War isn't just a tragedy; it is a theft. To date, the conflict in Iran has drained $17 billion from U.S. taxpayers, with a staggering $200 billion more on the horizon. This isn't just a line item—it’s a moral deficit.

The Human Toll

The cost of this conflict is written in blood, suffering, and destruction:

• 4,500+ lives lost, including at least 14 U.S. service members

• Those service members who make it back are forever scarred, often invisibly

• Hundreds of thousands of civilians driven from their homes

• An untold number of families shattered in ways we can't quantify

The Opportunity Cost

For the price of this war, we could fundamentally rewrite the American story. We aren't just choosing war; we are choosing not to:

• End hunger

• House every homeless veteran

• Fund the VA at 100% for every veteran, for the rest of their lives

• Pay those who teach our children a living wage

• Rebuild our failing infrastructure

We are sacrificing our heroes and our treasure to fund suffering and destruction. It is time to stop paying for a crime and start investing in our people.

However, we must ask ourselves: In today’s America, is “choice” a reality or a luxury?

The Illusion of Choice

Even in states where reproductive rights are protected, the “choice” to raise a child is often stripped away by a crushing reality. When food, housing, and healthcare costs are astronomical, the decision to start a family becomes a financial impossibility.

While right-wing extremists work to ban abortion even in cases of rape or medical necessity, they simultaneously dismantle the social safety net that makes parenting viable. With gun violence now the leading cause of death for American children and affordability a thing of the past, it is no wonder birth rates are at historic lows. Is it truly a “choice” when the alternatives are poverty, debt, or danger?

Why Access and Autonomy Matter

The data is clear: the primary reasons for elective abortions are financial instability, lack of support, or timing. Late-term abortions are almost exclusively reserved for tragic circumstances where the mother’s life is at risk or the pregnancy is no longer viable. No one reaches the third trimester and changes their mind on a whim.

We must also address the double standard of autonomy. As a cisgendered man, the law ensures I cannot be forced to donate blood, tissue, or organs to save another life—even if the procedure is risk-free. Equal protection under the law demands that having a uterus does not strip a person of that same fundamental right.

A Tale of Two Systems

Imagine a young woman who discovers an unplanned pregnancy. She is hardworking but lacks resources; her parents are aging, and her partner is equally unprepared.

• In our current system: She faces a mountain of debt. Even with insurance, birth can cost $18,000, skyrocketing into the six figures if complications arise. Adoption isn’t a “free” alternative when the medical costs of pregnancy alone can ruin a person financially. Also, as an adopted child myself, that system is rife with its own issues. She is trapped between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

• In a just system: Imagine this same woman living in a society with a living wage, subsidized childcare, and universal healthcare. Here, she has a real choice. She can choose to be a parent because the system supports her, rather than punishing her.

The Path Forward: A Comprehensive Plan

To give every person a real choice, we must build a nation that values life both before and after birth. My plan focuses on five pillars:

• Reproductive Freedom - Codify unrestricted abortion access as a National Constitutional Right.

• Economic Dignity - Establish a livable federal minimum wage; full-time work must support a life of dignity.

• Family Support - Implement more robust paid family leave and subsidized childcare to ensure no parent has to choose between a paycheck and their child.

• Public Safety - Enact common-sense gun safety laws to ensure the United States is a safe place for children to grow up.

• Healthcare Reform - Move toward a system of universal healthcare where medical debt never dictates a family’s future.

We must strive for a world where people are free to speak, love, and live as they choose—a world where the government supports its people and the future looks bright. To get there we need only move forward, together.

“To solve and eliminate crime – you need evidence.” - Flock Safety motto

The case looks clear cut. No more porch pirates getting away with your packages. Kidnappers tracked and apprehended before they can harm the children. What could go wrong?

What went wrong

Flock systems watch every move in the communities they surveil. But who is watching Flock Safety? Turns out, just about anyone can. Right here in Douglas County, CO, researchers discovered a number of Flock cameras streaming live on the public internet with no authentication. People could watch live feeds and up to 30 days of footage. Some of these cameras faced children’s play areas. They were like an all you can kidnap menu for predators who could see which kids were being watched and where camera blind spots were located.

Flock cameras have also been shown by security researchers to be vulnerable to multiple types of low-skill attack, meaning one does not require “hacker” skills to breach Flock systems. While the company claims its core systems in the cloud have never been breached, individual cameras have proven vulnerable to both misconfigurations, poor password practices, and physical access attacks.

Who watches the Watchmen?

Surveillance such as that offered by Flock triggers comparison to Orwell’s 1984 for good reason. Even if Flock stepped up to secure their products, those who are supposed to have access often abuse it.

In Sedgwick, KS, a now former police chief used Flock’s ALPR system to track his ex-girlfriend over 228 times in 4 months. A county in Washington state was subject to a phishing attack, with a person posing as law enforcement requesting the location of a particular vehicle. It was only a fast thinking supervisor who caught the irregularities in the request that protected that data. In Joplin, MO, an audit of the police department Flock usage discovered an officer using the system to track an ex, bypassing a restraining order.

In states with draconian abortion laws, officials have considered using Flock to track women suspected of trying to leave the state for abortion care.

Then there is DHS. Cities and communities who did not sign on to cooperate with DHS are having their camera and ALPR data taken without their consent. People are being tracked without their knowledge or consent. Not just immigrants. The LGBTQIA+ community, American citizens who speak languages other than English, people of color, and those who exercise their First Amendment rights to speak out against this lawless administration are being tracked.

Palantir

Teaming up with Flock Safety is Palantir, a tech company providing the data-analytics component for law enforcement agencies to quickly aggregate and search the data from Flock devices. Using AI they claim they can use predictive-policing. Any fans of science fiction dystopian futures probably just had a chill shoot up their spine. It is real, and it is here. AI pre-crime predictions.

So who is Palantir? It is the brain child of Peter Thiel, one of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters and billionaire who once said he no longer believes freedom and democracy are compatible. He argues that monopolies are better for society than competition and he believes in innovation at all costs. He believes diversity and multiculturalism are toxic to intellectual life. In other words, he’s a racist lunatic and cartoon super-villain. He’s Lex Luthor in a Klan hood.

What can we do?

I get it, this is terrifying and reads like a pitch for the prequel to Robocop. But there is hope. If you live in a city, county, or HOA that is considering Flock Safety, show up and voice your concerns. Gather your neighbors and show up to meetings. Raise your voice loud and strong. If your city or HOA has already invested in Flock, start lobbying to end the contract. Bring in lawyers if you must. If the argument for keeping Flock is crime prevention, there are plenty of companies that offer surveillance that is more secure and not being sold to a lawless administration.

I know this is scary but we can fix this. We can if we stand and move forward, together.

Stronger Together

Human beings did not become the world’s dominant species by wandering alone. Evolution shaped us as pack animals—creatures whose survival depended on cooperation, shared vigilance, and mutual aid. Our ancestors who hunted in coordinated bands, tended each other’s wounds, and pooled knowledge about fire, shelter, and edible plants out‑competed solitary competitors. That same instinct to band together underpins everything we do today, from families gathering around a kitchen table to neighborhoods rallying after a storm.

I work in tech as a cloud solutions architect where we use Site Reliability Engineering, a methodology that emphasizes communal work to make a better, more reliable cloud infrastructure. I have seen firsthand how teamwork turns a broken system into a resilient one; the same principle guides my vision for House District 45.

Better Together

History repeatedly proves that when we unite, we lift the whole community higher.

Civil‑rights movement – Across the 1950s and ’60s, countless ordinary Americans marched, boycotted, and organized sit‑ins. By standing shoulder‑to‑shoulder, they dismantled Jim Crow laws, secured voting rights, and reshaped the nation’s moral compass. Their success was never the work of a single leader, but the collective courage of millions demanding dignity for all.

Natural‑disaster recovery – When wildfires ripped through Colorado’s Front Range in 2020, neighbors opened their homes to displaced families, volunteers cleared debris, and local businesses supplied food and water. The rapid, coordinated response saved lives and rebuilt towns faster than any top‑down plan could have imagined.

The Olympic spirit – Every four years athletes from rival nations gather in peaceful competition, showcasing that humanity can celebrate excellence while honoring shared values. The Games remind us that global progress thrives on collaboration, not conquest.

These moments echo the language of our campaign: “we’re ready to roll up our sleeves,” “people‑first solutions,” and “community‑driven change.” They illustrate that when we act as one, we create a brighter, more equitable future.

Forward Together

Looking ahead, the challenges we face—poverty, hunger, disease, and war—are too vast for any single person or party to solve alone. Yet the same collaborative spirit that powered past victories can guide our path forward, starting right here in Douglas County.

Housing affordability – By expanding low‑income housing incentives and protecting renters with a robust “Renter’s Bill of Rights,” we can keep families from being priced out of their homes, mirroring the nationwide push for economic security.

Quality education – Investing in stable K‑12 funding, smaller class sizes, and modern classroom technology equips our children to compete in a global economy, just as the post‑World‑II GI Bill lifted an entire generation.

Clean‑energy jobs – Accelerating Colorado’s Renewable Portfolio Standard to 100 % clean energy by 2035 will create green‑tech jobs right here, echoing the industrial boom that lifted communities out of hardship in the early 20th century.

Healthcare access – Expanding Medicaid and safeguarding reproductive rights ensures every resident can stay healthy, a modern parallel to the public‑health advances that eradicated polio and smallpox.

Climate resilience – By managing the Colorado River with peer‑reviewed data, protecting tribal water rights, and investing in adaptive infrastructure, we safeguard our water supply for generations—just as early settlers learned to cooperate with the land to survive.

Conclusion

If we apply the same principle that made us the planet’s dominant species—working together—we can turn these ambitions into reality. My campaign is built on that conviction: Stronger, Better, Forward—together. Join me, and let’s shape a future where every Coloradan thrives because we chose unity over division. Let’s move forward, together.

Where I stand

I own firearms and support the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. I hold a Colorado Concealed Carry Permit. I believe in the Founding Fathers’ purpose of defending liberty with firearms when tyranny raises its head.

That’s not to say we don’t have a firearm problem in the US. Mass shootings and gun violence rear their heads daily. The solution to the firearm problem in this coutry comes down to holding owners responsible.

• Better background checks with a database that includes both criminal and psych flags

• Hold firearm owners accountable when they fail to use, carry, or store their firearms safely

• Charge firearm owners when their guns are used in crimes because they failed to store them safely, i.e. a child finds a gun in the nightstand and shoots up the school

• Remove firearms from owners who fail to operate their firearms safely and harm someone with a negligent discharge

• Stop making laws limiting specific firearms just because they are scary; that fixes the wrong problem

Historical Context

On December 15, 1791, the Founding Fathers ratified the Bill of Rights, including the second amendment. Since that time it has been one of the most controversial constitutional amendments.

A well-regulated militia…

At the time the US had no standing army, preferring to rely on citizen militias to protect our young nation. Ordinary citizens had to be ready at any time to stand in defense of the country. In making this point the framers wrote the first clause of the amendment. A clause that since has created much debate as future legal scholars debated whether they meant that the miliia or the arms should be well-regulated. Based on the laws made by the same group, I put forth they meant that both should be well-regulated.

There were targeted restrictions on who could own firearms. Those labeled dangerous through criminal behaviour, limits on “dangerous and unusual weapons” such as cannons and blunderbusses, and the storage of large quantities of gunpowder were put in place. There were also racial prohibitions, restricting the possession of firearms for black people.

That said, the overall consensus at the time was stated clearly in the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, “no freemen shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”

…being necessary to the security of a free state…

As mentioned, the US had no standing army at the time and that was for good reason. The Founding Fathers had just broken free from the oppression of the British. They were distrustful of having a standing military, preferring instead a militia made up of regular citizens to protect the fledgling democracy from invaders and from a tyranical government should the goverment ever be corrupted. This was made clear in the Federalist Papers and other writings of the Founding Fathers.

…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

This is where the debates start. What is infringement? Absolutists would say the constitution guarantees the right to own and carry any weapon. Some say the “well-regulated” clause implies that the government can limit what arms can be legally owned and carried or who can carry them.

Even the SCOTUS over the years has had different interpretations.

In Presser v. Illinois, 1886, the SCOTUS upheld a state law prohibiting private militias and held that the Second Amendment restricts only federal action, not the states.

In United States v. Miller, 1939, SCOTUS upheld a federal ban on sawed off shotguns under the National Firearms Act of 1934, ruling that the Second Amendment protects only weapons “in common use” for lawful purposes such as militia service.

In District of Columbia v. Heller, 2008, SCOTUS made a marked switch from a collective right interpretation to an individual right, recognizing an individual’s right to possess a firearm for self‑defense within the home, separate from militia service and rendering the D.C. handgun ban unconstitutional.

McDonald v. Chicago, 2010, applied the Heller individual‑right holding to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. State and local gun bans are subject to the same scrutiny.

New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, 2022, declared that modern gun regulations must be consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation and struck down New York’s “proper cause” requirement for concealed‑carry permits. This cemented the court’s history and traditon test as applied in Heller and McDonald.

Today

There is no consensus on the Second Amendment in the US. There will always be absolutists who would be fine carrying a rocket propelled grenade launcher into Arby’s. There will also be those who’d prefer we melted down all of the guns. Then there is reality. There are more firearms in the US than there are people. It is unrealistic to believe that disarmament is possible, even if there was the legal will to do so. This also applies to “assault rifles” such as the AR-15 and AK-47. When the Assault Weapons Ban expired that cat jumped out of the bag and it won’t be going back.

That doesn’t mean we can only send “thoughts and prayers” every time a mass shooting happens. We can limit access to firearms with better background checks that include psych flags. We can remove firearms from those who operate and store them improperly. We can hold owners responsible for how they are used. We can start fixing the real problems with firearms, the people pulling the triggers.

1. Bodily Autonomy: The Bedrock of All Rights

Bodily autonomy means that each person has the exclusive right to control what happens to their own body. It is the foundation upon which other liberties rest. If you cannot control your own body, no other right matters.

Reproductive Rights

The right to choose whether to continue a pregnancy is a quintessential exercise of bodily autonomy. When a person’s ability to decide about their reproductive health is stripped away, women die. The fundamental core of this right isn’t the argument so often presented about when life begins. Instead it lies in equal protection under law. No man can be made to risk their own life to keep another person alive. This renders the fetus/baby argument moot. If I as a man cannot be made to use my body to keep someone alive, equal protection under law requires that anyone with a uterus recieves that same right.

If that argument isn’t enough for you, there’s another vital point. Access to abortion saves lives. Pregnancy in the best of times is risky. Access to abortion is often the only way to protect a mother’s health. When safe, legal abortions aren’t available, desperite people will turn to unsafe back-alley abortion. Before Roe v. Wade between 5,000 and 10,000 women died every year in back-alley abortions. Hundreds more died due to pregnancy related complications. Access to abortion saves lives.

If you don’t like abortion, don’t get one.

Gender‑Affirming Care

For transgender, non‑binary, and gender‑diverse people, access to gender‑affirming medical care (hormones, surgeries, counseling) saves lives. Denying that care forces individuals to live in bodies that do not reflect their identities, leading to severe mental‑health consequences and marginalization. Recognizing gender‑affirming care as a protected right affirms the principle that no one may be compelled to surrender control over their own body.

Gender-affirming care isn’t just for trans people. Hair transplants, breast implants, hormone replacement, etc are all gender affirming. Men who develop breast tissue, gynecomastia, need the same surgery trans men get to remove the unwanted tissue.

If you don’t like gender-affirming care, don’t get it. Others getting it doesn’t harm you in any way.

Why Autonomy Is Fundamental

If the state can dictate what we do with our bodies, it gains a foothold to regulate speech, belief, and association. Protecting bodily autonomy therefore protects the entire architecture of liberty, ensuring that the government cannot arbitrarily intervene in the most private aspects of our lives.

2. Freedom of Religion—and Freedom From Religion

The religion clauses of the First Amendment guarantees two intertwined freedoms:

1. Free Exercise: Individuals may practice any religion—or none at all—without governmental interference.

2. Establishment Clause: The government may not favor, endorse, or establish any religion.

The Founding Fathers were students of history. They understood the conflicts that arose from state-sponsored religion. Eurpoean history showed them the folly of mixing government and religion.

Equality Across Faiths

A truly inclusive society treats every faith tradition with equal respect. Whether someone follows Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Indigenous spiritualities, or identifies as atheist, the state must remain neutral. This neutrality protects minority religions from majoritarian oppression and safeguards secular citizens who choose not to worship.

For those who want their religion to take legal precedence, think about it this way. How would you feel if the chosen state religion wasn’t the one you believe in. Even among Christian sects, there is sufficient difference that choosing one would alienate many others. By keeping separation, it grants room for all to worship as they wish.

History shows that when governments align with a particular faith, dissenting voices—whether religious or secular—are silenced, and civil liberties erode. Maintaining a clear wall between church and state preserves the pluralistic fabric essential to liberty and justice.

3. Freedom of the Press: A Bulwark Against Tyranny

A free, independent press serves is core to a functioning democracy. Jouranlists investigate and expose abuses of power, keeping officials accountable. This information provides citizens with the facts needed to make informed choices in a democracy. An informed populace is central to the preservation of a free state.

When the press is constrained—through censorship, intimidation, or corporate monopolies—the public loses its primary mechanism for checking governmental overreach. An empowered press is therefore a cornerstone of liberty, ensuring that tyranny cannot flourish unnoticed.

4. Freedom of Speech: Guarding the Marketplace of Ideas

Freedom of speech protects the right to express opinions, even unpopular or dissenting ones, without fear of government retaliation. Its importance lies in several key ways:

• Prevents Government Censorship: By limiting the state’s ability to silence criticism, speech freedom keeps elected officials honest.

• Encourages Democratic Participation: Citizens can advocate for change, organize movements, and challenge policies openly.

• Fosters Social Progress: Historically, marginalized groups have relied on free speech to demand civil rights, gender equality, and LGBTQ+ protections.

Without robust speech protections, the other rights discussed—bodily autonomy, religious liberty, press freedom—could be easily curtailed. Free expression is the thread that weaves together the tapestry of liberty.

5. How DEI Makes These Freedoms Work in Practice

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are not abstract buzzwords; they are practical mechanisms that ensure the constitutional guarantees reach every person.

1. Diversity brings a multiplicity of perspectives into policymaking, media, and workplaces, preventing homogenous thinking that can blind societies to systemic injustices.

2. Equity addresses historic and structural disadvantages, ensuring that marginalized groups receive the resources they need to enjoy the same freedoms as others.

3. Inclusion creates environments where all voices are heard, respected, and valued—essential for a vibrant public discourse.

When DEI is embedded in institutions—from schools to courts to corporations—it reinforces the very rights that protect liberty. For example, inclusive curricula that teach about gender identity and religious pluralism normalize bodily autonomy and religious freedom, making them less likely to be politicized or restricted.

Conclusion

Liberty and justice for all cannot exist in a vacuum. They require a societal framework that celebrates diversity, guarantees equitable treatment, and actively includes every individual. Bodily autonomy safeguards the personal sphere; religious freedom and the separation of church and state protect belief; a free press shines light on abuse; and free speech ensures that ideas can circulate without fear.

Together, these principles form an interdependent ecosystem. Undermining any one element weakens the whole, jeopardizing the promise that every person—regardless of gender, faith, race, or background—can truly enjoy liberty and justice. Building and defending DEI is therefore not merely a moral choice; it is a constitutional imperative for preserving the freedoms that define a democratic society.

RULES:

1. If it is in support of the GOP, Trump, or DOGE, it is a lie.

2. If the GOP, Trump, or DOGE did it, it was immoral, unethical, stupid, and probably illegal.

That’s it. We could go through all the ridiculous distractions like renaming the Gulf of Mexico. We could address the long list of lies from Musk about how much fraud and corruption he’s finding. We could go line by line through every idiotic thing these fascists do. Hell, we’ll do it for some of them, but the key to remember is the barrage of idiocy is part of the plan. Overwhelm the people to the point they burn out and they will give up. When you feel overwhelmed, step back and remember the rules above.

But I want to address all the things!

Some of us are gluttons for punishment that can’t let people just be wrong. Alright, it’s me. I’m some of us. So I’ve developed some shorthand that lets me keep my sanity.

• If DOGE were actually seeking fraud and waste, Elon would have hired forensic accountants, not a bunch of kids whose prefrontal cortexes haven’t fully developed. (Human brains don’t finish developing until at least 25)

• Trump is a functionally illiterate convicted felon who managed to bankrupt a casino, a business whose model is people just give you their money.

• Elon never invented anything and has built a career buying the work of others and taking credit for it.

Those three bullets cover 90% of the bullshit coming out of the White House and DOGE.

How do we fight the blitzkrieg?

Don’t worry, I’m not leaving you with the advice to just ignore it. Quite the opposite. We fight them through the following.

• Non-compliance - Do not comply with anything out of MAGA world. List your pronouns. Call the Gulf of Mexico what it is. Stand up in local government meetings. Don’t comply.

• Fund organizations fighting MAGA in court

  • Human Rights Campaign - https://www.hrc.org/

  • Southern Poverty Law Center - https://www.splcenter.org/

  • American Civil Liberties Union - https://www.aclu.org/

  • Center for American Progress - https://www.americanprogressaction.org/

  • Lambda Legal - https://lambdalegal.org/

• Support independent journalists - Subscribe to journalists putting in the work to shed light on what is happening. Fund them through Patreon, Substack, Medium, or their own subscription service.

• Show up to protests. The 50501 organization has been spearheading protests nationwide. There are also local orgs doing their own. Show up.

• Make 5 Calls - 5 minutes, 5 calls - Download the 5 Calls app and select a topic important to you. Give it your zip code and it will tell you who to call and give you a script if you aren’t comfortable winging it.

Conclusion

We can make it through this together. Remember, we outnumber them. They will try to distract us, anger us, separate us. Pull together and fight. Take time for you. Keep your eye on each other. Stay true to you.

So how do we pull through this? This has only just started and the blitzkrieg of bullshit coming out of the White House has all of us dealing with whiplash. It’s been hard picking any one thing to write about. I want to scream sometimes. Then my wife said something that stuck out for me. “Joy is punk as fuck right now.” She’s right. We need joy right now. Not fleeting happiness, joy that comes from deep inside. But where do we find joy in all of this?

I started racking my brain for where I could turn for answers. I then went where I often go for answers. Some of my heroes. Men who practiced strength through peace, positive masculinity, and always standing for what was right. Men who through everything always exuded a sense of real joy.

Mr. Rogers

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

- Fred Rogers

A large portion of my moral compass comes from Mr. Rogers. His kindness and eagerness to learn and become better every day informs much of who I am today. No matter what he faced, he always taught kindness through action. He was creating a generation of helpers.

Look for the helpers, and where you can, become a helper. Give to charities that help people being targeted by Trump’s edicts. There are many wonderful charities that fight to protect human rights here and abroad who will be stretched much further now that the US has abdicated its humanitarian duties. You don’t have to donate money, you can also donate time. Find local charities that help migrants, children, impoverished nations, the LGBTQIA+ community, and any other marginalized groups. Here are a few of my favorites in no particular order.

• Amnesty International

• ACLU

• Southern Poverty Law Center

• Human Rights Campaign

• GLAAD

There are so many worthy organizations out there. Find one and put in the work. Helping others in need gives back to the helpers. There is a strong boost in emotion elevating hormones when you help others. It’s an evolutionary trait that rewards you when you do things that build community. Being kind to others has real, tangible health benefits to you.

Levar Burton

“We all wish we lived in a perfect world. And if we could make it that way, we would. But the world is not perfect. Sometimes bad things do happen, and occasionally, the world can be a scary place to be. But when we have each other, kindness, generosity of the human spirit and love will always triumph. And then we can get through even the toughest of times.”

- Levar Burton

Levar Burton taught a generation to love reading. He taught us a love of learning and a curiosity for the world. He made us want to reach for the stars. Most importantly, he taught us kindness. He to this day continues his mission to educate and bring joy to the world. Beyond being a kind educator he is also a fierce advocate for human rights. His message of love and kindness is key.

We only pull through hard times together. Be kind to each other. Give each other grace. This is not to say we give fascism any quarter, but where our differences don’t involve human rights we take a moment to understand each other before we pull out the pitchforks. When disaster strikes, we show up for our neighbors because that is who we are. We cannot let anyone take that from us.

Jerome Joseph Clarkson (My grandfather)

“The measure of a good man is not in how he treats the CEO. It’s in how he treats the janitor.”

- Jerome Joseph Clarkson

I was adopted into the Clarkson family as an infant. My grandfather never gave me a hint that I had been adopted. He loved me unconditionally, treated me with as much if not more love than his biological grandchildren, and it is his example I try to live up to every day.

His quote is one he drilled into me from as young as I can remember, not just in word but in action. We used to go to the day-old bakery outlet to buy bread, cookies, and hand pies. It was on a lower income side of town, but he loved a good deal and sneaking treats when no one was looking. I remember many occasions we’d walk in and see someone down on their luck outside the bakery shop on the way in. On those days he’d buy a second bag of his favorite things and hand them to the person outside along with whatever cash he had on-hand. He’d offer rides to the nearest shelter when he could. If they were a veteran he’d get them in contact with the VA and help them with anything they needed.

In 1952 he was in a head-on collision with his wife and two sons in his Packard. A drunk driver had crossed over the center line suddenly. His boys were okay but he had severe damage to his knees and his wife, my grandmother, went head first through the windshield. She suffered permanent brain damage. My grandfather who had landed at Normandy, taken a bullet to the face in Alsace-Lorraine saving his platoon from a machine gun nest, and won a Purple Heart, two Silver Stars, and a Bronze star before being sent home in 1945 now had two young sons on his hands and a wife who would never fully be able to be his partner. Doctors told him to divorce her, put her away, and find someone else. He instead chose to stay with her, caring for her until his death in 1989. His last act was cooking dinner for her.

Why do I bring up my grandfather? He was the happiest man I’ve ever known, despite a life of suffering and tragedy. It was his life of selfless service to others. He lived to help anyone he could. He loved everyone. He served others to express that love. That love fed him and gave him the resilience to face everything this world threw at him.

Conclusion

There is so much anger, hurt, hate, and suffering in the world today. I could shout, “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!” Lord knows I want to. There may even be some catharsis in it. But it is not something we can survive on long term. We need real, sustainable ways to make it through. We need to come together. Reach out to your friends. Hold onto loved ones. Help each other. Be good to each other. Look for the helpers to see whom to emulate.

Look to those who pursue the path of strength through peace, who seek to heal, not destroy.

This is not to say we don’t fight. We fight like hell. We fight through rebellion, and when fascism fights to divide us, unity is an act of rebellion. Kindness is a form of protest. Joy is punk as fuck.

Be good to each other, and stay true to you.

Quick definitions

Transgender (trans) - Someone who identifies as as a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth

Cisgender (cis) - Someone who identifies as the gender they were assigned at birth

Non-binary - Someone whose gender identity is neither male nor female but falls somewhere on a spectrum

Gender fluid - Someone whose gender identity is fluid, meaning sometimes they may feel more masculine, some more feminine, and some somewhere in the middle

There are a lot more terms in this space which I highly encourage you to become familiar with, but they aren’t pertinent to this article.

The Order

On January 27, 2025, convicted felon and adjudicated rapist Donald Trump signed an executive order titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. The title of the order is almost as long as the order itself. Like most things the Felon-in-Chief does, it was short, stupid, and no one it was forced on consented.

It starts off claiming to want to restore the “biological reality of sex” and called trans women “men who self-identify as women,” accusing them of invading women’s spaces with implied ill intent. No mention of trans men, but that isn’t surprising. Christian Nationalists aren’t known for thinking about things too hard.

The dumbest part of the order is in section 2 where they set up definitions that reflect no knowledge of basic biology and also accidentally define all people as female for the purposes of this order. In Section 2d, they state “‘Female’ means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.” For those who don’t know, at conception everyone ONLY has the large reproductive cells. Male expression happens later in fetal development. We all start as females and only diverge due to chemical and gene expression throughout gestation.

All of this was in the Christian Nationalist (aka Nazi) blueprint for America that is Project 2025.

History

Before we get too deep down the rabbit hole, let’s start by dispelling a common myth that trans and non-binary identities are somehow new. You will see plenty of commentators on the right claiming that being trans is some new ideology. They claim that trans people only exist because of a dark indoctrination program. This is objectively stupid.

Trans and non-binary identities have been part of the human race for as long as societies have existed. Likely longer than writing and maybe even language. Indigenous cultures around the world celebrated multiple gender identities, often considering non-binary and trans identities to be sacred. We see trans and non-binary identities among the pantheons of gods across many cultures. Around 5000 BCE priests of the Sumerian goddess Inanna were said to have taken on feminine identities. From 300 to 200 BCE in Greece priests often took on trans or gender fluid identities. In Hebrew there were eight separate gender designations recorded in the Talmud. In Japan there are very clear records of trans people from as far back as the Edo Period. There are accounts of transgender people in Colonial America in the 17th-19th centuries. Across continents and cultures throughout history trans and non-binary people show up in historical and archeological records.

Trans People in the Modern Age

As we enter the 20th century, we see a sharp spike in trans hatred and vile false propaganda. Lies calling being trans is an ideology that is used to groom children. The German Institute for Forensic Science in a report in 1938, recommended “transvestism,” a term society would today replace with transgenderism, “be eliminated from public life.” It started in the early 1930s with propaganda accusing trans people of grooming children and being deviant. In 1938, after years of spreading hate came the call for eradication of trans people. Soon after, they rounded up trans people for the camps.

Nazi anti-trans rhetoric has been copied by Christian Nationalists in the US word for word. There is no hiding their direct ties to the Nazis they emulate. GOP leaders, pundits, and hate groups call trans people and their allies groomers, call trans and non-binary identities an ideology, and threaten violence regularly. We see it from hate groups like the ironically named Moms 4 Liberty, a group that seeks to take away liberties, ban books, and forward the Nazi cause of Christian Nationalism.

We see it in the breaking news today, as GOP Representative from Colorado’s CD4, Lauren Boebert, saw a woman she thought was a trans woman, Delaware Democrat Sarah McBride, entering a women’s restroom on Capitol Hill. Republican hate mongers, led by GOP Rep Nancy Mace, have made a rule disallowing Rep McBride specifically from using shared women’s restrooms on Capitol Hill.

Rep Boebert went and found Rep Mace and went back to the bathroom to confront this poor woman. They stormed in, no doubt ready to start violence against a fellow elected representative. Shortly after both GOP representatives slinked quietly back to the House floor. Turned out they had entered to attack Rep McBride and ended up attacking a cis woman who was just there to use the restroom.

Because of hatred spread by Nazi propagandists like Boebert, Mace, Moms 4 Liberty, and countless other hate mongers, violence against trans people, their allies, and cis people misidentified as trans is on the rise. The rhetoric becomes more heated by the day, fueled by lies out of the White House, GOP politicians, and conservative media.

Science!

One of the arguments brought up by Christian Nationalists is “There are only 2 sexes, it’s science. If your gender identity doesn’t align with your sex assigned at birth, you have a disorder.” They simplify the sex and gender arguments to the XX and XY charts we all learned in middle school. Clearly, their education stopped there.

Gender is a social construct and flexible because of that, but sex is also not a binary as it turns out. There is a significant portion of the population who do not align with XX=female, XY=male. We can’t be sure how many because most people never get their chromosomes tested so they could live their entire lives as a gender that doesn’t align with what we learned in middle school without knowing.

For example, women with Swyer syndrome have an XY genotype but a female phenotype, meaning they appear female and have fully functional female reporductive organs. They can get pregnant and deliver babies. They experience all of the biological processes experienced by women with XX chromosomes. Most of them go their whole lives never knowing, only finding out if their chromosomes are tested for some medical reason.

There are also those born with androgen insensitivity, meaning they have high levels of testosterone but don’t develop male sex organs. They appear female externally but also tend to lack internal female sexual organs.

Then there is SRY gene expression. People with XX chromosomes and SRY gene expression may develop as phenotypically male. People with XY chromosomes and lacking SRY gene expression may develop as phenotypically female.

There are countless natural variations in sex expression, all of which make the binary a false premise even when we are talking exclusively about biological sex expression. Studies from scientific institutions around the world reflect this fact.

Why does it matter?

It seems no one thinks about the genitals of trans people more than Christian Nationalists and conservatives. They are obsessed with what people have in their underwear to the point of fetish.

Why? Trans people existing doesn’t affect anyone else in any way. A trans person having the right to exist and identify how they want doesn’t diminish your rights. A trans person seeking gender affirming care doesn’t change your life. A trans or non-binary person going by a different pronoun than the one you assume has no more affect on you than someone asking to be called by a nickname. It costs you nothing. Spreading trans hate costs people their lives.

Trans people are over four times more likely to be sexually assaulted than cisgender people. These rates increase when they are forced to use facilities that don’t align with their gender identity. Trans people are significantly less likely to commit acts of sexual violence. You are at statistically at lower risk sharing a space with a trans person than a cis person.

The biggest stink being raised, no pun intended, is over public restrooms. Conservatives, what do you think goes on in public restrooms? Or, worse, what are you doing in public restrooms? Men are not dressing up as women to enter women’s bathrooms and locker rooms to assault women. Men entering women’s spaces for sexual assault statistically don’t dress up to do so. It’s also already illegal to engage in sexual activity and indecent exposure in public restrooms no matter what gender identity you express. Anyone using public restrooms correctly will not be exposing anything or touching anyone. Let them pee in peace.

Then there is the sports argument. Trans athletes make up less than one percent of athletes competing at any level. Trans athletes don’t have any advantage in their sports. We can see that by how few dominate the sport in which they compete. If trans women were truly stronger/faster/better than the cis women they compete against, we would see them at the top of every sport in which they compete. Instead we see cis women accused of being trans because they compete at such a high level. It’s just not an issue. Plus, it’s just a game. Calm down. No one’s life is going to end because of a game.

Think about the children!

The most insidious lies spread by hate groups are that trans people are after your children. It is the lie that spurs the most violence against trans people. No one is trying to make anyone’s children trans. The fact is about one percent of the population identify as transgender. Transgender people often realize this early in life. They are significantly more likely to attempt suicide or self-harm in other ways than cisgender people. Rates of depression and anxiety are also significantly higher. When trans youth are supported at home things do improve, but when support is shown in both home and community they return to near normal levels on all fronts, especially when pursuing gender-affirming care. For minors gender-affirming care does not mean surgery. It means allowing them to live as the gender they’ve chosen. It means calling them by the name they’ve chosen. It may involve the same treatment given to children experiencing early puberty, puberty blockers. None of this is permanent. If they decide to change their minds, they simply stop the treatment. It does not cause infertility, contrary to what a certain Nazi billionaire spews on the platform formerly known as Twitter. No one is taking your kid in for gender reassignment surgery at school.

Representation also matters. Seeing someone with whom you identify out in the world is key to developing positive self-image.

Call to Action

What can we do about it? With the barrage of hate out there it can feel hopeless. It isn’t. The key is to be an upstander, not a bystander.

What does it mean to be an upstander? When you see something, stand up.

• When you see legislation that harms trans people, call your representatives

• When you see anti-trans propaganda, call it out

• When someone in your circle comes out, support them

• When you see discrimination and hate, call it out

• Donate to organizations which help trans people like The Trevor Project, GLAAD, and Trans Lifeline

I leave you with the poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller referenced in the meme above, First They Came.

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

The Problems

There are no perfect candidates. Candidates are all, to the best of my knowledge, human. Humans are by their very nature flawed. Even in the rare case where a candidate’s values perfectly alight with some subset of voters, conflicting priorities among voters will guarantee some misalignment of values with one or more groups within any candidate’s constituency. Add to that, every candidate will have made mistakes in their past. Even Mother Teresa turned out to have skeletons in her closet. This is true no matter what party or ideology you align with.

Political parties are run mostly by volunteers. There are no perfect groups of party volunteers. In any group there will be conflict. Inevitably there will be a candidate who gets in their feelings about a primary loss and throws a fit or there will be a clique who is territorial about how things have always been done to the exclusion of new volunteers with new ideas. These particular issues cause many to burn out or become disillusioned with party politics.

The two-party system is a broken one, but it’s the one we have. As many perfectly valid arguments as there are for moving to a multi-party system, the two-party approach is so completely baked into the process of US politics that voting third party, at least at the national level, is throwing your vote away. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it is an objective fact.

In the parties there is also the problem of the old guard. People who have been in the party and “paid their dues” and feel the deserve to be elected even if newer party members may be more qualified. The other variant on that are candidates whose own narcissism causes them to throw a fit when the lose a primary. Every election you can find stories of candidates suing the party when they lose a primary, claiming bias or malfeasance. This is not to say there is never bias or malfeasance, but it is often the candidate’s own narcissism. Losing sucks, but those who are unwilling to accept a legitimate loss often sow distrust and chaos in the party.

Finally there is the problem of single issue voters. People who have a key issue that decides who they vote for no matter what else candidates are offering. We see it with issues like abortion access, firearms, and foreign policy. People will vote against their own interests if a candidate panders on whatever single issue they care most about.

The Breakdown

The issues in the last section apply regardless of alignment. Now let’s talk about those of us on the left specifically. The Democrats were running a seasoned statesman who was gaffe prone, had clear flaws, and was in failing health, but he clearly loves his country. Then they replaced him with a powerful woman who was intelligent, driven, and one of the most qualified candidates in recent history. Further, there were excellent Democratic candidates down ballot nationwide.

The GOP was running a functionally illiterate convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who multiple respected generals referred to as a fascist who was unfit for office. I know my last sentence sounds like hyperbole, but every word of it is an objective, provable fact. Then down ballot the GOP ran candidates who fell in line with Trump’s fascist tendencies, following with cult-like religiosity lest they get primaried.

How did the GOP clean up in the last election?

The GOP built up a cult following in the MAGA movement. They used cult tactics to ensure loyalty from their followers. Tactics which include gaslighting, getting people not to believe their own eyes. A solid example is the way MAGA has tried rewriting the history of January 6, 2021. The nation watched live as insurrectionists invaded the Capitol. Even now after many of them were tried and convicted we have MAGA followers who truly believe it was just a peaceful protest. Cult followers showed up en masse on election day as a result.

Try as we might, the Democrats never built momentum. We spent so much time on the back foot, trying to get the truth out over the din of lies thrown at us by the other side. We spent so much time fighting lies about the state of the economy, job numbers, and conspiracy nonsense. When we switched presidential candidates mid-election we lost a lot of ground. Trump had been campaigning effectively from the moment he left office in 2021. Harris had just a couple of months.

Then there was the Gaza problem. A complex issue that has been around for decades gave us a black eye because nuance is nearly impossible to convey in this sound bite driven world. A complex issue we will likely cover in a future article.

The bottom line here is we have a fascist in charge because Democrats who massively outnumber Republicans failed to show up. There are 45.1 million registered Democrats. There are 36 million registered Republicans.

What do we do?

That’s the big question. The answer will first depend on whether we can pull the country back from the grips of fascism and oligarchy. There is a chance that 2024 was the last free election of the great American experiment. It is distinctly possible the next election will be as free and fair as a Russian election. Assuming that is not the case, I have a few ideas.

We must start by turning inward as a party. Stop the infighting. Build coalitions. Find common ground. Our message must unify and promise hope. Fear, preaching, and cajoling have not worked for us. We need to give the people clear, concise answers to their problems. We need to show them how we plan to implement those answers.

Next we must stop letting the right distract us. We need to focus fire on the key issues. No one really believes the US is going to annex Greenland. Canada will not be the next state. No one actually believes there are space lasers starting fires. This nonsense is bait to draw us away from issues that really matter.

Most importantly, we have to stop infighting. We can do that if we stick to simple guidelines that we all can agree on.

1. We don’t sacrifice the human rights of any groups just to win. Intersectional allyship is key. Everyone benefits when society sticks together.

2. Bodily autonomy is a basic human right. That means everyone must have the right to determine what goes on or in their body. Reproductive rights, trans rights, and gender affirming care for any who seek it are central to this.

3. Trickle-down only benefits the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. A strong nation requires a strong middle-class. We do that by ensuring every job, no matter how menial, must pay a living wage. The middle class was strongest when the minimum wage was sufficient to maintain a reasonable quality of life including housing, food, health care, and the ability to have a life outside of work. We must get there again.

4. We must hold politicians and judges to account. The SCOTUS is apparently for sale due to a lack of enforceable ethics rules. Justices Thomas and Alito have been openly accepting bribes for years. It’s a documented fact. Yet we can do nothing because our founding fathers never considered corruption at the level of the SCOTUS. Congress has the same problem, enriching themselves on the stock market using insider information to do it.

5. We must make individual votes count. We must end the Electoral College. We must make every single vote matter. The voices of the liberals in rural areas and the voices of conservatives in cities are both silenced by the Electoral College.

6. We must put aside our differences within the party. No candidate will be perfect. You are picking a politician, not a spouse. Find the one who comes closest to your values. You don’t fix a system by sitting out elections.

7. Finally, we must come together as a party understanding that we will have differences but without unity, the other side wins. Once a candidate is selected, we back the candidate. We don’t pitch a fit because our favorite didn’t win. Neither Joe Biden or Kamala Harris was my dream candidate, but I’d have voted for a slab of ham if that is who the Democrats ran because the alternative was the madness we ended up with.

I know, these are all lofty goals. They seem unattainable. They are, unless we pull together. Volunteer with your local Democratic Party. Sign up for platform and rules committees. Tell your friends. The party is run by the people. If it isn’t representing you, sign up and push to move it that way. Want a party that prioritizes your key issue? Get it into the party platform. Find common ground and build coalition.

Or we can just cede the country to the GOP and watch as our rights are abolished and our friends and families suffer. The choice is yours.

A short history of the World Health Organization

In 1945 at the founding of the United Nations they discussed setting up a global health organization. In 1946 a constitution for the World Health Organization was created and that constitution went into effect on April 7, 1948. The current iteration of that constitution along with other core documents can be found on the WHO website here.

The mission of the WHO is to promote the health and wellbeing of people across the globe by establishing channels for sharing scientific data between nations. Its second tenet really sets out its purpose clearly, “The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.” It has been key in the eradication or near eradication of diseases like smallpox and polio. The WHO led the fight against Ebola outbreaks in West Africa between 2014-2016. It drove rapid innovation of vaccines during the COVID pandemic. They are leading the fight against tuberculosis, the number one leading cause of death by disease globally to this day.

Just to be clear, the WHO is not a perfect organization. No one denies this. No organization is. The WHO has been in the process of reveiwing all of its protocols and plans since the COVID pandemic to be better prepared for global health issues.

Why Trump claims he wants to leave the WHO

On January 20, 2025, Donalt Trump issued an executive order titled Withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization. Why would Trump want to withdraw from an organization with such a noble purpose? One of the stated reasons is very on brand for the man who never pays his bills, he disagrees with the assessed dues, claiming the US dues are out of proportion with other countries. Luckily, this is a fact we can easily check as the WHO publishes this data.

He claims “China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300 percent of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO.” Dues are assessed based on GDP of member states, not population. Then there are voluntary contributions on top of those. The strongest economy on Earth should donate the most money to scientific research to keep the world healthy. As we see in the below chart from by Reuters based on numbers from WHO the US assessed dues make up 22% of the current WHO budget. China makes up a little over 15%. No matter how you slice it, that’s not a 90% difference in assessed contributions. In other words, as usual, Trump is lying and hoping no one is smart enough to check the facts.

His other claim attempts to blame the deaths of the COVID-19 pandemic on failures at the WHO and repeats his claims of outside influence and corruption at the WHO. He peddles unfounded claims and conspiracy theories ranging from the WHO being incompotent to the WHO being run by a dark cabal that wants to steal your freedom. Trump takes no responsiblity for his own failures durning the first months of the pandemic. He spread lies, conspiracies, and idiotic remedies from horse dewormer to injecting disinfectant. He responded to the pandemic the way any functionally illiterate deranged malignant narcissist would. He did everything wrong.

Why Trump really wants to leave the WHO

There are a few reasons our liar-in-chief might want to leave the WHO.

Let’s be honest. The primary reason is they refused to bend the knee and accept his insane theories as valid. Trump’s narcicism will not allow him to accept criticism no matter how valid.

Second, Trump has surrounded himself with yes men, idiots, and conspiracy theorists. We’ll get into that clown show in the next section.

Finally, one need only look at the first page of the WHO Constitution to understand why Trump’s billionaire donors want out of the WHO. Phrases like “The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being…” don’t sit well with an industry built on for-profit medicine. Calling health a human right goes against everything billionaires stand for. Someone should remind them how that goes for the rich when the population begins to starve or die of preventable illness. See also France in the late 18th century and Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century.

The Clown Show

First clown out of the car is Robert Kennedy, Jr., who he’s tapped to run Health and Human Services. For those not familiar with RFK Jr., let’s go down the highlight reel of reasons he is one of the worst possible picks for this job.

• RFK Jr. said under oath in a 2012 deposition “A worm… got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.” Parasitic brain worms aren’t a common complaint in developed countries, but considering the next bullet point I bet we can figure out where he got it.

• RFK Jr. has on multiple occasions told reporters he has been “picking up roadkill my whole life. I have a freezer full of it.” If you are wondering where the brain worm came from, I think this gives us a clue. He also tells the story of picking up a bear carcass by the side of the road in upstate New York with the intention of skinning it and eating the meat. He then, instead, realized he’d have to make a flight and thought better of leaving a rotting bear carcass in his car at the airport. Instead he decided to put the bear carcass in Central Park as a prank. NPR has a good write up on that absolutely insane story. Sounds like the actions of a man with brain worms…

• RFK Jr. continues to spread the debunked study claiming vaccines cause autism. They do not. The NIH has published a paper on the topic citing 15 different independent studies which back their conclusions. The good folks over at immunize.org published another paper citing 27 more independent studies. Vaccines go through rigorous testing. For example, the mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 were not new or experimental. Work on mRNA vaccines started in the 1960s. They were tested on mice in the 1990s as a flu vaccine. Human trials were started in 2013. mRNA was used to fight the spread of Ebola in West Africa. Because of its flexibility as a delivery mechanism, mRNA vaccines were the perfect vehicle for the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine since SARS-CoV-2 is a rapidly evolving vector and the vaccine must keep up.

If Captain Brain Worm isn’t bad enough for you, let me introduce you to “America’s Doctor” Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump’s choice to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. For years Dr. Oz was the go to TV doctor appearing on morning shows and news programs while hosting his own show in the process. His credibility came into question when people learned that many of the cures he sold or advocated were nothing short of snake oil, complete scams. So the man tapped to run the department in charge of the health of America’s most vulnerable citizens is a scam artist. He also has some beliefs which specifically contradict his role in this adminstration. Let’s look at his greatest hits, shall we?

• In 2012 Dr. Oz claimed that green coffee extract was a magic weight loss cure. Spoiler: It is not. Thankfully it is also no more dangerous than coffee according to most sources so it just wasted people’s money. One of the companies paid the FTC a $3.5 million dollar settlement over using a study they knew was flawed to make baseless weight-loss claims.

• In 2013 he went back to the weight-loss well to claim that raspberry ketones were the “number 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat.” The same year he touted Garcinia cambogia to do the same. Again, both claims were completely baseless.

• In one 2011 episode of his show he claimed that apple juice contained unsafe levels of arsenic, citing tests from a New Jersey lab and inciting a scare. First, the FDA has tested apple juice for arsenic for decades and has found that most apple juice contains no detectable levels of any kind of arsenic. Second, Oz failed to mention wheter the arsenic discovered was organic or inorganic. That matters because organic arsenic is considered relatively non-toxic at most levels found in nature. Inorganic arsenic is the nasty form we think of when we think of arsenic poisoning.

• Dr. Oz believes Americans don’t have a right to health. He fully supports a for-profit healthcare system where only Americans who can afford top-tier insurance deserve quality care. He said as much in a 2013 speech to Republican governors.

• Dr. Oz opposes the Affordable Care Act, calling it wrong. As head of CMS, Oz would be responsible for implementing the ACA’s consumer protections.

• Dr. Oz has specifically called to gut Medicare and push seniors onto expensive privatized plans.

• Dr. Oz is anti-abortion. He plays it off as a states’ rights issue, but as with any issue where states are left in charge of basic human rights, many fall on the side of oppression. Dr. Oz will not work to protect the basic human right of bodily autonomy.

The Aftermath

Public health experts worldwide agree the US withdrawl from the WHO is a giant mistake with potentially globally catastrophic results. Leaving the WHO puts the lives of countless people worldwide at risk.

• The US could miss early warning size of disease and emerging pandemic threats.

• Certain threats being monitored today may spread out of hand without global cooperation. Threats such as bird flu, monkey pox, and new COVID variants could run out of control without globally coordinated efforts to contain them.

• New vaccines currently in development to fight emerging threats will be slowed or stopped due to lack of funding and cooperation.

Thomas Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations, said it best. “The WHO is not a perfect institution, but it plays an irreplacable role in global outbreak response and, by withdrawing this action, reduces the ability of the United States to positively influence that response to outbreak. It makes Americans less safe.”

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

• United States Constitution, 14th Amendment, Section 1

The 14th amendment makes clear in its first sentence that anyone born on US soil is a citizen. It’s unequivocal. Born out of the English common law concept of jus soli (right of soil) it held that those born in England were its natural subjects. This principal held for centuries in England.

Fast forward to the US in 1857 and one of the worst SCOTUS rulings in court history, Dred Scott v. Sandford. In that ruling the SCOTUS held that US territories could practice slavery, black people could not be US citizens, and the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. The Missouri Compromise was the rule that states North of the 36°30′ parallel (the Mason-Dixon line) would be free, South would be slave states, and the remaining territories of the Louisiana Purchase would not allow slavery.

In 1866 the US reversed the ruling of Dred Scott by ratifying the 14th amendment. Since that time the US has lost its way more than once. Trump is not the first to set aside the rights granted in the 14th amendment. There was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which prohibited Chinese laborers from immigrating to the US for 10 years, prevented Chinese-born US residents from returning to the US if they visited China, and until US v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898 prevented children of Chinese immigrant parents from claiming their birthright citizenship and any Chinese immigrant from becoming a naturalized citizen.

Sadly, the trend continued. Whichever group in the US is being used as a scapegoat at that time is denied their privileges or immunities guaranteed by the 14th amendment.

We saw it with segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 which established the separate but equal doctrine and later Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 which rightfully reversed Plessy.

We saw it with interracial marriages in Loving v. Virginia in 1967 which established that the Equal Protection Clause must apply to all citizens regardless of race, striking down laws against interracial marriages throughout the US.

To keep this article from getting longer than Moby Dick, there are a laundry list of SCOTUS cases addressing times the US used racism as an excuse to deny citizens their rights guaranteed by the 14th amendment. Feel free to peruse them in detail. Many of the cases I pull from in this article are nicely summarized here by the National Constitution Center.

This brings us to the Executive Order signed yesterday, January 20, 2025, by Donald Trump entitled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. You can read the full EO at the link. In summary, it argues that “All persons born or naturalized…” doesn’t mean all people. It claims that children born to non-citizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” In other words, they are spuriously arguing that a child of non-citizens may live in the US but they are not subject to US jurisdiction. As with most legal points argued by Donald Trump’s team, they get it completely wrong. A simple thought exercise proves it. If an immigrant of any legal status in the US is accused of a crime, they are subject to the jurisdiction of US courts to adjudicate that crime. That doesn’t change simply because they lack citizenship or immigration paperwork. Donald and the legal staff we know he had write the executive order, because Trump is functionally illiterate, fall into the same trap as the others who used hate as a reason to deny people their constitutional rights.

It’s going to be busy here in Helheim. Day 2 and I had to throw a dart to pick a Trump atrocity to cover. There may even be another article today. I should just get caffeine on an IV drip for the next four years.

His hand went to his heart and then out as seen in the photo. This wasn’t a mistaken gesture or Freudian slip. He wasn’t waving. He delivered his salute as crisply as a Nazi standing before the Führer himself.

We were warned, many times. Generals John Kelly, Mark Milley, James Mattis, H.R. McMaster and others warned us, calling Trump a fascist unfit for office, an authoritarian, immoral, and beyond the pale of American norms.

Then there’s the executive orders Trump signed today, because fascism has a schedule to keep. They include, but are not limited to:

• Withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization

• Pardons for all of the terrorists from the January 6th attack on the US Capitol

• An order to keep TikTok alive for now (funny since he started the move to ban it in the first place)

• Freeze Biden’s action to lift Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism

• Ordering federal employees back in office 5 days a week

• Ordering a federal hiring freeze

• Completely rescinding Title IX order protecting against discrimination for gender identity or sexual orientation

• Order to restore deportation criteria from his 2017 nightmare immigration policy that led to countless families being separated, some never to see their children again

• Order to direct the attorney general to assist states in acquiring lethal injection drugs

Strap in, folks. This presidency is going to be a long ride.

Welcome to Helheim. The name comes from the Norse realm of the dead, ruled by the goddess Hel. If you’re wondering, yes, it’s the etymological ancestor of the English word “Hell,” but Norse Helheim isn’t a fiery pit of torment—it’s more like Limbo. Fitting, really, given the liminal state of the United States these days.

It was either Helheim or The Maquis for the name, but naming my blog after the French Resistance felt a little on the nose. Besides, Norse mythology has a certain grim poetry that seems just right for this moment in history.

So here we are. This will be a space to explore the politics of our strange times, the lessons of history, the pitfalls and promise of technology, and maybe even what it means to embody non-toxic masculinity in a world that desperately needs it. We’re on the highway to Helheim.

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