Hello everyone,

Hope you had a happy Fourth of July weekend. In honor of our 250th, I wanted to resend a (lightly-edited) post of mine from last year about the Declaration of Independence. Enjoy…

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Happy 4th everyone!

No better way to celebrate the 4th than to look at one of our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Sounds good so far. But let’s skip ahead a bit:

“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”

Interesting. Substitute “Great Britain” for “America,” and we have got our own wannabe Dictator.

“He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” Geez, that reminds me of Trump refusing to distribute government funds that Congress has set aside for special specific purposes.

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“He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, [and] uncomfortable…for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures” (emphasis mine). You mean kinda like the tactics Trump used to get the unpopular Big Beautiful Bill passed? The reverse Robin Hood of legislation, no less?

“He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners.” Might as well have been said about Trump too. Just add, “attacking birthright citizenship and starting a never-before-seen attack on those we once saw as our fellow Americans.”

“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone.” Check. Or, at least, Trump tried to. Many times.

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”

Meanwhile, Trump has rapidly expanded DOGE and ICE (“New Offices”), destroyed old government departments that actually helped regular people, and sent out ICE to harass law-abiding inhabitants. Close enough.

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“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.” Replace “Standing Armies” with “Standing Armies of Masked Immigrant Law Enforcement Agents,” and you’ve got your man in Donald Trump.

“He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.” Yes he has. National Guard and Marines. And all to distract from the Epstein Files.

“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts:” Basically, Trump’s deal with El Salvador’s Bukele, all meant to help Bukele cover up his role in cooperating with gangs like MS-13 that terrorized American citizens.

Okay, let us skip ahead a bit:

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“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences [in Sudan or El Salvador?]:”

Whoa, whoa, whoa, that hits a little too close to the present moment. Let’s skip ahead again:

“He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.” Close enough. In truth, he has only plundered our Budget, ravaged our Social Services, stolen our Government’s Funds for Expensive Personal Gifts from foreigners and foreign Nations, and destroyed the livelihoods of our people by making them slaves to our mounting $40 trillion Debt.

[That debt, by the way, largely came from tax cuts for the rich and foreign wars financed by previous Republican presidents].

“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

Replace “Indian Savages” with “Billionaire Savages,” and you actually have something much more accurate to the historical record.

“In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

Amen!

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“In the name of democracy, let us all unite!”

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept

when we remembered Zion.

2 There on the willows

we hung our harps,

3 for there our captors requested a song;

our tormentors demanded songs of joy:

“Sing us a song of Zion.”

4 How can we sing a song of the LORD

in a foreign land?

-From Psalm 137

The ICE agents requested of him a song. They saw him in his mariachi gear, and they dangled the prospect of his freedom before him. His liberty in exchange for their amusement.

Except, surely, they never meant to actually give him his freedom. They simply meant to taunt, mock, and jeer like the Babylon captors of old.

The man was a stranger in a foreign land, a land even foreign to some of us natives lately. Foreign for its brazen and open cruelty. Almost a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah.

As we approach the 250th 4th of July, we celebrate the triumph, the victory, of freedom over Great Britain, the greatest colonial power of its age. So now I ask you: are we living up to the promise of what we started 250 years ago?

That part is up to you. As Thomas Paine once said to light the fire of 1776, “we have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

Either we use that power, or the makers of the New Babylon will use it for us.

And to quote Paine one final time, “We neither mean to set up nor take down kings, neither to make nor to unmake them, but to have nothing to do with them. The king is the greatest enemy this continent hath, or can have, and no one shall tell us ‘there shall be no laws but such as I like.’”

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Remember that this 4th of July. And have a happy—and truly meaningful— Independence Day.

A belated happy Juneteenth everyone! And in other news…

11 days ago, the Trump Regime effectively forced two of Anthropic’s newest AI cybersecurity systems offline.

To be sure, though, the Trump Regime’s reasons for doing so may seem to make sense—at least initially. The two Anthropic models, “Mythos 5” and “Fable 5,” could indeed raise major national security concerns.

For example, Anthropic and its cybersecurity experts “spent months describing Mythos,” the earlier version of these two systems, “as one of the most capable—and most dangerous—AI models ever built.” That in itself could raise justifiable alarms.

Anthropic researcher Nicholas Carlini even demonstrated just “how easy it had become to use new models to break into [web] systems.” Most notably, Carlini showed how Mythos found many weaknesses in even “the most battle-tested [piece] of software.” Even when Carlini himself, a cybersecurity expert, had never been able to spot them before.

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Again, this could definitely be seen as a problem worthy of government action. After all, major sections of the U.S. economy run on software products like the one that Mythos threatens to hack into if placed in the wrong hands. Banks especially worry that software like Mythos—even with greater safety checks—could expose huge weaknesses in software that keeps our financial system running.

That’s not even to mention the accompanying concerns about what this means for the privacy of an everyday person on the web.

I repeat, pretty simple logic, right? Here’s the problem: there is another AI cybersecurity system. Its ability to discover weaknesses in software tops Anthropic’s banned models. And yet…

Nobody’s shutting it down.

Why? Well, it could be because it’s an OpenAI model. It could be because OpenAI never criticized or pushed back against the Trump Regime for threatening to misuse its AI technology at the Pentagon. It could be because OpenAI and Sam Altman never filed a lawsuit against the Trump Regime. Remember that Anthropic’s legal actions against the Regime are still ongoing.

Consistent with everything else this Administration does, WSJ reporting suggests that “[the Trump Regime] told Anthropic it had 90 minutes to pull down the model and didn’t provide details about the security risk,” per a source close to the company.

In short, I am not sure that the Trump Regime’s approach to Anthropic was merely miscommunication on one or both sides. To the contrary, I think it may reflect Trump’s attempt to control the technology and who has the power to use it.

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If true, this should concern all of us. Yes, I admit, all of the AI companies, including Anthropic, have made some ethical missteps in their use of AI. However, any missteps like the kind Anthropic made are nothing compared to the danger of surrendering AI technology and its effective oversight to a Regime obsessed with control and punishment of those who dare to oppose it.

This technology has the power to completely change the security of the web, the world, and the privacy of anyone in both. If we leave this technology with the wrong people—government or private actors—it could create an unheard-of danger to the freedoms that we hold dear.

Stay tuned. And stay attentive. Big Brother may be watching too.

Note: I hope this presents a welcome change from my coverage of the news. More will come on the latest developments there at another date. But this is personal.

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven” -Ecclesiastes 3:1, the epigraph to Dr. O’Malley’s obituary

“O Captain, My Captain!” -From Walt Whitman and, of course, Dead Poets Society

Once a Providence College Friar, always a Providence College Friar.

But once upon a time, four years ago, I might never have been a Friar.

Let me back up a bit. About 4-5 days ago, I learned of the passing of Dr. Paul O’Malley via the Providence College alumni Instagram account @provcollege_alumni.

Dr. O’Malley was a true trailblazer at PC. For example, he was both a key figure in helping the College develop its signature Development of Western Civilization (DWC) program and one of the early advocates for PC’s Black Studies program.

That, of course, is selling Dr. O’Malley’s extensive list of accomplishments painfully short. But I will have to leave it at that for now. I want to talk about something else—something that does not generally make it into a conventional obituary.

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It happened 4 years ago, when I was a high school senior from Classical High School, a public magnet high school in Providence, Rhode Island.

I had always wanted to attend Providence College. In the hallways of the family house, there is a photo. There is my father—with all black hair, I might add—proudly wearing a Providence College sweatshirt.

Then, there I am, 2 or 3 years old, wearing a miniature version of that sweatshirt.

It almost feels like it was meant to be. But it wasn’t. Why? $55,850. That was Providence College’s annual tuition in 2020 (I hardly even need to check the number because I remember it by heart).

From November to February, my family and I tried to see if Providence College could become an affordable option. Yet there was a gap. A gap that was not affordable and that my existing financial aid from my acceptance could not fill.

Around February 2020, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down, my father and I visited the Providence College campus. By then, we had very remote hopes that I would be able to go, and the signs from our campus conversations were not too encouraging.

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Except for one conversation that I will never forget. It was in Ruane Hall, the beating heart of the liberal arts program at PC. In the hallways, my father and I were talking to two people: Dr. Maureen (“Mo”) Outlaw and…Dr. Paul O’Malley.

So we told our story. Dr. Outlaw and Dr. O’Malley were both sympathetic, and kind, and understanding, but Dr. O’Malley was so much more than that.

“I’ve got a good feeling,” he said, clenching his fists with a strange inexplicable confidence.

My family still lacked that “good feeling,” to be sure. We chalked it up to an optimistic sort of old age. But we were wrong, and Dr. O’Malley was right.

In March, I learned that I got a substantial outside scholarship, the Carter Roger Williams Scholarship, from the Rhode Island Foundation. In April or May, Providence College revised its financial aid package for me due to the COVID pandemic.

And just like that, Dr. O’Malley proved himself to be better in touch with God than many priests I know—including some of Providence College’s own preachers of the Dominican Order.

When my father attended the school, Providence College was a place where many working-class Providence natives received the opportunity for a true liberal arts education. Fast-forward to the present, much about colleges has changed, and PC has been no different.

Rising tuition costs across all colleges create less economic diversity. It is not rocket science, folks. Such is the price of Ronald Reagan’s war on higher education.

But through all those changes in the country, and at Providence College, there was Dr. O’Malley, an ambassador of the old Providence College spirit. A representative of what higher education—in its better moments in America—is truly about.

RIP Dr. O’Malley. As the Irish say, “may God keep you and hold you in the palm of His hand.”

Steve Ahlquist phrased it best: “[w]hat if I told you that since 1998, the rights enumerated in the Rhode Island State Constitution are merely words on paper, little more than suggestions or aspirational ideals, and that you have no way of civilly enforcing those rights?”

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That statement should concern all Rhode Islanders. State governments have always been “laboratories of democracy.” In a world where the Supreme Court has completely given up on its role to enforce the civil rights of our fellow Americans, our state governments—now more than ever—need to remember that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

They also need to remember that state government officials can and will ignore your rights unless they are given a reason not to ignore your rights. That, in a nutshell, is why I support the efforts to change the current status quo and give the rights in the Rhode Island State Constitution real teeth…

via THE RHODE ISLAND CIVIL RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT ACT, legislation that gives individuals the right to sue in court for violations of the Rhode Island State Constitution specifically.

There is much more to say, but Steve Ahlquist and Attorney Richard Sinapi have already said it. So let me cut straight to the chase: we have a little less than a week to put the pressure on the RI General Assembly, our local state legislature, to pass this Bill. Here is what you can do:

1. Sign this petition to “Make Government Pay When It Violates Your Rights.” It will be sent to both the Bill’s sponsors in the legislature and to the leadership of the General Assembly.

2. Send an email (a QUICK EMAIL) to the General Assembly leadership that says the following: “Please support the passage of H7352 and S2607 by the General Assembly to restore my right to obtain a remedy in court for any harm caused due to a violation of my state Constitutional Rights.”

   Here is who to contact:

a) Senate Judiciary Chair Matthew L. LaMountain at sen-lamountain@rilegislature.gov and (401) 206-0822

b) Senate Sponsor Jake Bissaillon at jbissailon@rilegislature.gov and (401) 276-5563

c) House Speaker Chris Blazejewski at rep-blazejewski@rilegislature.gov and (401) 222-2466

d) Senate President Val Lawson at sen-lawson@rilegislature.gov and (401) 222-4901

e) House Majority Leader Katherine Kazarian at rep-kazarian@rilegislature.gov and (401) 222-1723

f) Senate Majority Leader Frank Ciccone at sen-ciccone@rilegislature.gov and (401) 276-5579

g) House Sponsor and Judiciary Chair Carol H. McEntee at rep-mcentee@rilegislature.gov and (401) 222-4435

3. Spread the word about this petition via the following (QUICK) email:

PETITION BEING CIRCULATED—forward to everybody

Did you know that according to our state supreme court and federal court, there is no way to seek a remedy in court for a violation of your state constitutional rights unless the General Assembly passes a law saying that it can?

Even though these rights and protections were passed and approved by a vote of the people through various referenda dating back to 1843?

Do you want to do something about this?

THEN, sign onto this petition: https://rifreedom.org/civilrightsenforcement/.

And send a message to the General Assembly leadership:

a) Senate Judiciary Chair Matthew L. LaMountain at sen-lamountain@rilegislature.gov and (401) 206-0822

b) Senate Sponsor Jake Bissaillon at jbissailon@rilegislature.gov and (401) 276-5563

c) House Speaker Chris Blazejewski at rep-blazejewski@rilegislature.gov and (401) 222-2466

d) Senate President Val Lawson at sen-lawson@rilegislature.gov and (401) 222-4901

e) House Majority Leader Katherine Kazarian at rep-kazarian@rilegislature.gov and (401) 222-1723

f) Senate Majority Leader Frank Ciccone at sen-ciccone@rilegislature.gov and (401) 276-5579

g) House Sponsor and Judiciary Chair Carol H. McEntee at rep-mcentee@rilegislature.gov and (401) 222-4435

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4. FINALLY, on Tuesday, Attorney Sinapi will be meeting with House Speaker Blazejewski at Blazejewski’s office in Room 323 of the Rhode Island State House. This meeting will take place on Tuesday during the “Rise of the House,” or the time when the Rhode Island House of Representatives finishes with its formal business for the day in the chamber.

   The House usually begins its formal business around 4 PM, and generally takes about 2 hours or so, so consider stopping by—if you can—after your shift to be a part of a peaceful, public demonstration outside Speaker Blazejewski’s office.

   If you are not able to make it then, consider submitting a statement about your support for the Bill to davidsalzillojr@gmail.com, and I will print it out and present it to Speaker Blazejewski and/or other General Assembly leadership.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP IN GIVING THE RHODE ISLAND STATE CONSTITUTION REAL POWER!!!

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It’s not over ’til you’re underground
It’s not over before it’s too late

-Green Day, “Letterbomb”

Police in Fairhope, Alabama arrested a 61-year-old woman—a grandmother—for dressing up as an inflatable penis at a Trump protest.

Have I got your attention now?

I hope so. Of course, there have been other arrests related to the Trump Regime’s Executive Order known as NSPM-7 (“National Security Presidential Memorandum #7”). Yet this prosecution of a 61-year-old grandmother should be one of the most obviously insane.

So far, she has been charged with disorderly conduct, resisting an arrest, giving officers a false name, and violating a city ordinance related to “disturbing the peace.” As to the charge of giving officers a false name, the court documents allege, and I quote, when officers asked for the lady’s name, she “stated her name was ‘Antifa’ … with the intent to mislead the officer” (emphasis mine).

Even if the officers are truly that gullible and so completely unable to understand or take a joke, that is no justification for prosecuting this woman (besides, she claims she had her ID on her and provided it to the officers). Still, that is beside the point.

Here’s the point: this arrest and others are drawing on the NSPM-7 playbook of targeting those who have views the Regime sees as indicators of “domestic terrorism.” That includes “anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity,” “extremism on migration, race, and gender,” and opposition to “traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

Like I said, so many issues with this method of targeting domestic terrorism. To start, this definition of political violence clearly and conveniently ignores the Regime’s mass pardon of January 6 extremists, including Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.

Not to mention the possibly upcoming Trump Regime January 6 slush fund dedicated to people who—instead of paying into our government—have made a career of trying to overthrow it.

Second, what counts as anti-American, given this Administration’s rebranding of what even counts as “foundational American values”? What about what counts as “anti-Christianity”?

Ah, but why should I expect clarity from a Regime that wants to crack down on my rights, right? It all comes down to two things: power and hypocrisy.

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Why is it that the same types of elite Republican politicians who are trying to push TPUSA chapters at universities and now even law schools across this country are also the ones trying to suppress the free speech (and academic freedom) of those who oppose them?

Simple: because they do not care about free speech, or academic freedom, or the truth, for that matter. They want power, absolute power, and they want it now.

Don’t let them take it without a fight. Get out there. Protest. Exercise your First Amendment rights while you still have them.

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And remember:

“It’s not over ’til you’re underground
It’s not over before it’s too late”

Act like it!!!!

Around the same time that the DNC Autopsy on why Democrats lost 2024 began to circulate on the Internet, Hunter Biden had a nearly two-hour-long interview with Candace Owens.

These two events may not seem related, but they are, and not necessarily in the way you would think either.

Let me explain. As the New York Times puts it, the interview came “at a moment when Ms. Owens has joined a small but influential group of conservative voices who have turned on the Trump administration over the war with Iran” and the Epstein Files.

Owens’s feeling of betrayal with Trump created more common ground with Mr. Biden than one might initially expect. After all, this was the same Candace Owens who called for Hunter Biden to be imprisoned, wasn’t it?

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Here, she actually apologized to Biden himself for her entire handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story, explaining that she felt “terrible” about it. “Genuinely, I am so sorry,” she said.

Quite a remarkable backtrack from a woman who has made a career out of not apologizing for much more outlandish and far-fetched conspiracy theories. So, why now? And why Hunter Biden specifically? (Because surely making up with Hunter Biden is not high on the priority list of her conservative viewership.)

Here is where it gets interesting. Why did Owens take such an aggressive approach to the laptop story? Because she initially felt “gaslit” by an open letter, “signed by 51 former intelligence officials, that suggested the materials might be part of a Russian disinformation campaign.”

Hunter Biden responded, funny enough, by agreeing with Candace’s problems with the high-handed approach. He went on to say that he wished he had been able to give the public his side of the story, he added, but “he suggested he could not because the election was approaching.”

Indeed, his side of the story was very simple. The materials on the laptop showed his drug escapades—such as pictures of him “smoking crack in a motel room”—not any corruption on President Biden’s part. “That was addiction, that wasn’t corruption,” as Mr. Biden stated himself.

Short, sweet, and to the point. It also opened up the conversation to the family’s shared history of addiction struggles. In fact, later on in the interview, Candace framed it this way: “I just didn’t even consider: He’s [Hunter’s] a crackhead. That’s a very relatable thing” (emphasis mine).

Did you hear that, Democrats?

Too often, the current “leaders” of the Democratic Party play into the Republican narratives. If the truth of the Hunter Biden laptop “scandal” was so simple and so relatable, why didn’t the Democratic Party use that message? Consistently, across the board, and from the beginning?

Why focus instead on a Russian disinformation campaign, an idea that by its nature raises more questions than it answers, and creates suspicions that the government is using this as a cover to hide something?

Talk about making the proverbial “mountain out of a molehill.”

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Consider the word that Candace used here: she initially felt “gaslit.” Whether or not you believe any part of Candace’s story on the laptop story, that is the impression that most Democrats, Republicans, and independents have of the Democratic Party.

They think of the Democratic Party as one that fails to take any firm stand, lectures the public when they dare to criticize the party leaders, and does not really understand why people are asking the questions that they are.

Democrats lecture, and show up to elections last minute as if they are entitled to receive something. Republicans, on the other hand, fight to gain the public’s attention with a message pinpointed to things going on in people’s lives.

Refer a friend

Especially in this political environment, authenticity is everything. To be sure, the botched handling of the story of Hunter Biden and his laptop did not lose Democrats the 2020 election, neither did it lose them the election in 2024. Yet the mistakes made in handling this story reflect something much bigger.

And Democrats better fix it soon. They have an opening right now, a chance to take advantage of a president who called his own supporters “weaklings” for believing in the Epstein “Hoax” that he helped fan the flames of.

Now is the time to reverse the crisis in confidence in the Democratic Party.

P.S. Wishing you all a very meaningful Memorial Day.

For some of you, 4 years have come and gone. For others, 3 years. For even more others, 2 years or less. All come and gone.

Yet now you have a degree to show for it. You put in the work, and you got the results. Do not forget that. No matter how bad the current job market is, and no matter how bad the future job market may get.

In a year from now, I hope to graduate from law school. But the rest of you graduating this month can say that you survived the horrid “Trump 2.0 years.” You will continue to survive whatever chaos follows them (and hopefully there are not many more years of this left; impeachment and conviction may be coming soon, God willing).

Wow. What a ride. For all of us. But especially for you graduates.

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We have seen so many crises and challenges in such a short period of time. The AI revolution, genocides galore, wars and rumors of war, chaos in the Strait of Hormuz, a steady stream of war crimes from “the Leader of the Free World,” and even idol worship by the Christian nationalist “faith leaders” supporting President Nebuchadnezzar.

It gives new meaning to the Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times.” We certainly are living in the interesting times that the writer of this proverb had in mind.

I can only hope that I have helped some readers understand and, more importantly, endure the ups and downs of the latest news cycle. I feel deeply for the challenges my generation has been through. As Thomas Paine once said, “these are the times” that try our souls.

But these are also the times that we can prove who we really are. “The ultimate measure of a man,” Martin Luther King Jr. observed, “is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

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If nothing else, I hope my words can encourage all of you to follow the path that your passions take you to. Or the paths that conscience forces you to take. Yes, the road will be long, hard, and filled with suffering. But take up your cross and find your place in the madness of today’s America. Because you may discover that you are more powerful than you think.

“In the name of democracy, let us all unite!” You are the stuff that liberty is made of. Remember that as America approaches its 250th birthday as “a Republic—if we can keep it.”

And happy graduation.

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“If you have any love for me, you must keep the commandments which I give you” (Jesus from John 14:15)

We read in the Bible that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon set up a golden image of himself 90 feet high, demanding that all the people fall down and worship it. When the biblical heroes Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to do so, the king placed them into a fiery furnace to die.

Well, the pro-Trump evangelical “Christian” leaders of today did not even get that far. Far from rebelling against idol worship, some of them actively encouraged it. In fact, John Mark Burns, an American evangelical “minister” and “spiritual advisor” to Trump, led the unveiling ceremony of a 22-foot golden statue of Trump at one of his Florida golf courses.

As Mr. Burns described it, it was “a celebration of life and a powerful symbol of resilience, freedom, patriotism, courage, and the will to keep fighting for America.”

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To everyone else with eyes, it was a cheap 22-foot knock-off of Nebuchadnezzar’s 90-foot vanity project. Or else it was a cheap knock-off of the infamous golden calf in Exodus.

Mr. Burns added that he doesn’t “know anybody who worships Donald Trump as a God.” Honestly, he need not look any further than Donald Trump himself.

Does Mr. Burns not know the levels of this man’s narcissism? Has he not seen the AI image that Trump posted of himself as Jesus? Has he not seen that this man thinks himself high and mighty enough to pick fights with Pope Leo of the Catholic Church?

And has he not heard that Trump thinks the only true limit on his global powers is his “own morality”—or lack thereof?

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And no, Mr. Burns, you are not merely worshipping an idol like Zeus or Diana, that has eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear. You are worshipping a living, breathing idol that has personally done real damage to the world—that has helped Netanyahu annihilate Gaza and maybe Lebanon soon, that has aided the Hitler of our time, Putin, against Ukraine, and that has threatened multiple times now to launch a genocidal attack on Iran. Among other things.

This is what happens when those who pretend to be Christians sell their souls to Mammon (money), power, and the politicians who can provide that for them. This statue, this vanity project, “cost approximately $450,000” and got the financial support of “cryptocurrency investors connected to the memecoin $PATRIOT.”

Is this how Christians spend their money and their time? To stroke a man’s ego that is big enough to take up the space of one thousand elephants?

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These people do not worship Christ. They worship the power that comes with their twisting of the Gospel to suit their own ends—“whose god is their belly, and whose glory is their shame” (Philippians 3:19, NASB).

Every day, hypocrites like Mr. Burns commit triple idolatry. They worship not only an idol, but they also worship the riches and power that that idol uses to gain their worship. Trump, money, and power: The American Unholy Trinity.

So before they try to force the Ten Commandments onto schoolchildren, they should try to learn to follow the commandments themselves.

The current Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has made a point of posing as a free speech crusader. Most recently, he has forced the Barry University School of Law, a private Catholic law school, to accept a TPUSA chapter on its campus against its wishes.

However, you may be wondering: doesn’t this violate—at least in spirit—traditional conservative ideas about allowing private religious institutions to conduct their business free from government pressure? Maybe. Isn’t it also consistent with the campaign of the Trump Regime and its allies to bend American education to its will via TPUSA?

Well, perhaps. (Especially since TPUSA has just begun targeting law schools over the past two years).

But that is neither here nor there. Uthmeier claimed that the law school’s denial of a TPUSA chapter would be unlawful viewpoint discrimination, violating both free speech principles and raising “consumer protection concerns” for the school.

Yet, surprise, surprise, Uthmeier is not the free speech advocate he pretends to be. How do I know?

It all started with a comment in a Florida International University (FIU) group chat of about 215 people for an engineering capstone presentation event.

On April 16, FIU police arrested a 23-year-old college student named Gabriela Saldana for “written threats to kill or do bodily injury.” The alleged threat? “Netanyahu, if you can hear me, drop some bonbons [i.e., bombs] for us capstone students in the Ocean Bank Convention Center.”

Ms. Saldana also wrote, referring to another member in the group chat, “There is going to be a bomb in the Ocean Bank Convocation Center, and it is going to be Jonathan’s fault.”

Let me be clear, as a law student and a former college student, I have heard jokes like these all the time. Jokes like these are made on college campuses all the time.

Sometimes, like the TikTok joke trend that Ms. Saldana was drawing on, these jokes mention close Trump ally and war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. Other times, they don’t. That should not matter in normal times. But these are not normal times, and this is a public university in Ron DeSantis’s Florida.

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Which means a Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) representative had to state the obvious: “it is not credible that anyone would reasonably believe an FIU undergraduate would have the power to order the ‘dropping’ of bombs anywhere, let alone in the United States, by any foreign power.”

Unfortunately, at Ms. Saldana’s bond hearing regarding the “threats,” Judge Mindy Glazer disagreed. “To an objective person,” she said, “it’s not a joke.”

In a certain way, she’s right. This is not a joke. Unlike Barry University School of Law, a private Catholic law school, Florida International University (FIU) is a public university under government control. Unlike Barry University School of Law, Florida International University is punishing a student for activity in a group chat.

Finally, unlike Barry University School of Law, FIU is punishing a student for apparently making a “credible threat” to have Benjamin Netanyahu come and bomb random Florida school buildings.

(As if Netanyahu’s government is not busy enough vaporizing Lebanon, bombing Iran, and threatening to bring full war back to Gaza).

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If you cared about free speech, this is what you should care about. Dumb jokes should not be treated differently just because they happen to mention Benjamin Netanyahu at a Florida public college.

And yet, what have we heard from Florida Attorney General Uthmeier?

Absolutely nothing. Silence in the face of silencing. How poetic. And how ironic.

Good afternoon members of the Rhode Island General Assembly,

I submit my testimony today to support a legislative initiative to rescind prior resolutions by this legislature for a so-called “convention of the states” in the State of Rhode Island.

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To begin, many of these resolutions date back to 50 years ago or more, and most of them are clearly out-of-step with the concerns of contemporary Rhode Islanders. For example, in 1940, our General Assembly called for a convention of the states to enact an amendment limiting the federal government’s power to tax income.

And in 1977, the General Assembly called for a convention of the states to enact an amendment for “Right to Life.” Again, whatever you think of these initiatives, they are very out-of-step with the priorities of the Rhode Island public today.

But more importantly, any push for a convention of the states is a dangerous threat to our current system of government. Unfortunately, unlike the conventional process of amending the Constitution, which has clear rules and guidelines, a so-called “convention of the states” is vague, unclear, and easily exploitable by antidemocratic interests.

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Normally, as you all well know of course, Congress proposes an amendment by an overwhelming vote, and then a certain number of states have to ratify it for it to become the law of the land. But there is another way: if 34 states force Congress’s hand via their state legislatures, Congress must call together a “convention of the states” to revise the Constitution.

Now you may be wondering: how do states call for such a convention? Do they do so merely by proposing an amendment—any amendment—to the Constitution? Could, for example, 17 states call for an amendment banning assault weapons, and another 17 states call for an amendment giving every American the right to a rocket launcher, and could that be enough to force a convention of the states? Well, Article V really doesn’t say.

Or you may be wondering: what if states tried to call for such a convention a long time ago, and forgot to take their old applications to Congress off the books? Well, again, Article V really doesn’t say. That’s why New York’s state legislature revoked its application from 1789 just this last year. Regardless, even with New York’s recent move, most states still have long-forgotten requests like these that could (technically?) be enough to trigger a constitutional convention already.

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Still, that’s not even the worst of it. Who will write the rules of such a convention if it is put together? The states? Congress? Private actors? A pre-convention committee? Article V offers us no guidance here.

Who chooses the delegates of such a convention? The voters, the (often-gerrymandered) state legislatures? Article V provides us no answers here.

Who can represent their state at such a convention? Can lobbyists be delegates? Can sitting officials be delegates? Article V gives us no clarity here.

Will each state get one vote? Two votes? Or will representation be based on that state’s population?

Who sets the agenda and the rules of the entire event, and how easily can those rules about debate, voting, and/or amendment approval be changed on a whim? Who is the chair of the official proceeding? What happens if two states send conflicting groups of delegates? What are the limits in place to stop big money and big corporations from using their influence to shape the delegates’ agenda?

Can a state recall its delegates if they overstep their bounds? And if a state doesn’t act to recall its delegates, will the public at least be able to see or have a record of the official proceeding?

Article V couldn’t tell you. And that’s not even all the problems that Article V leaves unaddressed about this whole mess.

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I think you can clearly see the problem. Thanks to a highly-organized movement which has the explicit goal of opening this Pandora’s Box, at least 28 state legislatures have actively called for a “convention of the states.” They only need 6 more.

That is why we should rescind our General Assembly’s calls for a convention of the states. We need an amendment process with accountability. Not a Trojan Horse for certain forces to deliver the final blow to our system of government, which is fragile enough as it is.

Sincerely,

David Salzillo

A few days ago, I learned that a friend of mine from Roger Williams University School of Law—Timothy Picard by name—developed this political cartoon for a 30-minute-long presentation on City and County of San Francisco v. EPA (2025) and related issues for his environmental law class.

In fact, he may have just delivered his presentation just a few hours ago.

Hope it went well, Tim!

Oh, and where’s Justice William O. Douglas when you need him?

Nobody can get the story on the Strait straight, can they?

Ba-dum-tssshhh.

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Good luck, Donald. You are gonna need it. And so are we. God help us all.

April 18, 2026, 10:24 a.m. ET4 minutes ago

Iran War Live Updates: Iran’s Military Says It Has Reimposed ‘Strict Control’ of Strait of Hormuz

The military said it would tighten its grip on the vital waterway until the U.S. ended its blockade of Iranian ports. The statement added to the uncertainty over access to the strait.

Sometimes, as a political blog writer, you have to learn to be humble, give credit to the masters of journalism, and spread the word about their work far and wide.

This FRONTLINE PBS report does a fantastic job of reporting on a very important and overlooked story.

No wonder Trump wants to defund PBS.

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For my reporting on Bukele, Trump, and the Trump Administration’s plot to cover for MS-13’s many accomplices, see this article, this article, this article, and this article, among others. Don’t sit on this story, folks. It really is worse than it might initially appear to be.

PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO WATCH THE FULL DOCUMENTARY!

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!!!!!

DAS.

Happy Easter everyone! Sending my customary Easter/Passover/Eid/etc. greetings.

In honor of the holiday season, I thought I would take a break from the usual politicking. Instead, I wanted to share a (lightly-edited update of a) story that I shared with (some of) you about 2 years ago (April 2024).

It is partly Easter-inspired, and hopefully, it provides you all a brief bit of comic relief from the current news cycle.

Without further ado…

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Normally, I would try to avoid writing about personal affairs. If I did, it has only been to praise the always-fantastic work of my brother Michael.

Yet there I was, just a little over two years ago, typing out what would become this article, over the sounds of a frustrated raccoon trying to claw her way into the vents.

Yes, it was an odd predicament, with an even odder story behind it. Even before I started writing it, some people in my family’s circle had already heard it. Many almost immediately saw it for what it was: a situation no sitcom writer could dream up in their life.

As you can imagine, I am a little conflicted. On the one hand, I am fully aware of how funny all this is. Sometimes I laugh myself at the sheer craziness of it all. But on the other hand, the people awake keeping the late-night raccoon post-Easter vigil were doing anything but laughing at the time.

Despite all that, all the crises going on in the world today make the woes of our past raccoon problem seem painfully small by comparison. So, in the spirit of that humbling thought, maybe the following article will provide a necessary change from my reporting on the state of America and the world today.

We all need a break, and that includes my more than 250 subscribers. Except, of course, my poor brother, mother, and father. You are going to just have to suffer through this one, just as everyone else suffers through the news.

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It began with what sounded like knocking a few days before Holy Week. To our horror, we learned that the noise was coming from the attic (luckily, a space that we never made any use of). Something apparently had gotten in.

Who—or what—was this unwelcome guest, we asked ourselves? Was it a squirrel perhaps? No, impossible. It was just a teeny tiny bit too forceful with its increasingly frequent pounding.

We tried to wish away the truth. We considered every other possible option. However, every sign pointed to an uncomfortable conclusion: it was likely a raccoon who came to fill the role of our Lenten penance.

To make matters worse, it was probably a mother raccoon trying to create nests for soon-to-come baby raccoons. That could automatically multiply the raccoon trouble by a factor of three, four, or more.

And worst of all, Mama Raccoon positioned her nest right above the family couch. Just in case she wanted to drop in, to personally thank us for our hospitality.

Long story short, we had troubles. Either the raccoon was going, or we were, and we were going to stand our ground.

My mother started with some more basic tactics. When she heard that putting the TV volume at full blast might make the raccoons feel unwelcome, she did that. That failed.

Then, when she heard that rock music at full blast might be more effective, she did that. That too failed.

It also meant that I was not going to finish up my semi-final draft of my Honors History thesis, my law school application due April 1, or my law school scholarship applications due March 31 anytime before Holy Saturday evening. Loud ‘80s rock music has many uses, but providing the right environment for proofreading or essay-writing is not one of them.

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Though I digress. Once again, the failures of these attempts to expel Ms. Mama Raccoon forced us to acknowledge another uncomfortable truth: we clearly needed professional assistance. Not least because we discovered the possible twitterings of baby raccoons.

Unfortunately, no professional wanted to mess with the Mama Bear in the attic. Every animal control or animal control-related group we contacted wanted that big raccoon safely and securely in a trap before it for a second considered going up in the attic. Either they trap it themselves, or we trap it for them. There was simply no way that they were going up there to catch a big mother raccoon protective of her precious babies.

As a family friend so memorably put it, everybody who used to do a job like that in the old days had “wisened up.”

To repeat, our choice was to trap it or have them trap it. Or, we think of something else. OR, we let the raccoon stay.

Obviously, choice 4 was out, as was choice 3. To trap or not to trap; that was the question. We decided to trap. For good reason too. My mother had done it many times before, although in much less stressful circumstances.

On that hopeful note, we put out the traps on either Good Friday or Holy Saturday. By Holy Saturday, we reached what appeared to be our darkest point. You see, besides putting out the cages, we tried to plug up the raccoon’s main entranceway. That was successful, but not successful enough. Mother Raccoon, far from taking the hint, simply tore a sizeable hole in the vent on the other side of the residence.

To add insult to injury, she posed for that infamous picture I have at the top of this article. Looking at us all like a toddler proud of the mess they have left behind for their parents to clean up.

After that terrible “dark night of the soul,” you can only picture the joy that came with Easter morning, when we saw a raccoon in one of the traps. It was everything we could have wanted. A female that showed no signs of nursing—and therefore, no sign of having had babies. Success! Like Christ emerged victorious over his crucifixion and burial, we emerged victorious over our mortal nemesis. The baby twiterrings must have just been the would-be mother. Or some baby birds.

Our family was jubilant. Our neighbor helped secure the vent, and at Easter dinner we marveled over how conveniently we were able to get rid of Mother Raccoon on this special day. Then shortly after dinner was over, BANG, BANG, BANG!

Our ears all perked up with sonar-like precision. Another noise. Coming from the vents. Uh-oh.

“God doth have a sense of humor,” as the saying goes. We caught the wrong raccoon, and locked the other one in the vents. In our celebrations, we never stopped to consider that we could have caught just another neighborhood critter with a similar profile.

Anyways, after much grunting, growling, and butting up against the layer of screens, Mama Raccoon finally broke out of her accidental prison. She started climbing a nearby tree.

We tried to bring her back down with promises of marshmallows and shrimp—anything to beckon her to the cage or at least to the ground. No such luck.

Regrettably (for her) the raccoon has had some trouble getting back in. Her escape route was too narrow to allow her to return to her nest anew. That is not to say she has not tried. For two nights afterwards, she had been banging and clawing away at the screens on both vents, hopping from vent to vent every half-hour or so.

She had thrashed out at sections of the siding and the roof. Since my room is next to one of the vents, I was in the unenviable position of having privileged access to all of this.

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Eventually, she did get in, and we had to take new steps to get her out.

I could go on and on. But, long story short,…the story did have a happy ending.

For us, at least. Maybe not her.

Yup, here we are. We have come to the end of my posts on The Big Beautiful Middle Finger.

It has been one hell of a run. Over the course of this blog series, we have discussed how the Big Beautiful Middle Finger cuts Medicare funding, Medicaid funding, student loans (and other forms of financial aid for students), and so much more, all while providing a boon to the Epstein-loving Upper Class.

But now, as the saying goes, all good things—or should I say bad things?—must come to an end. And to close it all out, I need the help of my very talented brother.

Without further ado,

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____________________________________________________________________________

In an earlier post, we talked about how the Big Beautiful Middle Finger’s Medicaid cuts might impact those in rural America. However, we both feel that there is much more to say about the megabill’s impact on rural American communities. So we compiled a list:

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1. Food Stamp cuts will affect the 15% of rural households who rely on that service, especially now with the high cost of groceries AND GAS!!!!! Rural communities are going to be hit particularly hard with the Trump Gas Tax caused by his reckless war with Iran.

2. Federal funding for rural schools, community colleges, and Head Start will be reduced under this bill.

3. NIH (National Institute of Health), USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) research, and rural broadband programs all face budget cuts.

4. It effectively defunds conservation grants, forestry stewardship, rural community infrastructure, and local-market development.

5. Cuts will harm various rural clean energy and infrastructure projects that rely on federal tax credits.

6. Federal proposals will override local and state eminent domain laws to push through carbon pipelines, as well as mining and drilling permits. Small government and federalism in action, folks.

7. The $50 billion windfall is back for mega farms and big farms that don’t need those federal agricultural subsidies.

8. NOAA’s deep cuts will impact everything from irrigation planning, to hay cutting and cow calving.

9. FEMA’s budget will be cut by 30%, so rural communities are likely on their own.

10. Immigrant labor on farms are also at risk with this bill (as of July 2025, 70% of workers in California were already skipping work, leaving many crops unharvested).

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Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!

Guess whose face the Department of Education featured on a display outside its main building alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Booker T. Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Anne Sullivan, and Catharine Beecher to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary?

No, it’s not who you think (cough, cough, Donald Trump); it’s actually a man named Charlie Kirk.

His face was part of a series of banners meant to show the past and future of American education, and it perhaps unintentionally displayed the Trump Regime’s plan to bend American education to its will.

What do I mean by that? After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, many anti-free speech and anti-free thought opportunists like Donald Trump and J.D. Vance tried to use his death to tie “radical leftism” (meaning, anything that criticizes Dear Leader, his immigration policy, or his attacks on religious freedom) to violence.

Of course, the fact that a Democratic politician in Minnesota had been assassinated just months before was completely irrelevant, as was the fact of other violence and threats of violence directed against Democrats or Trump critics in general. Because who cares about that political violence?

Out of that push came Trump’s most notable attacks on free speech thus far. First, there was “NSPM-7,” a national security memo tying “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity” to “domestic terrorism.” Then, the Regime declined to “rule out…the possibility that it may summarily and extrajudicially kill and assassinate American political rivals on the NSPM-7 watch list.”

Yes, you read that right. I could go on and on. But overlooked until now have been the Trump Regime’s attacks on free education.

Before that, let me briefly discuss Turning Point USA (TPUSA), the organization established by Charlie Kirk in 2012 to “engage high-school and college students in conservative politics.” Though Charlie Kirk was best known for his debates with college students, the organization itself actually first gained notoriety for creating its Professors’ Watchlist in 2016.

The Professors’ Watchlist is exactly what it sounds like. It is a centralized national monitoring tool meant to force teachers who do not follow TPUSA’s views to censor themselves or risk harassment from TPUSA followers or cadres.

(By the way, if you are curious to see which professors in Rhode Island made the infamous watchlist, you used to be able to see here. Hopefully, TPUSA restores that link again soon).

In 2016, TPUSA created its “watchlist” to ensure teachers fall into line. That was then. Now, it is even worse. Today, TPUSA has closely linked itself with people at the highest levels of power in the Trump Regime. For instance, days after Kirk’s assassination, none other than Vice President Vance guest hosted Kirk’s show.

Yes, the Vice President.

To give yet another example, TPUSA has used its financial campaign war chest to attack Indiana Republicans who dared to oppose the Trump Regime's Indiana redistricting plan. In other words, it’s not even just going after Democrats anymore; it’s going after Republicans too.

Funnily enough, TPUSA apparently considers itself a 501(c)(3) organization. Such organizations are required by law to refrain from participating or intervening in "(including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office" (emphasis mine).

I know this personally because, as president of the local RWU Law chapter of a national 501(c)(3) group (the American Constitution Society), I have to think about this every time I make a statement in my official capacity. Unfortunately, TPUSA—at the highest levels—does not care about these “pesky” legal requirements. Instead, it repeatedly, openly, and notoriously flouts these rules, even to the point of posting merchandise on their website that uses MAHA campaign slogans.

In fact, in Indiana, those allied with the current Trump Regime have attempted to solidify partnerships with TPUSA precisely to force TPUSA chapters onto their state’s educational institutions, threatening to punish any school that gets in their way. At that point, a local TPUSA chapter is less like a free association of students in a spirit of free inquiry and more like a Trumpian version of Chairman Mao’s Red Guard.

More on this may be forthcoming. Stay tuned.

Yup, here we are. It’s the Big Beautiful Middle Finger again.

You see, with every year comes new opportunities, new life changes, and, unfortunately, some new problems.

This year, here in America, the One Big Beautiful Bill is one of those problems. Of course, as unpopular as the Bill has been among the public and even a decent chunk of Republicans, many people sadly still do not know exactly how much they are getting the Big Beautiful Middle Finger.

With that in mind, I wanted to try to publish a series of posts explaining the Big Beautiful Middle Finger. These posts will describe how it affects Americans of almost all walks of life. For most people, it will affect life for the worse. For the Trump family and the other members of the Epstein-Loving Upper Class, though, it will be a boon—all at your expense.

Without further ado,

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____________________________________________________________________________

After our prior post on how the Big Beautiful Middle Finger will affect student loans, let’s discuss how the Big Beautiful Middle Finger should be thought of as a “double reverse Robin Hood.”

It all starts with our national debt. The Big Beautiful Middle Finger’s cuts to social services for people living paycheck-to-paycheck, poor people, and middle-class people are all meant to finance an extension of Trump 1.0-era tax cuts to the rich.

These tax cuts amount to more than $4 trillion in lost federal government revenue. That number, by the way, includes the money Trump and Congress “saved” via cuts to social services like Medicare and Medicaid.

I know what you’re thinking. It’s a reverse Robin Hood, right? Yet that’s not even the full story…

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As a few of my posts have mentioned, during the era of true “Kennedy Democrats,” the tax rate on the top income-earners (i.e., the rich) used to be 91%. In those days, the federal government used to collect double the effective tax rate from the rich that we do today. From that money, the government funded the social services that the rest of us rely on to survive and thrive.

In the 1980s and 1990s, when the Epstein Class effectively hijacked both parties, this dynamic changed. Now, the main way the rich “contribute” to our debt is by lending our government the funds it needs to stay afloat. All in all, that means the interest in our debt is actually going to many of the same richest Americans who created our debt problem through tax cuts.

In other words, let’s say, just for argument’s sake, the top 0.01% of income-earners in America pay $1 trillion less in taxes because of the Big Beautiful Middle Finger. If these same people lend $1 trillion to the government, they will get the benefit of that extra $1 trillion plus interest. In fact, we are currently paying more in interest on the debt than we are spending on the military and Medicaid.

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No, it can’t be that obvious, you say. But it is. Most of the people and corporations that lend our government funds are American, not foreigners.

This entire situation is a fitting symbol of exactly what is wrong with the American economy today. And the Trump Administration, in passing the Big Beautiful Middle Finger, has sold us off to the Epstein Class as debt slaves.

But as for me, “give me liberty or give me death!”

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Yup, you heard it here first, folks: Mr. (Michael) Salzillo Went to Providence.

Well, technically, he lives in Providence, so…

He actually went to the State House to watch the testimony regarding homeless encampment notices in light of Mayor Smiley’s War on the Poor and Homeless.

However, when it got later in the night, and testimony was harder and harder to come by, Mike stepped up to the plate to offer his take.

And what a take it was. Very proud of you, Mike!

I enclose the site where you can find his testimony here. At about 2:44:53, Rep. Casey calls out for a Michael “Salaizzo.” However, Mr. “Salaizzo” himself first appears around the 2:45:39 mark. Give it a listen.

And th-th-th-that’s all for this week, folks!

Spring Break!!!!

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

- “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who

Judging by his Truth Social posts, Trump clearly wants himself to be seen as the liberator of Iran.

Yet make no mistake about it. He and his regime and his ally in Benjamin “the Butcher of Gaza” Netanyahu are no liberators. Quite the contrary.

How do I know? Through one simple story about how Trump and Netanyahu chose to fight this war:

At least 115 dead. In a girls’ elementary school in the southern city of Minab, Iran.

Why?

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I should perhaps leave it at that. In many ways, it speaks for itself. But let me ask anyway…

What “necessity” could justify it, especially when the U.S. and Israeli strikes could be so precise as to pinpoint exactly where they could best kill the Ayatollah and many of his senior officials in one fell swoop?

Could it be a “mistake,” you ask? Well, what a mistake to make. This senseless loss of life occurred during a mid-morning strike. At a school that had, since 2016, been walled off and no longer connected to the IRGC naval base nearby. In a war where Trump and his allies bragged about the precision of our attacks.

What precision. And what inhumanity.

And what irony: we (rightly) criticize the Ayatollah for killing people who protest for the right not to wear a hijab, only to kill schoolgirls before they are of age to even wear the hijab.

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I think the message that Trump and Netanyahu are sending is clear:

“Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”

Prepare accordingly.

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