May 30, 2026
The May 30 2026 (Memorial Day) edition of The Status Quo: An Electronic Newsletter is like many Memorial Day editions before it except today we remember those who ended their lives because they could not live with the sacrifices made for our country. Some will object to adding them to our prayers this Memorial Day but not this Veteran. For too long, we have allowed our brothers and sisters to suffer while those tasked with their care wash their hands of the inconvenience. Maybe it’s time we wash our hands of them.
This Land is Our Land 2.0
In the immortal words of one of America’s greatest troubadours –
Well, one bright Sunday morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the relief line I saw my people
As they stood there whistlin’ they stood there hungry
Don’t they know that this land was made for you and me?
This Land Is Your Land by Woody Guthrie brought promise and hope to countless Americans in dire straits during the Great Depression. Much like the time when Mr. Guthrie put his words to music, Memorial Day 2026 finds a growing number of Americans celebrating the joy of Irving Berlin’s God Bless America without realizing that the beauty and blessings God bestowed upon our land of the free are being destroyed by corporate greed, elite indifference, and political betrayal. No better examples exist than the growing numbers of Americans who rely on food pantries to feed their families and of course the ever-increasing number of Veteran suicides. Putting aside for today the physical and financial abuses of our elderly and the wholesale abandonment of our children, we must ask ourselves: how different is their treatment today compared to when Veterans returned from Vietnam? While Americans are no longer spitting on them, they are abandoning them all the same by re-electing the same career politicians over and over again knowing that Congress will do nothing to end the suicides.
To this end, the President issued Executive Order 14401(EO 14401), Accelerating Medical Treatments for Serious Mental Illness. In the absence of congressional action, and in the hope that previously prohibited drugs can finally be deployed to help desperate Veterans, it is reassuring to see that at least someone in elected office cares enough to act. For that decision, this and many other Veterans thank the President but pray he understands that Executive Order 1440 is only the first step. The next step is to provide Veterans—both past and future—with mental health care outside the struggling Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) system and the parameters of the Compact Act. While the federal government will maintain the existing VA infrastructure for non-psychological illnesses, the VA will no longer serve as the sole provider of Veterans’ care with respect to long-term treatment utilizing the emerging and varied category of psychedelic drugs, which ranges from classic serotonergic drugs to non-classic psychedelics—such as tryptamines, ergolines, and phenethylamines.
The intent of this article is not to highlight the positive or negative aspects of the Compact Act or provide a tutorial on the drugs that can make a difference, but to provide an example of how we can maintain this absolutely needed treatment as the federal government begins to drastically reduce funding at all levels of government. That day is fast approaching. This article offers a new method of care and a new revenue stream to finance that care that falls outside the VA. It’s no secret that this Veteran cares a great deal about the safety of all His little ones and those who served in uniform and as such offers out-of-box thinking to fix a real problem. To finance this transition away from the VA, a state-administred program will be funded by a direct tax on all revenue earned by private equity firms and their stakeholders. Moreover, this revenue stream will not only provide funding for implementation of psychedelic medications, but will lay the foundation for a modernized tax system built to support the Americans, including Veterans, who have been left to fend for themselves while the wealthy enjoy increasingly lavish lifestyles, extended lifespans, and soaring profits driven by the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AAI).
Most Americans who desire to know the predators living amongst us have heard of the financial entities labeled “private equity.” Predatory exploitation (PE) is a more accurate description for these predatory entities so PE will do. It is time for every American to understand exactly how private equity operates, as well as the damage PE inflicts on our economic life. The most common PE strategy is for a PE firm to use a small portion of its own money (capital) and a large amount of borrowed money (debt) to fund the purchase of a target company. The acquired company’s assets and cash flow serve as collateral for the loans, and the target company is responsible for paying off this debt. Pure predatory capitalism and if you think this unbridled form of capitalism isn’t threatening American free enterprise, just ask the voters in New York City what economic system they desire to see their city embrace: predatory exploitation or new ideas to help those who are exploiting the masses.
Like the investment bankers who destroyed countless lives in the last economic crisis, PE is and will continue to significantly impact the middle class through aggressive cost-cutting (layoffs), structural changes (reduce staffing), and financial engineering (pension theft). Critics and economic researchers identify several key ways these investments can negatively affect middle-class stability, including in the case of hospitals—reduced staff and significant declines in patient care. Simply put, PE is destroying not only successful companies but also entire business sectors. PE ruins lives for the sake of a few pieces of silver and we must put an end to these modern-day money-changers, or they will destroy a way of life so many have fought and died to preserve. Let us make them pay, one way or another.
As Veterans across this land of ours gather to remember those who never returned home, this Veteran has a message: Either a comprehensive overhaul of the current economic framework of America (taxation, compensation, obligations) is enacted in the coming years to address the deep-seated inequalities perpetuated by systemic neglect ($39 trillion in debt)—driven by an institutional fixation on short-term gains (political expediency)—or a period of profound social upheaval will become inevitable and exploited by our enemies, both domestic and foreign. Let there be no mistake. The enemies within (career politicians and those they serve) are as great a threat to our way of life (rule of law) as are our enemies abroad. Unless we unite to change the status quo now, we will have betrayed the memory of those who never came home to a land that is and has been our land since 1775.
Apr 14, 2026
Orthodox Easter edition of The Status Quo: An Electronic Newsletter is dedicated to America’s Christians, including those members of the Eastern Orthodox Church, who remain true to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Once a nation marching, albeit slowly, towards greatness, America has not only abandoned civility, decency, and knowledge, but also the teachings of Jesus Christ to become like other nations. But we are not like other nations. We help the oppressed like the innocent in Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Iran when they are slaughtered. Nevertheless, how does one describe a nation that possesses such wealth and power, but is composed in large part by millions who suffer from depression, millions more filled with hatred for those they do not know, and tens of millions soon to be addicted to the latest miracle drug? One can only describe such a nation as having lost its way. Lucky for us, there is a light guiding us back to the path to greatness.
At Any Cost
The New Covenant is a biblical idea describing a transformation of the relationship between God and man. See Jeremiah 31:31–34, Hebrews 8:8-12. The Old Testament declared that man’s relationship to God was an understanding written in stone. This Covenant, in tablet form, was delivered to Moses by God and then passed on to the chosen people. The New Covenant, passed from God to man through the teachings and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, was not written on a tablet nor was it given only to the chosen few. The New Covenant was written in the blood of the One who is referred to in these pages as the “One who loves children above all others.” Why this writer refers to Him in that way should be obvious even to the Jerry Springer lobby.
To Jesus Christ it does not matter where His little ones were brought into this world or by whom. What matters to Him is that all children, whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Agnostic, etc., be protected from the obstacles evil men place before them. One example of such an obstacle is Jeffrey Epstein and his clients. Those who aided him over the past 30 years to those lying about what they knew and when they knew it. But we all know that will never happen if the perpetrators are the most powerful men and women in the world. That is how this world works.
To those curious to what “at any cost” means to this American, an excellent example of what “at any cost” means involves an event that continues to haunt this resident of Texas. On 24 May 2022, a demeanted soul, the kind America seems to produce in abundance, entered a school in south Texas and murdered 19 of His little ones. A tragedy this Texan cannot seem to accept as having happened as it did. Notwithstanding this bewilderment, if the Lord had come down from heaven moments before that attack and presented the chance to save these little ones but only if someone, me, were willing to sacrifice 19×19 adults to save them, this Texan would not have hesitated to sacrifice the lives of 361 adults to save 19 children. The life of a single child simply cannot be measured against the lives of adults. One is our species’ hope for the future to be safeguarded at any cost while the others represent those responsible for the state of the world in which His little ones live.
Only one option exists to correct America’s moral compass and set America back on a track to greatness before our grand experiment goes the way of past empires. We must acknowledge that the career politician and big money politics have derailed America in political, social and spiritual ways that cannot be quantified. We must understand that resetting our moral compass will require more than a few hours of service on Sunday mornings. It will take Christians across America pledging that they will make a difference in the lives of all our children and begin by demanding that the politicalization of Jesus Christ end now. The time has come to eliminate the element of Christian America that sells His life, death and resurrection to the highest bidder.
To that end, we must expose these “old covenant” Christians and their political and financial connections who work together to not only support the idea of outsourcing the religious education of our children to a public school teacher, mounting passages from the Old Testament on the wall and of course prostituting Christ as an official spokesman of a large and powerful lobby in Washington D.C. that promotes unconditional allegiance to foreign interests. Our nation has prospered for 250 years in large part due to the separation of religion and government. The value of this separation to American prosperity and superiority cannot be underrated. However, there is a distortion in the debate surrounding why separation of church and state is so integral to our nation’s success.
Many argue that we want to prohibit the government from supporting or advocating for one religion over other religions. A sound policy. But it is not the only policy ground upon which this separation rests. Another policy exists that rejects the Old Testament’s Ten Commandments being placed anywhere in a public school or government facility save that of the offices of an Army, Navy, Air Force or Space Force Chaplain. Our children are in school to learn civics, reading, math, and science. They are in school to socialize with their peers, remain physically fit, and learn about life’s joys and sorrows. They are not in class to hear what a government employee thinks about Jesus Christ. They are not in class to listen to the ruminations of an agnostic as to what Jesus Christ really meant when He said children were the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Public schools do not belong to political parties or enlightened religious leaders. They belong to the people today just as they have for two centuries. The same centuries that witnessed the United States of America rise from its grand experiment in government 250 years ago to world dominance unlike any empire before it. To assert otherwise evinces an ignorance of America so profound that it stupifies even the most educated. Seems this well educated and failing Christian has finally fallen through the looking glass to find a well-meaning Mad Hatter in charge of a dream world where truth is fiction and Christ’s sacrifices take a backseat to fables from the past nailed to the wall.
Христос Воскрес! боротися до останнього!
Feb 17, 2026
The Presidents Day 2026 edition of The Status Quo: An Electronic Newsletter is dedicated to the women and girls of Iran. It is no secret that this Veteran has been a strong proponent of an attack on Iran’s ruling elite but there is only one man who can deliver for Iran’s women and girls. As such, let this President’s Day be remembered as the day the American President delivered a blow Iran’s mullahs never imagined possible. As for those who advocate such an attack would be a violation of the rule of law, maybe you should travel to Iran with your wife and daughters, Russia with your sons, or China with the intent to seek redress for the crimes the state has committed against Jimmy Lai and learn what the rule of law means in those places. Who knows, maybe you might also learn that sometimes people yearning to be free need help from abroad. It seems there was a fledgling democracy in need of help from abroad when French land and sea forces came to help our forefathers 250 years ago.
The Light of the World III
As 2025 dawned, the Lord came to my rescue again. Acutely depressed for a number of reasons but none more painful than the thought my sacrifices in His name had come to nothing. The realization that the American people remain indifferent to the plight of other people’s children continues to haunt me. After dedicating years to preaching Jesus’s message of the importance of eliminating all obstacles placed before His little ones, I believed my sacrifices were for nothing. As this sense of failure was deepening, I prayed for help in overcoming this persistent and pervasive sadness. Just when I thought all was lost, He answered my prayers.
As I held one of those little ones Jesus loves above all others, I realized I had succeeded in delivering His message as my words and deeds will resonate across time and cyberspace. The children spared the horrors of being raped and the peace provided to so many men in MI and elsewhere who finally confronted their demons changed the future of their lives and no amount of spin can change that fact. I also learned something else that day. Sacrifices in His name are never meaningless. They are what make us Christians.
The Will to be Free
From Albert Einstein to Stephen Hawking, many of humanity’s most brilliant minds have expressed the belief that free will is an illusion. Countless other brilliant minds of science, art, literature, and academia have voiced opinions proclaiming free will a myth. They offer a myriad of explanations why free will is a myth, but the truth is we are free to choose how we live our lives. We have the power to choose kindness and reject cruelty. We have a choice to murder girls for how they wear their hair just as we have a choice in allowing our elected officials to bankrupt our country. Our choices define our lives and we, as Americans, need only look around to see where our choices have taken us.
With minds like Einstein and Hawking, it is possible they could not accept the idea of free will because they could not solve the problem mathematically or measure it scientifically. Hawking was an atheist. He believed the laws of nature explained the origins of life as well as our actions. Hawking most certainly utilized the utmost mathematical rigour to prove the existence of free will but failed thus leaving the only explanation to be that free will is a myth. Einstein, on the other hand, was a “determinist” who believed everything is part of a “chain of cause and effect” governed by natural law. Free will did not fit into their understanding of either the natural or theoretical world. Like Hawking and mathematical rigour, Einstein could not prove it existed by the scientific method so it must be a myth. Free will is not a myth.
Free will is a gift from our creator and can only be understood by combining faith and our own life experiences. I believe this faith in the freedom of action and thought of our species is at the core of Judeo-Christian teachings. This writer learned that free will separated us from the beasts whose lives are governed by raw instinct. This writer was also taught that free will was how we demonstrated to others our actions, our choices represent who we are as human beings. For example, men and women in Australia are exercising their free will today by prohibiting minors from accessing the internet. Other countries are in the process of doing the same but in America, career politicians will exercise free will by ensuring that the online monetization of the American teenager continues unabated. We need only look at our elected officials’ deeds, not words, to see that free will is not a myth but a real commodity for sale to the highest bidder.
Another example of free will which continues to stress this Veteran to no end is when America’s Neo-Christians decided it is acceptable for children to suffer needlessly because of the misguided notion that unfettered access to firearms is a sacred right that can never be infringed. Traumatizing His little ones for the sake of political expediency is becoming fashionable to so many in the land of the free, home of the brave. So fashionable in fact that many demand that access to the most lethal firearms be secured even for those who would use this “sacred” right to slaughter His little ones. To these conservatives, what happened at Uvalde, Texas in 2022 is an acceptable price to pay when the issue is the sanctity of the Second Amendment. How sacred can an amendment be when the document it amended is shredded daily in the name of political expediency, greed, and a lust for power.
Free will is the tool God gave us to make the world a better place to live or a more dangerous place to live. Of course human beings are not perfect and good people make bad decisions, but it is free that allows us to make amends when we fail to act when we know we should. Dante Alighieri, author of Divine Comedy, described a Mountain of Purgatory with seven ascending terraces each identifying the seven deadly sins. A simple review of those sins perfectly describes so many pretend Christians in America 2026.
Yet, there are other words written by Dante that are more applicable to this President’s Day than gluttony, pride or greed. In addressing those who sit on the sidelines during times of crisis, he stated; “the darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain neutrality in times of moral crisis.” Dante knew free will is what makes us human and he loathed those who failed to exercise their free will to aid others who are suffering. He could not have known he was describing the most powerful nation-state in history 400 years before her birth. A nation-state so powerful that she can only be defeated from within, which coincidently, is exactly what is happening this President’s Day 2026.
Dec 24, 2024
The 2024 Christmas edition of The Status Quo: An Electronic Newsletter is dedicated to those Christians who struggle to be better Christians. Put another way, this article is dedicated to all Christians because we all fail Him at one time or another. Following the teachings of Jesus Christ is a lifelong journey filled with challenges, pitfalls and lessons learned. Take for example when wayward Christians believe political expediency permits government to traumatize His little ones. These confused Christians believe that stopping illegal immigration as expeditiously as possible permits placing serious mental and physical obstacles before His little ones. In other words, the teachings of Jesus Christ take a backseat to political expediency even if children must suffer. For the last time. Children are not like other people. They count!
The Light of the World II
The Light of the World was posted this past Easter as one Christian’s last effort to persuade Americans that when a person rejects the messages of Jesus Christ that rejection impacts one’s life. The life identified in that article was that of Donald J. Trump and the message was Mr. Trump’s rejection of Jesus Christ’s message over the course of his adult life was taking its toll on his physical and mental capabilities. Mr. Trump was going to prove the validity of the article’s assertions.
Since there is no one who commands more worldwide media attention than Mr. Trump, it seemed logical to cite him as an example of how rejecting Christ’s message can negatively impact one’s life. Born with two silver spoons in his mouth, Mr. Trump’s life has been so dissected and analyzed that this Christian believed he knew that Mr. Trump rejected the teachings of Jesus Christ, and the effects of this rejection were starting to take its toll on him. It was starting to take its toll, but the toll was not being paid by Mr. Trump. It was being paid by another failing Christian; one whose hubris made him believe his relationship with Christ and the sacrifices made in service to Christ elevated him to a place where he could judge someone without knowing them or having walked in their shoes.
To those who think rejecting Christ’s message to love one another does not come at a price, this Christian can set the record straight. Within just a few weeks of posting The Light of the World and gloating over the perceived deterioration of Mr. Trump’s faculties, this Christian was lying on an operating table fighting for his life. Following five hours of emergency surgery, the odds of my survival were put at 50/50 by someone whose job it was to know. Five months later, this Christian would undergo a second surgery that carried with it an even more painful recovery than the first surgery and that recovery was agonizing. Yet the physical deterioration was not the most disconcerting.
The truth is The Light of the World was not posted in the hope Mr. Trump’s mental and physical capabilities would deteriorate further. Nevertheless, all of April, May, June and July this Christian watched Mr. Trump’s speeches eagerly looking for signs of deterioration. In fact, this conservative Christian even watched Jimmy Kimmel since he was sure to mock every miscue of Mr. Trump despite never having watched Jimmy Kimmel before this year. Nevertheless, this Christan tuned in every night like so many other lemmings. Makes one wonder if the “most secure election in American history” was so secure.
It is true that I may be overreacting. The lingering confusion is the result of contracting COVID in late summer of 2024. Or that the incident that gave rise to the emergency surgery in May and the second surgery in October was the result of a freak accident that could have occurred at any time to anyone. Maybe. What is certain are two undeniable facts. First, this Christian must apologize to Mr. Trump as well ask forgiveness for the indifference shown to the ailments of someone I do not know. Mr. Trump may be a failing Christian and if he is a failing Christian, that would make him just like you and me.
The other certainty is that it’s time for this Christian to stop thinking he can change the status quo with the pen. Twenty-five years of watching this nation fall from grace has been depressing, especially when you have chronicled the free fall for all to read. As for watching the American people let it happen, that has been heartbreaking. Imagine how naive this Veteran was to think that posting The Meaning of Sacrifice on July 4, 2000, would be a call to action for all Americans who knew the status quo in America had to change or our republic was doomed. Little did I know that sacrifice was something that would become anathema to Americans. Sacrifices were things others do, not them. How pathetic. How American.
