Exposing The Troubled History Of The USAID

A storm of controversy swirls over a relatively unknown federal government agency that doles out billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to foreign countries.  New reporting has unearthed reports stretching over years warning about fraud, waste, sexual abuse and funding linked to terrorists.

President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) ignited the firestorm by uncovering reckless, wasteful spending and a lack of management accountability at the U.S. Agency for International Development.  The president shuttered USAID headquarters, locking out employees.  

USAID Background 

The agency, staffed by more than 10,000 workers, handed out $40 billion in 2023, the last year for which government figures are available. That workforce level does not include contractors.  USAID maintains more than 60 country and regional missions that develop projects to be funded. 

The bureaucracy distributed $42 billion to 130 countries, including Gaza.  In 2022, Congress appropriated an additional $46 billion to be managed partially or wholly by the agency for assistance to Ukraine. Since 2017, the USAID budget has more than doubled. 

An investigation and research by this writer found the troubled agency has a checkered history of a lack of transparency, credibility and a disregard for oversight.  Despite numerous admonishments, USAID continues to operate as if the agency is not answerable to the president or the federal government.

As a recent example, current and former USAID staff revolted when the agency's director Samantha Power voiced support for Israel after the country was attacked by Hamas in October. Many agency employees act as if they are running USAID, accountable only to themselves. 

Raising Red Flags

As far back as 2018, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Inspector General for USAID sounded alarms over the agency's funneling of taxpayer money to outside groups with limited oversight. Not only did the agency ignore the red flags, it doubled down on obfuscation. 

The agency, which boasts it prioritizes diversity, equity and inclusion, gifted United Nations agencies, development banks and foreign-based non-governmental organizations (NGO) with billions to be spread across the globe, including in lawless hotspots, including Sudan, Syria and Haiti. 

These activities, in particular, attracted the attention of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the GAO. The two discovered an appalling lack of oversight by the agency's practice of funneling the money through third parties.  

Here are selected highlights from reports from the Inspector General and the GAO:

• USAID failed to document 519 instances of misconduct for funds transmitted to the UN'S World Food Program.  Instead, the USAID only reported  29 instances of potential misconduct for aid, reflecting non-compliance with the agency's own standards.
• Investigations were hampered by UN agencies to prevent diversion of USAID funds to the terrorist organization Hamas. The OIG also listed its concern that United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRA) employees implicated in the October 7 attack on Israel had infiltrated USAID funded organizations. 
• USAID failed to share with the Inspector General information about UN individuals who have been terminated for criminal and serious misconduct.  In 2023, World Health Organization officials were found to have sexually assaulted women and girls while performing USAID-funded Ebola programs in Africa.
• OIG special agents have encountered resistance from foreign-based NGO's when requesting information about individuals alleged to have perpetuated fraud or engaged in sexual exploitation in running USAID-funded programs.
• A GAO report noted the USAID bureaus and missions lack ability to conduct direct oversight in conflict zones to verify the funds are being used for the intended humanitarian purpose.
• Inspectors found the USAID does not have "quality" data to support its $150 billion climate change initiative.  "Specifically, the data was not complete, accurate, accessible or current" the inspectors found. 
• The OIG ferreted out a scheme by a non-governmental organization in South Africa to bilk USAID out of $671,914 after the group submitted false payment claims to the agency.  The OIG cited other examples of fraudulent claims in its 2025 report, including a $2.02 million payment to an  Norwegian aid group. 
• A GAO analysis of the agency discovered the USAID sent money through a cutout organization that ended up funding China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.  To date, even Congress has been able to determine the amount of the funding. 

In its 2025 report, the OIG concluded that "theft and diversion of cash assistance, food, medicine and other commodities frustrates the intent of the United Sates" while undermining the agency's mission of humanitarian assistance. 

These reports are nonpartisan, authored by federal government employees and agencies.  The information has been available to Congress and the executive branch.  Why has there been no action to address the concerns from either political party?  That is the question no corporate media are asking.

A few in Congress have been aware of USAID's pattern of obstructionism. Iowa Senate Republican Joni Ernst revealed how the agency has been "stonewalling" her office for years as she sought documents detailing aid to businesses in Ukraine.  

USAID claimed the information was classified to deny the senator's requests.  After Ernst demanded to speak to the USAID Office of Security, the agency handed over a few documents. She discovered that 5,000 Ukrainian businesses received awards of up to $2 million each. 

DOGE Findings 

DOGE has exposed hundreds of millions of dollars for dubious USAID directed aid:

• $2 million for sex changes and LGBTQ activism in Guatemala.
• $1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia's workplaces and business communities.
• $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt.
• $70,000 for production of a DEI musical in Ireland.
• $47,000 for transgender operations in Colombia.
• $2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam.
• $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru. 
• $2 million for pottery classes in Morocco. 
• $20 million for a Sesame Street workshop in Iraq to promote "inclusion, mutual respect and understanding across ethnic, religious and sectarian groups."
• $45 million to provide food assistance and economic support for Venezuelan migrants in Columbia. 

This reality stands in stark contrast to the growing legacy media stories that have appeared since the scandal broke. They paint a picture of USAID funding for desperate people in third-world countries in need of food assistance and medicine.  There has been no coverage of the OIG and GAO reports.

The media complicity has given cover for Democrats to spend political energy haranguing unelected "billionaire" Elon Musk for the revelations. The oligarchs are ruling Washington, they shout in defiance. Where's the outrage for USAID's wasteful spending of taxpayers dollars? Crickets. 

Democrats are targeting Musk as the villain because they endorse USAID's funding of social issues.  They are furious Musk exposed the foreign aid boondoggles. 

USAID Defenders 

USAID defenders make the case that the DOGE examples of millions of dollars of waste only amount to a fraction of the agency budget. Excusing a "little" misuse of funds is an example of Washington's hubris. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren reflects the Democrat Party's attitude:

"There is nothing in the constitution that says ordinary Americans have a right to see what we're spending tax dollars on," she said. Actually, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution requires the government to publish regular statements about how taxpayer money is spent.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made it clear he intends to fold USAID into the State Department, thus ending the agency's autonomous operation.  The secretary wants to continue foreign aid, but with more oversight and funding supporting the administration's objectives. 

Referencing the USAID, the president said "the American's people's money must be spent to advance their priorities, not line the pockets of contractors or to maintain projects that don't work." Typical Trump, overstatement? No, that quote is from 2009 and the president was Barrack Obama.  

No government agency no matter how noble sounding its name or mission has the right to fritter away taxpayer dollars. By defending the indefensible, Democrats are showing they are out of touch with average Americans who expect efficiency, transparency and accountability in their government.   

The Resistance To Cutting The Federal Budget

Howls of protest erupted after President Trump temporarily paused federal spending to ferret out waste. A hyper-partisan cacophony in Washington claimed it was practically unAmerican to fiddle with funds that Congress had already approved as part of the 2024-2025 fiscal year budget. 

Trump's move is a precursor to the upcoming budget battle, the defining issue of his first term.  Expect a fear mongering campaign orchestrated by the media and Democrats to cast spending reductions as a threat to the poor, veterans, seniors, the unemployed and low income Americans. 

However, ignoring the federal spending binge is no longer an option. The budget ballooned to $6.75 trillion for fiscal year 2024, resulting in a deficit of $1.933 trillion.  For perspective, spending increased 45% in just a single year from 2019 to 2020, nearly 20 times the average of the previous four decades.

Deficit spending has hiked the nation's debt to more than $36.2 trillion. America's indebtedness is increasing $5.93 billion every day.  The current budget contains $952 billion allotted to servicing the debt. Interest payments on debt amount to 13% of the federal budget, eclipsing defense spending.

No amount of Congressional caterwaul should deter the Trump Administration from surgically removing pork and waste from the federal budget.  The president's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is already serving up ideas to trim the fat, a lightning rod for Democrat resistance.

In its first move, the DOGE budget cleaver severed more than 104 diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) related contracts at 25 federal agencies, saving taxpayers more than $1 billion. A total of 21 Treasury Department contracts were ended, saving $25 million in a single agency.

Democrat naysayers who huffed that shaving the federal budget was next to impossible were left red-faced. The irony is that the party of big government once championed slashing federal spending when Democrat Bill Clinton occupied the White House. 

Clinton launched a National Performance Review, nicknamed REGO, beginning in 1993. During his first term, the effort yielded a 180,000 reduction in federal government employees through buyouts and staff eliminations.  The push saved $136 billion and shrunk government to its smallest size in 30 years.

This Democrat led effort, supported by Republicans, closed superfluous government offices, cut 16,0000 pages of regulations, passed a major procurement reform bill and introduced the electronic filing of taxes, saving millions of dollars. The endeavor helped balance the federal budget. 

Trump's effort will fail unless there is the same bipartisan offensive. However, little progress will be made if lawmakers refuse to touch so-called mandatory spending, which includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment compensation and other safety-net programs.

These programs comprise about 66% percent of the federal budget and run on automatic pilot.  Each fiscal year the costs escalate as more people are added to the rolls of these programs.  Elected officials fear reprisal from voters if they even hint at addressing these programs.

There can be no significant reduction in spending without snipping at these entitlement programs. 

As just one example, the welfare roles have not shrunk one iota despite the jobless rate falling from 6.3% at the start of the Biden presidency to 4.1%.  Some 84.6 million individuals are enrolled in Medicaid, about the same as 2020. Another 42.6 million Americans receive food stamps, same as 2021.

More Americans are working yet social programs haven't seen a decline. The explanation is that the Biden Administration allowed Democratic states, such as California, to ease eligibility requirements for Medicaid funds to pay for other social spending, such as homeless housing.  

Biden bureaucrats also boosted food stamp allotments and waived work requirements for able-bodied adults.  The Wall Street Journal calculated that by simply returning to pre-pandemic Medicaid spending levels (adjusted for inflation) it would generate more than $1.4 trillion in savings over a decade.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provided a range of options in December for carving addressing the federal budget, including changing cost-sharing rules for Medicare, reducing Medicare's coverage of bad debt and instituting new work rules for Social Security disability applicants.

There are a plethora of ways to place the federal budget on a diet, if Congress will act with courage.  For example, ending corporate welfare would save hundreds of billions of dollars that lawmakers regularly use to curry favor with big donors, lobbyists and industry special interest groups.

A 2022 bill known as the CHIPS and Science Act earmarked $53 billion for the country's semiconductor manufacturing industry.  One of the chief beneficiaries was Intel, which raked in $7.865 billion in taxpayer funds.  The money was supposed to create tens of thousands of jobs.

How well did that work out?  Intel announced recently it would layoff 15,000 employees, about 15% of its workforce.  A series of manufacturing missteps, the AI boom and a weak sales outlook was blamed for the layoffs.  Government has a checkered track record of funding private sector ventures. 

The so-called green energy bill, ballyhooed by the Biden Administration, shelled out $391 billion to invest in a variety of private businesses engaged in the manufacturing of solar panels and wind turbine components. Like most corporate largess, there is no accountability for results.

Another windfall for the green energy industry is tax subsidies.  The original price tag for this corporate welfare was $271 billion over 10 years.  The Biden Administration's last estimate projected a 170% jump in costs for the industry gift which was included in the laughably named Inflation Reduction Act. 

Unless Congress reins in spending, the United States is hurtling towards the debt cliff.  Mushrooming deficits and debt are unsustainable, approaching levels of third-world countries. Taxpayers should hold their elected representatives accountable for stopping the budget madness.   

Immigrant Parole Scheme Flying Under The Radar

The Trump Administration is expected to scrap a Biden-Harris program to fly virtually unvetted immigrants into the United States. The controversial plan was short-circuited last July after the media spotlighted reports of flagrant fraud, but flights resumed almost unnoticed in August of 2024.

The hastily cobbled program airlifted migrants from third-world countries Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela into the U.S. Taxpayers footed the bill for the Department of Homeland Security to hire  private jets to disperse the ragtag band of migrants to airports in 43 cities, avoiding public scrutiny. 

The sham program, known as CHNV, was inaugurated in 2022 by the administration after the number of illegal immigrants from those four countries were flooding the southern border in waves. The program's carrot was two-year periods of paroles to migrants from those four countries.

Border Patrol agents intercepted more than 17,500 illegal entrants from those four countries in 2020.  By 2021, the apprehensions skyrocketed ten fold to 181,000.  A year later, the numbers ballooned to 600,000 illegal entrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Instead of tightening border security, the administration green-lighted an ill-conceived program to stem the tide by using private aircraft to fly the immigrants directly to the U.S.  The White House initiated the program without Congressional approval in October 2022.

The scheme's architect, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, launched the spurious plan by airlifting Venezuelans into the country.  It drew little scrutiny from the media, so the administration doubled down in January, 2023,  expanding the scheme to include Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua immigrants.  

In an election year, the Biden-Harris Administration hoped the program would cause illegal crossings to tumble at the border, allowing them to spoon feed stories to the corporate media about the their successful efforts to deal with the immigration issue. This was about election optics not policy. 

The program quota was to shuttle in 30,000 immigrants from the each of the four countries monthly for a total of 300,000 annually.  The administration has admitted to resettling 541,000 immigrants, but CBS News estimated that the number of parolees is closer to 1.4 million since its inception in 2022.

The Homeland Security's $3 billion program allowed illegal immigrants to land in America under a temporary two-year parole with no plan to force the aliens to leave once their stays expired.  In fact, DHS could not reliably track the whereabouts once the immigrants arrived.

Despite the administration's effort to reduce crossings, the Border Patrol apprehended more than 179,000 CHNV illegal immigrants at the southern border in just the first nine months of fiscal year 2024.  The smoke-and-mirrors, election-year strategy was a spectacular failure. 

Yet the administration plowed ahead, with its Swiss cheese process for admitting these immigrants. Under the patchwork system, so-called supporters in the U.S. agreed to give financial assistance to a CHNV national.  Then the immigrants used a U.S. government app to upload photos and a biography.

The four countries could not be counted on to vet the immigrants. Therefore, Homeland Security relied on its employees to attempt to verify the information. To call it a farce, would be too charitable. 

This flawed process allowed CHNV immigrants residing in other countries to apply.  As a result, immigrants from 77 countries, including Fiji, Italy,  Sweden and Iceland returned to their homeland and then boarded flights to the U.S. Those immigrants were unlikely to ever cross the southern border.

Customs and Border Protection fingerprinted the immigrants once they were flown into the U.S. and granted the foreigners a two-year parole. Once stateside, the immigrants had the right to work in America, receive food stamps, Medicaid and welfare benefits. 

Inevitably, the program was exploited by immigrants from the CHNV countries.  For instance 100.948 forms were completed by 3,218 sponsors in the U.S.  Most of the "sponsors" were immigrants who had been beneficiaries of the misnamed "humanitarian" airlift program.  

Investigations uncovered immigrant sponsors listed the same addresses on more than 19,000 forms, allowing the incoming foreigners to skirt the requirement for an American sponsor.  Media reports documented that scammers were charging $5,000 to new CHNV arrivals.

Rampant fraud unearthed by the Fraud Detection & National Security Directorate (FDNSD) forced the government to eventually post on its webpage: "Beware of any scams or potential exploitation by anyone who asks for money associated with participation in this process." 

Venezuelan strongman Nicholas Madura took advantage of the government largess to empty prisons in his country to rid the penal system of notorious Tren de Aragua gang members who ruled the facilities. A DHS memo obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request reported the violent gang is now operating in 16 states. 

Police reports document that gang members have been charged in robberies, murders, shootings of police officers, gun smuggling and other crimes. Immigrant advocate groups and Biden apologists have maintained the reports of Tren de Aragua gang activity are overblown.

Initially, they claimed news reporting was exaggerated about gang members raiding an Aurora, Colorado, apartment complex. Weeks later the Aurora police chief announced that 16 gang members were in custody following a home invasion and kidnapping in the city. 

San Antonio Police recently arrested 19 members of Tren de Aragua who had taken over a vacant apartment complex.  CBS News reported the gang is so pervasive in New York City that its members are openly recruiting adolescents to join their criminal organization.

President Trump should end this dishonest experiment by ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to round up gang members for immediate deportation.  The second priority should be locate all CHNV parolees to immediately adjudicate their status as asylum seekers.  

The incoming administration also should pursue criminal action against DHS Secretary Mayorkas, who presided over the importation of millions of unvetted illegal immigrants.  During his tenure, he repeatedly falsely claimed the CHNV vetting process was safe and secure.

Holding federal government officials legally accountable would be a novel concept in official Washington.  However, this is an egregious case of negligence, using taxpayer funds to usher in criminals from foreign countries who threaten the safety of American citizens.   

Top 12 Predictions for 2025

One hazard of predicting the future is the world only remembers the clunkers.  Accurate forecasts are forgotten as fast as New Year's resolutions. Look no further than 100-year old predictions to validate this theory.  Can you name one prognosis from 1925 that was 100% correct?  Thought so.

English writer H.,G. Wells in 1925 forecast the following:"In a hundred years, there will not be numerous nations, but only three great masses of people--the United States of America, the United States of Europe and China."  Not bad for a fiction writer.

Dr. A.R. Wentz, a professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, anticipated that people would use a pocket-sized apparatus for communications to see and hear each other without being in the same room.  He was proven prescient with the advent of the iPhone.

Of course, history remembers only the duds.  A scientist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris believed in 100 years people would live to the age of 150 because society would be free by then from the ravages of germs. He obviously never foresaw the worldwide COVID scourge of 2020.

Perhaps the ugliest prediction about the future belongs to Albert E. Wiggam, an American psychologist, who surmised: "If we keep progressing in the wrong direction, as we have been doing, American beauty is bound to decline and there won't be a good-looking girl to be found 100 years from now." Ouch!

With modest expectations in mind, your writer offers these predictions for the New Year, acknowledging readers will heckle the embarrassing flops:

1. The economy roars past expectations of a consensus 1.9% expansion.  The Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measurement of economic output, grows by 2.6% on an annualized basis.  The economy is spurred by an extension of personal and corporate tax cuts, reductions in government regulations and increased exports of oil and natural gas.  Consumers spending increases as sentiment rises based on the tax cuts, abolishment of taxes on tips and the elimination of taxes on Social Security.

2.  Stocks shake off early volatility and end year with new records. An erratic market rules in the first quarter as traders assess the ability of President Trump to deliver on economic growth without igniting a crippling trade war over tariffs. The S&P index continues its record run, climbing 15% as the performance of stocks not included in the Magnificent 7 post better than expected gains after a modest selloff in the golden seven.  The NASDAQ leads the stock momentum, reaching new record closes.  The Dow lags but manages a modest 5% gain. A boost in merger-and-acquisition activity under the Trump Administration juices stocks in some categories. Meanwhile, Bitcoin soars to $200,000 on the promise of limited use of the crypto currency for some financial transactions,

3.  The job market, after tailing off in late 2024, experiences a modest uptick.  Most of the job growth last year was in healthcare, hospitality and government.  The Artificial Intelligence race fuels growth in jobs in IT, cloud computing, data centers and robotics.  Remote work continues to decline, replaced by a hybrid model.  Generative AI accelerates in replacing tasks performed by humans, ramping up productivity. Monthly job gains average 130,000-170,000 for the year, beating the second half of 2024. 

4.  Inflation cools by mid-year, ending 2025 at 2.2%.  The No. 1 threat to a return of heated inflation is a full year of wage hikes negotiated least year by major unions representing communications, airline flight attendants, postal workers and autoworkers.  In the new year, the pressure on wages will be contracts for freight railway workers, Boeing, the longshoremen and smaller airlines. But costs of groceries, fuel, raw materials, new efficiencies in supply changes and productivity improvements help bring down inflation.

5. The Federal Reserve takes a wait-and-see attitude for the first half of 2025 before reducing interest rates by 100 basis points (a full percentage point)  Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, miffed by jawboning by President Trump for steep rate cuts, resists the political pressure. Several fed governors break ranks and the case for rate cuts gains momentum on the Federal Open Market Committee (FMOC), leading Powell to reverse course and support lowering rates.  The DOGE effort slices $750 billion in spending to trim the deficit for the year, but more drastic cuts are derailed by Democrats and the entrenched bureaucracy. However, the reduction reduces the federal deficit for the year, giving the Fed more reasons to cut interest rates. 

6.  President Trump's promise of mass deportations falls short of "mass" after hundreds of  thousands of illegals are returned to their countries of origin.  Border Czar Tom Howland picks the low-hanging fruit during the first year, deporting illegal immigrant criminals and suspected terrorists.  However, Democrats and their allies in the media highlight exaggerated contributions of illegal immigrant workers, causing some Republicans in vulnerable districts to waiver in supporting the president. Early on the Trump administration ends the Biden era flights of immigrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti into the U.S, while also reducing border crossings to a trickle. 

7. Multimodal Artificial Intelligence and AI agents are the latest technological developments.  Advances in AI processes create breakthroughs in the generation of content, predictions and insights from multiple forms of data.  AI Agents act autonomously to achieve goals, adapting to changing circumstances and seamlessly working with humans.  These breakthroughs have applications in healthcare, education, communication services, supply chain management and product development. 

8. Once viewed as novelties, AI powered robots graduate from mundane, repetitive tasks to public-facing functions.   Robots already are deployed at warehouses, hospitals and in automotive industries.  In 2025, generative AI will enable robots to plan and replan their tasks, including the ability to understand objects they have never seen before. The new frontier will be creating robots that understand human commands, instead of relying on coded instructions.  Watch for robots to be deployed in fast food chains, where diners will be able tell the machines their order without using a keyboard on a kiosk.

9.  Investments in quantum computing and AI data centers accelerate as the global contest for dominance in those two technologies become nations' priorities.  The field of quantum informational science is critical to national security as the federal government continues to fund research and development. Goggle's parent Alphabet is among the leaders in the quantum field. Powering sprawling AI data centers, the nerve centers of the digital economy, is an issue demanding development of hyper-efficient, liquid cooled structures. The power conundrum is being tackled by  some of the world's biggest data users: Amazon, Microsoft, Google, NVIDIA and Meta.

10.  Electric vehicle sales stall after President Trump and the Republican Congress end the $7,500 tax credit.  In anticipation of the termination of the tax credit, sales of electric vehicles rose 12% in the fourth quarter 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.  Estimates of total EV sales in yearend 2024 are expected to hit 1.3 million, up from 1.2 million in 2023.  Eight percent of all new vehicles sold in the U.S. were electric in 2024, a high-water mark.  Hybrids gain traction with consumers as auto firms churn out more of these vehicles.

11.  Staggering battlefield losses convince Russia's Putin to consider a peace deal to end to the war in Ukraine. By at least one unofficial estimate, the Russians have lost 700,000 soldiers since escalation of the ongoing conflict in 2022. President Trump begins negotiations by challenging European nations to increase their NATO contributions and military support for Ukraine.  In return, he pledges more natural gas shipments to Europe to make up for the loss of Russian resources.  The moves bring Putin to the negotiating table with Ukraine.  Hostilities cease and Europe and the U.S. pledge billions to help Ukraine rebuild its infrastructure.

12.  There is another assassination attempt on the life of President Trump with evidence linking the incident to Iran.   The president places the harshest restrictions ever on Iran and gives Israel the green light to eliminate Iranian nuclear facilities. Under tariff pressure from the U.S., China decreases its purchase of Iranian oil, robbing the regime of one of its key sources of export income.  The Iranian regime teeters on the brink of collapse as protesters take to the streets. 

Clip and save these predictions for 100 years.  Then send an email to your writer about the accuracy of his prophetic abilities.  By then you will be living to the ripe old age of 200, according to this journalist's last prediction for the new year. 

Election 2024: A Historically Unconventional Race

The presidential race is thundering toward the finish line in the most inconceivable American election.  Donald Trump has been the target of two assassination attempts.  Kamala Harris carries the Democratic Party banner without the benefit of being elected by primary voters.  

Acts of political violence are a stain on American politics since the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.  Through the decades, three presidents have been killed and there have been seven presidential assassination attempts and the murder of Democrat candidate Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. 

Another distinction of this election, Trump is the only presidential candidate who is a convicted felon.  Although even Democrats have dropped the reference because independents and Republicans are convinced the verdict was produced by a sham trial, it hovers over the presidential race. 

Vice President Harris holds the Democratic Party distinction of the only nominee to not receive a single primary vote since Vice President Hubert Humphrey in 1968.  Humphrey's nomination at the Democratic National Convention ended with his defeat to Richard Nixon.   

President Joe Biden after campaigning for more than a year dropped out on July 21, barely four months until election day.  A humbling debate performance cleared the way for Harris to assume the mantle.  Theories continue to ruminate about what prompted Biden's abrupt about face.

With the election in the homestretch, the polls continue to show the outcome will likely be decided by hundreds of thousands of voters in a few so-called swing states.  On the bellwether list: Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Nevada.  

In 2020, Biden's victory in those states cleared the way for his election. He won those six states by a total popular vote of 312,362.   In Pennsylvania, the Democrat won by 81,660 votes out of more than 3 million ballots case.  He carried Wisconsin by a slimmer margin, 20,682 votes and Nevada by 33,596.

Razor-thin vote margins in Arizona (10,457) and Georgia (11,779) benefited Biden.  Even Michigan, a charter member of the Big Blue Wall named for traditionally voting Democrat, gave Biden a comparatively slim edge of 154,188 votes out of more than 5 million ballots.  

Consider that the 2020 race was decided by less than 400,000 votes out of 158 million ballots cast.  Turnout was seven percentage points higher than the 2016 election.  A record 66% of citizens voted in the election. Some experts are forecasting higher turnout this cycle.

The two candidates are crisscrossing paths with each other ending up in the same state on the same day as they deliver their closing arguments in swing state voters.  A shift in a scintilla of votes could end up titling the election to Harris or Trump.  Dueling camps have bombarded the air waves with attack ads.

What started out as an election about issues, has descended into the junk yard politics mantra: Negative sells.  Trump is painted as Adolf Hitler, who murdered six million Jews and started a world war.  The caricature has been responsible for fueling a toxic political divide that threatens to rupture the country.

Trump has branded Harris a socialist and critiqued her intellect in demeaning language.  His early reference to Harris' racial ethnicity cringed even his supporters.  Both candidates are covered in mud and the voters are left in the quandary of selecting the person with the fewest smudges.  

Unsurprisingly,  national polls reveal the race is deadlocked with less than two weeks until Election Day.  Looking under the hood of the polls, there are positive and negative signs for both campaigns.  Polls agree on one point: Harris and Trump both have above average unfavorable ratings. 

Worrisome for the team Harris is that she is underperforming with key demographics that were responsible for Biden's narrow win.  She has lost support among Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, particularly men in those demographics.  If the trend continues, it will not bode well for Harris.

Trump is behind with college graduates and suburban women.  Abortion is proving to be an issue that still moves the needle with swaths of voters across party lines.  It was a crucial wedge issue in the 2022 midterms and could once again cleve Trump support among independents. 

Mail-in voting, a tool used extensively during the Covid-era election of 2020, is trending lower.  It turned out to be a boon for Democrats, but at least early signs don't indicate it will be as robust this year. However, early voting is on pace to break records, galloping ahead of 2020 and 2016 levels.

Political watchers are noticing early voting among Republicans is outperforming Democrats, a once unthinkable outcome. Republicans have traditionally preferred to cast ballots on Election Day.  

On election night, the early results in Pennsylvania will offer a clue to the remainder of the evening.  Biden banked 36.2 percent more early votes than Trump in 2020 to offset Republicans voting advantage on Election Day.  If Harris falls below 25%, it will be a clunker of a start to a long agonizing evening. 

The final tally could take days, since Arizona and Nevada are notoriously slow reporting results. Whatever the outcome, expect fireworks from the losing side.  Candidates have accused each other of being a threat to Democracy. There will be no gracious concession speeches.

Adding to the turbulence is revelations by U.S. spy agencies that foreign actors are using covert influence campaigns to interfere in the election. Intelligence indicates Russia, Iran and China are sewing discord and disinformation. Expect the losing candidate to point to election interference as a factor in their defeat.  

Campaign rancor and the divisive cultural chasm have the makings of a potential power keg in the election aftermath. The nation's temperature is north of 98.6 degrees. Let's pray for decorum in the name of saving democracy.  We should all want a peaceful end to this fractious election.  

Frolicking Your Way To Prescription Happiness

Exposure to pharmaceutical company advertising may leave you shaking your head.  Never have people looked so giddy about having a serious health issue.   Do these folks recognize disease is nothing to sing and dance about? Turns out, one little pill is a prescription for profuse jubilation.    

Pharmaceutical firms spent $1.1 billion on advertising in 2023, most of it on television to convince Americans to gulp more medications.  It must be working because Big Pharma racked up $722.5 billion in sales last year in the U.S., peddling more than 20,000 FDA approved drugs.  

Statistics show most of us are taking a prescription drug.  According to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, 60% of adults are on at least one medication and 36% are swallowing three or more drugs. Pillboxes are the new must-have vanity item.

The names of the medications are designed to be catchy and memorable.  Take Skyrizi, a prescription for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis.  Sounds like the name for a sky diving outfit.  Picture yourself parachuting into luxurious skin.  The sky's the limit with this medication.

The fanciful name Cymbalta sounds like an Italian dish.  Or an orchestral instrument. But the prescription drug is used to treat depression and anxiety, so the brand name has to be uplifting.  No one wants to take an anxiety medication with a name such as Doomstics.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which approves mediations, insists brands cannot be viewed as overpromising on a cure.  For example, the FDA rejected the name Regain for an Upjohn company drug that helps regrow hair.  Upjohn changed a single letter and won approval for Rogain.

Big drug manufacturers use focus groups, consumer testing and a phonetic formula to create evocative names for their products.  In an average year, the FDA approves about 60 new drugs and the makers want each one to sound different than every other prescription.  With 20,000 drugs, it's getting harder.

Apparently, someone at Sanofi, a consumer healthcare firm, ran out of clever names for medications.  The company slapped the moniker Xyzal on its allergy drug, which promises 24-hour relief from scratchy throats, running noses and itchy eyes.  Did a marketing person throw a dart at an eye chart?

But today it takes more than fetching names to sell prescription drugs to consumers.  Television ads featuring dancing, singing actors are how you stand out in the crowded prescription space. Drugs to treat type 2 adult diabetes feature Broadway worthy productions.

If you ever seen a Mounjaro commercial, chances are you rushed to your doctor and pleaded for a prescription.  Overweight people suffering from diabetes look awfully happy about their battle against disease. They can't stop grinning, swirling and clapping on television.

Similar drugs in the same category--Wegovy, Ozempic and Jardience--are trying to outdo Mounjaro on the blissful meter.  They feature practically intoxicated adults, dressed in loose fitting clothes with perky demeanors.  They are canoeing, hiking and flitting.  No one is ever eating cake in these ads.

Even mirthful drug names cannot mask the side effects.  The killjoys over at FDA mandate the drug companies mention the possible downside of the medication.  After the onscreen celebration of the medication, an off camera narrator delivers a somber warning.

It usually goes something like this: taking XYZAB may cause weight loss, blurred vision, rapid heartbeat, acute kidney injury, increasing or worsening chronic renal failure, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.  Who would sign up for those side effects?  

A benign drug this writer has taken for years contains this WARNING: "A very bad reaction called angioedema has happened with this drug. Sometimes this may be life-threatening."  Say, what? How often is "sometimes"?  Twice a week? Once in a millennium?  Just asking. 

The key for selling the drug is for the announcer to whiz through the side effects at hyper speed, hoping the rhythmic performers distract the consumer.  It would be fun to once hear the narrator make this claim to see if folks are paying attention to this gibberish:

"Taking this medication may cause you to lose four toes, soil your pants, call your wife by your exes name, provide your  computer password to a complete stranger, sprout long hair on your nose, leave your new iPhone in a seedy bar and drop your expensive Patek Philippe watch in a airport toilet."  

If that sounds entertaining, imagine showing up in your doctor's office with a list of every drug advertised that encourages consumers to ask your physician about taking this medication.  Innocently inquire: "Should I be taking..." and then reel off the entire list.  

I tried it and found out primary care doctors have no sense of humor. The doctor fixed me with a quizzical look and folded arms.  He didn't appear amused.  There's a reason you won't find humor in a medical dictionary.   

Make America Venezuela

Venezuela's thuggish regime hardly inspires imitation. But the South American country's overhaul of its highest court is eerily similar to the plan outlined by President Biden.  Venezuela's dictators hoodwinked voters into believing reforms would strengthen the Supreme Tribunal of Justice.

In 1999, Hugo Chavez outlined a string of proposals to promote democracy.  The strongman proposed laws making it easier to remove sitting justices. His plan included 12-year term limits. As part of the scheme, he expanded the court by 12 members, packing it with cronies.

Nicolas Maduro, who succeeded Chavez, now oversees a tribunal that does the president's bidding. The International  Court of Jurists (ICJ) calls the tribunal nothing "but an instrument of the executive branch." It no longer serves as a grantor of the "rule of law, human rights or fundamental freedoms."  

In a speech marking the signing of President Lyndon Johnson's Civil Rights legislation, Biden unfurled his party's masterplan for remaking the Supreme Court.  He argued a president should appoint a justice every two years for an 18-year term. He pushed for enforceable conduct and ethics rules.

Biden claimed his proposals were to "restore faith in the Supreme Court."  However, his plan is nothing more than a presidential election year ploy to juice Democratic Party turnout.  His ire has been raised by court decisions he labeled as "not normal."  

Forget the Constitution's separation of powers clause which spells out three distinct branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial. Evidently the Constitution is seen as an "existential threat to democracy" by Biden.  There's nothing normal about changing Supreme Court terms.  

If Biden wants to bolster rules of conduct, he should start with Congress.  One member of his party--New Jersey Senator Bob Menedez--still serves in the Senate despite a conviction one 16 felony charges. Democrats need Menedez in a closely divided Senate, so personal ethics are fungible.  

Another Democrat, Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar and his spouse have been charged by federal prosecutors with participating in two schemes involving bribery, unlawful foreign influence and money laundering.  Cuellar remains a member in good standing in the House of Representatives.

If the president has a serious concern about ethics, he should be leading an effort to strengthen the Code of Ethics for members of Congress. Why is he silent on that issue, yet indignant on the travel of Supreme Court justices?

Following Biden's effort to undermine the Supreme Court, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre marched to the podium at a press briefing to declare surveys show "the American people" want term limits for justices.  In her view, America should be governed by polls not by the Constitution. 

Since she is a proponent of rule by polls, perhaps Karine's boss will now shill for term limits for Congress.  A poll by Pew Research finds 87% of Americans support term limits.  Nearly eight in ten (79%) favor age limits too.  Less than half (46%) agree on term limits for high court justices.

Nancy Pelosi has served 19 terms in the House, a number matched by Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey.  However, they are eclipsed by Republicans Christopher Smith and Harold Rogers; and Democrat Steny Hoyer. Each has served 22 terms in Congress.

Seven senators have served a total of 223 years: Democrats Patty Murray, Jack Reed, Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin; Republicans Chuck Grassley, Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins. Each has been elected to six-year terms ranging from four to five times. 

Biden and his party also point to the age of the justices, a shot aimed at the oldest sitting jurist Clarence Thomas, who turned 76 this year. The president and the Democrats had no such qualms about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died at age 87.  She served 27 years on the highest court.

The Constitution doesn't mention age limits for justices, but if age is on the table, what about Congress? There are 11 current members of Congress who are 80 or above, including 90-year-old Republican Chuck Grassley.  Justice Thomas is a youngster by comparison. 

The truth is Biden's "bold plan" to reform the Supreme Court has nothing to do with ethics, age or terms limits.  This is a scam to make the court an adjunct of the executive branch, bending it to the political will of Democrats.  It worked in Venezuela.  Why not in the U.S.?

Court packing was tried under another Democratic Party President, Franklin D. Roosevelt.  His motivation, like Biden's, was FDR's displeasure with SCOTUS rulings. The court struck down key components of Roosevelt's New Deal, drawing criticism from the president. 

He secretly developed a plan to appoint additional justices for every sitting justice over the age of 70.  It would allow FDR to appoint six additional justices to the court. Sound familiar? Once Roosevelt revealed his plan, it was met with stinging opposition, even from Roosevelt's Democratic Party. 

Roosevelt's court packing scheme suffered a resounding defeat.  The Biden court "reforms" deserve the same fate.  America's democracy calls three separate branches of government.  It's worked for 248 years and there are no Constitutional grounds for Biden's election year contrivance.