Toward a Human-First Civic Vision

Journal Entry: April 12, 2026

We are human beings. One species among many, living on a small and delicate planet, suspended in a vast and seemingly indifferent expanse. To take this in, as a lived orientation, is to take a wider view of things. The scale changes. The urgency sharpens into clarity.

We are also citizens. In this case, Americans. Participants in a shared experiment that asks something of us in return for what it provides. Not perfection, not uniform agreement, but a baseline commitment to one another. A recognition that the nation is not an object to be used, but a condition we maintain together.

This introduces a quiet but firm recalibration. Rights remain essential, but they are paired with responsibility. Each of us carries a portion of the work, not as a burden imposed from above, but as a natural extension of belonging to our communities.

If this orientation is carried into the home, into the raising of children, it begins to take on a generational rhythm. A way of thinking forms. Not enforced, not rigid, but steady. The idea that one’s life is not separate from the well-being of others, and that participation in society is not optional. We all have our part to play.

What does it mean to build a society worth being proud to be a part of? To be a part of and a participant in something greater than yourself?

It likely includes something recognizable. An affordable life, where basic stability is not a constant struggle. Access to healthcare, not as an abstract right alone, but as a functional necessity. Education in its full range, from the practical to the advanced, available in proportion to the needs and capacities of each individual. A general condition in which the well-being and opportunity of each citizen is taken seriously.

The health, education, and economic stability of the population can be understood as matters of national security. Not in a militarized sense, but in the broader meaning of resilience. A nation composed of people who are chronically strained, unwell, or excluded from meaningful participation is a nation that carries internal fragility. Strength, in this view, is distributed. It lives in the everyday condition of all its people.

This perspective begins to soften some of the familiar divisions.

The emphasis on personal responsibility speaks to one set of instincts. The emphasis on shared well-being speaks to another. Brought together, they form something more balanced. A recognition that individual contribution and collective support are not opposing forces, but interdependent ones.

Education offers a clear example. There is room for advanced study, for deep specialization, for the life of the mind. There is also a clear and present need for practical skill, for trades, for grounded knowledge that keeps the physical world functioning. A healthy society makes space for both without turning either into a point of cultural tension.

At its best, this orientation begins to reduce the gravitational pull of the smaller divisions and differences that keep us in a state of distraction. The labels that tend to dominate public life do not disappear, but they lose some of their charge. They become descriptive rather than definitive.

One might call this a form of civic humanism. A way of holding both scales at once, both the human and the national, without collapsing either into the other.

The difficulty, of course, is not in the idea.

The difficulty is in the conditions under which ideas now circulate. The current attention landscape rewards speed, reaction, and conflict. It amplifies difference because difference travels quickly. Shared responsibility moves more slowly. It asks for patience, and patience rarely trends.

And yet, the slower idea has a different kind of endurance. It becomes multi-generational, worked out over lifetimes as we aspire toward a more ‘perfect union’.

It can be and is best lived quietly. Practiced locally. Carried in conversations, in households, in small decisions that accumulate over time. It does not require universal agreement to begin. It only requires enough people to take it seriously in their own sphere and daily practice.

To serve one another is to strengthen the whole. To strengthen the whole is to create conditions in which individuals can flourish. The circle closes, not as a slogan, but as a lived pattern.

It begins with a simple acknowledgment.

We are here together as humans. How we regard and treat each other is what shows our humanity.

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Well-Being as National Security Issue

Journal Entry: April 14, 2026

A nation is only as strong as the condition of its people. Not in rhetoric or symbolism, but in the plain, measurable, lived condition of daily life. If the population is strained, unwell, or unable to participate meaningfully in the economic and civic life, it weakens the nation.

For a long time, discussions around healthcare, affordability, and education have been framed primarily in the language of fairness. The argument has often centered on what people deserve, what is just, what is equitable.

These are important questions, but they cause division.

There is another way to see the same terrain. What if this was about all Americans, each and every one? Not this group or that group but the whole of the American citizenry.

What if the well-being of the population as a whole were understood as a matter of national security?

A country where large portions of the population are struggling to afford basic living costs is a country under internal strain. That strain shows up in reduced productivity, increased instability, citizens who are easily manipulated and a general erosion of trust in our own institutions. It becomes harder to coordinate, harder to respond, harder to move forward with any shared purpose if the majority of the country is stuck in a ditch.

A country where citizens cannot access reliable healthcare is not simply facing a humanitarian concern. This condition is creating a national security issue. Illness left untreated reduces the capacity of the workforce, increases long-term costs, and places pressure on every other system. Over time, this compounds into vulnerability. What is national security if it is not securing the conditions of the citizenry to be able to function civicly?

A country where education is uneven or inaccessible is limiting its own future. It narrows the range of innovation, weakens its ability to adapt, and creates pockets of disengagement that can grow into broader fractures and encourages criminality and civil unrest.

Seen this way, these issues are not separate from national security. They are foundational to it.

This reframing has a particular kind of power because it speaks across the imaginary divide.

For those who prioritize responsibility and national cohesion, investment in well-being is a strategic necessity. The population becomes understood as a collective asset, something to be maintained and strengthened in order for the whole system to function effectively.

For those who prioritize care and opportunity, it affirms the importance of access and support, while placing those efforts within a larger shared purpose. The goal is not only individual relief, but collective resilience.

Healthcare is no longer framed solely as a benefit. It becomes part of the nation’s operational readiness. Affordability is not only about easing personal burden. It is about maintaining a stable and engaged citizenry. Education is not just self-improvement. It is the cultivation of future national capacity.

This does not diminish the human element. If anything, it grounds it while giving it wings at the same time.

A healthy, educated, and economically stable population is not only more secure. It is also more capable of participating in the cultural and creative life of the nation. It produces, contributes, and sustains. It has the bandwidth to think beyond immediate survival.

When well-being is understood as a national security priority, public investment begins to take on a different character. It is no longer framed as a concession to one group or another. It becomes part of maintaining the overall integrity of the system.

The conversation shifts from “Who deserves what?” to “What does the country as a whole require to function at its best?”

That shift in thinking changes the emotional charge around the issues. It invites participation from people who might otherwise disengage. It creates room for agreement where there was previously resistance.

Of course, this does not resolve every disagreement. Questions of scale, implementation, and cost remain. They always will. But the foundation becomes more stable. The discussion can proceed from a shared recognition that the condition of the population matters in a direct and consequential way.

Some like to always think and speak in terms of war, ‘the war on drugs’, ‘the war on poverty’, ‘the war on crime’. But the real emphasis here is not war, but rather applying military grade strategy, tactics and logistics to the situation like the military would to win a war as quickly and decisively as possible. This same idea and intensity can be applied to the war on national decline, to win the battle of national readiness by investing in the conditions that create a healthy nation and routing out those conditions that cause the American public to flounder in their civic contributions to the broader community and the world at large.

When people begin to see themselves as part of the nation’s strength, not in an abstract patriotic sense but in a tangible, lived way, the relationship to civic life deepens. Participation becomes more meaningful. Responsibility feels less imposed and more intrinsic.

The nation, in turn, becomes less of a distant structure and more of a living system, one that reflects the condition of its parts.

This perspective does not ask for agreement on every policy.

It asks for clarity about what is at stake and what we are striving for.

A country that neglects the well-being of its people does not remain strong by accident. It carries that neglect forward into every domain. Over time, the cost reveals itself. And we, my friends, are the country. Upon each of our shoulders rest the fate of the nation.

In the end, the idea is straightforward.

If the goal is a strong nation, then the well-being of its people is not optional.

It is the work we must all engage in.

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America First, Properly Understood

There are phrases that gather so much heat over time that their original usefulness becomes difficult to recover. “America First” is one of them.

It has often been heard as a closing gesture, a narrowing of concern, a way of drawing a hard line between “us” and “them.” In that form, it tends to contract the imagination. It suggests a kind of national self-absorption, as if strength were achieved by turning inward and away from the rest of the world.

There is another way to understand it, one that feels less like withdrawal and more like preparation.

Anyone who has flown in an airplane has heard the instruction. In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, secure your own oxygen mask before assisting others. It is not a statement of selfishness. It is a recognition of sequence. If you lose consciousness, you are of no use to anyone. If you remain steady, you become capable of helping.

This is a practical wisdom.

Seen in this light, “America First” begins to take on a different meaning. It becomes a question of foundation. What does it take for a nation to be steady, awake, and capable?

The answer is not mysterious.

A population that is healthy enough to function without constant strain. A baseline of housing that allows people to live with some measure of stability. Access to education, both practical and advanced, so that individuals can find their place within the larger fabric. Conditions that make participation possible, not just for a few, but across the breadth of the citizenry.

These are not luxuries. They are the oxygen supply of the nation.

When these elements are in place, something subtle begins to shift. People are not simply surviving. They have the capacity to engage. They can take part in the life of the community, contribute to the economy, and respond to the needs around them. They are able to act, rather than merely react.

Citizenship, in this sense, becomes active.

It is not only a legal designation. It is a lived relationship with the people around you. To regard others as fellow citizens is to recognize a shared stake. Their well-being is not separate from yours. It forms part of the environment in which you live, work, and raise a family.

From this vantage, mutual aid becomes less of an abstract ideal and more of a practical necessity. There are times when one gives and times when one receives. The balance shifts across a lifetime, but the underlying understanding remains. The strength of the whole depends on the condition of its parts.

This interpretation of “America First” does not exclude the rest of the world.

It situates the nation as a participant that is capable of engagement because it has tended to its own coherence. A country that is internally strained has limited ability to contribute externally in any meaningful way. Its attention is fragmented. Its responses are reactive.

A country that has invested in its own foundation can extend outward with greater clarity. It can assist, collaborate, and respond without compromising its own stability.

The sequence matters.

First, ensure that the system is functioning. Then, from that place, engage with others.

This is not a call for isolation. It is a call for readiness.

It also carries an implication for how people see one another within the country. If the aim is a strong and capable nation, then each person represents a point of potential. Not identical, not interchangeable, but necessary in their own way. The task becomes creating conditions in which that potential can be realized.

This returns the idea of “America First” to something more grounded.

It is not a slogan to be wielded. It is a principle to be worked through. It asks whether the nation is tending to its own capacity in a way that allows its citizens to participate fully in civic life. It asks whether the conditions exist for people to act in the interest of the common good.

When those conditions are present, the phrase begins to lose its edge.

It becomes less about assertion and more about orientation.

Take care of the foundation. Keep the system breathing. Maintain the conditions under which people can remain conscious, capable, and connected to one another.

From there, the rest follows with a different quality.

Assistance becomes possible. Contribution becomes natural. The boundaries between self-interest and shared interest begin to soften, because they are no longer in constant tension.

In the end, the instruction is simple, even if the work is not.

Put the oxygen mask on. Stay awake. Then reach for the person next to you.

That is how a nation steadies itself.

As I have stated previously, Trump Derangement Syndrome is not the general public that does not like D.J. Trump, it is those who follow and surround Trump that suffer from the upside-down, inside-out, topsy-turvy TDS world of Trump.

I am sorry to say that the mayhem we have been witnessing will take at least a generation to recover from if we can recover some semblance of America at all. Let’s take a brief look at the following…

Key Administration Figures and Their Controversial Roles

The administration’s “law and order” agenda has been defined by a select group of loyalists, though their tenures have been marked by rapid turnover and allegations of misconduct.

• Attorney General Pam Bondi (Term Ended April 2026): President Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 2, 2026. While Trump publicly called her a “great patriot,” sources indicated his frustration with her failure to successfully prosecute political rivals and her handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s investigative files. She has been replaced by Todd Blanche as Acting Attorney General. And the list goes on…

• FBI Director Kash Patel: Patel faces intense scrutiny following allegations of personal travel on government aircraft and reports of unprofessional drunken behavior. He is currently suing The Atlantic for defamation over these reports. Additionally, Special Counsel Jack Smith reportedly issued subpoenas for Patel’s personal records as part of investigations into election interference. And the list goes on…

• Vice President JD Vance: Appointed as the “Fraud Czar,” Vance leads a task force focused on rooting out misuse of federal funds, a move critics view as a political tool targeting Democratic-led states. On the global stage, his aggressive foreign policy—including publicly berating European allies and advocating for a U.S. takeover of Greenland—has caused significant diplomatic friction. And the list goes on…

The “Trump Docket”: Critical Supreme Court Cases

The Supreme Court’s 2025–2026 term is dominated by cases that will define the extent of executive authority.

• Trump v. Cook: A central case questioning whether the President has the unilateral power to fire Federal Reserve Board governors, who are statutorily protected by 14-year terms and can only be removed “for cause”.

• Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump: This case examines the President’s legal authority to impose broad tariffs on foreign goods, a cornerstone of the administration’s economic strategy.

• Trump v. CASA: A recent ruling where the Court determined that federal courts cannot issue nationwide injunctions against presidential actions, significantly limiting the ability of lower courts to halt administration policies.

• The Shadow Docket: The Court has frequently used its “shadow docket” to halt lower court rulings against the administration - such as the ban on transgender military service - often without providing a written explanation.

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Led by Elon Musk and originally Vivek Ramaswamy, DOGE operates from outside the formal government structure to provide “advice and guidance”.

The American Presidency Project +1

• Massive Workforce Reductions: Since January 2025, DOGE-led initiatives have reportedly resulted in over 320,000 federal employees departing the government. The Department of Veterans Affairs alone lost approximately 50,000 workers, including critical health care staff.

• Contract and Grant Cancellations: DOGE claims to have saved over $215 billion through asset sales and the cancellation of federal contracts and grants. However, budget experts and organizations like Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) dispute these figures, suggesting the actual savings may be less than $2 billion due to the economic disruption and loss of essential agency knowledge.

• Conflicts of Interest: Because Musk is not a formal federal employee, he is not required to disclose his assets or divest from companies like Tesla and SpaceX, which hold billions in federal contracts.

• Termination Date: President Trump has stated that DOGE’s work will conclude by July 4, 2026, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the United States. And the list goes on…

Vice President Vance’s Fraud Task Force

Established by Executive Order on March 16, 2026, the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud is chaired by Vice President JD Vance.

• Focus on “Blue States”: President Trump has explicitly directed the task force to focus its investigations on Democratic-run states, specifically naming California, Illinois, Minnesota, Maine, and New York.

• Raids and Arrests: In April 2026, federal prosecutors announced the arrest of eight individuals in Los Angeles for an alleged $50 million health care fraud scheme, which Trump touted as the first of many “raids”.

• Minnesota Medicaid Freeze: Vice President Vance froze over $250 million in Medicaid funding for Minnesota, accusing Governor Tim Walz of being “complicit” in widespread fraud—a move Walz described as a “campaign of retribution”.

• Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric: Senior advisor Stephen Miller and other task force members have used official meetings to target immigrant communities, specifically Somali refugees in Minnesota, alleging they are exploiting the American safety net. And the list goes on…

As of April 2026, the second Trump administration’s immigration enforcement, led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), has been characterized by aggressive tactics and widespread legal challenges. Critics and several court rulings point to a pattern of behavior that they describe as unconstitutional and extralegal.

Kristi Noem & Allegations of Criminal Misconduct and Excessive Force

The administration’s mass deportation agenda has led to numerous violent incidents involving federal agents:

• Fatal Shootings: In January 2026, federal agents in Minneapolis fatally shot two U.S. citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, in separate incidents. These shootings triggered national protests and calls from some Republican lawmakers for investigations into federal tactics.

• Widespread Use of Force: By early 2026, ICE agents had been involved in 16 shooting incidents, resulting in four deaths and seven injuries. Reports also describe agents using tear gas on protesters and breaking car windows during arrests.

• False Assault Claims: An investigation found that in the vast majority of cases where individuals were arrested for allegedly “assaulting” federal agents, prosecutors declined to bring charges or cases were dismissed due to a complete lack of evidence. And the list goes on…

Unconstitutional and Illegal Enforcement Tactics

Federal courts have repeatedly ruled that the administration’s methods violate basic constitutional protections:

• Warrantless Home Entries: Despite a 2025 directive from Attorney General Pam Bondi allowing agents to enter homes without warrants, a federal judge and whistleblowers have flagged this policy as a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment.

• Suspicionless Stops and Racial Profiling: The ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit in 2026 challenging “suspicionless stops” and racial profiling by ICE and CBP in Minnesota. A federal judge recently found that agents in one operation stopped individuals based solely on skin color.

• Violation of Court Orders: In January 2026, a Chief U.S. District Judge found that ICE had violated at least 96 court orders in 74 immigration cases in Minnesota alone.

• Redefining “Flight Risk”: A new administration memo redefines “flight risk” so that anyone who asserts their legal right to walk away from a questioning agent can be arrested on the spot without a warrant. And the list goes on…

Systemic “Weaponization” of the Law

Advocacy groups like the American Immigration Council argue that the administration has “weaponized” federal law to treat civil immigration violations as criminal acts.

• Targeting Non-Criminals: Arrests of immigrants with no criminal convictions surged by 770% during the first year of the second term.

• Aggressive Revocation: The administration has reportedly ambushed legal residents, such as students, with arrest and detention instead of providing notice of status changes.

• Retaliatory Arrests: There are documented cases of agents arresting individuals in retaliation for filing lawsuits against the government or for monitoring ICE activities in public.

Expansion of Power and Oversight Gaps

The administration has effectively “blended” federal law enforcement by granting immigration authority to agencies like the DEA, ATF, and even the Postal Inspection Service. Experts warn this realignment undermines public trust and creates a “culture of fear,” with reports of citizens being wrongfully detained or even deported based on their appearance. And the list goes on…

As of April 2026, the second Trump administration has rapidly expanded its immigration detention network, using controversial sites and tactics that have led critics and human rights organizations to characterize them as “concentration camps” or “inhumane warehouses.” This expansion is a central pillar of the administration’s mass deportation campaign.

The “Warehouse” and Tent Facility Expansion

To accommodate a detained population that reached a record high of over 73,000 individuals by early 2026, the administration has moved toward large-scale, unconventional housing:

• Camp East Montana: Located at Fort Bliss in El Paso, this is the largest U.S. detention site, with a 5,000-person capacity. A February 2026 inspection found 49 violations of detention standards, including issues with medical care and the use of force. Detainees have reported “psychological torture,” extreme cold, and unsanitary conditions, including dust-clogged airways and leaking tents.

• Commercial Warehouses: In April 2026, ICE announced plans to retrofit commercial warehouses across the country—some capable of holding up to 8,500 people each. These plans have faced delays due to legal challenges over lack of environmental reviews and the industrial, non-humane nature of the designs.

• Detention in “Unexpected Places”: Facilities now include repurposed hotels, hospitals, and airports, which often lack the oversight and infrastructure necessary for safe human habitation. And the list goes on…

Human Rights and Deadly Conditions

Advocacy groups and government whistleblowers have documented a sharp decline in safety and basic care within these facilities:

• Record Deaths in Custody: 2025 was the deadliest year for ICE detention on record with 33 deaths. This trend has accelerated in 2026, with 17 deaths reported in just the first four months, occurring at a rate of roughly one every six days.

• Inhumane Treatment: Reports from facilities like the basement of a Los Angeles federal building describe detainees being held in fly-infested hallways, denied medical attention for pepper spray exposure, and fed only once a day at 3:00 a.m..

• Abuse of Children: Over 6,200 children have been detained by ICE since the second term began. Reports include children being fed moldy food with worms and being denied clean drinking water or child-appropriate meals. And the list goes on…

The Legal Controversy: Mandatory and Indefinite Detention

The administration has pushed a “radical new theory” of mandatory detention, arguing that any noncitizen who entered without inspection is subject to no-bond detention regardless of how long they have lived in the U.S..

• Court Rejections: On April 28, 2026, a federal appeals court rejected this mandatory detention policy, ruling that the administration misread decades-old laws to justify the practice.

• Restricting Oversight: The administration has simultaneously moved to gut internal oversight and block members of Congress from conducting lawful, unannounced inspections of these facilities.

Critics argue that these conditions are not a byproduct of poor planning but a deliberate strategy of “detention as deterrence,” designed to pressure individuals into abandoning their legal cases and accepting deportation.

The Architect of the Warehouses: The Rise and Fall of Kristi Noem’s DHS

On March 5, 2026, the “Border Queen” of the second Trump administration was abruptly dethroned. Kristi Noem, once the face of the most aggressive mass deportation effort in American history, was fired by the man who appointed her. While the President cited a need for “new leadership,” the paper trail left behind at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) suggests a much darker story of ethical rot and legal overreach.

The “Warehouse” Legacy

Under Noem, the term “detention center” became a euphemism. She presided over the rapid expansion of tent cities and repurposed commercial warehouses—facilities that human rights groups have increasingly labeled as “concentration camps.”

The conditions she signed off on were not just spartan; they were, in many cases, lethal. By the time of her firing, 2026 was on track to be the deadliest year in ICE history. Under her watch, reports surfaced of children being held in fly-infested halls and adults being denied water for days. When questioned by Congress about these conditions, Noem’s defense was often a mix of denial and deflection, prioritizing “throughput” over the basic human dignity mandated by international law.

The Shadow Use of Funds: Jets and Personal Interests

Noem’s downfall was accelerated by a series of ethical scandals involving the alleged misuse of taxpayer money.

• Luxury Travel: Investigations revealed that Noem frequently bypassed government transport in favor of private luxury jets. These flights, often costing tens of thousands of dollars per trip, were reportedly used not just for official business, but for personal travel that blurred the lines of public service.

• The Lewandowski Connection: Perhaps most damaging were the reports of an alleged relationship with Corey Lewandowski. Critics pointed to a pattern of “shadow management,” where Lewandowski—who held no official government rank—was reportedly influencing DHS policy and personnel decisions behind closed doors, often with Noem’s direct authorization.

Potential Criminal Liability: From Shootings to Retaliation

Beyond the ethics violations lies the specter of criminal behavior. Legal experts are now looking at Noem’s role in the “shoot-to-verify” culture that took hold within federal agencies under her command.

• Obstruction of Justice?: Following the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, Noem was accused of interfering with local investigations. Her immediate labeling of a victim as a “domestic terrorist”—before evidence was gathered—has been characterized by some as a deliberate attempt to poison the jury pool and shield federal agents from accountability.

• Contracting Fraud: Her department is currently under audit for awarding multi-million dollar “emergency” contracts for detention services to companies with direct ties to administration donors, often bypassing the competitive bidding process required by law. And the list goes on…

The Shield of the Americas: A New Bunker

In a classic move for this administration, Noem was not truly exiled; she was moved to a newly created role: Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas.

This position, which lacks Senate confirmation and clear oversight, appears to be a “gilded cage” designed to keep her within the executive inner circle while insulating her from the growing number of subpoenas regarding her time at DHS. For the public, however, the question remains: Will the “Border Queen” ever face the law and order she so frequently invoked for others?

The second Trump administration faces significant scrutiny over a $220 million taxpayer-funded advertising campaign starring Kristi Noem, as well as several high-value DHS contracts awarded to campaign donors and political allies.

The $220 Million “Vanity” Advertising Campaign

During her tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security, Noem launched a massive advertising blitz that featured her prominently, often on horseback near Mount Rushmore.

• Shady No-Bid Contracts: The DHS bypassed standard competitive bidding for the campaign, citing a “national emergency” at the border.

  • Safe America Media, a company created just eight to eleven days before being awarded the contract, received approximately $143 million.

  • People Who Think LLC, led by a former Trump campaign advisor with ties to Corey Lewandowski, received a separate multi-million dollar award.

• Conflicts of Interest: Significant portions of the contract were subcontracted to The Strategy Group, a firm with deep ties to Noem and her senior aides. The firm’s CEO is married to former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, who previously served as an aide to Noem in South Dakota.

• Wasteful Production Costs: Detailed spending reports reveal tens of thousands of dollars spent on luxury production costs, including:

  • $60,000 “signing bonus” for the production company.

  • $20,000 for horse rentals used in the commercials.

  • $3,781 for hair and makeup.

  • $500 at a magic shop in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Questionable DHS Contracts to Campaign Donors

The administration is also under fire for awarding massive contracts related to its mass deportation and detention agenda to high-profile donors:

• Project Homecoming: The Washington Post reported on a $1 billion contract fast-tracked for Salus Worldwide Solutions, led by a donor to pro-Trump groups. Internal investigations found DHS employees shared non-public information with the company to help it win the bid.

• Pay-to-Play Allegations: Congressional investigators are looking into William Walters, a donor who contributed to a pro-Noem PAC. His companies landed lucrative deals to assist with the mass deportation agenda.

• Shadow Management at FEMA: A contractor with no emergency management experience, Kara Voorhies, reportedly acted as a “shadow administrator” at FEMA, exercising control over spending and targeting federal grants for cancellation based on ideological priorities.

The Fallout and Reassignment

The “vanity” ad campaign and the associated contracting scandals were reportedly the final tipping points that led to Noem’s firing in March 2026. President Trump later contradicted Noem’s claims that he had personally approved the $220 million expenditure. Following her ousting, Noem was moved to a new position as Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas, which lacks Senate confirmation or clear oversight. And the list goes on…

As of April 30, 2026, Pete Hegseth serves as the Secretary of War (a title officially restored by the second Trump administration) and is currently at the center of the intensifying conflict known as Operation Epic Fury against Iran.

The “Department of War” and Military Leadership

Hegseth has overseen a significant rebranding of the Department of Defense, emphasizing a “warrior mentality” and a “back to basics” approach that critics describe as a purge of senior military leaders.

• The Rebranding: The name change to the Department of War reflects the administration’s “peace through strength” agenda.

• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs: Hegseth is frequently joined by General Dan Caine, who replaced Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. in April 2025.

Operation Epic Fury: The War in Iran

The conflict, which began on February 28, 2026, was launched under the premise that Iran posed an “existential threat” via its nuclear program.

• Current Status: Although Hegseth declared a “capital-V military victory” on April 8 after a two-week truce, the conflict has since entered a “new phase”.

• The Blockade: The U.S. Navy is currently enforcing an “ironclad blockade” of Iranian ports, stretching from the Gulf of Oman to the open oceans.

• Human and Financial Cost: As of late April, the war has cost $25 billion and resulted in the deaths of 14 American service members and over 400 wounded.

Controversies and “Questionable” Conduct

Hegseth’s leadership has been marked by contentious clashes with Congress and allegations of ethical and legal overreach:

• Attacks on Critics: In April 2026 testimony, Hegseth labeled Congressional Democrats and some Republicans as the “biggest adversary” facing the U.S., calling them “reckless, feckless, and defeatist” for questioning the war’s endgame.

• Civilian Casualties: Hegseth has repeatedly dismissed concerns about civilian harm, including a U.S. strike that reportedly destroyed a school and killed over 100 children. He has stated the U.S. would afford enemies “no quarter”, a statement experts identify as a potential war crime.

• War Without Authorization: Lawmakers have grilled Hegseth for waging the conflict without Congressional approval and using “emergency” funding requests that could push the 2027 defense budget to a historic $1.5 trillion.

• Global Economic Impact: The ongoing blockade and Iran’s disruption of the Strait of Hormuz have sent oil prices to a four-year high and triggered fears of a global recession. And the list goes on and on and on…

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Why Future Historians Will Struggle to Categorize the Trump 2.0 Era

Based on the sheer scale of the shift in American governance by early 2026, historians and authors will likely be filling entire wings of libraries for decades. We aren’t just looking at political memoirs; we’re looking at a total re-categorization of the American experiment.

We are currently living through a period that future generations will not merely study, but struggle to believe. As of April 2026, the American Experiment has been replaced by a “Sovereign Presidency” - a reality where the Commander-in-Chief is legally barred from holding a handgun, yet holds the launch codes for a nuclear arsenal currently aimed toward Tehran.

When the dust settles and the government eventually changes hands, the library of the 2020s will be divided into several grim, yet necessary, categories.

1. The Anatomy of the “Cabal”

The most populated section of future bookstores will undoubtedly be True Crime. But these won’t be stories of street-level heists; they will be post-mortems of executive-level racketeering.

Historians will pore over the $220 million “vanity” ad campaigns starring Kristi Noem, the “shadow management” of FEMA by unqualified donors, and the “pay-to-play” pipeline that turned Department of Homeland Security contracts into a private ATM for the administration’s loyalists. The central question of these books will be: How did a political party transform into a criminal enterprise with sovereign immunity?

2. The Tragedy of the “Warehouses”

In the Human Rights section, we will find the most heartbreaking accounts. Books like The View from Fort Bliss will detail the human cost of the administration’s “concentration camps”—the repurposed commercial warehouses and desert tent cities where thousands were held in conditions that defied international law. These memoirs will serve as a permanent stain on our national conscience, documenting the era when “deterrence” became indistinguishable from state-sanctioned cruelty.

3. The “War of No Quarter”

The Military History section will be dominated by Pete Hegseth’s “Department of War” and the ongoing quagmire of Operation Epic Fury. Analysts will deconstruct how a $1.5 trillion defense budget and an “ironclad blockade” of Iran were used to bypass Congressional approval, effectively ending the era of civilian oversight. They will look back at the “warrior mentality” that led to the deaths of U.S. citizens at home and hundreds of children abroad, questioning how a nation of laws became a nation of “no quarter.”

4. The Restoration: Law and Order Reclaimed

Finally, there will be the Political Science of the “Great Restoration.” This is the category we must write ourselves. It will document the moment when the government transitioned back to a leadership committed to applying the consequences of law and order to this “criminal cabal.”

This won’t be a partisan “revenge tour.” It will be a clinical, necessary application of justice to ensure that the “Sovereign Presidency” is a historical anomaly rather than a permanent precedent.

The Verdict of History

Ultimately, the books written about this period will ask one fundamental question: Was the American public a witness to these crimes, or an accomplice?

When we look at the Republican dominated house and senate during this period we cannot say that they were not complicit and even openly participating in this travesty. An accounting must be taken.

By the time the next administration takes the oath of office, the evidence will be laid bare in the ledgers of DOGE, the manifests of the ICE warehouses, and the casualty lists from the Persian Gulf. The only way to ensure these books stay in the “History” section and don’t move to “Current Events” is a total and uncompromising return to the rule of law.

And we must insist on that from our lawmakers.

It is election year folks. There is a lot at stake. It feels incumbent upon me as a citizen to point out a few things for my fellow citizens to consider when it comes time to exercise our duty as citizens to vote in the upcoming election.

I will be posting an occasional article on the topics that seem most concerning under the moniker of General John Quincy Public. I hope you will indulge me.

The Armed Forces’ Unarmed Commander: The Constitutional Paradox of 2025

By General J.Q. Public

In the annals of American history, we have seen presidents who were former generals, presidents who were pacifists, and presidents who never served a day in uniform. But as of January 2025, the United States entered a legal twilight zone: for the first time, the Commander-in-Chief is a person who, under federal law, is a “prohibited person” barred from so much as holding a handgun.

The irony is as thick as a legal brief. Donald Trump, a man who now oversees the most powerful nuclear triad on Earth and the world’s most advanced military, would technically trigger a felony investigation if he were caught holding a Secret Service agent’s sidearm at a campaign rally.

The Legal Firewall vs. The Red Button

Under the Gun Control Act of 1968, a felony conviction—like the 34 counts handed down in New York—strips an individual of the right to possess firearms or ammunition. Federal law makes no “Presidential Exception.” If any other felon were found with a weapon, they’d face years in federal prison.

Yet, Article II of the Constitution designates this same individual as the Commander-in-Chief. This creates a bizarre cognitive dissonance:

• The Individual: Cannot legally purchase a hunting rifle for his own estate.

• The Office: Can authorize a drone strike, deploy the 101st Airborne, and verify the launch codes for a Minuteman III missile.

Legal scholars call this a “constitutional override.” The presidency carries inherent powers that federal statutes (like gun laws) generally cannot touch. However, the optics are unprecedented. How does a nation reconcile the idea that a man is “too dangerous” to own a pistol in the eyes of the law, but “stable enough” to manage 3,700 nuclear warheads?

The Burden of the Badge

Beyond the weaponry, there is the question of the “well-being of the general public.” The presidency isn’t just about the military; it’s about being the nation’s “Chief Law Enforcement Officer.”

There is a profound tension when the person at the top of the DOJ hierarchy is technically restricted by the very laws that department is sworn to uphold. It raises a fundamental question of legitimacy: If the President is a “prohibited person,” does that undermine the moral authority of the federal government when it prosecutes others for similar violations?

A Stress Test for the Republic

We are currently watching a live stress test of the American “Rule of Law.” Supporters argue that the will of the voters—who elected a convicted felon—supersedes the statutory restrictions placed on that individual. Critics argue that the presidency is being used as a shield to bypass the consequences that any other citizen would face.

As the administration continues to push the boundaries of executive power, the firearm ban remains a symbolic reminder of a divided reality. One half of the country sees a leader persecuted by a system he now commands; the other half sees a commander who is legally unfit for the very tools of defense he oversees.

In 2026, the question isn’t just whether the President can hold a gun. It’s whether the laws of the land still apply to the person who signs them into being.

The “Crime Spree” Allegations: Collusion and Corruption

Critics and watchdog groups, such as Campaign Legal Center and CREW, have detailed a pattern of behavior they describe as a coordinated effort to dismantle the rule of law.

• Mass Retaliatory Firings: The administration has carried out “illegal mass terminations” of career civil servants and FBI officials, which multiple lawsuits allege were politically motivated attempts to remove oversight.

• Shadow Administrators: Court filings have surfaced allegations that federal agencies like FEMA are being unofficially run by outside contractors who are themselves under ethics investigations, bypassing standard government accountability.

• Self-Profiteering: Reports indicate the President has pocketed an estimated $3 billion from his business enterprises since returning to office, often from foreign entities seeking favor, which critics label as unprecedented presidential profiteering.

• DOJ Interference: The Department of Justice has faced complaints for dropping thousands of investigations into corporate misconduct while instead prioritizing “revenge” prosecutions against former political adversaries like James Comey.

Unconstitutional Acts and Legal Defeat

The administration’s aggressive use of executive orders has led to a record-breaking number of legal challenges—over 530 lawsuits in 2025 alone—with several significant rulings against the government:

• National Guard Federalization: In Trump v. Illinois, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the President lacks the authority to federalize a state’s National Guard without meeting strict statutory requirements.

• Impoundment of Funds: Federal courts have repeatedly found the administration’s freezing of billions in Congressionally approved funding (for programs like the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure and NIH grants) to be illegal.

• Alien Enemies Act Abuse: Attempts to use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act for summary deportations outside of a declared war were blocked, with the Fifth Circuit ruling the administration failed to meet legal requirements.

• Birthright Citizenship: The executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship has been met with multiple preliminary injunctions from federal judges who have ruled it likely unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment.

The Maga/Republican “Cabal” and Accountability

The current administration is comprised of high-ranking Republican officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, and FBI Director Kash Patel, who have consistently defended these actions as “driven by law”.

When the government were to change hands, and it will, proponents of legal accountability argue that the Department of Justice would be tasked with investigating these acts. Proponents suggest this wouldn’t be a partisan “revenge tour” by the democrats but a necessary return to and application of law and order to address what they perceive as a “criminal cabal” that used the presidency and the federal government at large as a shield for a wide-reaching conspiracy against the people of United States (and the whole world for that matter).

I have to tell you that while I marginally keep up with the major political issues of the day I am not a political pundit nor interested in becoming one. I am an artist. As an artist I am a quiet anarchist in my studio doing whatever I want and I like it that way. But when I go out in public I abide by the general expectations of my surrounding community. I practice being an American as I understand it to mean. I abide by the laws as I understand them, act ethically, don’t make public disturbances though this year I have participated in a few peaceful protests.

Politically I am an agnostic, hence an independent, politically unaffiliated. There is no political party that represents my views on things. But I accept that I am a citizen and that I have responsibilities in that regard to the broader community as we all do - locally, nationally and globally. We all have our little part to play.

Politics should be boring, just the bureaucracy going about its business the best it can and people complaining about potholes in the roads and so forth.

However, I am afraid we find ourselves in ‘interesting times’ as the curse goes.

When people say we’re living in “interesting times,” they usually mean turbulent, uncertain, and historic moments - periods when the world is shifting rapidly, often painfully. It suggests a time of existential stakes, where personal and collective futures are being reshaped. Think: pandemics, political breakdowns, climate crises, war, economic turmoil - all part of our current "interesting" era. From what I hear AI is going to be another major disruption very soon. People in the know seem worried.

So, I feel compelled, as my civic duty to write some things on occasion as a form of Public Service Announcement to my fellow artists because we are or soon will be affected by this mayhem going on outside of our studios.

These posts will be filed under the newsletter General John Quincy Public They will not show up on the front page of the Touchonian. So to see them all you’ll have to go to the ‘newsletters’ on the right side of the homepage and click on General John Quincy Public to see them.

I’ll try to keep these posts about being an American Citizen and what that means to me down to one a week. I hope you will make comments and share your own thoughts on the subject.

Tomorrow is Thursday so I guess that will be a good day to post these. Let’s see, Thursday’s Child… Let’s see what my AI assistant Chatwick gives me…

“Thursday’s child has far to go” is a line from an old English nursery rhyme used to predict a child's character based on the day of the week they were born. The full version goes:

Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
But the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

It can be interpreted in a few different ways—both literally and metaphorically:

Traditional Interpretation

• The phrase "has far to go" often suggests a long journey—either literal (travel, distance) or figurative (personal growth, ambition, or destiny).

• It implies that a Thursday’s child is someone with a great potential or a long path ahead, perhaps destined for achievement, exploration, or transformation, but it won’t come easily or quickly.

Deeper Meanings

• Ambitious: They may be driven, with a sense of purpose or calling, needing to develop their gifts over time.

• Not yet arrived: They may not be fully formed early in life but grow into themselves over time—late bloomers, perhaps.

• Journey through life: Life may demand much from them, taking them far from their origins—whether geographically, emotionally, or spiritually.

In contrast with other lines:

• While Wednesday’s child carries sorrow,

• Thursday’s child carries promise and momentum—though perhaps not yet fulfilled.

Modern Usage

Saying someone is a Thursday’s child might mean they’re on a long path—still becoming who they are meant to be. There's a sense of destiny, development, and distance between now and their future self.

It's often used to evoke potential, evolution, and perseverance—a quiet acknowledgement that life is a journey and they are still walking it.

Yes, that seems appropriate for the times and the topic. And all of us artists, since the creative life is a journey, certainly have a long way to go.

People are talking. I am getting emails from some compelled to mention the current circumstance here in the USA unsure what needs to happen. One correspondent sent me a link to the above song today. You might give it a listen. I wrote back mentioning my own concerns and the following is an expanded version of what I said.

The Vanishing Gentlemen: Reflections on a Crisis of Governance

I don't know what we are going to do about this crisis of epic proportions we are currently faced with. It seems as though we are watching the slow implosion of the civic order, and no one with the power to stop it is doing so. The structures that were once held together by custom, by principle, by a shared belief in the rules of engagement—those are unraveling. And what’s replacing them is something darker.

For much of American history, elected officials operated under an unwritten set of norms—call them “gentleman’s agreements” if you like. These informal understandings allowed the machinery of government to keep functioning even when the gears ground against one another. People disagreed, often ferociously, but there were lines that weren’t crossed. A shared belief in the legitimacy of the system kept things intact. What made that possible? Good faith. A belief that even your opponents were, at some level, committed to something beyond personal gain and a shared love of country and service toward its people.

That’s what seems to be slipping away.

What’s left in the vacuum is thuggery—raw, belligerent, unrepentant power for its own sake. I’ve called them the Rethuglicans for years, and it no longer feels like hyperbole. What once passed as political conservatism has been hijacked by an openly hostile, authoritarian movement masquerading as patriotism. It demands loyalty, not governance; vengeance, not justice; spectacle, not service.

We are not witnessing a policy debate—we’re witnessing a slow-motion coup, a corruption of law, and a sabotage of accountability. Those in power, who are meant to be the custodians of democratic institutions - our institutions - seem to be either complicit in this project or paralyzed in response to it. The rest of us are left to watch, to worry, to wonder: When will someone act? Who will put the brakes on this descent?

It is no longer just a question of left versus right, Democrat versus Republican. This is about something more elemental: the difference between civilization and cruelty. We are on the edge of something violent—not just in a physical sense, though that is possible—but in the tearing apart of trust, of legitimacy, of the social contract itself.

We must be vigilant. We must be clear-eyed. This is no time for naïveté or polite delusions. The good faith has been drained from the room, and what remains is a contest between those who wish to govern and those who wish to dominate. The future will be shaped by how we respond—not as partisans, but as citizens who still believe in a country of laws, of shared responsibility, of basic human decency.

This is not the time to look away.

Eyes open. Powder dry.*

• The phrase "keep your powder dry" is an idiom that means to be prepared to take action, to be cautious and alert, and to wait for the right moment before acting. It suggests not rushing into a situation, but remaining ready to respond when necessary.

worth listening to.

What was on my mind this morning? I was mostly thinking about what it is, from a practical point of view, to be an American, an American citizen and the idea of the American dream. I would like to explore what this is to me in more detail, so I can question myself enough to gain a clear understanding of my thoughts on the topic and which ones need more refinement.

As artists we need to always be questioning ourselves and what we think about things. Otherwise we just become puppets of propaganda.

This is election season and so, here in the states, we are currently surrounded by continuous questions and proposed answers on the topic. For myself, I keep coming to the idea that each one of us has to be self-governing.

I feel like laws are only needed for stupid, selfish or greedy people who can't figure out the obvious like the need of putting up a stop sign at an intersection to insist that everyone stop and look around and make sure they don't run into somebody or that somebody doesn't run into them.

It is perfectly obvious that you should stop but for some reason people need a law to insist that they stop for everyone's mutual safety. This doesn't stop some people from running through the intersection but at least it establishes who is at fault in case of an inevitable disaster.

SIDE NOTE: A stop sign is not a political statement. It is not democratic or republican it is a practicality like most things in life. Most things are not political when you think about it even though people want to politicize things like face masks back during the pandemic. Is there something political about public safety? Spoiler alert: The answer is NO. Have you every seen people having protests around a stop sign because it was put up during this or that administration? I never have. That is because it is not political.

I have a saying:

‘The fate of a nation rests on the shoulders of each individual.”

By that I mean that any nation depends upon the small daily actions, attitudes and assumptions of each citizen. We all depend on each other every day - we depend that we all are doing our part the best we can to keep our joint project going in the right direction.

What you do in the privacy of your own home is your business. We are all anarchists in our own domains but when you are interacting in public, if you are in America you need to act like an American, treat others around you like an American with the same respect, dignity and consideration you expect for yourself.

I ask to myself; What is it to be an American? What is my obligation to my family, my community, my nation and to the world at large? It is mostly about being a good hearted human, cultivating an understanding of the greater good and how to contribute to it. Most of the time it is just about being peaceful, having a good attitude, being honest with yourself and others, being an enemy to no one and a friend to all.

An Enemy to No One and a Friend to All

A community is built around an atmosphere. Atmosphere is something you can’t see but you can feel just like a scent that is unseen but permeates the air. Developing atmosphere is about not adding pollutants like fear, anger, paranoia or resentment but rather radiating an attitude of trust, tolerance, peacefulness, fairness and respect.

Through these various qualities - positive or negative - we generate an atmosphere and it spreads subconsciously to everyone around us. Ask yourself; ‘What am I contributing to the atmosphere around me? If you pay attention it will become obvious. Once obvious then you have to ask; ‘Is what I am bring to the picture improving or polluting the atmosphere around me?’

We have to be conscious about what we are doing and how we do it. What is our attitude? Our assumptions? Be awake to yourself and you surroundings. Don’t walk through life asleep, we all depend on all of us being awake. So wake up. Make a positive contribution to the atmosphere. Your country is depending on you.

Be a Practicing American

Just like being a disciple of your chosen spiritual path or religion or an artist or working at any profession, being an American takes practice. But the question is what are we practicing? What is particular to being an American? For those of us that were born and grew up in the USA might have a hard time identifying what the particulars are that make up being an American.

Immigrants to the USA have a fresher perspective on the topic because they can compare the USA to the country they have just migrated from. Coming into the country from somewhere else gives a fresh perspective and almost all of us have immigrant roots.

According to new immigrants to the USA, learning English and a strong work ethic are critical elements of becoming an American. 80% of immigrants surveyed agree that: "The United States of America is a unique country that stands for something special in the world" They also say…

"having more opportunity to earn a good living,"
"Everybody wants to come here,"
"It's the land of opportunity."
"to make a better life"
"to have a brighter future for my children."
"having a legal system you can trust"
"In the U.S., they go by the laws.
”You can be whatever culture you are, whatever religion you are, freely."

Now That I'm Here, a new poll of America's Immigrants

Being an American is a state of mind. But it is also the peace of mind of having a general sense of Law and Order, Opportunity, a Future, Stability, Freedom to be who you are or want to become, a fair and free vote - a system that the citizenry has an opportunity to voice an opinion to some extent through who we choose to represent us and a bureaucracy made of non-partisan fellow citizens performing basic services for the general public hopefully in an efficient way.

Infrastructure to do the big projects that serve our ability to function. There are all of the agencies of experts, intelligence and security services, and the military, the best in the world. It is a complex well-developed system that depends on all of us and serves all of us.

Once considered, it is a lot to be thankful for and really, to be amazed at, taken as a whole. Is it perfect? Of course not but it is always a work in progress attempting to be the best it can be for our mutual benefit.

One of the main things about being an American is accepting the idea of unity through diversity - E pluribus unum - Latin for "Out of many, one" This is one of the single greatest strengths of the American ideal. To practice this is a matter of accepting, even embracing that all of us in our diversity of ideas, conditions, attitudes, cultures, languages, colors, clothing, styles, economic conditions, education, skills, peculiarities, quirks, biases, dreams, fears, allegiances, etc. have a place in the whole picture, a voice and a purpose to serve for the community.

Though it has a pernicious and perennial history in this country, there are certain things that we would have to consider unamerican such as violence, hatred, bigotry, racism and all the rest of the negative traits that seem so difficult to prune out of the garden of our culture. But we - each of us - must keep trying, keep improving and keep our eye on our mutual ideals and do what we can to match up to those ideals through constant practice and inspire other to do the same through our self-discipled example. It is not a matter of being politically correct, it is a matter of correct American conduct.

It is not an easy task to reach our ideals such as personal freedom. Freedom requires tremendous self-discipline and the understanding that for us individually to be free, we must confer freedom on our fellow citizens: Freedom of aspiration, of movement, of agency, of safety and the peace of mind that comes with an understanding of mutual respect of each other’s dignity and self-determination. Freedom is a group project.

Has there every been a presidential candidate like Donald J.Trump, who is the oldest person to ever offer themselves as a candidate for president to a major party, that is a convicted criminal, a convicted fraudster that owes nearly a half a billion dollars to a state, an adjudicated rapist, held liable for defamation in excess of 83 million dollars and counting, tried an outrageously elaborate scheme to steal an election, still has several cases pending and more coming in multiple jurisdictions? What self-respecting American would suggest that they should be considered by voters to be acceptable to run for any office of public trust and what self-respecting American citizen would vote for such a person?

What candidate has ever had so many honorable members of the same party work so diligently to prevent such a person from representing their party such as the Bulwark, the Lincoln Project, Republicans for Harris, etc. and the many other republicans who had worked for or with him previou…

Read more

Justice Merchan is supposed to sentence D.J. Trump for crimes committed on September 18th. I hope this appointment with justice is kept.

I am hoping that the judge throws him in jail and lets him appeal from there. We all know he only announced his run for president in an attempt to avoid accountability. No self-respecting American would offer themselves to the America people as a presidential candidate with such a heavy load of baggage but Trump has utterly no respect for the American citizenry or America itself.

Malignant narcissist that he is, he thinks he can put his thumb up in the air to eclipse the moon and that everyone would believe he did it. He is like a 3-year-old. The judge should consider that Trump is a unique danger to the public.

It is not the judge's problem or ours that Trump decided to run for president while facing criminal charges and that the Rethuglican Party, in their inane stupidity, allowed him to become their candidate. They bring shame on America and all its citizens.

Having watched all of these criminal charges play out over the last couple of years, I doubt that there is anyone holding their breath that Trump will actually be sentenced before the election. All of these trials and attempts at accountability have been painfully slow and we would all love to see this terrible chapter in American history behind us so that we can all move on and get to the real issues that face our nation.

We are tired of it to the point of boredom and exhaustion.

Get some merch at DemocratTs.com

A Citizen, what is that exactly? The 14th amendment of the constitution defines citizens as:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

So this tells us that we are citizens of a state and of a country. By extension we are citizens of a county and a town or city. Each of these entities have their own autonomy up to a certain point. As we know from taxes and laws, each of these entities of which each of us is a part, have their own vision as to how their citizens are supposed to support and participate in the community.

Even if you do not live in a town or city, all of us live in a county. That is our most basic citizenship. That county is a part, a building block of a state and that state is a part of a country. As a country we are collectively part of a global society.

As citizens we have rights, privileges, protections and responsibilities at every level from local to global. Our American citizenship is the great equalizer. We may be extremely diverse as a people, a microcosm of the whole world with a multitude of cultures, races, beliefs, traditions, orientations and affiliations but the one thing we all share in common, that holds us together as a People, is our citizenship, our identity as citizens of the United States of America. The operative word is united.

Welcome. I am General John Quincy Public. You may call me simply General Public. I have been in retirement for some years. But I have been keeping my eye on things and, over all, I am not happy with what I am seeing. So here I am, ready to serve. I have an army in reserve and you are a part of it. So it is time to re-up.

If you are a citizen of this great country; The United States of America you have rights and lots of them, but you also have responsibilities. So let's get that straight right from the gitgo.

President John F Kennedy once said, "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country" For what we are doing here, that is the right attitude.

What can you do for your country? Well, first off you have to figure out what this country is about and why many among us are willing to dedicate their lives to serve this great country. What is it about this country that deserves that kind of fealty? And if you don't know what fealty means let's take a look at that word. It started out in medieval Europe and was an oath made by a vassal, or subordinate, to his lord. "Fealty" also referred to the duties incumbent upon a vassal that were owed to the lord, which consisted of service and aid.

Now, while we serve no lord we are expected to serve our country and that means that we serve each other because all of us together are the country, the country of the People. We the People are a collective, we are here to serve our joint purpose, our collective purpose. And that takes a lot of damn work and it takes heart and it takes sacrifice and vision and thoughtfulness and a good many other things.

This country started as an idea that became a revolution that has been spreading around the world ever since. It started with the Decoration of Independence which is basically a justification for severing fealty to England and the crown and stating the beginning ideas of our purpose as a new country. And it ends with these inspiring words...

"...we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

Now, of course any time you start something new, you have to start from what you are ready know and at the time what they knew was that landed and well connected white men were who they were and who they were referring to. As far as they were concerned they had not gone so far in their thinking to consider that women, who were non entities in a political sense, as part of who they were planning to give these rights and freedoms to. Nor people of color, and by that I mean wild savages, namely Native Americans and Black slaves which are what these 'cultured' white men thought of them as; savages. These white, landed and well connected men were after all, transplanted Europeans and would have been thinking of themselves as such and in relation to such. They were claiming for themselves the God given unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Not in their wildest dreams at the time would their governmental aspirations have taken into account anyone other than themselves. This is not, however a disparagement on them but merely an observation of what they would have considered to be their forward thinking at the time. Let's face it, you have to start somewhere.

However, once started, ideas must continue. Ideas are bigger and longer lasting than any generation who dreams them up and such ideas grow and expand and deepen through argument and discussion, questioning and practice.

Today most of us consider every human in this country to be deserving of all of the rights and privileges afforded to any landed, well connected white male citizen. But this did not happen overnight nor even over many generations. It could be said that we are still emerging from this original premise.

The basis of our existence as citizens starts with the Constitution of the United States. It starts out like this:

'We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.'

Everything after that is pretty much bureaucratic organizational stuff needed to actually start up a government.

To be continued...

To be an American is an ideal, something to strive toward, something to envision, something to try to embody in thought, word and deed. But there seems to be a fight at the moment between a forward looking vision of being an American and a toxic, backward version of being an American.

Being an American today means being inclusive, multi-cultural, multi-racial and the embrace of diversity. The trick is finding our unity in the diversity. We need to not get lost in the details of the endless possible issues we could be constantly arguing over but rather try to keep an eye on our foundation and on the overview at the same time.

We especially need to not indulge is fantastical conspiracy theories that have no foundation in reality nor facts to support them. The foundation we all stand on must be based on what is actually palpably true and not a pile of dystopian myth making.

There are those who have a program of promoting distrust in our election process and question all of the Americans who are working hard in the trenches in a completely professional and lawful way just to count the votes as they are cast in an accurate way that can produce repeatable results in the need of a recount when things are close. The count is not tabulated by Democrats or Republicans, it is tabulated and overseen by Americans who believe in a fair and accurate vote.

Inciting distrust in this basic aspect in our democratic process when so many engaged Americans are working to do their job is completely unamerican and a threat to the peaceful transfer of power we all expect and the actual expression of the People’s will.

If you haven’t already, get off your butt and vote for democracy.

The problem for all of us is that we are usually only ever ‘preaching to the choir’ as they say. It is hard for any of us to get out of our own communal networks. It is hard to tolerate others who have a completely different view, even an adversarial view of the world and how it works especially when we are pretty certain of our own views that we have worked hard to develop and live by. This is especially true when interacting with those for whom the truth and the facts have no apparent influence on their stance.

Still, there needs to be a clear distinction between what is actual reality on the one hand and batshit crazy on the other. A little crazy, OK, it adds spice to the mix. But batshit crazy, that is beyond the pail. It is a form of drunken self-indulgence. So how to deal with that? That is the question many are grappling with.

Maybe it is sun spots or something, but now and then the whole world seems to go crazy in large numbers. What is that all about? Is it humanity under stress? Stress can make people do some pretty crazy stuff at times. We can suppose that the pandemic caused incredible stress all over the world. With instant global communication and travel, crazy that happens in one place can now spread all over the world faster than Covid-19 and we all witnessed what Covid-19 wrought.

There are those who, in stressful times, like to inspire stress in others or to amplify that stress for their own purposes. Ideas spread around in communities just like a virus can and if those are bad ideas or ideas that have no basis is fact such as conspiracy theories that are invented merely to stir up trouble, then pretty soon, large numbers of our fellow Americans can start getting confused. While I am thinking about the circus-like spectacle of the whole MAGA phenomena, this can and does also happen to almost anybody under the right conditions. It is one thing for an individual to go a little crazy but it is quite another thing when you have ‘group crazy’ where all the members of the group are sharing in and reinforcing each other’s crazy ideas.

Artists do this all of the time among each other but it is mostly for fun and entertainment and to hone our creative skills and test our limits. A good example among writers is the ‘The Onion’

Then there is crazy like a fox (not to disparage foxes). After the 2020 election for which Donald J. Trump had been preparing almost from the moment he got in office in 2017 and did one thing after the next to sabotage his possible democratic opponents - especially Joe Biden - as well as working to sabotage the vote itself, Trump progressively employed one strategy after the next, all of which failed (since he is a malignant narcissist and a total loser because of it) with the final effort in a long string of increasingly illegal efforts being the January 6th insurrection.

In case you didn’t click on the link above, here is a list of symptoms of a malignant Narcissist

• Being extremely arrogant and self-centered

• Disregarding the feelings and needs of other people

• Manipulating, using, or exploiting others for personal gain or pleasure

• Having an extreme need for power

• Acts of revenge against those who criticize them

• Fantasizing about ways to obtain more power or dominance over others

• Lacking conscience, regret, or remorse for their actions

• Being cruel and taking pleasure in the pain of others

• High levels of aggression towards other people

• Paranoia or mistrust of others

I don’t know about you but that nails Donald J. Trump if you ask me.

Coming back to the insurrection. This intricate and compulsive attempt to remain in office with complete disregard to the American process developed over two plus centuries of practice, Trump attempted at every turn, to find and undermine any soft spot in the system that previously relied on the good will and honor of those working in the system.

This assault on American norms has created seemingly irreparable damage to Americans’ ability to easily vote for most and impossible to trust for others. But intimidating voters and making voting difficult and scary for both voters and election workers, forcing many to quit, is exactly the point of the rethuglican program.

I make a distinction here between what we used to think of as Republicans and how the party has been taken over by rethuglicans. These are the members of the Republican party that believe in sowing chaos and confusion, imposing fear and intimidation, ignoring social and political norms and working in a completely unamerican way, willing to tear down the whole thing if they are not in control of it. This is not how America works but it is how America can fail.

Remember to vote.

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I am not a Democrat or a Republican. I am an unaffiliated independent. I am my own tribe, probably a part time anarchist in the original Greek meaning of the word (without ruler) on a private level. I rule myself through self-discipline as should all of us.

That said, let’s talk economy. This seems to be the biggest issue on the People’s mind. Yes, inflation is too high at 8.1 %. Interest rates for 30 yr mortgages have gone up to almost 7% as a way to create ‘Demand Destruction’: reduced demand, lower prices over time.

Let’s remember folks, we are coming off of ridiculously low interest rates that encouraged demand during the pandemic. The mortgage rate got down to around +/- 2% range. But that crazy low interest rate also drove up demand since, with lower interest rates, people could afford to buy homes because they could afford the monthly payments. Now with increased interest rates, that puts mortgages more out of reach. Hence demand destruction and eventually a drop in inflation. So everyone is whining or at least Republicans are telling you that you should be whining. This is a relatively short term problem if we don’t have more global disasters on the horizon.

Compared to the rest of the world we are actually weathering the storm pretty well. Globally, inflation is an average of 8.8% (in some places as high as +200% like Venezuela). This is a world wide problem not something created by Democrats as Republicans would have you think. Take a look at this chart…

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MORTGAGE30US

Now let’s take a look at 1980 which is in the aftermath of the Viet Nam War where we spent way too much blood and treasure. But this was also the tail end of what was called The Great Inflation.

“Reagan's administration is the only one not to have raised the minimum wage. The inflation rate, 13.5% in 1980, fell to 4.1% in 1988, in part because the Federal Reserve increased interest rates (prime rate peaking at 20.5% in August 1981).”

It took the Reagan administration 8 years to get the inflation rate back down to 4.1 % and all along the prime rate went from about 20% down to about 10% in 1988. We are no where close to those kind of numbers and are unlikely to even hit the low end of the Reagan years.

Currently, the IMF (not the Democrats) projections are that the global inflation rate should be back down to 4.1% in 2024. That is only a year and a half or so from now. And if that is for global inflation, the USA should be a few ticks lower than that at maybe 3.7%. Which mean the interest rates can also be lowered back down as well. So let’s not get our panties in a twist over the economy. Politically it is a non-issue. Yes, it is putting some hurt on our fellow citizens but things will turn around and in the meantime I see a lot of effort on the part of the current administration to ease the pain as much as possible for as many as possible.

So, if the Republicans are in charge of the house or senate after this election, what are they going to do about the economy other than nothing and then claim they caused the naturally occurring drop in inflation in 2024 to happen?

The Republicans don’t have any plan and haven’t had any plan other that to sow discord and chaos and gum up the works and otherwise do nothing whatsoever except to complain about Democrats eating babies and protect Donald J. Trump for some inscrutable reason, end woman’s healthcare rights, end Medicare and Social Security, burn books, get rid of the Affordable Care Act, put pain at the southern border, encourage insurrection, defund and dismantle the DOJ, the FBI, the IRS, the EPA and the federal government as a whole for that matter (as we saw in the Trump administration). That is a big agenda I guess except that it is all Anti-American.

Do your American duty, get out there and vote. Democracy depends on all of us.

as Rob Reiner said: “A Vote For Republicans A Vote To Destroy Democracy”

If that happens we are in for dark times.

Being Americans is our generic commonality, our common denominator, our common ground. No matter what our individual uniqueness is, what groups we identify with, what our circumstances are, the big circle drawn around all of us together is being Americans. In the very fractionated and deeply divided political environment we seem to currently be in, we all need to take a deep breathe and see ourselves as a whole.

We as Americans are disserved by those who wish to throw shade on our electoral process in an attempt to create distrust based on false conspiracy theories and an utter lack of any credible facts to support them. The facts instead support the reality that Americans work, and in good faith, to maintain our democratic processes. How so many of us can fall for these shenanigans is, quite frankly, disappointing and insulting to our group intelligence. Naturally, if any of this election fraud were true, we would all be up at arms but the real fraud is the suggestion that our election workers, top to bottom, are all corrupt (except when rethuglicans win). That is such an obvious and misguided conspiratorial phantasma that most of us have to wonder what kind of mental bubble people have to be living in to actually invest themselves and their sense of reality into it at, by the way, everyone’s expense.

It should be obvious to all by now that the loser Donald J. Trump, who, acting only in his own personal dim sighted best interest, is the primary instigator of this dangerous foolishness supported by the grifter Rethuglican industry around him who seek to profit from supposedly patriotic fearmongering. This is not patriotism, this is thuggery of epidemic proportion. Those pushing the conspiracy are the actual conspirators themselves with the support of those who bury their heads in the sand and fail to think for themselves, who prefer tribe over country.

As Americans we all have to depend on the goodwill of each other for our mutual benefit. We have to trust in each other to do what is right in order to continue forward and this requires that each of us does our part and shake ourselves out of the disillusion that so many are suffering from. Wake up folks, shake it off. All hands on deck.

"We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." Benjamin Franklin

America is a place where Americans move forward together not backward. If this were not true we would still be a colony of England.

When it comes to politics, I personally don’t have much interest. Yes, I more or less keep up with the daily affairs of the political world, maybe more than most, but only at the cable news headline level. I don’t have the time or the interest to dig in deeply. I find it pretty boring and disheartening to watch politicians constantly either trying to get something accomplished or trying to prevent their opponents from accomplishing something.

I believe each one of us needs mostly to figure out how to take care of ourselves, support our family, friends and neighbors the best we can and build our own world the way we think it should be.

In my own case, I am an artist. I am an image maker. As a collage artist I put things together that don’t go together, I take bits and pieces of things and try to find an order for them to coexist in that yields an image that has internal integrity and hopefully, aesthetic pleasure. In a certain way you could call it a political act, how to take disparate things out of their cozy context where they make sense and weave them together into a new unified whole.

In a way American society is a big collage of millions of people finding their place in the big picture. Each one of us is individually responsible to hold up our corner of the country the best we are able. First in our own person, then our own household, then our own neighborhood. These spheres alone are enough to keep each of us busy from morning to night.

As American citizens we also have a larger sphere to consider, our city, our state, our country and our planet. While most of us might feel that the larger the sphere the less we have a say in things, the less we have a responsibility, the less impact the larger spheres have on us. Most of the time this certainly seems true and is true to some extent. But this is where our common ground starts to come into play. These larger spheres are the ground we all stand upon and depend on for our livelihoods, our safety, our peace of mind and our hopes for the future.

We are all deeply intertwined with each other and depend on the good works and the goodwill of all of the other citizens living in their neighborhoods, in their households, and in their individual persons almost all of whom are complete strangers to us. All of us together form the context, the fabric of each one of our individual lives.

Without our goodwill, our regard for our fellow Americans, the fabric of American life starts to fray and weaken. We need to all be trustworthy and trust each other to do our part to keep the American dream alive. We do this in thousands of small actions through the day. We act as Americans in how we respect the daily processes of American life whether we are driving a car, walking down the street, shopping at a local store, how we do our jobs, how we treat our fellow workers or our customers, how we treat those who serve us and those we serve, how we care for our surroundings, how we look after each other, what we say to each other, how we respond in situations, all of these things strengthen or weaken our common ground.

When it comes to our right and duty to vote we need to support those who want to serve all of us, who have the best interest of our common ground American way of life at the center of their agenda. Those politicians who have some other agenda of perhaps self interest or the interest of some interest group need, in order to serve all Americans, acknowledge that their first concern in the best interest of all Americans and the will of the voters. A democracy is a majority rule form of government. If you serve in a democracy you must serve the will of the people.

It seems that many get confused on this topic and want to impose their own view of the world on everyone else. That is just fine. But this is a matter of persuading your fellow Americans through honest debate and argument not through thuggery, intimidation and dishonest, subversive manipulation of the system to bend the vote in a direction that is not reflective of the People’s will. It is a difference between goodwill and ill will. Don’t be ill. Don’t spread illness.

Let me start with one of my sayings: “Upon the individual rests the fate of the nation.”

If you are an American or a Norte Americano as we are called south of the border since everybody in North, Central and South America is also an American, then you need to feel the weight of the above saying on your shoulders because it is.

America is a dream built piece by piece by the individuals who occupy and participate in it. What each of us do every day, morning to night is either helping to build the dream or tear it apart. Each of us has our own American dream, our own hopes of a better future. We are all individually working out our dreams and what we want them to be should we ever be able to fulfill them. All of our dreams together make up our collective dream as a nation. This is the accumulated atmosphere or national ambiance, mood and character we are creating individually and together.

There are those among us who are good at articulating what our collective dream is or could be. But since everyone can dream whatever they like, there are often many different conflicting voices and angles on what that dream should be. So I am going to try to lay out what the American Dream is from my angle of view.

We all assume that we all understand what America is all about. But in observing the actual practice of being an American, it seems many of us don’t really quite get the idea or have a completely contrary idea. We are living in what people are calling a highly polarized social and political environment and even in a very dangerous time for our democracy. Why is this? We are all Americans. What’s the problem?

The problem is that there are many problems.

An a nation of individuals a good place to start is with the idea that we have to accept that we are all Americans whether we like each other or not. We don’t have to like each other but we do need to respect each other as Americans, to tolerate each other as fellow citizens. What any citizen deserves we all deserve and we all should work to defend and respect each other as we would want to be defended and respected as an American.

So this means it is incumbent on each of us, for our own good as an American living in a democratic society, to participate with our fellow citizens in the protection of our mutual dream which includes; our individual rights, our individual freedoms and our ability to have a voice in how we govern ourselves as a nation and be allowed to pursue our happiness.

Being an American is to be a part of a society that is diverse, is composed of individuals from all nations and cultures of the world who practice various religious traditions, who come from various circumstances, Live in various economic circumstances, have various talents, limitations and handicaps. The equalizer is that we are all Americans. This is our generic commonality and is the basic way we should see ourselves and each other beyond our distinctions and differences. This is our common ground.