Rich Man, Poor Us

There is a depression over the land, and it grows with each passing day under this new Trump administration. Instead of inspiring, he is taking us down his own dark path of American madness. 

Speaking to retired federal employees, I know what is happening in Washington, DC. They know what’s happening in the hinterland with the federal programs they used to administer. Their programs were built to protect the old, the young, the sick, the poor — and every one of them is in jeopardy. The people who administer these programs at the grassroots — such as Medicare and food stamps — are now in limbo as well. Their staffs are being put on notice that they may not have jobs in coming days. 

This burgeoning nationwide mental health crisis also heavily touches the career civil service workforce, people who have given their entire existence to careers that benefit the public. Many of these federal employees are now depressed, not knowing which way to turn with Trump’s recent buyout offer. These are people with families. These are people with mortgages and children to care for, and aging parents to watch over. These are people with bills. These are people. 

Donald Trump does not care about people, only his entitled cabal of wannabe oligarchs. 

Now, Google is renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” Indeed, America has a growing gulf of insecurity bordering on insanity. The Gulf of America is now aptly named because we are in uncharted waters. 

Better yet, uncaring waters, Dear America.

An American Lament

By Dwight Cunningham

It’s tough being an American. It's hard to know your worth when you're Black, or Latino, Native American or Asian, Muslim, gay or whatever. Seems today’s patriotic ideal American isn’t any of “those people,” as the powerful spend considerable time and nefarious energy to exert dominance by any means possible. 

It’s done through gerrymandering, through restricting hard-won voting rights — but most of all through intimidation. Witness armed Americans challenging the Michigan Legislature, and then going criminally further with a faux militia plot to kidnap the governor.

Of course, nothing can approach feeling less than American as we watched an armed mob storm the United States Capitol in the immediate aftermath of a presidential election. They were led by folks with such lovely monikers as Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. Even the wife of a Black Supreme Court Justice took part in that beauty. 

Remember, some called it an insurrection. Others called it a riot. Many of our congresspeople euphemistically and unapologetically called it a whimsical stroll through the Capitol — when mere days earlier they were hiding, fearing for their lives as the Confederate flag waltzed through the National Statuary Hall. 

It's tough being an American when you see spiraling homelessness in the world’s most prosperous country. It’s tough being an American when there’s 50 percent more carbon dioxide in the air than before the Industrial Revolution. It’s tough being an American taxpayer when one’s disappearing wages go to Uncle Sam in outsized amounts compared to the wealthy. It’s tough being an American woman who has no say-so over her fertility or pregnancy in an increasing number of states.

It’s tough being an American when schoolchildren engage in duck-and-cower exercises in case of an active-shooting scenario. It’s tough to be an American parent when teachers and librarians fear for their livelihoods if they promote equality or diversity. American parents also must contend with the sad trend of declining test scores in math and reading among 4th- and 8th-grade kids.

American patriotism has faced a steep decline among young adults over the last decade, and now sits at a record low, according to a recent Gallup survey. Bigger picture: Younger adults are significantly less proud to be an American than older generations; only 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they are “extremely proud” to be an American, also near a record low.

National service is a relic, a thing of a more harmonious past. And for today’s populace to not harbor patriotic mindsets is arguably a clear and present danger to our democracy’s best interests.

It’s tough being an American, considering that only about 1 percent of adult Americans are in uniform, with most young people saying they don't want to engage in some dreamed-up war, or they just don't want to die for their country. 

The all-volunteer military is in a crisis, with 2024 on track to see a record low in military recruitment, our government says. Consequently, we will have the smallest active duty force since 1940. 

Defense Department officials are at wit’s end after last year’s 41,000 shortfall, which hit the Army, Navy and Air Force. (Only the Marine Corps and Space Force met recruiting goals.)

Things are so bad that the Air Force last October raised its maximum age limit for recruits to 42. The new age limit is the latest in a series of military leaders’ concessions to recruit more GIs. Qualified applicants can retest if they test positive for marijuana use. Relaxation of fat composition rules and allowing small hand and neck tattoos are also today’s norm.

Moreover, the military has to contend with drawing recruits from a stressed-out society. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic, global conflicts, racism and racial injustice, inflation and climate-related disasters are all weighing on the collective consciousness of Americans,” according to the latest “Stress in America” survey conducted by the Harris Poll for the American Psychological Association.

What once was pride in our nation has been hijacked, with contemporary concepts of patriotism now worn with skewed stripes of red, white and blue. Red states, Blue states — but White Supremacy is trying to reign throughout.

How can we be considered great as the nation struggled through a pandemic where 1 million Americans died, in large measure because their government promoted lies and conspiracies led by a president who trumpeted drinking bleach and shining light inward instead of wearing masks?

It’s tough being an American when that same former president and presidential candidate today sits in a criminal courtroom, with a bevy of federal and state trials on his horizon — including storing top-secret war plans in his bathroom. 

Why on earth would anyone want those? Except Iran, where we are in a proxy war with Israel leading the genocidal charge. And with our nation’s blessing, more than 33,000 Palestinians have died — so far. Most of them were women, children and the elderly as Israel uses American-made munitions to kill, maim and otherwise obliterate the Gaza homeland and Palestinian culture.

It is tough being an American living with such unpatriotic and undemocratic actions — and fearing for our collective future. It is just so un-American.

Dwight Cunningham is a retired journalist, an Air Force veteran, emergency manager and former college instructor. He resides in South Carolina.

Siding with the truth

Who’s watching the watcher, now that political hay can be made from untruths that go on and on?

No one is watching -- or seemingly caring -- as this debacle of an American presidential election continues to go down Pinocchio’s unseemly path.

Ethical and professional lapses darken our doorsteps with increasing frequency. A meningitis outbreak kills at least 16 Americans so far, and has tragically sickened thousands more. All because a Massachusetts pharmaceutical company was left to its own devices and allowed a fungus to contaminate its drug stock.

The Bay State also has to come up with a tough explanation about how a state police lab technician willingly falsified thousands of drug cases. Her false reports imprisoned hundreds, but no one was watching her for years.

As a crisis communicator, I continue to be amazed by the mirage people and corporations create to uphold their lack of character.

• Pizza Hut reverses itself on a “Free Pizza For Life" contest if someone at tonight's presidential debate asks the candidates whether they prefer sausage or pepperoni toppings -- diminishing the seriousness of the moment.
• American Airlines fails to answer questions today regarding the conviction of a long-time baggage handler who got other airline employees to secrete drugs on passenger jets -- at the risk of downing a jet because their hiding places were in the planes' control systems. His drug ring netted millions.
• A Maryland lawmaker last week pleaded guilty to using $3,500 in campaign funds to pay for her wedding and a second charge in which she was found guilty of using $800 in state funds to pay an employee at her law firm. The woman still believes she should keep her post.
• Lance Armstrong, the doper. 'Nuf said.

Such arrogance is an appeasement to vanity. Trouble is, today it boils over in more public scenarios than one can list. Yet, the perps think nothing of it, like tailgating speeders with no fear of consequence.

There is no prescription for humanity to act in a humane way. Which is why, in conscience-free 21st Century America, we need watchers empowered with the soul and commitment to know right from something less -- no matter someone’s ill-conceived definition.

The truth will always outflank a lie. It just takes longer today.

A New Game Plan for Penn State

Dear Penn State board of trustees, my sympathies to your students and graduates, many of whom will be branded for years as "less than" due to the Sandusky-PSU child sex-abuse scandal.

Suggest your school emphasize entrepreneurialism even more than currently, because your children (yes, that's what they still are to us parents who send them to school) will be branded by a tarnished Penn State brand. Starting businesses will be the best way for PSU grads to be employed, so get going putting together a new plan to boost your business school. 

As for the business world, one brand management executive says it will take 25 years for PSU to regain its good name. If so, then today's 17-year-old freshman will be 42 before cleansed from the scandal's dirty bathwater.

Imagine, 25 years, more than a generation. A generation without sympathy.

That's what you big shots at Penn State have wrought for your children. You all should seek redemption by cooperating with authorities and putting forth an honest effort to help, not hinder, investigations. Do so.....at any cost. 

Remember, you are now in a "No Sympathy Zone" -- and it stretches more than a country mile in Happy Valley.

Fenty = Fool

Adrian Fenty will go down in political history as someone who squandered a $5 million war chest, the absolute goodwill of the city's electorate and the consensus that the city was moving in the right direction. (Oh, yes, and he squandered the "influential" endorsements of The WaPo, et al.)

All because he was tone deaf....for years. Tone deaf = Arrogance!

Deaf about inclusion. Deaf about working with the City Council. Absolutely, stupidly deaf when playing by his rules instead of the rules of the order. He held this city hostage for years.

He never met with the city's congressional delegation. Why, when we in the city need Congress to understand our issues? He opened schools and the city government with FEET of snow on the ground last winter, forcing his employees to take personal leave. Never mind that Metro was shut down and the federal government had decided to give employees administrative leave.

He traveled overseas -- yet the people never knew where he was until after he returned. He went to Dubai and China on those countries' dimes. (The Dubai visit was especially a case of tone deafness when he went to a tennis tournament where an Israeli had been banned.)

He kept his family under wraps -- until a few weeks ago when it became politically expedient and his wife cried before cameras, saying she couldn't understand why people had turned on him. Deaf, she too!

All along, Fenty told the media to take a hike when it came to his family. Deaf!

The Nationals baseball tickets was just the wicked tip of the Fenty Titanic. Throughout these last four years Fenty has told his agency heads not to cooperate with the City Council on even the most routine of matters. He hid information.

And, yes, he knew about that fire truck donation to the Dominican Republic. And, yes, he knew that his cronies were going to get tons of cash for no work under the cover of city construction contracts.

Yes, his administration has played with crime statistics. Yes, there are more unfulfilled Freedom of Information Act requests from citizens and the media -- even though Fenty promised in his campaign that he would run a "transparent" administration out of the Wilson Building.

I have watched this human disintegration with relish these last weeks. Fenty created this train wreck because he is an arrogant jerk.

He skipped Abe Polin's memorial service. He dissed Dorothy Height and Maya Angelou, who sought an audience with him to help resolve the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center eviction that his administration handed down.

Pettiness + Arrogance = Not another 4 years.

His godfather, Peter Nickles, helped take Adrian down this road to ruin. Nickles did not represent the city as the attorney general; he represented his boy king. They belong together, and now they can find new ways to disempower the people.

Today, the voters are the ultimate victors. And for those who want to paint this as a black-white thing, believe me it's not. Many people of all racial identities have been stepped on by this man, and they told their friends, relatives, church/synagogue/temple/mosque members, they told their sorors and frats, they told their relatives....and many took to the streets to ensure Vince Gray would win.

It wasn't because the Gray campaign promised anything. It's just that WE, THE PEOPLE, can't take four more years of Adrian Fenty's brand of corruption, cronyism and lack of critical thinking.

Bye, Adrian. Hope you never even THINK about entering political office again. If you do, no "Apology Tour," no Washington Post endorsement, no matter of money will be believable.

Fenty Arrogance = Comeuppance.

Oh, Happy Day!