American Government

It’s Complicated…

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

Assuming you haven’t been living somewhere off the grid and blissfully disconnected from the world at large until this very moment, you’ve been hearing a lot of heavy-handed talk from certain sectors that anyone who doesn’t wholeheartedly embrace and endorse the Trump Administration is un-American. Those targeted with these rhetorical condemnations include Conservatives and several former Republican politicians who display what constitutes an unacceptable degree of disloyalty. It’s the mind-boggling perspective from these circles that, if someone isn’t fully on board with Donald Trump’s rather Autocratic and Authoritarian vision for America, they must hate America.

It’s readily apparent that this is in no way a condition tied to the office of President, but something exclusive to the person of Trump and those who curry his favor (only while they remain in his good graces). That much is evident in how these same people displayed open contempt toward Barack Obama and Joe Biden while they were in the White House. The same pervasive, inimical rhetoric wasn’t directed at the people who opposed Obama and Biden. The vehement opposition to those two Presidents was treated as part of the standard discourse in American politics, despite the acrimony and animosity being far more intense than anything that had previously been considered normal. This double standard indicates to me that there is a whole swath of the American population that believes that the spirit and character of America is somehow embodied within Donald Trump.

The implicit assertion, then, if taken at face value, is that these people believe opposition to Trump’s Administration is symptomatic of hating America (because Trump IS America).

I don’t believe this assertion is accurate, and not solely because it lacks nuance and reeks of little more than partisan jingoistic propaganda. Hating Donald Trump, his policies, and those who work to enact them is neither unpatriotic nor indicative of hating America. On the contrary, I would contest that it’s the people leveling these accusations who actually hate America, or at least the real America that exists outside of Donald Trump’s exceedingly narrow worldview. To defend that argument, I need to explore what it means to hate America. But first, there’s an important question to answer.

What is America?

Is America the land contained within the illusory boundaries we have in place? Is America the people residing in the United States, or (as some would surely insist) just the citizens of the nation? Is it the form of government established by the Constitution? Is it some ideal or another intangible thing beyond the scope of the Constitution, like what we refer to when talking of the American Dream? Is it all of these things, a combination of one or two, or some other thing entirely?

Additionally, we should probably establish what we mean when we say that someone hates America. Is it sufficient that they hate aspects of American culture or history? What about hating substantial portions of the American citizenry? What constitutes hate in this context? Before we can discuss whether one group or another hates America, it would be helpful to define all of our terms.

This, of course, exposes the complicated nature of the topic and further reveals the lack of nuance implicit in the accusations bandied about; that so many people hate America. Before we dig too deep, and speaking solely for myself, I have to say that, where my feelings toward America are concerned, it’s most certainly complicated. If America and I had a relationship status, that would be the simplest box to check: “It’s Complicated.”

Part of the reason for that complicated relationship in my case is that I am one of the millions of people directly descended from one of the 56 men who signed the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Rush was a signatory from Pennsylvania, and his descendant, Rosanna Rush Merrill (a nurse during the Civil War), was my great-great-grandmother.

I learned of this family history at a young age. I spent time studying the physician who went from being one of the Sons of Liberty to a member of the Continental Congress, before becoming one of the illustrious men who inscribed his signature on the Founding Document of this nation. Despite the inherent Imperialism and Colonialism implicit in the foundation of America, I took no small amount of pride in knowing that I was directly descended from this man. This was especially true when I was young and ill-informed enough to perceive the country through rose-colored glasses.

I’ve said in the past that, if I had to pick a Founding Father to have descended from, I very well may have selected Benjamin Rush. Of the Founding Fathers I’ve studied, he’s the one who displayed what I consider the most admirable qualities. He was, first of all, an adamant and vocal abolitionist who fully opposed the slave trade and disagreed with any assertion that Black persons were in any way morally or intellectually inferior to Whites. Beyond that, he opposed Capital Punishment, founded both Dickinson College and the Young Ladies’ Academy of Philadelphia, believed in compassionate treatment of the mentally ill, and he believed addiction wasn’t a moral failing.

Sure, he had plenty of ass-backward thoughts on bloodletting and other things (even for the times). And yet, for the times in which he was living, he was nonetheless highly progressive, and I have to say it seems like he left behind more good than bad. It’s difficult not to feel a bit of pride in knowing I had an ancestor of no small esteem, who very well may have also seen the world the same way I do, were he alive today.

Another thing that complicates my relationship with America is that I come from a military family. It’s not just that my ancestor was directly involved in the Revolutionary War or that at least one of my great-great-grandfathers fought (on the correct side) in the Civil War. Both of my grandfathers served during World War II. Two of my three uncles served with the Army in Vietnam. My father was in the Navy, and my subsequent stepfather was in the Air Force. And now my oldest son is in the Army. In fact, had I not fractured five vertebrae a month before I turned 16, I would have enlisted as well.

I’m thoroughly opposed to our out-of-control Defense Spending, our rampant invasions of foreign nations over the last three quarters of a century, the lie we tell ourselves about bringing Freedom and Democracy to foreign lands, and the premise of American Exceptionalism that fuels our ongoing Imperialist and Colonialist activities. But three of the men I admired most in my life were soldiers, two of them involved in an entirely illegal and unjustified conflict. Nevertheless, they were heroes to me, and heroic men otherwise. I can’t simply disengage from that reality, no matter how much I oppose the conditions that led to these men being in the positions they were in, to become the heroes they became.

All of that aside, I’ve never been particularly patriotic, but I am proud of these aspects of my family history. To disentangle that history from the associated American history is virtually impossible.

But if I proceed from here, I’ll be getting ahead of myself, and I prefer to avoid that if at all possible. Let’s get back to definitions.

If, by America, we mean the land that we include within the boundaries, I find it difficult to believe that anyone opposing Donald Trump’s Administration could be accused of hating the wide-ranging landscapes and environments to be experienced from Maine to Hawaii and Florida to Alaska. There are, no doubt, certain ecosystems that people dislike. I’m not a fan of places that are particularly hot and humid, for example. But it’s not the people opposing President Trump who want to develop that land, mine it, or drill for oil. That’s not loving the environment or the land, that’s loving what you can take from it. That belies a superficial and selfish motivation, not an appreciation for the land itself. It’s a short-sighted, short-term predation that leaves nothing of value behind. Clearly, it is not the land that Trump supporters are accusing Liberals, Leftists, and anyone not loyal to Trump of hating.

So, is it the people? For simplicity, in this section, I’ll focus on Republican vs. Democrat, as those are the two largest voting blocs. As America’s population became more culturally and ethnically diverse, it’s definitely true that both major parties became less homogenized as a result; however, it’s been the Democratic Party that has displayed the greater degree of diversity in Representation, something that has shown a steady increase over time. At the same time, it’s Donald Trump who has maintained the unwavering support of White Supremacist Hate Groups, in large part because of policies that are transparently focused on benefitting a homogenized culture of straight, cisgender, white, Christian males. White people do make up the majority of the American population, at almost three times the number of people as are classified as Hispanic or Latino, more than four times as many as those who are classified as Black or African American, nearly nine times as many as those who are labeled as Asian, and more than 24 times as many people as those classified in any other way (including those who identify as two or more ethnicities). In fact, White people make up more of the population than all of those ethnic groups combined. So, could one argue that the party appealing to White Supremacists is the party that loves the larger number of Americans simply by virtue of skin color? I suppose one could make that argument, but that ignores the other characteristics that appeal to those same people: straight sexual orientation, cisgender identification, Christian faith, and male-dominated hierarchy. Of course, all of that becomes moot when we acknowledge that nothing suggests that not being a White Supremacist means that one hates White people. In fact, I would venture to guess that most of the animosity one perceives as being directed toward the Right is reactionary in nature. That hate arises as a result of the contempt and dehumanization that have long been directed toward the demographic groups constituting the Left. I’ve discussed it in the past, but I feel it merits repeating that there is a substantial difference between hating a group of people for who they are versus hating them for what they do. It seems apparent to me that it’s not the American people we’re talking about when it comes to hating America.

Is it the Democratic Republic established by the U.S. Constitution that Trump’s opponents are accused of hating? While the document certainly has its flaws, I’ve witnessed nothing from President Trump’s opponents that indicates widespread disdain for the Constitution. Both major political parties have been routinely accused of violating the Constitution, but only two Presidents in my lifetime have been impeached, and only one of them was impeached twice. And, in less than nine months in office, a total of 138 Executive Actions have been partially or fully blocked, and another 94 remain pending, with only 93 that were allowed to stand. At least ten of those decisions blocking Executive Actions were made by judges who were appointed by Trump himself. While it has largely been ignored, President Trump has clearly and brazenly violated the Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses, breaking with tradition and not divesting himself of his assets and placing them in a blind trust to prevent conflicts of interest. Several State, Federal, and Foreign entities have paid incalculable amounts of money to Trump properties; however, a House Oversight Committee reported that President Trump accepted more than $7.8 Million from 20 Foreign Governments during his first term. To the contrary, Barack Obama requested guidance from the Department of Justice before accepting the Nobel Peace Prize due to the financial component. Of course, no other President has invited the 220 largest investors in a cryptocurrency (that business partners launched just before they took office) to a private dinner. Anyone pretending the Trump Administration isn’t a den of graft and corruption is either lying or wilfully ignorant. It could be argued that there’s hardly a Constitutional Amendment that Donald Trump hasn’t attempted to violate or redefine to suit his desires. To me, this means that his supporters either display a similar disrespect for the Constitution or a level of such ignorance concerning it that their stated appreciation of it would be rendered moot.

Could it be the idealistic American Dream that Trump and his supporters are accusing his opposition of hating so vehemently? Rooted in the Declaration of Independence’s statement that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable Rights, including Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, the American Dream has long been understood to mean that this is a place where anyone can achieve success and a better life through hard work and determination. I’ve seen no indication that people opposing President Trump are in any way opposed to the American Dream. But it can be clearly ascertained from Donald Trump’s actions that he struggles to redefine “all men” in such a way as to exclude all but those like him. He attacks immigrants (documented and undocumented alike), political opponents, the free press, women, the impoverished, the elderly, the infirm, and anyone who doesn’t subscribe to his revisionist view of the American Dream. Now that he’s openly admitted to adopting the playbook laid out in Project 2025 (though anyone who had read it previously was already aware of this), there’s a clear redefinition of core American Values at the heart of his platform. This is not the behavior of someone who loves the American Dream. These are the actions of someone who hopes to co-opt, manipulate, and convert it until it becomes a vehicle for his personal gain.

I don’t believe there’s any further need to define what is meant by hate in this discourse. It’s readily apparent that Trump and his supporters have no love, appreciation, or respect for the land beyond what they can consume from it. The people of America, unless they subscribe to a particularly rigid philosophy and meet an equally rigid set of physiological and psychological conditions, are not welcome in Trump’s vision of what America should be. The Constitution (and the Government bestowed by it) is an opportune shield when convenient and an obstacle to be shredded when not. The American Dream is perceived as something only an elite class (those who meet the previously discussed conditions) should have access to. This is flagrant disrespect for and contempt of everything we apply as a definition of what makes America, America. Who are these people to accuse anyone else of hating America?

I’ve heard it said that people who fight for equality and equity by pointing to past injustices and the ripple effects present today are guilty of hating America. Recognition of unpleasant and terrible elements within America’s past and present isn’t symptomatic of hatred for the country. Acceptance that we can and should be better is not a condemnation, but a guiding principle that was encoded within the Constitution itself. The purpose of Constitutional Amendments is to correct course where we were wrong or to adjust to changing times and conditions. Our Founding Fathers recognized that they couldn’t see the future and prepare the country for every eventuality, so they provided a method by which that lack of foresight could be accommodated. Condemning the systemic racism still present in all facets of American society isn’t hatred for White people, but a nudge and a reminder that there’s still work to do. We got started, for sure, but then (as a society) we got tired of exerting the effort because it wasn’t as easy as we hoped it would be, or because it was going to require serious structural changes that might inconvenience those of us who weren’t already being constantly inconvenienced by the existing structures. Hiding or erasing shameful truths from the past only serves to make it all that much easier to repeat the same mistakes. You can’t claim to love the country while wearing blinders and intentionally ignoring whole portions of what America is and was. We need to acknowledge the errors we’ve made and take responsibility to keep them from being repeated. We need to speak truth to the lies we’ve told ourselves regarding our place in the world and the lofty ideals we pretend to ascribe to as we impose our will on other nations, as well as the people of this one. We need to come to terms with our treatment of marginalized people of all kinds, here and abroad. That is what loving America looks like: helping her to become the nation we believed her to be when we were children, the nation our Founding Fathers believed she could become, and the nation that people from foreign lands seek to make their home. We can be better, and we should always be progressing ahead while keeping an eye on the past, so the lessons we’ve learned are never forgotten.

I don’t believe this perspective is exclusive to me. I think this outlook is perhaps more widespread, and that people are proud of certain elements of America or American History, while dissatisfied or even disgusted with others. That seems to me to be a reasonable perspective, because America is not just one thing, of course. If this is what someone defines as hating America, I’m afraid I don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.

We Need To Talk About Portland…

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We need to address some serious misconceptions and outright lies that are circulating regarding Portland, OR, and the allegedly embattled Department of Homeland Security. I’ve heard this city referred to as a “War Zone,” “Under siege from attack by ANTIFA, and other Domestic Terrorists.” President Trump claimed he was acting to “protect War Ravaged Portland” when he declared that he would be mobilizing the Oregon National Guard against the wishes of Governor Tina Kotek. Trump’s fictional narrative is so pervasive that right-wing propagandists and Trump supporters are uncritically repeating it left and right, even (and perhaps especially) when provided with evidence that he has no idea what he’s talking about.

If someone (myself included) from Portland shares photos and videos that counter this deluded perspective that the city is a “War Zone,” they’ll be condemned for “Cherry Picking,” and either not sharing evidence of the correct locations, or at the right times. They’ll come back with video clips from FOX News, OAN, Newsmax, or right-wing influencers that selectively focus on moments of conflict, ignoring the context. They also often overlook the fact that several of these videos are from the 2020 BLM protests or from three or four months ago, as is clear from the background, in which one can easily see that the windows of the Portland ICE Facility are not boarded up, as they have been since mid-June of 2025.

I can only assume this disingenuous, bad-faith distribution of selectively edited media is what the President was referencing when he discussed the fires and devastation supposedly in evidence throughout Portland (and especially in proximity to the Portland ICE Facility), because none of that is presently relevant.

Other people will respond by sharing photos and videos of homeless people, tents and litter on the street, graffiti, or people using drugs openly. This, of course, has nothing at all to do with the premise behind President Trump’s deployment of troops and the increase in Federal Law Enforcement in the city. The homeless population, tents on sidewalks, and drug users are not (in any sense) related to the supposed siege of the Portland ICE Facility. It’s the equivalent of an Ad Hominem attack or tossing a Red Herring into the discussion of the city. It’s irrelevant to the conversation at hand, and it ignores the fact that all American cities (including those much smaller than Portland) have homeless individuals and families, drug use, and graffiti.

No one with any intellectual honesty or integrity will deny that Portland has a problem with homelessness. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone suggesting otherwise. What they will say is that it’s not worse than other large American cities, which is accurate. As of January 2024, Portland didn’t even crack the Top Ten, and as of this year, Portland is the 28th most populous city in the United States. Denver has only 100,000 more people, but has twice as many homeless people, according to the same numbers from January 2024. Seattle has only about 150,000 more people, but had more than twice the homeless population of Portland last year.

But Portland, Denver, and Seattle combined barely reach half the homeless population of Los Angeles, which is roughly half again the homeless population of New York City.

Homelessness is a complicated issue. The contributing factors are manifold, and the solutions (while comparatively simple) aren’t things anyone in a position to do so wants to seriously address.

Are these National Guard troops and Federal Law Enforcement Officers coming to Portland to address issues like homelessness?

No, they are not.

Which means anyone trying to distract from the topic at hand by tossing that into the mix needs to shut the fuck up and let the adults talk. Bad faith bullshit is not welcome.

So, let’s talk about the alleged assault on ICE that Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, Donald Trump, and others want to claim is taking place.

Before we move on, I’d like to dedicate some time to Kristi Noem, though. I have a relatively unique perspective in that I lived in South Dakota while Kristi Noem served as Governor, and previously as a U.S. Representative, before I moved to the Portland Metro. She was much-maligned by even Conservatives I knew in South Dakota, as a corrupt and undemocratic force in State Government. Of course, that didn’t stop them from voting for her, because she happened to be a Republican.

Noem’s histrionic portrayal of the protests in Portland is not novel. She has a long history of opposing the First Amendment right to Speech and Assembly, stretching back to the protests against the Keystone Pipeline. She was also investigated for Corruption regarding the circumstances surrounding her daughter and the Real Estate Appraisal Licensing system in South Dakota.

Perhaps most egregious, when South Dakota voters passed a Ballot Measure to legalize Recreational Cannabis in 2020, she and two members of Law Enforcement filed a lawsuit to overturn the results of the election, which passed by a margin of 54 to 46%. It’s particularly amusing when you compare it to her Gubernatorial Victory in 2018, of only 51%. The courts sided with Noem and the two Law Enforcement officials, claiming the Ballot Measure violated a “single-subject” provision. Never mind that any Ballot Measures in South Dakota undergo a legal review by the Secretary of State to confirm that they conform to state statutes.

I don’t entirely blame Noem. South Dakota has a history of corruption and anti-democratic practices. It was only two years before she was elected Governor when voters approved an Anti-Corruption measure that would have led to an independent ethics commission, campaign finance reform, restrictions on gifts from lobbyists, and increased transparency regarding campaign contributions. The Governor at the time, Dennis Daugaard, and the State Legislature repealed the Initiated Measure only a few months later, with Daugaard suggesting that voters hadn’t really thought things through.

As you can see, Noem comes from an environment where corruption and undemocratic sentiment run rampant. It should have been a warning sign about the Trump Administration that she would be so readily welcomed into the fold. For some of us, it was. Of course, for many of us, there had already been several warnings.

Placing her in charge of Homeland Security has been an unmitigated disaster, as anyone could predict. But it’s not the disaster she might propose. Since Donald Trump returned to office in January, at least 15 people have died while in ICE Custody. This does not include the two detainees who were murdered by the shooter in Dallas last month. That number also doesn’t include individuals who died shortly (or immediately) after they were released from ICE Custody, nor does it include individuals who have died since being deported or falling victim to the Administration’s new take on Extraordinary Rendition.

But, guess what, a total of zero ICE agents have been killed in that same time frame. This, despite President Trump’s wild claim that people have died in Portland. Unless he’s speaking of unrelated deaths (or deaths from years ago), no one has died as a result of protests happening in Portland. The last death of anyone involved with the Department of Homeland Security (not an ICE agent) was a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent who was shot on January 20th, during a traffic stop in Coventry, Vermont.

Most recently, the only injury of note was when an ICE officer was dragged by a car driven by an undocumented immigrant attempting to evade him. The immigrant in question was killed; the ICE officer was not.

Still, all the talk from the Administration has been focused on how ICE agents are under attack. But, it certainly sounds like it’s far less dangerous to work for ICE than it is to be taken into their custody.

Noem and Homan like to talk about large percentages when they discuss the increase in assaults on ICE agents. Of course, those numbers are readily subject to scrutiny, because that percentage reported by DHS has fluctuated dramatically, sometimes within hours: 500%, 700%, 1,000%. It’s almost as if they’re just tossing large numbers in front of a percentage sign to appeal to the average person’s inability to contextualize what a percentage increase actually means. A keen observer might notice they’re loading the statements to make people afraid.

Let’s break down how percentage increases work for those of you who need some assistance.

If there were hypothetically only one ICE agent assaulted between January and September of 2024, it would mean that five, seven, or ten had been attacked during the same time frame this year to reach those previously mentioned percentages of 500, 700, or 1,000%. But to say it was ten agents that had been assaulted over the course of an eight or nine-month interval doesn’t have the same dramatic flair to it. Most recently, they’re claiming it’s a more than 1,000% increase, but without providing any actual numbers to contextualize what that percentage means. The real numbers (according to all official records) were something to the effect of ten assaults in 2024 compared to 79 in 2025. This is also far less dramatic than using a percentage increase to trigger an emotional response. After all, we could refer to it as a 790% increase. Which number sounds scarier to you?

Mind you, only a small percentage of these assaults involved protesters, and an even smaller number had anything at all to do with Portland. These attacks are largely coming from people they are detaining.

And, of course, the numbers have spiked. ICE is more active and aggressive, and is utilizing tactics that are absolutely going to increase violent reactions. When masked men with no official insignia are grabbing people and hauling them into unmarked vehicles, it looks more like a kidnapping than anything official or legal. Never mind that there have been several documented incidents this year of people being assaulted, kidnapped, and raped by people pretending to be ICE agents. There’s even one reported killing by a fake ICE officer. Knowing all of this, would you simply accept that this is a legitimate, state-sanctioned detainment?

There’s also the deeply concerning fact that several of the things that constitute assault in the eyes of DHS have been categorically ludicrous in many instances. The official claim was that the New York City Comptroller, Brad Lander, had assaulted agents when he was detained at an Immigration Court proceeding in June, though the available video evidence shows no assault of any kind. Garbage dumped on an ICE agent’s lawn was also one example of “assault” on DHS, while another was a sign that included an individual ICE agent’s name and a great deal of profanity. There was even an incident here in Portland where an Indigenous woman was charged with Assault because an ICE officer claimed to get a headache because she was blowing a whistle on the sidewalk in front of the Portland ICE Facility. Even if those examples were the only questionable ones, they would present a huge issue when discussing relatively small numbers of incidents.

And, of course, it could be argued just as easily that assaults performed by DHS agents have increased by similarly huge percentages, but Noem and Homan are disregarding that. The very real likelihood, though, is that more people are being assaulted by ICE agents than are assaulting them.

Several of these assaults have been without cause or provocation, unless you claim standing in place, holding a sign with mean words on it, and yelling profanities at these masked men constitutes a clear threat. Based on how fragile and sensitive the Administration seems to want us to believe the people working for ICE happen to be, I guess those things might just be adding to the assault statistics.

Of course, all of this escalation on the part of the Administration is a painfully transparent attempt to trigger a response. The same thing was done in Los Angeles earlier this year. The same tactic was also on display during the BLM protests in 2020. President Trump, Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, and others are gambling on the likelihood that increased Federal Agents and the addition of Military Personnel will be sufficient to push the situation past a tipping point. At that point, they will have the flimsy justification required to impose greater Authoritarian control over Portland, Chicago, and wherever else they decide they want to add pressure.

It’s an absurd truth, and one that got Portland’s Mayor, Keith Wilson, laughed at and mocked, but the best thing protesters can do is to refuse to take the bait, to stay home, and to make the Administration look like the scaremongering force it absolutely is. Of course, that may not solve anything, since right-wing agitators have been masquerading as protesters and journalists already. It would hardly be a stretch to imagine them inciting violence just to ensure it adversely impacts their opponents. Some of them also have a documented history of instigating fights, both within the protest groups and as counter-protesters. They also have a history of fabricating violent altercations and even going so far as to start fights just to selectively capture the retaliation on camera for the purpose of furthering their propaganda objectives.

Either way, what we end up with is a situation wherein protesters are expected to behave in a way that is beyond reproach, or they’re condemned for inciting violence. That may sound painfully familiar to anyone who has dedicated time to studying the Civil Rights Movement. But the uniformed individuals who are supposedly trained to de-escalate situations are deploying pepper spray and gas canisters despite the law clearly stating the use of force must be reasonable, necessary, and proportionate. They’re intended to adhere to the same standards required for self-defense on the part of the average person.

In fact, on July 25th, Assistant Chief of Operations for Portland Police Bureau, Craig Dobson testified, “It makes it extremely difficult for us to deal with, as the folks that are on the other side of this fence have been, night after night, actually instigating and causing some of the ruckus that’s occurring down there…” and that DHS agents are not following best practices.

It’s also on record that ICE had been witnessed firing pepper balls on the crowd without any apparent warning or provocation on June 12th. Then, it was back on June 14th when protesters shattered the glass of the front door, subsequently leading to the boarding up of all windows. DHS officials panicked and used indiscriminate force against the protesters at that time. The one ICE agent who was hurt had abrasions and nothing worse. The same kind of disproportionate and indiscriminate attack by ICE agents was documented on June 23rd and 24th, when an ambulance had to be called because a protester was hit in the head with a gas canister. It can get dangerous out there, but the vast majority of the danger is directed at the people exercising their Constitutional Right to protest the actions of the Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

If someone intends to protest, they need to understand their rights. But that’s not enough; they also need to know the limited power bestowed upon the people they are protesting against. It’s essential to recognize that Department of Homeland Security officers have significant limitations. No one within ICE has the authority to arrest, detain, or restrain any American Citizens. There are several examples of ICE agents violating this explicit limitation in their purview. There are exceptions regarding Citizens who assault an ICE agent or who actively interfere with ICE performing the duties that are within their scope. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have fewer restrictions. But a Citizen would have to commit a Federal Criminal Offense in the officer’s presence before they can restrain, arrest, or detain someone. Finally, Federal Protective Services has similar authority to Customs and Border Protection, but its scope is focused on Federal Facilities.

It’s imperative to recognize that, unless a protester is actively breaking the law in some way related to the “work” DHS performs, these officers are not permitted to so much as lay a hand on any Citizen. Assuming the protester has not trespassed onto the Federal Property, damaged the same, assaulted an officer, or obstructed them in their lawful duties, no one working for DHS has any authority to use physical force against the protester.

They can (and should) be sued each and every time they violate the limited authority they have. Further, though I want to be clear that I am not encouraging violence, if someone is attacked by an employee of DHS without provocation, they are well within their rights to defend themselves. Even though they may be wearing uniforms, their authority as Law Enforcement ends the moment they violate the restrictions associated with their role. If someone does fight back (and some would suggest they should), I will offer the same recommendation I’ve received from individuals who specialize in self-defense; if they’re threatened to the extent that they have to defend themselves, they need to make sure it’s safe for them to turn their back on the threat to walk away. The threat can no longer be a threat.

If you find yourself in a situation wherein you have to fight back (and I believe you should), that fight doesn’t end in the street. Keep fighting their attempts to prosecute you for assault as well, because if they’ve stepped outside of bounds, they’re just some asshole, not an actual cop. In Oregon, you’re legally entitled to use physical force if you believe it’s necessary to protect yourself, another person, or your property from Unlawful physical force. You are permitted to use whatever force is proportionate to the perceived threat. Just keep in mind that you cannot be the initial aggressor.

Political Violence and the Selective Acknowledgment of It

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Political Violence comes in more shapes and sizes than Pokémon. And yet, it’s only ever a specific variety that most people seem willing to acknowledge, and then only when it suits the narrative they prefer to frame. When someone is killed in an act of direct Political Violence, hand-wringing, condemnation of physical violence, and proclamations that we are better than this inevitably follow closely behind. This is true, even (or especially) when the violence in question was a direct response to less overt forms of violence. You see, those more subtle forms of violent action are insidious in that people can easily dismiss them if they’re so inclined, but are often (if not always) more harmful.

Willhelm Frick, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Julius Streicher, and several others who were sentenced to death following the Nuremberg Trials had never killed anyone, and had (to the best of anyone’s knowledge) committed no acts of direct violence. In fact, Hermann Göring, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Martin Bormann were among the minority, in that they had committed acts of direct violence and murder during their tenure within the Nazi Party. But, in 1946, we recognized that Political Violence comes in many forms, and the guilt of the 12 men who were sentenced to execution was not open to debate. Adolf Hitler, himself, has never been connected with evidence that he personally murdered anyone aside from possibly Eva Braun, before taking his own life. The same can be said for Joseph Goebbels, though he and his wife killed their six children and then themselves. These men, and many others, had been complicit and had knowingly issued propaganda and orders that led to the deaths of countless others.

Would anyone like to present the defense that these men were killed (or killed themselves to avoid being killed) because of their political opinions? Is that the extent of cultural relativism that we should be applying to the architects of the Holocaust? That’s what I keep hearing lately: that people shouldn’t be threatened, persecuted, or harmed over a difference of opinion. All I can assume is that many people need to better acquaint themselves with the definition of “opinion” before they start concerning themselves with differences between them.

Opinions are just assumptions or judgments that an individual develops regarding any particular topic. They can be informed or uninformed, but they’re little more than a subjective viewpoint with greater or lesser value depending on the expertise and the degree of authority invested in the individual sharing said opinions. Critiques of policy and ideology are political opinions. Whether they’re right or wrong, they’re opinions, and people are entitled to their own. Hate Speech, however, is not an expression of an opinion. Hate Speech is an attack, using dehumanizing and demeaning language to target an individual or a group of people based on features of their identity: Ethnicity, Nationality, Skin Color, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and so on. Hate Speech targets (often immutable) characteristics of the individual or group, for the purpose of expressing bigoted, biased, and prejudiced perspectives. Thus, we have the difference between those who condemn the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Government, compared to those who condemn Jewish people or the people of Israel as a whole. One is a criticism of policy and the actions taken by a group, and the other is a condemnation of a group of people based on either Ethnicity or Nationality, depending on whether we’re talking about Jewish people or Israeli people. There is a massive difference between the two things, and yet we see colleges and universities losing funding because certain people want to conflate these two things with false equivalence.

Hate Speech is, in reality, a form of Political Violence that gets shrugged off as nothing more than a difference of opinion, typically by those who are not impacted by that violence. Hate Speech and hateful rhetoric paved the way for the Holocaust, along with the more recent Genocides in Rwanda, Myanmar, Bosnia, and Herzegovina.

Sheltering Hate Speech under an umbrella by treating it as if it’s nothing more than another legitimate opinion that one is entitled to share is just part of the weaponization of public discourse. It promotes discrimination and violence, especially when it’s combined with disinformation/misinformation campaigns designed to reinforce the bigotry involved.

Still, one might, of course, look at those guilty men I referenced above and argue that they were guilty of War Crimes. Therefore, the sentences were both just and appropriate. But, by the same standard, our current Administration should also face a tribunal.

Despite no evidence supporting the claims and the US Intelligence Apparatus contradicting them, the Trump Administration confidently states that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is linked to Tren de Aragua, and that a U.S. strike on a foreign boat in international waters was justified because that boat was carrying cocaine to our border (sans evidence). By any standards, the killing of foreign civilians in international waters is (by definition) a War Crime. The Trump Administration is hardly alone in this. Every President in my lifetime has been guilty of actions that should constitute War Crimes. Why are we not holding ourselves to a higher standard than we held the Nazis in 1946?

But, of course, it’s not just War Crimes that we’re dealing with today. The current Administration repeatedly flaunts International and American Law, violates the Constitution, and works to erode the mechanisms of Democracy within America. Men like the late Charlie Kirk have been instrumental in both endorsing and encouraging those actions, as well as being directly involved in helping to place Donald Trump in the position of authority he presently holds.

Charlie Kirk fostered an environment of White Christian Nationalism throughout his time in the public eye. It takes little effort to find several instances of outright Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Xenophobia, and myriad other forms of Bigotry in his Podcasts, Social Media posts, and Public Appearances.

He repeatedly expressed a baseless and racist endorsement of the Great Replacement conspiracy, wherein non-whites were coming to America (and other Western Nations) to replace whites. Just last month, he claimed, “The Great Replacement of white people is far more sinister than any redistricting project.” The Great Replacement theory is directly linked to several acts of Political Violence, targeting non-whites. More importantly, the Great Replacement is virtually identical to the White Genocide conspiracies that have been core aspects of neoNazi ideologies for a long time now.

Charlie Kirk accused Transgender people of being predators and actively encouraged his listeners/viewers to bully and harass them. Transgender people, while making up a tiny fraction of the population, are somehow substantially more likely to be victims of violence than cisgender people are.

He couldn’t even manage to consistently maintain his performative support for Israel and condemnation of antisemitism, despite knowing that he needed to tow that line because it might be a bridge too far for some of his audience. Nevertheless, he still managed to spout off tired old antisemitic talking points about Jewish people controlling everything from higher education to Hollywood, pointing the finger at Jewish financiers of “Cultural Marxism,” and acting aghast at Jewish people promoting anti-white hatred despite wanting white people to do away with that same kind of hatred against them.

To pretend that isn’t often Political Violence is tantamount to saying that violence perpetrated against Jewish people by German citizens in 1940s Europe was not Political Violence. When the apparatus of government endorses, however tacitly, the dehumanization of a group of people, it requires extensive mental gymnastics to pretend that the acts of violence perpetrated against that group of people are not acts of Political Violence. It also requires an impressive gymnastics routine to pretend that the propagandists who spread the dehumanizing message aren’t complicit in the outcomes.

Was it not Political Violence when Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and injured more than 50 others at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL? He may have claimed to support the Islamic State, but his motivations (even according to his father) were based on the same anti-LBGTQ+ sentiment we hear expressed by White Nationalists regularly. Since LGBTQ+ rights (and the existence of LGBTQ+ people) are treated like a political football, that would make any violence arising from homophobia and anti-Trans perspectives Political Violence. And this is State-Sanctioned violence, because Republicans certainly dedicate a lot of bandwidth to demonizing LGBTQ+ people, while Democrats often turn a blind eye to the violence perpetrated against them. And, whether Liberals want to accept it or not, neglect and dismissal are forms of Political Violence as well. But that’s a discussion for another time.

Men like Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Nick Fuentes, and even Donald Trump have a particular skill, even if they lack any others. They can extrapolate from their own insecurities, fears, and failures to develop a form of demagoguery that plays on those same weaknesses in an audience. This only works when the demagogue is in the majority, because for some people, there’s always an undercurrent of resentment and fear associated with imagining the loss of the power that comes with being the majority. Some of that, I’m sure, arises from the assumption that (if the roles are reversed) they will be treated as poorly as they have treated the minority group(s) within society.

Men like Kirk taste fear and weakness in their audience the way a shark tastes blood in the water, and they’re just as predatory about it. They stoke that fear with misinformation and cruelty, dehumanizing anyone who isn’t part of that majority group, and assuring the audience that they can rest assured of their superiority. They make them feel threatened by the outsiders, regardless of the fiction required to do so, because they know these people won’t risk eroding the false confidence they’ve built up by digging too deep or tugging at threads that could unravel everything.

And, as that manipulation leads to the inevitable results, they hide behind the shield of Free Speech, insisting that they’re just asking questions, voicing their opinions, or engaging in healthy debate. We’ve seen this happen several times in the past, with January 6th, 2021, as one of the most vivid examples. The architects of the direct Political Violence are smugly distancing themselves and feigning a sense of horror at what’s happening, as they assume no one will recall how openly they encouraged all of it.

One way or another, there needs to be consequences for the Political Violence perpetrated by those who conveniently, like cowards, hide behind a misapprehension of what “Opinion” means. And, just as important, people need to learn that calling for violence against one’s oppressors and those who have wished or encouraged violence against them is not at all the same thing as wishing harm on people just because they have a different opinion. Malcolm X wasn’t the same as the white racists who fought to maintain segregation and oppose the Civil Rights Act, because he called for reactionary violence. He was already the victim of Political Violence, and was only speaking the same language as those who perpetrated that violence. If you threaten someone or encourage others to act violently toward them by dehumanizing them and manipulating others into thinking they are a threat, you are not expressing an opinion. That isn’t merely a matter of differing political viewpoints.

Regarding the present situation, and the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s apparent assassination, we don’t even know if it was an act of Political Violence. It stands to reason that it probably is, but it’s just as likely to be someone who agreed with him on most accounts as it is to be someone who was politically opposed to his ideology, stripped of the Hate Speech and hateful rhetoric. After all, the same people storming the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, were the same people most vocally supportive of “Back the Blue” perspectives, yet they assaulted police officers without any compunction. When one promotes an atmosphere of hate and fear, in which violence is encouraged, we’re just as likely to see that violence turned upon people in the same group, the moment fractures appear. It’s worth keeping that in mind.

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.

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.

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.

How Income Taxes Work…and Why The Big Beautiful Bill Isn’t So Beautiful

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It stands to reason that I’m no fan of the Congressional Budget Bill that was recently signed into law. There’s a lot to hate about the contents of that legislation, and I’ve touched on some of those things previously. But it’s worth taking a moment to look at the “good” portions of what we’ve all heard referred to as the “Big Beautiful Bill” as well. This is, after all, the bill that everyone is so proud of and so certain you should be proud of too.

Before I get to all of that, unfortunately, I’m going to have to spend some time on a bit of a tangent. This will be long, tedious, and number-heavy, but I will do my best to make it at least marginally interesting too. It could be beneficial for everyone to read it. It seems like many people don’t understand the basics of how taxes work, so I also want to take some time to delve into that, while discussing how we are shortchanging Social Security and our Federal Revenue by catering to the wealthiest people in America. To do that, a discussion of how Taxes work is sort of imperative.

The 2017 Tax Cuts were set to expire this year, but are now permanent. However, I’m not sure how many people actually comprehend how tax rates are applied or how the brackets work, so it might be worthwhile to dedicate some time to explaining that.

For an individual (I’m not doing this for all statuses, you can do that shit yourself):

We’re going to make this simple; we’re going to pretend you earn $1 Million a year. Yes, I understand that less than 0.5% of Households fall into that category. In America, fewer than one million Households earn at least $1 Million in annual income. Congratulations on becoming part of the Top 1%, you magnificent bastard.

For the first $11,600 you earn, you owe 10% of that in Federal Taxes, which is $1,160. The math on that little bit is simple, just remove a 0 from the end.

For every dollar you earn between that amount and $47,150, you owe 12% in Federal Taxes. This comes out to $4,266. So, if your income were exactly $47,150 per year, you would only owe $5,426 in total. But that’s not you. You’re earning a whole hell of a lot more than that now.

For every dollar between $47,150 and $100,525, you are paying 22% in Federal Taxes, which translates into an additional $11,742.50.

The next bracket takes you all the way up to an income of $191,950. At that point, you are paying 24%, or another $21,942. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll see that our current Tax Burden is sitting at $39,110.50.

From $191,950 to $243,725, we are looking at a rate of 32% paid out to the Federal Government. That adds another $16,568 to your tax bill.

The next bracket is in effect up to $609,350, at a rate of 35%. That tacks on an additional $127,968.75. Your total Tax Burden is now sitting at $183,647.25. I know, that seems like an awful lot. But, come on, you’d be earning more than $600,000, giving up less than a third of that doesn’t seem so bad. Don’t be so greedy.

For every dollar above that, regardless of how much more you earn, we’re looking at a static rate of 37%. So, for the rest of your $1 Million income, it’s only another $144,540.50. See, that really isn’t so bad.

So, on your brand new $1 Million salary, you’d owe the IRS a grand total of $328,187.75 for the year, leaving you with $671,812.25 of your income.

Of course, there’s also Social Security Tax, which is currently 6.2% on everything up to $176,100. If that seems unreasonably low to you, next year the cap will be higher, because it adjusts annually according to the average wage index.

We’re going to stop here for a moment. Consider it the equivalent of a Scenic Overlook on a road trip. Much like a Scenic Overlook, you can take this as an opportunity to relieve your bladder. If you’d like to know one major reason Social Security is going to be depleted by 2032, we just skirted past it. One primary cause is that you (with your $1 Million annual salary) are not paying into Social Security on $823.900 of your earnings. That would have been $51,081.80 that could be contributed in addition to the $10,918.20 you’re paying in. The math on that one is easy, too, because it’s another example of simply removing a 0 or two. Instead of paying $62,000 into the Social Security fund, you only paid $10,918.20. If your salary were $5 Million, you avoided paying $299,081.80. That hardly seems reasonable, does it?

As we discussed (you lucky bastard), fewer than 0.5% of American households had an annual income of more than $1 Million in 2022, according to the World Economic Forum. Somewhere in the vicinity of 400,000 to 500,000 people earn $1 Million or more a year. Assuming they were all capped at exactly $1 Million, and there were 400,000 of them, that would be $20.4 Billion not being collected for Social Security every year because of that cutoff at $176,100. This has been a problem since the 1980s, because earnings for upper-income levels have risen substantially faster than those of the rest of the population.

Despite President Trump’s assurances that the Congressional Budget Bill would remove taxes on Social Security, that is not what happened. Instead, what we received was a temporary Deduction that applies to all income for people 65 and over, though it does include Social Security income.

The final version passed by the Senate makes this a $6,000 Deduction for individuals with adjusted gross income of up to $75,000 annually, or $150,000 for couples filing together.

The deduction will expire after four years and does not apply to all recipients, including those who claim Social Security benefits before they turn 65. So, unless you’re over the age of 61, you won’t be benefiting from this temporary deduction.

This is where we locate yet another major driver behind the failure of our Social Security program. Some estimates suggest this will accelerate the depletion of Social Security by two years, pushing the date up to 2032. All while increasing the federal debt by 7% over the next 30 years. So, suppose you’re under 58 years old as you’re reading this. In that case, you can dispel any assumption that you’ll be able to benefit from the tax-free Social Security (or Social Security at all) when you do turn 65, because the Social Security Trust will more than likely be empty, no matter how much you personally paid into it throughout your employment history. I’ll come back to the depletion of Social Security after I finish going over how your taxes work and take some time to touch on the other “good” things found in the Congressional Budget Bill.

Moving on, there’s the Medicare Tax of 1.45% up to $200,000, and 2.35% on every dollar beyond that, so you’re paying $21,700 into Medicare for the year.

Deductions then factor in, and the odds are that your effective tax burden will be substantially decreased.

First, there are Above-The-Line deductions. These are subtracted from that $1 Million you earned for the year before anything else factors in, decreasing your Tax Burden by formulating your Adjusted Gross Income.

If you paid toward Student Loans, used a Health Savings Account, contributed to a traditional IRA, or any of several other things that contribute to your overall deductions, that’s something you can figure out on your own. Those things are deducted before the Standard Deduction.

The Senate version of the Congressional Budget Bill allows people to deduct income paid as tips (in careers where tips are customary). This amount is capped at a maximum of $25,000. I’m not sure how common it is for someone to earn more than $25,000 in tips over a year, but since most tipped workers are at or below the Federal Poverty Level, it seems unlikely that there are many. This is only in effect through 2028.

The Senate proposal limits that deduction on Overtime Pay to $12,500 per individual. This is also temporary, expiring after 2028.

So, those are some of the “positive” things we can look forward to.

The Standard Deduction was previously $15,000 for an individual or $30,000 for a married couple filing jointly. Once the changes took effect, the Standard Deduction increased to $15,750 and $31,500, respectively.

The new Standard Deduction of $15,750 is a given, but anything else beyond that is specific to the individual. Assuming none of the Above-The-Line deductions apply to you, what that means is that you will only be taxed as if you earned $984,250 instead of $1 Million, which would knock $5,817.50 off of your tax bill. That doesn’t seem like much, but it’s not nothing. Of course, if you have to itemize your deductions, the change in the Standard Deduction is irrelevant.

Non-itemizing filers can now claim $1,000 in charitable giving per year, and couples can claim $2,000 for deductions.

The Senate’s version of the Child Tax Credit, while slightly lower, is permanent. So, instead of a deduction of $2,500 per child, it’s $2,200, but at least it doesn’t expire in 2028 as some of the Above-The-Line deductions will.

The State and Local Tax Deduction will increase from $10,000 to $40,000, and increase by an additional 1% every year until 2030, when it will revert to $10,000. I don’t know if you live in a state where you pay State Income Tax, but chances are good that you do. That percentage is extremely variable, depending on where you live (which you know if you read what I wrote regarding Single-Payer Healthcare), so I won’t bother calculating it. I live in a state without it, but work in a state where there is State Income Tax, so this is beneficial to me.

The changes to the Estate and Gift Tax will benefit almost no one.

It increases from an exemption of $13.99 Million to $15 Million for individuals and $27.98 Million to $30 Million for couples who file jointly. I say this will benefit almost no one because the minimum net worth to be part of the wealthiest 1% is $13.7 Million as of this January, according to Investopedia. So, less than 1% of the population has the potential to leave an Estate or Gift of $15 Million.

Now, the trouble is that the people who could benefit from that increased exemption are the ones who really don’t fucking need it.

Individuals like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, and other multi-billionaires avoid paying Income Taxes in several ways. Elon Musk receives no salary from Tesla, but was approved for a ten-year pay plan from the company last year that had a value of $44.9 Billion. The trick is that it was all in stocks, which means he won’t be paying any Federal Income Tax on that, while he can still use the stock value as collateral for loans, credit, and the like.

Mark Zuckerberg received an annual income of $1 last year, but received compensation amounting to $27.2 Million, which included $14 Million to cover his security and an estimated $1 Million in private jet travel. The rest, as you would imagine, came in the form of stocks.

Peter Thiel’s income is not publicly available. That’s something you might find amusing, considering what Palantir is capable of. Despite not knowing his annual income, we do know he has invested more than $5 Billion in Roth IRAs, which cannot be taxed, assuming he waits until retirement to liquidate them.

Jeff Bezos typically received a salary of $81,840, with total compensation that added up to $1.68 Million in 2022. Because of how he earns most of his money, via stock options, it was estimated he earned $8 Million every hour of the year between 2023 and 2024. And yet, there are several years in which he paid no Federal Income Tax, and has maintained an effective Tax Rate of 0.98% compared to his accumulation of wealth.

If you’re noticing a trend, you’re at least moderately observant. These people at the top of the American financial ladder are not even coming close to contributing their fair share in taxes. In part, because we don’t tax Unrealized Gains, which means all the stock options contribute to their Net Wealth and allow these people to live as they do, but are never taxed until they sell shares, and then Capital Gains Tax comes into play.

If something doesn’t seem wrong about that, you’re not paying attention.

There are years when the wealthiest people in the world are literally paying less in taxes than the people below the poverty level, and not just by percentage, but by dollar value.

Putting an end to that should be a priority. All it would take is implementing an Unrealized Gains Tax above a certain dollar value, maybe a 50% Tax on anything above $15 Million (just like the Estate and Gift Tax). Hell, Kamala Harris was far more generous, proposing a 25% tax on Unrealized Gains for anything over $100 Million. People freaked out over that because they had no idea what they were talking about, and because they were fed misinformation and fear-mongering that led them to believe their home’s increasing sales value would further increase their taxes. In reality, her proposal would have impacted fewer than 11,000 people nationally, and if you’re reading this, you’re probably not one of them. You probably don’t even know any of them, at least personally. That’s the kind of Tax Reform we need from something that anyone would consider worthy of calling a Big Beautiful Bill.

Now, I promised I’d get back to this, and I like to keep my promises. There’s one more massive driver behind the imminent failure of our Social Security program. It’s time to finish the discussion of why Social Security is likely to be bankrupt in only seven short years. We can thank Ronald Reagan and his Social Security Amendments of 1983 for that lovely little “fuck you,” with powerful assists from Alan Greenspan and a complicit and lazy 98th U.S. Congress.

Unfortunately, Trickle-Down (Supply Side) Economics was working out precisely as anyone but a moron would expect it to, and the decreased tax rates (for the highest income earners) were generating far less revenue than was promised. Our economy was in pretty big fucking trouble, because nothing but the delusional fantasies of our President happened to be trickling down. Reagan convinced a large number of people that Social Security was on the verge of bankruptcy, even though it wasn’t. But he had a solution. It was a two-pronged approach that would save everyone.

Surplus Social Security revenue generated by a Payroll Tax Hike implemented under Reagan, to the tune of roughly $2.7 Trillion, was meant to be invested in U.S. Treasury Bonds and held in trust until approximately 2010. That was it. That was his brilliant solution. It might have actually paid off, but Ronald Reagan was (predictably) Ronald Reagan.

Of course, Reagan, being the piece of shit he was, the surplus revenue raised by the payroll tax hike went into the General Fund instead of U.S. Treasury Bonds. Reagan then proceeded to spend every dime of that surplus that appeared during his remaining time in the White House. George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush followed suit and treated it like a fucking slush fund as well. Instead of putting $2.7 Trillion into trust, the money was spent on wars, covering the deficit from additional tax cuts for the wealthy, and shoring up other areas of the government.

Maybe this would have worked out if Social Security hadn’t stopped generating surplus revenue back in 2009, but it did. In 2010, it ran at a loss for the first time since 1983, by more than $40 Billion. This was money we borrowed from China. And we’ve had to borrow money from somewhere every year since then.

Well, we all sort of see where it goes from there. What’s worth noting is that, assuming we’d just kept the $2.7 Trillion where it belonged, and our Social Security shortage was by roughly $50 Billion every year, it could still be solvent through 2064, or 32 additional years from what is now projected.

The Truth About Medicaid, Medicare, & Other Fraud: It’s Not What You Think

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It has always seemed obvious to me that if people want to know where Medicare and Medicaid Fraud come from, they need to stop looking for illegal recipients. It isn’t as simple as some might think to defraud programs like SNAP, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by filling out an application with false information.

I don’t know why it bears mentioning, but neither Medicaid nor Medicare provides Beneficiaries with cash. They operate as a substitute for Health Insurance. That might come as a surprise for those of you who have never needed to use one of these programs. So, even if someone successfully applies via Fraud, they aren’t lining their pockets at the expense of Taxpayers.

Even if someone manages to obtain Medicare or Medicaid coverage through fraudulent means, what happens then? In the worst-case scenario, they would obtain medical treatment that they otherwise could not have received. Let’s assume it’s the most expensive surgical procedure from 2024, which is a Heart Transplant. At the most expensive rate, that would cost Medicare or Medicaid $1.3 Million, assuming it would cover the surgery in the first place. It would require more than 38,000 people receiving fraudulently obtained Heart Transplants to equal the $50 Billion House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed was lost to Fraud, Waste, and Abuse of Medicaid each year. If that seems absurd to you, you’re absolutely correct.

Just last week, CVS Health’s Omnicare (pharmacy services for long-term care & senior living communities) was found guilty of fraudulently billing the U.S. Government for invalid Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare Prescriptions and ordered to pay $948.8 Million in penalties & damages. A massive $406.8 Million of that was for Damages, which were tripled as per the False Claims Act.

All of this came about because a Whistleblower brought attention to more than three million false claims between 2010 and 2018.

In 2021, the average Medicare Spending per Beneficiary was only a little over $15,000. To put that in perspective, it means the Fraud committed by CVS translated into the equivalent of the total annual spending for just under 9,000 Beneficiaries, or just under 1,000 Beneficiaries each year for which CVS was found Guilty of the illegal billing.

And this is just the Fraud from one Corporation. I can assure you that they are not alone.

One thing that people need to understand is that Improper Medicaid payments are not the same as Fraud. It’s a challenge for some people to wrap their heads around that distinction because certain individuals have played fast and loose with conflating the two things…because it suits their agenda.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Improper Payments made up only 5.09% of the total payments made by Medicaid in 2024. Of that 5.09%, roughly 80% (or 4.07% of the Total) were caused by missing documentation that would determine whether a payment was correct or incorrect, and payments that went to the right Providers in the right amounts, but that may not have complied with some regulations or statutes. In all of those cases, if the paperwork had been correct, they wouldn’t even factor into these numbers, because the payments wouldn’t have been classified as Improper or because they wouldn’t have been issued in the first place.

It’s the remaining 20% of that 5.09% where we find people who weren’t eligible for Medicaid. But it is also where we locate the individuals who were eligible but received a service that wasn’t covered.

So, while all of these 5.09% of Improper Payments count as Monetary Loss, they do not constitute Fraud. All of the Fraud falls into the minuscule 1.02% of the Total Payments.

Yes, we should be combating Fraud, but it’s not the Beneficiaries of Medicaid and Medicare who are the criminals, guilty of committing the vast majority of Fraud; it’s Ambulance Services, Pharmacies, Nursing Homes, and other Providers who have utilized creative bookkeeping and manipulation of the system. The victims are the Beneficiaries, Legitimate Providers, and Taxpayers alike.

Fighting Fraud doesn’t involve cutting funding for Medicaid, and it won’t have any impact on the rate of Improper Payments, because the Beneficiaries were never the primary Source of them.

What I hate more than anything is that this is ultimately yet another dog whistle for anti-immigration proponents. I’m not going to use Undocumented as a descriptor here, because we’ve all heard the plan, shared far and wide wherever cameras are rolling, that the Trump Administration intends to strip Documented Status from Immigrants, including those who are Citizens. It was never about doing it the right way; it was about being the right ethnic makeup, which is why there was so much support from people who believe in “The Great Replacement” myth.

Across the years 2021, 2022, and 2023, Wyoming and South Carolina were the two states with the highest rates of Improper Medicaid Payments (at 20.7 and 20.5% respectively), with Delaware, Connecticut, and Idaho following close behind. As you might notice, none of these five states are among the most populated, and none of them are near the top of the list of states with the largest immigrant populations.

California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Nevada are the states with the largest immigrant populations, yet they all fell below a rate of 9% during those three years.

So, people need to stop pretending this is even remotely connected with our Border Policy or Immigration Statistics, because there isn’t even a Correlation to mistake for Causality.

House and Senate Republicans upheld their promise not to tamper with Medicare as far as work and age Eligibility Requirements were concerned when drafting the 2025 Congressional Budget Bill. However, Eligibility for certain Immigrant groups will be impacted, as some Non-Citizens who were previously Eligible as Permanent Residents of the U.S. for at least five consecutive years will lose coverage 18 months after the Legislation is passed.

Medicaid, however, was far from off-limits to Congressional Republicans…and where they have tampered with Medicaid and other health coverage through the ACA, it could have dramatic and widespread impacts on healthcare systems across the nation.

Medicaid is funded through a combination of Federal and State Taxes, with roughly 70% of that funding coming from the Federal Budget. States often derive a significant amount of their funding through Provider Taxes, which are taxes paid by Health Care Providers (hospitals, nursing homes, and the like). The House version of the Congressional Budget Bill would have prohibited States from creating new Provider Taxes or increasing the current percentages paid by Providers, which are capped at 6%. The Senate version, however, gradually decreases that percentage to 3.5% by 2031, but only for the 40 States (and the District of Columbia) that employed Medicaid Expansion under the Affordable Care Act, leaving exceptions in place for nursing homes and intermediate care facilities.

This will dramatically decrease the amount of matching funds paid by Federal Taxes, creating a bit of a double-whammy on States that are being penalized for adopting Medicaid Expansion.

The concern here is that States will almost certainly have to make dramatic cuts to Medicaid as a result of the lost revenue, further cutting the number of people covered or the amount paid to Providers.

Of course, there’s also the addition of out-of-pocket expenses for Medicaid enrollees, as a $35 co-pay will be required for some services (again, only in States with expanded Medicaid) for individuals with an annual income of more than $15,650 (Federal Poverty Level). The Senate did add allowances for States to charge an even greater co-pay for Emergency Room visits for Non-Emergencies. The silver lining is that the co-pay policy doesn’t apply to primary care, mental health, or substance abuse services.

Access to insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace is about to become more challenging as well. It will also be more expensive as enhanced subsidies are scheduled to expire at the end of 2025, which could result in some costs for ACA insurance coverage increasing by an average of 75%. I don’t know how many people can afford to see their Insurance Premiums go up by 75%, but I would be irate if it were happening to me.

Hundreds of thousands of Lawfully Present Immigrants are likely to lose insurance coverage through the ACA, because additional subsidies that keep those costs down will also be expiring.

All of this is devastating at a time when hospitals and medical facilities across the country are already facing massive budget shortfalls. Part of that comes from Medicaid and Medicare payments not being sufficient to keep pace with rising operating costs. Those skyrocketing operating costs are partially derived from administrative expenses produced by Insurance Companies, due to prior authorizations and the appeals associated with denials.

According to a report from the American Hospital Association last September, administrative costs alone accounted for more than 40% of the average hospital’s total expenses. Not only does the Commercial Insurance Industry delay and often deny necessary care for patients, but it also dramatically increases the costs for Providers to operate in the first place, which leads to increased costs for the rest of us. Of course, the Industry is thriving as a whole, with many Insurance Companies seeing record profits year after year.

You may notice some disdain for Insurance Providers, and that’s something I’m entirely conscious of. I’ve experienced frustration regarding the predatory practices of the for-profit Insurance Industry while researching their standards, profit margins, and actions.

What we’re likely to see if the House and Senate Republicans have their way, in addition to fewer people being covered by Medicaid (and health insurance in general), is staffing cuts at Providers or (in the worst case) closures. This is most likely to happen in areas where the population is lowest, impacting rural Providers more than those in urban areas…though the impacts would still be massive there as well.

Because of this, Senators added a $50 Billion fund ($10 Billion annually) to the Congressional Budget Bill, insulating rural hospitals from some of the worst impacts. The House version of the bill would have allowed rural hospitals that closed between 2014 and 2021 to reopen under the Rural Emergency Hospital designation, which allows Medicare to provide them with a potential lifeline. This could have been good, since 146 hospitals in rural counties closed between 2005 and 2023. The Senate, unfortunately, included no provision to reopen those hospitals under the retroactive designation.

So, there are some small bits of good mixed in with the bad aspects of that portion of the new budget, but none of those “good” things would be quite as necessary if it weren’t for all of the “bad” aspects of the Congressional Budget Bill. And altogether too much of that “bad” is tied up in transparent bigotry directed toward Immigrants, and the false claims that they are responsible for Fraud in the Medicaid and Medicare systems, along with the other things people often refer to as “entitlements.” Of course, while focusing on Legislation to further disenfranchise already disenfranchised people, the same Lawmakers are providing additional handouts to Corporations, the actual sources of Fraud, Waste, and Corruption.