So Much Badness

by Errington C. Thompson, MD –

Before we begin, I want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season.

Please don’t let anyone steal your joy. Let’s follow Christ’s example and love one another.

For the past several months, I’ve struggled to write this column. In previous years, there was usually a dominant topic I could focus on—immigration, the economy, Iraq, Iran, poverty…. With Trump, the topic shifts every 30 seconds. There’s nothing to zero in on, which is his strategy [what his advisor Steve Bannon called “flood the zone”]. So, my counter-strategy is to cover as many topics as possible without making the reader nauseous from confusion.

Afghan Refugees

Just the other day, a gunman shot two National Guard police officers in DC. One of the National Guard members was a woman who died, and the other is in critical condition.

The gunman immigrated to the United States from Afghanistan right after we withdrew from Afghanistan. This man was vetted by the Biden Administration and granted asylum by the Trump Administration. Was the man radicalized in the United States? Should the man have been allowed into the United States in the first place?

National Public Radio reports that someone close to this man has told them he was experiencing a personal or mental crisis of some sort. Should we vilify all Afghans because of the actions of one man?

Venezuela: War Crimes or Murder?

We continue to target boats off the coast of Venezuela. Why? Because Trump has told us that these boats are carrying drugs bound for the US. The Trump administration has provided no evidence that these boats were carrying anything other than people. Now The Washington Post is reporting that one of these missile strikes left survivors. The report stated that Pete Hegseth gave the order to kill all survivors.

Kill all the survivors? What is this, some Star Wars movie where the Empire destroys an innocent planet?

“Essentially Murder”

Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who lost her legs when her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, said in a Dec. 7 Fox News interview, “It was essentially murder with that double-tap strike…”

“I’ve been shot down behind enemy lines,” she continued. “Under the laws of war, if a pilot bails out and he’s in a rubber dinghy in the middle of the ocean … you are supposed to help render aid to that individual, even if they have a radio and they’re calling for their side to come pick them up. You’re not allowed to go back in and kill them, even if you know that they’re going to conduct future operations against you. That’s the Geneva Convention.

And so everything that they did here was illegal.”

The right keeps telling us that we are a Christian nation, but we don’t seem to act as if we have ever read the words of Christ. If these boats are really carrying drugs, we should stop the boats, arrest everyone on board, and bring them to trial. We should NOT be blowing up these boats without any evidence of wrongdoing. We should NOT be killing survivors.

(Not) Tough on Crime

So the Trump administration aims to be tough on crime. They want to eliminate drug crimes in the US. Part of the reason Trump threatened tariffs against Mexico and Canada was to pressure them into stopping the flow of drugs into the US. Then Trump granted a full pardon to the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who is serving a 45-year sentence for drug and weapons crimes. Hernández was accused of running a narco-state, meaning he used Honduras’s police and military to traffic guns and drugs. Some estimate he imported over 400 tons of cocaine into the US. If you want to crack down on drugs flooding the US, why pardon Hernández? What did Trump gain from granting his pardon?

“Clean, Lean, Mean” …

Oh, by the way, several months ago, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, called over 800 generals and admirals to Quantico, VA. These included 1- to 4-star generals. If the Secretary of Defense has gathered this many top commanders, it must be important, right? Perhaps a new strategic plan to confront Russia or North Korea. Maybe someone hacked into the Pentagon and compromised our most sensitive plans. But no. It was really about optics.

Hegseth talked about physical fitness and facial hair. And being “tough.” (clean, lean, and mean). No, seriously. That’s why he called the top brass together.

It’s hard to describe how crazy this was. All of this could have been handled via email, but instead, Hegseth and Trump spent millions of taxpayer dollars to lecture generals about being clean-shaven.

… and Leaky

The Pentagon just released its findings of Hegseth’s Signal (messaging app) text in which he mistakenly included an Atlantic reporter in the chat. In other words, strike plans were leaked before they got underway. The Pentagon Inspector General concluded that Hegseth had broken Pentagon protocol and could have endangered the lives of service members. This conclusion was obvious from the moment this story broke more than five months ago.

Trump and the Law

Trump’s election interference case has been dismissed in Georgia. I’m speechless and disappointed. I was hoping that someone would hold Trump accountable for his many crimes.

Peter Skandalakis, head of Georgia’s State Prosecutors Council—who assigned himself the case after the original prosecutor Fani Willis was disqualified—said he chose to drop the case for two reasons. First, it would take too long, because Trump’s term runs until January 2029, and “by that point, eight years will have elapsed” since the alleged election interference happened. And second, it would be too expensive: “Our agency is simply not equipped to carry out this case while meeting the essential duties required under the current budget.”

Is our system unable to hold the most powerful accountable?

On the other hand, a Virginia grand jury has refused to indict NY Attorney General Letitia James, who is the only person so far who has held Trump accountable for his crimes. In 2024 she won her civil case for financial fraud against Trump, along with a $355 million penalty, so he tried to indict her for … financial fraud. It seems “taking too much time and too much money” was not a factor at all—when it was a case of Trump trying to prosecute a Democrat.

The Big Budget Busting Bill

Why are we cutting SNAP benefits (used to be called food stamps)? I don’t understand. It seems like the economy is mediocre at best. We really can’t trust the numbers the Bureau of Labor is releasing because Trump appointed his own crony to lead it. Yet the GOP thought it wanted to cut waste and fraud. They pulled a number out of the air and decided that would fix the problem.

Making up a budget number does not fix fraud and waste. You have to do the hard work of diving into the budget. Examine every line item. Ask the tough, boring questions. How much did we pay for bacon last year? Is that the best price? Should we use another vendor? Can this vendor lower their prices?

This is how you identify and eliminate waste. Americans spent about $100 billion on SNAP benefits last year. Forty-two million Americans depend on SNAP.

SNAP is the low-hanging fruit. Every administration for the previous 20 years has tried to restructure and reform SNAP. Trump and his GOP pals have cut $187 billion over 10 years, which is about 17-20% of the projected SNAP budget. I don’t think that this will cut any waste or fraud. I believe that it will hurt Americans who need our help. This is punishing the poor for being poor.

The Big Budget Busting bill adds $4.1 Trillion to the deficit. You don’t need to be an economist to understand that it is a HUGE number. This can not be good for the economy, and it isn’t. It limits student loan amounts so that poor and middle-income students can’t borrow as much, thereby excluding them from “better” schools or from pursuing advanced degrees.

The GOP gave ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) an additional $100 billion to round up and deport economic refugees (illegal immigrants). The New York Times has reviewed ICE’s data and found that few of these economic refugees have criminal records, and even fewer have a history of violent crime (2%-3%). What are we doing? Just throwing money at ICE for them to imitate the most vulnerable.

Shutdown

Remember the government shutdown? Principled Democrats decided that the $1 trillion cut to Medicaid was the final straw. They would not open the government without restoring Medicaid funds. These cuts would harm millions of Americans. The Democrats wanted some negotiation, some dialogue. While the government was shut down, the GOP decided that the government shouldn’t pay full SNAP benefits. So the GOP was going to hurt more Americans. The Democrats caved. There is an agreement in the Senate to vote on the Affordable Care Act tax credits sometime in December. It seems like the Democrats gained very little for their efforts, and the government is only funded through the middle of January.

Hepatitis B and Vaccines

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is just finished discussing the hepatitis B vaccine, which is recommended for newborns. Critics argue that since hepatitis B is a sexually transmitted disease, newborns don’t need the vaccine. However, infected mothers can transmit the disease to their newborns. Additionally, the virus can be spread through contact with contaminated surfaces in daycare, by using an infected toothbrush, and through various other routes. Therefore, it is not entirely accurate to say it is only a sexually transmitted disease.

Another concern is that when newborns and children contract hepatitis B, the illness tends to be more severe than in adults. Newborns and children develop chronic hepatitis at a much higher rate than adults. Chronic hepatitis can result in cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Since the implementation of universal vaccination, the incidence of hepatitis B in children has decreased by 90%. Ninety percent! Taiwan, which began universal vaccination earlier (1984), provides the most comprehensive long-term data. They observed a 70–80% reduction in liver cancer rates among children and young adults (ages 6–26) compared to those born before the vaccine was available. Childhood mortality from chronic liver disease also declined by over 90%. The data clearly show that the vaccine is safe and effective, and it is saving children’s lives.

Christmas

At this time of year, our focus should be on what truly matters. If you are a Christian, this doesn’t mean decorating a Christmas tree or putting up the brightest lights in the neighborhood. It certainly doesn’t mean shopping until you drop. Instead, we should feed the hungry and clothe the poor. Jesus teaches us to invite a stranger into our home. (Matthew 25:35-37) Once again, it is about love.

Merry Christmas!

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed here, as well as assertions of facts, are those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Urban News.