Check Your Brain

Are your eyes connected to your brain, maybe not. Today ICE agents shot a man in Minneapolis. If your brain said it was justified, your eyes are not connected to your brain. If you watched the video and didn't see the man was not brandishing a gun, your eyes are not connected to your brain, Now, lets check your ears. If you watched Christie Noem and you hear what she said about the shooting, and you believed it, you ears are not connected to your brain. A lot of people right here in our little town have been disconnected from reality. We are represented by Eli Crane, and Wendy Rodgers. Get your circuits checked. 

He has done that before

This morning I watched a video of ICE agents restraining a man on a Minneapolis street. In the footage one agent kneed the man in the face while another agent, apparently aware they were being recorded, tried to intervene. The scene was disturbing.

Two observations stayed with me. First, the presence of a colleague attempting to stop the use of excessive force suggests that not all involved accepted what was happening — but it also raises questions about oversight and control during operations. Second, the behavior looked like more than a one-off: people in enforcement roles can develop patterns of conduct, sometimes normalized over time.

These incidents point to systemic issues in how we staff and supervise enforcement agencies. Every person placed in a position of authority to use force should undergo rigorous psychological screening, ongoing evaluation, and training in de-escalation and accountability. Equally important are hiring standards and vetting processes that ensure candidates meet ethical and professional norms.

Finally, broader leadership and policy choices shape agency culture. Appointments and personnel policies that prioritize aggressive tactics over restraint and professionalism risk institutionalizing harmful conduct. National-level guidance and consistent, transparent standards are essential to restore public trust and prevent future abuses.

The Day will come

The National Association for the Advancement of Humanity
Daily Dispatch on the State of the Republic

Some Americans are still whispering when they should be shouting. As Trump grabs at countries, plunders the treasury, and treats the nation as his personal yard sale, the public waits—half-joking, half-hoping—for the BIG BEAUTIFUL OBITUARY, the only thing that seems capable of stopping a man who believes he owns the world. The tragedy, of course, is that democracy shouldn't hinge on one man’s mortality. But here we are.

What could be more childish than a president demanding Denmark hand over Greenland because his fragile ego couldn’t handle not winning the Nobel Peace Prize? What could be more revealing than that tantrum? The rest of the world saw it for what it was: the behavior of a spoiled, unstable man who cannot be denied anything without launching into a public meltdown. Yet a frightening number of Americans still pretend he is normal.

Why do we keep tiptoeing around the obvious truth? Trump’s mental illness is not subtle. It is on display every day: the grandiose delusions, the paranoia, the fixation on personal loyalty, the inability to accept responsibility, the fantasy world in which he alone is the hero in a nation full of enemies. These are not quirks. These are symptoms.

His followers call it “strength.” But any trained professional would call it a diagnosis.

And here lies the national shame: we have normalized his sickness. We have allowed our political culture to absorb his pathology as if it were just another style, just another flavor of populism. We laugh, we roll our eyes, we say “that’s just Trump.” No. That’s not “just Trump.” That’s a mentally unwell man steering the country into authoritarianism because no one in power will say what the entire world can plainly see.

Change will not come until Americans stop treating Trump like a legitimate political figure and start speaking openly about what he actually is: a deeply unstable person with immense power, unchecked rage, and a bottomless need for adoration. Democracies crumble when citizens refuse to name the disease infecting them.

Trump is a sick man. His illness is not private—it is public, national, and dangerous. And until people stop whispering and start declaring it openly, the United States will keep spiraling deeper into the delusion he has built around himself.

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No Penalty for Murder

Imagine sitting in your car — unarmed, peaceful, and expressing your frustration at Trump’s goons the only safe way you could — and a federal agent walks up and shoots you in the face. No warning. No accountability. No questions asked. That is what happened to Renee Good, and it should chill every American who still believes in justice.

I was disturbed to read in The New York Times today that the ICE agent who killed Good will not have to answer a single question about his actions. Not one. Meanwhile, Good’s own family is being treated like suspects, as if she were the terrorist and not the victim of a government bullet.

This isn’t how a democracy behaves. This is how a dictatorship operates: power protects the executioner, interrogates the victims, and demands silence from anyone who dares to speak.

Yet here we are. A woman is dead for peacefully showing her disapproval, her family is scrutinized, and the man who pulled the trigger walks away untouched — defended by legal shields designed to keep federal agents immune from accountability.

But for much of the country? Life moves on. Have another cup of coffee. Turn on a football game. Pretend nothing happened — because that’s what those in power count on.

If we don’t demand answers for Renee Good, the message becomes unmistakable: the law no longer protects the people. The law now protects those who rule over them.

Hard to imagine

The Three Stooges of Payson

Imagine three grown men, dressed as public servants, walking into a town hall meeting as if they were starring in a low-budget remake of The Three Stooges. Now imagine them beginning that meeting with a solemn prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance—heads bowed, hands over hearts, every gesture dripping with performative patriotism.

In Payson, Arizona, this is our reality.

These three men—Mayor Steve Otto, Jim Ferris, and Charlie Bell—give hypocrisy their most earnest effort. They pray as if they follow the teachings of Christ. They recite the pledge as if they understand the meaning of “liberty and justice for all.” And then, moments later, they proceed to violate every principle embedded in the words they just spoke.

Jim Ferris kicks things off by claiming—without evidence—that the public library is promoting pornography. It’s a smear straight from the national extremist playbook: attack institutions of learning, stir fear, and hope no one asks for proof.

Steve Otto, meanwhile, sees no issue with attending Tea Party meetings that exclude the public he claims to represent. Transparency? Accountability? Those words disappear the moment he steps into the Tea Party clubhouse.

And then there’s Charlie Bell—poor Charlie—who simply salutes whatever the Tea Party demands. No independent thought, no evaluation, no courage. Just obedience.

Because pandering to the Tea Party is the entire operating system for this trio.

The Tea Party in Payson functions like a Boy Scouts troop for Trumpism: badges in outrage, merit awards for misinformation, and a handbook written in conspiracy theories. Reality doesn’t faze them. Facts are optional. The truth is like putty—molded, twisted, and reshaped to suit whatever narrative keeps the base riled and the power structure intact.

This is what passes for leadership in Payson. A ritualized performance of prayer, patriotism, and public service—followed by a meeting where those very principles are cheerfully discarded.

And the citizens of Payson deserve better than a government run by stooges.

Denial

It is comforting to believe nothing has changed. It is comforting to believe we are still young, still free, still living in the country we were taught to admire. But reality has a way of shattering comforting illusions.

The scale does not lie. You can avoid stepping on it, you can convince yourself the problem doesn’t exist, but the truth remains unchanged. Denial does not alter reality.

The United States was once a place where people could walk with confidence that the law applied equally, that freedom was more than a slogan, and that government power had limits. Those days are gone. We are now living under a dictatorship, whether we choose to admit it or not.

Donald Trump has made that reality unmistakable. He threatens to send federal troops into American cities to suppress unrest that his own actions ignited—after armed agents shot a woman in the face and killed her. Instead of accountability, we get intimidation. Instead of truth, we get lies layered upon lies.

You can go about your day pretending the sun still shines the same way. You can insist this is normal, that freedom still exists because it once did. But deep down, you know better. Truth no longer matters. Power does.

We are being reduced to subjects—peasants meant to serve the wealthy and protect their interests. Rights are conditional. Justice is selective. And obedience is increasingly demanded, not earned.

This is what dictatorship looks like—not all at once, but step by step, while people convince themselves nothing has changed.

The scale is waiting.

There are none so blind as those who will not see

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
Donald Trump has not merely bent the rules of democracy—he has spat on them. He treats the Constitution as a nuisance, elections as inconveniences, and the rule of law as something to be mocked. What once would have ended any political career is now shrugged off as “fake news” by a movement trained to reject evidence and embrace lies.

Trump’s enforcers roam the country with the arrogance of unchecked power. They intimidate, harass, and brutalize in the name of “law and order,” while operating above the law themselves. This is not strength; it is the behavior of regimes that fear accountability. History has a long record of what happens when leaders surround themselves with loyal thugs instead of principled professionals—and none of those stories end well.

The corruption is staggering. Theft, grift, self-dealing, and bribery have become normalized. Public office is treated like a private ATM. Foreign interests, corporate cronies, and wealthy benefactors buy influence in plain sight. Any previous administration would have collapsed under the weight of such scandals. Yet here we are, watching a president enrich himself while millions of Americans struggle to afford food, housing, and healthcare.

Most disturbing of all is the reaction of Trump’s loyal followers. Faced with overwhelming evidence, they retreat deeper into the fog of lies he has carefully constructed. Facts bounce off them. Court rulings are dismissed. Journalists are labeled enemies. Anyone who speaks truth is attacked as disloyal or un-American. This is not ignorance—it is willful blindness.

Democracy does not die in a single dramatic moment. It erodes slowly, as citizens stop caring, stop questioning, and stop defending the institutions meant to protect them. Tyranny does not require universal support; it only requires enough people to look away.

The tragedy of our moment is not just Trump’s behavior—it is the number of Americans willing to excuse it. History will not be kind to those who chose comfort over conscience. The question remains: how much damage must be done before the blind decide to see?

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