Month: July 2025

Transgender Transference…and Why You Should Know Better

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Several aspects of the anti-trans stance are deeply upsetting and demonstrably harmful, while being based on a misunderstanding of biology, psychology, and sociology. I take exception with many of them, but perhaps what bothers me most in anti-trans arguments is when people bring up the fear of predatory men taking advantage of transgender access to their gender-appropriate restrooms. What they’re talking about in these scenarios isn’t even a transgender issue.

None of what they’re expressing a fear of is at all the responsibility of the transgender people in question. The people they’re talking about are predatory men taking advantage of social and legal systems to prey on the vulnerable. How do the people expressing these fears not recognize that they’re not describing a fear of trans-feminine people, but of cis-male rapists? It’s a poorly constructed argument in the first place, but it becomes even more so when we take a moment to think about what’s actually being protested.

But for a moment, let’s take the argument at face value and pretend that it is transgender people who are the basis for this fear. We’re going to make believe that they’re describing actual transgender people, because I would love to know why they aren’t equally vocal about protesting several other things that are certainly more common.

Do these same people want to bar individuals from becoming clergy, or to keep their children from attending church services, because there are so many documented members of the clergy who similarly take advantage of the social and legal structures in place to prey on vulnerable people? It’s a well-documented problem in the Catholic Church, where billions of dollars have been paid out in settlements to thousands of victims, in America alone. They might respond by telling us that they’re not Catholic, so it’s not relevant to them. Well, there were hundreds of Southern Baptist clergy, church leaders, and volunteers who faced accusations of sexual misconduct in just the last few decades. Tens of millions of dollars have been paid out to victims of sexual abuse within the Lutheran Church as well. Tens of thousands of victims all around the globe have come forward within the Jehovah’s Witnesses as well, though most get ignored within the church because of the “Two Witness Rule” in place. The same is true for essentially every other religious organization in the world. Yet I don’t hear the same vocal anti-clergy arguments to protect children who might venture into a church. Even as the Department of Justice insists that Priests can’t be compelled to violate the sanctity of confession to report people who are abusing children, there’s no swell of populist cries of injustice.

Where are the people demanding that no one be allowed to become a Scout Master? All the way back in 1994, nearly 2,000 child molesters were documented within the Boy Scouts. These were retrieved from files maintained by the organization itself. Why are these individuals who have used that organization’s hierarchy to prey on children not considered a threat? Is it perhaps because these are all boys who are being molested? If that’s the case, I sincerely question the morality of anyone taking that stance. But, that’s okay, there are documented instances of Girl Scouts being sexually assaulted as well.

What about all of the documented instances of law enforcement being caught up in child pornography and sexual assault cases? Where’s the outrage concerning those predators? There’s a fairly horrific study from 2022, delving into 669 cases of police sexual violence. Of course, being that it’s law enforcement perpetrating these crimes, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever have a suitable estimate of just how frequent those infractions are. Where are the demands that people be barred from pursuing careers in law enforcement because some people have taken advantage of those positions of authority?

According to the National Institutes of Health, transgender people are no more likely than the general population to commit acts of sexual violence; they may actually be less likely to do so. However, they are more likely than cisgender people to be VICTIMS of sexual assault.

So, if any of this is about protecting children, there should be far more coherent arguments leveled against those aforementioned occupational transgressions than against transgender people. Being allowed to live their lives and exist in the spaces that are comfortable and appropriate for them isn’t hurting anyone, and there has never been a shred of evidence that it has. But, again, the men sneaking into women’s restrooms aren’t transgender in the first place. They’re, as usual, cis-male predators who are exploiting whatever structures they can to prey on those they choose to prey on.

By that standard, should we be persecuting police because a man dressed as a police officer committed political assassinations in Minnesota just a short while ago? It’s precisely the same logic, and just as flawed.

But, assuming the worst, let’s say that transfeminine predators are hoping to use public restrooms as hunting grounds. They are a small fraction of a percentage of an already small percentage of the population. Even the most liberal estimates indicate a maximum of about 1% of the U.S. population identifies as transgender, and not all of them are transfemme. So, we’d be looking at a fraction of a single percent of the U.S. population that identifies as transfeminine, and then a fraction of that fraction that might also be inclined to perform acts of sexual violence. Statistically, you’re far more likely to have a cis-female predator in the same restroom.

Seriously, all one needs to do is think for a second before they let their biases and prejudices make them sound like more of a fool than they already do. Transgender men and women are not inherently predatory, violent, or perverse. We need to stop marginalizing them further.

Eating the Rich…and Other Survival Strategies

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It should come as no surprise that a rallying cry with its origins in the French Revolution is seeing a resurgence in modern-day America. “When the poor have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich,” often attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau of Geneva, retains a certain resonance today thanks to parallels in the social conditions present in pre-revolutionary France. Much of what we consider modern political and economic thought derives from Rousseau and his Age of Enlightenment contemporaries. Income and Social Inequality aren’t unfamiliar to us today.

Almost all of us, whether we recognize it (or choose to acknowledge it) or not, live in a state of perpetual, low-grade fear. We know–at least deep inside–that everything we have can be taken from us. That we can lose everything, including the false sense of security we shelter ourselves with in our day-to-day lives, is something few of us can afford to ignore. And no, I’m not talking about a natural disaster, a freak accident, or a random act of violence. This isn’t one of those things about which we go through every day thinking, “It can’t happen to me,” while being mostly correct in our assumption.

I’m talking about a layoff, an extended or severe illness, a kidnapping (because it isn’t deportation when you’re an American citizen), or an arrest by a federal agency with no respect for your rights or the concept of Due Process. That last one becomes an even greater fear if you happen to be part of one or more marginalized/vulnerable groups. And the root causes for those fears are only becoming worse and more pronounced.

I’m tempted to argue that the biggest problem is that there’s a whole class of people who have forgotten what it is to be afraid. Over the centuries, they’ve forgotten the lessons of the French and Bolshevik Revolutions. They’ve spent so long believing they’re untouchable that they don’t recognize they’re only untouchable because of a shared reality (and morality) among the rest of us, thinking that they are. We believe the lie, and they perpetuate it.

This isn’t a Republican or Democrat thing, nor is it really a wealthy or poor issue, though wealth is one of the components that enables certain people to begin feeling as if they’re untouchable.

It is possible to be ethical and to accumulate wealth. That’s one thing most of us sincerely agree on, and an issue I have with a small minority of people on the fringes of the left. The assumption that wealth equals predation, cruelty, and exploitation is erroneous. Certain people hear the phrase “eat the rich,” and assume it applies to anyone with wealth above a certain quantity, but that’s not the case.

Professional athletes (by and large) don’t accumulate their wealth through unethical means. They dedicate their lives to the pursuit of goals, often placing themselves at significant risk of injury in the process. For the small minority who can find success in that arena, they can hardly be considered predatory or exploitative in achieving it. Whether we agree that they deserve what they earn for these pursuits is irrelevant. If people are willing to pay to see them display their athletic prowess, then that’s not our place to condemn it.

Musicians, filmmakers, and actors/performers who have managed to overcome the predatory behavior of record labels, film/TV/streaming studios, producers, and large venues to accumulate wealth haven’t done so through any unethical means. They, like all of us, may behave unethically in their personal lives, but their success is not derived from that questionable behavior.

Successful medical specialists, surgeons, and research scientists may accumulate wealth without ever displaying any unethical behavior. It’s not greedy doctors who are increasing the costs of medical care in the United States. Those rising costs can be laid almost squarely on the shoulders of insurance providers who receive as much as 70% of their profit through government subsidies, while raising the operating costs of hospitals by requiring additional layers of bureaucracy for submitting claims and fighting the denial of them.

People have started successful and thriving businesses that provide value or fill a need, while still taking care of their employees and without benefiting from child labor, overseas slave labor, exploitative practices, or price gouging. Some of those business owners manage to become wealthy in the process, depending on how you define “wealthy.”

People can (and do) make wise investments with the finances they have access to, and are consciously involved in where their money is going. Several of these individuals are careful to avoid supporting unethical corporations or ventures, and some of them manage to become wealthy along the way as well.

There is even a small minority of wealthy authors and artists out there in the world, many of whom haven’t behaved in any way that could be considered unethical. I may not be one of them, but they most certainly exist. What they do with the money they’ve earned can certainly be unethical and cruel, but there’s nothing inherently unethical in how they’ve obtained their wealth. Unless they’re stealing from others in the process, whether through direct theft or through the consumption derived from Generative AI, they are simply creating things that other people find beautiful or otherwise worthwhile.

So, it’s wrong to simply assume that “the rich” are the enemy or that they’re somehow morally compromised because they’ve met with success. Many of those people also dedicate resources to charitable organizations, causes important to them, and improving the lives of people who haven’t experienced their good fortune. I’ve known several people who are quick to condemn anyone with wealth and success, but who have done proportionally far less to help other people than some of those wealthy individuals they malign.

This, of course, isn’t to say that people who obtained their wealth through ethical means aren’t subsequently putting that money to use in unethical ways, but it’s disingenuous and reductive to assume most people are like that. Successful people are not a monolith any more than unsuccessful people are.

I fully agree that those who accumulate their wealth through unethical means or use their wealth for unethical purposes should be held accountable. They should be treated as enemies. Simply having wealth, however, does not make someone an enemy, despite what a small number of people will tell you, and despite what fear-mongers who oppose social and economic justice will claim is meant by the people who say, “eat the rich.”

“Eat the rich” is a great slogan. But like all slogans, it’s simple and lacking in nuance. We have to trust the people reciting slogans to understand that they are not comprehensive philosophies, and we need to trust the people hearing and seeing them to comprehend that a call to action needs to be pithy, for it to catch on. The same was true with the rallying cry of “defund the police.” For most people, it wasn’t about dismantling the justice system and getting rid of police, and most people recognized that. It was about bloated police budgets, militarization of law enforcement, and a lack of accountability for those hiding behind the thin blue line.

Bringing Some Mania To the Media, Gushing With Gallows Humor

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It’s no surprise to anyone who has worked in Journalism (or had loved ones who have) that people working in the Media either develop a dark sense of humor over time or have one to begin with. Gallows humor isn’t uncommon in people who experience physically or psychologically stressful and challenging situations in their line of work. It’s something that research has consistently shown to be true for Medical Professionals, First Responders, Veterans, Journalists, and others who regularly encounter difficult and unpleasant things in their line of work.

This makes perfect sense, considering the well-established connection between humor and stress reduction, as well as the impact it has on depression and irritation. Dark Humor is, for many people, a Coping Mechanism that helps to stave off depression and distress in response to traumatic experiences, and not exclusively those associated with one’s occupation. It’s been compared to “whistling past the graveyard” by some.

Several studies have been conducted on the correlation between Dark Humor and Trauma, available from organizations such as the National Institutes of Health and the American Medical Association. The overall effectiveness of this kind of outlook (as far as catharsis is concerned) is debatable, but the prevalence is undeniable.

That being said, my tendency toward Gallows Humor can run a bit darker and deeper than most. Some of that could be related to my secondary career as a horror author and a certain desensitization that goes with intentionally exploring some truly taboo and horrific topics, as well as the worst aspects of my own human nature. It could be a result of Childhood Trauma combined with my career choices. It could be something in the way I’m hardwired. I do know that my greatest enjoyment concerning jokes and comedy has always leaned in that direction, at least as far back as I can recall. My suspicion is that (at least in my case) it’s a combination of all of the above that influences my brand of humor as it stands today.

One of the ways my humor manifests in my career as a Journalist is in a fascination with both alliteration and rhyme, especially in places where it’s thoroughly inappropriate. Some of my colleagues can appreciate my perspective, and even the inherent humor behind my statements and suggestions, while others find it perplexing and in poor taste. I suspect some of the latter individuals would find themselves less shocked by my occasional outbursts and the like if they’d been working in the industry longer than they have.

When I was still working in Western South Dakota, during the late summer of 2022, there was a murder that took place at a mobile home in Box Elder, the town that is butted up against Ellsworth Air Force Base. I typed up a quick Limerick and sent it via text to my News Director so that it would be the first thing she’d see when she woke up for work that morning. I received a one-word response a short while later, “No!”

Naturally, I wasn’t sincerely going to incorporate anything like the following rhyme into my scripts for the Newscast, but that didn’t change how amusing I thought it was to imagine doing so.

There was a middle-aged man in Box Elder.
He hated a woman and felled her.
He’s under arrest.
Despite his protests.
He was caught trying to run from the trailer.

In May of this year, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek declared the month to be Wildfire Awareness Month. When we were covering the story, I suggested a poem for the reporter we were assigning to it. I don’t consider the following poem to be particularly dark, but I understand how and why it was nevertheless unacceptable in practical terms.

Top fire officials share an outlook that’s quite concerning…
Offering tips to keep Oregon’s forests from burning.
Governor Kotek signs a new declaration.
Wildfire Awareness Month is her creation.
The fire cache is stocked up with much-needed supplies.
What you can do to avoid a scorching surprise.

There are several more incidents of me attempting to insert levity where most people would insist it does not belong, and I suppose I should share a few more examples. Some of these may be a bit grim, while others (I insist) are simply funny.

It was May of 2024 when Washington’s former Attorney General, Bob Ferguson, was campaigning for Governor. A Republican activist recruited two men, also named Bob Ferguson, to campaign as Democrats as well, going so far as to pay their filing fees and handle the registration of their campaigns. Those two fraudulent campaigns were ultimately withdrawn from the race because it’s a Class B Felony to intentionally mislead or confuse the election as they were. I put the story together for my Newscast and suggested that I should use a graphic saying, “Two Bobs, One Gov.” The way I looked at it, anyone who picked up on the reference to “Two Girls, One Cup” wasn’t likely to complain about it.

In October of 2024, one of our reporters provided a multi-part explainer on how the new Ranked-Choice voting process works because Portland had implemented Ranked-Choice for the Mayoral Race. When he was delving into how tabulation of the results would be performed, I opted to tease the story with, “What to expect when you’re electing.”

That same month, there was an Officer-Involved Shooting in a Taco Bell drive-thru, and I suggested we should lighten the tone by saying the individual who was shot had been trying to make a run for the border. I wasn’t alone in making bad jokes associated with that particular incident. Things like Glock-o Bell may have been tossed around for our amusement.

In November of last year, I found a story from Alaska about a beached fin whale near Anchorage. Part of the story focused on a mother who homeschools her children, and how she used the carcass as supplemental material for biology lessons. While putting the story together for my Newscast, I added a graphic that said, “A Whale Of a Lesson,” and I’m still pretty proud of that.

In April of this year, we were discussing updates to the police investigation of a mother and her children who were found hanging in their home a couple of weeks earlier. It wasn’t a quiet environment when I muttered (thinking it was only to myself), “I’m just hanging with my family this weekend.” It was, however, quiet enough that one person did hear what I said, and their response seemed to display both appreciation and shock at what I’d just said.

There is a walking trail near where I live in Vancouver, featuring various gnome figures and fairy gardens, because several children use that path to get to school. It provided a little bit of magic as kids made their way to and from school, and the nearby community put a fair amount of time and effort into contributing to those additions to the trail. People being who they are, it’s no surprise that someone came along and started destroying the gnomes, and I proudly wrote a script that said the community intended to fight back against the “gnome wrecker.”

It wasn’t long ago that we learned of a sperm race taking place at the Hollywood Palladium in LA, complete with a tiny racetrack and high-resolution cameras monitoring the speed and motility of the sperm cells facing off head-to-head. We chattered about that on and off for a couple of hours, leading to a deeply unserious environment. One of our photographers said he could fly down to LA to shoot the event, and I asked if we could refer to that as a new form of “skeet shooting.”

From what we were seeing, the main event appeared to be a contest between sperm from a white man and a black man. I asked how long it would take for the racists to start in with accusations of “fast-twitch flagella.”

Some of these are dark, and some are inappropriate, but they’re also emblematic of what it can be like to work in the field that I do. This may go some way toward explaining my attitude at times when I’m discussing politics and other topics as well. Combined with my deeply-rooted cynicism, my tendency to find humor in things that might not be inherently humorous occasionally causes issues for me in my personal life, more often than my professional one. There’s a degree of amusement to be found in my professional environment being where some of my least professional comments are the most acceptable. But, the reality is that we understand one another there, and we understand how some of the things we expose ourselves to would wear us down far more quickly if we didn’t find a way to laugh through the pain and whistle past the graveyard.

Adding Some Identity To Identity Politics

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I would like people to dedicate some time and energy to self-reflection and evaluation of what they sincerely believe, as opposed to what they’ve been conditioned to accept. It would be unfair of me to ask that without sharing some things I’ve managed to discover in my own extensive intervals of self-assessment, if only because I suspect more people see things similarly to how I see them than I’ve typically assumed to be the case. I’ve spent a fair amount of time discussing diverse aspects of Politics and the shortcomings of various Political Figures as well. In doing all of that, I’ve still provided little regarding my own Political Ideology. Some elements of it, of course, are clear through inference, but to engage in any kind of authentic and intellectually honest discourse, I need to provide something more than I have already.

When I turned 18 and registered to vote, I did so as a Communist. I thought it was amusing, considering the lingering stigma still prevalent in America during the late 1990s. I registered as a Communist despite not being a Communist. I’d read the works of Marx and Engels; I was even familiar with the philosophies of Antonio Gramsci and Vladimir Lenin. I had read the work of Noam Chomsky and thoroughly agreed with much of it. But still, I was not a Communist when I turned 18 and registered to vote as one. I agreed with the underlying philosophy, but I considered it to be hopelessly naive. I was raised Catholic, and was familiar with many of the major writers from Church history, and Communism, to me, resembled Sir Thomas More’s Utopia in many respects. Much like More’s Utopia, a Communist Society struck me as being a fanciful thing that could exist only in fiction. Capitalism, after all, is not going anywhere.

Years later, I changed my voter registration to Independent.

Yet again, years after that, I switched my registration to Democrat, which is where it remains. Much like when I was registered as a Communist, I’m not really a Democrat either. Of the two major parties in American Politics, I feel that the Democratic Party more closely aligns with my personal politics, but it also ranges far afield in several ways.

I’ve cast my ballots for Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Green Party Candidates, and Independents over the years. I rarely based my decisions on Party Affiliation, but on the individual and what I could discern of their platform and previous voting record (if available). This is to say that I’ve never been one to assume that one’s Political Party is the best metric by which to judge them.

Personally, I think that (as a whole) we need to stop thinking of everything in terms of Left or Right, Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Liberal. Breaking away from the illusory binary system of partisan politics would benefit us all. We could focus on the issues that matter to us individually. and the individuals who align with us on those issues, as opposed to the Party that we believe will align with and uphold our personal political ideals. Partisan Politics forces people to adhere to monolithic thinking as opposed to independent thinking. Partisan Politics encourages groupthink and “in vs. out group” mentalities that are ultimately more harmful than they ever could be beneficial. That way of thinking erases Cognitive Processing from the voting process. It nurtures the laziness required to simply look for a candidate conveniently marked with a D or an R, and to put no further thought into the consequences that might be tied up in blindly endorsing someone based on Party Affiliation.

In my ideal version of the American political system, individuals seeking office would need to provide a detailed checklist: indicating where they stand on the most salient issues, how they intend to act on behalf of the interests of those who support them, and what their priorities are. They would have to actively think about the issues, arrive at solutions, and propose those solutions as a platform. You see, it’s not simply the voters who have checked their brains at the door when it comes to American Politics; the people we’re voting for are guilty of doing the same thing. Politicians assume (often rightly so) that their Party Affiliation will guarantee the votes of a particular cross-section of the voting demographic.

This, I must admit, is one of the reasons I’ve remained registered as a Democrat for the last few years. The Democratic Party, more so than the Republican Party, is a large tent. There’s none of the blind obedience to Party Affiliation that we see on the Republican side of the American Political Spectrum. That’s why “Vote Blue, No Matter Who” became a rallying call from the establishment Democrats, because they knew it wouldn’t happen. The problem with having a large tent is that there’s more diversity in not only cultural and ethnic backgrounds, but also in political ideologies. There are Democrats who are barely distinguishable from Republicans, and, at the opposite end of the spectrum, there are Social Democrats (or Justice Dems). This leads to a dichotomy within the one party that is actually greater than the dichotomy between the two major parties. Republicans, of course, should be thrilled by this. It gives them an advantage that they otherwise don’t have. As far as voter registrations are concerned, there are roughly ten million more registered Democrats than Republicans. If Democratic voters and politicians were as willing to conform to the will of party leadership, there would quite possibly never be any Republicans in the White House. The same would be true if the Electoral College didn’t exist, which gives voters in Wyoming more individual weight in their votes than those in California. If we’re being honest, it’s the equivalent of DEI Policies (as Republicans have misunderstood them) applied to rural voters.

I don’t believe either Major Party in America is anywhere near upholding the basic standards I expect from a Democratic Government, and the smaller parties are ultimately non-entities (with ineffectual leadership) that have no chance of overcoming the chokehold the Republicans and Democrats have in place. So, while I am most assuredly not a Democrat, it just so happens that Democrats more closely align with my principles and acknowledgement of our shared reality. The importance of a shared reality is something you’ll see again.

In an ideal America, it wouldn’t just be the Political Parties that disappear. There would be no more campaigns and no advertisements. We could host public debates wherein the contenders could challenge their opponents, and they would be forced to defend their premises. They would be moderated and fact-checked, and intellectual dishonesty (as well as the more traditional dishonesty) would not be tolerated.

When it came time for the election, the voting public would be provided with a list of candidates and their platforms, and they would use ranked choice ballots to cast their votes. There would be no Electoral College to manipulate the outcome in favor of land over people. The people who express concerns over the Tyranny of the Majority never seem to have those concerns if/when they are in the majority, so what’s good for the goose is what’s good for the gander, as they say.

The Elected Officials would then be expected to act according to the platform they proclaimed, or they could be removed by a vote of no confidence. No more towing a party line and no more threats of being primaried, and less impact from gerrymandering bullshit. I’m sure it would be harder on all of us. We might have to become informed voters, and politicians might have to work for the votes they receive and display a little bit of integrity. But we would be a better and more functional society for it. For purely personal reasons, I would take delight in the fact that much of the perceived and actual bias in the Media would disappear because there would be no explicit party lines to adhere to, and we could expect the Fourth Estate to fulfill its purpose of holding those in power accountable.

My perspective on politics may seem complicated (even convoluted), but that’s a byproduct of navigating the needlessly problematic nature of our modern political environment and the dialogue surrounding it. Were we not forced to maneuver our way through a quagmire of obfuscation, double-think, manipulation, and outright fabrications, I suspect many of us would have substantially pared-down stances on most matters.

What I mean to say is that, in all reality, my politics are simple and straightforward.

My ideology boils down to one single principle: that the role (and purpose) of the Government in any Democratic Society is to provide for the Common Good and Common Defense of the People. I’m essentially a believer in Utilitarianism, in that I believe the Guiding Moral Principle of any Democratic Government should be, “The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number.” Hand-in-hand with that, I believe in minimizing harm at the societal level, with a focus on justice and human rights.

That’s it.

That is the basis of my underlying political identity.

How it manifests is just as simple. The Rights and Liberties of each Individual should be respected and protected, and it is the responsibility of the Government to guarantee that they are. And where Conflict arises between one or more individuals, it’s the purpose of the Government to ensure that the negative impact on the individuals and on society as a whole is minimized.

I recall a conversation with my oldest two children around the time Barack Obama was elected President in 2008. I told them that if they encounter a scenario in which one group is forcing others (not part of their group) to live as if they are part of that group, then there is a clear indication that they are wrong. Whether certain people want to accept it, that’s the most common method by which one group inflicts harm on others. I’ll return to the topic of inflicting harm again shortly.

If I do not believe what you believe, you do not have the right to tell me that I must behave as if I accept your beliefs in place of my own. I also do not have the right to impose my beliefs upon you. That seems simple enough, and one would think we could all agree with that as a solid substrate upon which to build a social structure. Unfortunately, there are large groups of people who believe they should have the right to dictate to others what they are entitled to think and how they’re allowed to behave, based on their beliefs.

This applies to many things in our current political climate, in which everything from science to math has been transformed into a political football. Belief in scientific and professional consensus is not a political stance, but a practical one based on centuries of methodology and increased understanding of the world around us.

When Law Enforcement Statistics, collected and collated from all parts of the Nation, indicate that Immigrant Communities (including those with large numbers of Undocumented Immigrants) are less likely to be plagued with violent crime, it’s not subject to interpretation. This is especially true when one considers just how entrenched White Supremacy happens to be. Systemic Racism is a thing, and decades of data back that up. So, even with an implicit bias against Ethnic Minorities, the numbers supplied by Law Enforcement Agencies across the board show that crime and criminality are not correlated with Immigration or the presence of Immigrants. You don’t get to say otherwise without supplying equally valid and unassailable facts to reinforce your statements.

How you feel about a topic doesn’t impact the reality of a thing. If you claim that reality is other than what has been well-documented and proven, you are either misinformed or lying. What you are not entitled to is a difference of opinion, because we’re not talking about opinions.

When the overwhelming consensus of well-educated and established biologists, doctors, and psychologists explains that biological sex is not binary and that it is not the same thing as gender identity, you don’t get to come back with what you learned in Elementary School as an equally valid viewpoint. You should know by adulthood that the deeper you look into a thing, and the more research and study you perform, the more detailed and complicated the picture of that thing becomes. That is true for every field of science and life in general. Whether it upsets your rudimentary comprehension of something is irrelevant.

Now, I suppose I am operating under the assumption that people have learned something throughout their lives, whether that was a foreign language or something relating to their career fields, but in everything, we begin with the simplest, surface-level knowledge, and then we drill down and expand on those things. People dedicate years of their lives to studying these topics for a reason, because the better we understand them, the better equipped we are to navigate the universe in which we live.

We inhabit a shared reality, and whether you like it or not, we are subject to all of the same natural laws and principles. The sooner everyone chooses to get back on board, the sooner we can begin moving forward instead of standing still and wasting time attempting to negotiate on things where there’s no negotiation to be done. It’s not elitist for an expert to state that they know more about a subject than you do. They’re an expert for a reason.

One’s inability to understand something doesn’t make it fictional.

It’s well past time for us to stop entertaining lies, willful ignorance, and outright stupidity as a valid point of view. All perspectives are not equal, and do not share equal footing.

A trained pilot is going to do a better job of flying a plane than someone who played Microsoft Flight Simulator a couple of times.

A trained surgeon is safer to have in the operating theater than someone who played Operation a lot when they were growing up.

A chemist is better suited to break down what a substance is made of than someone who spent a few years cooking meth in their kitchen.

A physicist can tell you more about the universe than a self-help guru who overheard some people talking about quantum mechanics one afternoon in a restaurant.

Teams of scientists from diverse fields studying the data are better suited to tell us whether climate change is happening, if it is accelerating, how much impact human beings have on it, and whether it is dangerous and potentially deadly than someone who watches The Weather Channel a lot.

The consensus of medical doctors and researchers, psychologists, and pediatric specialists is better suited to determine what’s in the best interests of your child’s health and well-being than you are. This is true, no matter how much you love your child. And that absolutely includes vaccinations.

I know a fair amount about a good many things. I’ve been an avid reader since early childhood, and that included college textbooks while my mother was studying to become an English teacher, with a minor in psychology. I read a lot, and I frequently go down research rabbit holes in the process. My career as a Journalist (and Author) requires that I dedicate time to researching even topics that aren’t of any particular interest to me. And yet, even with all I know, I’m inclined to defer to the experts on matters for which they happen to have expertise. I’m going to briefly dismiss some of my false humility and the tendency to second-guess and doubt myself for long enough to say that I’m probably smarter than several of the people who might read this. I’m not being arrogant or self-aggrandizing, and it makes me feel a little bit dirty saying what I just did, but it needed to be said, that (as smart as I might be) I still choose to trust the consensus opinions of experts unless what they’re saying literally makes no sense (and that is seldom the case).

It may hurt your feelings to hear that you aren’t some brilliant and special savant who knows more about everything than the actual experts, but there’s only room for one Donald J. Trump in this world. And he’s already certain that he knows more about every subject under the sun than anyone else ever has. And, unfortunately, like Mr. Trump, you aren’t Will Hunting, because he was a fictional character. Neither you nor Mr. Trump will be impressing the MacArthur Foundation.

And while your feelings and ego might be hurt by that, it’s nothing compared to the actual harm you cause when you refuse to accept reality and grow the fuck up. This is where the second part of my political philosophy comes into play. We must ask who is being harmed by opposing sides of any discourse that’s taking place.

Who is harmed by the respectful acceptance and freedom for LGBTQ+ people to be who they are or to love who they love?

I can’t think of anyone being harmed by those things, and especially not when compared to the harm that is done by ostracizing and taking rights away from them. Does it, in some way, hurt non-LGBTQ+ people that those people exist? Is their very existence somehow threatening to people who are not part of the LGBTQ+ Community?

Is it hurting children to allow books into our schools and libraries that provide representation that reflects lived experiences that are familiar to them? As a child, would you not want to see reflections of yourself or those you love in the media made available to you?

Does it harm our children to expose them to the reality that a world of experiences, both cultural and individual, exists outside of their limited–but expanding–worlds? I would argue that it’s far more harmful to insulate them and raise them in a way that they’re subjected to discomfort or cognitive dissonance when they are later exposed to people and cultures unlike their own. That primes them to cause conflict, intentional or not. And I have to ask, who does that conflict benefit?

Does permitting abortions hurt the people who oppose the medical practice?

I fail to see any way in which it’s harmful to anti-abortion proponents when a woman and her doctor (and sometimes her partner) make the decision to go through with the procedure. I do see a great deal of harm inflicted upon the women (and girls) who are forced to go through with pregnancies that are either unwanted or unviable. In this case, it seems like a clear-cut answer, that only one side is actively choosing to harm other people and infringe upon their rights. Using bumper sticker simplicity, if you oppose abortion, don’t fucking have one.

This same thinking can be applied to virtually every topic we think of as being Political, and the reality is that only one end of the albeit limited spectrum of American Politics is invested in harming other people. Mostly, that harm is focused on marginalized groups: women, the LGBTQ+ community, ethnic minorities, cultural minorities, religious minorities, and so on. So, while I don’t believe that either Major Party has our best interests at heart, I will say that only one of them is actively opposing our Freedom and the Rights we’re presumably granted by the Constitution, which is intended to enshrine them.

The Sins of the Media Are To Be Laid On the Masses

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I believe in the Fourth Estate. I’m passionate about that belief, and I’m passionate about the role the Press is intended to play in a Free Society. Journalists have to hold those in power accountable and provide for an informed electorate. My colleagues have heard my rant often enough that they probably want to slap me whenever they know it’s coming. I occasionally find myself struggling to remind the people I work with that our responsibility is to elevate the level of discourse. It doesn’t matter whether we’re reporting on Congressional Legislation, new medical procedures, or anything else. Our role isn’t dissimilar from that of educators. We have to inform the people who rely on us, whether they like or agree with the information we provide.

Somewhere along the line, we’ve forgotten how important we are in keeping corruption, abuse of power, and malfeasance at bay. Some of us have become puppets of the very figures we’re meant to guard against, some have grown complacent, and still others have pivoted from providing information to providing entertainment. I’m not saying that education can’t be entertaining, because I’m a fan of John Oliver, John Stewart, Samantha Bee, Michelle Wolf, Cody Johnston, and others like them. But it’s a fine line to walk, and few do it well.

I won’t place the blame squarely on the Journalists who have lost their way. It’s the audience that craves drama, conflict, turmoil, and childish or boorish behavior. It’s the audience that drives engagement. It’s the audience that ultimately determines where advertising dollars are spent.

But we do bear some of the blame.

I first started working in Broadcast Television (and specifically News) back in mid-2000, when I was 21 years old. I began with the basics of operating studio cameras, controlling the teleprompter, floor directing, designing/assembling graphics, and so on. I left the industry in 2010, not entirely of my own volition. Eleven years later, in 2021, I was back again, and here I am today. I’ve spent approximately one-third of my 46 years working in that industry, and roughly half of my adult life. I’ve witnessed several changes over the last 25 years, and not all of them have been positive. I’ve seen faith in the News Media eroded, sometimes with good cause and other times because the average person doesn’t understand what goes on behind the scenes and beneath the surface.

When I left the industry in 2010, it was close on the heels of the Station Manager passing along a mandate from himself and the ownership of the station (several wealthy and influential families in the region) that, if a story had a political angle to it, we were to lean right in our reporting. I wasn’t part of the Newsroom at that station, but I didn’t think that was at all acceptable. I admit my morale and overall attitude toward station operations deteriorated after that. Unfortunately, that trend of rightward deviation has only persisted. But if you ask people on the street, a substantial number of them will claim that the News Media are biased and promoting a Leftist Agenda.

Perhaps it’s the fault of American audiences that they’re unable to recognize that there’s no such thing as left-leaning Media in the United States unless we’re looking at publications like Mother Jones and The Nation. Since most people don’t know that those outlets even exist, it’s a fair bet that most Americans have no idea what they’re talking about when they insist on a Leftist Bias in the Media. At best, what they’re referring to is a Liberal Bias from Media Organizations like MSNBC or CNN. Of course, those same people are likely to refer to the Associated Press, Reuters, NPR, and other politically unbiased Media Organizations as being left-leaning. Ultimately, it comes down to either accepting Propaganda over Reality or having a deep misunderstanding of Political Theory.

At best, it can be argued that there are Democratic (Liberal) and Republican (Conservative) Media Outlets. But even the Liberal ones tend to dismiss and disparage any Leftist or Progressive policies proposed by Democratic Party members. They do as much harm to actual Progressive Ideals as the Conservative Media does. The Liberals and Conservatives have far more in common than they don’t, in that they’re both invested in maintaining the Status Quo and shutting down any attempts to question it. The problem is that the Politicians and the Media are controlled by the same interests, because they control the money.

Of course, money has always been the worst influence on the Media. The earliest Newspaper in America had an advertisement in the first issue. And Advertisements have followed News from periodicals to radio, and from radio to television. And now, advertisements have jumped from television to social media platforms and websites.

The first advertisement on TV was way back in 1941, and they’ve become increasingly prevalent since then. The growth of television as an industry, and Television News as a result, led to the Federal Communications Commission enforcing the Fairness Doctrine, starting in 1949. It was intended to keep the burgeoning Media Outlets from misusing their power and promoting biased agendas. The Fairness Doctrine required that Media Outlets examine controversial public issues and provide airtime to opposing viewpoints.

As with several major errors made in the United States, it was brought to an end with a poor decision made under President Ronald Reagan (and his FCC Chairman), who dissolved the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. Of course, the Fairness Doctrine wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t perfectly implemented. But there’s no denying that the purpose was noble and good, to hold off the prevalence of echo chambers and purely partisan News coverage. Abolishing the Fairness Doctrine is seen by many experts as the biggest contributor to the fractured, partisan environment we have today.

Naturally, one of the other major contributors to the decline in quality of News coverage was the advent of the 24-Hour News Cycle, after Ted Turner founded CNN in 1980. Much like the Internet today, it fed a desire for immediate updates and instant gratification. People didn’t want to wait until scheduled times to learn what was happening, especially when major events were transpiring. This need to cater to an audience’s obsession with instant gratification promotes mistakes, the sharing of bad information, and a lack of proper vetting. The need to be “first on the scene” because the audience will tune in elsewhere has done so much harm.

We in the Media are at fault for much of the misunderstanding and misapprehension we witness in the world around us right now. As an industry, we need to both acknowledge that reality and actively work to compensate for the damage we’ve caused. Now, I’m not talking about the explicit Partisan Propaganda of organizations like Fox News and Newsmax or Huffpost and MSNBC, but the otherwise unbiased news sources that do their best to provide balanced coverage. It’s not entirely on our shoulders, but we do bear a substantial portion of the blame, if only because we’ve been too uncritical for altogether too long, and that willingness to avoid being openly critical of various subjects and stances has allowed us to be backed into a corner that we seem to be ill-equipped to escape.

Of course, the lion’s share of the blame falls on the increasing tendency of politicians to turn every social, medical, and cultural issue into a political one. The people who watch it happening, without questioning how or why these things are suddenly “political” topics when they never had been before, are also at fault. It has left even the most legitimate media outlets with no simple way to address any of these topics. Instead, we dance around the issues, struggling to find opposing sides and lending them credence by providing them with a platform that they don’t merit. We hold off on sharing critical information because we haven’t been able to obtain a statement from someone with a viewpoint opposing whatever it is we’re trying to share. If we neglect to do so, we get called out for being biased.

We risk losing advertisers.

We risk litigation.

But in failing to inform, we risk losing the credibility we have left.

Fringe perspectives should NOT be provided the same degree of coverage. That’s the simple truth of it. But when a topic becomes heavily politicized, it becomes more challenging to navigate what should otherwise be a straightforward assessment of data, statistics, and known facts. When people refuse to accept that what they already believe to be true is not, we have no easy way to address that flaw. The political figures who insist on turning everything into a political battlefield know precisely what they’re doing, and we know WHY they’re doing it.

They force a dialogue that shouldn’t be a dialogue at all.

We saw it repeatedly during the COVID-19 Pandemic. It wasn’t exclusively the News Media at fault, because Social Media was a major source of much of the misinformation that was spread, and attempts to provide Fact Checks were perceived to be biased.

There are still people today who believe that the medical field was pretty evenly split on the topics of Vaccine Safety and Vaccine Effectiveness. Globally, based on a study of more than 40,000 nurses across 36 nations, fewer than 21% of nurses rejected the COVID-19 Vaccine. The most pronounced interval was between March and December of 2020, when Pharmaceutical Companies were initially testing the vaccines.
As early as June of 2021, according to the American Medical Association, 96% of practicing physicians were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and an additional 1.8% of them were actively planning to receive vaccinations.

Unfortunately, the way the media reported on the topic gave people the sense that a large number of Medical Professionals were speaking out in opposition to the vaccine. This is a negative side-effect of the overcompensation involved in attempting to provide multiple sides of an argument with equal coverage. If we intended to provide balanced coverage, we should have given the anti-vaccine proponents roughly 5% of the coverage, compared to 95% of the coverage focusing on the medical consensus.

This is something we need to address.

It’s something we need to atone for.

What would previously have been simply a matter of focusing on medical consensus became a partisan issue, requiring more even-handed coverage of opposing sides when there are not equivalent claims made by both sides.

This is, of course, not isolated to the COVID-19 Vaccine. We’ve seen this happen with topics from Abortion to Gender Identity, none of which are inherently political topics. And they should not be.

These are subjects best left in the hands of the relevant professionals and experts, not politicians.

Abortion didn’t become a political issue until the 1970s, and Gender Identity started down that path in the UK in the 1970s as well. But didn’t become a major political issue in America until roughly a decade ago. Vaccination (as a whole) was a largely apolitical topic until more than 15 years ago. But, as these topics went from being personal and medical decisions to political ones, the News Media was forced to adjust how it covered them. The number of lies, discredited studies, and hate-based propaganda talking points we allowed to slip through has been disorientingly massive. We were supposed to be maintaining the public trust.

I’m sorry to say that we failed.

But we don’t have to continue failing.

Persecution and Exploitation, the Tools of the Weak and Afraid

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As near as I can place it, the greatest problem we have as a society here in America (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the Western World) is that there are whole cultural groups who perceive any and all interactions with others through a lens of persecution and exploitation. They can’t conceive of anything else. To them, it’s an alien concept that those interactions could be cooperative or mutually beneficial. It’s a shortcoming, and a necessary byproduct of patriarchy, the corrupting influence of certain religious ideologies, and Capitalism.

These groups, when told that they’re no longer allowed to persecute or exploit others, can only imagine that they must be on the receiving end of persecution and exploitation. That’s the only thing they know, and they lack the necessary imagination to comprehend that a loss of privilege is not the same thing as persecution. After so long, always being in control, they can’t accept the loss of it or recognize that the loss is nothing more than that of the shackles that they forced on those upon whom they preyed.

It doesn’t matter if it makes no sense. It will never make sense to anyone not wrapped up in delusions of exceptionalism and their own sense of being what is “normal” and what is “right.” If you’re not them, you’re something less. If they’re not allowed to treat you as being beneath them, they believe it’s because you think yourself to be above them. And, if we’re being honest, not being like them (confined by such petty, binary terms) most certainly does place you above them.

To them, it’s one or the other. If they aren’t persecuting you, then they must be persecuted by you. That’s why you’ll routinely hear them tossing out ridiculous claims of how they’re being harmed or ostracized, even though nothing has changed. In their fevered imaginations, they sincerely believe there’s a “War on Christmas,” a “White Genocide,” or a “Male Loneliness Epidemic.” Again, nothing has changed, beyond the fact that they’re being told to grow the fuck up and behave as if they’re part of a civilized society. No one asked them to change anything about themselves, beyond opening their eyes to the reality that they are not alone, and they are not exclusively in control or entitled to it.

For some, without dominance, there is nothing.

I can’t help but feel that one of the greatest missteps we’ve made as a species is the shift to a perspective in which we have dominance over all other life on the planet, be it plant or animal. Some would claim that to be the natural order of things, but it wasn’t always that way, and in many circles it still is not. That way of thinking originated from somewhere specific and spread like a disease, much like the cultures from which it was spawned.

You see, once a culture begins to perceive anything as being beneath it, it’s a simple thing to perceive ANYTHING as being beneath it. Dominion over the plants and animals quickly becomes dominion over those who see the world differently. It translates easily into dominance over those who look different, or speak a different language, or pray to a different pantheon of gods. The world turns on its axis for centuries, and that thinking persists today.

Unfortunately, that way of thinking began with Genesis and the early Judaic people who shared that story and built upon it, so assured that they were special and destined for more. That philosophy wasn’t present in the pre-Judaic religious traditions of the Sumerians, Canaanites, Assyrians, and others. It’s also notably absent in essentially all other religious thinking around the world. That philosophy of human dominion is all but exclusive to the myths of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim people.

Other cultures saw divinity in the natural world, not as something separate and standing above it, but as an aspect of it. All of existence was a reflection of the divine and the bearer of divinity. Humans were a part of that natural world, and part of that divine manifestation along with everything else. But these new cultures, that spread from the Middle East, saw only themselves as a reflection of the divine in our world. They chose to perceive the natural world as something corrupt and needing to be overcome and subdued, from which to escape.

Some would dismiss all of these pantheistic or semi-pantheistic belief systems as primitive. But I feel like there’s a lot more of the “primitive” in cultures that feel conflict, war, and dominion over others are the natural order.

I think it says something that several great thinkers of the Enlightenment Era (men like Spinoza) embraced various forms of pantheism, as did some who influenced the birth of that age. But they also saw the danger in straying from the “dominant” faith in their corner of the world, and what happened to those who promoted a less “transcendent” interpretation of God, when men like Giordano Bruno were burned at the stake as heretics by the Catholic Church. Those faiths holding to their belief in dominion over all things are insidiously successful in devouring any opposition, and guarding their positions with jealousy that rivals what their god is capable of displaying.

Of course, there’s an exceptionally good chance that the original meaning of what they interpreted as “dominion” was intended more as what we think of as “stewardship,” caring for the plants and animals of the world. In which case, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim believers have been disappointing the god they pray to for centuries or even millennia.

That seems far more likely to me than them being correct.

It may be time to reevaluate our relationship with the world we live upon and in. It’s the only one we’re guaranteed to have. Everything else is a fantasy (and one that can never be proven), only accepted on faith. And if that’s what someone chooses to believe, good for them, but they need to stop depending (and insisting) on the rest of the world going along with their delusions. We have a responsibility to maintain and care for the world upon which we depend for our survival.

Naturally, all of this appealed a great deal to the patriarchal, as strength and brutality lend themselves nicely to domination and forced compliance. It complements Capitalism well, a worldview and economic system that requires a minority of owners and a majority of subservient workers to feed their productivity upward as they receive the bare minimum to keep them placated. White Supremacy, of course, latched onto this way of thinking as well, looking down on cultures and ethnic groups unlike their own, as if theirs was the only one that should be.

And today, as always before, they project what they perceive as strength, but anyone with open eyes sees it for the transparent weakness of fear and contempt that it’s always been.

We only need to give them a mirror.

Where Does Our Federal Spending Go?

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I’m pretty well done with sifting through Federal Spending, Tax Revenue, and all that fun stuff, but I do have one more thing I’d like to share. Trust me, it will be fun (it’s full of numbers) and I’m trying to delve into how the Federal Government spends money. This seems particularly relevant when we’ve heard so much talk of how we need to cut Federal Spending (and where it should be cut) ever since Elon Musk and his team of grifters at DOGE got involved. Even as the net result of the 2025 Congressional Budget Bill is to increase Federal Spending while cutting down on Federal Revenue. It’s like Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan never left us, or they’re still with us in Spirit.

Personally, I think that means we need an Exorcism post haste.

This additional deep dive into Federal Revenue and Spending came about, partially in response to someone on Threads who insisted (despite all evidence to the contrary) that Donor States were still a drain on the Economy because many of them received more in Federal Funds than less populated States that couldn’t hope to contribute as much.

He clearly didn’t comprehend that words have agreed-upon meanings. No matter how much he wished it, he couldn’t arbitrarily change those definitions (not without some sort of consensus involved). It’s disingenuous at best to accuse Donor States of being a drain, when they are contributing more than they are taking. It really doesn’t matter that these states might be receiving more than others (that take more than they contribute). I continued that discussion far longer than I should have, when I simply needed to point out that he was wrong from the beginning, and wasn’t getting any less wrong the more he tried to argue his point.

That’s the problem with the way many people look at things today. They think that their sense of what is correct holds the same value as the reality of the thing, whatever that thing might be. Just because something doesn’t feel right, because it doesn’t correspond with one’s worldview, is not the same as something not being right or accurate. Some people (mostly men, it seems) think everything is up for debate and interpretation, but that simply isn’t how reality works. We don’t get to negotiate with reality the way we do with one another. One’s level of confidence in their being correct does not influence whether they are (even if it makes them seem like they must be), but there’s no convincing some people of that.

This is why, not so long ago, when more than a thousand people were polled, 12% of Men responded that they believed they could score a single point on Serena Williams in Tennis. Of course: 17% of Men also believed they could beat a Chimpanzee in a fight, 8% were confident they could defeat a Gorilla, and 6% suggested they could successfully fight a Bear. Keep in mind that these men are unarmed and the animals are neither infants nor infirm. So, there’s clearly no accounting for human stupidity, or the confidence that goes with it.

But, back to the topic at hand.

In 2023, the Donor States (those that paid out more in Federal Revenue than they received back) produced a combined surplus of $619 Billion. That was such a great surplus in Total Revenue that it offset the total amount consumed by states that received more than they paid out, with more than $105.1 Billion left to spare.

Fully 88% of that Federal Revenue came from Income and Individual Taxes (this includes Social Security and Medicare), with the remaining 10% coming from Business Taxes, Estate Taxes, and so on.

The Federal Government spent a grand total of just below $6.2 Trillion that year (which is more than the total Federal Revenue), which means Donor States provided roughly 10% of the total amount of Federal Spending in just the surplus between what they paid out vs. what they received back from that $6.2 Trillion.

It’s worth referring back to my earlier discussion of Sanctuary States to point out that 11 of the states classified as Sanctuary States, when broken down by Per Capita Revenue, generated more than they received that year. When looking solely at total amount of outgoing versus incoming Revenue at the State Level, it was seven Sanctuary States operating in the black. When we adjust our focus, in terms of total population, we’re looking at 11 Sanctuary States that paid in more than they cost the Federal Government per person. I keep bringing that up because it’s imperative to hammer in the point that people should stop trying to use Sanctuary States as a budgetary talking point as if they’re a drain on the economy. After all, the reality is quite the opposite.

It’s a simple thing to ignore context and simply accept that the Federal Government distributed a grand total of $4.56 Billion back to the various states and their residents. That’s still less than was obtained in Federal Revenue, by a little over $100 Billion. This isn’t entirely painting an accurate portrait, suggesting that the money actually went to the states. Defense Spending is included in this, which was disproportionately redistributed to wherever the largest military bases, contractors, and manufacturing facilities were located. Strangely enough, unlike the U.S. Postal Service, no one seems to expect the U.S. Armed Forces to turn over a profit, even though the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t receive direct Taxpayer funding.

So, to really dig into where Federal Spending is directed, we’re going to have to spend a little more time breaking things down. It doesn’t sound like much fun, but at least I’ll save you the time and effort of doing the math.

Only $2.4 Trillion of the total $6.2 Trillion in Federal Spending returned to the States for purposes of Medicaid, SNAP (Food Stamps), Social Security, Veterans Benefits, Transportation, and Education. That leaves $3.8 Trillion in spending left unaddressed. It’s worth noting that a large portion of the money spent through Medicaid, as well as some of what was spent on Veterans Benefits, went directly to Insurance Companies. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Federal Subsidies for Insurance Companies in 2023 totaled an estimated $1.8 Trillion (which included Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, Affordable Care Act Marketplace Subsidies, and more). Referring to that as money that went to residents of the states in question seems disingenuous to me, but we’ll let it stand.

$658.8 Billion went toward payment of Interest on the National Debt (which totaled $34.7 Trillion as of last June), which is 17% of the previously unaccounted for $3.8 Trillion…leaving us with roughly $3.2 Trillion to track down.

Excluding Active Duty Military salaries, the Federal Government spent roughly $336 Billion on payroll for Federal Workers, which translates into approximately 10.5% of the remaining $3.2 Trillion, leaving $2.9 Trillion that we’ve not accounted for.

Foreign Aid seems to be a sticking point for several people lately, as they complain about how the money could (or should) be spent here at home. The reality is that Foreign Aid is a drop in the bucket. In 2023, Foreign Aid added up to a total of $71.9 Billion (which is less than the $74 Billion spent in 2022). I should note that this amount does not factor in sales of arms or transfers of military equipment; mostly because we typically sell materials and equipment without taking a loss. Even this exceptionally small number, compared to our total Federal Spending, turns out to be a grand total of 1.2% of that amount. Data from the United Nations indicates the U.S. still contributes 40% of all International Humanitarian Aid. That’s something we should be proud of. $14.4 Billion of that went to Ukraine in the form of direct monetary support, which (as I’m sure you notice) is not much at all when compared to total Federal Spending. It’s even appreciably less than the $15.6 Billion that went toward Foreign Disaster Relief and other Humanitarian purposes. Even though the current war in Gaza didn’t begin until October 7th of that year, we spent $3.3 Billion on Foreign Aid to Israel.

But, we still have essentially $2.9 Trillion to account for, so let’s keep going.

Defense Spending totaled $820.3 Billion that year. This amount shouldn’t be surprising, since we spent more than twice as much as the other 30 NATO Nations combined between 2014 and 2022. More than a quarter of that Spending went to the Air Force, and only slightly less went towards the Navy. Army and Marine Corps Spending combined to make up roughly another quarter of that total. This is where Active Duty Military salaries factor into the spending.

We now have just a little bit less than $2.1 Trillion to account for.

The $52 Billion we spent on Small Business Loans hardly makes a dent.

Of the $970 Billion in Discretionary Spending that wasn’t Defense-Related, only a portion of it hasn’t already been accounted for in the previous Spending that went back to the individual States. $83 Billion of that was spent on International Affairs, $74 Billion went toward Administration of Justice, $48 Billion to Natural Resources and Environmental Spending, while $40 Billion was dedicated to Science, Space, and Technology. Adding those totals to what was spent on Small Business Loans, we’re only looking at $1.9 Trillion left to go.

Only $31 Billion went toward Pell Grants for the roughly 6.5 Million college students who received them that year, so that hardly registers.

And unfortunately, it only gets more challenging to trace the money at that point.

Tax Refunds for Earned Income Credits, the Federal portion of Unemployment Compensation, and other dispersals factor into the same Mandatory Spending category as SNAP funding, which totals $448 Billion. But some of that has already been accounted for in the money we discussed being distributed to the States. Unfortunately, it’s exceedingly difficult to sift through itemized spending to discern just how much we’ve already considered in our breakdown of Federal Spending.

There’s also $502 Billion that was distributed between Federal Civilian and Military Retirement Benefits, some additional Veterans’ Benefits, and offsetting costs for other previously discussed areas of Mandatory Spending such as Social Security and Medicaid. But, again, a significant portion of that Spending has already been mentioned.

Even if that was all above and beyond what had been previously accounted for, we would still have more than $900 Billion to account for, which is no small amount. And, if I’m being entirely honest, I don’t know how much more we’ve ticked away at the $1.9 Trillion we were looking at before those areas of Mandatory Spending entered the discussion. For the sake of moving this forward, we’ll go ahead and operate under the assumption that we’re looking at $900 Billion to account for.

Some of that was further distributed to States via Nonprofit Programs and Organizations that received grants. Of course, most of the funding for U.S. Nonprofits comes from sources other than the Federal Government. They received more than $550 Billion in Charitable Giving, with $101 Billion of that coming from Charitable Foundations and an estimated $412 Billion or so coming from Individual Donations or Estates. The rest more than likely came from Businesses and Corporations. Naturally, there are tax breaks involved for those entities.

I’d love to imagine our Federal Government shelling out $550 Billion or so toward Nonprofit Organizations and matching those numbers, but that’s a fantasy. The most liberal estimates indicate the Federal Government, in some capacity, spends an average of roughly $303 Billion on U.S. Nonprofits annually. But it’s difficult to find a breakdown of that Spending specifically for 2023. It probably varies significantly by year, so we’ll focus on the $303 Billion as a total, and assume none of it was already tallied in earlier categories.

This leaves us with (we’ll say) $600 Billion that I simply don’t have the Resources or the Time to track down. The best I can do from here is offer some speculation, and suggest aspects of the Federal Budget that weren’t entirely accounted for previously.

I’m sure that some of it falls through the cracks as Black Budget Items and Surveillance or Espionage Spending that doesn’t get mixed in with the usual Defense Spending, to keep it off the books. But I don’t imagine those Budgetary elements come anywhere close to $600 Billion, when the on-the-books Defense Spending is already more than $800 Billion.

We could assume some of it is Government Contract Spending that isn’t accounted for in the Defense Spending totals, Small Business Grants, and the other Funding already considered. Elon Musk’s various companies were recipients of $3 Billion of that Contract Spending, split between several different Federal Agencies, but most of that has already been accounted for.

Government Contracts devoured $759 Billion in Government Spending for 2023. $470 Billion of that was through the Department of Defense. Assuming the rest (which is surely not accurate) has not been part of the earlier Spending we’ve discussed, that would leave $289 Billion.

We would still be looking at more than $300 Billion left at the Table, which is clearly not the case, because our Deficit wouldn’t be as high as it is. The reality is that there’s definitely upwards of $300 Billion that I haven’t accounted for in my research, and that’s certainly no small amount.

Even with that ultimate failure in my capacity to dig through every Bill and piece of Legislation that slipped through Congress in 2023 (or before, because some of them include spending allotments for years to come, which is why we had the recent Recision Bill that took back funds that had previously been approved by Congress), I hope this has helped to explain where Federal Spending is directed. Sadly, I doubt the people who most need to get a firm grasp on what we’re spending (and where) are the least likely to take the time necessary to read this.

Sanctuary States Do NOT Cost Taxpayers Money. That’s Always Been a Lie

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In an entirely predictable return to form, President Trump is again threatening to withhold Federal Funds from Sanctuary Cities and Sanctuary States, as well as cities that have not eradicated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies. He attempted to do the same thing during his first term, until a Federal Appeals Court ruled in 2018 that the President does not have the authority to do so. Of course, Congress had previously decided the same thing all the way back in 1974, with the passage of the Impoundment Control Act, in response to President Richard Nixon.

It’s not wholly unusual for a President to withhold Federal Grant money as a bargaining tactic, but the Trump Administration has a habit of taking this to extremes. This includes threats to withhold emergency funds from states based on policy disputes. It’s particularly egregious concerning the wildfires in California and windstorms in Washington State. Those are two of the states that receive less in Federal Funding than they contribute to Federal Revenue.

The numbers for 2024 won’t be available until next year, but we do have the final numbers for 2023. Only three states contributed at least $70 Billion more to the Federal Government than they received from it: New Jersey, California, and New York. Texas wasn’t far behind with $67 Billion more paid in Federal Taxes than the state received in all Federal Funding. Washington (where I live) trails behind that, with $55 Billion more contributed to Federal Revenue than received. In 2023, only 19 states gave more than they received.

At the other end of that spectrum, there was only one state that took in more than $70 Billion more than was contributed. That was Virginia, with $79 Billion more Federal dollars going into the state than Federal Taxes collected. The next worst state was Alabama, at $41 Billion.

Four states were less than a billion dollars away from breaking even: Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Pennsylvania was $965 Million shy of what it contributed to Federal Revenue, and Wyoming was just $339 Million away. South Dakota (where I spent most of my life) and Arkansas weren’t far off, at a $1 Billion Federal Deficit each.

The five states with the greatest positive balance contributed enough in their combined positive difference to almost offset the deficit of the ten states at the opposite end of the spectrum. They were only about $2 Billion shy of erasing Michigan’s debt of $21 Billion.

One of the things I find funniest about the anti-immigration discourse is all the talk of Sanctuary States being a drain on our Tax Dollars, when the three states that carried the highest positive balance are all Sanctuary States: New Jersey, California, and New York.

In fact, of the States that have either declared themselves to be Sanctuary States–or have been designated as such by ICE–seven states (beyond the three I just mentioned) maintained a positive balance in Federal Funding for 2023: Rhode Island, Connecticut, Utah, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and Massachusetts. Rhode Island was the least lucrative of these States, with only $3 Billion more paid in than it received.

The Sanctuary States that received more in Federal Funding than they paid into the Federal Government were Maryland, Oregon (where I work), Hawaii, Vermont, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Maryland was the most costly to the Federal Government, sitting at a $35 Billion deficit, and Pennsylvania was the least so, at only $965 Million more going into the State than coming out.

And, as one might guess, just the three Sanctuary States with the largest ratio of Federal Revenue going out vs. coming in provided more than enough to offset the six Sanctuary States that received more than they paid in, with $165.04 Billion still to spare. That means the Sanctuary States of California, New Jersey, and New York not only covered every penny they received from the Federal Government, but also contributed an additional 3.8% to the overall Federal Revenue

So, it should be obvious that the talk of Sanctuary States costing taxpayers money is 100% Fiction. In fact, when we take all of the Sanctuary States and calculate the incoming Federal Spending vs. outgoing Federal Revenue, Sanctuary States were sitting at a positive balance of $367.04 Billion in 2023, more than 8% of the $4.4 Trillion in total Federal Revenue for the year.

So, maybe people should stop worrying so much about how much of a burden Sanctuary States are. They clearly aren’t the problem. And for a “successful businessman” like President Trump, it should be plainly obvious that the denial of Emergency Relief Funds to states like California and Washington is Bad for Business.

There’s one final thing that merits mentioning, while on the topic of Emergency Relief Funds. There was an uproar over an entirely imaginary scenario (and one repeated by Donald Trump) wherein President Joe Biden refused to supply funds for North Carolina in response to the devastating floods from Hurricane Helene, which he did not do. However, President Donald Trump cut partial Funding for a program President Biden had in place to cover the costs of debris removal, along with other protective measures. He also canceled a program designed to protect water, sewer, and other infrastructure services that had been devastated by the flooding, and was subsequently sued by the state’s Attorney General. Of course, there was nowhere near the kind of uproar compared to when it was only happening in the imaginations of people who wanted to demonize Joe Biden for something only Donald Trump would choose to do.

Immigrants Aren’t Stealing Your Social Security…But You Are Stealing From Them

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It’s disturbing that, in the context of discussions regarding Immigration in the U.S., there’s clearly no point in trying to appeal to the humanity, empathy, and compassion of the people who are buying “Alligator Alcatraz” merchandise or cheering on ICE Agents who are breaking the car windows of fathers dropping their children off for school because they refuse to comply with an order to turn themselves in (I mention that because it specifically happened in Portland just a short while ago). It’s a bit of a stretch, but I can hope that breaking everything down to a purely financial consideration will resonate with a small number of those people, though I’m not sure it paints a flattering portrait of them that money speaks louder than morality.

It just so happens that I have an admittedly numbers-heavy argument in opposition to our increasingly draconian Immigration Policy. It happens to correspond with another topic that’s important to me, the failure of our Social Security Program. It dovetails nicely with the conversation surrounding Undocumented Immigrants. I’d like to say this is the last of my long, mind-numbingly tedious, math-intensive arguments, but I would be lying. All I can hope for is that people are learning something from the information I’m taking the time to share.

According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, as of last November, 77% of all Immigrants in America have Documented (Legal) Status of some kind. Naturally, that means only 23% of the Immigrants here would be what people commonly refer to as being “Illegal.”

A 2023 Congressional Report detailed that a total of 365,714 Noncitizens received Social Security in 2021. This constituted only 4.8% of the total recipients of SSI Payments. More than 76% of the Noncitizen recipients were 65 or older, and more than 60% of them were female.

Historically, the largest number of noncitizen recipients of SSI Payments was in 1995, the year before the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was passed. That number was 785,000 people, just slightly more than twice as many as were receiving SSI Payments in 2021.

Exhaustive studies performed by the Social Security Administration have displayed that increased Immigration leads to a decrease in the Social Security Fund Deficit. The inverse, of course, is also true, that decreased Immigration further increases that Deficit. This means that more Immigrants coming to America means there is more money going into the Social Security Fund.

As Ron Popeil would say, “But wait, there’s more!”

According to an Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analysis, Undocumented Immigrants (those commonly referred to as Illegal) paid an estimated $25.7 Billion into the Social Security Fund in 2022, despite the vast majority of those individuals never obtaining an Immigration Status that would allow them to receive SSI Benefits. To put that in numbers that are easier to digest, it means that more than $2,300 was paid into Social Security for each of the 11 Million Undocumented Immigrants living in America, while only a small percentage of those Immigrants will ever be able to collect on what’s been paid in. We’ll set aside discussions of the immorality and predatory nature of that disparity for now, because that’s a whole different conversation.

This one-way exchange is not new, as actuaries performed a study in 2013 that showed Undocumented Immigrants were responsible for $12 Billion paid into the Social Security Trust in 2010. Some of this, of course, arises from the use of false or stolen Social Security Numbers by Undocumented Workers to obtain employment, which is (as we know) a crime. But how many of us would commit a crime just to work and pay taxes? Most of them are not criminals, though, as it’s estimated that at least half of all Undocumented Immigrant households utilize an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number to file taxes.

Assuming a plateau with no further upward trend since the numbers for 2022 were assessed (as unrealistic as that might be), if we remove all Undocumented Immigrants from America, we will be losing $25.7 Billion every year that would otherwise be paid into the Social Security Trust. This means that it’s likely to lose solvency earlier than the updated 2032 estimate. And that is just from Undocumented Immigrants. Documented (Legal) Immigrants contribute substantially more, but some of them are also eligible to benefit from the program.

Thus, the Trump Administration’s plan to not only remove Undocumented Immigrants, but also strip Documented Immigrants of their legal status to Deport them, is going to cut down on the amount of money going into our Social Security Fund, while only marginally impacting what is paid out.

And, despite what certain people seem to believe, the administration won’t make up that lost revenue by discovering fraud. Despite the literal bullshitting done by Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and all the parrots who couldn’t stop themselves from repeating their claims, there has been no evidence of widespread fraud in the Social Security Administration. In fact, the program has a 99.7% Payment Accuracy Rate. The 0.3% consists not of fraud, but mostly of incorrect payment amounts due to errors or delays in payment. Also, despite the fraudulent nonsense I had to hear from Musk and the people who couldn’t think for themselves if their lives depended on it, only 0.1% of payments go to people 100 and older. This is–as you can probably tell–statistically accurate.

Of course, it’s not just Social Security that’s being financially stripped by these counterproductive policies.

Undocumented Immigrants have contributed close to $100 Billion in Federal, State, and Local Tax Revenue, often paying at higher rates than the Top 1%. Studies have shown that providing Work Authorization to all Undocumented Immigrants would add $40.2 Billion in Tax Revenue. If you care about the conditions for Immigrants living in America, this is what you should be endorsing. Otherwise, hundreds of thousands of people are paying in more than their fair share, while being ineligible to reap the benefits…much the same as it is with Social Security.

Unlike Elon Musk’s fictional claims of Social Security Fraud, none of this is about how I “feel” or some “vibe” I have. Contrary to the talking heads and pundits on Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax, I’m taking the time to read the reports and studies on the topic. What I’m sharing here are facts reinforced by studies, research, and years of data. These aren’t opinions. There aren’t two equal sides to this discussion, and it’s not ambiguous or open to debate.

In the simplest terms, and phrased in a way I trust the intended audience would understand, “The facts don’t give a fuck about your feelings.”

Immigrants Are NOT the Problem, and They Never Were

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There is never a bad time to remind people that being Undocumented in the U.S. is a Civil Offense, not a criminal one. Unless someone has been previously Deported and has returned to the U.S. (which is a Felony) or is caught in the process of (or found Guilty of) Illegal Border Crossing (which is a Misdemeanor), they are not criminals. This should make it obvious that the habit of simply accusing anyone who is here without legal documentation of being a criminal is both legally & factually incorrect.

Unless they’ve committed other crimes while on U.S. soil, they are not criminals and should not be treated as such. And Due Process is required to assert Guilt, which requires honoring the writ of Habeas Corpus.

Of course, none of that matters when the DHS and ICE are allowed to just make up whatever criminal activities, questionable tattoo correlations, supposed gang affiliations, and whatever else they want to claim about any individuals they’ve targeted to pick up off the street, from their homes, from churches, from the classrooms, or in front of the courthouses as they wait for their Immigration Hearings. Because, without Due Process, no one has an opportunity to defend themselves or to prove the lie for what it is.

We currently have more than 46 Million Immigrants living in America, with more than half of that number being Naturalized Citizens. Note that I did not say they were Documented Immigrants, these are Citizens who came here as Immigrants. And that is no simple process. As of last year, it took the average Immigrant seven and a half years as a Permanent Resident to become Naturalized. They undergo a lengthy application process and are tested on their knowledge of the English language as well as their knowledge of U.S. History and Government.

In the 27 years leading up to the moment when President Trump first took office in 2017, a grand total of 305 Denaturalization cases were pursued. It was an exceptionally rare legal process, something reserved for people like War Criminals, Child Predators, and those who Sponsored Terrorists. Obviously, it wasn’t common.

However, one of the first things President Trump did upon taking office in 2017 was to explore options to loosen the standards in place regarding what qualified as a cause for Denaturalization. His Administration’s goal was to expand the rationale and justification required to strip an individual of American Citizenship. There were hurdles he needed to overcome, of course, and questions of constitutionality were involved.

Nevertheless, during Trump’s first year in the White House, 20 Denaturalization cases were filed with the Department Of Justice. By the time he’d been in office for three years, that number had reached 94. The number of Denaturalization cases was only 20 for 2020, but this was largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic having a massive impact on our courts. But, during the four-year interval, the first Trump Administration had filed 104 Denaturalization cases, compared to 305 in the 27 years leading up to that point. You’re reading that correctly: 25% of all Denaturalization cases in 31 years happened in just the four years President Trump was in the White House (or 12% of the time frame).

The beginning of President Biden’s Administration was also impacted by pandemic conditions, but during his four-year term, only 24 Denaturalization cases were filed. So, that still leaves the first Trump Administration responsible for 24% of all Denaturalization cases in a 35-year interval. So far, the President is off to a slow start, with only five Denaturalization cases, but it’s just getting started.

Since he returned to the White House, President Trump’s Administration has (in addition to renewing efforts to lower the standards required to justify Denaturalization) also started pushing to strip Citizenship via Civil Litigation.

This may not mean much to most of us, since we aren’t lawyers. But it’s a truly horrific prospect. It’s important to understand that this means a U.S. Citizen could face losing their Citizenship without being entitled to an attorney and with a diminished Burden of Proof involved in the decision. Sure, they can pay for an Attorney (assuming they can afford it) or they can hope for someone to take on their case pro bono, but they’re not afforded legal counsel as they should.

You see, it’s not just the violation of Due Process regarding Undocumented Immigrants that’s an issue (which Obama was guilty of doing as well). Also, why the hell would any Trump supporter point to Obama as a benchmark? That’s just nonsense. The problem now is the clear intent to strip Due Process from U.S. Citizens on top of violating Due Process for Undocumented and Documented Immigrants.

Even if someone wants to argue the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to Undocumented Immigrants (which it does), it absolutely applies to Citizens. This policy also flies in the face of the Supreme Court Decision that brought an end to McCarthy era bullshit, of using Denaturalization as a political bludgeon, creating “…two levels of citizenship.”

There is a clear and present trend in the objectives put forth by President Trump and his appointees. The Trump Administration has made attempts to rescind Birthright Citizenship, revoke the Legal Status of various groups of Documented Immigrants, increase the number of Undocumented Immigrants removed without Due Process, and strip Citizenship from Naturalized Citizens at an increased rate and without Due Process. All of this is combined with efforts to make it harder to become a Citizen, more difficult to obtain Documented (Legal) Status, and to refuse Asylum Status for more Asylum Seekers.

By April, we had already Deported three children between the ages of two and seven who were U.S. Citizens. This was done even though family members here were prepared to take them in when their Undocumented mothers were being Deported, and made several legal requests to do so. Attorneys were denied access to the women–as were the family members–and they were provided with no alternatives but to take their children with them as they were Deported.

We’re only six months into this Presidency, and he is attempting to reshape the landscape regarding Immigration to make it inhospitable for anyone but those he thinks should be here, and that seems to exclusively consist of White South African “refugees” and people who can pay $5 Million for the privilege.

Of course, to Deport someone is to return them to their Country Of Origin, or to a country with which the individual has strong ties. That is the definition of Deportation. You can imagine this does not mean we get to send them to wherever we see fit. But, less than a month ago, the Supreme Court decided the Trump Administration could continue sending Immigrants to countries that are not their Country Of Origin.

Sending them somewhere they’ve never been, and where they have no social or familial ties, that’s more akin to Human Trafficking. Of course, this is a violation of both International Law and Human Rights, but no one involved with the Trump Administration is concerned with any of that. This should serve as a suitable reminder that what is Legal does not define what is Moral.

It’s wrong to refer to that activity as Deportation. Thankfully, we already have a term that mostly fits with what we’re doing with those Immigrants, it’s called Extraordinary Rendition. Sure, we can’t be certain that there’s a substantial risk of these individuals being tortured when they arrive at this third-party destination, but it doesn’t seem particularly unlikely. Again, no one involved in making these decisions is concerned. They’re similarly unconcerned with the fact that Extraordinary Rendition is illegal in both the U.S. and internationally. The United Nations Convention Against Torture, which was ratified by the U.S. Senate back in 1998, explicitly prohibits Extraordinary Rendition.

Anyone who wants to claim any of this is right or acceptable should take a deep breath and spend some time reflecting on how and why they have so much contempt in their hearts for people who (like their own ancestors) came here for a chance at a better life. I also feel that they should take some time to consider the strong likelihood that these people probably had to go through a hell of a lot more trouble to achieve the American Dream than their families did. I know the various branches of my family tree had it a whole lot easier becoming American citizens.

As an amusing little adendum, I have some useful information to share with the pearl-clutching Anti-Immigration folks who are worried about the criminals and gangs that are coming across our borders. The Mexican Mafia originated in California’s prison system in the 1950s & spread to Mexico via deportation. More recently, MS-13 started on the streets of LA in the 1980s, before members were deported to El Salvador, where they became more powerful & dangerous.

Maybe deportation isn’t the solution people think it is. It might be a good time to stop complaining that these Central and South American nations are sending gangs across the border into the U.S., because it seems to me that we’ve been sending the gangs there more than the other way around. And, of course, that doesn’t even factor in the cartels we supplied, funded, and endorsed as rebels and insurgents.