Different Strokes — How Many Chips Do You Want?

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Midterms then 2028, Politics, purple, Real Men, View From 1964

New York, New York. Zohran Mamdani. Labels. What does Trump call him? A communist, and worse, of course never to his face, because Trump hasn’t the huevos to say anything to anyone’s face. But let’s be polite. Maybe a democratic socialist?

And then there’s AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Now there’s a woman I would vote for. Just like I would vote for Salma Hayek or Rachel Weisz, not because I agree with their politics, but because, well, damn. I think they’re hot. But hot doesn’t solve our country’s sociopolitical needs. At least I don’t think it does. The wife is reading this, so I’m going to move along quickly. She stopped laughing when I got to Rachel.

Back to Mamdani, AOC, and let’s throw Bernie in while we’re at it. All good people. I’m glad they’re out there fighting the good fight. A bit too far left for my taste, well, yes, more than a bit. But they have one thing in common and I genuinely respect them for it. They believe what they preach. No soapboxes with a shelf of snake oil hidden inside.

And their views? Valid, for where they come from. Just too extreme to export nationally. But here’s the thing about extremes, they produce something useful when they meet each other. Wait for it. It’s almost here and it’s worth the wait.

The middle.

Now before you check out — the middle doesn’t mean flatline. In an emergency room, a flatline is when they call time of death. The middle isn’t death. The middle is different strokes for different folks. What works beautifully in New York City works for New York. If rent has gotten out of hand, rent control makes sense there. But that doesn’t mean rent control belongs in Mayberry. Why can’t both New York and Mayberry co-exist with different solutions to different problems?

Because choosing a president isn’t obvious, that’s why. They have to thump on a stump everywhere. They have to sell their goods to people with completely different needs, different economies, different histories. And what I’m looking for, what I’ve been looking for, is a candidate who stands up and says: I’m here to let you solve your own problems, and if you ask for help, the federal government will be there. But only if you ask.

That doesn’t mean every single thing gets decided at the local level. Basic education standards, welfare guidelines, healthcare and vaccination policy, freedom of religion guarantees, these need universal federal oversight. Some things belong to all of us equally. But how many chocolate chips go into your Toll-House cookie? That’s up to you.

How many chips do you want?

And while I’m telling you what I’m looking for in the next president, there’s one more thing. I want a team from day one. Not a successor chosen in some smoke-filled hotel room because they might carry a swing state. Not a running mate picked in the last forty-eight hours of a convention to patch the electoral math. A team. Built deliberately, from the beginning, with intention.

If you can’t give me that before you ask for my vote, I’m not interested.

Elections and Media in the Modern Era – Part 1 of 3: Elections – Behind the Ballot Box

On - Dark Money, elections and media, Politics, Voting Rights

Does Your Vote Count?

Let me ask you one question: just how many votes does it take to win an election? 1,000? 100? 10? Or maybe… just 1?

Early reports from the 2026 Boca Raton mayoral race suggested it could have been a single vote. One person deciding to mail their ballot—or to skip it—could have changed the outcome entirely. In the end, it turned out the margin was five votes. Still, in a city election, that’s barely a handful—and it perfectly illustrates why every vote truly matters.

More Than Just a Ballot: How Votes Are Shaped Before They’re Cast

Even in small towns, elections don’t work the way most of us think. There was a time when Americans largely got the same story from the evening news—ABC, NBC, CBS. Today, a voter in rural Montana might watch a cable town hall on CNN, scroll X for candidate updates, and see a TikTok ad funded by a local political action committee. By the time they step into the booth, the story they’ve absorbed is a patchwork of channels, platforms, and messages—and each piece is shaped by someone trying to influence their choice.

Concrete Example — Boca Raton Mayor

Andy Thomson won the 2026 Boca Raton mayoral race by just five votes, after machine counts and multiple manual recounts. Early reports suggested the margin could have been a single vote. In other words, a handful—or even one—ballot could have changed the result.

In Boca Raton, like everywhere else, candidates weren’t just counting ballots—they were trying to reach voters with the right information at the right time. Even small shifts in turnout or perception could tip the scales. And that’s where the system behind elections—the information channels, messaging, and media—starts to matter.

Your vote can change outcomes, even if it feels invisible. And the information you receive before you vote—the stories, ads, news, and commentary—plays a role in shaping that choice. Understanding the system is the first step in making your vote count.

Core Explanation: Elections Are No Longer Simple

Voting today is no longer a straight line from candidate to voter. It’s a complex web of influence:

Traditional layers remain: parties, candidates, ballots, volunteers.
Outside spending shapes messaging: PACs, nonprofits, advocacy groups push targeted campaigns.
Digital platforms amplify influence: social media and apps deliver precise messages to specific audiences.
Fragmented media environment: cable, social media, and online outlets deliver very different stories, so voters rarely encounter the same information.

The end result is clear: votes aren’t just cast—they’re shaped long before they reach the ballot box.

Relatable Example Continued

Imagine Mary, a voter navigating today’s environment. She sees:

A Facebook post from a candidate’s page highlighting local infrastructure promises
A TikTok ad from a PAC showing a dramatic clip about healthcare
A cable news segment analyzing the same election in a different context

Each source presents a slightly different narrative. Mary has to make sense of it all—but the truth behind who funded each message is mostly invisible. And yet, in places like Boca Raton, a handful of votes—or even one—can decide who governs the city. That’s the tangible power of participation.

Pattern / Insight

This isn’t about ideology. It’s about mechanics. The flow of information—shaped by parties, outside money, and digital platforms—affects every voter. Understanding that flow gives people the clarity to see why elections look the way they do today, beyond the surface headlines.

Understanding why every vote matters is only the first part of the story. Equally important is how the information voters receive before Election Day is shaped and delivered. From traditional network broadcasts to social media, cable news, and independent commentary, the channels through which voters learn about candidates and issues have multiplied—and fragmented. To see why elections look the way they do today, we need to look closely at the modern media landscape.

Uh, Hey Canada, busy Friday?

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics

Uh, Hey Canada, busy Friday?

Went shopping last week, saw some great stuff, was reminded of the surf and turf we had in Maine and I got kinda lonely, well to tell the truth, I kinda choked up.

What, what the heck you going on about?

Well. One of those personal stories that ain’t none of your business, but lays the groundwork, so here goes. You see, I have a wife, not just any wife. But The Wife. My Partner in Crime and Partner in Life. But it took a while to get there.

You see, we each had our own baggage, well, a lot of baggage, well, we could have opened a luggage store.

But there was that thing, you know, that thing. I walked by the office window where she worked, needed insurance, took a chance and got turned down on both fronts.

But damn, she was something to behold. So on the way out, I stopped, turned and politely asked “Mind if I just stop by, say Hi and maybe flirt a little?” Silly woman, hesitated and said “okay.”

That was over 22 years ago. Ah, a marriage made in heaven, yeah, my ass. We get to celebrate our wedding anniversary in the spring by playing in the garden, in the summer going to the beach, and once again in the winter playing in the snow. You see, 22 years married 3 times to each other and it’s still a work in progress.

So Canada, Canada, I know we have been down this track before, but, I kinda miss you. And when I heard through the grapevine you were flirting with the EU, I got a little jealous, after I choked up a bit.

I know things are a bit rough right now between us, but I’m pretty sure we have that issue being taken care of, and yes, it’s going to take some time to feel comfortable, but all I’m suggesting is maybe a little walk on a Vancouver beach, you know, get away from that Eastern craziness.

That’s what happens when we let others get involved, they get all controlling and think they know what is best for us, and we let them get away with it until we realize all they were interested in was what was best for themselves. They didn’t care about us and it made us question each other. Innuendo, lies and suspicion. A hard thing to ignore.

Anyway, I think we will have that disruption under control soon, and we really did have a pretty good thing going until someone decided sharing, respect, and having each other’s back wasn’t good enough.

Maybe a nice king crab and salmon dinner and a bottle of Pinot Noir from one of my Willamette Valley wineries.

Not commitments, maybe just some nice conversation away from the noise. After all, we like the same wine, same beer, who needs that stupid partition anyway.

The Greatest Show On Earth — Sorry Trump, Your Flatulence Still Stinks – Video

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Midterms then 2028, Politics, purple, Real Men, View From 1964

Did you watch it? Better yet, I’m old enough that I actually went to it. Ringling Bros.-Barnum and Bailey Circus. The greatest three-ring circus in the land. Celebrated in film back in 1952 with Cornel Wilde, Betty Hutton, and James Stewart. Before your time, maybe. Not mine.

Then in 2017, Hugh Jackman played P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman. Entertaining both times. Good spectacle. Great misdirection.

But why do I feel like what I’ve been watching lately is just another circus remake, only this time starring Emmett Kelly the sad clown, sweeping up the spotlight after everyone else has gone home?

Where have we been? Asleep on Vance’s couch?

=====================================

Make your decisions with thought. Because whoever walks into the White House next walks in carrying way too much inherited power, and must be honestly, genuinely willing to give a lot of it back for the sake of the rest of us.

Only God is God. By whatever name you call him.

Sorry Trump. Your flatulence still stinks.

The Greatest Show On Earth — Sorry Trump, Your Flatulence Still Stinks

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Midterms then 2028, Politics, purple, Real Men, View From 1964

Did you watch it? Better yet, I’m old enough that I actually went to it. Ringling Bros.-Barnum and Bailey Circus. The greatest three-ring circus in the land. Celebrated in film back in 1952 with Cornel Wilde, Betty Hutton, and James Stewart. Before your time, maybe. Not mine.

Then in 2017, Hugh Jackman played P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman. Entertaining both times. Good spectacle. Great misdirection.

But why do I feel like what I’ve been watching lately is just another circus remake, only this time starring Emmett Kelly the sad clown, sweeping up the spotlight after everyone else has gone home?

Where have we been? Asleep on Vance’s couch?

There has to be more than this. Noise. Non-stop noise. And guess who’s making it, and making it on purpose. Some call it distraction. Some call it ego. Some call it, ah, fudge, I’ll be polite and leave that one blank.

Bottom line: it’s all noise. Not governing. Not leading. Just noise.

Name one single thing that has been done that actually benefited you. And if you’re about to say immigration, I’ll counter with the hundreds of millions wasted on ICE theater, detention centers, the failed Alligator Alcatraz, vanity jets, and murdered innocents. So be smart and don’t go there.

It’s time for the circus to fold its tents, load the wagons, remove the fake freaks’ makeup, and leave town. And on the way out put the stolen assets back in the treasury where they belong.

So where do we go from here?

More extreme right MAGA? I hope not, and I think their scared leader has done more damage to that movement than any opponent could have managed. They took themselves down.

Looking at party labels right now would be a mistake. The midterms should put Democrats in power, and hopefully they’ll be wise enough to clean out the obvious corruption while doing a little honest housekeeping on their own side as well. Nobody’s hands are entirely clean and the ones who pretend otherwise are lying to your face.

So let’s look at people. Not parties.

I started this piece about the circus on purpose. Because who’s popping up as the early favorite for 2028? Who looks good? Maybe a little too good. Maybe a little too camera-ready, too well-spoken, too perfectly lit for every occasion? Could be that’s exactly what we need right now to get people’s attention again after four years of this.

But is a pretty face ultimately who we want as Commander in Chief? And who has he alluded to as his second in command? I’m going to keep harping on that angle, because I want to know the backup plan. I want to know from day one — or at absolute minimum, day two.

Then there’s Harris. Has she gotten past being Biden’s second? I’m not anti-Biden, but he was a fool for running again and the Democratic Party was plain stupid to go that route. He and Trump were just too damn old. Just like me, so don’t anyone get any ideas about talking me into running, even though I would be absolutely fantastic. Especially with Robert Reich as my number two. Geriatrics to the rescue. Combined age of about 160 years, zero interest in a second term, nothing left to prove, and no donors to protect. Dangerous combination in the best possible way.

The point I’ll keep making between now and 2028 is this: that election will be more important than anyone currently thinks it will be. It could be, it should be, the chance to start setting things straight. To pass laws that prevent this kind of unbridled power and corruption from happening again. To rebuild the guardrails that got quietly dismantled while we were watching the circus.

Make your decisions with thought. Because whoever walks into the White House next walks in carrying way too much inherited power, and must be honestly, genuinely willing to give a lot of it back for the sake of the rest of us.

Only God is God. By whatever name you call him.

Sorry Trump. Your flatulence still stinks.

Rebuilding How We Choose Leaders – Video

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Foundation, Politics, purple

I’ve always been a conservative. I’ve always registered Republican.

Today I find myself asking a different question. Looking toward 2028, who actually makes sense? Who can represent the broad range of Americans who don’t fit neatly into one political box?

My answer is simple:

I like a team.

I think putting a team together from day one is the smart move.

Not just a candidate. A governing team.

Two people who complement each other, who can genuinely work together, and who both understand the responsibility of the presidency. Two people where, if one had to step into the Oval Office, Americans would feel confident that the direction of the country would continue.

The old way — selecting one popular candidate and then scrambling to find a vice president who might help win a certain state or demographic — is outdated. It does a disservice to the office and to the voters.

Why not build the team first?

=========================================

A governing team.

A team with a realistic agenda, not promises made from a stage two weeks before Election Day.

A team ready to govern on day one.

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

Rebuilding How We Choose Leaders

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Foundation, Politics, purple

I’ve always been a conservative. I’ve always registered Republican.

Today I find myself asking a different question. Looking toward 2028, who actually makes sense? Who can represent the broad range of Americans who don’t fit neatly into one political box?

My answer is simple:

I like a team.

I think putting a team together from day one is the smart move.

Not just a candidate. A governing team.

Two people who complement each other, who can genuinely work together, and who both understand the responsibility of the presidency. Two people where, if one had to step into the Oval Office, Americans would feel confident that the direction of the country would continue.

The old way — selecting one popular candidate and then scrambling to find a vice president who might help win a certain state or demographic — is outdated. It does a disservice to the office and to the voters.

Why not build the team first?

Presidential candidates spend years traveling the country trying to understand the needs of people with different economies, different histories, and different challenges.

The farmer in rural America, the technology worker in the city, the small business owner, the factory worker, the healthcare worker — they do not all have the same problems.

The president cannot personally solve every problem.

Nor should they.

What I want to hear from a candidate is:

“I am here to help you solve your own problems. When you need help, the federal government will be there. But government should empower people, not replace them.”

That does not mean everything belongs at the local level. Some things belong to all Americans equally: basic education standards, protection of constitutional rights, healthcare standards, and guarantees of religious freedom.

Some responsibilities are shared.

But the idea that one person can personally make every decision, solve every problem, and direct every aspect of government is unrealistic.

Recent years have reminded us of the risks of placing too much responsibility in the hands of one individual.

This is why I believe in a team.

And not just a President and Vice President selected for political convenience.

A real governing partnership.

The Vice President should not be an afterthought. The Vice President should be someone Americans would trust to become President if circumstances required it. The agenda should not change because one person leaves office.

The team should already be working together before Election Day.

We live in an era of artificial intelligence, robotics, space exploration, and challenges we have never faced before.

Why are we still choosing executive leadership the same way we did generations ago?

Imagine a different approach.

After the primaries, instead of waiting for a winner to choose a cabinet after the election, a presidential team could begin assembling the administration before voters make their final decision.

The voters would know what they are voting for.

The country would not lose months while Congress fights over political appointments.

The vetting, planning, and preparation would already be underway.

Government is the largest project any of us will ever undertake.

I spent much of my career in engineering, and one lesson applies to any complex project:

You do not hire one person and tell them, “Make it work.”

You assemble the right team.

You identify the lead programmer, the project manager, and the people with the skills needed to complete the job. You define the goals, the scope, and the expected results before the work begins.

Then you maintain oversight to keep the project on track.

Government should be no different.

We still need accountability. The buck still has to stop somewhere.

But the idea that one person can successfully manage the entire operation alone is outdated.

A strong team is not a weakness. It is how complex organizations succeed.

And perhaps the greatest benefit is that it moves us beyond the idea that only one party has all the answers.

Yes, we have a two-party system today. Hopefully, someday we have more choices.

But a governing team built around competence should be able to draw from the best people available, regardless of party label.

The question should not always be:

“Who has the right letter after their name?”

The question should be:

“Who can do the job?”

Today’s challenges are simply too great for one person, one party, or one ideology to solve alone.

It is time to stop playing politics and start playing government.

While we still have one.

Maybe that is the lesson America should take from the Trump years.

Not simply who won or who lost.

But that our system needs to adapt.

Let’s build a team.

Not just a campaign team.

A governing team.

A team with a realistic agenda, not promises made from a stage two weeks before Election Day.

A team ready to govern on day one.

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

This Week’s Endorsements 09/03/2026

On - Forward Party, Politics, shared, Voting Rights

We’d like to highlight more candidate endorsements this week. Adding to our slate of federal candidates are two Navy veterans who meet the standard we value at Forward Party.

They are John Gregory Vincent of South Carolina, running for U.S. House (SC-07) and Bob Smith of California, running for U.S. House (CA-24). They are on opposite coasts and opposite sides of the political spectrum, but both are running because they believe the communities they want to serve deserve representation that actually serves them.

John Gregory Vincent is running as a Democrat and Bob Smith is running as a Republican. As we have argued for years, the letter next to the name should not matter. Forward Party endorses candidates based on simple principles: are they prepared to serve their constituents, work with people who don’t share their politics and focus on delivering results rather than performing for their base?

In both cases, the answer is yes.

Meet John Gregory Vincent

Democratic Candidate — U.S. House
South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District

John Gregory Vincent spent 20 years in the Navy, retired as a Command Master Chief responsible for the welfare and training of service members across seven bases and five military branches, and came home to South Carolina to spend the next chapter of his career in service to his community.

He served on the Board of Directors of the Augusta Kiwanis. He is the Small and Minority Business co-chair for the Florence Chamber of Commerce. He is involved with the committee supporting the Veterans Park in Florence. And he has been sober for more than two decades, which he speaks about publicly and directly, working to reduce the stigma that keeps people from seeking treatment.

His campaign is built around four areas that reflect what he has heard in his district: affordability, jobs and small businesses and farms, schools, healthcare and veterans’ services, and government accountability and the federal budget. South Carolina’s 7th District deserves a representative who has spent his career studying what it means to serve. Vincent has been doing that work his entire life.

Meet Bob Smith

Republican Candidate — U.S. House
California’s 24th Congressional District

Bob Smith spent more than 26 years in the Navy as a combat veteran and engineer. He was named the U.S. Navy Engineer of the Year in 2023 and received the Humanitarian Service Medal for his work with international disaster relief operations. He is now running in California’s Central Coast with the same engineering discipline he brought to advanced weapons systems and international disaster relief.

His community engagement in California’s Central Coast has crossed partisan lines in ways that are not commonly seen. He has volunteered with his local Republican Party on data analysis and canvassing. He has also worked on his wife’s Democratic city council campaign. He coaches youth sports and mentors young athletes.

His campaign focuses on affordability, education, energy and water, immigration, and national defense. All are framed around their direct impact on the safety and economic security of Central Coast families. Bob’s approach to every problem he has ever faced is a testament to his training as an engineer: evaluate the options and put the best solution forward.

Why Forward Endorses Democrats and Republicans

The Forward Party is building a different theory of representation, one that answers to constituents rather than to partisan interests and is willing to work with whoever is serious about getting things done for the American people.

Forward Party’s Fulcrum Strategy leans on the argument that across the ideological spectrum, there are people who are more interested in governing than in performing on the stage of partisan theatre. This supports that approach in building a bloc of elected officials willing to act independently of party leadership on consequential votes, ultimately helping to shift the incentive in Congress away from party loyalty and toward earning support on the merits of legislation.

A Democrat from South Carolina and a Republican from California who share that operating principle are more aligned with what Congress is supposed to do than two members from the same party who vote in lockstep with their parties on every issue. That is the Forward Party’s primary premise. John Gregory Vincent and Bob Smith are this week’s evidence for it.

Both are the kind of people Congress is supposed to have more of, and currently has far too few of.

November 3rd is 61 days away. The Forward Party has candidates on the ballot in South Carolina, California, Ohio, Montana, New York, Idaho, South Dakota, Colorado, Minnesota, Utah, and across the country. Every one of them is evidence of the same thing: good representation does not require a party. It requires the right person.

In case you missed it, we had Rep. Kevin Kiley on the podcast last week with host Lindsey Drath for a discussion on leading with integrity in Washington.

Their conversations explore why experienced political leaders are stepping away from party labels, what voters are asking for, and whether independent candidates can offer a different approach to governing.

Click the image below to watch.

National Volunteer Call – Forward Party

September 08, 2026 at 7:30pm Eastern

Please join our director of volunteer engagement Carrie Anne for a 30 minute rundown of all things Forward Party! Meet other volunteers, hear what’s happening in the committees and other states, and stay abreast of party news. This call is for any level of volunteer in any state, and is a great starting point if this is your first time getting involved!

Forward Text Force – Text banking for candidates

September 10, 2026 at 6:30pm Eastern

Join the Forward Text Force, a group of dedicated volunteers working remotely to support our candidates and GOTV efforts. Each Thursday from 6:30-7:00pm ET from Sept 10th through election day, we will log on together to onboard, troubleshoot, and send text messages in community. We provide the script, support, and socialization with other volunteers, all you need to bring is your computer or phone!

Meet the Forward Candidates 2026!

September 10, 2026 at 8:00pm Eastern

Once again this campaign season we bring you Meet the Forwardists, a virtual opportunity to get to know some of the federal and statewide candidates we have endorsed this year.

Next week will feature candidates running for various levels of office across the country on the Forward Party ballot line.

Celeste Landry – Colorado Secretary of State
Jay Reeves – Minnesota State Auditor
Monique Doward – Minnesota State Senator
Mike Sell – Florida, U.S. Congress, District 4
Bob Chew – Colorado, U.S. Senate
Senator Emily Buss – Utah, Incumbent State Senator

If you’re tired of waiting for the system to fix itself — this is your moment.
👥 Volunteer | 🗳️ Run for Office | 💸 Donate | 🌐 forwardparty.com

Bob Chew, Forward Party candidate running against Sen. John Hickenlooper | Colorado Point of View

Bob Chew the Forward Party candidate running for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by John Hickenlooper joins Colorado Point of View to discuss his campaign

Democrat drops out of Utah Senate race, leaving Forward Party incumbent to face GOP challenger • Utah News Dispatch

As Sen. Emily Buss vies to hold on to the Forward Party’s highest-ranking elected position in the country, Democrat bows out to give her a better chance at keeping the seat out of the GOP supermajority’s hands

Tennessee’s election has 5 races and hot button issues to watch

With 47% of voters nationally identifying as independent, Columbia businesswoman Lauren Pinkston wants to give voters who don’t identify with either major political party someone to vote for.

Copyright © 2026 Forward Party, all rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
1701 Rhode Island Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036, United States

Paid for by Forward Party and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
ForwardParty.com

Does you vote count, Damn Right it Does #2

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, Protest 2026, Voting Rights

🚨NEWS: Democrat Andy Thomson has won the Boca Raton mayoral race by just ONE vote.

🔵 Thomson — 7,568

🔴 Liebelson — 7,567

With 100% of votes in, Thomson becomes the first Democratic mayor of Boca Raton in over 30 years.

One vote decided the election.

Update, after a slow recount, Thomson won by 5 votes, that doesn’t change the fact that we can’t sit by and assume our vote will not matter.

Judge’s Ruling Halts USPS Rule Restricting Mail–in Voting

On - Forward Party, Politics, shared, Voting Rights

PRESS RELEASE

Date: August 27, 2026
Contact: Connor Radnovich | connor.radnovich@sos.oregon.gov

Judge’s Ruling Halts USPS Rule Restricting Mail–in Voting

SALEM, OR — Today, a federal judge again temporarily blocked the United States Postal Service (USPS) from moving forward with its new rule that would illegally restrict access to vote-by-mail, a rule that was mandated by President Trump’s Executive Order 14399. The USPS will be blocked from implementing many of the rule’s provisions related to the November election for at least 14 days.

Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read is releasing the following statement:

“The Constitution is clear: states run elections. The USPS doesn’t get to pick and choose who gets ballots. Presidents don’t get to rig elections via executive decree. The USPS rule and the executive order it came from are unconstitutional.

“This order provides more certainty for voters and elections officials in the middle of a major election. While this is a win, we will continue to aggressively pursue every available tool we have to protect every Oregon citizen’s right to vote. I’ve said it before and I will say it again: Oregon elections are secure, accurate and fair, and we’re going to keep it that way.”

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New Voter Registration PSA Launched by Oregon Secretary of State

On - Politics, shared, Voting Rights

PRESS RELEASE

Date: August 27, 2026
Contact: Tess Seger | tess.seger@sos.oregon.gov

New Voter Registration PSA Launched by Oregon Secretary of State

SALEM, OR — Today, Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read launched new public service announcements to inform all eligible Oregonians about how to register to vote. The announcements were produced and placed in partnership with the Oregon Association of Broadcasters and radio stations across Oregon.

“Our state is a stronger, better place when the people hold the powerful accountable through free and fair elections. That’s why I want every eligible Oregonian to vote, and registering is the first crucial step,” said Secretary Read.

“No citizen should be left out of our elections because they don’t know how the process works, which is why these announcements are so critical. I want to thank the Oregon Association of Broadcasters and radio stations across the state for working with us to get this important message out.”

A recording of the public service announcements can be found here, and a transcript is below:

Voter Registration Public Service Announcement Transcript

Attention Oregonians: The deadline to register to vote in the next election is October 13th.

If you are…

A U.S. Citizen

A resident of Oregon

And at least 16 years old

…you can register to vote. You must be 18 years old to get a ballot.

You can quickly register, check, or update your voter information through the secure portal at oregonvotes.gov.

You have the power to decide Oregon’s future. Vote.

Secretary Read: Lawsuit to Block USPS Rule on Mail-In Ballots Will Protect Ongoing Election

On - Forward Party, Politics, shared, Voting Rights

PRESS RELEASE

Date: August 26, 2026
Contact: Connor Radnovich | connor.radnovich@sos.oregon.gov

Secretary Read: Lawsuit to Block USPS Rule on Mail-In Ballots Will Protect Ongoing Election

SALEM, OR — Today, Oregon joined with 23 other states and Washington, D.C., to block the final rule published by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) that would restrict vote-by-mail by giving the USPS the power to decide who gets a ballot. This rule was written in response to an executive order signed by the President.

Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read is releasing the following statement:

“The November election is already underway. Now is not the time to change the rules. The USPS rule, like the executive order it arises from, is a clear attempt to make it harder for Americans to vote and undermine free, fair elections. It won’t work.

“The directive I issued yesterday instructs elections officials to proceed with running the next election as normal and according to Oregon law. If successful, this lawsuit will further protect our elections from illegal interference. Thank you to the Attorney General for his quick action to advance this critical work.

“We will continue pursuing all available options to protect Oregon’s safe, accurate, and fair elections.”

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New Directive Issued by Secretary Read Confirms Oregon Vote-by-Mail Elections Will Proceed as Planned

On - Forward Party, Politics, shared, Voting Rights

Recording of Secretary Read’s press conference about the directive available now

PRESS RELEASE

Date: August 25, 2026
Contact: Connor Radnovich | connor.radnovich@sos.oregon.gov

New Directive Issued by Secretary Read Confirms Oregon Vote-by-Mail Elections Will Proceed as Planned

Recording of Secretary Read’s press conference about the directive available here

SALEM, OR — Today, in response to the uncertainty caused by the Supreme Court’s ruling that lifted the injunction on Executive Order 14399 (Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections), Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read issued a new directive to Oregon’s local elections officials instructing them to proceed with administering the election according to current Oregon law and reiterating election procedures and timelines.

“The purpose of this directive is to provide certainty to elections officials and voters alike. All eligible Oregonians will receive their ballots by mail for the upcoming election and should plan to return them using the mail or a secure, official drop box,” said Secretary Read in a letter accompanying the directive.

“If a later judicial decision requires immediate changes to Oregon election administration, I will provide further direction. However, we are on the eve of the first ballots for the November election being sent out to voters. Now is not the time to make major changes to how elections are run in Oregon. I will pursue all available means to protect Oregon’s gold-standard system of elections, which routinely makes us a national leader in voter participation. Our elections are secure, accurate, and fair, and we will keep them that way.”

Secretary Read held a press conference to announce the directive and answer questions. A recording of the event can be found here.

###

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He Really IS Stark-Raving Mad

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, shared

He Really IS Stark-Raving Mad by Robert Reich

This proves it

Read on Substack

The Art of The Victim – Video

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, purple

The shell game. It never changes, but even after we’re shown how it works, we fall for it. No surprises. Maybe it’s the art of the distraction, or just the desire for distraction. But we get sucked in.

Trump’s book should never have been titled The Art of the Deal. He couldn’t deal his way out of a game of solitaire.

But what he can do is be the victim. Oh, the mighty victim.

The Art of the Deal left out that his success was really just taking people to court and appealing until they went broke or gave up. Pretty simple, if it’s all about you.

So don’t leave, thinking this is just another Trump bash — otherwise you’d never get out of bed, ever again.

This is about the book that should have been written: The Art of Being a Victim.

Step back. Really step back. He is the victim. You are the victim. But never fear, Don Quixote is here to take on those malicious windmills — the ones killing all the birds. (Forget that his own shiny Trump Towers kill more birds than wind turbines ever have.) And Quixote is the only one who can save them, and you. And maybe pocket a hundred million in gratitude from the coal industry along the way.

I===========================================

If you think that’s not really just Trump’s pocketbook too, you’ve been asleep for way too long.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Any more and it gets redundant, and besides, I’ll need something to write about tomorrow.

Poor, poor President Trump. He’s trying so hard to fix it for you, and suffering so much in the process.

Let’s see — what comes after two billion?

The Bunker With a Dance Floor – Part Three of Three – Video

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, Protest 2026

We’ve met the Horsemen. We’ve named the disease. Now comes the question that has been keeping me up at night, the one that started as a seed and grew into something I can’t pull out of my pea brain no matter how hard I try.

Is any of this accidental?

Bear with me. I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I’m an eighty year old man who has been watching American politics since 1964, who has seen administrations come and go, who has lived through assassinations and Watergate and Vietnam and Iran-Contra and all the other moments when the republic looked into the abyss and stepped back from the edge.

Possibility One: Don Quixote has lost his Sancho.

===============================================================================

Possibility Two: The shell game is working exactly as designed.

That should also terrify you.

================================================================================

And somewhere out there, someone is reading this who wasn’t reading it last week. Someone who picked it up the way you used to pick up a newspaper left on a lunch counter, not because they were looking for it, but because it was just sitting there.

That’s enough. For today, that’s enough.

I’m trying. What are you doing?

The Bunker With a Dance Floor – Part Three of Three

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, Protest 2026

We’ve met the Horsemen. We’ve named the disease. Now comes the question that has been keeping me up at night, the one that started as a seed and grew into something I can’t pull out of my pea brain no matter how hard I try.

Is any of this accidental?

Bear with me. I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I’m an eighty year old man who has been watching American politics since 1964, who has seen administrations come and go, who has lived through assassinations and Watergate and Vietnam and Iran-Contra and all the other moments when the republic looked into the abyss and stepped back from the edge.

This feels different.

Let me give you two possibilities and you can decide which one keeps you up at night more.

Possibility One: Don Quixote has lost his Sancho.

The man on the white horse is genuinely, measurably, visibly in cognitive decline. The rambling. The confusions. The speeches that start in one place and arrive nowhere. The July 4th celebration where people walked out mid-speech and he noticed, which was ironically the most coherent observation he’s made in months.

If this is true, then what we are watching is a man whose handlers are managing a deteriorating situation in real time, feeding him day old nuclear codes and hoping nothing lands on the wrong desk while Project 2025 runs the actual government from whatever think tank conference room they’ve claimed as their own.

The puppet show is running without a puppeteer. The chaos is not a strategy. It’s just chaos, and the most dangerous kind, chaos with a red button attached.

That should terrify you.

Possibility Two: The shell game is working exactly as designed.

Watch the shells. The pea isn’t under any of them until he wants it to be. The confusion is strategic. The rambling is cover. The apparent disorder is actually a remarkably effective method of keeping opponents off balance, exhausted, and unable to focus long enough on any single outrage before the next one lands.

Every morning a new fire. Every afternoon a new crisis. Every evening a new enemy. Nobody can keep up. Nobody can organize around a target that keeps moving. The media chases the noise. The opposition chases the media. And while everyone is looking at the shells, the quiet work of dismantling institutions, consolidating power, and lining pockets continues uninterrupted.

If this is true then we are not dealing with a declining old man. We are dealing with something considerably more calculated and considerably more dangerous.

That should also terrify you.

Here is what makes this particularly uncomfortable, both possibilities can be simultaneously true.

A man can be in genuine cognitive decline AND be surrounded by people using that decline as useful cover for their own agenda. Project 2025 didn’t need a genius. They needed a vessel. Something loud enough to keep the cameras pointed at it while the real work happened offstage.

Don Quixote tilting at windmills while Sancho quietly empties the treasury.

The bone spurs hero on the white horse waving to the crowd while the Horsemen do their actual work behind him.

So where does that leave the rest of us?

Tired. Angry. Occasionally writing things at midnight that surprise us in the morning. Planting seeds and hoping they find soil somewhere useful. Asking friends in driveways whether they have the right to complain about things they won’t lift a finger to change. Wrapping fish guts in whatever we can find because the newspaper is gone and the commons it created went with it.

It leaves us here, at the kitchen table, coffee going cold, dogs asleep on the floor, trying to figure out how a republic survives four horsemen, one on a white horse, rider with a red button and a grudge.

I don’t have the complete answer. I’m not sure anyone does right now.

What I do know is this. The republic has survived worse, barely, sometimes, and not without cost. What it has never survived is a citizenry that decided the situation was too overwhelming to engage with. The bunker is tempting. The dance floor on top of it is genuinely appealing some days.

But the door stays open. The Substack keeps publishing. The memes keep landing. Someone who smiles when they hear something true they weren’t expecting.

And somewhere out there, someone is reading this who wasn’t reading it last week. Someone who picked it up the way you used to pick up a newspaper left on a lunch counter, not because they were looking for it, but because it was just sitting there.

That’s enough. For today, that’s enough.

I’m trying. What are you doing?

The Worst Disease – Part Two of Three – Video

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, Protest 2026

I should introduce myself properly before this part, because it matters here more than it did in Part One.

I am Episcopalian. I probably misspelled that. Which tells you everything you need to know about the depth of my devotion. But I do have my own relationship with God, it doesn’t require your children to memorize passages from a Chinese-printed Trump Bible, and it doesn’t require my wife to fetch anyone a beer.

What it does require, occasionally, is calling something out when it’s being done in God’s name that God would find deeply embarrassing.

===============================================================

From a pulpit, it sure sounds good.

I want to be precise about something. I have no argument with Christianity. I have no argument with faith, with prayer, with the comfort and community and moral framework that genuine religious life provides. What I have an argument with is the weaponization of Christianity for political ends by people whose behavior suggests they haven’t read past the cover of the book they’re thumping.

=======================================================================

It is HATE.

Hate is the pre-existing condition that makes every other disease worse.

For the rest of you — the ones still at the table — Part Three is where we ask the question nobody in power wants asked out loud.

Is any of this accidental?

The Worst Disease – Part Two of Three

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, Protest 2026

I should introduce myself properly before this part, because it matters here more than it did in Part One.

I am Episcopalian. I probably misspelled that. Which tells you everything you need to know about the depth of my devotion. But I do have my own relationship with God, it doesn’t require your children to memorize passages from a Chinese-printed Trump Bible, and it doesn’t require my wife to fetch anyone a beer.

What it does require, occasionally, is calling something out when it’s being done in God’s name that God would find deeply embarrassing.

So here we are.

Christian Nationalism has become the banner of this administration the way a flag gets planted on conquered ground. Thump that Bible — or is it Trump that Bible — in the name of hate and greed. It always works. It has always worked. From the Crusades to the Inquisition to the burning of crosses on lawns, someone has always found a way to wrap ugliness in scripture and call it righteousness.

From a pulpit, it sure sounds good.

I want to be precise about something. I have no argument with Christianity. I have no argument with faith, with prayer, with the comfort and community and moral framework that genuine religious life provides. What I have an argument with is the weaponization of Christianity for political ends by people whose behavior suggests they haven’t read past the cover of the book they’re thumping.

The Constitution says separation of Church and State. Not as a suggestion. Not as a starting point for negotiation. As a founding principle. You want your First Amendment rights? You want your Second Amendment rights? Then the rest of the document applies too, whether it’s convenient or not. That’s not a liberal argument. That’s just how documents work.

Let me tell you about Nancy Mace.

I received her campaign materials. Every single piece of communication from her campaign contained exactly two things: a declaration that she is a Christian, and a demand to deport Ilhan Omar because she allegedly celebrates the deaths of slain Americans and Jews. No proof offered. No policy proposed. No single word about what she would actually do for the people she wanted to represent.

Just: I am Christian. Hate the different. Deport the different.

She lost. Good.

But she is not alone and she is not the point. She is a symptom. The disease is the movement that produced her, funded her, and will produce ten more like her in the next cycle. The movement that has decided hate is a platform, fear is a policy, and Christianity is a costume you put on to make both of those things sound holy.

Not a single word about what they will do for you. Only what they will do to someone else.

Sound familiar? It should. We covered that ground in Part One with the Black Horse. The pattern is the same — no vision, no plan, no positive case. Just the enemy at the gates and your donation standing between civilization and destruction.

Here is what Christian Nationalism actually is, stripped of the scripture and the flags and the pageantry.

It is HATE.

Hate for anyone not like you. Hate for anyone who has more than you. Hate for anyone whose skin is darker than yours — as if that makes yours any whiter. Hate dressed in a Sunday suit, carrying a Chinese-printed Bible, standing in front of a flag, telling you God is on its side.

The horsemen we met in Part One — War, Famine, Disease — those are catastrophic. Those are the kind of things that end up in history books with casualty counts and timelines.

But hate is the disease that makes all of them possible. Hate is what convinces a population to look away while children go hungry. Hate is what makes a war feel righteous even when it isn’t. Hate is what fills the vacuum when competent public health officials get fired and replaced with people who agree with the podcaster.

Hate is the pre-existing condition that makes every other disease worse.

And it is being marketed to you right now, from pulpits and platforms and campaign emails, as Christianity.

I know half of you stopped reading two paragraphs ago. Too close to home. The mirror got uncomfortable. Feel free to call me a few choice names on your way out — I’ve heard most of them and the ones I haven’t heard I can probably guess.

For the rest of you — the ones still at the table — Part Three is where we ask the question nobody in power wants asked out loud.

Is any of this accidental?

The Four Horsemen Are Already Here – Part One of Three – Video

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, Protest 2026

It started as absurdity. A simple meme — some poor Stepford wife drowning in Toll-House cookies and too many babies, fetching her husband one too many beers. Then a second meme, our fearless leader being interviewed: So far, Mr. President, we have War, Famine, and Disease as your accomplishments. What’s next? Is the Pale Horse waiting in the wings?

Funny. The kind of funny where you laugh and then quietly look for a desk to hide under.

But here’s the thing about seeds. You plant them as a joke and they grow whether you want them to or not. Two days later I can’t sleep, Revelations has taken over my pea brain, and what started as sarcasm has turned into something I can’t quite laugh off anymore.

So let me correct myself first, for those of you who actually read Revelation 6. My earlier memes had the order wrong. Let me introduce them properly this time.

================================================================================

The Red Horse — War

The Black Horse — Famine

The Pale Horse — Disease

The White Horse — Conquest

Because if you’ve ever actually read Revelation, the part we’re living through right now isn’t the scary part.

The scary part comes next.

The King Is Dead — Long Live The Vance?

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Midterms then 2028, Politics, Trumps Soldiers

The king is dead, long live the king. Or is it long live The Vance?

Are we really ready for The Vance? Big question. I’ve been waffling on this one as much as Taco Donny waffles on an Article 25. Keep the known putz, or hand the keys to the non-senile conniver waiting in the wings? Not an easy choice.

There’s a real argument for simply neutering the king until 2028 and cleaning house then. Yes, it would be painful to wait. But maybe less painful than living through The Vance.

Here’s the real argument against him. He’s the true believer Trump never was. More disciplined. Younger. Genuinely ideological in ways Trump simply isn’t — Trump wants applause, Vance wants outcomes. That combination is more durable and more dangerous than anything Trump has ever managed to be.

That scares me.

I don’t believe he cares about us any more than Trump does. Everything he’s done up to this point says it’s all about The Vance. I have never once heard him put forward an actual plan — even when he was running for VP, he was a yes man. I know that’s practically a job requirement in this administration, but I never expected it to be the entire resume.

We have better. On both sides of the aisle. But The Vance has the microphone and the spotlight right now.

I suspect Trump is quietly setting him up to take the fall on Iran. But nobody’s watching closely enough to fall for it — not even the most committed MAGA voter is that gullible. Sorry, Donny.

I’ll admit I’m surprised I haven’t seen more movement from him and Rubio. Not sure what they’re waiting for, unless they’re still giving the MAGA base far more credit than it deserves. My honest read, for whatever an old man’s observation is worth — if either of them publicly distanced themselves from MAGA right now, the rest of the Republican party would carry them through the streets on their shoulders.

We’ve watched The Vance flip flop more times than I can count. He called Trump “cultural heroin.” He called him “reprehensible.” Then he slithered right into the VP slot anyway. I will never forgive him for promoting election denial-ism or for downplaying January 6th. If that’s genuinely who he is, I don’t want him anywhere near the Oval Office. And if it was all lip service to get the job — then grow a spine and be your own man. Either way, I have real trouble seeing the qualities of a Commander in Chief in there.

The Four Horsemen Are Already Here – Part One of Three

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, Protest 2026

It started as absurdity. A simple meme — some poor Stepford wife drowning in Toll-House cookies and too many babies, fetching her husband one too many beers. Then a second meme, our fearless leader being interviewed: So far, Mr. President, we have War, Famine, and Disease as your accomplishments. What’s next? Is the Pale Horse waiting in the wings?

Funny. The kind of funny where you laugh and then quietly look for a desk to hide under.

But here’s the thing about seeds. You plant them as a joke and they grow whether you want them to or not. Two days later I can’t sleep, Revelations has taken over my pea brain, and what started as sarcasm has turned into something I can’t quite laugh off anymore.

So let me correct myself first, for those of you who actually read Revelation 6. My earlier memes had the order wrong. Let me introduce them properly this time.

The Red Horse — War

This Horseman is given a great sword and the power to take peace from the earth, causing individuals to slaughter one another.

What a disappointment that a horse this powerful had to be ridden by such a clown. The United States Secretary of War — sword in one hand, Jack Daniels in the other. You would think Project 2025 could have done better. Could have picked someone a little more competent. Maybe Wile E. Coyote. Maybe Yosemite Sam.

The most creative way to appear as the smartest man in the room is to fire everyone else with an IQ above ten and military experience beyond supply clerk. And the way we’re going through missiles, rockets, and airplanes, we may be back to throwing stones before this is over. Still more lethal than our fearless leader throwing insults.

He does look good on that mighty red steed though — hair slicked back, grey one day, black the next, streaked only on Sundays. His makeup team must travel by chariot just to keep him camera-ready for the updates on how we’re losing the war. Oh, sorry. The ten billion dollar skirmish.

All jokes aside — make no mistake about the seriousness of the role. Project 2025 wanted a puppet. The puppet has gotten loose and unleashed forces that may now be beyond anyone’s control.

The Black Horse — Famine

This rider carries scales, signifying severe scarcity and economic collapse. A day’s wages buys enough wheat for one person, while luxuries remain untouched for those who can afford them.

DOGE to the rescue. Look at all the children who have gone hungry since USAID was shut down. Sure, there was some corruption — but corruption can be fixed. Fixing it, however, would have left less money available for granite walkways, ballrooms, and fight cages.

After all, our own children don’t need SNAP benefits or free school lunches, do they? We have a true professional in charge of Education now. Soon those children won’t have a school to go to anyway. But not to worry — some children will be receiving a private education and a private chef will be preparing their lunches. You know which children.

The Black Horse has a primary rider but when he gets tired there are plenty of extras waiting to take the steed for a trot. Inflation rising. War driving fuel costs through the roof. Not just gasoline — heating, fertilizer, food, ENERGY. The answer from this administration? Defund alternate energy. No solar subsidies, no wind farms, no research. None of that lines their pockets. Dead birds have nothing to do with it.

Name one promise made that was kept — that actually helped you. Just one.

That’s the Black Horse.

The Pale Horse — Disease

This rider brings mass devastation through sword, famine, pestilence, and disease. Hades follows close behind.

Who looks better astride a sickly pale green horse than our very own Secretary of Health and Human Services? No more vaccinations. Measles returning. Whooping cough making a comeback nobody asked for. And somewhere in between, a man studying dead raccoon anatomy while children get sick.

When drug approval gets fast tracked because a podcaster asked the President to — okay, maybe it’s a good drug. But a podcaster influencing the FDA. Come on.

A Secretary of Health who suggested the toilet seat as a place of recreation, fired everyone competent, and replaced them with conspiracy theorists. These are the people now telling your pediatrician what’s best for your children.

The Pale Horse didn’t need an invitation. We rolled out the welcome mat and handed him the keys.

The White Horse — Conquest

Bearing a crown and a bow, this conqueror deceives humanity with false peace before unleashing global turmoil. Many scholars identify this rider as a false Messiah.

The only thing ever conquered was a pair of bone spurs — right after the draft ended. Fancy that. Our hero.

False peace. False peace prizes. Lies stacked on lies while the crayon writing on the Christian Nationalist kitchen wall gets harder and harder to ignore. And somewhere in that addled or calculating mind, a man on a white horse who has repeatedly — and I want to be clear about this, repeatedly — threatened to push a very large red button.

Is he senile or is it an act? Is this Don Quixote with Sancho having lost control? Or is everything going exactly as Project 2025 planned, and the chaos is the point?

Paranoid minds need to know.

Because if you’ve ever actually read Revelation, the part we’re living through right now isn’t the scary part.

The scary part comes next.

Here they come to save the day!

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, Protest 2026, purple

Here they come to save the day!
Independents are on their way! Flipping seats left and right,
Upsetting the majority overnight—
No party line can hold them back,
They’re breaking the gridlock and tipping the stack! Here they come to save the day…
Independents are on their way!

The Democrats and Republicans, the war of the TITANS. Onward they march, threats made, slander cast, mud never left to dry.

MAGA turned the non-MAGA Republicans into RINOs. The Wokes are now Democratic Socialists. My head hurts. Must be my silver locks waving in the wind — no, that can’t be it, too old for the motorcycle, and the last convertible left the stable a while back. Must just be all the BS flying by.

But wait, the day is saved. The moderates to the rescue. The independents may save the day, those of us who aren’t out there slinging that brown stuff, take your pick on which kind.

How can that be? Yes, the House and Senate are almost 50/50, Republicans and Democrats. How can independents save the day, you ask? I’m glad you asked. But now I have to decide if I’ll bother telling you why. Smiley face, sitting here drinking my own coffee.

Well, I subscribe to the Forward Party newsletter. You know, that party started by Andrew Yang, the guy who ran for President that nobody voted for.

He started the Forward Party, and I won’t waste your time or risk explaining it wrong, look it up yourself, you might be impressed.

But their latest newsletter, dated 8/7/2026, titled “South Dakota is the Latest Domino to Fall,” has a piece about how South Dakota’s Democratic Senate nominee dropped out of the race last week. Same thing happened in Idaho’s Senate race the week before that. And before either of those, Nebraska’s Democratic nominee did the exact same thing back in July, clearing the way for independent Dan Osborn to run against Pete Ricketts. That’s three states now, not two, and three is a lot harder to wave off as a coincidence.

Oh no, three Democratic Senate candidates stepping aside, what will we do now? Probably rejoice, since none of those were exactly Blue states to begin with.

Now, I’ll be honest, it’s not all clean and tidy behind the scenes, when has politics ever been. Beaudion, the guy who dropped out in South Dakota, says he and his family got hit with “intimidating threats” to get out of the race, and he’s refused to endorse the independent, Bengs, or the Republican. He’s even said publicly that Bengs will “stoop to whatever level” it takes to win. And Rounds, the Republican incumbent, is calling Bengs a “fake independent” quietly backed by the Democratic Party the whole time. Take all of that with the grain of salt it deserves, politics doesn’t hand you a clean story, and I’m not going to pretend this one is spotless just because it helps my point.

Where this gets good is that in all three states, the independent candidates have real, measurable support. All three states seem to want a change. All three seem to want something other than MAGA leadership. And the polling in each of them looks genuinely favorable for these independents actually winning.

Now, to quote rather than paraphrase, so you can see why you just might want to start looking more toward the middle and watch that old pendulum swing a little less wildly:

“We previously noted that Bengs submitted the highest-validity petition of any statewide South Dakota candidate in 2026, which was 93.85% validity, beating both major party candidates in the quality of signatures gathered. This decision by a major party nominee to drop out is becoming an emerging pattern in one-party-rule states, with similar developments possible in additional districts and states. With under 100 days to go until midterms, this election cycle is seeing independent thinking taking root. Our strategy at Forward has always been about math. You don’t need 51 independent senators to change the United States Senate. You need enough to hold the balance of power: three or four members who answer only to their constituents, who can’t be controlled by either party, and who will vote on the merits of what’s in front of them. That math is now closer to real than it has ever been.”

And that’s really the main thrust of the whole thing. We keep thinking about Congress as 50/51 or 51/50, one party’s razor-thin majority against the other’s. But that framing only holds if every single vote lines up straight down party lines, every time, no exceptions. Add three or four senators who don’t answer to either party, who can’t be whipped into line by leadership, and 50/51 stops meaning what everybody assumes it means. Suddenly the majority doesn’t get to just push a bill through on party discipline alone, they have to actually make the case, to people who have no reason to owe them anything.

It may be time to realize you don’t need a majority of a single party to guide the decisions. In fact, consider this: the more independents in the mix, with genuinely different views and different constituents to answer to, the harder it becomes to ram through something like the Big Beautiful Bill on party-line muscle alone. If they’re not bought by any Super PAC, they’re not beholden to anyone either.

Wouldn’t it be something if no party held all the power?

Robin the Hood

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, purple

If he needs to be Robin Hood, he will be. After all, the peasants have been abused over and over again by those commies — the Bidens and Obamas and their SNAP benefits and Medicaid. And let’s not forget school lunches.

Robin will protect you, as only Robin can, in his little green tights. Maybe that’s the problem, lack of blood flow to the thinking region.

Poor Robin Hood, he could succeed in helping you, if only all those horrible left-wing commies didn’t use the law to stop him. Meanwhile, back at the tenements, have you seen the digs poor Robin goes home to every weekend? Horrible. Just horrible. All those golf courses.

What was Robin good at again? That’s right, stealing from the rich and giving the spoils to the poor. Doesn’t seem like he’s doing much stealing these days, though. Maybe that wedgie’s slowing him down.

It looks a lot more like the rich are throwing money at our poor Robin. Cash, lots of cash. Poor Robin, getting buried in it. Bewildering, really. Why would all these super-rich people make such generous contributions to Robin of Mar-a-Lago?

Why would they gladly pay millions of dollars for a McDonald’s hamburger and fries, when they could’ve just gone to Five Guys for fifteen bucks? I wonder why.

Poor Robin had spent time in the Middle East before returning to fight the good fight for you. Of course, for you. And an Eastern prince saw the shoddy plane poor Robin had to fly around in and gave him a $400 million replacement. Just from the goodness of his oil-laden heart. Just so our Robin might remember the kindly prince with good thoughts. Nothing else.

Robin the Hood, sacrificing so much for the people, 24-7. Yes, 24-7, except for the twelve hours on Truth Social telling you how much he’s stealing from you (scratch that, from the rich), the three hours for the McDonald’s breakfast special, gotta keep the energy up, and the four-hour nap during those pesky cabinet meetings. So boring. Government business, you know. So boring, and they just praise me so much, so boring, good time to sleep.

Sacrificing himself to the burden of having to thank each and every rich donor with a kind thought and a fast-tracked monopoly merger, or drug approval, or a friend’s pardon. Nothing questionable. Maybe 600 tons of cocaine. Nothing questionable at all. Nothing any honorable Hood wouldn’t do.

But Robin the Hood did it all for you. Sacrificed it all for you. Spent all those miserable hours wondering why golf balls and bows don’t play well together, so much to do, he sacrificed almost every weekend analyzing the problem. After all, when it comes down to Medicaid or the eighteenth green, is there really anything to choose between?

So here we have famous Robin the Hood, receiving so very, very much from the rich, notice I left out the word “stealing”? And is he giving to the people? Health benefits, food benefits, education, housing credits?

Never. If he did that, he’d be labeled a radical left communist, and we can’t have that. Have to maintain the image. Besides, those communists would want an income tax, you know, that thing you pay every year, on the oligarchs, the super-rich, the ones whose immense wealth came from you, in one way or another.

No, our Robin the Hood only knows how to take. He never learned the meaning of the word “give.”

Why does he keep sending me emails asking me to support his efforts? As if I’ve gotten rich from his generosity, instead of running on half a tank. But if I do, I’ll get a real GOLD medal, emailed to me. And we all know what a GOLD medal in an email is worth. Don’t we?

We aren’t the Negotiating Ones – Video

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, purple

A lot of what I write, well more than a lot. Most of what I write is a mental response to what I have witnessed or read, and I just read something that bothers me. A short quote: “Not the centrist, ‘negotiating’ Democrats but the fighters like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, etc.”

Now I may be interpreting this incorrectly, and to me this isn’t about a Democrat, but about the term CENTRIST, which I define as moderate. This can be a right-leaning Democrat or a left-leaning Republican, now referred to as a RINO. Or really just one of the 45% of us who are actually independents.

It’s not the term Centrist exactly, it’s that we would be considered “negotiating.” I’d say we’re the least negotiating bunch out there. Our agenda is the least agenda of the lot. It’s not that we don’t have a stand, oh, we do. It’s Don’t Tread on Me. It’s Hands Off.

=========================================================

And let’s be honest about something else while we’re at it: that federal help isn’t a gift. It’s not Washington being generous with its own money. It’s our money, every dollar of it started as a paycheck deduction before it ever became a program. The federal government depends on us, not the other way around. So why does it get talked about, year after year, campaign after campaign, like the relationship runs the opposite direction, like we should be grateful for the return of our own money, instead of the government being grateful we keep sending it in the first place?

What we don’t need is Bernie telling us all what we need any more than we need Trump forcing it down our throats with an executive order and a threat. The moderates don’t need to negotiate. They just need to be left alone to do the job.

We aren’t the Negotiating Ones

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, purple

A lot of what I write, well more than a lot. Most of what I write is a mental response to what I have witnessed or read, and I just read something that bothers me. A short quote: “Not the centrist, ‘negotiating’ Democrats but the fighters like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, etc.”

Now I may be interpreting this incorrectly, and to me this isn’t about a Democrat, but about the term CENTRIST, which I define as moderate. This can be a right-leaning Democrat or a left-leaning Republican, now referred to as a RINO. Or really just one of the 45% of us who are actually independents.

It’s not the term Centrist exactly, it’s that we would be considered “negotiating.” I’d say we’re the least negotiating bunch out there. Our agenda is the least agenda of the lot. It’s not that we don’t have a stand, oh, we do. It’s Don’t Tread on Me. It’s Hands Off.

It’s: I can take care of myself, so take care of yourself. I don’t need you telling me what to do, and in return, I won’t tell you what to do. That’s not negotiating.

Now take the MAGA wing. They don’t want to negotiate either, but they don’t believe in live and let live, they want to set the terms and expect the rest of us to fall in line, one way or another. I’m not talking about the Republican Party here, because I believe that party’s been hijacked, and there are plenty of principled conservatives and honorable people who believe in a fair, helpful government for this country. Sadly, they’re just not the ones in office right now.

Look at the left side, fighters like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Socialists making headlines lately. I’m genuinely for what they represent. But they’re the ones who’ll eventually have to negotiate. Why? Simple. What they want doesn’t work for the whole country. It sounds good in New York. It doesn’t play the same in Pendleton, Oregon.

The Democratic Socialists always hold their rallies on or near a college campus. Not in a farming community.

That’s where this all falls apart. This is a Republic, and it’s a democracy too, both things at once, that’s the design, and part of that design is that what works in one place doesn’t automatically work in another. It’s not about negotiating. It’s about allowing self-governing. That’s where the centrists, the moderates, the independents come in. Let us take care of ourselves.

Now, I said “let us take care of ourselves,” and then I’m about to list off Medicare, Medicaid, Defense, FEMA. That’s not a contradiction, even though it might look like one at first glance. There’s a difference between the things that genuinely need to work the same everywhere, national defense, a safety net that doesn’t disappear the moment you cross a state line, disaster response, and the things that don’t. Self-governance was never “no federal government.” It’s “federal for what actually has to be federal, and local for everything else, and stop pretending every problem needs the same answer in New York and in Pendleton.”

And let’s be honest about something else while we’re at it: that federal help isn’t a gift. It’s not Washington being generous with its own money. It’s our money, every dollar of it started as a paycheck deduction before it ever became a program. The federal government depends on us, not the other way around. So why does it get talked about, year after year, campaign after campaign, like the relationship runs the opposite direction, like we should be grateful for the return of our own money, instead of the government being grateful we keep sending it in the first place?

What we don’t need is Bernie telling us all what we need any more than we need Trump forcing it down our throats with an executive order and a threat. The moderates don’t need to negotiate. They just need to be left alone to do the job.

BBQs, Candidates, and Grassroots support! 08/07/2026

On - Forward Party, Politics, purple, shared, Voting Rights

Hello Forward Friends-

As the summer begins to wind down and sample ballots start to go out, I have the scoop you’ve all been waiting for: Forward endorsed candidates! Filing deadlines are past and some amazing independents have emerged in some interesting races. There are still people in the pipeline, and we’re working to keep the website updated, so check back regularly. Also our state teams are doing their own endorsements this year, so make sure you check with your state to see who they’re supporting.

Of course I wouldn’t present you with candidates unless I also had a way for you to help them! We just launched our Campaign Opportunities section on your volunteer dashboard. Let us know what skills you have, and connect directly with a campaign to volunteer. Click the button below to check it out!

Support a candidate!

Builders Movement:

This fall we are partnering with our friends at the Builders Movement, a civic nonprofit with a community of 5M+ Americans, to encourage people to fire up their grill and strike up a conversation with someone different from you in an effort to bridge the divide in this country.

What it is
Builders Movement is asking Americans to host community gatherings across differences this summer, timed to America’s 250th anniversary. The ask is simple: invite someone you do not always agree with, sit down together, and start there.

The goal
250 gatherings across all 50 states.

How to participate
Register at BuildersBBQ.org. The first 250 host receives a free Builders Starter Kit with recipes, conversation starters, Builders Jenga, and goodies from our brand partners.

If you cannot host
Share the campaign with your community using #BiteToUnite. Even one post or mention can inspire someone in your network to host.

Why it matters
Because connection across difference does not happen on its own. Someone has to fire up the grill first!

Volunteer Spotlight:

Our volunteer of the month for August is Chris Stevens in NC! She has been an effective, organized leader in the efforts to gather signatures for ballot access, and has remained dedicated, even after having surgery! This is what she has to say about volunteering with Forward, “…because experience has taught me that positive change rarely happens without effort. Our election system is broken and so, therefore, is our country. The only way to fix the situation as far as I can tell is for regular people to step up and take action.” She’s right about that. We appreciate everything you do, Chris!

Upcoming Events:

Mon Aug 10th @ 7:30pm ET– National Volunteer Call

Your first stop to updates on the National party and how to plug into the work.

Tues Aug 11th @ 7:30pm ET- Forward to the Polls

Join us on National Poll Worker Recruitment Day to hear from others who have served and learn how to get involved.

Mon Aug 17th @ 7pm ET– Welcome Team Training

Learn how to call and have friendly conversations with other FWD supporters in your state.

Mon Aug 24th @ 7:30pm ET– How to talk about Forward

Tips and tricks on how to discuss Forward with people in your life.

Wed Aug 26th @ 7:30pm ET– Girls Just Want to Volunteer!

Special guests Lt Gov Healey and Gov Whitman inspire us to support candidates this fall!

You can find more things to do on our events calendar.

There was a lot to share with you this newsletter, thank you if you read this far. Next month I will resume bi-weekly communication to keep you informed on all our grassroots candidate support activities. Until then I hope to see you at an upcoming event, enjoy the rest of your summer!

With gratitude,

Carrie Anne
https://home.forwardparty.com/

Copyright © 2026 Forward Party®, all rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
1701 Rhode Island Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036, United States

Paid for by Forward Party and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
ForwardParty.com

Anyone Home?

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, purple

Okay, let’s impeach him. Down with the king. Vance is in, and who cares, the Democrats are in power — that’s what everybody wants, right? Right?

Come on now, that’s all I’m hearing and reading: get rid of Trump, get rid of the administration. And I’ll admit, I’m one of those voices too. I want all of them gone as much as anyone else out here does, but maybe for different reasons. That’s for another episode of the Twilight Zone. Today’s episode is about the vacuum.

We all listen to our favorites — Stephen, Jon, Desi on late night, or the Daily Show — satirizing the evils of today’s events. But do they offer a solution for what should fill the vacuum? No.

How about all those law professors and lawyers, either retired or unable to find clients, dissecting every Trump court case failure and predicting how the Democrats will win the midterms? Do they offer any idea of what should follow? No.

It seems to me it’s all about the evils of the Republicans and how the Democrats will come to the rescue. But for the life of me, I can’t seem to remember just who these Democrats are. And maybe that’s the game plan. If so, I think it sucks.

How many out here watched The Hunger Games and how that played out? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, skip the movies and just watch the ending on YouTube.

So here’s where I’m going with this: just who are these Democrats we’re cheering for? I’d like to have a clue, because I don’t trust them any more than I trust the Republicans.

News flash: Donald Trump became the 47th president. In my humble opinion, he won because he started campaigning before Biden was even sworn in. He campaigned every single day until the election — love him or hate him, he was in your face telling you he was going to take the crown back, that Biden and the Democrats stole the election, every single day.

News flash: the Republicans are going to win in 2028. What? What did I just say? Everybody says Trump is done, so why would Republicans win? Because they’re already campaigning. They’re already in the race. Where are the Democrats? Where are the Independents? Where’s my breakfast? I guess nobody really cares.

Nobody cares because “MAGA bad” isn’t a plan, it’s a mood. You say “wait for the midterms,” and I say why? What do the midterms actually have to do with 2028? They have everything to do with saving this country between now and then, and everything to do with limiting future executive power. But I fail to see what they have to do with who the Democrats’ choice will be in 2028.

If the Democrats don’t find their voice, and find it now, they won’t have a snowball’s chance in Trump’s hell. Trump is already on the attack. His McCarthyism is effective. The general public can be swayed by this kind of scare tactic — otherwise it wouldn’t keep getting used. Say it once, we laugh. Say it a hundred times, it starts to sound true.

MAGA is hurting, so I guess the best tactic is to do nothing? Let them regroup. Let them rebuild MAGA 2.0. Everybody’s got plenty of time, right? Wrong. No fight is a fair fight if you actually want to win. Oh, sorry, did you run out of bullets? Here, use mine. Last man standing gets the prize.

Whoever steps up will be attacked. That’s a fact. That’s the game plan. Grow a thick skin and develop a “so what.” There are a lot of good potential players who should be making their move, and I’m suggesting they make it now. I’m impressed with Buttigieg’s town halls, but if he’s looking to run, say so now. I’m sure Newsom’s already planning his play. Don’t wait for an endorsement.

In fact, waiting for an endorsement seems foolish to me. A party that can’t tie its own shoes right now needs a leader to actually lead it. So if I were building the bench today, here’s who’d be on it: Gina Raimondo, Larry Hogan, Lisa Murkowski, Michelle Obama, Adam Kinzinger, Cory Booker, Dan Crenshaw, Joe Manchin, Amy Klobuchar, Mark Cuban, Andrew Yang, Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg, Condoleezza Rice — just to name a few. Let’s go crazy, forget the politicians entirely: I think Jon Stewart would stir things up, and his late-night tweets would be a lot more entertaining than most of what’s on offer now.

Bottom line: Democrats, Independents, even RINOs — get a voice, and get it now. 2028 is just a little more than two Christmases away. Stay quiet, stay the same, and Trump’s already got his Trump 2028 hat ready.

One last push before Monday’s deadline – Forward – Oregon – 08/06/2026

On - Forward Party, Politics, shared

Greetings

Are you looking for something impactful to do this weekend? Will you be up in the Northwest part of our state?

Jason Faler is an Independent running for Oregon’s 6th Congressional District, and he needs YOUR help! Signatures are due on Monday, August 10th, and his campaign is doing one final push to ensure he is on the ballot. If you believe in more choices for voters, come out and help Jason this weekend!

Click here to learn more

Let’s move Oregon forward together.

With respect,
Oregon Forward Party

If you’re tired of waiting for the system to fix itself — this is your moment.
👥 Volunteer | 🗳️ Run for Office | 💸 Donate | 🌐 forwardparty.com

Copyright © 2026 Forward Party, all rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
1701 Rhode Island Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036, United States

Paid for by Forward Party and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
ForwardParty.com

Is it Time for a Time Out?

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, purple

Mamdani is MAGA’s Golden Ticket to 2026 — that’s right, that’s the actual headline, from Clandestine’s Newsletter on Substack. What, Substack? Who cares? Well, every single person should care. Every voice gets heard, every voice gets repeated. Glory be to miracles, even my voice gets echoed back every now and again.

So where am I going with this? It’s Trump’s “the commies are coming, the commies are coming.” If you don’t vote like he tells you to, the commies will eat your dogs and cats and educate your wives, and then where will you be?

Mamdani, in case you haven’t been awake this year, is the new mayor of New York. And guess what he did, rent control. In New York, no less, where even the rats can’t afford their rat holes.

And as usual, Trump’s making it up as he goes. Democratic socialism and communism aren’t the same thing, no matter how many times he says “communist” in the same breath as Mamdani’s name. Communism means the state owns everything. Democratic socialism means the government invests in workers. That’s not a technicality, that’s the whole difference. But Trump knows the label doesn’t need to be accurate, it just needs to be scary. He’s not making an argument. He’s manufacturing a boogeyman he can point at.

Now here’s what’s actually important: Mamdani is the mayor of New York because New York decided that’s what they wanted, and they voted for him. So, Donald, are you saying it isn’t valid, even though they voted for it, and for him?

Haven’t you played that exact card elsewhere this year? You don’t like it, so you invalidate it. But you say we’re a democracy, right? Hmm. I’ll have to think about that one.

What’s even more important is: where are the Democrats? Why aren’t they defending Mamdani? Are they afraid of Donald’s McCarthyism? Yes, I know I’ve said that before. Yes, I know you’re tired of hearing it. And yes, I still want you to go read up on it anyway.

Whatever tactic Trump reaches for, ninety percent of his playbook runs on hate and fear and, please don’t take offense, stupidity. He builds his hate speech and fear-mongering on fringe topics that were never clearly defined to begin with, or that everyone else forgot about years ago.

The other ten percent is calling people stupid names, because he isn’t clever enough to come up with better ones. Or grown up enough to be past the name-calling stage at all. He thinks it makes the President of The United States of America look inteeligent (wink).

Democrats, where are you? Hey, Independents, you’re being awfully quiet. Even the RINOs should have something to say, if not something to yell.

Well? I’m listening. Awfully quiet out there. Are you going to just let the clown, and that’s not name-calling, that’s just what he is, run the same tired routine all over again? Haven’t you learned anything yet?

How about somebody standing up and explaining what a democracy actually is, and what it isn’t? How it’s perfectly fine for one part of the country to choose one thing, and a different part to choose something else entirely. That’s not chaos. That’s self-government, working exactly as designed.

If New York wants rent control, and I’m only using that as one example, then more power to them. That was their choice, and they made it. That doesn’t mean it would work in Dallas, or even be wanted there. That should be the loud voice coming out right now.

Mister President: shut up, and let us make our own rules for where we live. Stop the childish name-calling, or we’re putting you in time out.

Mr. President, it’s perfectly fine for one state to be a blue state that runs better on liberal policy, and another to be a red state that runs better on conservative policy. That should be the voice coming from the gallery, and it needs to be loud, and it needs to be clear. And just because a state didn’t vote for you doesn’t mean they don’t like you. Well, maybe it does, at that.

I feel like we’re sitting in a vacuum right now, with the only noise coming from a clown, and all the air getting sucked out of the room. We need leaders to come out, stand up, and speak out. Now. Not next week. Not when it feels safe. Because if they wait for it to feel safe, it never will, and by then it’ll be too late.

I keep hearing and reading that MAGA is done for. I hope so. But who, or what, replaces it? So far all I hear is “when the Democrats…”

If that’s really the plan, I’ve got one very big question I’d like answered soon. Who, exactly, is this Democrat? This Independent? This RINO? Take your pick. But whoever it is better make a stage entrance soon, before the curtain comes down on them and the audience walks out.

The Art of The Victim

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, purple

Trump’s book should never have been titled The Art of the Deal. He couldn’t deal his way out of a game of solitaire.

But what he can do is be the victim. Oh, the mighty victim.

The Art of the Deal left out that his success was really just taking people to court and appealing until they went broke or gave up. Pretty simple, if it’s all about you.

So don’t leave, thinking this is just another Trump bash, otherwise you’d never get out of bed, ever again.

This is about the book that should have been written: The Art of Being a Victim.

Step back. Really step back. He is the victim. You are the victim. But never fear, Don Quixote is here to take on those malicious windmills, the ones killing all the birds. (Forget that his own shiny Trump Towers kill more birds than wind turbines ever have.) And Quixote is the only one who can save them, and you. And maybe pocket a hundred million in gratitude from the coal industry along the way.

I’ve shown you the results first, to illustrate the shell game, you see the sleight of hand before and during the switch, but the showmanship keeps you watching anyway. Maybe because it’s all explained by The Plan. You know, THE Plan. The one he’ll unveil in two weeks. The one promised since, what, 2016? That’s 494 weeks and counting.

The game plan, and it’s important you understand this, it is a game plan, established from the beginning, is this: you’re being taken advantage of by lazy people sucking the system dry, or stealing it dry, and only he can save you. Only Trump can make it right.

Every day he tweets his little fingers away, telling you he would have done this for you, but those commies stopped him. He tried to give you the 1776 Fund, but the radical left stopped him. (Forget the hundred million he was taking, and the immunity for him and his family on tax issues, and that money was yours, ours, to begin with. Not his.)

He can only save you if you keep voting him and his MAGA crew back into office.

So how’s that going? Let’s see. First year and a half: the number one victim, Trump, up $2,000,000,000. The victims who voted for him, the ones he’s here to save, lost SNAP benefits, lost daycare, higher grocery bills, higher gas prices.

And let’s not forget the war. Only Trump can save you from Iran’s nuclear bombs, the same bombs Trump claimed to have already destroyed all capability of, months earlier. On this one, I have to think maybe he should’ve counted the deck before he sat down, because somebody played him, the same way he’s been playing you. And now his ego is digging you a deeper hole than any Iranian bomb ever could have. But hey, it’s your money, not his.

If you think that’s not really just Trump’s pocketbook too, you’ve been asleep for way too long.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Any more and it gets redundant, and besides, I’ll need something to write about tomorrow.

Poor, poor President Trump. He’s trying so hard to fix it for you, and suffering so much in the process.

Let’s see, what comes after two billion?

Robin the Hood – Video

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, purple

If he needs to be Robin Hood, he will be. After all, the peasants have been abused over and over again by those commies — the Bidens and Obamas and their SNAP benefits and Medicaid. And let’s not forget school lunches.

Robin will protect you, as only Robin can, in his little green tights. Maybe that’s the problem, lack of blood flow to the thinking region.

Poor Robin Hood, he could succeed in helping you, if only all those horrible left-wing commies didn’t use the law to stop him. Meanwhile, back at the tenements, have you seen the digs poor Robin goes home to every weekend? Horrible. Just horrible. All those golf courses.

What was Robin good at again? That’s right, stealing from the rich and giving the spoils to the poor. Doesn’t seem like he’s doing much stealing these days, though. Maybe that wedgie’s slowing him down.

============================================

So here we have famous Robin the Hood, receiving so very, very much from the rich, notice I left out the word “stealing”? And is he giving to the people? Health benefits, food benefits, education, housing credits?

Never. If he did that, he’d be labeled a radical left communist, and we can’t have that. Have to maintain the image. Besides, those communists would want an income tax, you know, that thing you pay every year, on the oligarchs, the super-rich, the ones whose immense wealth came from you, in one way or another.

No, our Robin the Hood only knows how to take. He never learned the meaning of the word “give.”

Why does he keep sending me emails asking me to support his efforts? As if I’ve gotten rich from his generosity, instead of running on half a tank. But if I do, I’ll get a real GOLD medal, emailed to me. And we all know what a GOLD medal in an email is worth. Don’t we?

I would be Dead

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, Voting Rights

Is anyone paying attention to anything at all? Really, is anyone thinking about anything other than the Grand Putz and his minions and their daily diversions?

Let’s look at real life. I’m past retirement age, and my Social Security won’t cover my house payment. Nobody cares, because I’m one of the “chosen few” who actually owns a home. I still pay taxes, because I still work, because Medicare fixed my body, not because my country failed me. They didn’t fail me. I failed me. But without Social Security and Medicare, I wouldn’t be up shit creek. I would be dead. Medicare paid for the Tavor valve that’s keeping my heart working right now. That’s not a metaphor. That’s not hyperbole. That’s a valve, in my chest, paid for by a program he jokes about gutting.

On August 14, 1935, this government passed the Social Security Act, because older people had no money left once they could no longer work. In November 1936, the first Social Security cards were issued. In January 1937, payroll taxes were collected for the first time, and the first one-time lump-sum payments went out. In January 1940, Ida May Fuller received the first-ever monthly retirement check.

Your President Donald J. Trump wants to deport all the communists who did this terrible thing to us.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act Amendments into law, though actual health coverage and benefits officially began on July 1, 1966. This is known as Medicare.

July 30, 1965: the legislation creating Medicare Part A and Part B was signed in Independence, Missouri. Former President Harry S. Truman and his wife, Bess, received the first two Medicare cards.
July 1, 1966: the program officially went into effect, providing medical coverage to more than 19 million Americans age 65 and older.

Your President Donald J. Trump wants to deport all the communists who did this terrible thing to us.

SNAP benefits trace back to two key periods: the original Food Stamp Program, launched May 16, 1939, and the modern, permanent program established by the Food Stamp Act of 1964, under President Lyndon B. Johnson. The name officially changed to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, in 2008.

Early Program (1939–1943): On May 16, 1939, the first food stamp plan started in Rochester, New York, to help low-income families buy surplus farm goods during the Great Depression. It ended in 1943, as employment and food demand shifted during World War II.

Modern Program (1961–Present): On May 29, 1961, President John F. Kennedy revived the initiative through pilot projects. On August 31, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the permanent Food Stamp Act into law. By July 1, 1974, the system had expanded nationwide across all states. In 2008, it was officially renamed SNAP under the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act.

Your President Donald J. Trump wants to deport all the communists who did this terrible thing to us.

Is this progress, or a step backward into the darkness? President Trump is also threatening, promising, and begging anyone and everyone to kill the Senate filibuster so he can FORCE through his SAVE America Act. Key word: FORCE. This is about elections, and apparently you need to force your way through one to protect it.

This president is trying to stay in power. That is his entire agenda. Not you. Not me. Just his bank accounts, his ego, and his power. He must not lose power, and he does not care who pays the price for that, or what it costs them.

Right now, you, the American people, are still in charge. I’m just not sure for how much longer that stays true.

What comes next isn’t up to the Democrats. It isn’t up to Trump. It isn’t up to me, either, bummer. It’s up to you.

Choose wisely.

One size doesn’t fit all. It never has – Video

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, purple

One size doesn’t fit all. It never has, and it never will. Maybe that’s the problem. Trump is telling everyone that his size is the right size, and people are buying it. Why are they buying it? That’s a damn good question that should be very hard to answer. But sadly, it’s very easy to answer.

It’s because no other sizes are being offered. Everyone’s sitting around either chasing their own tail or chasing the last stupid thing Trump did. Why is everyone talking about the dinner and the stupid 2028 cap? Who cares about the cap? Everyone cares, because nobody’s gotten together and decided what to actually do instead. And Trump and MAGA don’t just know this, they’re working it.

I call it Diversion 101. It works. On Mondays, he’s going to eradicate the Iranians. On Tuesdays, he controls the Strait of Hormuz. On Wednesdays, he sounds even more stupid and draws elephants. On Thursdays, he claims victory. On Fridays, he sends troops to some blue state. On Saturday, he accepts donations. And on Sunday, he prays over his golf course for more contributors. Every evening, his team of trained monkeys will start sending out so, so sad tweets for half the night, and upon the magic hour of eating a McDonald’s, he’ll rinse and repeat.

============================================

I can sit here and write jokes about the clown in the White House all day long.

But there’s nothing funny about an opposition that screams foul all day long and has nothing else to offer, and nobody to back it up.

Ironically, that last paragraph could have been written about either side. So I’ll just let it sit.

Right now this is playing like vaudeville theater, with one glaring exception. In vaudeville, when they used the hook to pull the clown off the stage, they had another act ready to take his place. I have the sinking feeling the stage is going to be empty.

I’m really starting to wonder if the Democrats actually have anyone who could be a good presidential candidate. Any independents worth looking at? I’m not against a good moderate, real Republican, a RINO, as they’re now known, not one of those posers on the Hill. Is there anyone worthy of the title?

Now is the time to step forward. Not after the midterms, not after Trump and his machine make more headway and do more damage. Let’s see some leadership. Someone, or maybe a team, with an actual plan. What a concept. A plan that might work for both the blues and the reds. Oh my, I must still be dreaming.

The campaign for the 2028 presidency started the day Trump made his first joke about running for a third term. What has anyone done since, other than run around like a chicken in the farmyard? If that sounds cruel, then maybe I’m making my point.

By my count, as of August 1st, 2026: whoever plans on taking down the Trump regime and becoming the 48th President of the United States has already lost 3,073 days of campaigning. Trump made his first third-term announcement on March 3, 2018.

Reclaim the Name — Or Get a New One, Or let’s get Horny – Video

On - activism, Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Midterms then 2028, Politics, Voting Rights

Let me ask you a question. Do you want this to be a one party government?

Think hard before you answer. Because if we stay the course we’re on, that’s exactly where we’ll end up. And if we kick the current fools out and hand everything to the Democrats, that’s where we’ll end up too. Just with different furniture in the same room.

MAGA has put a stink on the Republican Party that no skunk could ever equal. It’s going to take decades to wash it off. So what do we do?

============================================

And you want to know something almost funny? Donny used to be a Democrat. Yes. A card carrying member of the party he now calls COMMIE. They dodged his bullet somehow. You got crapped on instead.

So where does that leave us?

Dark Money, the big PAC money, Citizens United, the Federalist Society machinery, has heavily invested in the two party system and isn’t going anywhere regardless of what happens to MAGA. They’ll pull something out of their hat or somewhere close to their back pockets. Far right groups, far left groups, same game different jerseys. Maybe they’ll call it MAGA 2.0. It will still smell the same.

===================================================

Reclaim the name. Or get a new one.

The RINO label was meant to shame you into silence or compliance. It did neither permanently. You’re still here. The party you believed in is still worth believing in, fiscal responsibility, limited government, fair elections, reasonable conservatism that doesn’t require burning anything down.

If the Republican name is too stained to salvage, get a new one. And if you want a suggestion, keep the RINO. Just put an H in it. A Rhino is a thick skinned, large horned animal that doesn’t move for anything and has been around for fifty million years.

That’s a considerably fiercer mascot than whatever crawled out of Mar-a-Lago.

Get a little Horny in the process/

Democrat Drops Out Setting Up Idaho Showdown 07/31/2026

On - Forward Party, Politics, purple, shared

Bill —

This week, the disruption in Idaho’s Senate race opened up a new viable path for our independent to win. The Democratic nominee dropped out of the race, narrowing the field and leaving it a one-on-one race between Todd Achilles, an independent Army veteran, and Jim Risch, the 83-year-old Republican incumbent. In a state President Trump won by 36 points, this is a real opportunity to compete in a deep-red state, and most notably, Achilles has been consistently polling ahead with voters informed about him.

Until this week, the conventional wisdom said that no matter how strong an independent candidate might be, a Democrat on the ballot in a deep-red state would split the non-Republican vote and hand the incumbent an easy win. That math just changed.

David Roth, the Democratic nominee, had raised less than $10,000 before stepping aside. Achilles has raised almost 100 times more than that!

Todd Achilles served his country as an Army officer and tank commander and then came home and built a career as a telecom executive, college professor, and state legislator. He ran for Senate as an independent because he saw the dissatisfaction happening in Idaho that stemmed from Washington leaders.

Farmers being hit with tariffs and veterans exhausted from partisan dysfunction are growing more and more disenchanted by the day in Idaho–all while their incumbent, Jim Risch, has not held a town hall in 18 years.

This ballot change matters not just for Idaho but for the entire country and for everything the Forward Party has been building toward.

The strategy at play here is something we have pushed for years. The Senate today operates with margins so narrow that a small number of members not beholden to either party could determine the balance of power on every vote. They would not be a majority but a bloc that neither party could control or ignore.

This is where we have a game of numbers. You don’t need 51 independent senators to change the Senate. You only need 3 or 4. In a chamber that regularly deadlocks on party lines, 3 or 4 members who answer only to their constituents would be the most powerful voting bloc in Washington.

This is a golden opportunity to show that we can improve American politics from outside the two-party system rather than waiting for the system to fix itself. No one in American politics thought that Idaho’s Senate seat would be contested, but here we are.

That is what we are trying to build. And as of Tuesday, the map just became more realistic than it has ever been.

That map includes polls now showing Independent Seth Bodnar ahead of the Republican in Montana if it’s one-on-one and Independent Brian Bengs ahead of the Republican in South Dakota. Each of them has raised 4 times more than the Democrat in the race. The map could spread further than anyone had imagined.

The Lineup for Change in the Senate

Idaho

Todd Achilles – U.S. Senate

One-on-one as of Tuesday. Democrat dropped out. Achilles leads Risch in polling on informed ballot.

Montana

Seth Bodnar – U.S. Senate

Polling ahead of the Republican one-on-one. Raised 4x more than the Democrat in the race. Approximately 30,000 petition signatures submitted across 52 of 56 counties. We are watching for a similar development in Idaho.

South Dakota

Brian Bengs – U.S. Senate

Polling ahead of the Republican one-on-one. Raised 4x more than the Democrat. A Navy and Air Force veteran and law professor. The Democrat remains on the ballot, but the race has a similar dynamic to Montana.

Colorado

Bob Chew – U.S. Senate

Running on the Forward Party ballot line against Sen. Hickenlooper. A large ad buy is running statewide. He has over $1m cash on hand to compete with.

The Forward Party has been building the infrastructure for this moment. The results are starting to show up where it counts: on the ballot, in the polls, and now in a one-on-one race that nobody thought was possible six months ago.

If you haven’t yet, sign and share our Declaration of Independents!

Earlier this month, we declared our independence from the two parties and invite you to share with friends and neighbors so we can stand together in working towards a better democracy.

We also restocked our 250th shirt on our store, get yours before they are gone forever!

Continuing with our Idaho Showdown, we have Todd Achilles on a brand new podcast episode this week with Bob Chew from Colorado! They will be talking with our hosts about what drew them to the Forward Party, why they are running, and what a few good Forwardists in the Senate means for the country.

Click the image below to watch.

— August 01, 2026 at 5:00pm Eastern Time

Young Forwardists Introduction

Join members of the Young Forwardists as they introduce you to the Forward Party and how you can get involved in our pivotal movement to make politics better.

— August 02, 2026 at 8:00pm Eastern Time

Girls Just Want To Have Fun- Women’s Committee Virtual Meet and Greet

The Women’s Committee has been growing, and we want to learn more about our new members. Join us and get to know each other better.

— August 06, 2026 at 5:30pm Arizona Time

Discussion – “Reawakening the Spirit of Philadelphia” by Chris Gibson

Join us for the first of a series of virtual discussions with fellow Forward Party supporters. Each discussion will dive into ideas for strengthening our political system, reducing partisan division, and creating a culture of problem-solving and consensus-building.

Our first book discussion will be on “Reawakening the Spirit of Philadelphia” by Chris Gibson

If you’re tired of waiting for the system to fix itself — this is your moment.
👥 Volunteer | 🗳️ Run for Office | 💸 Donate | 🌐 forwardparty.com

Idaho Just Got Real – Andrew Yang Newsletter

Forward Party Co-founder Andrew Yang breaks down the Idaho race and highlights his conversation with Todd Achilles

Trump administration petitions Supreme Court to enforce mail-in voting order | FOX NEWS

The administration argues the order prevents non-citizen voting, while opposing state officials say it unconstitutionally overrides state authority before the midterms. Featuring CEO Lindsey Drath speaking on redistricting

When the House is on Fire, You Call a Firefighter. Nate Powell is Hoping to Come Out of a Crowded Primary Unsinged.

In Washington’s 5th Congressional District, Forward-endorsed candidate Nate Powell is running for the U.S. House in a highly contested field.

Copyright © 2026 Forward Party, all rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
1701 Rhode Island Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036, United States

So What? – Video

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Our Heritage, Politics, Voting Rights

So What?
The Losing Strategy as the Game Plan

Oh, so what, so what! What difference does it make, like really, does it matter?

For months now, over a year, I have tuned in and followed Michael Popok, Ben Meiselas, Jack Cocchiarella, and Glenn Kirschner, just to name a few you may have watched or followed. Great to hear about the case files against the Trump administration and how Trump and his team keep losing.

It just warms the cockles of my heart to see Trump take a beating in court, one federal judge after another saying no to little Donny.

=======================================

“Hey, boss man, we’re trying, but they keep using the law against us.” The LAW

The other tactic, and this one is truly scary, because it’s starting to work on me, is fatigue. I’m tired. You’re tired. Everybody’s tired, burned out from all the BS. And “so what” is exactly where fatigue leads you. The moment you get there, they’ve already won. Not because they beat you in court. Because you stopped watching the scoreboard.

You Stopped Caring.

So while I’m still watching, I’ve got two requests for Donny.

Request one: take that damn tarp down from the Kennedy Center. It’s time to grow up.

Request two: where the hell are the Epstein/Trump files?

I would be Dead – Video

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, Voting Rights

Is anyone paying attention to anything at all? Really, is anyone thinking about anything other than the Grand Putz and his minions and their daily diversions?

Let’s look at real life. I’m past retirement age, and my Social Security won’t cover my house payment. Nobody cares, because I’m one of the “chosen few” who actually owns a home. I still pay taxes, because I still work, because Medicare fixed my body, not because my country failed me. They didn’t fail me. I failed me. But without Social Security and Medicare, I wouldn’t be up shit creek. I would be dead. Medicare paid for the Tavor valve that’s keeping my heart working right now. That’s not a metaphor. That’s not hyperbole. That’s a valve, in my chest, paid for by a program he jokes about gutting.

On August 14, 1935, this government passed the Social Security Act, because older people had no money left once they could no longer work. In November 1936, the first Social Security cards were issued. In January 1937, payroll taxes were collected for the first time, and the first one-time lump-sum payments went out. In January 1940, Ida May Fuller received the first-ever monthly retirement check.

===================================

Your President Donald J. Trump wants to deport all the communists who did this terrible thing to us.

Is this progress, or a step backward into the darkness? President Trump is also threatening, promising, and begging anyone and everyone to kill the Senate filibuster so he can FORCE through his SAVE America Act. Key word: FORCE. This is about elections, and apparently you need to force your way through one to protect it.

This president is trying to stay in power. That is his entire agenda. Not you. Not me. Just his bank accounts, his ego, and his power. He must not lose power, and he does not care who pays the price for that, or what it costs them.

Right now, you, the American people, are still in charge. I’m just not sure for how much longer that stays true.

What comes next isn’t up to the Democrats. It isn’t up to Trump. It isn’t up to me, either, bummer. It’s up to you.

Choose wisely.

One size doesn’t fit all. It never has

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, purple

One size doesn’t fit all. It never has, and it never will. Maybe that’s the problem. Trump is telling everyone that his size is the right size, and people are buying it. Why are they buying it? That’s a damn good question that should be very hard to answer. But sadly, it’s very easy to answer.

It’s because no other sizes are being offered. Everyone’s sitting around either chasing their own tail or chasing the last stupid thing Trump did. Why is everyone talking about the dinner and the stupid 2028 cap? Who cares about the cap? Everyone cares, because nobody’s gotten together and decided what to actually do instead. And Trump and MAGA don’t just know this, they’re working it.

I call it Diversion 101. It works. On Mondays, he’s going to eradicate the Iranians. On Tuesdays, he controls the Strait of Hormuz. On Wednesdays, he sounds even more stupid and draws elephants. On Thursdays, he claims victory. On Fridays, he sends troops to some blue state. On Saturday, he accepts donations. And on Sunday, he prays over his golf course for more contributors. Every evening, his team of trained monkeys will start sending out so, so sad tweets for half the night, and upon the magic hour of eating a McDonald’s, he’ll rinse and repeat.

All the while, the opposition keeps reacting in outrage, chasing every false lead, filing another lawsuit that won’t be settled until 2045, and claiming victory over what, exactly?

They need to stop falling for this. It’s the same routine. Have we learned nothing from Ivan Pavlov? He’s got the MAGA base salivating on command, and he’s got the rest of us reacting right on cue too. That must have been the one book Trump actually read.

What’s the plan, Stan? What’s the scoop, Troop? What’s the agenda, Brenda? What’s the move, Groove? What’s the action, Jackson? What’s the play, Ray?

Come on. If I have to come up with this corny stuff, the Democrats can start getting their act together. So what’s the plan? Don’t feed me a warmed-over Harris. Give me some skin to work with. Because if you keep sitting on the bench like you have been, the game will be over before you even get warmed up.

If you think you’re still playing by the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s rulebook, heck, I’ll even go up to the ’24s rulebook, then you’ve already lost. Save your money and just go home.

I can sit here and write jokes about the clown in the White House all day long.

But there’s nothing funny about an opposition that screams foul all day long and has nothing else to offer, and nobody to back it up.

Ironically, that last paragraph could have been written about either side. So I’ll just let it sit.

Right now this is playing like vaudeville theater, with one glaring exception. In vaudeville, when they used the hook to pull the clown off the stage, they had another act ready to take his place. I have the sinking feeling the stage is going to be empty.

I’m really starting to wonder if the Democrats actually have anyone who could be a good presidential candidate. Any independents worth looking at? I’m not against a good moderate, real Republican, a RINO, as they’re now known, not one of those posers on the Hill. Is there anyone worthy of the title?

Now is the time to step forward. Not after the midterms, not after Trump and his machine make more headway and do more damage. Let’s see some leadership. Someone, or maybe a team, with an actual plan. What a concept. A plan that might work for both the blues and the reds. Oh my, I must still be dreaming.

The campaign for the 2028 presidency started the day Trump made his first joke about running for a third term. What has anyone done since, other than run around like a chicken in the farmyard? If that sounds cruel, then maybe I’m making my point.

By my count, as of August 1st, 2026: whoever plans on taking down the Trump regime and becoming the 48th President of the United States has already lost 3,073 days of campaigning. Trump made his first third-term announcement on March 3, 2018.

20251019 1224 elephant reclaiming dignity simple compose 01k7yyrxqdemdrzb6etc09teyd

Reclaim the Name — Or Get a New One, Or let’s get Horny

On - activism, Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Midterms then 2028, Politics, Voting Rights

Let me ask you a question. Do you want this to be a one party government?

Think hard before you answer. Because if we stay the course we’re on, that’s exactly where we’ll end up. And if we kick the current fools out and hand everything to the Democrats, that’s where we’ll end up too. Just with different furniture in the same room.

MAGA has put a stink on the Republican Party that no skunk could ever equal. It’s going to take decades to wash it off. So what do we do?

Here’s something worth remembering. The RINOs, Republicans in Name Only, as Second String Donny so helpfully labeled them, were never really MAGA to begin with. They got saddled with the yoke through lies and promises and a very effective campaign of misinformation. They saw through the BS pretty quickly. The trouble is, as I said, what about the smell now? It clings whether you earned it or not.

“Republican In Name Only” was one of the most effective political hijackings in modern history. Trump took an entire established political party, rebranded everyone who disagreed with him as frauds and traitors, and walked off with the deed to the building. The real Republicans, the ones who believed in fiscal responsibility, limited government, and fair play, suddenly found themselves homeless in their own house.

And you want to know something almost funny? Donny used to be a Democrat. Yes. A card carrying member of the party he now calls COMMIE. They dodged his bullet somehow. You got crapped on instead.

So where does that leave us?

Dark Money, the big PAC money, Citizens United, the Federalist Society machinery, has heavily invested in the two party system and isn’t going anywhere regardless of what happens to MAGA. They’ll pull something out of their hat or somewhere close to their back pockets. Far right groups, far left groups, same game different jerseys. Maybe they’ll call it MAGA 2.0. It will still smell the same.

Which means the real Republicans, the ones who got bamboozled and are now standing in the wreckage wondering what happened to the party they grew up with, have a decision to make.

Here’s what I think needs to happen. Not all at once. Not easily. But it needs to start now.

First, state election laws need to change. Not the way Trump’s Save America Steal the Election Act wants to change them. The other direction. Did you know Texas only gives a third party candidate thirty days after the primary to gather signatures to get on the ballot? Thirty days. That’s not a level playing field. That’s a locked door with a sign that says use other entrance. And Texas is not the only state doing it. Not by a long shot.

Second, look up Ranked Choice Voting. Read about it. Don’t take my word for it. Don’t take anyone else’s word against it either. RBV lets voters rank candidates in order of preference so your vote isn’t wasted if your first choice doesn’t make the cut. It can help address the Electoral College problem, reduce the stranglehold of the two party system, and give third party candidates a fighting chance without the spoiler effect. It won’t fix everything. But it fixes some important things.

Third, and this one’s for the real Republicans specifically.

Reclaim the name. Or get a new one.

The RINO label was meant to shame you into silence or compliance. It did neither permanently. You’re still here. The party you believed in is still worth believing in, fiscal responsibility, limited government, fair elections, reasonable conservatism that doesn’t require burning anything down.

If the Republican name is too stained to salvage, get a new one. And if you want a suggestion, keep the RINO. Just put an H in it. A Rhino is a thick skinned, large horned animal that doesn’t move for anything and has been around for fifty million years.

That’s a considerably fiercer mascot than whatever crawled out of Mar-a-Lago.

Get a little Horny in the process/

Two and a Half Years to Go: We Look at Impeachment, and the Consequences, Part 4 — Winning 2028

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, elections and media, Impeachment trap, Politics

I’ve always been a conservative. I’ve always registered Republican. Today, I consider myself an independent with a lowercase “i.” No party. No checkbox.

For a moment, I’m going to step off my usual neutral track. My biggest disagreement has always been my distrust of Donald Trump and the hard-right MAGA movement, not the conservative Republican base generally. It seems to me that the political pendulum is going to swing left. I just don’t want it to swing wildly left. I distrust the hard left as much as I distrust the hard right.

Moderate. Remember.

So, looking toward 2028, the question becomes: who makes sense? Who can represent a country that is not neatly divided into two simple groups? Who can represent both the liberal and conservative values that exist across America?

The answer I keep coming back to is simple.

I like a team.

I think putting a team together on day one is the smart move. Not just a presidential candidate, but a governing team. Two people who complement each other, who genuinely work together, and either of whom could step into the presidency if necessary without the American people feeling anxious or uncertain about the future.

The old way, selecting one popular candidate and then having the party scramble to find a vice president who might help win a particular state or appeal to a particular voting group. is outdated. It does a disservice to the office and to the voters.

Why not build the team first?

Presidential candidates have one of the hardest jobs in America. They have to travel across a country where people have completely different needs, different economies, and different histories. What matters to a farmer in rural America may be very different from what matters to someone working in a technology center or a manufacturing community.

The president cannot personally solve every problem.

Nor should they.

What I want to hear from a candidate is something like this:

“I am here to help you solve your own problems. When you need help, the federal government will be there. But government should support people, not replace them.”

That does not mean everything belongs at the local level. Some things belong to all Americans equally. Basic education standards, protection of constitutional rights, healthcare standards, and guarantees of religious freedom are examples of responsibilities that require a national commitment.

The challenge is finding the proper balance.

That is a pretty big order. We want someone who can make every decision, solve every problem, and manage every crisis. Wait a minute, don’t we have that right now? At least the current President seems to believe that is possible.

I’m not going to spend this article discussing Trump. I only mention him to reinforce the reason I believe a team is needed. The presidency was never designed to be a one-person operation. It was designed around a system of checks, balances, advisors, and institutions.

The team should not begin after the election.

It should already exist before the election.

I started with the idea of a President and Vice President. Yes, a President and Vice President, but a Vice President that the American people would genuinely trust if they had to step into those much larger shoes. If that happened, the country should know that the same governing philosophy and agenda would continue.

We are entering an era of artificial intelligence, robotics, space exploration, and challenges that previous generations could not have imagined. Why are we still choosing executive leadership the same way we did generations ago?

Why not modernize how America chooses its executive branch?

Imagine a system where the presidential team is not simply a candidate and a running mate, but the beginning of a governing organization. After the primaries, there is still time before the general election to assemble a proposed administration. The voters would know what they were actually voting for.

The country would not lose months after an election while Congress debates and fights over cabinet selections. The vetting process would already have been underway. The American people would have a clearer understanding of who would actually be responsible for running the government.

And here is another benefit.

Yes, today we are stuck with a two-party system. Hopefully, someday that changes. But a governing team could begin moving us beyond the idea that the only qualification that matters is the letter after someone’s name.

The team leader should have the ability to select the best people for the job. Republican, Democrat, Independent, Libertarian, the question should be whether they are qualified and capable.

Today’s challenges are simply too great for one person, one party, or one ideology to solve alone.

I spent much of my career in engineering, and one lesson applies to every complex project: you do not hire one person and tell them, “Make it work.”

You assemble a team.

You identify the lead programmer, the project manager, and the people who can work together to accomplish the goal. You define the scope, the expected results, and the responsibilities before anyone starts writing code. Then you have oversight to make sure the project stays on track.

Government is the largest project any of us could ever undertake.

Yet we continue to pretend that one person can manage it all.

The president is still responsible. The buck still has to stop somewhere. But a strong team does not weaken leadership. It strengthens it.

It is time to stop playing politics and start playing government.

While we still have one.

Maybe that is the lesson America should take from the Trump years. Not simply who won or who lost, but that our system needs to adapt.

Let’s respond by building a team.

Not just a campaign team.

A governing team.

A team with a realistic agenda that can actually be accomplished, not campaign promises made from a stage two weeks before Election Day.

A team ready to govern on day one.

It’s Now or Never – Video

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Midterms then 2028, Politics

Before we go any further, here’s something most people don’t know.

MAGA, Make America Great Again, didn’t start with Donald Trump. Ronald Reagan used the phrase “Let’s Make America Great Again” in his 1980 campaign against Jimmy Carter. It appeared on buttons, posters, and in speeches. Bill Clinton used a version of it in 1992. It was, at one point, genuinely inspiring, a call to something better, not a permission slip for something worse.

It took Donald Trump to turn it into a pun. A sick joke. Like only Donny could do.

So let’s play with the letters, since we’re apparently stuck with them:

The Dark Version — what MAGA actually delivered:

MAGA – Make America Grift Again
MAGA – Make America Gullible Again
MAFA – Make America Fear Again (or Fart Again, if you watched Trump leap from the Oil Barons conference and rush to the window)
============================

The RINOs are the true Republicans. Not the posers. Not the ones who poisoned the hopes of so many for so little.

It’s still only four letters. And if we’re going to be stuck with four letters, let’s see what happens when we throw out the G and try again:

The Hopeful Version — what we could actually build:

MARA – Make America Rational Again
MASA – Make America Sane Again
====================================================

I’m placing my money on the belief that the American voter is ready to face actual issues. Ready to turn their backs on slogans and false promises.

But if you need evidence of how poorly the real MAGA is doing, here’s a little experiment. Go to X, formerly Twitter, now Elon’s personal propaganda machine. Find any “Trump is my savior” post. See all those accounts praising the mighty pumpkin? Click on one of their avatars, then click the three dots, the one on the left.

Surprise.

That hottie is a bot. Running from a server in Pakistan, Asia, Africa, or Eastern Europe. The praise is robot code. The followers are purchased fiction. And every fake account is making Elon a fortune while making Trump look beloved.

=======================================

Don’t get fooled by four letters again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

In the words of the one and only true King —

It’s Now or Never.

So What?

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Our Heritage, Politics, Voting Rights

So What?
The Losing Strategy as the Game Plan

Oh, so what, so what! What difference does it make, like really, does it matter?

For months now, over a year, I have tuned in and followed Michael Popok, Ben Meiselas, Jack Cocchiarella, and Glenn Kirschner, just to name a few you may have watched or followed. Great to hear about the case files against the Trump administration and how Trump and his team keep losing.

It just warms the cockles of my heart to see Trump take a beating in court, one federal judge after another saying no to little Donny.

This has been going on since Trump signed his first executive order, probably to swap out the bidets in the ladies’ lounge for gilded urinals, or something else along those lines.

He tries something. A suit is filed against him or “the thing.” And odds are, he or “it” loses. Forget the waste of time and taxpayer money, it isn’t coming out of his pocket, and if it was, he’d just file another appeal, Trump fashion.

But something has become a pattern that everybody’s saying without really saying it. Bizarre, really. He keeps losing. Bizarre. Wasn’t there a comic rag with a name like that? Mad Magazine, maybe. Must be showing my age again. But it is kind of bizarre if you think about it. Bizarro, that was it.

Let’s take a look at his latest Don Quixote charge, faithful Sancho (Blanche) at his side, attacking those wild and dangerous state elections that must look to him a lot like windmills, or something else very sinister. He keeps getting thrown from his steed, but Sancho keeps his fearless leader in the righteous battle, as any good bootshiner should.Copy to a new draft

So let’s look at the record. So far: Quixote-Sancho, 0. Windmills, 15. And 60 percent of those windmills had Republican judges leading the defense. Quite the defeat. Or quite the win, depending on which side of the scorecard you’re applauding from.

So circling back to our attorneys, analyzing and dissecting and passing judgment, all happy-faced about Trump’s losses, I have to ask myself: so what? That’s what I asked myself. SO WHAT? And why aren’t these experts in law asking that question too? So what. What has changed? Not a damn thing.

If the DOJ keeps losing, why does losing not matter anymore? Hey readers, that is a really, really big question. Has losing become a deliberate strategy? “Hey, look, we’re trying, but those left-wing commies are blocking us.”

Don’t forget Trump’s latest move into McCarthyism, look it up, 1950s America, almost as ugly as the 1970s race wars. Say it often enough, and some idiot will believe it.

But back to losing as a strategy. Why lose on purpose? At the very least, the minions can say, “Hey, boss man, we’re trying, but they keep using the law against us.” That line is worth repeating because of the shear irony in it.

“Hey, boss man, we’re trying, but they keep using the law against us.” The LAW

The other tactic, and this one is truly scary, because it’s starting to work on me, is fatigue. I’m tired. You’re tired. Everybody’s tired, burned out from all the BS. And “so what” is exactly where fatigue leads you. The moment you get there, they’ve already won. Not because they beat you in court. Because you stopped watching the scoreboard.

You Stopped Caring.

So while I’m still watching, I’ve got two requests for Donny.

Request one: take that damn tarp down from the Kennedy Center. It’s time to grow up.

Request two: where the hell are the Epstein/Trump files?

Two and a Half Years to Go: We Look at Impeachment, and the Consequences, Part 3 — Governing vs. Revenge

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, elections and media, Impeachment trap, Politics

Two and a Half Years to Go: We Look at Impeachment, and the Consequences

Part 3 — Governing vs. Revenge

A quick caveat before we get into it. I’ll be referring to Democrats throughout, since they’re the opposing side in our two-party system and the ones midterm math points to. But I want to stress that what I actually want is moderation, a meeting of minds and policies considerate of the needs of the citizens of the United States, not the desires of individual politicians. I know that’s asking a lot. But miracles have been known to happen. Right, Santa?

Assuming Democrats take control of Congress come the midterms, and all signs point to it, here’s the real question: do we spend two years re-litigating the last four, or do we spend it fixing what’s broken?

I don’t believe we can do both well.

It doesn’t take much to understand why. First, we’ll have a wave of new senators and representatives who need to come up to speed on how Congress actually functions, which, given the last few years, may be a skill some incumbents could stand to relearn too. Second, we need Congress to actually show up and do the job we pay them for. For an average salary of $175,000 a year, I think it’s fair to expect something in return. I don’t get paid a dime for writing this.

Once they’re back, the first order of business shouldn’t be revenge, it should be reinstating the services that were stripped away, especially the ones targeted by political demographics. Government is supposed to be for the people, by the people. Not for settling scores.

Instead of revenge, they need to re-establish responsible government. That means securing elections the way they’re supposed to be secured, by the states, not by an authoritarian federal hand. And speaking of authoritarian government, Congress has until 2028 to start rebuilding real limitations on the executive branch. Because we don’t want a Democrat dictator any more than we want a MAGA or Republican one. And yes, I consider MAGA a separate party that hijacked the Republican one, you’re welcome to your own interpretation.

Congress will have to actually work, maybe for the first time in decades. There’s plenty to fix. Healthcare reform can’t wait another ten years. Veterans are waiting on help that “eventually” doesn’t solve. Immigration isn’t a padlock and a skin-tone test. And then there’s the budget, where do you even start. My foundation series touched on AI taxation as a possible short-term bridge, not a full answer, but a bridge is more than we have now, and we need actual answers.

What we don’t need is a Congress that spends its time impeaching a lame-duck president. He can be sued and held accountable after he’s out in 2028. In the meantime, he’s already been mostly neutered, we’ll still have to endure the tweets and the executive orders, but we could always install a shredder to make government a little more efficient.

That doesn’t mean no accountability. There should still be real oversight, reinstate the Inspectors General, put them back under Congress’s control, and let them do their jobs. Oversight isn’t revenge. Revenge is spending two years trying to erase a president instead of one day trying to fix what he broke.

So: what do you want? Revenge, or results?

And if Democrats actually want to win in 2028 — what story do they want to be able to tell?

Part 3 — Governing vs. Revenge

—

Two and a Half Years to Go: We Look at Impeachment, and the Consequences
Part 1 — Trump’s Greatest Unintended Successes
Part 2 — The Impeachment Trap
Part 3 — Governing vs. Revenge
Part 4 — Winning 2028

Go Back to School, Donny — And Take Mike Johnson With You – Video

On - Commentary, Politics, Trump

A President making $2,000,000,000.00 on the side in his first year in office is not questionable?

Write that number out. Two billion dollars. In one year. While running the country. And we’re supposed to be worried about food stamps being communist?

Mike Johnson, grow a spine and speak for yourself. We don’t need baseless McCarthyism anymore. We buried that particular ugly chapter once already and the grave should have stayed sealed.

==================================================

Here’s what I’m asking you to do. One thing. Just one.

Read.

I’m not telling you what to read. I’m telling you the truth is out there. The internet exists. Avoid the noise of news outlets all of them, left and right, find a topic, and start digging. If you find something you don’t like, look again. If you keep finding the same answer you don’t like over and over, from different sources, with different authors, across different decades, then maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your position.

I’ve done it many times. It’s uncomfortable. It’s also the only thing that actually works.

The lies only work when we stop asking questions. Repetition turns lies into perceived truth, but only if nobody pushes back.

Push back.

What Do We Need? (A Question Asked Mid-Toke)

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Midterms then 2028, Politics, purple, Real Men, View From 1964

So much to think about. My brain hurts.

What does this wonderful country need in a President? What do I need in a President? Are those even two different questions? Can they be the same thing?

I’ll be honest, I’m out back, enjoying something local again. Enquiring minds need to know.

So what do we actually need? Big question, if I do say so myself. And I’m here to tell you, yes, why me? Because apparently I’m the only one asking. Just me and my doobie.

Well , I’m in Oregon. What’s that? You’re in North Carolina? Well, fudge. That plan just went right out the window. What’s best for me may not be what’s best for you. Maybe that’s exactly why we have state governments. Could be. What do you think? Is that why we’re called a Republic in the first place? Fancy that.

Now, a quick detour into Trump bashing. How much money and energy has that fool spent trying to punish blue states simply because they didn’t vote for him? What a waste of presidential energy. But what do you expect from Second String Donny? Okay. Trump bashing over. Doobie’s out.

Let’s make this even more confusing.

I live in a suburb close to wine country and farmland, but also close to the big metro. Almost all of Oregon is fishing, timber, hunting, or farming, yet nearly every political decision in this state gets made by the blue, because the population centers are Portland, Eugene, Salem, and Corvallis. College towns, every one of them. So the majority of the money and the decision-making gets structured around housing, homelessness, drugs, and freeways, while the rest of the state quietly picks up the bill.

Doesn’t sound very fair, does it?

Now zoom that out to the national scale and you start to understand a real piece of the division we’re living through. Too many decisions get built around the needs of the masses in the cities, while rural communities pick up the tab, if not in coin, then in grain.

I’ve oversimplified the problem here, deliberately, just to make the point land. But I think the point landed anyway.

So let’s simplify the original question. Who, or what, do we actually want for our next President, other than a golf hack with an ego problem and an image obsession?

I’ll be looking for someone who genuinely recognizes diversity and understands that micromanagement from Washington is a fool’s errand they have no business attempting. I’ll be looking for candidates who understand that the answer for New York isn’t the answer for Phoenix, and who are willing to let each region work out its own problems, asking for federal help only when it’s actually needed. I’ll be looking for candidates who believe in a strong military as a deterrent, not a submissive club to be quietly dismantled or weaponized for personal grievance.

This is a post that’s going to take on many forms in the months ahead. All I really want to accomplish today is getting you to start asking the same question I’m asking, what do you think we actually need, and to stop listening to the BS in the meantime.

Okay by you?

Two and a Half Years to Go: We Look at Impeachment, and the Consequences, Part 2 — The Impeachment Trap

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, elections and media, Impeachment trap, Politics

What if impeachment hands the presidency to someone even more effective?

If Donald Trump were impeached and removed from office, there would be no special election and no national debate over his replacement. Under the Constitution, Vice President JD Vance would become President.

For many Trump critics, that may sound like a victory. But before celebrating, it’s worth asking a simple question:

Would that actually improve the political landscape, or make it more difficult?

My personal opinion is no secret. I don’t trust JD Vance, and I wouldn’t vote for him. But this article isn’t about whether I like him or dislike him. It’s about the political consequences of making him President.

History shows that incumbency is a significant advantage in American politics. A sitting president has the visibility of the office, the ability to shape the national conversation, and the support that comes from leading a major political party. Any discussion of impeachment has to include that reality.

That advantage may be even greater today.

On June 30, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, striking down long-standing limits on coordinated campaign spending between political parties and candidates. Supporters hailed the decision as a victory for political speech under the First Amendment. Critics argued that it further increased the influence of large donors and wealthy interests in federal elections.

Whatever one’s opinion of the ruling, its practical effect is clear: political parties now have greater freedom to coordinate and spend money on behalf of their candidates.

If JD Vance became President through impeachment, he would enter the 2028 campaign not only as the incumbent but also with the full advantages of that office and a Republican Party operating under a more permissive campaign finance system.

That doesn’t guarantee victory. Elections are never guaranteed. But it would give him advantages he otherwise would not have enjoyed.

This is why I question whether impeachment is the best strategy.

If the objective is simply to remove Donald Trump from office, impeachment succeeds. But if the objective is to change the direction of the country, the answer is less obvious. Replacing Trump with a younger, quieter, and potentially more disciplined Republican president may ultimately strengthen the very political movement opponents hope to defeat.

Congress has another option.

If voters change control of the House or Senate in the midterm elections, Congress can investigate, provide oversight, control spending, and act as the constitutional check the Framers intended, without creating a new incumbent for the next presidential election.

The strategic question, then, is not whether Donald Trump deserves impeachment. Others will debate that.

The question is whether impeachment today makes winning in 2028 easier—or harder.

Part 2 — The Impeachment Trap

—

Two and a Half Years to Go: We Look at Impeachment, and the Consequences
Part 1 — Trump’s Greatest Unintended Successes
Part 2 — The Impeachment Trap
Part 3 — Governing vs. Revenge
Part 4 — Winning 2028

It’s Now or Never

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Midterms then 2028, Politics

Before we go any further, here’s something most people don’t know.

MAGA, Make America Great Again, didn’t start with Donald Trump. Ronald Reagan used the phrase “Let’s Make America Great Again” in his 1980 campaign against Jimmy Carter. It appeared on buttons, posters, and in speeches. Bill Clinton used a version of it in 1992. It was, at one point, genuinely inspiring, a call to something better, not a permission slip for something worse.

It took Donald Trump to turn it into a pun. A sick joke. Like only Donny could do.

So let’s play with the letters, since we’re apparently stuck with them:

The Dark Version — what MAGA actually delivered:

MAGA – Make America Grift Again
MAGA – Make America Gullible Again
MAFA – Make America Fear Again (or Fart Again, if you watched Trump leap from the Oil Barons conference and rush to the window)
MADA – Make America Divided Again
MAHA – Make America Hate Again
MARA – Make America Rage Again
MASA – Make America Stupid Again
MABA – Make America Broke Again
MAWA – Make America Weak Again
MAIA – Make America Ignorant Again
MAPA – Make America Paranoid Again
MALA – Make America Laughable Again
MAOA – Make America Obnoxious Again

It’s sad to watch something that started out inspiring curdle into a joke, and then watch that joke poison an entire political party. MAGA and the Republican Party are not the same thing. But what do you do when powerful people claim the brand, hijack the name, and disenfranchise millions in the process? What do you do when the people on the hill collecting $175,000 a year in what amounts to a paid vacation have traded their constituents for their own greed and insecurities?

The RINOs are the true Republicans. Not the posers. Not the ones who poisoned the hopes of so many for so little.

It’s still only four letters. And if we’re going to be stuck with four letters, let’s see what happens when we throw out the G and try again:

The Hopeful Version — what we could actually build:

MARA – Make America Rational Again
MASA – Make America Sane Again
MAHA – Make America Humble Again
MAJA – Make America Joyful Again
MAWA – Make America Weird Again (in a fun way)
MAVA – Make America Vibrant Again
MAEA – Make America Excellent Again
MAYA – Make America Youthful Again
MATA – Make America Trumpless Again (well, I can hope)

I’m writing this because I hate slogans. I think they’re traps. Tools for lying to people efficiently. But we seem to be stuck with them, so this is both a warning and a suggestion.

If you see someone in a red baseball cap with four letters on it, my first suggestion is to walk away. Or politely tell them to take the stupid hat off. That goes for the purple cap I show on Elephants Ink Room too. It’s a gimmick. They’re all gimmicks. And if a hat color is all it takes to get your vote, heaven help us.

I’m placing my money on the belief that the American voter is ready to face actual issues. Ready to turn their backs on slogans and false promises.

But if you need evidence of how poorly the real MAGA is doing, here’s a little experiment. Go to X, formerly Twitter, now Elon’s personal propaganda machine. Find any “Trump is my savior” post. See all those accounts praising the mighty pumpkin? Click on one of their avatars, then click the three dots, the one on the left.

Surprise.

That hottie is a bot. Running from a server in Pakistan, Asia, Africa, or Eastern Europe. The praise is robot code. The followers are purchased fiction. And every fake account is making Elon a fortune while making Trump look beloved.

That’s how well the slogan is actually working.

I am not here to insult anyone. I am genuinely trying to get someone, anyone, to understand that the Democrats are not automatically the answer either. I do not want anyone walking into the Oval Office with the same unbridled, assumed power Trump believes he has and the Roberts Court has foolishly led him to think he deserves. The reins need to be pulled in while we still have hands on them.

Don’t get fooled by four letters again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

In the words of the one and only true King —

It’s Now or Never.

Two and a Half Years to Go: We Look at Impeachment, and the Consequences, Part 1 — Trump’s Greatest Unintended Successes

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, elections and media, Impeachment trap, Politics

Two and a Half Years to Go: We Look at Impeachment, and the Consequences
Part 1 — Trump’s Greatest Unintended Successes

Believe it or not, some of Donald Trump’s biggest successes haven’t benefited America at all. They’ve benefited America’s allies.

Not because he wanted to — because he tried to bend them to his will, and it backfired. Exhibit A is our closest friend and neighbor, Canada. Canada and the U.S. always had a trade relationship that tilted toward America, but Canada got its share too, like a little brother getting big brother’s leftovers, but also big brother’s protection.

That ended with two things: Donald Trump’s poorly thought out, and illegal, tariff policy, and the rise of a Canadian banker named Mark Carney. Suddenly both countries had a non-politician in charge, one a con man, the other a banker. The banker saw through the con, and the north and south settled into a whiskey war. Funny thing is, you can still buy Canadian whiskey down here, they’re the ones who pulled the Kentucky and Tennessee stuff off their shelves. And where did all the good maple syrup go? My pancakes just aren’t the same with Aunt Jemima.

Long story short, Canadians stopped coming south as tourists, there went the tourist trade in Seattle and up the Eastern Seaboard. But hold on, you say, Americans are still going to Canada. Sure. And while we’re up there, Trump, ever wonder where the electricity keeping Melania’s Penthouse warm actually comes from? The Northeast leans hard on Quebec and Ontario for hydro and nuclear power.

But that’s just window dressing. Here’s what Canada has actually done because of Trump’s policies: they’re building pipelines east to west instead of south, so they can sell oil to other nations instead of us. They’ve brokered better deals to sell steel and aluminum overseas, so they’re no longer dependent on U.S. buyers. Beer lovers take note, bottles only now. Their national security alliances are shifting too: submarines from Germany, outfitted with electronics and systems no longer tied into U.S. military networks. Fighter jets from Sweden’s Saab instead of Boeing and Lockheed.

And Trump is countering the Boeing losses by making deals with China. China? That’s our supreme deal-maker, working with a deck of 47 cards.

So here’s the point: when the United States became an unreliable partner, other democracies adapted. Canada diversified its trade. Canada built out east-west energy. Canada started buying from Europe. Canada strengthened its own manufacturing.

How’s that tariff thing going, by the way? I keep getting Super PAC emails from Trump asking if I want my “cut” of the tariffs he’s collected, the same funds he’s been ordered to return. All it’ll cost me is another fifty-dollar contribution and a thank-you-sucker.

But back to the good things Trump has accomplished.

China. Trump’s big trade war tariffs on China were meant to punish, punish and get revenge, because apparently “negotiate” wasn’t in the playbook. He wanted to win the war, bring jobs back to the U.S., and massively redirect global supply chains. Problem is, when you don’t have the infrastructure to back that up, you lose and someone else wins. Vietnam was the big winner. We were the big weiner.

Companies didn’t fully reshore to the U.S. they moved to lower-tariff countries, and Vietnam’s exports to us boomed in electronics, apparel, furniture, and more. Vietnam overtook China outright in categories like laptops and game consoles, and Chinese firms started assembling there themselves just to dodge the tariffs. That accelerated Vietnam’s industrialization, its foreign investment, its whole economy. Malaysia, Thailand, India, and Mexico picked up similar gains. And don’t forget, Trump still has to pay back all those illegal tariffs he collected. From us. Not them. Us.

Trump’s bullying of China created a “China+1” strategy that supercharged the competition. Vietnam and the rest became more attractive manufacturing hubs, less dependent on any single partner, while we got higher consumer prices and disrupted supply chains instead of a manufacturing renaissance.

NATO and the allies. When America weaponized trade, everybody else built new networks. Trump spent years calling NATO allies freeloaders, threatening to withhold protection, demanding they pay up. So they did, Poland, the Baltics, and the rest of Europe ramped up defense budgets, bought new equipment, built up their own capability.

The backfire: less dependence on U.S. security guarantees, and a boost for European defense industries as countries looked to intra-European or non-U.S. suppliers. Trump accelerated Europe’s push toward “strategic autonomy”, joint European fighter and missile-defense programs that don’t have a single American bolt in them. The allies did exactly what he demanded, spent more on their own defense, and in doing so became less beholden to us long-term. Same story as Canada: squeeze an ally hard enough, and it doesn’t collapse, it just stops needing you.

Climate. Trump’s exit from the Paris Agreement and his general disdain for multilateral deals left a leadership vacuum. The EU stepped into it, advancing its own Green Deal and slapping carbon tariffs on imports from countries that won’t clean up their act, a tax that hits American exporters right along with everyone else. China, ever the self-interested opportunist, positioned itself as the champion of global climate cooperation, and now sells the world the solar panels and batteries America decided it didn’t need to build. Same pattern, third time: we walked away from the table, and somebody else picked up the check and the leverage that came with it.

So where does that leave us? Still a powerful country, but no longer the feared superpower we once were. Little Iran even took a title away from us at the Strait of Hormuz.

So what has Trump actually accomplished in his second term, grand old 47? He’s out to dominate the world, not king, but world emperor, and what he’s getting back is a redesigned world that feels increasingly comfortable telling him to bugger off. From a global point of view, good going, Donald. Maybe we should keep you in office a bit longer.

Canada didn’t fall apart when the ground shifted under it. It adapted. Neither did NATO. Neither did the EU. Worth remembering that, we’ll come back to it before this series is done.

—

Two and a Half Years to Go: We Look at Impeachment, and the Consequences
Part 1 — Trump’s Greatest Unintended Successes
Part 2 — The Impeachment Trap
Part 3 — Governing vs. Revenge
Part 4 — Winning 2028

Go Back to School, Donny — And Take Mike Johnson With You

On - Commentary, Politics, Trump

A President making $2,000,000,000.00 on the side in his first year in office is not questionable?

Write that number out. Two billion dollars. In one year. While running the country. And we’re supposed to be worried about food stamps being communist?

Mike Johnson, grow a spine and speak for yourself. We don’t need baseless McCarthyism anymore. We buried that particular ugly chapter once already and the grave should have stayed sealed.

Let’s cut through the noise.

Americans built a system where we pool resources for the common good, roads, national defense, and a safety net for the elderly, the sick, the disabled, and those temporarily down on their luck. That’s Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, disability insurance, and unemployment insurance.

These programs didn’t come from some Marxist revolution. They emerged from a constitutional republic with democratic accountability. Congress passes budgets. Voters hold politicians accountable at the ballot box. Courts check excesses. That’s not communism. That’s the system the founders built.

Social Security started under FDR in the 1930s as an insurance program, workers and employers paying in, benefits paid out based on contributions. Medicare and Medicaid followed under LBJ in the 1960s. Messy, expensive, occasionally inefficient democratic compromises, not flawless utopias. But they’ve lifted millions of seniors out of poverty and provided a floor during recessions. They’re funded by taxes on working people and face real long-term solvency challenges. Those are legitimate debates worth having.

Calling them Communism is not a legitimate debate. It’s ahistorical hyperbole dressed up as patriotism.

For the record, since apparently this needs saying out loud in 2026, Communism is central planning, abolition of private property, and one-party dictatorship. Not a payroll tax for retirement checks. Not school lunch programs. Not making sure grandma can see a doctor.

Go back to school, Donny. Take notes this time.

Now. About that two billion dollars.

Public service is supposed to be about the country, not a personal wealth accelerator. Even if the gains come from crypto ventures, media companies, licensing deals, and market enthusiasm conveniently tied to political momentum, transparency and conflict-of-interest rules exist for a reason. Presidents put assets in blind trusts for good cause. Questions about emoluments, foreign influence, and policy decisions that coincidentally benefit personal holdings aren’t attacks. They’re basic oversight in a democracy.

This president’s blind trusts are managed by his own sons, who by the president’s own admission are kept informed about what’s happening inside the White House. There’s a name for trading on inside information. It’s not a complicated name. Most people learned it in whatever financial literacy class they took before they stopped asking questions.

So let’s be clear about what’s actually happening here. Calling basic social insurance Communism while a sitting president stacks two billion dollars at record speed, both of those things miss the mark badly. One undermines legitimate debate about entitlements. The other erodes whatever trust in government this country has left.

America works best when we argue facts, not caricatures. Go back to the Constitution, not the culture war playbook.

We have to stop assigning labels that aren’t just inaccurate, they’re lies. Simple, deliberate, repeated lies designed to make you afraid of the wrong things while the right things quietly disappear.

Here’s what I’m asking you to do. One thing. Just one.

Read.

I’m not telling you what to read. I’m telling you the truth is out there. The internet exists. Avoid the noise of news outlets all of them, left and right, find a topic, and start digging. If you find something you don’t like, look again. If you keep finding the same answer you don’t like over and over, from different sources, with different authors, across different decades, then maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your position.

I’ve done it many times. It’s uncomfortable. It’s also the only thing that actually works.

The lies only work when we stop asking questions. Repetition turns lies into perceived truth, but only if nobody pushes back.

Push back.

Ballot Access is Just the Beginning 07/18/2026

On - Forward Party, Politics, purple, shared, Voting Rights

This week, we’re spotlighting endorsements in two states where Forward Party has earned party status.

It is not a fast process and requires meeting state-specific requirements for voter registration, petition thresholds at the organizational level, plus a sustained presence in the states’ politics over time. It is strong foundational building by Forward that changes everything for our candidates.

In Colorado and Minnesota specifically, for endorsed candidates Celeste Landry and Jay Reeves, that ballot line means they can bypass ballot access hurdles and focus on reaching voters.

There are certain government jobs whose entire purpose depends on the nonpartisan execution of duty. Celeste Landry, running for Colorado Secretary of State, and Jay Reeves, running for Minnesota State Auditor, are running because they understand the importance of those holders of these offices remaining loyal to the citizens first and foremost.

Both are running as Forward candidates, which mean they are also bringing the right values and credibility with them.

Colorado

Celeste Landry

Candidate for Secretary of State

Forward Party Ballot Line

Celeste Landry has been working on election integrity and voter rights in Colorado for more than two decades as a civic advocate who shows up for the process itself. She’s been a member of the League of Women Voters, testified before the Colorado legislature on voting rights legislation, and spent years identifying the unintended consequences of election laws that sound neutral but aren’t. She has worked with legislators from both parties and pushed back on both when she believed they were making things harder for voters. Her platform as Secretary of State is built on three pillars: the right to vote, better representation, and election integrity.

The Secretary of State is Colorado’s top election official. Celeste Landry’s argument is direct: elections belong to the voters, not to political parties, not to special interests, and not to whoever happens to be in power. That office exists to protect the integrity of the process for everyone. She is running to do exactly that.

Minnesota

Major Jay Reeves (Ret.)

Candidate for State Auditor

Forward Party Ballot Line

Jay Reeves grew up in a union family and earned his work ethic the hard way. He spent nearly 17 years serving in the United States Army as a lab scientist and data analyst. He is now running for State Auditor because, as he puts it, the job requires someone who follows the numbers, not the politics. His background speaks for itself: union labor, independent small business ownership as a truck driver, and nearly two decades of military healthcare leadership and data analytics. He brings a combination of experiences that is genuinely rare in a government oversight candidate and entirely suited to an office whose job is to audit public finances without fear or favor.

His platform is built on independence, transparency, data integrity, accountability, and technology modernization. He wants to build a modern data dashboard with township-level detail, create a standardized statewide reporting system, and ensure that fraud is reported to the right authorities with the law driving every decision. Jay Reeves has spent his entire adult life in service without an agenda. That is what the State Auditor’s office requires.

This is What Forward Party Infrastructure Actually Looks Like

It gives candidates who want to run outside the two-party system a real path forward. Without a party ballot line, independent candidates such as Landry and Reeves would face strict petition requirements, thousands of required signatures, and tight deadlines just to earn the right to appear on a ballot. The Forward Party’s ballot line removes those barriers entirely. Instead of spending their time and resources fighting to get on the ballot, they can put their energy into actually reaching the voters.

The Forward Party’s ballot lines in Colorado and Minnesota are proof that alternative exist. Every candidate who runs on them is evidence that the path is real and that voters can have more choices.

Celeste Landry and Jay Reeves are not just good candidates. They are proof of what this infrastructure is built for.

Please forward this to your friends, family, and coworkers. It helps us introduce them to Forward and to what we are building. Also consider inviting them to one of our upcoming events listed below. We’d love to meet them.

On this week’s episode, Lindsey Williams Drath, Governor Christine Todd Whitman, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, and guest host Jackie Salit examine the barriers independent candidates face in getting on the ballot. Joined by Arizona gubernatorial candidate Hugh Lytle and Texas lieutenant governor candidate Mike Collier, they discuss restrictive election laws, court challenges, and a system that often favors the two major parties.

Click the image below to watch.

Young Forwardists Introduction

July 18, 2026 at 5:00pm Eastern Time

Join members of the Young Forwardists as they introduce you to the Forward Party and how you can get involved in our pivotal movement to make politics better. Whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or anything in between, there’s a place in the Forward Party for you.

A Conversation with Lindsey Williams Drath

July 29, 2026 at 7:30pm Eastern Time

Join the Forward Party Women’s Committee as we discuss with Forward Party CEO Lindsey Williams Drath the future of women in the party.

If you’re tired of waiting for the system to fix itself — this is your moment.
👥 Volunteer | 🗳️ Run for Office | 💸 Donate | 🌐 forwardparty.com

NM Forward Party files lawsuit challenging state’s ballot access requirements

Forward Party nominee for Colorado’s U.S. Senate seat puts $1.1 million into his campaign – Colorado Springs Gazette

Moderates, independents push to shake up Central WA politics | Tri-City Herald

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Did I Lose You? Let Me Try Again. – Video

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Midterms then 2028, Politics, Voting Rights

A follow-up for anyone who missed the point the first time

So I wrote this cool and informative piece — Why is Trump Desperate to Pass the SAVE America Act? — and I listed all the reasons the Wolf wants to eat the sheep. Really pretty comprehensive, if I do say so myself.

Then, a few days later, word starts drifting back through the grapevine. People asking, “well, so what?” What does any of that have to do with anything? Old people shouldn’t have franchises anyway.

W — T — Fudge.

It appears something may have flown a little too high, or maybe some readers were a little too high. After all, it was only ten days after the 4th, and after watching Trump stumping in his own honor in the July heat, I probably should have still been a little elevated myself.

So. Doobie out. Paying attention? Let’s go over the cryptic points one more time.

=======================================

And no. You are definitely not invited to the Ballroom Gala.

SPECIAL REPORT (American Pulse – unlocked) The Trump Money Pattern: A $100K-a-Month Timing Edge on the Presidency, Foreign Cash, and Pending Cases

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, shared

SPECIAL REPORT (American Pulse – unlocked) The Trump Money Pattern: A $100K-a-Month Timing Edge on the Presidency, Foreign Cash, and Pending Cases by Froehlich Media

For two years, mainstream advertisers looked at Truth Social and said no thanks. Now Wall Street is paying $100,000 a month for it anyway – because they’re not buying an audience. They’re buying Trump

Read on Substack

The Public Investment Brick What Good Government Requires – Brick Eleven – Public Investment

On - Foundation, Our Heritage, Politics

Public Investment, Who Owns The Future?

Something has been happening quietly that deserves more attention than it’s getting.

The United States government now holds roughly a 10% equity stake in Intel. It has secured equity positions in rare earth mining and U.S. Steel. Bernie Sanders has proposed the government acquiring a 50% equity share of AI technology companies through a tax structure.

The era of public investment in private industry is not coming. It is already here.

The question nobody is asking clearly enough is, who controls those stakes? Who manages the money? What voting rights does the government hold? And most importantly, who benefits?

Because right now the answer to that last question is not the American people.

The Alaska Model

The Alaska Permanent Fund is the most successful example of public benefit investment in American history. When Alaska’s oil was extracted the state recognized a simple principle, this is a public resource being monetized by private companies and citizens should receive a direct share of the value generated.

Alaskans receive annual dividends. Not promises. Not infrastructure projects named after politicians. Actual checks.

One reason the model has survived decades of political change is exactly that tangibility. Citizens see the benefit directly. Politicians find it very difficult to raid a fund that sends checks to voters.

AI Is A Natural Resource

Here is the argument that reframes everything.

Artificial intelligence is built on the collective knowledge of humanity. Every book ever written. Every scientific paper ever published. Every conversation, creative work, and piece of human expression ever digitized. Living and dead, we all contributed to the foundation these systems are built on.

That makes AI a public resource being monetized by private companies.

Sound familiar?

If Alaska’s oil wealth belongs partly to Alaskans, if the value extracted from a public resource should benefit the public, then the wealth generated by AI belongs partly to all of us. Not to the handful of people who happened to own the compute infrastructure when the moment arrived.

Think of public pension funds. Teachers’ retirement funds own enormous amounts of stock in American companies. But teachers don’t decide what products those companies build. Ownership and control are not the same thing.

That distinction is everything.

The Public Investment Authority

What is needed is not government control of AI companies. It is a structured, independent, constitutional firewall between public ownership and political manipulation.

Call it the Public Investment Authority.

Independent management. Multi-year board terms that survive changes in administration. Strict conflict of interest rules. No elected officials serving on the board. No lobbying employment afterward. Annual public audits. Full transparency.

We must be honest about what we are building against.

Politicians will try to abuse it. Corporations will try to capture it. Lobbyists will try to influence it. Insiders will try to profit from it.

The time to build the safeguards is at the beginning, not after the insider trading scandals arrive. And they will arrive if the structure isn’t right from the start.

No insider trading. No elected officials. Fixed terms. Independent audits. Public transparency.

A fund that politicians cannot raid. A fund that sends tangible benefits to citizens rather than promises to constituents. A fund that owns shares without controlling companies, the same way Alaska owns a share of oil revenue without telling Exxon how to drill.

The Precedent Already Exists

The government taking equity stakes in strategic industries is no longer a radical proposal. It happened with Intel. It happened with rare earth mining. It happened with U.S. Steel.

The only question is whether those stakes benefit the American people or simply give politicians another lever to pull.

The Public Investment Authority answers that question before it becomes another scandal.

Build the firewall first.

The investment is already happening whether we build it or not.

The Complete Foundation Sieries

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

‘Elections are Decided by Voters, Not by the President’: Secretary Read Responds to President Trump’s Prime-Time Address on Elections

On - Bullshit, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Forward Party, Politics, shared, Voting Rights

PRESS RELEASE

Date: July 16, 2026
Contact: Connor Radnovich | connor.radnovich@sos.oregon.gov

‘Elections are Decided by Voters, Not by the President’: Secretary Read Responds to President Trump’s Prime-Time Address on Elections

SALEM, OR — Tonight, President Trump gave a prime-time speech to once again peddle election conspiracy theories and cast doubt on the integrity of American elections. Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read issued the following statement in response:

“Too many Americans sacrificed too much to let a tired, scared politician steal our elections.

“The President is once again making false claims about American elections; repeating conspiracy theories that have been disproven time and again so he can deny any election results he doesn’t like, just like he did in 2020.

“He knows Americans aren’t happy. He is afraid of facing accountability from voters this November. But, in America, elections are decided by voters, not by the President.

“Oregon’s vote-by-mail elections are secure, fair, and accurate, run by dedicated public servants who follow the law and answer directly to the communities they live in. Accountability and transparency are built into every step of our election process: from unique barcodes on each ballot envelope, to publicly certified vote counting machines that are never connected to the internet, to un-hackable paper ballots that are preserved and audited.

“I want the people of Oregon to know that as their Secretary of State, I will continue to stand up for their right to hold politicians and government accountable in free and fair elections.”

###

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This email was sent to using Granicus Communications Cloud on behalf of: Oregon Secretary of State · 900 Court Street NE · Capitol Room 136 · Salem OR 97310-0722

It’s Not Which Side, It’s Looking In The Mirror – Video

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Our Heritage, Politics, purple

Parades of proud people marched in Washington on the 4th, so proud they wore masks to hide their cowardly faces. Sound familiar? The Klan. You remember those rejects from laundry detergent commercials, white robes and all. Hoods with teeny weeny little holes to see through, small enough that no decent person would notice their nice neighbor was really just another piece of cow dung.

And what do we have doing the muscle work now? Federal agents. Right, I forgot — Second String Donny’s private ICE army, the ones he thinks will protect him in his little bunker after Air Force One runs out of fuel.

========================================

Here’s what I don’t think they’ve figured on. Here’s the calculation they screwed up. We the people don’t want to turn back that clock. We don’t want to be racist — we already did that, and it cost us. We don’t want to hate our neighbor — we already did that too. We’re not doing segregation again, so don’t play those games. And when you push too hard, and I know you will, because you’re stupid enough to try — here’s what happens.

At some point, and I don’t know when or where, the minorities aren’t going to just stand up and fight back. The people are going to stand up with them, and squash you like a bug.

And this 80-year-old whitey, who used to be afraid of the very people he’ll be standing next to — I’m going to be right out there with them.

Impeach Him, Impeach Him, Well Maybe we Hold Off On That – Piece 2: Why Not Impeaching Might Be the Smarter Move – Video

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Impeachment trap, Politics, Protest 2026

Come the midterms, I’m pretty sure the Democrats gain control, good chance both houses, and then it’s impeachment time, right? Right? Right?

Well, here’s the thing. Yes, it could be impeachment time. But should it be? Big question. Very big question.

Until the midterms, unless Trump really alienates his own MAGA Congress, all the Democrats can do is make a bunch of noise. And, well, make a bunch of noise. I subscribe to a lot of Substack writers, left-leaning and right-leaning both, and every single one is “look what he did today, that’s an impeachable offense”, and then nothing happens the next day. Day after day. For the past year. It’ll make you crazy.

Worse are the attorneys, spouting law, and still, day after day, nothing happens. Trump himself said his power is absolute until proven otherwise. Well. Will somebody actually prove it?

======================================

You wouldn’t be running a candidate against the sitting president in 2028, you’d be running against a legacy. Vance may be on the ticket, but he won’t be the incumbent, and he’ll face real opposition from inside his own party, whatever that party even is by then. MAGA, MAGA 2.0, or Vance quietly rebranding himself as someone who was a Republican all along, working from the inside, Benedict Vance, unless Rubio beats him to it.

So: to impeach, or not to impeach. Maybe that’s the question we put to Congress before they decide it on their own. After all, they work for us.

This is just a prelude to an upcoming 4 part series on what’s to gain by impeachment and what’s to gain by NOT impeaching Trump. It’s not an easy decision, especially if we want actual Government, Not REVENGE tactics.

Impeach Him, Impeach Him, Well Maybe we Hold Off On That – Piece 2: Why Not Impeaching Might Be the Smarter Move

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Impeachment trap, Politics, Protest 2026

Come the midterms, I’m pretty sure the Democrats gain control, good chance both houses, and then it’s impeachment time, right? Right? Right?

Well, here’s the thing. Yes, it could be impeachment time. But should it be? Big question. Very big question.

Until the midterms, unless Trump really alienates his own MAGA Congress, all the Democrats can do is make a bunch of noise. And, well, make a bunch of noise. I subscribe to a lot of Substack writers, left-leaning and right-leaning both, and every single one is “look what he did today, that’s an impeachable offense”, and then nothing happens the next day. Day after day. For the past year. It’ll make you crazy.

Worse are the attorneys, spouting law, and still, day after day, nothing happens. Trump himself said his power is absolute until proven otherwise. Well. Will somebody actually prove it?

So let’s say the Democrats get both houses. What do you actually want them doing with the two years left in Trump’s term? Because here’s the thing, they can effectively neuter him without impeachment. Block what needs blocking. Take back the power of Congress that’s been ceded to him. Maybe even set things up to take the whole Trump organization and family to court once he’s out of office, seize the stolen assets, put the stolen loot back in the Treasury. Maybe that’s just a daydream, and he really is a benevolent old grandfather. But the point stands: they might accomplish more against Trump’s financial dealings by not impeaching him on day one than by spending two years trying to.

And here’s the most important part, though some might argue it should’ve come first. There will be two years in which Congress actually has to work at setting things right, instead of mimicking King Trump and his revenge tour. They can focus on budgets, oversight, healthcare, immigration, veterans, election reform, all while conducting investigations. That gives them a real record to run on in 2028. Maybe even something they can say at a town hall that earns them a basket of tomatoes still in the basket, instead of one thrown at them.

Congress can keep Trump off balance for two years and, in the process, show the country what a functioning government actually looks like. Limit future presidential power while they’re at it.

You wouldn’t be running a candidate against the sitting president in 2028, you’d be running against a legacy. Vance may be on the ticket, but he won’t be the incumbent, and he’ll face real opposition from inside his own party, whatever that party even is by then. MAGA, MAGA 2.0, or Vance quietly rebranding himself as someone who was a Republican all along, working from the inside, Benedict Vance, unless Rubio beats him to it.

So: to impeach, or not to impeach. Maybe that’s the question we put to Congress before they decide it on their own. After all, they work for us.

This is just a prelude to an upcoming 4 part series on what’s to gain by impeachment and what’s to gain by NOT impeaching Trump. It’s not an easy decision, especially if we want actual Government, Not REVENGE tactics.

Impeach Him, Impeach Him, Well Maybe we Hold Off On That – Piece 1: The Vance Problem – Video

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Impeachment trap, Politics, Protest 2026

Since Trump took office as the 47th, whoopee, all I keep hearing is impeach him, he did this, impeach him, he did that, impeach him. And if I’d been critical while looking through that looking glass into the past, who knows, I might have been one of those saying it too.

So let me start with my confession. I don’t like the man. I didn’t vote for him. Although, in all honesty, I didn’t vote for Harris either. Do I want to see Trump gone? Darn tootin’. So badly that sometimes I gaze with adoring eyes at the liquor store.

Now why tell you that? Because this piece isn’t the one you’re expecting. This one’s about why maybe not impeaching Trump is the smarter chess move. Yes, you heard that right.

=======================================================

And here’s the part that should worry you most if you’re thinking ahead to 2028. Impeach Trump now, and Vance spends two years as the sitting president. incumbent, name recognition, the power of the office behind him going into that election. That’s a much harder man to beat than a former vice president running as a candidate, still needing to win his own party’s nomination, still facing real opposition from inside a party that isn’t even sure what it is by then. MAGA, MAGA 2.0, or Vance quietly rebranding himself as someone who was a Republican all along, working from the inside. Benedict Vance, unless Rubio beats him to it.

You don’t hand him the incumbency for free. You make him earn it.

The Immigration and Social Services Brick What Good Government Actually Requires – Brick Ten – Immigration and Social Services

On - Foundation, Our Heritage, Politics

The Immigration and Social Services Brick What Good Government Actually Requires

In the beginning, and in many ways it was before there was light, this nation needed to be built. And to build it, it needed people.

Johnny Appleseed planted apple seeds. They sprouted apple trees. Lots of apple trees produce lots and lots of apples.

This brings us to two intertwined topics that get separated in political debate but belong together in honest conversation. People. And the services that allow people to contribute.

I don’t have an easy answer. Nobody does. But before we can assign an answer we have to accept both the reality of the problem and the reality of the blessing.

The Statue of Liberty holds aloft a torch of welcome. She is not extending her middle finger and charging an entrance fee.

France gifted us that great work of art in 1885. Our need for immigrants was different then. But our need hasn’t disappeared, it has changed. The requirement for screening and regulation cannot be overstated. But remember those apples.

Those apples rotting on the ground because you are too good to go harvest them.

Yes. You.

The media shows us undocumented farm workers as if this is a new and alarming development. In 1885 we welcomed farm workers and cobblers, not apple pie bakers but shoemakers. Today we still need farm workers. We also need talented engineers, skilled tradespeople, and everything in between. And if you believe you have a bad job because of an immigrant you are genuinely unable to look in the mirror.

Our needs haven’t really changed. Our honesty about them has.

Any clear eyed person can see the need for immigrants. They can also see why people aren’t flooding our shores with pockets full of cash. They come with what they have and they work with what they find. We need to help them get established. That means social services. Not as charity. As investment in the people who are going to harvest the apples and build the houses and pay into the system.

This is not about rapists, grifters, or predators. We don’t have to look at immigrants to find those.

Now the social services argument, and here is where the two threads become one.

What about your neighbor? The kids next door who look hungry. The single mother. The children who need vaccinations or fell and broke an arm. The family whose father was just laid off. The farmer who lost his crops because someone in power decided to take away his fertilizer subsidy to settle a political score.

We need social services. They are generally provided by the states and generally backed by the federal government. There was a reason for this. A good one.

Social service programs and their funding must be protected from the whims of any politician regardless of who holds the office. Threatening to cut funding because a district voted against you should be an impeachable offense. Full stop. No exceptions. No party exemptions.

We are a wealthy country. We are, when we choose to be, a compassionate one. We should never fail to provide basic services to the people who need them. Not because it is politically convenient. Because it is who we said we were when we put that torch in Lady Liberty’s hand.

And here is the cold hard fact that nobody wants to say out loud.

An undocumented but employed immigrant pays into Social Security and Medicare every paycheck. They will never be able to collect retirement benefits from either program.

We are accusing them of draining a system they are subsidizing.

That is not an immigration problem.

That is a mirror problem.

Look down if you want. Or look in.

The Complete Foundation Sieries

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

It’s Not Which Side, It’s Looking In The Mirror

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Our Heritage, Politics, purple

Parades of proud people marched in Washington on the 4th, so proud they wore masks to hide their cowardly faces. Sound familiar? The Klan. You remember those rejects from laundry detergent commercials, white robes and all. Hoods with teeny weeny little holes to see through, small enough that no decent person would notice their nice neighbor was really just another piece of cow dung.

And what do we have doing the muscle work now? Federal agents. Right, I forgot — Second String Donny’s private ICE army, the ones he thinks will protect him in his little bunker after Air Force One runs out of fuel.

So White Nationalists take to the streets, masks and all. Must be Bobby-Bob over there. Confederate flag wavers too — what’s wrong with the good old Red, White and Blue? The land of Real Men, so proud they strut their stuff on Independence Day. And being the free nation that we are, we let them. Who cares that a little darker skin no longer feels safe on the streets. After all, why did we fight for integration, equal opportunity, equal rights? Why did we write laws against racial discrimination? Why did so many already die in the streets? Just to let these jerks loose again.

That’s right, freedom — we fought for freedom. But somewhere in there should be a guarantee of protection. And I don’t see anyone way up the ladder caring about protecting anyone anymore, except themselves. Have you seen that bulletproof barrier they use now? I’d have loved that contract. Bet it didn’t go to in-house cronies — not if he wanted it done right.

If it sounds like I’m climbing up on a soap box, you’re probably right. The more I sit here and write this, the angrier I get. We’ve already been through all this BS.

If you didn’t read my series on The Long View From 1964, I joined the National Guard in Manhattan Beach, California, November 1963. Had basic and engineer school in ’64, so my first summer camp got delayed by the Watts Riots of ’65.

Here’s the part I don’t dress up. In 1965, I was the enemy. I was the man. I was whitey living ten miles from East LA. I wouldn’t say I was a racist bigot but here is the thing, you grow up segregated, you grow up afraid, the black skin was different, the features were different, I’m being politically correct but the bottom line is really just fear. Intimidation works. That’s why hate works so well.

That’s the truth of who I was at nineteen. It took years, and a country tearing itself apart a few miles from my house, to teach me different.

Which is exactly why I have the right to say what comes next. Not because I was always on the right side. Because I wasn’t, and I changed anyway.

So do they really think everyone’s forgotten? Do they think all white people are racist bigots waiting to be reactivated? Do they think we’re going to sit around and let a bunch of insecure cowards in masks start another war? Because if you’ve been paying attention, that’s exactly what the playbook is calling for. Proud Boys. Masked ICE agents going after Latinos and anyone else less white than themselves. Listen to the speeches. Really listen. The barbs, the slurs, the put-downs. It’s the playbook, and it’s in play.

It’s a time machine, take your pick, Back to the Future or Days of Future Past, doesn’t matter. They’re trying to turn the clock back to when wives wore dresses baking cookies and pearl necklaces fixing dinner, and all she knew to say was “yes dear, as you say dear, would you like another beer, and oh dear, please fill out my ballot for me.”

Here’s what I don’t think they’ve figured on. Here’s the calculation they screwed up. We the people don’t want to turn back that clock. We don’t want to be racist — we already did that, and it cost us. We don’t want to hate our neighbor — we already did that too. We’re not doing segregation again, so don’t play those games. And when you push too hard, and I know you will, because you’re stupid enough to try — here’s what happens.

At some point, and I don’t know when or where, the minorities aren’t going to just stand up and fight back. The people are going to stand up with them, and squash you like a bug.

And this 80-year-old whitey, who used to be afraid of the very people he’ll be standing next to — I’m going to be right out there with them.

The Hypocrisy of Insider Advantages: From Bolton’s Guilty Plea to Trump Family Fortunes – Video

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics

In June 2026, John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser and later one of his most prominent critics, pleaded guilty to one count of unlawfully retaining national defense information. Prosecutors alleged that Bolton removed handwritten notes containing sensitive national defense information from government custody, kept them after leaving office, and shared more than 1,000 pages of those notes with family members while preparing a memoir. Bolton admitted the conduct in court and accepted a plea agreement that included substantial financial penalties.

The Bolton case raises broader questions about how accountability is applied to different forms of access, influence, and responsibility connected to public office. While Bolton faced criminal prosecution for mishandling information obtained through government service, President Trump has portrayed his own family’s business position as being complicated rather than enriched by his presidency.

=================================================

Responsibility, if one concludes there is a problem, does not rest with a single individual. Trump chose not to fully separate himself from his family’s business interests and publicly defended arrangements that critics viewed as creating conflicts. His sons and Jared Kushner pursued business opportunities made possible, at least in part, by their proximity to political power. Congress, executive branch ethics systems, and federal regulators have all been criticized for inconsistent oversight. Ultimately, voters also bear responsibility for deciding what standards they expect from elected officials and their families.

The Bolton case ultimately raises a broader question about equal accountability. If unlawfully retaining and sharing sensitive government information warrants criminal prosecution, then the use of political access, family relationships, and governmental influence to generate extraordinary private wealth invites equal public scrutiny. Whether those activities constitute unlawful conflicts of interest, unethical self-dealing, aggressive but lawful business practices, or something else entirely remains a matter for investigators, regulators, courts, and ultimately the American public. In a nation committed to equal justice under law, the contrast between Bolton’s prosecution and the continuing questions surrounding the Trump family’s financial and legal advantages is difficult to ignore.

Impeach Him, Impeach Him, Well Maybe we Hold Off On That – Piece 1: The Vance Problem

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Impeachment trap, Politics, Protest 2026

Since Trump took office as the 47th, whoopee, all I keep hearing is impeach him, he did this, impeach him, he did that, impeach him. And if I’d been critical while looking through that looking glass into the past, who knows, I might have been one of those saying it too.

So let me start with my confession. I don’t like the man. I didn’t vote for him. Although, in all honesty, I didn’t vote for Harris either. Do I want to see Trump gone? Darn tootin’. So badly that sometimes I gaze with adoring eyes at the liquor store.

Now why tell you that? Because this piece isn’t the one you’re expecting. This one’s about why maybe not impeaching Trump is the smarter chess move. Yes, you heard that right.

There are actually a few things he’s done that have worked out for the best. Take Canada. Hey, I didn’t say worked out best for us. Canada’s been forced to grow up, no longer dependent on the good old USA, they had to go find new trade partners, and from what I’ve read, they’ve done a bang-up job of it. Fighter jet contracts with Saab instead of Boeing. Submarine contracts with Germany. New alliances. An oil pipeline running east to west instead of south to us. By the time this is over, Trump will have inadvertently become their best friend, while hurting the hell out of us financially and damaging our national security. But heck, who’s paying attention to the little stuff.

I just wanted to say one nice thing about the Very, Very Old Boy before I get to the part that keeps me up at night.

Here’s the elephant in the room. Yes, the MAGA elephant. Impeach Trump, and who becomes president? Mini Trump. Not just mini Trump, an educated mini Trump. Which, if you’re a middle-of-the-road type like me, might be far more dangerous. I’ll skip the couch humor. Here’s why: he won’t be up all night tweeting his grievances. He won’t be broadcasting every plan before he’s made it. And he’ll have inherited Trump’s superpowers, courtesy of the idiots on the Supreme Court. And he knows it.

If you’re MAGA, rejoice. If you’re a Republican, well, you’re a RINO again. If you’re an Independent, the majority, the 45% plus of us, a moderate Democrat or a not-so-moderate one, in my opinion, you can kiss democracy goodbye. Because it won’t go quietly with gilded monuments to his own greatness. It’ll go quietly with the blessings and financial backing of the Super PACs, the Federalist Society, the super-rich, the oligarchs. They don’t want a democracy. It limits their power. And they will not be loud about taking it.

That’s the Vance problem. Not that he’s Trump’s successor. That he’s Trump with the volume turned down and have the power already installed.

And here’s the part that should worry you most if you’re thinking ahead to 2028. Impeach Trump now, and Vance spends two years as the sitting president. incumbent, name recognition, the power of the office behind him going into that election. That’s a much harder man to beat than a former vice president running as a candidate, still needing to win his own party’s nomination, still facing real opposition from inside a party that isn’t even sure what it is by then. MAGA, MAGA 2.0, or Vance quietly rebranding himself as someone who was a Republican all along, working from the inside. Benedict Vance, unless Rubio beats him to it.

You don’t hand him the incumbency for free. You make him earn it.

The Hypocrisy of Insider Advantages: From Bolton’s Guilty Plea to Trump Family Fortunes

On - Commentary, Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics

In June 2026, John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser and later one of his most prominent critics, pleaded guilty to one count of unlawfully retaining national defense information. Prosecutors alleged that Bolton removed handwritten notes containing sensitive national defense information from government custody, kept them after leaving office, and shared more than 1,000 pages of those notes with family members while preparing a memoir. Bolton admitted the conduct in court and accepted a plea agreement that included substantial financial penalties.

The Bolton case raises broader questions about how accountability is applied to different forms of access, influence, and responsibility connected to public office. While Bolton faced criminal prosecution for mishandling information obtained through government service, President Trump has portrayed his own family’s business position as being complicated rather than enriched by his presidency.

In a recent interview, Trump remarked that his sons have “inside information” simply because of their proximity to the presidency. He suggested that even routine business decisions become difficult because they know things other people do not, presenting their situation as an unavoidable consequence of public service rather than an advantage.

Public estimates paint a different financial picture. According to Forbes, Donald Trump’s net worth climbed to approximately $6.5 billion by early 2026, with gains of more than $1.4 billion over the previous year, driven largely by cryptocurrency ventures, licensing agreements, and renewed strength in Trump-branded real estate. Other public estimates similarly report that members of the Trump family experienced dramatic increases in personal wealth following the 2024 election, with significant gains tied to cryptocurrency projects, Trump Media-related holdings, and other business enterprises.

During Trump’s presidency, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump continued overseeing the Trump Organization’s business operations. They also met with officials and business interests connected to several foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Serbia, and Hungary, as the organization’s international activities expanded. Ethics watchdog organizations have argued that these overlapping business relationships and governmental connections create the appearance—or potential—of conflicts of interest, even where no criminal wrongdoing has been established. Critics have also pointed to investments, cryptocurrency ventures, and foreign sovereign wealth fund involvement that coincided with favorable political or policy developments.

Jared Kushner presents a parallel example. After leaving the White House, his investment firm, Affinity Partners, secured a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund despite reported concerns raised by some of the fund’s advisers regarding the firm’s experience and fee structure. Kushner had previously overseen significant Middle East policy initiatives, including the Abraham Accords. Ivanka Trump’s business interests also received numerous foreign trademarks during the first Trump administration, particularly in China, while diplomatic negotiations involving those countries were ongoing. Critics argued that these circumstances raised significant conflict-of-interest concerns, although no criminal charges resulted.

These issues became more significant following a controversial IRS settlement reached in May 2026. An addendum to the agreement states that the United States is “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from pursuing specified claims, examinations, or similar reviews relating to covered pre-settlement tax matters involving Trump, certain family members, and affiliated entities. Critics, including former IRS and Justice Department officials, described the provision as unprecedented because of its breadth, arguing that it substantially limited future government scrutiny of those earlier tax matters. Supporters of the settlement disputed those characterizations, and the ultimate legal effect of the provision has remained the subject of debate.

Taken together, these events present a striking contrast. Bolton, after leaving government service, pleaded guilty to unlawfully retaining and sharing sensitive government information. Meanwhile, the Trump family’s business activities have continued to benefit from extraordinary proximity to political power, while the President himself publicly acknowledged that his sons possess “inside information” unavailable to others. Yet no comparable criminal charges have been brought against members of the Trump family arising from these business activities.

Responsibility, if one concludes there is a problem, does not rest with a single individual. Trump chose not to fully separate himself from his family’s business interests and publicly defended arrangements that critics viewed as creating conflicts. His sons and Jared Kushner pursued business opportunities made possible, at least in part, by their proximity to political power. Congress, executive branch ethics systems, and federal regulators have all been criticized for inconsistent oversight. Ultimately, voters also bear responsibility for deciding what standards they expect from elected officials and their families.

The Bolton case ultimately raises a broader question about equal accountability. If unlawfully retaining and sharing sensitive government information warrants criminal prosecution, then the use of political access, family relationships, and governmental influence to generate extraordinary private wealth invites equal public scrutiny. Whether those activities constitute unlawful conflicts of interest, unethical self-dealing, aggressive but lawful business practices, or something else entirely remains a matter for investigators, regulators, courts, and ultimately the American public. In a nation committed to equal justice under law, the contrast between Bolton’s prosecution and the continuing questions surrounding the Trump family’s financial and legal advantages is difficult to ignore.

The Environment Brick What Good Government Actually Requires — Brick Nine – Environment

On - Foundation, Our Heritage, Politics

The Environment Brick What Good Government Actually Requires

This is a balanced world.

Or it was. Ecologically, the planet developed over billions of years into a self-correcting system. Not perfect. Not static. But capable of absorbing disruption and finding equilibrium, when left with enough margin to do so.

We have been removing the margin.

There is no ideological argument required here. No party position needed. Just the observation that we are spending principal and calling it income. Extracting what took millennia to accumulate and booking it as this quarter’s profit.

That is not economics. That is the oldest con in the book.

We are not against using resources. That is not the argument. Every civilization in human history has used the resources available to it. The argument is against exploiting them foolishly when other clear options exist. And the options exist.

Wind farms. Solar farms. Solar on homes and buildings that sit in the sun regardless of whether anyone harvests it. Mini nuclear plants currently in development that can be transported on flatbeds and deployed where the grid is weakest. The technology is not theoretical. It is here or nearly here and arriving faster than the political conversation has managed to acknowledge.

We know that harnessing ocean water for industrial cooling and dumping the heat back into the sea does damage that compounds quietly until it isn’t quiet anymore. Eighteen whale deaths in Washington state in a single year. The ocean does not issue press releases. It just changes. And when it changes enough the change is no longer reversible on any timeline that matters to anyone alive.

The alternatives are not perfect. Batteries require metals. Mining those metals creates its own environmental cost. Recycling infrastructure has not kept pace with the technology it needs to process. These are real problems.

But here is what history actually shows when we choose to look honestly at it.

Human beings have solved most of their self-created environmental problems when they chose to.

The ozone layer was healing after we chose to address it. Rivers that caught fire stopped catching fire after we chose to address it. Species pulled back from the edge of extinction when we chose to address them.

The technology exists. The alternatives exist. The knowledge of what we are doing and what it costs exists.

The only variable is the last one.

When he chooses to.

That choice, made collectively, structurally, with the kind of policy teeth that don’t disappear when the next administration arrives, is the brick.

Not a perfect environmental policy. Not a zero extraction economy. Just the honest acknowledgment that exploitation without limit is not capitalism. It is not freedom. It is not progress.

It is greed. And more greed.

Every Trump golf course should be turned into a wind farm.

He does supply enough hot air.

The Complete Foundation Sieries

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

The Healthcare Brick What Good Government Actually Requires — Brick Eight – Healthcare

On - Foundation, Our Heritage, Politics

The Healthcare Brick What Good Government Actually Requires

Healthcare in America is not broken.

That is not a comfortable statement. But it is an accurate one.

It is strained. It is expensive. It is fragmented, administratively bloated, and structurally misaligned in ways that cost lives and savings simultaneously. But it functions imperfectly, unevenly, and at enormous cost for most of the people it serves most of the time.

Understanding the difference between broken and strained matters before we talk about fixing anything.

Over the past year this platform has published an extensive series examining exactly what the American healthcare system isnot what politicians say it is, not what we wish it were, but what it actually is. How the money moves. Where the risk lands. Who absorbs the consequences when care can’t wait. Why insurance and healthcare are not the same thing even though we treat them as if they are.

That work is here if you want it. It will not tell you who to vote for. It will not tell you that one system is superior to another. It will tell you how the machine works which is the only honest starting point for any conversation about changing it.

If interested please use our menu selection HEALTHCARE, articles are offered in two index orders, last related published at the top, and on the right side column, in original published order.

If you prefer, a combined presentation is available here. HEALTHCARE COMBINED.

So here is the healthcare brick. Not a policy prescription. Not a wish list. Just three honest observations.

First – this is what we have.

A layered hybrid system. Part market. Part public. Part employer obligation. Part individual burden. Already half funded by government programs. Already heavily regulated in some places and completely unregulated in others. Not socialized medicine. Not free market. Something messier and more complicated than either label suggests.

Are we okay with it?

Not as a political question. As a personal one. The system described in this series is not a conspiracy or a failure of compassion. It is a structure built over decades by people solving real problems with the tools available at the time. Layers were added for reasons. Each layer solved something and created something else.

The honest question is whether the accumulated result still serves the people it was built for.

Second – want is not a policy.

Saying I want free healthcare changes nothing. Neither does I want to keep what I have. Want is not a funding mechanism. Want is not a transition plan for 150 million people currently covered through employers. Want is not an answer to what happens to hospital revenue when payment rates change overnight.

The people who benefit most from the want debate are the people who need you distracted from the structural debate. As long as the conversation stays at the level of what we want we never get to the harder and more useful question of what is actually achievable and how.

Third – the realistic lever is insurance structure.

Not who builds the hospitals. Not whether your doctor works for the government. Not a binary choice between the system we have and a system that exists nowhere in the form being promised.

The realistic lever is how risk is pooled. How pricing is negotiated. How the administrative layers between you and your care get simplified. How the 8 to 12 cents of every dollar currently absorbed by billing, coding, prior authorization and claims processing gets redirected toward the care it was supposed to fund.

That’s where the flow can be diverted.

The Complete Foundation Sieries

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

The Long View From 1964 – 23 and Me

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Our Heritage, Politics, View From 1964

Some things we bury. Not for any big reason, for a lot of little reasons. Things we just don’t think about anymore because times have changed and we’ve changed. But then stuff around you happens, and you start remembering.

So let’s go back in time again. Not to Superman. To before me.

Manhattan Beach. Truly one of the most beautiful places you could grow up. I spent years there as a toddler, then off and on through the 1970s, since my father’s family moved there in the 1920s. Why do I mention this? Bruce’s Beach. I won’t spend paragraphs on it, go ahead, show some initiative, ask your favorite AI about Bruce’s Beach in Manhattan Beach.

Here’s how it touches me. My grandfather was the city councilman instrumental in getting the Bruce family’s property stolen through eminent domain and turned into an unnecessary park. Stolen from Manhattan Beach’s Black family.

Follow the story forward. Nearly a century later, L.A. County finally settled with the Bruce family for close to $20 million. Too bad it took so many decades. My grandfather helped take that land. I grew up ten minutes from the empty lot he helped empty, and never once thought about who used to be there.

I spent most of my life thinking of my family as quietly Southern and decent. Turns out we were also thieves, and it took me eighty years to say that plainly.

Move forward many years. In one of my Long View From 1964 commentaries, I mentioned my father tried to talk to me about women, and I, with puffed-out chest, declared I already knew candy was dandy and liquor was quicker. Five wives later, it dawned on me I should’ve put down the beer and listened.

My father was born in Alabama. A real Colonel, not the fried chicken kind. He always thought of himself as a Southern gentleman without the accent, and I honestly cannot remember ever hearing him use a cuss word or a racial slur.

Once again, guacamole, chips, a few beers, hadn’t gotten to the gin and tonics yet. Ten miles from Watts, working in Inglewood, a stone’s throw from East LA, Dad dropped one of his pearls of wisdom. This was before the gin and tonic, mind you. It’s been fifty-plus years, so I won’t fake the exact quote, but it went something like: “Son, you come from a good old Southern family. Before you pass judgment or start throwing stones, it may be your cousin you’re throwing those stones at.”

That’s not something most little white boys hear from dear old Dad. Probably a good thing Mom the Bigot was on the other side of the room.

This may look like it’s wandering without a direction, but there’s one here somewhere.

Being footloose and fancy-free in the ’60s, I always had a few questions. Decades later, when my kids started doing 23andMe and Ancestry.com, I got curious, and figured I’d probably have to prove Don Henley wasn’t their father. So I joined both. Kids were disappointed to learn I was Dad, and Don Henley was out.

You can post a photo to your profile on those sites. And I keep finding more and more second and third cousins with really, really dark tans. Maybe that should be a requirement for the whole family reunion.

Thanks, Dad, for the heads-up, all those years ago in Inglewood. He or she just may be distant family. And that stone, the one my grandfather threw, the one I nearly kept carrying, really belongs on the ground.

250 Years, and you don’t know why we are celebrating?

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Politics, purple

If this is what you want, it’s what you got, sucker. 250 we celebrated, what did we celebrate. We have an educational system, we have schools, universities, home education, no longer are we raised in the fields picking cotton or tobacco while our mothers are raped.

We are the free and the mighty, so let me ask you a question, just what was the 250 year celebration about? Why were the fireworks set off, why did King Putz drone on?

Well it seems that if you ask the average American, over 50% of them will answer something like George Washington’s Birthday, The Civil War, or the day McDonald’s introduced the nineteen-cent hamburger. They don’t have a friggen clue.

No wonder we are in the poop circus we are in. Nobody knows what is going on and nobody really cares to know. It just makes me want to roll up my placards and go home, as if you would actually care.

The worse part isn’t just the ignorance, it’s the self-imposed ignorance. And I got a fresh reminder of exactly what that looks like, same day, different flag.

I had a friend, sadly the wrong side of the aisle from my point of view, send me a gif of political isms.

In political theory, “isms” represent canonical frameworks defining how societies should be governed. The 10 most prominent political ideologies are: Liberalism, Conservatism, Socialism, Communism, Libertarianism, Nationalism, Fascism, Anarchism, Authoritarianism, and Imperialism.

So I asked the friend — MAGA, Masters degree, the whole package — a simple question.

Me: so, if you were to be honest, which one applies to today?
Him: Capitalism has been a winner.
Me: we are talking about politics, our government, so let me rephrase the question. so, if you were to be honest, which one applies to today?
Him: You – liberal. Me – conservative. (Because I’m against Trump, I’ve apparently become a Communist.)
Me: Our Government, as in who is running the country, not you, not me. so, if you were to be honest, which one applies to today?
Him: Congress running the country.
Me: You just can’t do it, can you? Or I should say, you won’t do it. Trump has taken Congress’s ability to run the country away.

End of conversation, till the next morning, with another gif on state property taxes.

Is that forced ignorance? Or fear of admission? Would answering the question have been an admission he’s been wrong, and that’s just unacceptable, even to himself?

I don’t know. But what I do know is that we are living in a world created by that kind of mentality, and if it isn’t willing to go back to school, then maybe this is what we deserve. Another bust on Mt. Rushmore, paid for by, guess who?

And while I’m on it — who knows why we are celebrating 250 years — I can tell you who can and will answer that question with 100% accuracy, every single time you ask them. Repeat: every single time. Those who decided to become United States citizens. Those who went through the immigration process and took the tests and gained citizenship. They know why we celebrate 250 years of independence.

Meanwhile the home-born, the ones handed this country at birth, the ones who never had to sit for a test or prove they earned it — half of them can’t tell you what happened 250 years ago, let alone what’s happening right now.

We just handed them a democracy nobody bothered to study for.

The Education Brick What Good Government Actually Requires — Brick Seven – Education

On - Foundation, Our Heritage, Politics

The Education Brick What Good Government Actually Requires

Education in America has a marketing problem.

For decades the message was simple get a degree and get a job. The degree became the credential and the credential became the promise. Nobody mentioned that the promise had an expiration date or that the debt was forever.

We need a more honest conversation.

The Social Contract Model

If the public invests in your education the public has a right to expect something back. Not repayment with interest service. A known, transparent agreement made before the first dollar is spent.

We fund your medical degree. You spend three years at a VA hospital or an under served rural clinic. We fund your nursing degree. You serve in a community that needs you. We fund your accounting degree. You spend two years at the IRS or the GSA.

This is not radical. It is the oldest social contract in the book. The military has operated this way for generations we train you, you serve, you earn the benefit. The difference is we need that model applied beyond the military and into the civilian professions the country actually needs more of.

The deal is simple. The terms are known upfront. And the payback is productive rather than just financial the country gets doctors in the places doctors don’t go, nurses in the communities that can’t afford to recruit them, and accountants who actually understand the systems they’re auditing.

The Credential Is Not The Job

A white collar education does not promise a white collar job. It never honestly did but the myth persisted long enough to saddle a generation with debt for degrees that prepared them for a world that was already changing while they were still in class.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping entry level positions. That is real and it is accelerating. But it does not change the fundamental human requirement at the core of most work. Claude is not walking in the door, shaking a hand, and drinking a cup of coffee. That is still on the human.

What it does change is what preparation for that work actually needs to look like. Knowing how to effectively use the tools that exist is now as important as the credential that gets you in the door. The education system has not caught up to that reality. It needs to.

The Trade School Gap

Here is the most important and most under addressed part of this brick.

The federal government currently has one primary pipeline into trade education the military. That is not enough and it was never designed for this purpose.

Look up the pay scales for licensed electricians. Price a plumber. Find out what a licensed HVAC technician charges per hour. The market has already answered the question of whether these skills are valuable. The answer is yes emphatically and increasingly.

What is missing is a federal civilian pathway to trade certification that carries the same social contract as the degree programs. We fund your training as an electrician, a welder, a medical technician, a licensed trades person of any kind. You serve your community with that skill for a defined period at a wage that reflects the investment.

The private sector cannot fill this gap alone. It was never designed to. This is exactly the kind of investment in people, in capability, in the infrastructure of daily life that government exists to make.

The person who keeps the lights on and the water running and the roads safe is not less valuable than the person with the credential and the debt.

It is time the education system said so clearly.

And it is time the federal government built a path that reflects it.

The Complete Foundation Sieries

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

Brick Seven Education

MAGA 2.0 — A Rose By Any Other Name Still Stinks – Video

On - Commentary, Dark Money, elections and media, Politics

Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, MAGA 2.0 why those sneaky little so and so’s. That didn’t take long, here I have been writing my little fingers to nubs and those two have been sneaking behind The barn for a little pow wow. Makes sense though.

Both of them have been saying it. Marjorie has come out and said Trump appears to be working more for Israel than for us — so if he’s going to call her a traitor, she can call him one right back. Tucker said he won’t vote for a party working for a foreign government, won’t vote for MAGA, won’t vote for a Democrat, won’t vote for a Republican.

Golly. Just whom will Tucker vote for?

Little remarks. From both of them. Am I just imagining this?

No. I am not.

Marjorie even insinuated that Tucker might run himself, which would neatly solve the problem of who he’d vote for. A podcaster. Running for president. Well, why not, we already proved that particular bar doesn’t exist anymore. And maybe Marjorie could become Secretary of Something if she plays her cards right. Party favors.

So MAGA is done for. The Republicans are done for. Reboot time. MAGA 2.0.

Which, surprisingly, sounds exactly like MAGA 1.0. And isn’t it interesting that MAGA 1.0 and the Republicans are now one and the same, no longer MAGA versus the RINOs, just MAGA, wall to wall, corner to corner.

==========================================================

And what ticket was The Vance planning on running on exactly? Or was he perhaps hoping to find himself as the incumbent after a convenient Article 25?

Twilight Zone music plays softly in the background.

========================================================

It was so much easier when it was just the evil left against the evil right. Now it’s the evil left against the evil right against the other evil right against the original evil right.

After the dust settles, will we ever know which one is right?

MAGA 2.0 — A Rose By Any Other Name Still Stinks

On - Commentary, Dark Money, elections and media, Politics

Better Than FOX, I am, I am.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, MAGA 2.0 why those sneaky little so and so’s. That didn’t take long, here I have been writing my little fingers to nubs and those two have been sneaking behind The barn for a little pow wow. Makes sense though.

Both of them have been saying it. Marjorie has come out and said Trump appears to be working more for Israel than for us — so if he’s going to call her a traitor, she can call him one right back. Tucker said he won’t vote for a party working for a foreign government, won’t vote for MAGA, won’t vote for a Democrat, won’t vote for a Republican.

Golly. Just whom will Tucker vote for?

Little remarks. From both of them. Am I just imagining this?

No. I am not.

Marjorie even insinuated that Tucker might run himself, which would neatly solve the problem of who he’d vote for. A podcaster. Running for president. Well, why not, we already proved that particular bar doesn’t exist anymore. And maybe Marjorie could become Secretary of Something if she plays her cards right. Party favors.

So MAGA is done for. The Republicans are done for. Reboot time. MAGA 2.0.

Which, surprisingly, sounds exactly like MAGA 1.0. And isn’t it interesting that MAGA 1.0 and the Republicans are now one and the same, no longer MAGA versus the RINOs, just MAGA, wall to wall, corner to corner.

Oh my brain hurts. How do you tell the difference between the Far Right and the Far Right? The new Far Right is 2.0 — or is it really just 1.5? And where exactly is the money going to come from to finance it? The Federalist Society 2.0? Citizens United 2.0?

Which brings us to today. June 30th, 2026. The day The Vance won his Supreme Court case.

Let’s be precise about what just happened, because it matters enormously and it happened quietly while everyone was watching the circus. The Supreme Court, 6-3 along purely partisan lines, axed longstanding limits on how much money party committees can spend in direct coordination with candidates. The challenge was brought in 2022 by JD Vance, then a Senate candidate from Ohio. It was decided today in his favor.

Here’s the part worth reading twice: just days after Vance suggested that if Watergate happened today it would barely make the news, let alone end a presidency, the Supreme Court embraced his argument against a 1974 campaign finance rule that Congress passed specifically in response to Watergate. The rule designed to prevent exactly this kind of corruption, gone. Because of him. Today.

The Republican National Committee entered June with more than $125 million in available cash and no unpaid bills — ready to unleash coordinated spending on their favored candidates with no limits whatsoever.

And what ticket was The Vance planning on running on exactly? Or was he perhaps hoping to find himself as the incumbent after a convenient Article 25?

Twilight Zone music plays softly in the background.

Business as usual. Put on your wading boots — the manure just got considerably deeper and considerably smellier.

After the fertilizer settles though, remember this: a MAGA by any other MAGA name is still a MAGA. And MAGA 2.0 is not to be confused with MAGA 1.0, because the Toll-House cookies made by MAGA 1.0 used Nestlé morsels, while MAGA 2.0 is using Ghirardelli. Different aprons. Same kitchen. Same players. Same aroma drifting down the hallway.

It was so much easier when it was just the evil left against the evil right. Now it’s the evil left against the evil right against the other evil right against the original evil right.

After the dust settles, will we ever know which one is right?

The Capitalism Brick What Good Government Actually Requires — Brick Six – Capitalism

On - Foundation, Our Heritage, Politics

Brick Six – Capitalism

The Sixth Brick What Good Government Actually RequiresPart Six

CapitalismHow Much Is Enough?

I am not an economist. I have trouble balancing my own checkbookto the point that I haven’t written a check in years. I live by the debit card and rely on the bank to keep score. They make fewer mistakes than I do.

So take what follows for what it is. Not economic theory. Just observation from someone who has been inside the system long enough to see where the seams are coming apart.

I believe in capitalism. I believe in free enterprise. I believe we should be innovative and be rewarded for that innovation. I was part of the technological revolutionthe gin joints of Tektronix and Intel and my own consulting workand I watched what genuine innovation looks like when it builds something real.

That’s the capitalism I believe in.

Where I get lost is somewhere between that and here.

We once built enterprises that built a nation. Railroads. Steel. Highways. Infrastructure that everyone eventually lived inside regardless of whether they owned a share of it. The Carnegies and Vanderbilts exploited laborthat’s documented and truebut the byproduct was a physical country that generations inherited.

What does the new generation of concentrated wealth build?

Delivery systems. Platforms. Apps that monetize your attention and sell it back to you as connection. The byproduct this time isn’t a nation. It’s a customer base and a stock price.

I don’t have a clean answer to when enough is enough. I haven’t reached that threshold myself so I’m not casting stones. And I’m aware that most obscene wealth exists on paperinvestment portfolios, unrealized gains, numbers on screens rather than cash in hand.

But somewhere on the path to obscene riches somebody has been cheating the system. The system the rest of us have to play by. The loopholes didn’t appear by accidentthey were written in by people who benefited from them being there and protected by people who were paid to keep them open.

Plug the loopholes. Levy fair taxes against the structure. Not punitive. Not confiscatory. Fair. And if the structure can’t survive fair taxation here then perhaps the wealth shouldn’t be made here.

Simple idea. Complicated execution. Which is why you hire people smart enough to figure out the nuts and boltswhich is itself the argument for competent government rather than a government of loyalists and donors.

If Coca Cola owned Pepsi and Dr Pepper there would be no competitive pricing. There would be one pricewhatever they decided to charge. We have agencies designed specifically to prevent that concentration. Anti-monopoly regulation exists because we learned the hard way what happens without it.

We are currently in a period of deliberate deregulation. Sold as freedom for business to grow. What it actually produceswhen the major players are left to their own devicesis consolidation until competition disappears and the consumer pays whatever the monopoly decides they pay.

Deregulation without oversight isn’t freedom. It’s the slow removal of the rules that kept the game fair for everyone playing it.

One more thing worth noting before we move on.

The most overlooked corner of capitalism is the small business. The licensed electrician. The plumber. The person who showed up at my house with a high pressure rooter and a camera and charged me six hundred dollars for an hour of work.

Good for them. Seriously. That’s skilled labor commanding fair market value and I begrudge them nothing.

We’ll talk more about trade schools and education in the next brick. But the point worth making here is that capitalism works best when it works at every levelnot just at the top where the delivery systems and platforms live but at the street level where someone with a license and a truck and a set of skills can build a life without a college degree and a venture capital round.

That’s the capitalism worth preserving.

The other kind needs some work.

The Complete Foundation Sieries

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

Brick Six Capitalism

Secretary Read Certifies May Election Results, Confirms Historic Turnout – Oregon

On - Forward Party, Politics, shared, Voting Rights

PRESS RELEASE

Date: June 25, 2026
Contact: Connor Radnovich | connor.radnovich@sos.oregon.gov

Video Statement from Secretary Read

Secretary Read Certifies May Election Results, Confirms Historic Turnout

Oregon records the highest midterm primary voter turnout in state history

SALEM, OR — Today, Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read certified the results of the 2026 May statewide election.

In total, more than 1.28 million eligible Oregonians voted, the most in a midterm primary election in state history. The official turnout rate was 41.87%, the second highest for a midterm primary since 1998, when Oregon became an exclusively vote-by-mail state.

“Voting is one of the most meaningful acts a citizen can take to participate in our democracy. Voting is how we hold politicians accountable, decide the direction of our state, and elect representatives to advocate for our communities,” Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said. “I’m proud that so many Oregonians made their voices heard in this election. Our state is stronger when Oregonians hold their government accountable. Let’s set another record in November.”

Certification is the final step in the post-election day process to ensure the security, accuracy, and fairness of Oregon’s elections. As part of this process, elections officials take a variety of steps, including:

Resolving outstanding ballot issues, such as curing ballot signatures.
Publicly testing the accuracy of vote tallying machines.
Performing audits and hand counts to verify the results.

The Secretary of State’s office will release detailed election turnout data in the coming weeks.

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Federal Court Blocks Executive Order that Would Undermine Vote-by-Mail – Oregon

On - Forward Party, Politics, shared, Voting Rights

PRESS RELEASE

Date: June 25, 2026
Contact: Connor Radnovich | connor.radnovich@sos.oregon.gov

Federal Court Blocks Executive Order that Would Undermine Vote-by-Mail

The executive order would have allowed the U.S. Postal Service to deny ballots to voters not on the federal government’s list

SALEM, OR — Today, in yet another a win for Oregon voters, a federal court blocked President Trump’s March 2026 executive order restricting mail-in voting and infringing upon states’ authority to administer elections.

Oregon joined 22 other states and the District of Columbia in this lawsuit, one of many steps Oregon elected leaders have taken to defend Oregonians’ right to vote.

“The President wants to pick and choose who gets to vote, but, in America, we don’t let Presidents interfere in elections,” Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said. “The Constitution protects our right to run free, fair elections, and we will defend it. Oregonians decided many years ago that vote-by-mail was our preferred way of voting, and it remains the gold standard for integrity and access nationwide.”

The March 2026 executive order required states to provide sensitive voter information to the federal government, which would use that data to create a nationwide list of approved voters.

As part of his work to implement the executive order, the U.S. Postal Service postmaster recently said that states that did not provide voter information would not have mail ballots delivered at all, effectively denying the right to vote to all eligible Oregonians. Today’s ruling protects Oregon’s elections from federal interference.

Oregon pioneered vote-by-mail nearly 30 years ago and several states have joined Oregon with exclusively vote-by-mail elections.

Due to cuts at USPS, for the upcoming November general election the Secretary of State’s office recommends returning ballots via official ballot drop boxes or by mailing at least 1 week before election day.

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The Elephant In The Room Nobody Is Looking At – Video

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Dark Money, Politics, Voting Rights

Trump is out. The clown is getting the hook. You’d have to be blind not to see it — and he’s too busy with his burgers to notice it himself. I have recently written about how the two party system has failed us and how dark money has made it nearly impossible for an independent candidate to even get on the ballot. The Republicans and the Democrats are not running the show. The SuperPACs are.

So when Musk threatened to start his own party during the DOGE wars all he was really doing was threatening Trump. Because Musk’s party couldn’t have gotten on 90 percent of American ballots. But it would have weakened the MAGA base — which was exactly the point.

Then Tucker Carlson said this:

“I would not support the Republican Party, there’s no chance. Not gonna support the Democratic Party. I don’t know what I’m going to do. How could I or any American voter support a political party that’s not loyal to the United States — that puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens. It’s not possible to vote for people like that and I’m not going to. I voted Republican my entire life. I worked at Fox News. I’ve been a consistent defender for 35 years of the Republican Party, but there’s no defending this because it’s immoral. I’m out. And if I’m out, then I think a lot of other people are out.”

Different name. Same chokehold. Same dark money. Same result for the Purple Rose.

I don’t think I need to put the pipe down to ask that question.

I think it’s the only question worth asking right now.

And I’m genuinely puzzled why so few people are asking it.

The FCC and The News Brick What Good Government Actually Requires — Brick Five – The FCC and The News

On - Foundation, Our Heritage, Politics

The Fifth Brick What Good Government Actually Requires — Part Five

The FCC, The First Amendment, and The News That Used to Be News

The founding charter of the Federal Communications Commission is the Communications Act of 1934, an independent federal mandate enacted by Congress to regulate the airwaves in the public interest.

I encourage everyone to look it up. Read what it was designed to do. Then compare that to what it is currently doing.

The gap is the story.

The airwaves are public property. Broadcast licenses are issued in the public trust, not as private rights but as public obligations. The entity that receives a license to use the public airwaves accepts a responsibility to serve the public interest. That was the founding principle. That was the deal.

Somewhere along the way the deal changed.

Today a handful of corporations own most of what Americans see and hear. When that many outlets are controlled by that few owners the news stops being news and becomes something else. Call it perspective. Call it editorial direction. Call it what it actually is, propaganda with a news desk and a theme song.

This will be worth repeating in future segments because it touches everything. An informed citizenry is the foundation under the foundation. You cannot have accountability without information. You cannot have meaningful elections without accurate news. You cannot have a functioning democracy when the information ecosystem is owned by people with specific financial and political interests in what you believe.

Now add the Inspector Generals.

We have them. Or we had them. Their purpose is straightforward, independent oversight of the agencies they monitor, specifically designed to catch corruption and prevent regulatory capture. A check on the checkers. An independent eye on the people making the rules.

The current administration fired most of them.

The same oversight that would have monitored what the administration itself was doing, gone. Not restructured. Not replaced. Removed. Because independent oversight of your own behavior is inconvenient when your behavior requires oversight.

This is not a political attack. It is an illustration of exactly why the executive branch needs hard limits on what it can and cannot touch. There need to be areas of the civil service where executive orders have little to no effect. Where the order arrives and the response is not a court challenge but a rubbish bin. Some things should simply be beyond the reach of any single administration regardless of who won the last election.

The FCC is one of those things.

Its job is regulation. Monitor acquisitions. Prevent monopolies. Protect the public interest in the airwaves it licenses. What is not, what should not be, in its charter is any role in determining what speech is acceptable to the current occupant of the White House.

And yet.

For anyone paying attention, look up the details of what happened with Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and the Daily Show. The FCC was used as a direct instrument of executive pressure to coerce networks into dropping programming the president found unfavorable. Not illegal content. Not obscenity. Programming he didn’t like.

That is not regulation. That is a threat wearing a regulatory costume.

In our new foundation the safeguards have to be structural not assumed. No presidential pressure moves the needle because the president cannot fire the people holding the needle. Independence is not a courtesy, it is an architecture. Built in. Locked. Not dependent on the good faith of whoever currently holds power.

I can remember when the news was presented as news. Facts. This is what is happening. If an outlet wanted to offer opinion it was called an editorial and labeled as such. The separation was clear and it was honored because the public expected it and the license required it.

That line has been erased. Rebuilding it requires more than nostalgia. It requires structural protection with enforceable consequences.

You cannot have the First Amendment and suppress it simultaneously. That is not how the system was designed to work.

And here is the danger that goes beyond any single administration or any single network or any single late night host who said something unflattering.

When you find a way to circumvent one rule, even a small one, even quietly, even with a plausible justification, the next rule becomes easier. And the one after that. The erosion is always gradual until suddenly it isn’t gradual at all.

There need to be consequences.

Fast ones. Enforceable ones.

The First Amendment is not a suggestion. It is the first brick for a reason.

The Complete Foundation Sieries

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

Secretary Read Celebrates Victory in Executive Order Case on Voting Rights – Oregon

On - Forward Party, Politics, shared, Voting Rights

PRESS RELEASE

Date: June 24, 2026
Contact: Connor Radnovich | connor.radnovich@sos.oregon.gov

Secretary Read Celebrates Victory in Executive Order Case on Voting Rights

A federal judge permanently blocked key parts of an executive order that would have made voting more difficult for eligible citizens

SALEM, OR — Today, in a victory for the rights of people to hold politicians accountable through elections, a federal judge permanently blocked key parts of President Trump’s March 2025 executive order that would have made it harder for eligible citizens to vote.

Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read is releasing the following statement:

“As I’ve been saying for months and a judge agreed today, the president does not have any power over how states run elections. The Constitution is clear: states and Congress set the rules for elections, not one man in the Oval Office. Instead of trying to make voting more difficult, the president should instead focus on strengthening election security, supporting local election officials, and protecting every eligible American’s freedom to vote.”

This ruling was in response to a lawsuit brought by 19 states that sued to block President Trump’s executive order from March 2025. The order had previously been partially blocked by the same court under a preliminary injunction.

Other federal courts have also granted injunctions against this executive order, including the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in response to Oregon and Washington’s lawsuit.

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Oregon – Campaign Finance Learning Opportunity – Voters’ Pamphlet Filing Process – Maybe what free election are all about

On - Forward Party, Politics, shared, Voting Rights

sos.oregon.gov/ORESTAR | 503-986-1518 | orestar-support.sos@sos.oregon.gov

Campaign Finance Learning Opportunity

Voters’ Pamphlet Filing Process

The first day to file a voters’ pamphlet statement by fee is around the corner!

Did you know that if you pay for your statement now you can make changes all the way up until the deadline to file? This gives you flexibility to make changes as the landscape changes and while you seek endorsements. Speaking of endorsements, did you know endorsers are required to fill out a form giving you permission to use their name?

Whether you’re a first-time candidate or whether you’re looking for a refresher, the Elections Division invites you to join us for a comprehensive overview of the voters’ pamphlet filing process.

Date/Time: July 1, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

Location: Microsoft Teams

Register here!

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The Electoral College: A Solution Looking for the Right Problem?

On - activism, Commentary, elections and media, Politics, purple, Voting Rights

Most debates about the Electoral College start with people choosing sides. One side wants to keep it. The other wants to abolish it.

I think the more interesting question is: What problem was it designed to solve, and does that problem still exist?

In 1787, information traveled at the speed of a horse. Most citizens knew little about candidates from distant states. The United States was less a single nation than a collection of states agreeing to work together. The Electoral College was part compromise, part practical necessity, and part protection against direct democracy in a world where voters had limited information.

For its time, the system made sense.

Today, none of those conditions exist.

A voter in Oregon can watch a speech made in Florida in real time. News travels instantly. Candidates campaign nationally. Americans think of themselves as citizens of one country first and residents of a state second.

The original reasons for creating the Electoral College have weakened or disappeared.

Yet replacing it raises legitimate concerns.

A pure popular vote could encourage candidates to focus heavily on large population centers. The current system encourages candidates to focus on a handful of swing states. Neither approach feels particularly representative.

Today, millions of Republicans in California and millions of Democrats in Texas know their presidential vote is unlikely to matter. At the same time, a relatively small number of voters in a few battleground states effectively decide the election.

That suggests the problem is not simply the Electoral College. The problem is that our current system leaves large numbers of Americans feeling their vote has little impact.

I don’t pretend to know the perfect answer.

Perhaps it is a modified Electoral College. Perhaps it is a national popular vote. Perhaps it is a system nobody has proposed yet.

What I do know is that institutions should be judged by whether they solve today’s problems, not yesterday’s.

The Electoral College was created to address concerns that were real in 1787.

If the Electoral College is broken, what replaces it?

A straight popular vote?

A proportional allocation of electoral votes instead of winner-take-all states?

A ranked-choice national election?

A system where states award electoral votes by congressional district?

A constitutional convention to redesign the whole thing?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that every system solves one problem by creating another.

A pure popular vote values every vote equally, but raises concerns about population concentration.

The Electoral College protects state influence, but leaves many voters feeling irrelevant.

Winner-take-all states simplify elections, but turn most states into spectators.

There may not be a perfect answer. There may only be better compromises.

Before we argue about which system to adopt, we should at least agree on which problem we’re trying to solve.

If we can’t answer that question, we’re just rearranging the furniture.

And unlike the spare toilet paper at my house, nobody seems to know where the solution is stored.

The Electoral College asks how states should be represented.

Ranked-choice voting asks how voters should be represented.

Maybe before we decide which system is best, we should decide whose voice we are trying to hear more clearly.

The Elephant In The Room Nobody Is Looking At

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Dark Money, Politics, Voting Rights

Ever feel like you’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown from all the noise? The he said she said, on and on, round and round. Just noise.

But is it just noise?

Sometimes the most important thing happening isn’t the loudest thing happening. Sometimes the real story is in the room nobody is looking at.

Trump is out. The clown is getting the hook. You’d have to be blind not to see it — and he’s too busy with his burgers to notice it himself. I have recently written about how the two party system has failed us and how dark money has made it nearly impossible for an independent candidate to even get on the ballot. The Republicans and the Democrats are not running the show. The SuperPACs are.

So when Musk threatened to start his own party during the DOGE wars all he was really doing was threatening Trump. Because Musk’s party couldn’t have gotten on 90 percent of American ballots. But it would have weakened the MAGA base — which was exactly the point.

Then Tucker Carlson said this:

“I would not support the Republican Party, there’s no chance. Not gonna support the Democratic Party. I don’t know what I’m going to do. How could I or any American voter support a political party that’s not loyal to the United States — that puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens. It’s not possible to vote for people like that and I’m not going to. I voted Republican my entire life. I worked at Fox News. I’ve been a consistent defender for 35 years of the Republican Party, but there’s no defending this because it’s immoral. I’m out. And if I’m out, then I think a lot of other people are out.”

Thank you Heather Delaney Reese for Trump loyalists are jumping off the sinking ship

Tucker Carlson. Thirty five years. Out.

Now ask the question nobody seems to want to ask out loud.

Where are they going?

Tucker isn’t going long term. A third party takes decades to build and he doesn’t have that kind of patience or that kind of money. But somebody does.

Here is where we need to look. Here is the room nobody is looking at.

The SuperPACs. The dark money. The Federalist Society. Leonard Leo. Arabella Advisors. The entire infrastructure that has been quietly and methodically building the conservative legal and political architecture for thirty years.

They didn’t back Trump because they loved him. They backed him because he was a useful vehicle. Three Supreme Court justices. Hundreds of federal judges. Regulatory rollback. Tax structure. The return on their investment has been substantial.

But now the vehicle is embarrassing them. The stall is covered in dung. The clown is jeopardizing thirty years of careful infrastructure with daily chaos and a cognitive decline visible to anyone paying attention.

MAGA is dead. Trying to save it is a fool’s errand.

So what are the options?

Save the Republican Party — purge the MAGA element, restore something resembling functional conservatism, hope Vance or Rubio or someone with a law degree and a functioning prefrontal cortex can carry the banner forward. Vance and Rubio haven’t invoked the 25th Amendment yet because they’re still afraid of the MAGA base. But here’s the thing — if they did it the Republican establishment would put them on their shoulders. The dark money would fund the parade.

Or start over — a new right of center party, properly funded, built from the existing infrastructure that Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society have already constructed. It would have money. It would have judicial connections. It would have the organizational architecture that third parties normally spend decades trying to build.

Which brings us to the question that should keep everyone awake.

Is that a good thing?

Are we watching the dark money apparatus recognize that their vehicle has failed and quietly preparing to deploy a new one? A cleaner one. A more electable one. A saving angel that turns out to serve the same architecture in a better suit?

Or to put it another way — would a new right wing party actually break the two party system open for independents and moderates?

Or would it just be a Texas sidestep?

Different name. Same chokehold. Same dark money. Same result for the Purple Rose.

I don’t think I need to put the pipe down to ask that question.

I think it’s the only question worth asking right now.

And I’m genuinely puzzled why so few people are asking it.

The Judicial Branch Brick What Good Government Actually Requires — Brick Four – The Judicial Branch

On - Foundation, Our Heritage, Politics

Brick Four – The Judicial Branch

The Fourth Brick What Good Government Actually Requires — Part Four

The Judicial Branch

The Supreme Court was never designed to be a political prize.

It has become one anyway.

Every president now treats Supreme Court appointments as the most important legacy decision of their term, not because they care deeply about judicial philosophy but because they are buying future outcomes. The pocket justice. The reliable vote. The insurance policy wearing a robe.

The result is a court whose decisions are predictable before the arguments are heard. Everyone knows which way each justice will rule on any politically charged question because everyone knows who appointed them and what was expected in return. That is not justice. That is scorekeeping in robes.

The fix is not complicated. It is just threatening to the people who benefit from the current arrangement.

More justices. Randomly assigned. Term limited. Appointed by peers not presidents.

Not a specific number, the number is less important than the principle. Enough justices that no single president can stack the composition. Assigned to rotating panels by lottery so nobody can predict which justices will hear which case. Appointed by their fellow jurists rather than by the politician who wants to own their vote. Term limited to twelve or eighteen years, long enough to develop genuine expertise, short enough to prevent the court from calcifying around a single political moment.

The lottery is the key. You cannot game a random draw. You cannot have a justice in your pocket if you don’t know which pocket they’ll be sitting in when your case arrives. The pipeline between political appointment and predetermined outcome gets broken not by ideology but by randomness.

But the most important brick in the judicial wall has nothing to do with composition.

It has to do with enforcement.

Right now the Supreme Court can rule and the executive branch can say no. And nothing happens. The court has no army. The court has no marshals with actual authority. The court has strongly worded opinions and the assumption that the executive branch will comply because it always has before.

That assumption has been tested and found wanting.

Here is a question worth sitting with.

Every lower court in America has enforcement authority. A district judge can hold anyone in contempt and have them detained. Federal marshals exist specifically to enforce court orders at every level of the federal judiciary.

Except the highest one.

The Supreme Court, the final word on constitutional law, the last institutional check on executive power, operates on the honor system.

What good is the honor system if no one honors it?

We have now seen what happens when that hope runs out.

At what point do we acknowledge that the highest court in the land deserves at least the enforcement authority we grant to every court below it?

The Supreme Court needs its own enforcement mechanism. A Marshal’s service with the specific authority to detain anyone, anyone, that the court by majority vote determines is willfully operating outside their constitutional limits and has become a national threat.

No exceptions. No immunity. No rank that places a person beyond the reach of a court order.

The moment a president, or anyone else, can look at a Supreme Court ruling and respond with effective impunity the entire architecture of the republic becomes decorative. Pretty columns on a building with no foundation.

The court says no and the no has to mean something.

That is the fourth brick.

Not a perfect court. Not an infallible court. Just one that cannot be owned before the case is filed and cannot be ignored after the ruling is issued.

Justice without enforcement is just a word.

The Complete Foundation Sieries

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

It Takes Two to Tango, But The More The Merrier

On - Dark Money, Foundation, Our Heritage, Politics

Did you ever play a game of snooker against yourself? Put up the other side of a ping pong table to practice? It didn’t take long until video game creators realized they made more money in a bar with a PacMan with opposing controllers. Let’s face it, playing by yourself isn’t as much fun or as satisfying. That’s why we had the post-war population explosion.

We are wired for opposition, for partnership, for the push and pull of another person across the table. It’s more rewarding together than alone, after all, taking a shower together was always nicer than showering alone.

But enough of beer bars and bedrooms. Off to where the real back-stabbing and dirty stuff happens, politics and government.

In my opinion, the evil creating the havoc we live with today can be traced directly to what we call the two-party system. Anyone who wants a career in politics has to align themselves with a party. They have to declare that they are eitherLiberal – Blue, or Conservative – Red. They can’t walk in and say, hey, look at me. This is what I can do for you. And the reason is twofold: money and the checkbox.

Campaigns cost money, and an independent candidate has to compete against the Superpacs. This isn’t a small thing. Since I am registered Republican, this is the only example I can give honestly, but I am positive it is equally true for Blue. I receive at least fifty give-me-money emails a day from Trump, Vance, Trump’s kids, and would probably get them from Trump’s dog if he had one. Those contributions flow into what we call a Superpac. So when a party endorses your opponent, your opponent suddenly has a war chest you can’t match, financed by people who have never heard your name and wouldn’t care if they had. If you run independent, you finance from your own pocket or whatever limited funds you can scratch together from limited supporters. A very uneven battlefield.

The second problem is who they serve once elected. They no longer can support the people who voted for them, they must support the people who paid for their election. They must vote along party lines. We see that now, every day. It has a name: partisan. Which is a polite word for captured.

Let me ask you a few questions. If we didn’t have the two-party system, would Donald Trump have been elected? If he had been elected, would those — sorry, you didn’t see the three-minute pause while I searched for words other than idiots, thieves, and suckups — cabinet secretaries ever have been confirmed? Would we be in Trump’s war of choice? Would Trump have been Article 25’d by now?

I’ll let you answer those yourself.

The two-party system isn’t in the Constitution. It isn’t carved in stone or handed down from the founders. It’s a habit. An expensive, entrenched, self-serving habit that benefits exactly two groups of people, the two parties, and leaves the rest of us standing outside the dance hall listening to music we didn’t choose and paying the cover charge anyway. Habits can be broken. Systems can be redesigned. The question isn’t whether we can do better. The question is whether enough of us get angry enough, soon enough, to demand it.

The Entire Foundation Series

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Foundation of Government

The Long View From 1964 – The Newsboy Cap

On - Daily, or my first cup of coffee, Our Heritage, Politics, View From 1964

Fish guts. What do I do with these fish guts? I don’t want to run them down the garbage disposal — I have a septic tank. So they have to go into the garbage, but oh woe is me. There isn’t any newspaper to wrap them in. What has happened to America? What has happened? No more newspaper to wrap fish guts in.

Ol’ English Fish and Chips, Inglewood California, 1974. Lunch time, an hour off. I worked at Inglewood Physical Therapy on Locust Street and would walk over for fast food — Ol’ English Fish and Chips, wonderful cod and french fries wrapped in fake newsprint. So good. So much better than some fast food burger. Gone now, but the memories aren’t.

Corvallis, late seventies. Walk over to the local market for a counter lunch, find a newspaper someone left waiting for me. Headlines that told what happened nationally and what the Beavers did. Good stuff, even if it was a week old.

Growing up, Mom and Dad always had the daily paper delivered. In Manhattan Beach it was the Daily Breeze and the Los Angeles Times. Wherever we lived, it was local and regional and national. That’s where we got the news — and it was the news. If you wanted an opinion, you went to the editorial page. There you read the partisan slant. If the publisher was conservative, that’s where the slant went. The front page was holy ground for the NEWS.

The best part was you didn’t throw it away that day. You saved them up for the school kid with the fundraising paper drive. What we didn’t realize at the time was that we had accidentally built an archive. You didn’t have to go to the library to look something up — you had a six month to one year record already sitting in your garage, in order, except for the few sheets that had wrapped the fish guts. And those were probably the classified ads anyway.

Try finding an article posted five minutes ago if you’re not subscribed to that thread. And even if you are, good luck.

What has really happened is we changed from printing and distributing the news — news that if found incorrect would have a redaction printed, visibly, permanently, for everyone to see — to online content that can be quietly edited into something else entirely, or simply deleted, with no trace and no accountability. Never before has the phrase Buyer Beware been so important. And most critically, we aren’t even paying for it. It’s being force fed to us, customized by an algorithm we can’t see, shaped by a bias we can’t find on any editorial page.

The newspapers had their editorial page and they had something else — Letters to the Editor. Online publications have those as well, technically. Try finding them though. Try submitting something. I have. But newspapers were more open and honest about it. If they made a mistake, they owned up to it. Sometimes on their own. Integrity was important. A reporter’s reputation was his livelihood. Nobody buys a Timex watch on an outboard motor’s prop from someone they didn’t trust. Who in mainstream media do you trust today?

The point I am really trying to make — even with the podcasters you trust, the Substack authors you trust, the elephantsinkroom.com you trust — we have a limited audience. We keep talking to the same people, over and over. The share button only shares to the same platform, the same followers, the same converted.

We hope you are spreading the word. Because what we say isn’t being left on the lunch counter anymore. It isn’t sitting in the news rack on the street corner. It isn’t landing on your doorstep to be read by whoever picks it up. If it were printed you could share it — hand it to someone, leave it somewhere, let it find a stranger. That would be better than forwarding it to someone who already agrees, or just deleting it.

Newspapers died an unwarranted death.

Oh, I would love a basket of Ol’ English Fish and Chips with a bottle of malt vinegar right now.

On a side note — some people wear baseball caps, cowboy hats, no hats at all. Last year I started wearing the classic newsboy cap. Go figure. Does look good with the grey and white hair though.

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Protecting Your Voting Rights – Video

On - Commentary, Politics, Protest 2026, purple, Voting Rights

Protecting voting rights is a fundamental aspect of American democracy, and your concern about potential executive overreach is valid given recent reports. While presidents have issued executive orders related to elections in the past, they don’t have unilateral authority to control how states run them, elections are primarily a state responsibility under the Constitution (Article I, Section 4), with Congress able to set or alter regulations for federal races. Any attempt to impose sweeping changes via executive order, especially if premised on unsubstantiated claims like foreign interference from past elections, would likely face immediate legal challenges and injunctions from federal courts, as happened with a similar order in March 2025.

Courts have repeatedly affirmed that such actions can’t override constitutional limits or state authority without clear statutory backing.

Texas Is Pushing Independents Off Ballots – 06/19/26

On - Forward Party, Politics, shared, Voting Rights

In recent weeks, we have shared news about the candidates running, the signatures gathered, and forward momentum for independents this cycle. This week, we’re focusing on the fight to make sure independent candidates can even get that far. The Forward Party announced support for a lawsuit against the State of Texas this week, and we want you to understand why.

81,030 is the key number here. That is the number of valid voter signatures Texas requires an independent statewide candidate to collect, with only 30 days to do it.

The Forward Party is officially supporting Texas independent candidate for Lieutenant Governor Mike Collier who filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s ballot access requirements for independent statewide candidates. It was filed in cooperation with the Center for Competitive Democracy.

Here’s what Texas law actually requires: an independent candidate for statewide office must collect more than 81,030 valid voter signatures. That alone would be a serious challenge for any campaign, but Texas adds another twist. Independent candidates are legally prohibited from beginning that signature collection process until after the partisan primary runoff elections have concluded.

This year, that meant the clock didn’t start until May 26th, when Texas’s primary runoffs wrapped up. Independent petitions are due June 25th. That leaves independent candidates just 30 days to collect more signatures than most statewide campaigns gather in six months.

It gets more restrictive. Texas law also sharply limits who is allowed to sign an independent candidate’s petition. Any voter who participated in a party primary or runoff election is disqualified from signing an independent candidate’s petition.

Combine a pressed 30-day timeline with a shrunken pool of eligible signers, and you get a system that is not only expensive but also logistically difficult to navigate. That is by design.

As the lawsuit argues, these barriers serve no public purpose other than locking independent candidates, and the voters who want to support them, out of the democratic process entirely.

Whether it’s gerrymandered districts that reduce competition or ballot access laws that keep independent candidates off the ballot entirely, the result is the same: fewer meaningful choices for voters, and a political system built to protect incumbents and party insiders rather than the people they’re supposed to serve.

Please forward this to your friends, family, and coworkers. It helps us introduce them to Forward and to what we are building. Also consider inviting them to one of our upcoming events listed below. We’d love to meet them.

Brand new this week on The Forward Party Podcast, is John Avlon, journalist, political analyst, and host of “How to Fix It” and special guest Khalil Ekulona, former NPR host and community storyteller. Together, the hosts and Khalil explore how media has changed over the last two decades and what those changes mean for democracy.

Click the image below to watch.

ICYMI: The Forward Party Podcast – Episode 11

June 28th – Young Forwardists High School Introduction

Are you a Highschooler who wants to get involved? Do you have a Highschooler in your life who is politically engaged and wants to make real change in the world? The Young Forwardists are always looking for the next generation of leaders and they’re ready to welcome new members.

June 29th – Welcome Team Training

Learn how our state teams welcome brand new members to their party. We’ll work on phone scripts and email templates to get the most out of your new interested members.

July 1st – Town Hall Training

Join us for a practical, energizing training on how to plan and run town halls that actually bring people together. You’ll learn how to choose the right venue, confirm speakers, promote the event effectively, and handle day of details with confidence.

If you’re tired of waiting for the system to fix itself — this is your moment.
👥 Volunteer | 🗳️ Run for Office | 💸 Donate | 🌐 forwardparty.com

Contrary to what our detractors on social media say, YES, we read!

Rick Bennett To Face Off Against Bobby Charles and Hannah Pingree in Maine

Maine’s RCV primary has finished and we now know who Rick Bennett (I) will be facing for the Governor’s seat – Bobby Charles (R) and Hannah Pingree (D).

Sen. John Curtis To Walk 250 Miles For 250 Years Of America

Utah Senator John Curtis is walking 250 miles to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence. He’s walking from the northernmost point of Utah to his hometown of Provo.

Georgia Republicans Scrap Current Plans to Redistrict Ahead of 2028

Changing districts on your voters to cheat your way to more seats in Washington is a bad political move… who knew? We did – and so did all of you. Some politicians are starting to realize it, too.

Our mailing address is:
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Before We Go Any Further A Reality Check

On - Foundation, Our Heritage, Politics

Before we go any further building a foundation for the future we have to stop and look at reality.

What we have is a mess. A partisan battlefield where ninety percent of the effort and legislation is directed toward power, who is in charge and who is making the rules. And the needs of the people are in reality not taken into consideration. Oh, lip service is given on every stump any good politician can find to state their cause. And their cause is to get themselves reelected.

So in all honesty, is this a pipe dream? Are we just sitting here grooving to Grace Slick singing White Rabbit?

Or is this doable.

I believe it is. Can it be done overnight? No. But it can be done.

Honesty point number two. Who will be the strongest opponents to effective change? The entrenched politicians themselves. They voted for their own terms, their own pay, their own retirement, their own power. They don’t want to give it up.

Well. F them.

What it will take is us. But not just us in numbers, an educated us. An involved us. It is like wanting to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Cheryl Ladd while eating another pint of Häagen-Dazs. It isn’t going to happen without the exercise. You need muscles before you can flex them.

Think of what I am proposing as a blueprint in its early stages. Something to be thrown around, talked about, redrawn, picked apart and rewritten. And when you’re done, go back and compare it to the original and start building. That is, if you truly want something better.

It isn’t going to magically appear on its own.

We will talk about many things. Healthcare, what should we expect, what do we want, and what is actually reasonable? It’s easy to say free healthcare but someone still has to pay for it. Education, what good is a PhD if you can’t get a job? Maybe trade schools are a good thing. Should the Washington reflecting pool reflect something worth reflecting or just be a pretty shade of blue? The list could go on forever. But I’m old, so I promise you it will be a reasonable list.

And we will address capitalism. After all it is what got us here. I am all for it. But let’s put it in perspective. Who gets what and how much is enough?

It’s all about the seeds. You need to supply the earth, the water and the fertilizer, if any can be found under the current regime.

We also need a label. We all like labels. We need labels. It’s the American Way. This is supposed to be a Democratic Republic we live in.

I’m not so sure that label fits very well anymore.

What do you think?

The obvious goal with this set of foundation blocks isn’t to fix the broken system. It’s to provide a structure with enough strength that it cannot be so easily broken and manipulated again.

The strength comes from simplicity.

Not complexity.

The Entire Foundation Series

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

The Cabinet, Party Favors Brick What Good Government Actually Requires — Brick Three – The Cabinet, Party Favors

On - Foundation, Our Heritage, Politics

The Third Brick What Good Government Actually Requires — Part Three

There is a tradition in American politics so embedded that most people never question it.

The president wins. The president hands out cabinet positions. The cabinet positions go to the people who helped the president win — donors, allies, loyalists, true believers, and occasionally someone who spent the entire campaign calling for the department they now run to be abolished.

We call this governing.

It isn’t.

It is the thank you gift system dressed up as executive leadership. Party favors with confirmation hearings. And while career civil servants generally do the actual work underneath the political appointees, the damage happens when the unqualified person at the top starts making policy. Policy driven not by expertise or national interest but by the ideology, ego, or donor relationships of someone who got the job because they made the right phone calls at the right time.

The confirmation process was supposed to prevent the worst of this. In theory Congress evaluates the nominee and decides whether they are qualified to lead a critical department. In practice — as we have watched in painful real time — partisan confirmation is theater. When the system is controlled by one party the hearings become a formality and the outcome is predetermined regardless of qualification.

So here is the question the third brick asks.

What if the president didn’t pick the cabinet?

Not entirely. Not unilaterally. What if the senior positions in critical departments — Defense, State, Justice, Intelligence, the Federal Reserve — were filled by professionals who advanced through their own institutional ranks on merit, competence, and demonstrated performance? The way military officers advance. The way career diplomats advance. The way the civil service was designed to work before political appointees started parachuting in over the people who actually know the job.

The president would then work within that professional framework to accomplish the agenda the voters elected them to execute.

Which brings us to the vice president.

Right now the vice president is chosen to win a state, appeal to a demographic, or balance a ticket geographically. They are an electoral calculation wearing the costume of a governing partner. Your running mate is whoever helps you win. What happens after winning is a separate conversation.

What if it wasn’t?

What if the vice president was required to be a genuine working partner — someone who shared the governing agenda, complemented the president’s specific weaknesses, and was capable of actually running the country if called upon? Not a campaign asset. A co-architect.

That changes everything downstream.

A president who has to pick a genuine partner picks differently than a president assembling an electoral coalition. A ticket built around a shared agenda attracts a cabinet built around executing that agenda. If the country faces a climate crisis the executive team running on clean energy solutions has the expertise and the congressional backing to address it. If national security is the crisis the team built around genuine military and diplomatic competence has the credibility to lead.

There would still be infighting. There will always be infighting. Human nature doesn’t get reformed by better institutional design.

But more handshakes and less backstabbing is not a naive hope. It is what happens when you change the incentive structure. Right now the incentive is loyalty to one person. Change the incentive to competence in service of a shared agenda and the culture follows the incentive.

The military figured this out. You do not hand the Joint Chiefs to someone’s campaign donor. You advance through the ranks, demonstrate competence at every level, and earn the position. The fact that this system was recently dismantled in favor of loyalty appointments is not an argument against the system. It is the strongest possible argument for protecting it with something more durable than institutional habit and assumed good faith.

Professional advancement. Merit confirmation. A vice president who is a partner not a prop. A cabinet built to execute an agenda rather than reward the people who funded it.

The Entire Foundation Series

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

All Eyes On Maine… 06/15/26

On - Forward Party, Politics, shared, Voting Rights

This week, we’re going to Maine, where something historic just happened quietly and deserves to be said loudly.

While Maine’s U.S Senate primary has been a focal point recently with party candidates Graham Platner and Susan Collins occupying headlines, the Governor’s race has brought voters’ optimism back to their state.

We’re featuring Rick Bennett this week – Bennett is a Harvard-educated businessman, a former President of the Maine State Senate, and a lifelong Republican who spent decades building his party — then walked away from it. On June 24, 2025, he announced he would run for governor as an independent, ending a party affiliation he’d held his entire political life.

Just a couple weeks ago, he qualified for the November gubernatorial ballot — the only independent to do so.

Here is the argument most independent candidates have to make: I’ll find a way to work with everyone once I get there. Rick Bennett doesn’t have to try to make that argument – he already has the record proving that he can. He has spent 18 years in the Maine Legislature doing exactly what he is now asking Maine voters to elect him do in the Blaine House. He has built coalitions, negotiated with Democrats and Republicans, moved legislation through a divided chamber, and delivered results on the issues Maine families actually talk about at the kitchen table.

This is not a candidate learning on the job. This is a candidate who has already done the job, at every level of the legislative process, and who is now asking for the chance to do it from the top.

___

The Maine governor’s race has gone to a ranked-choice runoff, with results expected before June 19th. On the GOP side, with 43% of votes counted Tuesday night, Bobby Charles — an attorney who ran a Trump-style campaign largely relying on social media — led with more than 38%. No candidate crossed the 50% threshold, sending the Republican primary to a ranked-choice runoff that will conclude before June 19th. Ben Midgley and Jonathan Bush were neck-and-neck for second place.

The Democratic field is even less clear, with Nirav Shah, Hannah Pingree, Troy Jackson, and Shenna Bellows all within 6% of each other. Who comes out of that field is anyone’s guess. But one thing is clear – Rick is the only candidate who is ready to win in November.

Maine loves its independents, having elected two independent governors in its modern history: James Longley, who served from 1975 to 1979, and U.S. Sen. Angus King, who served as governor from 1995 to 2003 before being elected to the Senate.

Rick was the first candidate that the Forward Party endorsed for the 2026 cycle in December of 2025. He’s the right leader for Maine, and we’re proud to support his campaign.

To learn more about Rick, check out his website here!

Please forward this to your friends, family, and coworkers. It helps us introduce them to Forward and to what we are building. Also consider inviting them to one of our upcoming events listed below. We’d love to meet them.

If you haven’t caught the newest episode of The Forward Party Podcast that dropped most recently, be sure to give it a watch!

Click the image below to watch.

ICYMI: The Forward Party Podcast – Episode 10

June 15th – Recruitment Training: How To Talk About Forward

Join Head of Volunteer Programs Carrie Anne Templeton and Forward National to learn how to grow the Forward Party in your home state. Dozens of Forwardists just like you attend this training every month and learn how to be a changemaker in their community – join the party!

June 17th A Conversation With Lindsey Williams Drath, Forward Party CEO

Join Forward CEO Lindsey Williams Drath for a fireside chat hosted by the Forward Women’s Committee! Get the inside scoop on all things FWD.

June 18th – Ballot Access Laws: New Mexico, Texas & Arizona with FIVE & Open Primaries

This virtual town hall hosted by the Foundation for Independent Voter Education and Open Primaries, examines ballot access and what’s at stake across Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. This is the policy conversation behind the headlines.

Featured Guests:

Jeremy Gruber — Open Primaries

Oliver Hall — Center for Competitive Democracy

Moderated by Sarah Lenti. The conversation covers state-specific ballot access barriers, real-world candidate and voter experiences, structural obstacles facing independents, and practical pathways for reform. Whether you’re a candidate, a voter, or just someone who believes the rules should be fair, this one couldn’t be more timely.

If you’re tired of waiting for the system to fix itself — this is your moment.
👥 Volunteer | 🗳️ Run for Office | 💸 Donate | 🌐 forwardparty.com

Contrary to what our detractors on social media say, YES, we read!

With Charles In Lead, Republican Gubernatorial Race Headed To Ranked Choice Run-Off

With the Republican Primary set to move a very Trump oriented Republican through the nomination, others in the party, including candidates who seem poised to lose the primary, are considering Rick Bennett instead.

Kevin Kiley, Richard Pan Advance In Race For Newly Redrawn California House District

Kevin Kiley, currently the only independent serving in the House of Representatives won the primary in CA-06 this year, with Democrat Richard Pan earning the second spot and moving on to November as well. Kiley is poised to retake his seat even after mid decade redistricting tried to push him out of Washington.

State Rep. Jermaine Johnson Is Projected Winner Of 2026 Democratic Primary For South Carolina Governor

Forward endorsed Democrat and former U.S. Congressman Jermaine Johnson looks likely to receive the Democratic nomination for the Governor’s seat in South Carolina.

The Term Limits Brick What Good Government Actually Requires — Brick Two – Term Limits

On - Foundation, Our Heritage, Politics

The Second Brick What Good Government Actually Requires — Part Two

If accountability is the foundation then the second brick is simple.

Nobody stays forever.

Term limits. Age accountability. The systematic removal of dead wood before it becomes the structure itself. The recognition that in any healthy organization — a business, a military unit, a family — the inability to remove someone who has outlived their effectiveness isn’t loyalty. It’s institutional rot.

We have watched what happens when people stay too long. The institution bends around them rather than them serving the institution. J. Edgar Hoover ran the FBI for 48 years. Nobody could remove him because nobody could afford the cost of trying. That is not a feature of good government. That is a cautionary tale that we apparently need to be told more than once.

On Age

A hard cutoff number is both cruel and imprecise. Minds age differently. A 79 year old with a video tape memory and fifty years of accumulated pattern recognition may serve better than a 55 year old running on talking points and donor calls. A number on a birth certificate tells you nothing useful.

What tells you something useful is behavior.

A committee empowered to evaluate and recommend further medical and mental evaluation when behavior becomes noticeable. Not partisan. Not elected. Drawn from retired judges, physicians, and civic leaders with staggered appointments designed to insulate from political pressure. The process itself is the deterrent — most people approaching genuine cognitive decline would rather resign than submit to public evaluation.

The goal isn’t to humiliate. It’s to create a dignified off ramp before the institution suffers.

On Term Limits

The structure matters as much as the limit.

A president at two four year terms has enough time to govern without enough time to become permanent. A senator at two six year terms — twelve years — learns the job properly and builds something durable without becoming a resident. A representative on perpetual two year cycles is always campaigning and never governing. Move them to four year terms. Give them enough runway to actually do the work.

The goal is sufficient time to be effective without sufficient time to become immovable.

On the Two Party System

Here is the brick that will make everyone uncomfortable.

Eliminate it.

Not reform it. Not balance it. Remove the institutional infrastructure that makes it the only viable option. No party designations on ballots. No party primaries with public funding. No party based committee assignments in Congress.

Watch what happens to the PACs when there are no teams to back. Watch what happens to the dark money when the jersey colors disappear. Citizens United becomes considerably less useful when there is no party machinery to funnel the money into.

This isn’t naive. It’s the recognition that the two party system has become the primary mechanism for preventing exactly the accountability the foundation requires.

On Compensation

If we require fidelity we require fidelity.

Public servants receive public servant compensation. A PERS program like other government employees. Healthcare through the same options available to federal workers. A pathway into continued government service for those who want to contribute after their term ends.

No golden umbrellas. No lifetime pensions after a single term. No healthcare for life unavailable to the constituents who funded it.

The same standard applied to the person making the rules as the person living under them.

That is the second brick.

Nobody stays forever. Nobody lives above the system they were elected to serve.

Build on that and the walls start to mean something.

The Entire Foundation Series

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

The Show Must Go On — But Who’s Running It Now? Part 2 – Video

On - Commentary, Politics, Protest 2026, Trump

I recently wrote a piece asking who is running the show in Washington. In the short time since I published it others have started asking the same question. The observations I made are no longer just mine.

This isn’t to rehash the noise. There are plenty of others doing that. This is a personal reflection — and to put it in perspective, Second String Donny and I are only a few months apart in age.

Together we can stand against the lies.

He will call it insurrection.

We will call it Tuesday.

The Show Must Go On — But Who’s Running It Now? Part 2

On - Commentary, Politics, Protest 2026, Trump

I recently wrote a piece asking who is running the show in Washington. In the short time since I published it others have started asking the same question. The observations I made are no longer just mine.

This isn’t to rehash the noise. There are plenty of others doing that. This is a personal reflection — and to put it in perspective, Second String Donny and I are only a few months apart in age.

Years ago I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. I would stop breathing in my sleep and the result was chronically low oxygen in the bloodstream. The most noticeable symptoms — falling asleep mid-afternoon, wondering who had been driving the car for the last five miles.

I eventually used the CPAP machine that had been sitting unused. Problem solved. I stopped napping through the day and started accounting for all the miles.

If Second String Donny is sitting in bed Truth Socializing us into a stupor at 2am someone needs to take his gold phone away after eight. I would hate for him to sleep-tap the launch codes.

He recently visited Walter Reed for another cognitive test. There is no way he passed any meaningful part of it based on observed behavior. And visually he looks like a man slipping — not gradually but like falling off a cliff — into something irreversible. I have watched too many long time friends and family members go through this process. There is a recognizable pattern to anyone with experience in aging. I don’t even have to look farther than my aging Jack Russel, all to often I see her just standing there, staring at the wall.

Look at the pace of his revenge. The urgency of it. He has to punish everyone he can before it’s too late for him to do it. The erratic orders being pushed onto the DOJ are not the work of a coherent strategist — they are the demands of someone operating in shrinking windows of clarity. And fear of the unstable keeps the people around him obedient even when the orders are obviously wrong.

This brings us back to who is running the show.

Insecure children afraid of the unstable parent?

Could be.

I think we are about to experience a wild six months. Five months leading to the midterms and the month following. There will be attacks and threats on every phase of the election process. He will intimidate, confuse, and try to convince you he controls things he doesn’t control. The states run their own elections. Don’t let him convince you otherwise.

After the election — when the results don’t go his way — we know what comes next. The blind fold moment. The declaration of fraud. The refusal to accept what he cannot accept because losing is not something he has the psychological architecture for.

It will be a wild ride.

But only you can allow it to be a fatal one.

He will claim insurrection. He will reach for his private army. ICE. The Walmart rejects with badges and immunity.

I’m not sure the National Guard generals are on his side.

And I’m not sure he’s thought clearly enough about that to be worried.

He should be.

Together we can stand against the lies.

He will call it insurrection.

We will call it Tuesday.

The Accountability Brick What Good Government Actually Requires — Brick One – Accountability

On - Foundation, Our Heritage, Politics

The Foundation What Good Government Actually Requires — Part One

Accountability.

Not the political science version. Not the talking point. The real thing. The kind you learn before you’re old enough to vote.

When you break something you admit it. There is no rug. There is no sweeping. You live with what you have and if you don’t have it you earn it. If you make a promise you keep it — or you have a legitimate reason for not doing so that you share with the people you made it to.

That’s it. That’s the foundation.

Everything else — healthcare, infrastructure, justice, national security, the institutions we depend on daily without noticing — sits on top of that one simple principle. Remove it and nothing else holds. The walls crack. The roof comes down. The building that took two hundred and fifty years to construct becomes a very expensive pile of rubble with gold curtains.

We have watched what happens when accountability disappears from the top.

I will lower your taxes. What goes unspoken is that someone’s benefits will pay for it. I will protect your benefits. What goes unspoken is where the money comes from. The empty promise isn’t always an outright lie. Sometimes it’s just half the truth delivered with enough confidence that nobody does the math until the bill arrives.

The bill always arrives.

Presidential immunity is the legal formalization of unaccountability. The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision didn’t create the problem — it just removed the last pretense that the problem didn’t exist. When the president does it it isn’t illegal. Nixon said that too. It didn’t work then because the institution held.

The institution didn’t hold this time.

Which means the foundation has to be rebuilt with something stronger than institutional habit and assumed good faith. The founders were obsessed with this question. They had just lived under a king. Every check, every balance, every separation of power was the answer to one central anxiety — what happens when the wrong person gets the power?

They built a back door. A way to stop something. Checks and balances as the architectural response to the certainty that power will eventually be held by someone who shouldn’t have it.

That back door has to be properly locked from both sides. No presidential immunity. Full stop. The same standard applied to the person signing the orders as to the person receiving them.

To require fidelity requires fidelity.

That covers governance and marriage and institutional trust and the social contract simultaneously. You cannot demand loyalty from a country you are actively betraying. You cannot require honesty from institutions you are actively corrupting. You cannot ask the American people to follow rules you have granted yourself immunity from.

One standard. No exceptions. No immunity.

That is the foundation.

Without it nothing else we build will stand.

The Entire Foundation Series

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government

Guest Post – Outrage Turned Us vs. Them Into Us vs. Us

On - Foundation, Politics, purple

The political class does not need every citizen to agree with its agenda. It only needs citizens to remain divided enough that they never organize around the things they already agree upon. The cost of living, safe communities, transparent government, affordable healthcare, accountable leadership, fair wages, reliable infrastructure, and reduced corruption are not fringe concerns. They are the ordinary expectations of people who still believe a modern nation should function reasonably well.

Yet functioning government is terrible entertainment. Competent administration does not generate ratings. A successful infrastructure project is not nearly as exciting as a culture war. A balanced budget lacks the emotional punch of outrage. Solving problems rarely creates the same level of engagement as arguing about them indefinitely.

As a result, the public often finds itself trapped in a cycle where the issues that divide Americans become permanent campaign material, while the issues that unite Americans become optional. The disagreements remain unresolved because unresolved conflicts are politically valuable. They provide fundraising opportunities, campaign slogans, media appearances, and endless reasons to return voters to the polls convinced that disaster is one election away.

Meanwhile, many of the structures that citizens regularly complain about remain largely untouched. Bureaucracies continue to grow and evolve. Lobbying networks remain deeply embedded. Regulatory systems become increasingly complex. Major donors continue to enjoy access that ordinary citizens can only imagine. Regardless of which party wins a given election, the machinery itself often proves remarkably durable.

This is not to suggest that elections do not matter. They do. Policies matter. Laws matter. Judicial appointments matter. The outcomes of elections can and do have significant consequences for millions of people.

The problem is that Americans are increasingly encouraged to view politics as a never-ending battle between ordinary citizens rather than as a mechanism for governing a country. Political disagreement is natural and healthy in a free society. It is impossible to have liberty without disagreement because free people inevitably reach different conclusions about how society should be organized.

The trouble begins when disagreement ceases to be a challenge that politics attempts to manage and instead becomes the product being sold.

In that environment, conflict acquires value of its own. Outrage becomes a commodity. Fear becomes a fundraising strategy. Anger becomes a marketing tool. Citizens become consumers of political entertainment rather than participants in self-government.

The result is a nation in which people spend extraordinary amounts of time debating one another while exercising surprisingly little influence over the institutions that affect their daily lives. Americans can instantly identify the latest cultural controversy, yet many struggle to explain how legislation is written, how regulatory agencies operate, or how lobbying organizations influence policy. They know the arguments they are expected to have because those arguments are constantly placed in front of them. They are far less likely to know where the money flows, who benefits from specific decisions, or why certain reforms never seem to advance beyond campaign promises.

None of this requires a grand conspiracy. Human nature is sufficient. Politicians respond to incentives. Media organizations respond to incentives. Activist groups respond to incentives. Consultants, donors, corporations, and advocacy organizations all respond to incentives. If outrage generates attention, and attention generates money, influence, or power, then outrage will be produced in abundance.

That reality should concern citizens regardless of ideology.

A conservative who believes government has become unaccountable should be concerned. A progressive who believes corporations wield excessive influence should be concerned. An independent who simply wants competent leadership should be concerned. The specific diagnosis may vary, but the underlying problem remains remarkably similar: institutions often benefit from public division in ways that ordinary citizens do not.

The challenge, therefore, is not to eliminate disagreement. That would be impossible and undesirable. A healthy society needs vigorous debate. It needs competing ideas. It needs people who are willing to challenge one another’s assumptions and defend their beliefs.

What it does not need is a political culture that treats every disagreement as evidence that fellow citizens are enemies.

Americans can disagree about gun policy while still demanding affordable housing. They can disagree about abortion while still insisting upon accessible healthcare. They can debate immigration policy while expecting government agencies to function efficiently. They can argue about climate policy while wanting clean water, reliable infrastructure, and accountable public officials.

In fact, the ability to maintain those distinctions may be one of the most important civic skills a democracy can possess.

The danger is not disagreement itself. The danger is allowing disagreement to become a leash that can be pulled whenever those in power need citizens looking somewhere else.

When people are exhausted, angry, and constantly reacting, they become easier to manage. They spend their energy fighting one another instead of examining systems. They become focused on symptoms instead of incentives. They become consumers of outrage rather than organizers of solutions.

Outrage can be useful. It can draw attention to genuine injustice. It can motivate action. It can expose corruption and force accountability.

But outrage alone is not power.

Power comes from organization. It comes from persistence. It comes from understanding how institutions work and demanding that they serve the public interest. It comes from citizens who are willing to track promises, follow legislation, monitor spending, attend meetings, vote consistently, and remain engaged long after the cameras have moved on to the next controversy.

Most importantly, power comes from recognizing that fellow citizens are not automatically enemies simply because they disagree.

The country does not need another lecture about unity from politicians who profit from division. It does not need another campaign built entirely around fear of the other side. It does not need another election cycle in which Americans are told that their greatest threat is the person living across the street.

What it needs are citizens willing to notice the trick.

The divide in America is real. Some disagreements are profound and unlikely to disappear anytime soon. But division is also useful to those who benefit from keeping the public fragmented and distracted.

That reality does not erase legitimate differences between left and right. It simply raises a different question: who benefits when citizens become so consumed by fighting one another that they stop paying attention to the people holding the matches?

The sign still insists everything is under control.

Perhaps it is finally time to stop arguing long enough to ask who keeps fueling the fire.

This is a long form version of

Rory Kelly

The Wake Up Call We Needed — Now What? – Video

On - Commentary, Politics, purple

Fast times in DC.

Who could have guessed one person could do so much damage in so little time? Boy did we get blindsided.

But who is to blame?

The ugly answer is you, me, and the rest of the sheep basking in the sun, being spoon fed from the easy café.

The power will be taken from Trump. That’s a given. The question is who ends up with it.

And what they do with it.

That question is what the rest of this series is about.

The Wake Up Call We Needed — Now What?

On - Commentary, Politics, purple

Fast times in DC.

Who could have guessed one person could do so much damage in so little time? Boy did we get blindsided.

But who is to blame?

The ugly answer is you, me, and the rest of the sheep basking in the sun, being spoon fed from the easy café.

In a year and a half we have watched our checks and balances reveal themselves as profoundly unbalanced. We have watched the courts become so partisan that the blind lady of justice simply threw away her scales. We have watched corruption we never considered possible — insider trading making the obscenely rich richer, our heritage torn down and rewritten to honor a grifter, due process replaced by the rule of whoever wears the crown.

None of it was subtle. It was thrown in our faces. We were sneered at, belittled, and abused. And told it was for our own good.

For once I agree.

It has been for our own good. Not the abuse — the exposure. We needed a wake up call. Not a gentle alarm. A slap across the face.

Are you awake yet?

Do you see what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen if we don’t put a stop to it?

But wait. Before we stop it something else must be decided. How do we make sure this never happens again?

And so far the answer from most quarters seems to be — put the Democrats in power.

That’s a rather simplistic view.

Consider this honestly. What would you do with absolute power? Power corrupts. Absolute power means the same old fleecing — just someone else holding the shears. Do you really believe the Democrats are immune to that power rush? Would you be?

Oh, but they’re the Democrats. Right.

I don’t trust them any more than I trust the Republicans. And I say that having watched both parties for six decades.

This didn’t start with Trump. For decades — through conservative and liberal administrations alike — the machinery of power has been slowly redirected toward the people operating it rather than the people it was built to serve. Term limits have never passed because nobody in power wants to give up power. Legislation shifts like sand from side to side depending on who holds the majority. Congress spends more time and money on Congress than it does on the rest of us. We exist to justify them and to pay them.

Trump accelerated what was already in motion. He didn’t build the road. He just drove it off the cliff faster than anyone expected.

So here is my advice. Take it or leave it. But remember — you will have to live with the results. I am old. The changes we make or fail to make won’t affect me nearly as much as they will affect my children and their children. That’s why I’m still paying attention.

Elect moderates. I don’t care if they carry a D or an R. Get away from the extremes. Flush MAGA down the toilet. Dump the wokes in a landfill. Look for people who want a functional government — leaders who understand that America is a member of the world community, not its boss. We are powerful enough to guarantee mutual destruction. Why are we too weak to simply get along?

The power will be taken from Trump. That’s a given. The question is who ends up with it.

And what they do with it.

That question is what the rest of this series is about.

This One Is For You The Moderates. The Independents. The People With No Checkbox.

On - Commentary, Politics, purple

This one is for the people who don’t know which box to check. The ones who get called moderate like it’s an insult. The ones who believe in fiscal responsibility and social decency simultaneously and can’t find a party that does both.

You exist. You are not alone. You are actually the majority.

And nobody is talking to you directly.

You are not a Democrat who drifted right. You are not a Republican who got left behind. You are something specific and real that the current system has no checkbox for.

Around 33 to 35 percent of American adults self identify as moderates. Around 45 percent identify as political independents. The majority doesn’t fit in either shoebox. And yet the candidates are selected in primaries dominated by the most committed voters on each extreme — which means by the time the general election arrives the choices have already been made without you.

So we get screwed. Politely. Democratically. But thoroughly.

The most effective tactic available to a moderate right now is not supporting the champion — because the champion isn’t on the ballot. It’s weakening the worst option. Registering in the other party’s primary and voting against the most dangerous candidate. It’s a shame that’s where we are. But that’s where we are.

And even that doesn’t give you the candidate you actually want.

What you can do — what has to happen before anything else changes — is make noise. The two party system and the electoral college won’t dismantle themselves. But they can be pressured. Start early. Find the candidates from either side you can live with and say so loudly. Support the ones closest to sanity regardless of the label they wear.

Noise works. It’s why you’re reading this.

Right now all we hear is Democrats telling us the only effective way to address the current disaster is to vote Democrat. They’re probably right in the short term because they’re the only ones making noise. The moderates and independents are watching. Reading. Thinking.

And staying silent.

That has to stop.

You can’t complain about being ignored if you’re silent. This isn’t Christmas. Silence doesn’t belong in the equation.

I’m not going to tell you what to say. You are probably the least sheep of anyone paying attention right now. The least likely to follow blindly. The most likely to have thought this through.

So why aren’t you speaking up?

The only way independents and moderates get a checkbox is if we force it into existence. Not by waiting for permission. Not by hoping one of the two parties decides to represent us. By showing up, making noise, and refusing to be invisible any longer.

I know who I would vote for.

Do you?

Hint: It isn’t Newsom or Harris.

Independents Move Us Forward – 06/05/26

On - Forward Party, Politics, shared, Voting Rights

Bill —

The independent wave is building. This week, six key states held primaries that demonstrated, across the board, a growing tide of voters wanting more choice in their representatives.

Tuesday’s Independent Candidates

Forward has been fighting the conventional wisdom in American politics: “If you want to win, you have to pick a team.”

Well, voters are done with being handed two choices that no longer work for them. We are increasingly seeing candidates respond to that frustration by doing something the system has deliberately made difficult – running without a party label.

This cycle, independent candidates are qualifying for November ballots from Montana to South Dakota, to Iowa, and more. They come from different backgrounds, different ideologies, and different regions. What they share is a conviction that the people of their districts deserve a representative who answers to them, not a party.

Even more – in CA-06, the Democrats gerrymandered mid-cycle to try and gain more seats in Washington. Instead, voters are clear that they’ve had enough and an Independent is poised to win the top two primary.

California

California’s uses a nonpartisan Top Two primary system which allows every candidate — Democrat, Republican, independent — appears on the same ballot. The top two finishers, regardless of party, advance to November. Under this system, there is no “spoiler.” Top Two is one of the many reforms that Forward fights for nation-wide because they make our democracy better than it is today.

California’s June 2 primary was a strong test for independents (especially in a state with 30% “no party preference” voter registration). Under a partisan primary system, independent candidates have to wait until November. California’s Top Two system is different. It is, as Forward has long argued, what every state’s system should be: a fair fight, on one ballot, where voters choose who moves forward. Here’s how our candidates fared.

Rep. Kevin Kiley

California — CA-06

Rep. Kevin Kiley did something remarkable this spring: he walked away from the Republican Party, choosing principle over party. After California’s Proposition 50 redrew his district into solidly Democratic territory, Kiley could have retired, switched parties, or found a safe Republican-leaning seat. Instead, he filed as “No Party Preference,” took the gerrymandering issue head-on, and made his case directly to voters.

With 53% of the district reporting Tuesday night, Kiley is leading all candidates in the Top Two primary with 26.8% of the vote. Final results are expected early next week.

These results are showing Kiley advancing to the November general election, making him the first sitting independent member of the House of Representatives to survive a primary in 2026.

Chris Demers

California — CA-18

Chris Demers entered the race as a No Party Preference candidate in a field that included both a major-party incumbent and challengers. Like many of our candidates, he isn’t a career politician. He embodies Forward’s values by wanting to provide something better for his community.

With 54.8% of the district reporting, the race has been called for Rep. Zoe Lofgren and Republican Shane Lewis.

Demers did not advance to November. But CA-18 is among the deepest Democratic districts in California – a seat that has never been seriously contested since Lofgren first won it. The fact that Chris Demers stood up, refused PAC money, and made the case for independent representation in one of the hardest possible environments is a step we are proud to see happen.

Every independent candidate that runs in a district like this makes the next one easier. We’re thankful for Chris Demers, and we hope he stays in the fight.

Karen Leigh Matthews

California — CA-23

Dr. Karen Leigh Matthews is a Navy veteran, physician, radiologist, and small business owner who spent more than 20 years serving in the military. She ran for Congress as an independent because she was tired of being “caught between a party that wants government to fail and a party that wants government to do everything.” That thinking, along with her resume, is something rare.

In CA-23, Karen outraised every Democratic challenger in the field. With Democratic support solidifying in the final days, the math narrowed her path to November and she fell short of advancing.

With 61.3% of the district reporting, the race was called for incumbent Rep. Jay Obernolte (R).

We are proud of Dr. Matthews and deeply grateful for her campaign. She showed what an independent candidate can look like when they’re built for the job, not the party. Her district missed out on an exceptional public servant. We hope she runs again.

Before an independent candidate can even compete, they have to fight just to get their name on the ballot. Here’s how Forward candidates made that happen in this cycle.

Iowa

Michael Bridgford

Iowa — IA-01

Michael Bridgford is running in a district where roughly one-third of voters aren’t registered with either major party. He officially filed his nomination petitions on June 1st, the day before the primary. He expects to pass the mark handily and qualify on to the ballot for November, we just need to wait for the Secretary of State to make it official.

The general election matchup: Incumbent Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) won her primary with 71.6% of the vote, while Christina Bohannon (D) won her primary with 81.5%. This will mark the third consecutive election in which these two candidates will face each other in the general. Iowa’s 1st District voters know both options. Bridgford offers a third — one that doesn’t arrive with three cycles of partisan theatrics.

Dave Bushaw

Iowa — IA-02

Dave Bushaw is going to qualify for November’s ballot even though Iowa’s legislature “moved the goalposts in the middle of the night,” according to Dave, by raising the signature threshold mid-cycle. His campaign knocked on more than 7,000 doors and found that 88% of the people they spoke with wanted to sign. On June 2nd, Bushaw officially filed his nomination petitions. His campaign achieved 200% of the required signatures in every single county in IA-02.

We are continuing to monitor official approval, as signature challenges can be filed through next week, but Dave should sail through to November.

The general election matchup: Democrat Lindsay James, Dubuque state representative and Presbyterian minister, won with just under 60%, and will face Trump-backed Republican Joe Mitchell, who won with 61.5%. Notably, Democratic primary turnout in IA-02 outpaced Republican turnout: roughly 47,900 Democratic votes to roughly 39,700 Republican votes. Cook Political Report rates the seat Likely Republican, R+4 PVI, but calls it “increasingly competitive.”

Montana

Seth Bodnar

Montana

Seth Bodnar needed 13,327 verified signatures from registered voters statewide to qualify for the November general election ballot as an independent in Montana. He didn’t just meet the mark; he submitted nearly 30,000 signatures from 52 of Montana’s 56 counties, collecting nearly twice the required threshold through a volunteer-driven grassroots petition effort. His campaign has also outraised every Democrat and Republican in the race, demonstrating that independent candidacy paired with serious organization is no longer a longshot strategy.

Bodnar officially filed his signatures in late May. As of May 29th, counties have accepted enough verified signatures to put Bodnar on the ballot.

The general election matchup: Kurt Alme (R) won his primary with 76.2% of the vote, while Alani Bankhead (D) won her primary with 43.8% of the vote.

South Dakota

Brian Bengs

South Dakota — U.S. Senate

Brian Bengs is running for U.S. Senate in South Dakota with a grassroots campaign built on small-dollar donors. To qualify for the ballot as an independent in South Dakota, Bengs needed 3,502 valid signatures. He submitted more than 4,500 — and his petition was certified by the Secretary of State with a 93.85% validity rate, the highest of any statewide candidate in South Dakota this election season. That’s better than both the Republican and Democratic candidates. The campaign called it “a testament to the strength of this movement.” We agree.

He submitted his signatures in April and is officially on the November 3rd general election ballot, certified by the South Dakota Secretary of State.

The general election matchup: Incumbent Mike Rounds (R) won his primary with 75.8% of the vote, while Julian Beaudion (D) advanced unchallenged.

These aren’t isolated data points. They are a trajectory. The independent political infrastructure – from the fundraising networks to the organizing capacity to the legal teams who know how to fight ballot challenges – is being built right now by the candidates and movements that keep showing up. Every campaign that plants a flag makes the next one possible.

Forward Progress

It would be easy to look at Tuesday’s results and just count votes. However, the snapshot is bigger than any individual race. It is about a country that is waking up to the fact that the two-party system is not delivering for the people it’s supposed to serve.

We don’t just believe America can do better, we are actively building the infrastructure, recruiting the candidates, and making the case that voters deserve more than two choices handed to them by institutions that have long since stopped listening. Iowa, South Dakota, Montana, California, Washington, Minnesota, Maine, Tennessee, Rhode Island, and Nebraska are all seeing independent candidates qualify for ballots and create excitement. The movement is growing.

November is five months away. The work continues. And so does our question, How can we build a just and fair government that truly represents Americans?

One primary at a time. One candidate at a time. One voter at a time.

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Posts in Category: Politics

Let me ask you one question: just how many votes does it take to win an election? 1,000? 100? 10? Or maybe… just 1?

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New York, New York. Zohran Mamdani. Labels. What does Trump call him? A communist, and worse, of course never to his face, because Trump hasn’t the huevos to say anything to anyone’s face. But let’s be polite. Maybe a democratic socialist?

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How many chips do you want?

If you can’t give me that before you ask for my vote, I’m not interested.

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New York, New York. Zohran Mamdani. Labels. What does Trump call him? A communist, and worse, of course never to his face, because Trump hasn’t the huevos to say anything to anyone’s face. But let’s be polite. Maybe a democratic socialist?

And their views? Valid, for where they come from. Just too extreme to export nationally. But here’s the thing about extremes, they produce something useful when they meet each other. Wait for it. It’s almost here and it’s worth the wait.

The middle.

How many chips do you want?

If you can’t give me that before you ask for my vote, I’m not interested.

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Does Your Vote Count?

Let me ask you one question: just how many votes does it take to win an election? 1,000? 100? 10? Or maybe… just 1?

More Than Just a Ballot: How Votes Are Shaped Before They’re Cast

Concrete Example — Boca Raton Mayor

Andy Thomson won the 2026 Boca Raton mayoral race by just five votes, after machine counts and multiple manual recounts. Early reports suggested the margin could have been a single vote. In other words, a handful—or even one—ballot could have changed the result.

Your vote can change outcomes, even if it feels invisible. And the information you receive before you vote—the stories, ads, news, and commentary—plays a role in shaping that choice. Understanding the system is the first step in making your vote count.

Core Explanation: Elections Are No Longer Simple

Voting today is no longer a straight line from candidate to voter. It’s a complex web of influence:

Traditional layers remain: parties, candidates, ballots, volunteers.

Outside spending shapes messaging: PACs, nonprofits, advocacy groups push targeted campaigns.

Digital platforms amplify influence: social media and apps deliver precise messages to specific audiences.

Fragmented media environment: cable, social media, and online outlets deliver very different stories, so voters rarely encounter the same information.

The end result is clear: votes aren’t just cast—they’re shaped long before they reach the ballot box.

Relatable Example Continued

Imagine Mary, a voter navigating today’s environment. She sees:

A Facebook post from a candidate’s page highlighting local infrastructure promises

A TikTok ad from a PAC showing a dramatic clip about healthcare

A cable news segment analyzing the same election in a different context

Pattern / Insight

This isn’t about ideology. It’s about mechanics. The flow of information—shaped by parties, outside money, and digital platforms—affects every voter. Understanding that flow gives people the clarity to see why elections look the way they do today, beyond the surface headlines.

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Uh, Hey Canada, busy Friday?

Went shopping last week, saw some great stuff, was reminded of the surf and turf we had in Maine and I got kinda lonely, well to tell the truth, I kinda choked up.

What, what the heck you going on about?

Well. One of those personal stories that ain’t none of your business, but lays the groundwork, so here goes. You see, I have a wife, not just any wife. But The Wife. My Partner in Crime and Partner in Life. But it took a while to get there.

You see, we each had our own baggage, well, a lot of baggage, well, we could have opened a luggage store.

But there was that thing, you know, that thing. I walked by the office window where she worked, needed insurance, took a chance and got turned down on both fronts.

But damn, she was something to behold. So on the way out, I stopped, turned and politely asked “Mind if I just stop by, say Hi and maybe flirt a little?” Silly woman, hesitated and said “okay.”

So Canada, Canada, I know we have been down this track before, but, I kinda miss you. And when I heard through the grapevine you were flirting with the EU, I got a little jealous, after I choked up a bit.

I know things are a bit rough right now between us, but I’m pretty sure we have that issue being taken care of, and yes, it’s going to take some time to feel comfortable, but all I’m suggesting is maybe a little walk on a Vancouver beach, you know, get away from that Eastern craziness.

Anyway, I think we will have that disruption under control soon, and we really did have a pretty good thing going until someone decided sharing, respect, and having each other’s back wasn’t good enough.

Maybe a nice king crab and salmon dinner and a bottle of Pinot Noir from one of my Willamette Valley wineries.

Not commitments, maybe just some nice conversation away from the noise. After all, we like the same wine, same beer, who needs that stupid partition anyway.

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Did you watch it? Better yet, I’m old enough that I actually went to it. Ringling Bros.-Barnum and Bailey Circus. The greatest three-ring circus in the land. Celebrated in film back in 1952 with Cornel Wilde, Betty Hutton, and James Stewart. Before your time, maybe. Not mine.

Then in 2017, Hugh Jackman played P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman. Entertaining both times. Good spectacle. Great misdirection.

But why do I feel like what I’ve been watching lately is just another circus remake, only this time starring Emmett Kelly the sad clown, sweeping up the spotlight after everyone else has gone home?

Where have we been? Asleep on Vance’s couch?

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Make your decisions with thought. Because whoever walks into the White House next walks in carrying way too much inherited power, and must be honestly, genuinely willing to give a lot of it back for the sake of the rest of us.

Only God is God. By whatever name you call him.

Sorry Trump. Your flatulence still stinks.

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Did you watch it? Better yet, I’m old enough that I actually went to it. Ringling Bros.-Barnum and Bailey Circus. The greatest three-ring circus in the land. Celebrated in film back in 1952 with Cornel Wilde, Betty Hutton, and James Stewart. Before your time, maybe. Not mine.

Then in 2017, Hugh Jackman played P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman. Entertaining both times. Good spectacle. Great misdirection.

But why do I feel like what I’ve been watching lately is just another circus remake, only this time starring Emmett Kelly the sad clown, sweeping up the spotlight after everyone else has gone home?

Where have we been? Asleep on Vance’s couch?

There has to be more than this. Noise. Non-stop noise. And guess who’s making it, and making it on purpose. Some call it distraction. Some call it ego. Some call it, ah, fudge, I’ll be polite and leave that one blank.

Bottom line: it’s all noise. Not governing. Not leading. Just noise.

It’s time for the circus to fold its tents, load the wagons, remove the fake freaks’ makeup, and leave town. And on the way out put the stolen assets back in the treasury where they belong.

So where do we go from here?

More extreme right MAGA? I hope not, and I think their scared leader has done more damage to that movement than any opponent could have managed. They took themselves down.

So let’s look at people. Not parties.

But is a pretty face ultimately who we want as Commander in Chief? And who has he alluded to as his second in command? I’m going to keep harping on that angle, because I want to know the backup plan. I want to know from day one — or at absolute minimum, day two.

Make your decisions with thought. Because whoever walks into the White House next walks in carrying way too much inherited power, and must be honestly, genuinely willing to give a lot of it back for the sake of the rest of us.

Only God is God. By whatever name you call him.

Sorry Trump. Your flatulence still stinks.

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I’ve always been a conservative. I’ve always registered Republican.

The series as a downloadable PDF
Foundation of Government