.”

“The Vermont Army National Guard is composed of Vermonters who wish to selflessly protect their state. We thank you for keeping the Guard on mission, and keeping politics out of the military.”

Gov. Phil Scott made the right decision for his state and for the country.

Sincerely,

David Kashdan

Readers are encouraged to copy and paste portions of this article to create their own letters to their Republican governors, especially in the states of West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Ohio and Tennessee, all of whom sent troops to Washington, D.C. If you wish to call your governor, try using 5calls.org as a resource. Also, you can find contact information here for nearly all federal, state and local elected officials. In Tennessee, you can contact Gov. Lee electronically here (500 character limit) or mail a written letter to: Gov. Bill Lee, 1st Floor, State Capitol, Nashville, TN 37243.

To be clear, this action is not an attempt to convince independent or Democratic voters to change their votes. Trump is not presenting an argument justifying his policies, nor is he trying to convince any voter of anything. This is an effort to have the districts redrawn so that, assuming everyone votes just like they did in the last election, five additional GOP representatives will get elected. Trump’s purpose is to distort electoral results through gerrymandering.

For those needing a quick refresher, a previous article explains how gerrymandering works. It shows, for example, how the electoral district maps, in a state destined to favor one party by a 60/40 margin, can determine which party will emerge with the majority of elected politicians. That is how gerrymandering can unfairly determine which party controls the state legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives.

Gerrymandering should be a crime. Its purpose is to remove fair representation from one group, and through sleight of hand, turn it over to another whose voting numbers do not justify the additional representation.

Traditionally, districts were designed around local political, geographical or urban boundaries. It is likely that urban voters would want to elect a representative focused on issues like public transportation, building codes and city planning; rural voters might want their representative to focus on farm policy, land use and water rights.

A hallmark of gerrymandered maps is obscurely shaped districts containing a bit of one party’s voters diluted and overwhelmed by the favored party’s voters, ignoring geography, political boundaries and other norms.

As an example, Tennessee’s largest city, Nashville, historically had their own congressional district, and they elected and re-elected Jim Cooper, a Democrat. After redistricting in 2023, the population of Nashville was split between three districts that diluted the Democratic votes by scooping up large numbers of rural, Republican voters. Nashville now has no dedicated representative, and all three districts elected Republicans.

The concept is simple: In a democracy, voters choose politicians. In gerrymandered districts, politicians choose voters.

Some people think gerrymandering is a victimless offense. Not so. A gerrymandered district means a community is represented by politicians unfairly chosen by others. It means an entire community fails to have a representative who would argue for their position. It means the politicians who represent you are chosen by a process carefully designed to negate your vote, the opposite of democracy.

Nonetheless, Trump shamelessly called on the Texas legislature to redraw their district boundaries to ensure the election of an additional five Republican representatives to Congress from Texas, even though their districts already unfairly favored Republicans. This naturally outraged Democrats in the Texas legislature and they attempted to block the vote. Democrats across the nation urged states under Democratic Control, such as California, to counter the move with similar action.

California is one of the eight states which uses an independent commission to draw district boundaries. This approach separates the self-interest of elected officials from the process of drawing district maps. In California, no member of the independent commission can have a political job or accept such a job for five years after leaving the commission. California’s approach, adopted in 2010, is the right way to do it — they took the moral high road. They were part of a movement to cast aside partisan commissions that are historically motivated to gerrymander.

Politicians elected from gerrymandered districts are likely to win re-election repeatedly as long as their constituents continue to vote by party rather than issues. Such candidates are often so confident of being reelected they can fearlessly vote against the interests of their constituents. For example, they can vote to fire park rangers, air traffic controllers and scientists developing vaccines; they can cut Medicaid, food for the hungry, diminish the ACA (Obamacare), support the defunding of American universities; they can confirm incompetent toadies to the cabinet; all while giving tax breaks to the wealthy and increasing the deficit by $3 trillion. Politicians elected by gerrymandered districts generally feel they can do anything political expediency demands, whether popular or not.

Now that Texas has passed their super-gerrymandering bill, California will consider doing the same. Trump is already discussing Florida, Missouri and other GOP controlled states doing likewise, and then other Democratic states will follow suit. Wherever gerrymandering occurs, democracy looses.

Our senators and representatives could put a stop to this banana republic-esque wild fall from grace through legislation. They could pass the Redistricting Reform Act, which sets criteria for redistricting, or the Freedom to Vote Act, which establishes non-partisan commissions throughout the nation as part of a comprehensive list of voting rights. Or, they could consider the Fair Representation Act, which creates larger districts with multiple representatives. Finding a solution to a national problem — and enacting legislation — requires Congress to roll up their sleeves and actually do their job. Alas, they are too busy genuflecting to Trump.

Trump expects to win, regardless how this infantile food-fight over gerrymandering ends. He will win because, like the lunch-room bully who publicly cows his victims, he will have demonstrated he can bend governors and legislatures to his will. Trump gets the attention he craves, and — best of all — the Epstein papers are pushed off the front page.

Hold on to your britches, it is a race to the bottom.

If you wish to call or write your representative or senator, try using 5calls.org as a resource. Also, you can find contact information here for nearly all federal, state and local elected officials.

ICE will receive $30 billion for enforcement, essentially tripling its traditional budget of around $11 billion. ICE will also receive $45 billion for detention facilities versus its prior budget of around $16 billion. Plus $52 billion has been allocated to build a border wall. A total of $171 billion will be spent on immigration enforcement.

Just as the U.S. Air Force pays contractors to build airplanes, a portion of those funds (border wall and detention camp construction) may be spent by contractors or even other agencies under ICE’s supervision.

Let’s put that $171 billion in perspective. Only two nations spend more than that for their entire military operation (U.S. and China). Every other nation’ entire defense budget is smaller.

The $171 billion allocated for ICE in Trump’s BBB is more than three times the annual budget for the U.S. Marine Corps ($57 billion). The allocation of $171 billion is more than the funding for the Federal Bureau of Investigations; Drug Enforcement Administration; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; U.S. Marshals Service and Bureau of Prisons combined. ICE will be the police force with the largest funding in U.S. history.

Trump campaigned on the promise to rid the country of illegal immigrants who are unlawful, but the size of this investment in ICE goes beyond the pale.

We must ask: why? Why is Trump spending $171 billion creating a militarized police force that will be among the largest on earth?

Autocrats Need A Private Army

Taking a brief romp through the 20th and 21st centuries might help us understand why Trump feels the need for a new, enlarged ICE. Nearly every significant autocrat has had a militarized force at his beck and call. The roles fulfilled by these forces have a lot of commonality, and Trump’s ambitions will drive him to use his private army similarly.

Lenin

If we slide back in time to the beginning of the 20th century, we see Russia’s Lenin being helped by the Red Guards, a paramilitary group of workers and soldiers that helped the Bolsheviks seize power. The Red Guards intimidated opponents and promoted Lenin’s “tough guy” image. Later, Lenin had control over the Red Army, a more professional group, and the secret political police force known as the Cheka. The Cheka suppressed political dissent and helped the Bolsheviks remain in power.

Stalin

In the mid 1930s, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) was an important tool for Stalin. At Stalin’s direction, The NKVD built Gulag labor camps throughout Russia, then proceeded to populate them with people accused of political crimes and out-of-favor ethnic minorities (e.g., Volga Germans and Soviet citizens of Polish origin), who were subjected to repression and forced deportation. Later, the NKVD morphed into the KGB, and after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was divided up into a group of organizations collectively known as special services, including the FSB.

Putin

Russia’s Putin relies on his special services for spying, state security tasks, shoring up his political standing and removing dissidents. People in Russia who fall out of favor with Putin have a propensity to then fall out of high windows (defenestration) or suffer some other version of “suicide.” There is a listing of over 70 suspicious deaths that occurred since 2022.

In addition to the special services, Putin has the Wagner Group, an unofficial private army which works at Putin’s pleasure. Putin can use the Wagner Group to compete with or buttress the regular army, act as an enforcer and address conflicts where the state wishes to keep a distance or maintain deniability.

Hitler and the SS

Adolf Hitler’s 1923 Beer Hall Putsch was an attempt to overthrow the German government. It failed despite the support of about 600 of his paramilitary force variously known as Brown Shirts, Storm Troopers, or SA. The lot of them were overtaken by local police, and Hitler spent a year in jail. When he emerged, he re-energized his Nazi party and the SA.

After Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1939, and soon after being invested with near dictatorial powers, Hitler kept the SA funded and populated. A division of the SA, the Schutzstaffel or “Protection Squadron” became known as the “SS.” It was often identified with its trademark SS runes, ᛋᛋ. Over time, the SS grew and became the most important security organization in Germany.

The SS were organized into several units, each serving Hitler’s interests with their own tasks to perform:

• The Allgemeine SS, or the General SS, enforced racial policies and also served as a national police force. By the 1940s, every local police chief and many subordinate officials throughout Germany had been replaced by an SS officer.

• The Waffen SS were armed combat units which fought alongside the regular army. After a region was conquered, the Waffen SS would move in to arrest and kill intellectuals, civic leaders, university professors and religious leaders. They “decapitated” the conquered country so it could not effectively resist Hitler’s rule. Those suspected of resistance would be sent off to a concentration camp run by the SS.

• The Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) or “Death’s Head Units” built and operated the labor camps and death camps.

• The much-feared Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) organizations were charged with detecting and neutralizing enemies of the state, foreign intelligence and policing the German population for commitment to Nazi ideology and faithfulness to Hitler.

In some ways the SS duplicated and was a parallel organization to the regular German Army. However, the army had professional leadership, with military officers who were sworn to defend the German state. In contrast, the SS was led by Heinrich Himmler, who answered directly to Hitler. SS soldiers received training that was physically rigorous but also included extensive indoctrination. SS troops were trained to be loyal to Hitler rather than the German state.

The SS motto, “My Honor is Loyalty,” meant personal loyalty to the Nazi party and its leader, Hitler. The SS could be depended upon to follow Hitler’s commands without question.

When Hitler lost confidence in the SA’s leadership in 1934, he ordered the SS to kill or arrest key leaders of the SA. He also used that occasion to settle scores and remove opposition throughout the German government. In what became known as the Night of the Long Knives, it is estimated the SS and Gestapo murdered up to 1,000 people at Hitler’s request, and a larger number were arrested. It is doubtful Hitler could have accomplished this by tasking the regular army; he needed the fealty and amoral devotion provided by an organization like the SS.

Hitler’s private army started out with just a few Brownshirts, but during World War II, the SS’s numbers grew to over a half-million members. They operated without legal restrictions, answerable only to Hitler.

The function of the SS was to ensure the longevity of Hitler’s rule by removing opponents and discouraging anti-Hitler sentiments. The SS was authorized to investigate, indefinitely detain and even execute “undesirable elements” of society. Their goal was to shape German society as Hitler desired, including the enforcement of racial policies, such as eliminating out-of-favor minorities (Jews, Roma, gays, Poles and Slavs).

Other Countries

There have been a wide range of countries that have had secret police forces, private militia and the like, which primarily served the country’s leadership rather than its citizens — countries like Bulgaria, Hungary, Indonesia, East Germany, South Africa and more. Such forces serve as a tool for autocrats to extend their power and influence.

What Does Trump Want from an Expanded ICE?

Many autocrats identify an “enemy within” as a way to fire up their base with false claims. For example, Stalin targeted Soviet citizens of Polish descent, Hitler identified Jews, Roma and others. As a candidate, Trump campaigned on the promise to remove immigrants. He openly denigrated immigrants, once claiming they were eating neighbors’ cats and dogs.

For unexplained reasons, ICE agents are now roaming the country in unmarked vehicles, often out of uniform, hiding behind face masks and picking up random undocumented immigrants at Home Depots, car washes and restaurants. ICE’s secretive behavior adds to their mystery and creates fear and confusion in immigrant communities. Those detained are sometimes just “disappeared” — their location and legal status remain unknown for extended periods and families have no means to contact the detainees.

I generally avoid comparisons between current events and those of the Nazi past. For one thing, it diminishes the Nazi atrocities. For another, we live in a different age, and such comparisons are never fully accurate. As they say, history does not repeat itself, though it sometimes rhymes.

Having said that, it is nonetheless hard to avoid a comparison between ICE’s activities and Stalin’s NKVD’s pursuit of Soviet citizens of Polish descent. The NKVD targeted one minority group, while ICE targets brown-skinned immigrants that Trump has denigrated.

Or consider the comparison of Germany’s SS with ICE sending immigrants to camps like Alligator Alcatraz and Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Trump celebrates those destinations for being harsh. Once there, immigrants are subject to internment or deportation to hellish places like El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, South Sudan, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) and elsewhere. There is little evidence ICE’s prisoners sent to CECOT are actually gang members as the U.S. government claims; many had no criminal record at all. Nonetheless, Department of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem said prisoners should “stay there the rest of their lives.”

This might be a step back from the SS sending Jews, Poles and political opponents to near-certain death, but how different is it, really? ICE returns some detainees to their “home countries,” where they may not have stepped foot since childhood, while others are forced into circumstances that can be anticipated to cause severe suffering or death. Often without due process.

Curiouser and Curiouser!

Removing millions of immigrants from the U.S. will indeed require additional resources beyond what ICE had in the past, but it need not be among the best funded military on earth. So what else could Trump hope to achieve with a massively enlarged ICE police force?

The short answer is: everything that other autocrats have used their private militia to do.

A Tool Trump Will Reach For

Hitler’s first attempt at a coup was supported by Brownshirts and failed. Trump’s January 6 attempt to avoid relinquishing power was supported by Proud Boys and their associates — and also failed. It could be argued both autocrats failed because their private armies were insufficient for the task — they brought a knife to a gunfight.

Hitler later had a more organized and more professional force (the SA, and eventually the SS). So will Trump. It appears both men were determined not to make the same mistake again.

In the past, when Trump wanted to send the U.S. military to quell demonstrations or riots, he met resistance from his Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as they cited the Posse Comitatus Act. Although his current Secretary of Defense has been more accommodating, by using a militarized ICE (legally a police force rather than an army), the administration may hope to circumvent the restrictions of the Posse Comitatus Act. Moreover, ICE reports to the Department of Homeland Security, and Secretary Kristi Noem has demonstrated a willingness to oblige Trump.

An expanded ICE could help Trump identify and remove political opponents from U.S. society. For example, Trump has advocated rescinding the citizenship and the expulsion of Rosie O’Donnell and Elon Musk among others. He has detained and attempted to expel people for peacefully expressing an opinion on the Palestinians’ situation and threatened to invalidate student visas.

Trump has even advocated removing U.S. citizens and shipping them to El Salvador, publicly saying to the president of El Salvador, "The home-growns are next, the home-growns. You've got to build about five more places [CECOT prisons]."

He has argued for removal of 501(c)(3) tax status of charitable organizations which promote policies he disfavors. A cooperative police force willing to investigate and intimidate would be useful in suppressing such organizations.

Likewise, a police force with time and resources to investigate and threaten investigative reporters, newspapers and TV news organizations could enhance Trump’s program to intimidate and control the press.

By “disappearing” select students, faculty and staff; complicating visa acquisition and creating chaos on campus, ICE can help weaken universities — something else Trump has been working to do. Similar tactics could be applied to other public or charitable institutions which advocate for policies opposed by the Trump administration.

As we approach the 2026 elections, ICE will be well-equipped to intimidate citizens who speak out against the government’s policies. They will also be in a position to intimidate voters, including those who are naturalized citizens or have undocumented family members.

An optimist might argue the danger of a rogue president misusing ICE and other policing agencies is slight because ICE has a long tradition of professionalism and following constitutional law. However, Trump is accumulating the power to fire federal employees at will, and one only needs to look at the former DOJ prosecutors and FBI agents who pursued Jan 6 offenders to see what would happen to any resistors in ICE.

We have already seen the Trump administration use ICE and other agencies to intimidate elected officials, including judges, senators, members of Congress and a city mayor.

We don’t have to guess what Trump wants to accomplish…he has told us with words and actions. As Trump works to succeed at these efforts — like strongmen before him — the newly enhanced ICE will be the obedient tool he will reach for.

It is time for another “Gaetz moment.”

Meet Emil J. Bove III

President Donald Trump has nominated Emil Bove III (pronounced BO-vee), one of Trump’s former personal lawyers, for a lifetime appointment as a federal judge in the appeals court. Below are three separate incidents which suggest Bove is unsuited for the federal judiciary.

The Matter of NYC Mayor Eric Adams

After Trump appointed Bove Acting Deputy Attorney General, Bove appears to have arranged a deal with the embattled Democratic mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. The mayor was being prosecuted by the Department of Justice for bribery and wire fraud.

Representing the DOJ, Bove met with Adams and the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon. Immediately after that meeting, Sassoon offered her resignation in a stinging letter to Pam Bondi, U.S. Attorney General.

Sassoon’s letter suggests Bove agreed to drop the indictment against Adams based on the understanding that Adams would advance the Trump administration’s signature anti-immigration policies as mayor of NYC. Bove wanted the DOJ to drop the indictment without prejudice, enabling the DOJ to bring back the indictment if Adams didn’t keep his end of the bargain.

Bove did not claim the case against Adams was weak. Instead, he claimed the prosecution of Democratic Mayor Adams was somehow politically tainted and was preventing Adams from focusing on illegal immigrants in NYC.

It is highly unusual — even bizarre — for the DOJ to claim a public official is too busy with public service to face accountability for corruption.

Bove ordered the federal prosecutor to sign papers dropping the indictment without prejudice. The first prosecutor wrote a fiery letter of resignation (well worth reading) detailing why he would refuse to sign the papers. He wrote, in part:

“No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.”

“If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me. Please consider this my resignation.”

A second and then third prosecutor also resigned rather than sign. In all, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and at least seven prosecutors resigned before Bove found someone willing to sign the papers asking the judge to drop the charges.

Finally, US. District Judge Dale E. Ho refused to dismiss the case without prejudice, and wrote,

“…dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the Mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration...”

Judge Ho described the DOJ request as:

“fundamentally incompatible with the basic promise of equal justice under law.”

Bove dismissed claims that there was a quid pro quo as “simply false.”

If Bove agreed to have Adams’ indictment dropped in return for support of the Trump Administration’s immigration policy — the quid pro quo which concerned Judge Ho, a U.S. Attorney and seven prosecutors — Bove would have been selling justice in return for political favors, an egregious violation which would render him unsuited to be appointed judge.

Whistleblower Accuses Bove of Ordering DOJ to Defy Court Orders

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant rounded up by ICE and sent to El Salvador’s notorious prison despite a court order protecting him from that, became a lead news item.

A former Justice department lawyer working on the Garcia case, Erez Reuveni, candidly and truthfully admitted to the court that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported. Reuveni claims he subsequently refused directions from his superiors at the DOJ to file a brief misrepresenting those facts to the court. Reuveni testified he was then fired by the DOJ. Reuveni subsequently filed a whistleblower complaint in which he describes a conversation in which he told Bove that a court might block Trump’s planned deportations. Bove reportedly replied,

“…DOJ would need to consider telling the courts "f**k you” and ignore any such court order.

Reuveni paints Bove as a key voice in the Trump administration as it

“…knowingly and willfully defied court orders, directed their subordinate attorneys to make misrepresentations to courts, and engaged in a scheme to withhold relevant information from the court to advance the Administration's priority of deporting.”

When asked in senate hearings about these claims, Bove responded he had “no recollection.” He also claimed, “I never advised a DOJ attorney to violate a court order.”

If Bove advocated ignoring court orders and misrepresenting facts to the court, as he has been accused, that would in all likelihood disqualify him from practicing law, let alone being appointed to a lifetime position as a federal judge.

Bove Fired Prosecutors involved in Jan 6 Cases

Early on, the Trump administration demanded the names of FBI agents involved in prosecuting the Jan. 6 criminal cases. On January 24, 2025, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the firing of the January 6 prosecutors, just days after Trump’s clemency action benefited more than 1,500 people charged in the U.S. Capitol attack — even those convicted of violence against police officers. It is believed about two dozen employees at the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington were terminated and more than a half-dozen senior executives at the FBI were ordered to retire or shortly be fired.

By firing those who worked on January 6 cases, a message is being sent that retribution will flow to anyone doing work whose outcome is contrary to the personal interests of the president. Such firings are un-American and are a blow to the traditional political independence exercised by the DOJ and FBI.

Bove Is Unfit

Bove says he wants to end weaponization of the DOJ, but he has done the opposite. He has enabled the Trump administration’s unethical behavior and unconstitutional defiance of court orders. His disregard for the rule of law makes him a terrible choice to serve a lifetime appointment as a federal judge. Can he be trusted to be an impartial judge or will he continue to act as a partisan agent for the president?

The Constitution requires the Senate provide “advice and consent” before Bove can be appointed judge. The way to ensure Bove is not placed on the federal bench is to express your reservations to your senators. It is best to call; next best is to write your concerns in an email.

As with Matt Gaetz, the nation needs to banish Bove from influence and power. There are many excellent candidates available for appointment to the federal bench. We don’t need to appoint the likes of Emil Bove III.

If you wish to call or write your senator, try using 5calls.org as a resource. Also, you can find contact information here for nearly all federal, state and local elected officials.

I’m not a psychologist; I do not pretend to understand why President Donald Trump behaves as he does, but it is clear that he is surrounded by enablers. It is not surprising that he selected staff who support his actions and protect him. However, it is surprising that members of Congress, even when they have previously disagreed with the policies he now advocates, actively support and defend him with complete fealty.

The following are just a couple examples.

.

Immigration

Congresswoman Harshbarger (R-TN) recently spoke to a local Republican Club in her hometown, and assured the audience that only thieves, rapists and robbers are being arrested by ICE. "They [ICE] are not after the average person who came across the border because they wanted a better life." she said. Yet, even as she spoke those falsehoods, evidence is accumulating that the Trump administration, in its fervor to increase immigrant deportations, is conducting “roving patrols,” detaining workers in restaurants, car washes and construction sites. They are detaining immigrants trying to make a living and support their families; most detainees have not been convicted of a felony. Agents even have been reported attempting to enter elementary schools. ICE is targeting the most powerless among us — the lowest hanging fruit — as they try to meet impossible quotas demanded of them by Trump.

Congress’ Reaction

Trump was elected on the promise to remove violent and criminal immigrants. If Congress wanted to limit him to that promise, they could pass legislation to protect immigrants who lead a law-abiding life and are working to support their families (some of whom may be U.S. citizens). Congress could, for example, provide a path to citizenship and protect "dreamers” who were brought to this country as young children — legislation that consistently has broad public support. Congress could encourage better policing behavior by insisting federal officers adhere to the law requiring them to wear insignia identifying which branch of government employs them, and could pass the No Secret Police Act requiring officers to expose their face and wear badges identifying themselves.

Pockets Lined with Cash

Trump has established various schemes to pocket cash from people seeking favors. It is bad enough when politicians accept “influence money” to pay for campaigns, but much of the money Trump collects goes into his pocket.

Mar-a-Lago

People pay $1,000,000 to join his Mar-a-Lago resort in order to casually bump into him there.

The Executive Branch Club

For $500,000 per year, folks can join Eric and Don Jr.’s Executive Branch club, where they can rub shoulders with members of the Trump administration in the absence of reporters. Their web site states,

“The Executive Branch Club is not able to 'guarantee' a meeting with a member of the administration or of influence. Doing so could be considered a quid-pro-quo which The Executive Branch Club does not provide or condone. Contacts and donations to The Executive Branch Club may allow us to facilitate making 'every reasonable effort' in connecting you with the member or department best suited for your needs and interests. While The Executive Branch Club thanks all contributors for their donations, please note that preference for contact may be given to those who have best demonstrated their spirit of generosity.”

This may be the rawest example yet of influence peddling by a president’s children.

$TRUMP Coins

Anyone can purchase $TRUMP meme coins, and those who purchase large quantities get special treatment and attention. Eighty percent of those coins are currently owned by Trump and his businesses. For starters, every dollar “invested” by a member of the public infuses transaction fees into Trump’s personal business. But beyond that, meme coins are a very clever arrangement: suppose I buy a million dollars of $TRUMP coins from the open market, and Trump just happens to sell a million dollars worth of coins from his personal collection into the market. Effectively, my money has slithered into his pocket under the invisible cloak of the marketplace, but there is no record of me crossing his palm with cash. It provides a crime-free, “sanitized” way to pay off a president.

Mixing Personal Business with State Visits

While Trump was traipsing around the Middle East last month, he and his two sons were negotiating private billion-dollar real estate deals with the same Princes, Kings and Emirs with whom Trump was supposedly negotiating tariff agreements. Could it be that some of them had the impression that a better real estate deal for Trump might produce a better tariff outcome for them? Why, yes, it is possible that thought occurred to them.

Congress’ Reaction

The Republican caucus in the House and the Senate had apoplexy when Hunter Biden was paid $50,000 a month for sitting on the Board of Directors for Burisma Holdings Ltd. They denounced him for selling influence. As unbecoming as it was, a House investigation failed to identify evidence of unlawful behavior.

These same congressmen seemed to be perfectly content with Trump’s shameless and unprecedented influence peddling schemes raking in billions of dollars not just to Trump’s children but to him personally. Republican legislators have not lifted a quill — or even their voice — to object. They have not scheduled hearings, they have not referred any activity to the DOJ for action. They have not even attempted to protect the leaders of the United_States_Office_of_Government_Ethics or the Office of Inspectors General whom Trump fired soon after taking the oath of office. In fact, Congress’ only reaction has been to bury their heads in the sand and hope Fox News will convince the base that all is good.

Take A Hard Look At Your Senators and Representative

The president has circumvented Congress’ authority, and rather than defend itself or the constitution, our GOP congressional majority continues to enable Trump’s bad behavior.

Just like the enablers who surround addicts, Republican members of congress work to shield Trump from critics and fix things when he makes a mess. They have defended, misrepresented and covered up his bad behavior. By protecting Trump, they delay the day of reckoning and prolong the nation’s agony.

The Republican majority of Congress appears to believe no act of submission to the President is beyond the pale; it earns them a short-term assurance that Trump will not primary them in the next election. They will stay in their jobs at all costs, even when that servitude prevents them from actually performing their job.

Members of Congress who believe subservience to Trump is their ticket to reelection should consider that 5 million people — 1.5% of the American population — registered their disapproval of Trump by showing up for No Kings Day.

As we approach the 2026 elections, voters should ask, are my Representatives and Senators doing their job, or are they “going along to get along?” Are they supporting constitutional processes and challenging corruption or injustice? If not, it is time for a change.

Those who wish to write their elected officials can find contact information here.

Below is a brief, bottom-line summary of the bill’s economic impact on the United States. The ethical and societal impact is left to the reader’s conscience to judge. There are also a large number of non-economic and ancillary issues in this bill such as diminishing the ability of federal judges to enforce contempt rulings, defunding PBS and NPR, Planned Parenthood and much more. But those are discussions for another day.

How this bill manifests into law is now largely in the hands of the U.S. Senate.

Spending Cuts

Despite campaign promises by Trump and other Republicans, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will cut nearly $700 billion from Medicaid. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says this bill will remove healthcare coverage for 8.6 million of the most vulnerable Americans. The damage will ripple across the economy as the poor become poorer and less healthy and as the demise of rural hospitals — already stressed — is hastened due to customers’ inability to pay.

Trump will reduce spending on the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program (food stamps) by $267 billion over 10 years. This will undoubtedly impact millions of families, including children, and American farmers.

Educational loans will be reduced by $330 billion, allowing fewer people to attend college. The nation’s investment in science and research will be cut in half, and a new tax on university endowments will further diminish American universities.

Spending Increases

Military spending ($842 billion in 2024, more than double the second highest spender, China) will increase a breathtaking 13%.

This legislation will increase spending on Trump’s border wall. While FAA employees and scientists at the National Weather Service, EPA and HHS are being fired, Trump will hire 3,000 new Border Patrol agents, 5,000 customs officers and 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

The bill pays to remove 1 million immigrants annually and house 100,000 people in detention centers. Consider that the cost of imprisoning one person is the same as university tuition. If you include societal costs, incarceration costs nearly ten times greater. To make matters worse, the Trump administration will send some detainees to Guantanamo, where protections of U.S. law can be more easily circumvented. Conditions are horrific and the cost of internment is many times higher than traditional prisons.

For budgetary purposes, increased spending and reduced taxes are equivalent. Both increase our debt, dollar for dollar.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act extends the tax cuts from Trump’s first term, with a few tweaks. 83% of the benefits from those tax cuts go into the pockets of the top 1% of the wealthiest Americans.

Revenue from royalty rates paid by companies to extract oil, gas and coal will be reduced (a gift to industry). And more public lands for drilling, mining and logging will be leased — a policy decried by environmentalists, hunters, fishermen and recreational users.

The Bottom Line

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act increases the U.S. debt by $3.8 trillion over ten years.

The prospect of this bill being passed was a factor in Moody’s decision to reduce the credit rating of the United States. As investors cringe at the fiscal irresponsibility of this administration and the rubber-stamping by Congress, they have dumped U.S. government bonds. That, in turn, has caused U.S. interest rates to rise, which will impact all of us when we use a credit card, buy a car, or purchase a mortgage. The long-term damage to our currency will play out over the coming years.

Buried in Section 70302 of the legislation is a rule change that makes it harder for judges to force government to follow the law. The Trump administration appears to be laying the groundwork so they can disobey court orders with impunity.

Trump has subjected the country to all the DOGE cost cutting chaos; 2.4 million federal employees fired, bought out and scheduled for firing. Innumerable scientific grants have been terminated, thereby forfeiting the innovation and future benefits of scientific research. The next generation will experience reduced educational opportunities and millions will be deprived of medical care. Our nation has forfeited the “soft power” derived from generously giving foreign aid. Despite all that, our debt will increase just to please the wealthiest 1%.

Rather than put those savings toward lowering existing debt, or at least toward reducing future debt, the Trump Administration will transfer money saved to our wealthiest citizens, and then borrow further to enlarge the wealth transfer. America’s sacrifices are being squandered.

The One Big, Beautiful Bill Act is not conservative. It promotes neither the health of America’s economy nor its people. This bill does not put America first, it puts the wealthiest 1% of Americans first at the expense of everyone else’s future.

It Is Up to The Senate Now — And Each of Us.

Please consider making your views known to your senators. Readers are invited to copy/paste the following draft letter, or to modify it as you see fit. Your elected officials’ contact information can be found here.

Dear Senator [Your senator’s last name],

As the Senate begins deliberations about President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, I hope you will make a long, critical examination of it.

No American, except perhaps the oligarchs standing behind Mr. Trump at his inauguration, voted to cut Medicare and SNAP, cut support for students attending college, deprive 8.6 million Americans of healthcare, nor cut science investments by half — all for the purpose of funding tax cuts for the wealthy while increasing our nation’s debt by $3.8 trillion.

Please adjust the tax provisions so they equitably share costs and benefits across the economic spectrum of citizens and contribute toward lowering the debt. Remove cuts to the social safety net. Remove the provisions attacking universities, science and the environment. Remove the portion of Section 70302 of the legislation which restricts federal courts’ authority to hold government officials in contempt.

Do not be a rubber stamp. Stand up for the independence of Congress, its power over the purse strings and demand Congress’ involvement in establishing national policy.

Sincerely,

[Your name and address]

Over the last century, the United States developed a complex infrastructure based in our universities to create and foster science. This infrastructure trains scientists, generates new knowledge, and enables our industry and government to achieve what would otherwise be impossible. We benefit in peace and war.

The Trump administration appears intent on destroying that entire infrastructure.

How The System Works

After graduating high school, I went off to college, where I studied chemistry. My family was proud when I earned a bachelor’s degree with honors. When I decided to go to graduate school and earn a Ph.D. in chemistry, my parents expressed concern about finances.

Fortunately, for those who can pass entry exams and earn admission to a Ph.D. program in science, there is a whole system in place to make it financially feasible for most Americans. The U.S. decided nearly a century ago that society benefits by having home-grown scientists.

Learning Laboratory Techniques

Experimental sciences (such as chemistry, biology, physics and certain fields of engineering) are as much a skilled trade as a field of study. Scientists simply have to learn how to manipulate laboratory equipment to do science. Those skills cannot be acquired through book learning alone — it requires practice, dexterity and experience in a laboratory.

While earning my undergraduate degree in chemistry, I spent between six and nine hours a week in a lab during each of the four years. That lab time was supervised, not by a professor, but by graduate students.

For those graduate students, teaching undergraduate labs forced them to revisit and review their undergraduate text books; teaching became part of their graduate educational experience. They were paid very, very modestly for teaching, and teaching was a required part of earning their advanced degree. While teaching, their graduate tuition was also forgiven, making it possible for them to pursue higher education. The university got a great deal, acquiring very capable and energetic people to teach for a pittance.

Just as others had taught me, when I attended graduate school, I taught the next generation of rising scientists how to function in a lab.

Research Funding

Earning a Ph.D. means doing a multi-year, complex research project, which requires having an idea to pursue, money to purchase supplies and sometimes travel. The research idea often comes from the research advisor, the professor whose research group the graduate student has joined.

Professors write grant proposals and if they are good enough, they may be funded by the National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, or some other government or industrial agency. That grant will cover a portion of the professor’s salary, the tiny stipend for each graduate student, and pay for equipment and supplies for actually doing the research.

Research Overhead

In addition, grants include an “overhead” payment to the university, which helps reimburse the cost of heating and air-conditioning the laboratory building, plumbing repairs, and mowing the lawn outside. It also helps pay for the extraordinarily expensive equipment that the department buys and makes available to all the researchers in the department.

For example, when I was a student, the chemistry department had one high-end nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer (NMR). It cost far more than any single research group could afford, so the department pooled a portion of all the overhead payments from grants and purchased one unit that was made available to all graduate students in the department. The availability of such sophisticated equipment is a big part of what differentiates American research universities from those in poorer countries. Lesser universities might have excellent scientists, but without the best equipment, research is slowed, students cannot learn the latest techniques, and some projects are simply not feasible.

Professors

So far, we’ve talked about funding science from the vantage point of undergraduate and graduate students. But what about the professors? These are the people at the apex of the structure.

Once a newly-minted Ph.D. is hired as an assistant professor (the lowest rank), the newbie has six years to develop a record of obtaining grants, managing a research group, building up a laboratory with all the necessary equipment, and most importantly of all, publishing high-quality, consequential work that advances the state of scientific knowledge in their field. At the end of six years, the department will evaluate if this young professor has the right stuff to manage students, money and ideas. If so, they will then be granted tenure, promoted to associate professor, and allowed to stay. If not, they will be denied tenure, and they will need to find a job elsewhere.

This is the process that results in premier universities like Harvard, MIT and University of California-Berkeley being filled with scientific giants, while lesser universities are staffed with capable, smart scientists who didn’t quite make the big-time. (That is a generalization, of course; there are exceptions everywhere.)

This finely tuned, merit-based system of funding science in the United States has produced and supported vast numbers of world-class experts. Historically, most of those experts chose to reside in the U.S. because of the supportive environment for science that existed here, at least until recently.

Trump’s Wrecking Ball

The Trump administration is chopping away at every aspect of government’s support for scientific research.

Grants Cancelled

Grants are being cancelled willy-nilly. Multi-year projects are being shut down in the middle of work.

Think about the graduate student who is the middle of a project, when support is suddenly and inexplicably withdrawn. All of a sudden, supplies cannot be purchased. That graduate student stipend, thin under the best of circumstances, may be terminated. Tuition reimbursement is suddenly in question. The project cannot be completed, and often the early, unfinished work cannot be published and becomes lost or useless.

Overhead Reduced

Even among the grants not cancelled, the overhead payment is reduced to 15%. That severely limits the academic department’s ability to support research. Heating and air-conditioning, electric bills, routine maintenance, are all now unsupported. The people who manage the stockroom are defunded. Longer term, the department’s prospect of updating major scientific equipment is reduced, signaling a slow descent into mediocrity.

Visas Threatened

As President Trump cancels foreign students’ visas without explanation or notice, critical project team members are simply plucked out of the university and sent home — or worse — leaving key positions in project teams vacant.

Foreign Scientists Scared Away

Here in America, the sterling reputation of our universities has historically attracted the brightest and best of young, international students. But, as student visas become tenuous, enforcement arbitrary, and the atmosphere downright threatening, foreign scientists will naturally decide to pursue their education elsewhere. This means fewer of the world’s best minds come here.

Staff Reduction at Federal Institutions

Sudden staff reductions at the National Institute of Health, Center for Disease Control, the National Science Foundation, etc., cause cancellation of long-term research programs in a disordered and chaotic way. Data relied upon by researchers the world over suddenly are unavailable and perhaps lost. The dissemination of grant money is slowed and made less effective without proper administration.

Diminishing the Supply of University Professors

University professors are the keystone in the arch of science. Young professors who suddenly lose their grants in the middle of their pre-tenure period will be unable to obtain support for the research they envisioned. The basis for tenure — building a global scientific reputation — becomes unattainable.

Older, well-established scientists can easily move to countries that have not abandoned science. Europe, Canada, Israel, and even places like China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran are seeking to take advantage of the American brain-drain. A poll by Nature Magazine found that 75% of the 1,600 readers who responded said they were considering a job outside the U.S.

A “Choose Europe for Science” event was held at the Sorbonne, one of France’s premier universities, where French President Macron spoke. “A few years ago, no one would have imagined that one of the biggest democracies in the world would cancel research programs under the pretext that the word diversity was in this program,” he said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also spoke, saying EU’s executive branch would establish a “super grant” of $566M for 2025-2027 “to make Europe a magnet for researchers.”

Why Not Let Industry Fund All Science?

Corporate America funds a lot of research in service of their shareholders. They require a defined payback period and clear path to profitability. As a former Director of Research in a Fortune 500 corporate laboratory, I can assure you that many life-saving benefits we take for granted would never have occurred without government funding of research.

The government can afford patience. Its broad objectives are to provide training for the next generation, build a foundation of basic knowledge for future discoveries and to benefit society with useful discoveries.

A 50-Year Discovery Path for MRI

The story of how the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was invented is illustrative of how much patience is required for some scientific advancements, and how important government funding can be.

The story begins with the discovery of an obscure physics phenomena, nuclear magnetic resonance, discovered in the 1930s by Isador Rabi, the son of Polish immigrants who attended Cornell University and then earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at Columbia University. He proved this phenomena existed through some clever experimentation. Over the next five decades, his discoveries interested Sir Peter Mansfield (University of Nottingham) and Paul Lauterbur (State University of New York at Stony Brook), Edward Purcell (Purdue, Harvard, MIT), Felix Bloch (Stanford, Harvard and University of California-Berkeley), two Swedish scientists, Erik Odeblad and Gunnar Lindström (University of California-Berkeley and the Nobel Institute for Physics), and Raymond Damadian (State University of New York Downstate Medical Center). These scientists used Rabi’s discoveries to first create the nuclear magnetic spectrometer (NMR), a tool used today in most chemistry laboratories, and then morphed that technology into the medical device we all know today as magnetic resonance imaging. MRIs create an X-Ray-like image that not only shows hard bony structures in the body, but also can visualize soft structures like tendons, nerves and organ tissue.

Today, anyone suffering from cancer or an injury to soft tissue is likely to have a life-saving MRI image made. Purcell received the Nobel prize for physics in 1952. Mansfield and Laterbur received the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine in 2003.

Corporate research contributed to the final commercialization (and subsequent improvements) of MRIs, but only after the basic science had been demonstrated.

The first MRI was commercialized in 1978, almost a half-century after the initial discoveries by Rabi, who had no commercial product in mind.

Trump Attacks Universities

Under the banner of condemning antisemitism and “woke” thinking, the Trump administration has attempted to take over the operation of universities (deciding whom to hire, what to teach, and how to operate). When Harvard resisted, President Trump announced he would punitively cancel billions in grants and cancel the school’s tax-exempt status. Of course, canceling research on Lou Gehrig's disease or a new treatment for babies with heart defects, have nothing to do with antisemitism. It is all about suppressing dissenting voices, and controlling which ideas will see the light of day. It is the stuff of autocratic regimes.

America reaps the benefit of our science infrastructure every time an American company hires a scientific expert for their research labs, or the government designs a complex defense system.

Our science enterprise took nearly a century to build but is being dismantled in a blink of the eye. For political gain, Trump is willing to destroy one of the largest gems in America’s crown.

Consider making your views known to your elected officials. Their contact information can be found here.

Firing employees is a big deal. Among those remaining on the team, enthusiasm for the job, perception of being valued (or not), and dedication to the employer will be affected by how the layoffs were conducted. How one goes about firing is just as important as how one goes about hiring.

In a perfect world, an employer determined to lay off employees would follow a process in which only the least desirable employees walk out the door without losing the smartest, most capable and hardest working ones. That goal is remarkably difficult to accomplish.

President Donald Trump and his side-kick, Elon Musk, are demonstrating just how difficult the process is, especially when you have not carefully considered what you are doing.

I worked in various industries, universities and government for many decades and I retired from a Fortune 500 company as Director of Research. I have seen layoffs come and go, and they are never fun or pretty. But I have never seen a reduction in force as poorly managed as what is happening in our government.

Throwing Out The Baby With The Bathwater

Trump started off with a broadly issued “buyout deal,” essentially paying employees to quit. With this, the administration immediately lost control of who stays and who goes. Critical and not-so-critical skills, excellent and mediocre employees — they all walk out the door together.

Who takes early retirement offers? Generally two groups: (1) people already planning to retire within a few years, and (2) people who can easily get employment elsewhere because they are leaders in their field and in high demand. Paying the first group to leave is arguably a poor investment…just wait a couple years and they’ll be gone anyway. The loss of the second group is egregious…those are the very ones you most want to keep.

As DOGE marches in to each department, their first step is to fire probationary employees, who have fewer employment protections. Probationary employees include recent hires — often recent graduates who typically have the most up-to-date skills. They are the lowest paid employees in the shop, earning perhaps half what more senior employees earn. In government service, managers go through a lot of work to justify hiring new employees. Hence, we can conclude they are satisfying a current need that existing employees could not. These are not the first people you want to fire.

In government service, probationary employees also include those who were recently promoted or moved to a new-to-them job. Those recently promoted are typically the best up-and-coming employees, the very ones you do NOT want to chase off.

The group of probationary employees who have recently had lateral moves may include some problematic employees being shuttled to someone else’s department, but also very good employees that are in demand — the kind of employees that department heads fight to attract. These are people brought in to a group when current employees are either too busy or lack the needed skills to do the job.

Overall, firing probationary employees en masse is almost always the wrong decision. Moreover, these firings have been declared illegal by a federal judge, and the government has been ordered to rehire thousands of employees.

The next step being taken by the Trump administration is mass layoffs without consideration of the employee’s status, function or importance to the mission. Musk bragged he had a “chainsaw for bureaucracy,” as he held aloft a giant red chain saw. Again, the administration is tossing out the baby with the bathwater, failing to selectively fire poor performers while keeping the needed deep experience and knowledge so the department will retain its ability to accomplish its mission.

Employees are deeply affected as they and their coworkers are summarily fired in the most impersonal way and escorted out the door, sometimes without notice or explanation. Some workers have been falsely told they are being fired “for cause,” despite years excellent performance reviews.

Explaining why he asked employees to send him a list of five activities every week, Musk contemptuously wrote it was to discover “who had a pulse and two working neurons.”

White House advisor Alina Habba made negative comments about federal employees, saying: “I really don’t feel sorry for them. They should get back to work…” She also said military veterans affected by the DOGE-led layoffs may not be “fit to have a job at this moment.”

The administration have been pointlessly harsh towards employees who are fired, but they have also made little effort to reduce trauma for the employees who stay — people who watched their friends and coworkers leave in tears. This is an important aspect of a successful reduction in force effort, as the organization hopes these are the people who will be creating success in the future. Instead, Trump and Musk convey a sense of disrespect and meanness, which only serves to damage morale with employees who remain on the job.

Most reductions in forces that are designed to reduce costs, target mid- and late-career employees who are getting middling performance ratings. Those folks are frequently highly paid, whose careers have topped out, and in some cases, their skills are dated. Firing them, the argument goes, enables younger, more energetic and lower paid employees to move into the vacated slots. In contrast, Trump’s and Musk’s approach appears to be without strategy.

A More Orderly Approach

The standard alternative approach is to first determine the reduced scope of mission desired for a department’s future state. Then have a department-by-department effort to identify the skillsets required to fulfill the new mission. Populate those groups by cherry-picking from current employees and hiring others when necessary.

This approach enables managers to keep the strongest employees, and those whose skills are outdated or no longer required are not brought into the new organization.

Such a process requires work and more time, but it produces fewer mistakes with re-hirings and chaos. However, it requires forethought and planning, for which President Trump has not demonstrated a penchant.

There are large companies that routinely fire employees. For example, Goldman Sachs and Amazon fire a percentage of their employees each year (as did GE when Jack Welch was CEO) . These companies manage it without the drama, confusion and chaos resulting from the Trump administration’s actions.

To be clear, I am not a fan of frequent layoffs. They can be counterproductive, being so damaging to morale, future hiring potential, and loss of critical skills, that benefits are often outweighed by damage done. But if the administration is going to pursue layoffs, they should do it strategically, intelligently, and they should always endeavor to treat employees respectfully.

As the legendary baseball player, Yogi Berra said, “If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else.”

You can find contact information for all your elected representatives at the federal, state, county and city level here.

Our nation is creeping toward a constitutional crisis, and not just because President Trump is pushing the boundaries of his constitutional power. All presidents do that in various degrees. Nor is it because the courts are shirking their duty. The problem is that Congress is rolling over and playing dead. The Founding Fathers created our system of separation of powers assuming Congress would stick up for itself. They did not anticipate how easily members of Congress are cowed.

The constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, meaning the president must spend money in the way Congress dictates, and he cannot buy so much as a lightbulb without funds allocated by Congress. However, Congress chose to provide a mechanism (Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974) by which the president can propose not to spend congressionally appropriated funds. Congress must approve the so-called “rescission” within 45 days for it to take effect. If Congress does not act on the president’s proposal, the law requires the president to abide by congress’s original intent, and the rescission shall not occur.

This means that when Congress has allocated funds for USAID, NIH, EPA, Education Department or other government departments, the president’s job is to faithfully execute the law, unless a rescission has been approved by Congress. President Trump is not following that law.

The president’s staff (i.e., Elon Musk) cannot lawfully enact recessions on their own whims. It is Congress’ job, not the president’s or his appointees’, to determine if spending money on foreign aid is in the national interest. The Trump administration is repeatedly and illegally over-riding funding decisions of Congress.

Congress ignored that Trump is in the process of firing tens of thousands of Congressionally funded employees. 75,000 government employees have accepted Trump’s early retirement “deal” that Congress has not funded. Indeed, we don’t know if that program will be judged legal, or if Trump will be forced to rescind the offer.

Congress ignored that Trump has fired 17 Inspectors General, overriding a decision of Congress to create the IG system after the abuses of the Nixon era.

If the president wants to make these changes, he should propose legislation and the Republican Speaker of the House and Majority Leader of the Senate) would usher those bills through Congress. The issues would be aired, debated and voted upon. Major disruptions could be planned for and calamities avoided. It would be a legal, more thoughtful and less chaotic approach…but that is not Trump’s way.

If Congress cedes its power of the purse to the president by doing nothing, that power will be difficult to recover. America will have taken a giant step toward autocracy.

It is time to write your senator and congressperson. Ask them to stand up for the institution of Congress, for separation of powers, and for the Constitution which they have taken an oath to defend.

The following is a letter I emailed to my senators and congresswoman. I hope you will use it to formulate your own letter. Feel free to copy/paste, modify, shorten or lengthen and make it your own. Or better yet, call their offices and start the conversation by reading the first and last paragraphs.

A link is provided at the bottom to provide contact information for all your elected representatives.

Dear Senator [Last Name] or Dear Representative [Last Name]

I am writing to ask that you take steps to defend the separation of powers and Congress’s authority in the matter of government funding.

Any reorganization of the executive branch of government should be done in a lawful manner. The redesign or elimination of any branch that was established by Congress must be eliminated or redesigned by Congress. Following a lawful process ensures the facts are laid out, a public debate is held, and a vote is taken. It ensures transparency and accountability.

It is Congress’ responsibility to decide if the U.S. government will have Inspector Generals or not. Congress decides how much will be spent on contracts, grants or foreign aid.

I urge you to reclaim Congress’ constitutional power of the purse. Don’t be cowed by Trump’s and Musk’s threats to fund primary opponents of “disloyal” members of Congress. Please find the courage to do your job.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

Readers are encouraged to copy or adapt this letter to send to your Representative and Senators in Congress. You can find contact information for all your elected representatives at the federal, state, county and city level here.

Under Majority Leader John Thune’s guidance, the U.S. Senate appears willing to reject President-Elect Donald Trump’s demand that Trump be allowed to make recess appointments instead of utilizing the traditional confirmation process.

The Senate should be commended for committing to follow the constitutional confirmation process. But the Senate’s real test will start shortly after January 20th.

The President-elect has nominated a slew of people who are variously ill prepared and unqualified (by skill or temperament) for the job. Some simply lack experience. Some have histories suggesting they also lack the personal integrity, ethics, and judgement necessary for leadership positions. Many are just not serious people. The following is a small sampling of what is coming down the pike.

Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary

This is surely one of the most influential and important jobs in our government. The defense secretary not only manages the enormous Department of Defense, he provides advice to the president when major challenges arise, and he represents our nation when interfacing with his counterparts among our allies and adversaries.

Hegseth has argued against holding U.S. soldiers accountable when suspected of war crimes. He has opposed women holding certain position in the military, including combat roles, and opposed allowing LGBTQ people to openly serve in the military.

Hegseth is accused of having committed rape. He claims it was consensual sex, but paid the accuser an undisclosed sum of hush money in return for her signing a secrecy agreement. Because he has not released her from that agreement, we are unable to hear her side of the story.

The Defense Secretary manages the development process for major weapon systems. For example, as drones (in the air, on land and water) are developed, we need to redefine how our military is armed. Decisions made over the next four years will be with us for decades, as most military systems are long-term investments.

Pete Hegseth has virtually no experience in any of these matters. While he served in the military as a junior officer, he has never managed a large organization of any kind. In fact, he had some spectacular failures in managing small organizations and apparently has a history of drinking to excess while on the job.

Pam Bondi for Attorney General

Trump’s initial appointment of then-Representative Matt Gaetz as our nation’s chief law enforcement officer was withdrawn. The House ethics report indicates Gaetz, while in office, paid tens of thousands of dollars to numerous women (including a 17 year-old girl) for sex and illegal drugs. Gaetz denies he violated the law.

After Trump gave up on the Gaetz nomination, he turned to Pam Bondi. She is known for having personally solicited a $25,000 contribution from Donald Trump while, as Florida’s Attorney General, she was deciding whether Florida should join New York State in suing Trump University over fraud allegations. After receiving a $25,000 check from Trump’s charitable foundation, Ms. Bondi decided Florida would not join New York’s suit.

Charitable foundations are not allowed to make political contributions, and Trump later had to pay a $2,500 fine for violating that rule. After Trump’s donation was publicly characterized as an unethical attempt to influence Florida’s attorney general (which she denied), it was reported that Bondi attempted to return the $25,000, but the foundation returned her check, saying Trump had written a personal check to his foundation covering the amount — as though that somehow made it okay. Note that it would be unlawful to launder a political donation by passing it through a charitable fund. As the chief law enforcement officer for Florida, Pam Bondi claimed no laws were broken because there was no quid pro quo was explicitly expressed.

Ms. Bondi has backed Trump for a long time. She helped defend him during his first impeachment. She also ran with Trump’s team of clown-car lawyers (Rudi Giuliani and others) to convince the public that the election of 2020 was somehow tainted. She was part of the spectacle of lawyers who stood outside Trump’s trial in New York City.

There are any number of former Republican or Democratic state attorney generals or judges who could be selected for the position of U.S. Attorney General. Pam Bondi is Trump’s choice because she seemingly has a certain transactional approach to ethical issues that Trump appreciates. It is a good bet that Bondi and Trump would reach an understanding if Trump chooses to pursue his campaign promise of attacking political opponents.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services Secretary

Mr. Kennedy is an environmental lawyer by training, and has no formal training in medicine or public health. He has identified several controversial positions he intends to pursue.

Autism

Kennedy believes autism was rare when he was a child, whereas today it is more commonly diagnosed. He quotes statistics, but ignores that autism was not fully recognized as a disorder until the 1980s, so of course diagnoses were rare in the 1950s through 1970s. Kennedy has falsely concluded, based on personal anecdotes, autism’s supposed increase results from vaccinations and diet.

Vaccinations

Kennedy is an outspoken skeptic of vaccines, claiming that no vaccine is entirely safe and effective. In fact, his lawyer has petitioned the U.S. FDA to revoke approval of the polio vaccine. Kennedy’s position on vaccines is contrary to the position of the global medical community. It is feared that he could not only block approval of new vaccines, but would use his position to suppress usage of current vaccines, which could result in outbreaks of diseases we have not seen in decades.

Fluoridation of Drinking Water

Kennedy says he will advocate for removal of fluoride from drinking water. I have written about his position on fluoridation, and why he is terribly misguided.

Food Additives and More

Kennedy wants to remove food additives commonly used in the U.S. Some review of food additives would be appropriate, especially those that have been “grandfathered” into the system. He also wants to remove glyphosate (an active ingredient in Roundup® herbicide). Removing glyphosate, which EPA has found does not pose a risk to human health when used in accordance with its current label, from U.S. farming would raise costs, decrease yields and force farmers to abandon no-till farming.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the classic case of a man — maybe even a well-intentioned man — beyond his depth and lacking expertise, but so imbued with confidence by his wealthy upbringing that he has lost sight of his limitations. His bizarre conclusions about matters of science and medicine contradict the overwhelming majority of knowledgeable experts.

Linda McMahon for Education Secretary

Linda McMahon, the former wrestling entertainment company executive, has little education experience. She did serve in Connecticut’s Board of Education, but left after one year when it was reported she falsely claimed to have a degree in education. Bizarrely, she later said she had mistakenly thought her degree was in education because she did a semester of student teaching.

She served on the board of America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank which advocates reducing federal oversight of schools and reduced federal educational funding. McMahon advocates for school vouchers, which diverts public funds away from public schools towards private and religious schools.

The Coming Clown Show

The above list is just the tip of the iceberg. There is Herschel Walker, NFL player, nominated as U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas. Charles Kushner (Jared’s father) who Trump pardoned for a “loathsome” and “disgusting” felony, nominated to be ambassador to France. Tulsi Gabbard, nominated for the key position of Director of National Intelligence, has been accused of parroting and promoting Russian propaganda. Kimberly Guilfoyle, Don Jr’s ex-girlfriend is to be our ambassador to Greece. These people and dozens more like them are remarkably ill-equipped for their assigned roles.

Future Presidents deserve staff who will support the policies on which they were elected. That is not the issue here. Passing Trump’s loyalty test might be desirable for Trump, but expertise and personal integrity should also be required to earn Senate approval.

We want our country’s government to be successful. We want capable and smart people to help our president lead; people who come with knowledge and expertise, ethics and principle; people who will give our president the best possible advice and guidance.

The team that Trump is proposing for Senate approval by and large lacks those qualities. We will soon see if the Senate can save Trump (and our nation) from Trump’s desire to settle for loyalty alone.

If you want to influence “advice and consent” decisions, you can express your views to your U.S. Senators. You can find contact information here.

I mention this because a chemical has been in the news lately, for all the wrong reasons.

Fluoride

Flouride is added to most of this country’s water supply because minuscule quantities in our diet reduces the occurrence of cavities in people’s teeth, a real health benefit.

My mother worked as a dental hygienist back in the late 1930’s, before cities fluoridated their water. New York City hired dental hygienists like her to visit schools and educate students about dental hygiene because the youth experienced so many cavities. Many young New Yorkers had lost essentially all their teeth by the time they graduated high school — a common graduation present was to pay for a full set of dentures.

My father was born in 1910 and raised in New York City. He had full dentures by the age of 32.

However, other cities with similar rates of poverty and income, similar diets and level of immigration, did not have this epidemic of tooth loss among its youth.

Fluoride occurs naturally in ocean water and vast swaths of the nation’s water supply, especially water taken from wells (“ground water”). In Texas’ groundwater, for example, the fluoride content is very high, sometimes measuring 8 parts per million (ppm). In contrast, rain water collected from rivers and lakes (“surface water”) generally averages a much lower 0.2 ppm fluoride, and sometimes lacks fluoride entirely. The water in New York City was surface water (piped from lakes and rivers in upstate New York) and was essentially devoid of fluoride.

Beginning in 1901, it was observed that people with a certain distinctive mottling on their teeth experienced very little tooth decay. Eventually, both the mottling and the reduction in tooth decay was traced to the water supply. Later, it was discovered that high levels of fluoride in the water caused the mottling. Later still, it was shown that artificially added fluoride reduced cavities as effectively as naturally occurring fluoride, and that at levels below 1 part per million, fluoride did not cause mottling of the teeth, but still reduced cavities by about 50%. That progression of discoveries took four decades, spanned two world wars and occurred in several countries. In 1945, the first U.S. city began to fluoridate their water. Today, about 75% of the water in the U.S. has controlled amounts of fluoride, with the current target amount being 0.7 parts per million.

Too much fluoride in our drinking water can indeed cause health problems. At very high levels, for example, fluoride makes bones harder and more brittle. We should think of fluoride in our water supply as not just as adding fluoride, but controlling the level of fluoride. If it is low, we supplement. If it is naturally too high, we mix water sources (e.g., ground and surface water) to keep fluoride at healthy, therapeutic levels.

The occurrence of cavities is a function of several variables: dental hygiene, diet, medical conditions, drug use and water supply. Cavities can cause infection, tooth loss and in severe cases, psychological problems as well as social and career limitations. Adding fluoride to fluoride-deficient water safely reduces cavities (references here and here, ) and avoids a great deal of dental pain and expense.

Americans need help avoiding oral disease. 77 million Americans have no dental insurance. Among those without insurance, 16% report they have not been to a dentist in 5 years. Half of Americans report they have lost at least one adult tooth to decay or gum disease. Fluoride in the drinking water is the one way to help people of every background, economic status, and age.

Currently, people ingest fluoride from drinking water as well as certain toothpastes and mouthwashes. Because we have multiple sources of fluoride, removing fluoride from our drinking water now would have less detrimental effect than in 1960 when these other sources were less available. However, many adults and particularly children do not use fluoridated products, and many people obtain a substantial portion of their liquid intake from bottled water and soda — which generally lack fluoride. Maintaining low levels of fluoride in our drinking water continues to provide a significant public benefit.

Fluoridation has made the news recently because President-elect Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary nominee, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., advocates removing fluoridation from our nation’s water supply. He misleadingly calls fluoride an “industrial waste.” That mischaracterization could just as inaccurately be used to describe sodium chloride (table salt), even though our good health requires humans to ingest between 500 mg and 2,300 mg sodium daily. Kennedy’s language should not stop us from putting salt on our french fries nor should it stop us from putting fluoride in fluoride-deficient water.

Studies on fluoride efficacy and safety are complex. They necessarily compare populations that live far apart from each other (they drink from different water supplies). When such populations have different health outcomes, it may be a result of variables other than the water they drink - genetics, diet, income and poverty rates, etc. Interpretation of these studies therefore requires sophisticated analysis: meaningful results are obtained by examining numerous studies that cover large numbers of people. Those who wish to denigrate fluoride use have sometimes cherry-picked individual studies while ignoring the rest.

Kennedy’s misleading note on X suggests a litany of ills can befall people ingesting fluoridated water. The risk of IQ loss and neurodevelopment disorders have been carefully examined here and here. Bone changes have been observed at very high fluoride ingestion levels, but the evidence indicates that normal fluoridated water does not contribute to bone fractures or arthritis. Numerous studies seeking potential links to bone cancer have been summarized. Because fluorine and bromine have similar chemical behavior, many studies seeking an association between thyroid function and fluoride levels have been conducted.

The bottom line is: fluoridation of drinking water, as practiced in the U.S., is safe, effective and cost-effective. It helps everyone, but is especially effective for people who lack good oral hygiene practices, receive little dental care, or do not use fluoridated tooth paste. Fluoridation is supported by the Center for Disease Control, American Dental Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and other health organizations.

It is currently popular for people with little technical knowledge to offer conclusions that differ from those of scientists/experts who devoted their life to understanding a complex issue. I have heard countless people tell me they “do their own research.” Often, that entails clicking on a few links from TikTok or Facebook. That is not serious research.

If Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. becomes Secretary of HHS, he will discourage local communities from fluoridating the nation’s drinking water. More people will choose toothpastes without fluoride. The result will be a generation of children who will grow up with higher rates of tooth decay and a substantial number of them will, once again, end up with poor or nonexistent dentition at an early age. Your children and grandchildren deserve to live in a better world than that.

If you want to make your views known, you can contact your city, county and state officials — where fluoridation decisions are made. You can express your views to your U.S. Senators who must vote on senior federal appointees. You can find contact information here.

David Kashdan has a PhD in chemistry.