Read more from Off the Clock with Dr. P-F at: angelapf.substack.com

This is the second of a three-part series on Kansas HCR 5006, where we are in the process of unpacking a proposed amendment to the state constitution, which seeks to establish no limits on gun and accessories ownership as a “natural right” within the State of Kansas. In Part 1 of this series, we discussed the historical context of the 2nd Amendment; next, we are turning our attention to the concept of “natural rights.”

There are numerous deeply troublesome aspects of this bill, and one of the most jarring is the assertion that owning deadly weapons is one’s “God-given right.” (In case you think that’s hyperbole, check out the Kansas Reflector article linked below, which quotes Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach saying exactly that.)

Natural rights stem from the philosophy of Natural Law, with which the Founders would have been very familiar. In fact, my first book explores Natural Law as a foundational framework for the writers of the U.S. Constitution (Ethics in Fiscal Administration: An Introduction, particularly Chapters 3-4). However, the “natural rights” that were highly esteemed in that time & context included broad humanitarian concepts such as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

That well-known phrase comes straight out of the Declaration of Independence, which claims: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Put another way, “Natural law governs truths that are absolute, universal, and eternal,” as I explained in Ch. 3. “Natural law applies to each person equally; therefore, all people are bound by the same code of moral conduct. Consequently, we owe each other certain considerations, aka., natural rights.” At their core, natural rights should exist outside of the confines of laws, since they are essential to the very nature of humanity and bringing about the common good.

A key aspect of natural rights is that they do not conflict with each other, and if/when they do, then they cease being a right. For instance, you may have the right to free speech, but if you yell, “Fire!” unnecessarily in a crowded auditorium and provoke a panic, you are endangering others, and it is not your right to hurt other people. This is where the audacity of HRC 5006 confounds me!  The co-sponsors of this bill seem to believe that owning any amount of weaponry & ammunition is their right under a big-G god.

I don’t know what these people learned in Sunday School, but my religious upbringing taught that God was Love; God was good; God was just. Am I to believe that same divine being who put, “Do not murder” in the list of Top 10 No-Nos also wants us to have unrestricted access to mass-killing machinery?!?

The Red-hatters apparently think so.

Subscribe and read more when we wrap up with Part 3: Strict Scrutiny.

References & Further Reading

Kansas bill HCR 5006.

Ethics in Fiscal Administration: An Introduction.

How Natural Law Informs Our Understanding of the Constitution.

Kansas’ allegedly god-given right.

As of this writing, there have already been 60 mass shootings in the U.S. so far in 2025. As for gun-related deaths more broadly, the U.S. has lost about 48,000 people annually over the past few years.

That’s forty-eight thousand lives lost every, single year because of guns.

And here in Kansas, the state legislature is considering a bill (HCR 5006) – currently co-sponsored by 67 Representatives – that would put a state constitutional amendment on next year’s ballot to codify essentially unlimited gun and accessories ownership as a “natural & fundamental right” with strict scrutiny applied.

It’s pretty terrifying, actually.

There’s too much to unpack about this in a single post, so we’re going to break it down into three parts.

Part 1: The 2nd Amendment

The first 10 Amendments (aka, the Bill of Rights) were ratified in bulk on December 15, 1791, on the heels of the Constitution “… in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, … [a]nd as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government …”.

The Bill of Rights were added to the Constitution because the founders prioritized freedom from religious oppression and suppression, as well as the right to speak one’s mind, gather freely with likeminded individuals, and to speak & write about their opinions (#1). They were concerned about each state’s ability to protect itself from a potentially overbearing, tyrannical leader (#2). They worried about feeling safe & secure in one’s home (#3 & #4). And so on.

As these 10 Amendments were ratified at the same time, this means that the Red-hatters’ favorite Amendment (the 2nd) should be interpreted in the contemporary context of the other nine. A deep dive into each Amendment may be the subject of future posts, but for now, let’s examine #2 more closely:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”.

At this time in the nation’s history, there were polarized notions about concentrating power at a federal level versus a state level. State militias existed to protect local residents from attack or invasion. Somehow, though, we have morphed from upholding a “well regulated” and organized group of trained and disciplined individuals who were prepared to be called into duty by the State in the event of an emergency, into a modern-day, real life Doom game where every Red-hatter wants to be in his own Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto themed fantasy world where the women are both buxom and submissive, lives respawn, and you never have to reload.

No civilian has any reasonable need to own high-capacity magazines, armor-piercing rounds, M-class explosives, or a litany of other devices whose sole purpose is to kill en masse.

Side note: It should surprise no one to read that perpetrators of mass shootings are overwhelmingly white and almost exclusively male. (Read more from The Violence Project, linked below, if you can stomach it.)

Unfortunately, real human lives don’t respawn, but instead of instituting commonsense boundaries for firearms, Red-hatters continue to press for fewer & fewer regulations. Meanwhile, they’ll offer measly “Thoughts & prayers” with a praying hands emoji at the next shooting … spare me the sanctimony. That’s just a lame way to transfer fault to relieve yourself from feeling guilt. Instead, grow a spine and support reasonable public policy that might actually help protect our society from the next Dude-Bro in a red hat with a temper problem.

“But, it’s my God-given right!!” … Subscribe and read more when we delve into Part 2: Natural Rights next.

References & Further Reading

Kansas bill HCR 5006.

Bill of Rights transcript, from archives.gov.

CNN interview on the 2nd Amendment, from 2016.

National Institute of Justices’ Database of US Mass Shootings (because, sadly, that’s a thing).

The Violence Project.

Another Mass Shooting Tracker site. :(

Gun Deaths in the US, from Pew Research.

I’ve written previously about states’ reliance on federal funding for education (see Gut the Dept of Ed?), and now we have a wrestling entertainment executive in charge of dismantling the federal agency that has three primary responsibilities:

1)        administering the federal student loan program;

2)        protecting students’ civil rights; and,

3)        allocating educational funds to states (typically in the form of block grants) to assist with programs like interventions for students with disabilities, CTE (Career & Technical Education), and data collection/research.

Especially since this seems to be a topic chockful of misinformation, it’s worth reminding readers that the Department of Education does not dabble in curriculum. It requires states to conduct assessments but leaves the setting of standards up to each state. What it can do is make recommendations for reform and connect such benchmarks to grant funding opportunities (remember President George W. Bush’s pet project, “No Child Left Behind”?).

What makes no sense to me is how the states that rely most heavily on federal education funds are Red-hatter states. The same states whose voters want to throw the Department of Education in the garbage disposal also tend to be the ones with the lowest K-12 educational performance rankings and the ones who provide the least amount of per-pupil funding at the state level.

Case in point, when it comes to educational rankings:

·      16 of 25 in the lower half were red states

·      4 of the lowest 5 were red states

·      Every Bible belt state in the South ranked #25 or lower

·      The top 5 were all blue states

·      Among the top 12, only 3 were red states

When we consider per-pupil funding at the state & local level for elementary & secondary students, data from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State & Local Government Finances (reported by the Urban Institute – this and other sources are noted below) divided the expenditures into four quadrants, with #1 being the lowest and #4 being the highest amount of state & local funding toward K-12 education.

Does it surprise you to discover that not a single blue state was in the lowest quadrant, and not a single red state was in the highest quadrant? In fact, if you were to average red and blue states on a scale of 1-4, red states came in at a paltry 2.16, while blue states hit 3.20.

To summarize, red states rely on federal education funding more so than their blue neighbors; red states perform more poorly, on average; and, red states contribute less toward education at the state & local level than blue states do.

Chief Cheeto and his WWE ringleader are actively disabling the Department of Education, under the guise of empowering states with the willy-nilly responsibility to manage the schooling of future generations. To what end? In order that the most-needy, worst-performing, least-budgeted states can celebrate “owning the libs”? Apparently so.

References & Further Reading:

Best states for educational rankings.

Bible belt states.

Red and Blue states in the 2024 presidential election.

Per-pupil educational spending by state.

Republican’s disdain for the Department of Education.

Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl once wrote: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Until a course-correction eventually materializes, the path that the U.S. is taking looks downright terrifying, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and helplessly drowning.

It’s as if I’m on autopilot sometimes, going through day-to-day tasks and navigating routine priorities like those piddly issues really matter in the grand scheme of things. I’m trying to strike a healthy balance between staying informed, getting involved, and remaining sane. There’s so much that needs to change on a local to global scale, yet I’m incapable of making it all happen.

Yes, it’s daunting, but that doesn’t mean we’re completely helpless. We are at a turning point, and although we have little influence on others’ perspectives or decisions, it’s important to focus on what we can control, even if it’s “just” taking care of ourselves in that moment. We need to shift perspective and remember that self-care is not a luxury; it’s a necessity.

In terms of imagining some version of an optimistic future once the toxic dust settles from this presidential administration, educator and activist Daniel Hunter wrote: “On the days when I can’t sense any of these political possibilities (more than not), I zoom out further to the lifespans of trees and rocks, heading into spiritual reminders that nothing lasts forever.”

Everything around us may be burning (figuratively or literally – I mean no disrespect about recent devastating wildfires), but sometimes it helps me to recenter myself and my place in this vast universe. The birds still sing, and the sun still rises.

It’s fair to assume that any one of us lacks the individual power to make sweeping political changes, but we can stay the course and stand firm to our own value systems in the face of opposition. We can still be there for one another, and perhaps even more importantly, we need to continually guard our own mental health and wellbeing.

References & further reading:

Frankl, V. E. (1992). Man's search for meaning: An introduction to logotherapy (4th ed.) (I. Lasch, Trans.). Beacon Press.

Hunter, D. (November 2024). 10 Ways to be Prepared and Grounded now Trump has Won. https://commonslibrary.org/10-ways-to-be-prepared-and-grounded-now-trump-has-won/#7_Reorient_your_Political_Map

I have always loved being in/around water, whether that means kayaking at a local reservoir, swimming at the pool, or wading along a shoreline. Water helps me to feel connected, grounded, at peace. Listening to ocean sounds at bedtime helps me to unwind and relax my brain.

Speaking of needing to offer my brain a break, the craziness of this country right now causes my mind to feel like it is being buffeted by waves in the ocean. Each new day’s headlines strike me as even more frenetic and tumultuous than the day before, and as soon as my swirling thoughts manage to come up for air, I’m being smacked in the face with another breaker.

Back in my swim team days, we used to have an endurance training exercise where we would have to swim laps fully clothed. Jeans and shoes become very heavy underwater, not to mention the drag they cause – simultaneously pulling you backward while also weighing you down.

That’s what the news feels like in America these days: many of us are trying to stay afloat against a tide that is actively trying to drown us. Some hindrances are obvious, like jumping into a pool with clothes: indiscriminate firings of federal employees; and Chief Cheeto’s praise for Putin. Other obstacles are more insidious, like undertow: canceling press passes for certain media outlets, while extending privileges to more “loyal” ones; or Elon Musk targeting agencies that were investigating complaints against his companies. Conflict of interest much??

Undertow is a current beneath the surface of the water, moving in a different direction from visible currents. I’ve heard horror stories since I was a kid about adept swimmers drowning not far from the coast after being caught in undertow. This water terror phenomenon is sneaky; it catches you unaware and ensnares even accomplished swimmers.

The key to pulling yourself free from undertow? Swim sideways.

Swim parallel to shore until you have broken away from the stronghold of the current. Conserve your energy, so you can keep fighting. Float, if need be. Just stay alive.

Many of us right now are trying to fight against the current, which is both exhausting and dangerous. We’re screaming into the void: “Can’t you people see what is happening?!?”, yet it falls on deaf ears. We are sharing empirical research, using critical thinking skills, recognizing historical precedent – all while trying to convince the current to change its course. Yet, the people who need to see the facts refuse to acknowledge the truth; they only believe whatever comfortable narrative reinforces their narrow worldview.

In the process, we’re all drowning.

It hurts my heart to think about how devastating the ripple-effects from this presidential administration will be over both the short- and long-term. We’re already seeing some of it in the way this country has alienated itself from even our closest allies, while cozying up to the world’s biggest bullies. We’re seeing it in the mindless way that Red-hatters and political sycophants are aligning themselves with heartless power-mongers while turning a cold shoulder to their neighbors.

If we are to ever to rise again from this storm surge, I believe it will require us to severely shift course, to swim sideways. The esteemed America that the rest of the world used to look up to and respect is gone, and as difficult as that is to accept, we’re going to have to navigate together how to get safely back to shore.

I have yet to meet a scholar who doesn’t get at least a little bit excited when their work is cited. Quite by happenstance this evening, I was browsing my name associations in Google Scholar for a totally unrelated purpose and stumbled across a book review from 2019 that I never knew existed. It was published in a peer-reviewed journal of a noted publisher, and it covered my first book (released in 2018)!

In the interest of transparency, I will admit that my initial thought was to not read it, in case it had negative feedback. But then, I told the Imposter Syndrome Monster to shut up, because my publisher has already invited me to submit a proposal for a 2nd edition. That particular book has sold more than 750 copies worldwide, which I realize isn’t anywhere near New York Times Bestseller status, but for a book on ethical management of public resources??? That’s still pretty damn good.

After a few minutes of waffling, I decided to read the article, and I was pleased to find that it was complimentary. It included some recommendations for further consideration in a 2nd edition, which I sincerely appreciated. (Unfortunately, as I’ve noted previously, the current state of the Union isn’t very conducive to writing a manuscript on Ethics in Fiscal Administration … particularly since the current administration seems to not have a f**king clue what “ethics” entails. Perhaps I can focus on writing a 2nd edition once the majority of the American public pulls its head out of its posterior. Sigh. 

At any rate, here we are, screaming into the void.

As confusing as it may sound, modern-day Republicans are akin to Democrats of the mid-1800s, while today’s Democrats share similar values to the Republican party under Lincoln. Republicans didn’t begin espousing “limited government” until Roosevelt implemented his New Deal on the heels of The Great Depression. Post-WWII, Republicans have generally focused on economics & business development over social policy (which is somewhat ironic, given that the economy fares better under Democrat Presidents, but I digress).

What fascinates me – in a morbid “gotta laugh so you don’t cry” kind of way – is how contemporary Republicans talk a big game about empowering the states and limiting the federal government, yet, we have a President in office right now who is attempting to wield unchecked, supreme power over the other two branches of government, entirely.  

Writing for Bloomberg Law back in 2020, scholar Ediberto Román noted: “What Trump fails to fully grasp, or chooses to reject, is that our governmental system consists of a structure of shared powers and duties.”

 Oh, how prescient that observation was!

 Those shared powers and responsibilities are outlined in the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution delegates power in Articles 1-3 as follows:

1. Legislative power (making laws) = Congress

2. Executive power (implementing & enforcing laws) = President

3. Judicial power (interpreting laws) = Supreme Court

In addition, the 9th Amendment explains that the rights outlined in the Constitution are not exhaustive; in other words, the people have more rights than just the ones specifically mentioned. The 10th Amendment takes a reverse approach, stating that powers not specifically allocated to the federal government belong to the states or the people.

So, what is “executive power”? The Executive branch (aka, the President, Vice President, Cabinet, executive departments, and independent agencies) can enforce the laws that Congress passes or suggest things to Congress that they believe should become laws. Congress also creates and funds federal departments & agencies, and those units, in turn are subject to judicial review and constitutional parameters.

In other words, the President (and by extension, the rest of the Executive branch) implements, manages, and administers laws and public policies. What the President is not authorized to do is make laws or interpret laws.

This distinction has been important since our country’s founding. The Federalists of that time advocated for a strong central government, and to their credit, their efforts in our young country’s early days helped to create a national bank, address debt carried over from the Revolutionary War, and manage international trade. Nevertheless, Federalists still supported the separation of powers in Articles 1-3.

On the other hand, the original Anti-Federalists (later variations included the Democratic-Republican Party, also known as the Jeffersonian Republican Party) were leery of concentrated presidential power, believing it to be a threat to personal liberty and states’ power. (And for good reason, considering the founders were seeking to escape a power-hungry monarchy.)

 What is happening right now between Chief Cheeto who fancies himself king, the dodgy DOGE goons, and the impotent Republican majority in Congress is absolutely antithetical to the Constitution.

One might even say it was prophetic when Román predicted: “In a second term presidency, we will witness a more determined Trump without need for compromise. In the end, Trump will not change, and if not ultimately checked, we will witness attempts at a monarchial reign with less consultation, deliberation, or cooperation with states and other branches of government.”

As each newly chaotic day passes, I worry that it will soon become too late to turn the tide.

References for further reading (in case anyone cares):

Román, E. (2020). Bloomberg Law.  https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/insight-president-trumps-misunderstanding-of-federalism

https://federalism.org/encyclopedia/no-topic/trump-donald/

https://www.brookings.edu/books/trump-the-administrative-presidency-and-federalism/

https://go-gale-com.ezproxy.fhsu.edu/ps/i.do?p=OVIC&u=chan7365&id=GALE%7CA826349034&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon

https://go-gale-com.ezproxy.fhsu.edu/ps/i.do?p=OVIC&u=chan7365&id=GALE%7CA826623322&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon&aty=ip

https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/three-branches/what-president-can-do-cannot-do

https://online.norwich.edu/online/about/resource-library/major-american-political-parties-19th-century

The first tabletop globe that I ever saw included a huge swath of land spanning much of the continent of Asia and lapping over into Europe, called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). As a student, I remember learning about coups d'état and coup attempts around the world. They always sounded like far away problems that happened in distant places. After all, I witnessed the fall of the Soviet Union while I was in high school.

I didn’t fully grasp the magnitude of things back in middle school when President Ronald Reagan addressed a crowd at the Brandenburg Gate in June 1987:

“General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate.
     Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!
     Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Three days after my birthday in 1989, it finally happened! I remember the goosebumps I felt as we watched the television news showing sledgehammer-wielding, everyday people demolishing the wall that had stood for decades between Berliners.

(Side note, my younger brother was born in “West Germany” while my family lived there during my dad’s deployment in the mid- to-late-1970s.)

Two years after the Berlin Wall came down, the USSR finally fell, ending 44 years of the Cold War era. (People in my Southern Evangelical circles back then were convinced it was a sign of the End Times.)

Then-Secretary of State James Baker itemized five guiding principles for the emerging former-Soviet republics, as the USSR crumbled in 1991:

1.        self-determination consistent with democratic principles;

2.        recognition of existing borders;

3.        support for democracy and rule of law;

4.        preservation of human rights and rights of national minorities; and

5.        respect for international law and obligations.

The gist of the message was that if the newly freed republics would align themselves with these principles, then they could anticipate not only cooperation, but also assistance from the U.S. Here we are now, 34 years in the future, and it feels like my country has done a 180. Never in my wildest imagination did I think that an American President would ever cozy up to the Soviets.

What is a coup? It’s “a sudden and decisive change of government illegally or by force.” That sounds like strong language – and it is – but consider that definition in light of the present reality. Our current Commander-in-Chief has violated ALL FIVE of Baker’s democratic principles, and it has only been a month since he took office:

1.        He and the dodgy DOGE goons have illegally usurped congressional and judicial power, claiming unfettered access for themselves, despite policies and legislation to the contrary;

2.        He has inexplicably turned the tables on Ukraine, contradicting the true narrative and putting the blame on them for starting conflict with Russia, when in fact, Russia invaded Ukraine;

3.        He has zero respect for the rule of law or the Constitution, as exhibited in too many ways to count, but most recently through touting himself as a “king” on social media and illegally claiming that he is above the law;

4.        He has completely undermined the constitutionally defended rights of U.S. citizens – namely, historically marginalized populations, including ethnic & religious groups and women, in general;

5.        He has insulted & offended our closest allies and defiantly ignored supranational agreements.

 Even a decade ago, I would not have believed that a coup would be something I would witness first-hand in my lifetime, but that mindset changed in 2015. Now, we are experiencing an inexplicable level of chaos within what I’ve always assumed to be the Greatest Country in the World, yet those who have the power to nip it in the bud are kowtowing to it, instead.

We would do well to remember that our young, democratic republic is no more insulated or protected than those former-Soviet republics trying to redefine themselves back in the early 1990s. Freedom is not inherent, and the time may soon be at our doorstep that we must fight for it, in order to keep it.

References (in case anyone cares):

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/coup

https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2007/summer/berlin.html

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/collapse-soviet-union

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/collapse-soviet-union#:~:text=On%20December%2025%2C%201991%2C%20the,the%20newly%20independent%20Russian%20state.

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-was-the-berlin-wall-and-how-did-it-fall#:~:text=The%20Berlin%20Wall%20fell%20on%209%20November%201989&text=At%20a%20press%20conference%20on,into%20West%20Germany%2C%20starting%20immediately.

In addition to Elon Musk’s current net worth of roughly $420 billion (as mentioned in the previous post), Musk is making an estimated $8 million per day from government contracts alone.

That’s $2.9 BILLION annually, just in government contracts.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) laid off 1,000 employees a few days ago as part of the dodgy DOGE goons’ purge of “wasteful” spending, and with the hook-jab sucker punch of the federal hiring freeze plus return-to-office mandate, there won’t be any replacements for Veterans Crisis Line (VCL) staffers.

All VCL employees have been on mandatory telework since 2022, and many of them live hundreds of miles from the nearest VA clinic or hospital, much less the call center’s main hub in Atlanta. There isn’t an office for most of them to return to.

The VCL manages about 60,000 calls per month. The VA estimates that 17 veterans take their own lives every day. Even one would be too many, but even more sadly, a study conducted by America’s Warrior Partnership and Duke University found that many such suicides are underreported, putting the estimate in the low 20s. Furthermore, the VA’s figures do not include “self-injury mortality” for fatalities caused by overdose and other forms of self-harm.

This puts the more realistic estimate at 40-44 each day.

So, the feds apparently cannot afford to keep VA hospitals & clinics and the VCL fully staffed, but it can afford to keep padding the pockets of the world’s wealthiest con artist and Mitläufer. (At least the State Department appears to have withdrawn its procurement plan to spend $400 million on armored dumpster-mobiles – er, I mean, Cybertrucks.)

Please, if you’re a Veteran in crisis, contact the Veterans Crisis Line to receive 24/7 confidential support. Dial 988 then Press 1, chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat, or text 838255.

You matter. Please stay.

References (in case anyone cares):

Veterans Crisis Line. https://federalnewsnetwork.com/veterans-affairs/2025/02/va-employees-feel-impact-from-policies-shaking-up-federal-workforce-despite-exemptions/

The State of Veteran Suicide (2024). https://missionrollcall.org/veteran-voices/articles/the-state-of-veteran-suicide/

Veteran Suicide Data and Reporting. https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/suicide_prevention/data.asp

“It’s fine. It’s whatever.” <<Apparently, that’s my subconscious go-to line when I’m irritated about something but am trying not to make a big deal of it. I didn’t even realize I said it until my husband sweetly pointed out one day that I tend to say that when things definitely aren’t fine. He’s a very intuitive fella. ;)

We’re both Gen Xers, and I think Media Culture (cited below) described us accurately when it said that our generation tends to “have a pragmatic, self-reliant, and skeptical outlook.” Skeptical?? Whatever. (<<That was sarcasm, btw.)

We were the OG latchkey kids; many of us stayed by ourselves after school starting in elementary grades. Heck, I was on my school’s Safety Patrol at age 10, where I was responsible for helping younger kids cross the street, equipped with a wooden “Stop” paddle and an orange sash/belt. I may have also had a whistle. Oh, and a shiny badge! :)

Some of us were babysitting other kids by age 12 (not including siblings, which often started earlier than that). We’ve been contributing to Social Security since that first “real” job bagging groceries or scooping popcorn at the movie theatre, although I would venture to guess that most of us Gen Xers haven’t really counted on having access to those funds upon retirement. 

Gen Xers have been “instilled [with] a sense of resilience and adaptability … attributes that have contributed to their reputation for independence and resourcefulness.” Ours is often called the forgotten or neglected generation, and CBS News was ironically spot-on in its 2019 graphic titled “Generation Guidelines Defined By Birth Year,” which excluded Gen X from the list. Figures.

Crestcom put it this way: “Gen Xers learned to do things for themselves, and as such, often exhibit independence and a desire to work alone. Generation X prefer keeping red tape and meetings to minimum. Goal achievement is synonymous with work ethic.”

Self-sufficient, resourceful, goal-oriented, jaded loners … Ya think?

We’re used to having to make do, figure things out, improvise, adapt, and overcome. So, now that the federal government has been LITERALLY overtaken by the broligarchs and dodgy DOGE goons, we find ourselves in another “what now?” position. 

I have a Magic 8-Ball toy in my office, but unfortunately, it’s about as helpful for planning ahead as the M.A.S.H. paper folding game was in middle school (I never did get that mansion on the beach). Jokes aside, the truth is, I don’t know what the hell is happening. It’s scary; it’s maddening; it makes my stomach hurt.  

Meanwhile, Chief Cheeto has channeled his inner Napoleon by announcing on social media: "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law," and the Red-hatters are lapping it up like a cat licking its rearend. Today, he claimed authority over independent regulatory agencies, touting that only he and the Attorney General have the authority to interpret the law.

The constitutional foundation of our republic is being tampered with, and although members of the minority party are trying to intervene, they have to rely on the courts to have any teeth in the game. The Red-hatters in Congress (and the majority of Justices on the Supreme Court) have the power to actually do something to stop what amounts to nothing less than a coup, yet they lack the cojones to do anything at all.

Attempting to brush off my stress with, “It’s fine. It’s whatever” won’t help this time. Instead, I’ll leave you with some quotes from the Hamilton Broadway musical that feel awfully relatable right now:

References (in case anyone cares):

Gen X Values & Beliefs. https://www.mediaculture.com/insights/values-and-beliefs-what-drives-gen-x-decision-making

Predictably Different. https://crestcom.com/blog/2018/01/16/predictably-different-a-look-at-the-differing-worldviews-among-generations/

Independent agencies. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5302481/trump-independent-agencies

https://www.jurist.org/news/2025/02/trump-signs-order-declaring-only-president-and-ag-can-interpret-us-law-for-executive-branch/

Napoleon fanboy. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-stokes-alarm-view-presidential-power-apparent-napoleon/story?id=118898574

$1,000 = one thousand

$1,000,000 = one thousand thousand = one million

$1,000,000,000 = one thousand million = one billion

 What could we do with one billion dollars? With a little help from the robot overlord, I performed some cost estimates to brainstorm the possibilities:

• A mid-sized grocery store costs about $5 million to build and start operating. With a billion bucks, we could establish 200 brand-new grocery stores in rural food deserts across the U.S. (A rural food dessert is a low-income census tract at least 10 miles from the nearest grocery store. See the map excerpts below for context.)

• The daily cost to provide a free meal to a student is: $4.43. Over a school year of 180 days, that comes to $797.40 per kid. Let’s just round up to $800. With a billion dollars, we could provide a year’s worth of meals to 1,250,000 kids. For $40 billion, we could offer lunch to every school-aged kid in the country (about 50 million students).

• The starting cost for a utility-scale wind turbine is about $2 million. With a billion dollars, we could offset fossil fuel usage by building 500 wind turbines.

Rural Food Deserts. Screen snips from Food Access Research Atlas: www.ers.usda.gov

 Those are just a few ideas, off the top of my head.

What would you do with a billion bucks?

The crazy thing is, even a billion dollars is modest, in the grand scheme of things. For Fiscal Year 2024, the U.S. federal budget was $6.75 trillion.

Let’s go back to our calculations above …

If $1,000,000,000 = one thousand million = one billion,

then $1,000,000,000,000 = one thousand billion = one trillion,

which means $6,750,000,000,000 = six thousand seven hundred fifty billion.

Elon Musk’s net worth is currently estimated at $420 billion ($420,000,000,000) and growing exponentially by the day. It’s unfathomable to me that one person alone could hoard so much wealth; it adds up to more than 6% of our entire federal budget. Musk could singlehandedly cover nearly the entire allocation that goes toward benefits for veterans and all other federal retirements – that’s about 21 million retirees.

Together, the “broligarchs” (Musk, Zuckerburg, Bezos, and their ilk) could radically change the world and alter the course of future generations for the better. Instead, we have park rangers, medical researchers, and Veterans Affairs staffers losing their jobs because of so-called wasteful spending??

I cannot make it make sense.

References (in case anyone cares):

Rural food deserts. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/go-to-the-atlas

School Meal Reimbursement Rates. https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/reimbursement-rates?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Musk’s contractual income. https://www.uniladtech.com/news/elon-musk-paid-8million-first-doge-hearing-186045-20250213

Federal budget. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/#key-takeaways

Federal tax dollars. https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go

Gallup’s most recent survey (from Jan 21-27, 2025) indicates that 47% of respondents approve of the current president’s job performance. In any generic group of folks, that’s roughly half of the room:

• Half of the faces on the Zoom call

• Half of the patients in the waiting room

• Half of the customers at the grocery store

• Half of the colleagues in the office suite

• Half of the board members at the monthly meeting

• Half of the diners at the restaurant

• Half of the fans at the basketball game

It weighs heavily on my heart because I’ve begun noticing the “half” phenomenon everywhere I go, and my first instinct is to wonder which half they’re on. Do I trust this person, or are they a Red-hatter?

Perhaps that sounds jaded or judgmental. Indeed, I often hear the retort that we should all “agree to disagree” on politics but still remain friends. Believe it or not, I do agree with that sentiment, but only when it comes to differences of opinion like:

Should that intersection have a stop light or a roundabout?

Should my county invest more sales tax revenue toward parks or pothole repairs?

Should the local school district switch to block scheduling?

Should College Algebra be the default course for college students, or should General Education requirements include multiple math pathways?

Should our municipality provide tax breaks to incentivize new business development?

Should my state legalize gambling, and if so, what should the proceeds be used for?

What must be excluded from the “agree to disagree” scenario is the question of whether other human beings ought to have the same liberties and rights as you do.

Frankly, what that communicates to me is that half of the people in the room …

… have no qualms with an unqualified, unelected rich dude calling the shots.

… believe the government should control a woman’s medical decisions.

… want nothing to do with supporting poor families but don’t mind billionaires hoarding more wealth than the entire middle class (aka, the middle 60%). And that’s just in the U.S.! Worldwide, the top 1% own more than 95% of the rest of humanity.

… are too fixated on others’ genitalia and believe that trans people are more of a threat than predatory men, despite likely not knowing any trans individuals personally.

… start conversations with, “I’m not racist, but …”

… are pro-fetus and pro-death-penalty, but not pro-free-lunch-for-schoolchildren.

… are ok with the notion of sending U.S. citizens to El Salvadorian prisons.

… think it’s a fine idea to arbitrarily rename an international body of water, yet can’t bring themselves to use another person’s preferred pronouns.

Your worldview is only as broad as your lived experiences and your openness to learning from others’ lived experiences. What you don’t know and don’t care to educate yourself about is far too easy to judge. Do better.

References (in case anyone cares):

Presidential Approval Ratings. https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx

El Salvadorian prisons. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/05/nx-s1-5287670/trump-el-salvador-americans-prison

Top 1%. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/12/06/top-1-american-earners-more-wealth-middle-class/71769832007/

World’s top 1%. https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/worlds-top-1-own-more-wealth-95-humanity-shadow-global-oligarchy-hangs-over-un

I’ve come across varied commentaries in recent days that echo the same sentiment: You cannot support the Constitution and also the Trump administration. While I wholeheartedly agree that the two are in stark contrast with each other, I worry that it still isn’t enough to compel the Red-hatters to finally stand up to him and his cronies.

Why would I say such a jaded thing? Well, you see …

• It wasn’t enough when he said of John McCain and other POWs: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured” (July 18, 2015).

• It wasn’t enough that he cheated on all three of his wives and paid hush-money to sex workers.

• It wasn’t enough when he cruelly mocked a disabled news reporter (November 2015).

• It wasn’t enough when he cancelled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery while in France because veterans who died in combat were “suckers and losers” (2018).

• It wasn’t enough that his crass and vulgar comments about women and crude insults about persons of color are too numerous to count.

• It wasn’t enough when he ordered peaceful protesters to be tear-gassed in front of a church, so he could take a photo op with a bible prop (June 1, 2020).

• It wasn’t enough that he provoked literal violence against his political rivals – even his own Vice President – as armed insurrectionists stormed into the Capitol chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” (Jan. 6, 2021).

None of it was enough.

I could cite research demonstrating how the U.S. economy under Republican Presidents consistently under-performs, in comparison to Democrat leadership. I could show you historical evidence that King James (yep, the same one with the branded bible version that Red-hatters love to quote out of context, especially to hate on the LGBTQIA+ community) was … wait for it … gay. I could explain to you in definitive terms how other countries around the globe have astronomically lower rates of gun violence than the U.S., and that the crime index in Chicago is actually less than the national average. I could even point you to credible studies that document substantial declines in abortion rates in states where access to reproductive services (yes, like abortion) are LEGAL, versus where it is banned.

Yet, all of those things have already been stated – repeatedly. Apparently, it still isn’t enough.

What will it take for it to be enough?

I’ve been fortunate to teach many terrific college students over the years, and I enjoy staying in touch with them as they move on to bigger & better things in life. Given the nature of my academic background, a huge percentage of my students work in the public or nonprofit arena. It brings me joy to see them doing what they can to change the world, whether it’s through a nonprofit organization, local government, elected office, state legislature, federal agencies, and more.

One such student has made a name for herself and has continued to grow and thrive. Back in the day, she was very active in student government organizations, then she went on to work at the state level, interned at the White House, and served on some high-profile campaigns. Not too long ago, she accepted a dream job with a federal agency and was excited about taking the next step in her extraordinary career path. All the while, she’s never lost that fire to make a difference. I’m so proud of her!

This week, she was let go in the purge of probationary federal employees across several agencies. Her announcement on social media broke my heart: “All I’ve ever wanted to do was work in public service.”

We haven’t even hit the one-month mark of this administration yet, and each day seems to reach a new level of chaos.

Not one iota of this nonsense is actually about waste & abuse of public resources. If it was, then instead of axing funding for programs and agencies that are working to advance medical research, support U.S. agriculture, and more, we’d have qualified auditors combing the books – starting with the Department of Defense (which has failed every annual audit since 2018 and didn’t have a good track record even prior to then).

Instead, we have:

• dodgy DOGE hackers accessing offices & records without any sort of security clearance;

• a sitting President attending the Super Bowl (conservative estimates put the total around $10M for that totally unnecessary outing … although, considering the $141 MILLION wasted in taxpayer dollars just on golfing trips during his first term, we shouldn’t really be surprised);

• Chief Cheeto trying to eliminate birthright citizenship (to include Native Americans whose land was stolen, in the first place), make processes more difficult for voters, while also threatening to annex, purchase, or “take over” sovereign nations.

*The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act is allegedly aimed at keeping undocumented immigrants from voting – even though there continues to be no evidence of such. (Edited to remove concerns re: naming conventions mentioned in original post. The forms of identification required already preclude undocumented individuals from voting; additional hurdles only serve to suppress socio-economically disadvantaged persons.)

Oy vey. We were the laughingstock of our global peers from 2016-2020, and we still have 47-ish more months to go this time around.

I keep thinking of the quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin as he left the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when Elizabeth Willing Powel asked what type of government the delegates had settled on: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

I worry that we might not be able to.

References (for anyone who cares): 

DOD's 2024 Audit. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3967135/dods-2024-audit-shows-progress-toward-2028-goals/

Trump’s golf trips. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/31/fact-check-taxpayer-burden-trumps-golfing-hard-pin-down/3718413001/

Birthright citizenship. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/trump-birthright-indigenous-citizenship-1.7444178

SAVE Act. https://www.newsweek.com/married-women-stopped-voting-save-act-2029325

This is the hypothetical story of a young, Black, South African man named K’sum Nolé.

K’sum (pronounced with a click consonant sound as used in the Xhosa language) was born and raised in Cape Town during the era of Apartheid but later obtained dual citizenship from Mexico, since it was his father’s birthplace. He studied hard and was accepted to a prestigious research university in the United States on a J-1 student visa.*

Once K’sum completed his undergraduate studies, he stayed in the US to pursue a graduate degree. However, he had a bright idea to launch a tech start-up, so he dropped out of grad school. Since he was no longer in school, he had violated the terms of his student visa, which means he remained in the country unlawfully and could have been deported.

Investors were interested in his start-up company, but they were concerned about his unauthorized immigration status. One of them pulled some strings to sponsor K’sum’s residency, and he eventually became a naturalized citizen of the US.

Over the years, K’sum bought and traded companies and became a very, very wealthy man. He was able to take advantage of corporate taxation loopholes to avoid paying any income tax on his multi-billion-dollar company. He also began contributing to political campaigns and gained more & more influence over policy matters that benefitted him financially (as well as legally, since he was able to sway decision-makers to help him avoid investigations and lawsuits).

What is your gut reaction to the story of K’sum Nolé?

Do you have any concerns about his ability to remain in the US as an “illegal alien” (aka, “undocumented” or “unauthorized” immigrant)? What about his self-serving political activity and ill-gotten financial gain? Does any aspect of the narrative give you pause?

What if … instead of being a Black South African, K’sum was white? Thus, instead of being a victim of Apartheid, he was a beneficiary? And rather than having a father from Mexico, he actually had a mother from Canada? And instead of having an “ethnic” sounding name like K’sum Nolé, his name was the semordnilap version: Elon Musk.

All better now? Does your perspective change because it was a white guy who overstayed his visa and became an “illegal” (because those folks are supposed to be brown)? Is it suddenly ok because it’s a white guy currently hacking away at the purse strings of the federal government? Because it’s a white billionaire to whom you feel like you can relate??

Did you know? As of 2017, individuals from nations besides Mexico & Central America account for roughly 90% of visa overstays (Pew Research). In fact, there are 30 overstays for every border apprehension of Mexicans and Central Americans.

Currently, over 40 percent of the undocumented/unauthorized population in the country are individuals who have overstayed their visas, not entered through the US-Mexico border (CMS).

As a naturalized citizen, Musk isn’t even eligible to serve in the highest federal offices like President. He lacks a security clearance. He has no relevant credentials as a policy analyst, much less as an auditor. If you would be concerned about K’sum, then you ought to be extremely worried about Elon.

If I had a billion dollars, there wouldn’t be a single hungry person on the planet. Infrastructure across the globe would include public transit. The climate would be protected; water would be clean. Anyone from any background would have access to an education that would open doors for them to earn a livable wage. Elon Musk, on the other hand, is the personification of Smaug in Erebor, hording his gold and seeking to destroy anyone who comes near to his stronghold.

References (for anyone who cares):

*Individuals on a J-1 visa are considered “Exchange Visitors,” which is generally limited to international students and visiting faculty on short-term appointments to the U.S. They are only permitted to work in a capacity related to and approved through their visa, which for students usually means on-campus. https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/students-and-exchange-visitors/exchange-visitors

Pew Research. Key facts about the changing U.S. unauthorized immigrant population. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/04/13/key-facts-about-the-changing-u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population/

Center for Migration Studies. “Correcting the Record: False or Misleading Statements on Immigration.” July 24, 2024. Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS} Report. New York, NY: CMS.

Since the Department of Education is the latest federal agency under attack by the dodgy DOGE goons, let’s talk about federal financial aid – in particular, student loans.

There was a lot of holier-than-thou pontificating during the Biden administration surrounding student loans, as Red-hatters seemed to be under the impression that folks who were seeking student loan forgiveness just wanted a handout to cover their poor financial decisions.

Boomer Red-hatters, in particular, frequently take the angle that if you would just get a job while going to school, make a budget, and brew your own coffee, then you ought to be able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and pay for college without going into debt “… like I did back in my day.”

Oh, really? Ok, let’s explore this argument a bit further …

For comparison’s sake, let’s look at the year I was born: Tuition & fees at public 4-year colleges averaged $512 for the entire 1974-1975 academic year. (You’re lucky to buy books for that today, but I digress.) The year I graduated high school (1992), that cost was already $2,349. By the time I finished grad school in 2014, undergrad tuition & fees averaged more than $8,500. That’s more than 16 times what it cost in 1974.

Using an inflation calculator (which is based on the consumer price index – or CPI), a dollar in 1974 was worth $4.80 in 2014. That means even if you adjust for inflation, the $512 in tuition & fees from 1974 would still only equate to $2,458 in 2014 – a little less than one-third of the actual cost.

So, yeah, you probably could’ve worked a part-time job while attending college full-time in 1974 and avoided student loan debt.

I mentioned grad school earlier because the frustrating scenario is fresh on my mind, as I was reviewing financials for this tax season. You see, I didn’t have the opportunity to receive a fellowship or Graduate Teaching Assistantship in grad school; I worked full-time and took classes part-time while also raising my kids. Between 2006-2014 while I worked on my master’s and doctorate degrees, I needed to take out student loans to make ends meet. That’s the simple truth of the matter.

Here's the rub: At the end of 2024, I had only paid down my total balance by 58%. That’s after an entire decade of chipping away with payments. Two of the loans actually have a higher balance today than the original principal amount borrowed. Talk about one step forward, two steps back!! This is why people are frustrated.

The irony is that even if Biden’s student loan forgiveness programs were still available, I don’t qualify because I make too much. Thankfully, those degrees opened doors for my career advancement, and even though it took several years to get to this point, I have a great job now. I still wanted to share my own scenario as a case-in-point for those who might be tempted to make snap judgements when they hear stories about people wanting relief for their student loans.

The same people who engage in self-righteous, knee-jerk condemnations about Gen-Xers’ and Millennials’ student loan woes and failure to save for retirement are the same ones who balk at raising the minimum wage – much less a minimum LIVING WAGE. They look down their noses at younger generations for allegedly wasting their money on avocado toast & frappuccinos, but in reality, the Gen-Zs who are in college now can scarcely find housing at a reasonable price, much less set aside savings. Granted, you could buy a house and a car 50 years ago and raise a family on one income. However, those days are long gone, and so is the purchasing power of generations ever since.

Hopefully, I’ll have my student loans paid off before I retire.

References (in case anyone cares):

Average Cost of College by Year. https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-year

Inflation calculator: https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator

With all the hoopla in the news about the current administration’s promise to eliminate so-called wasteful federal spending, let’s break down what it will really mean if/when they succeed in gutting the U.S. Department of Education.

Since I claim Houston as my hometown, we’ll start with the state of Texas – which is home to many cool things like Blue Bell, the Johnson Space Center, Buc-ees, and the Astros/Rockets/Texans – but also where 6,393,597 Red-hatters (56.2% of voters) voted Republican in the 2024 election.

About half (49.8%) of Texas’ funding for public K-12 education comes from local sources, primarily property taxes. Texas is currently one of only seven states that levy no individual income tax whatsoever, yet state support still accounts for nearly 38% of the public K-12 budget, with the remaining 12% coming from federal funds, aka, the US Dept of Ed.

Twelve percent may not sound like much, but for Texas, it’s in the ballpark of $9 billion (yes, with a B … put another way = $9,000,000,000). Within that pot:

• $22 million goes toward rural, low-income schools whose property taxes don’t cut the mustard (think 1A & 2A speed-trap towns)

• $12.5 million supports education for homeless children

• $127 million is for Career & Technical Education grants to the state

• And $1.2 BILLION is allocated for Special Education programs & services

I don’t know where Greg Abbott and his ilk are planning to conjure up nine billion bucks to bridge the gap, but something tells me it won’t come from taxing Space X.

Out of curiosity (though I suspected I knew the answer already), I decided to check to see which states rely on US Dept of Ed funding the most to support their schools. As I pretend to be shocked, it turns out that among the top 15 states whose public K-12 revenue comes from the feds, 14 of them voted Republican, while the 10 least reliant on federal funding for their schools voted blue:

Most reliant on US Dept of Ed (19.7% - 13.8%)

1. South Dakota

2. Mississippi

3. Montana

4. Arizona

5. Alaska

6. North Dakota

7. Arkansas

8. Idaho

9. Louisiana

10. Alabama

11. West Virginia

12. Kentucky

13. Tennessee

14. Oklahoma

15.       Maine

 Least reliant (8.7%-4.6%)

41.        Oregon

42.       Washington

43.        Illinois

44.        Delaware

45.        New Hampshire

46.        Maryland

47.        Massachusetts

48.        Connecticut

49.        New Jersey

50.        New York

It’s a little too late for Red-hatters to act surprised that the US Dept of Ed provides so much support for kids with disabilities and vo-tech programs and rural communities. “Drain the swamp” probably doesn’t feel so great when you realize that you, too, are in the marsh.

We tried to warn you.

References (for anyone who cares):

https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2024/texas-2024-general-election-results/

National Center for Educational Statistics, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/ (Digest 2023, Table 235.20)

U.S. Department of Education Funds for State Formula-Allocated and Selected Student Aid Programs, by Program

Image credit: AI-generated (DALL·E)

Efforts toward reforming the US civil service began in earnest in the 1870s, but it wasn’t until January 1883 that the Pendleton Act was passed, which shifted the tide from the “spoils system” to a merit-based system. Another name for the spoils system is the Good Ol’ Boys Club, where officials would reward their friends, family, and/or political supporters with cush appointments that they didn’t earn through their own credentials or experience.

It would be like hiring your son-in-law and daughter as senior White House advisors or offering your top donor an unofficial & unauthorized role as Chief Hacker to the Treasury Department … hypothetically speaking.

Interestingly enough, the Pendleton Act also made it unlawful to fire or demote civil servants for political reasons. (I’ll just let that one sink in for a moment ...)

It was also during this decade that future President Woodrow Wilson published his now-famous essay, “The Study of Administration” (1887), in which he asserted that public service professionals should be held to high standards of work performance, laying the groundwork for the modern bureaucracy. Wilson also argued that the work of public administration should be kept separate from political influence (fancy that).

Wilson became widely known as the “father of public administration” over the years (although, Alexander Hamilton fans would disagree, which you can read more about in my book, Ethics in Fiscal Administration). When Wilson eventually began his presidential stint in 1913, he did so as the first US President with a PhD. He ushered in the passage of the Federal Reserve Act and was a key player in founding the League of Nations (a forerunner of the United Nations) on the heels of WWI.

Seemingly every day over the past week, we’ve witnessed new and even worse breaches of protocol, security, and legal precedent with regard to the public sector. Under the guise of allegedly rooting out waste and abuse, Elon Musk and his motley crew of digital pirates – none of whom have security clearance – have ransacked federal agencies and terrorized public employees.

It should go without saying that this illegitimate power play is atrocious and grossly illegal, but one of the biggest face-palms of the whole ordeal is how folks continue to shrug, like it’s no biggie. An unauthorized group has literally hacked into not only the Fed’s systems and exposed them to god-only-knows-what cybersecurity threats, but through that process, these criminals have also gained access to YOUR protected personal information {whatev, I guess}.

“We’re draining the swamp!” cry the Kool-Aid drinkers with their ugly red hats, thinking that a billionaire actually has their best interests in mind. What lunacy! If the collective We were really interested in addressing fraud, waste, and abuse of the public purse, then why wouldn’t we start by putting the spotlight on corporations like Musk’s Tesla, which reported $2.3 billion (with a B) in US income in 2024 but paid zero – that’s $0.00 – in federal income tax.

I pursued public administration in graduate school because I believed in the ideals of public service. I have shared before that my personal mission statement is to “Affect Positive Change,” and by studying, working, and focusing my volunteer efforts in the public & nonprofit sector, I have tried to live out those ideals. Unfortunately, public service in the US feels like it is in hospice care right now. The education, gumption, and elbow grease invested by hundreds of thousands of Americans is being tossed aside by an egomaniac who flaunts his privilege and doesn’t bother contributing his fair share to the bottom line.

And people are eating it up. They look at him and somehow think they can relate to him. How many people do you know who could make it six months in the event of a financial disaster? Three months? One month? One paycheck?? The reality is that 99.99% of us are much, much closer to becoming unhoused than we will ever be to becoming billionaires. All it takes is one catastrophic illness, one natural disaster, one devastating accident, or one furlough … And yet, people act like this despicable behavior is somehow helping ‘Murica become “great again.”

I worry that current events are the death rattle of public service as it gasps for breath, and too many people are going to figure it out too late.

Moments before the Earth was destroyed by the Vogons to make way for an interspace bypass, Arthur Dent managed to hitch a ride onto a passing spacecraft, thanks to the quick thinking of his humanoid alien buddy, Ford Prefect. (For the uninitiated, I’m referring to one of the best sci-fi novels of all time – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.)

Prior to the global kablam, Arthur was just an average, down-on-his-luck earthling, going about business as usual and doing the best he could to get through each day. Part of the irony of h2g2 is its spot-on portrayal of stereotypical bureaucracy, particularly middle management. I have even used excerpts from the movie in my public administration courses as discussion prompts.

Unfortunately, what we’re living through right now is not sci-fi.

The rest of us have been trying to sound the alarm for years, but it’s as if people didn’t really believe the Cheeto-in-Chief when he said he’d be a “dictator on day one.” By now, I shouldn’t be surprised by the lackadaisical non-response from his followers about these things, yet I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around the utter lack of competence — much less credentials — of his Cabinet nominees.

I come from a military family and have always felt proud of that background. In fact, I’m a lifetime member of the VFW Auxiliary and currently serve as a Trustee for our local post. Meanwhile, Chief Cheeto’s newly appointed Defense Secretary is merely a talking head from Fox News. He has very limited leadership experience, couldn’t even name one country in the ASEAN during his confirmation hearings, and he holds insultingly archaic beliefs that women shouldn’t be allowed in combat.

We’ve got a wrestling entertainment exec on tap to serve as Education Secretary, despite the fact that she has zero full-time work experience at the K-12 or post-secondary level. From what breaking news I’ve heard thus far today, though, I’m not even sure what “education” she’ll actually oversee, since Dept of Ed employees are apparently already receiving dismissal notices.

Chief Cheeto’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services is an anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist who once dumped a bear carcass in Central Park, is a proponent of unpasteurized milk (gross), and even advocated for the unsubstantiated use of a de-worming drug during the pandemic. Totally [insert sarcasm] the kind of dude who should be overseeing our health department.

A pro-oil, software exec is the top pick to run the Department of the Interior, because that’s a great [insert more sarcasm] skillset and philosophy for the person in charge of all of our National Parks and other protected lands.

There are more horrific Cabinet picks we could discuss, but I feel nauseated just writing about those four, so I’ll stop there for now.

I’m upset about a lot of things right now, but one that is causing a lot of ache on my heart is that I’m frankly not proud to be an American anymore.

The quote on the Statue of Liberty that reads: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" clearly refers to a time in the past. Our so-called “land of the free” has always had fine print exceptions, but we’ve made a lot of strides over the past few decades to level the playing field, and I was starting to feel a little hope during the last administration. Now, the proverbial clocks have been turned back, and the white supremacists among us have become emboldened to act without fear of repercussion.

Need I remind anyone that we are only one generation removed from the internment camps?? My late father-in-law (a first-gen American citizen of Japanese descent) spent his high school years in one; his mother even lost her life there. Here we are, in 2025, and yet in recent days, Chief Cheeto has talked about not only sending American citizens to El Salvadorian prisons, but also “taking over” the Gaza Strip – an area we clearly don’t own – and forcibly removing the Palestinians, apparently with the goal to raze the area and build a resort.

Have the collective We learned nothing from the past?

I’m angry; I’m disappointed; I’m heartbroken; and I’m embarrassed. I wish I could hitch a ride on a spaceship and leave this nonsense behind. Since that isn’t an option, I’ll wrap things up with this quote from h2g2: "Don't Panic. It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day.”

Don’t give up, friends. Do what you can do within your sphere of influence. Hold fast to your scruples. Use your voice. Don’t panic.