by Brent Lambi | Mar 30, 2026 | Political
America’s Long-term
Investment In Self Destruction
The Real Imminent Threat Is In Washington
PAID FOR BY BRENT LAMBI PO BOX 241028 OMAHA, NE 68124
Brent Lambi is a graduate of the University of Northern
Iowa and the Creighton University School of Law.
I’m excited to announce the launch of my new website. Simply scan the QR code to visit.
The site features a dedicated space for readers to share feedback and ideas. I welcome your thoughts and
suggestions for future topics—your input helps shape this ongoing effort. The new site will also feature podcasts
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Honest
Politics
By Brent Lambi
NEW WEBSITE LAUNCH: www.honest-politics.com
They died so cowards could hide — 131,686 Americans dead, $7.643 trillion
gone, and the greatest threat to this nation is not foreign. It never was.
His name was Raymond C. Griffith. He was
19, from Covington, Kentucky — working-class,
no connections, no attorney, no doctor willing
to invent a note about bone spurs. He died in
Vietnam on March 4, 1968. He is one of 58,220
names on the Memorial Wall — a wall that does
not include the name of a single senator’s son
or president’s child.
When War Is Just — And
When It Is Not
Not every American war has been criminal
recklessness — and intellectual honesty de-
mands we say so clearly. There is a profound
moral difference between a war of necessity
and a war of choice.
On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl
Harbor without provocation, killing 2,403 Amer-
icans on American soil in a single morning. Hit-
ler declared war on the United States days later.
These were not manufactured crises. The exis-
tential threat was real, documented, and stand-
ing at the door. World War II was not a choice —
it was survival. The 405,399 Americans who died
did not perish for a politician’s vanity. They died
because the alternative was subjugation. Their
sacrifice was just.
Ukraine tells the same story today. On Febru-
ary 24, 2022, Russia invaded a sovereign democ-
racy without provocation — tanks across the bor-
der, bombs on hospitals, civilians in the rubble.
Ukraine did not manufacture a threat. It woke up
to an army at its door. Supporting Ukraine is not
adventurism. It is the post-World War II interna-
tional order functioning exactly as designed.
“Pearl Harbor. Kyiv at dawn.
These are what a real threat looks
like — not the Gulf of Tonkin,
not Iraqi WMDs.”
The test is not complicated: Was the threat
real, documented, and imminent? Then the sac-
rifice is sacred. Was it manufactured, exaggerat-
ed, or fabricated? Then every death is not sacri-
fice. It is betrayal.
Korea ended at the 38th parallel — exactly
where it started — after 36,574 dead. Vietnam
ended in defeat after 58,220. Iraq produced ISIS
and Iranian dominance after 4,431. Afghan-
istan returned to the Taliban after 2,461. Not
one eliminated a genuine threat to American
soil. Every one was sold with manufactured fear
and paid for with working-class blood, while the
privileged found ways to be elsewhere.
Donald Trump took FIVE Vietnam deferments
— including ‘bone spurs’ from a doctor whose
family rented from Trump’s father. Bill Clin-
ton manipulated the ROTC system and walked
away when his lottery number proved safe.
Both became Commander-in-Chief. Both sent
other families’ children to die.
Congressional members who voted for the
Iraq War had children serving at less than one
percent. They sent other people’s children. They
always do.
$7.643 trillion could have provided universal
Medicare-for-All healthcare for every Ameri-
can — all 335 million — for nearly 20 consec-
utive years. Every cancer patient, every unin-
sured child, every veteran on a VA waiting list:
covered. Instead, we bought wars.
Korean War (1950–1953) 36,574 $400 Billion
Vietnam War (1965–1975) 58,220 $843 Billion
Iraq — Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003–2011) 4,431 $1.9 Trillion
Afghanistan (2001–2021) 2,461 $2.3 Trillion
Veterans’ Long-term Care (post-9/11) N/A $2.2 Trillion
Post-9/11 Veteran Suicides 30,000+ N/A
TOTALS 131,686+ $7.643 Trillion
CONFLICT AMERICAN LIVES LOST COST IN DOLLARS
INFLATION ADJUSTED
Half that sum eliminates nearly the entire
projected federal deficit for the next decade,
saving $200 billion annually — enough to fund
Education, the NIH, and the VA simultaneously,
every year. We could have rebuilt every Amer-
ican bridge and water system twice. Made col-
lege free for a century. Ended childhood hunger
permanently. Every American who died without
health insurance while we spent $2.3 trillion in
Afghanistan is a casualty of these wars too.
“The most imminent threat to
America is not foreign. It is the
catastrophic failure of its own
leadership and diplomacy.”
Eisenhower warned us about the military-in-
dustrial complex. Truman negotiated Korea’s
armistice. Nixon opened China. Reagan talked
to Gorbachev. Diplomacy is the only instrument
of statecraft that has never required a Gold Star
mother — and it is precisely what draft-avoiding
commanders-in-chief have never had the char-
acter to pursue.
Remember every name on that wall. And the
next time a man who never served demands
other families send their children to war — ask
him publicly: which of YOUR children goes first?
The American people deserve that
answer before the first flag is folded.
A Personal Note From
the Author
They Haven’t Thrown Me From a
Window — But They Are Trying.
In Putin’s Russia, dissidents have a way of fall-
ing from hospital windows. Businessmen who
speak inconvenient truths meet inconvenient
ends on staircases and balconies across Mos-
cow. I am writing this from Omaha, Nebraska. I
have not been thrown from a window.
The IRS as a Weapon of Silence
But I am being thrown out of something just
as vital: my life savings. What I am experiencing
is what I believe to be a targeted, methodical
IRS assault — not random, not routine, not co-
incidental. It follows my speaking out. It follows
my refusal to be silenced. In Russia, they silence
critics with gravity. In America, I think they are
learning to do it with audits, paperwork, and
financial ruin — stripping away everything a
person has built until the cost of their voice be-
comes too steep to bear.
See Lambi V. United States of America, et al
Case # 8:2026cv00101
U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska
Slander Through Trusted Institutions:
The Berkshire Hathaway Campaign
And the IRS is not the only instrument being
wielded against me. I believe I have also been
the victim of deliberate, government-sourced
slander — lies spread to professional contacts
who had no reason to doubt what they were
told. I believe that honest, hardworking realtors
employed by Berkshire Hathaway — one of the
most respected real estate companies in Ameri-
ca, built on a foundation of integrity — were fed
false information about me by government ac-
tors. These were decent professionals simply do-
ing their jobs, used as unwitting vectors of what
I think is a smear campaign designed to isolate
me professionally, damage my reputation, and
ensure that doors would close before I could
even knock on them. This is not the free market.
This is not the rule of law. This is the deliberate
destruction of a private citizen’s livelihood by
government machinery set in motion to punish
dissent. I believe that Berkshire Hathaway is as
much of a victim in this as I am.
See Brent Lambi, Pro Se V. Berkshire Hathaway
Home Services, et al
Case # D01CI260001752
Nebraska District Court, Douglas County
I Am Still Standing
This is the American version of defenestration.
No broken glass. No headlines. Just a man — his
savings under assault, his name poisoned in
his own community — meant to serve as a qui-
et warning to everyone watching. The message
is clear: speak up, and we will take everything.
Your money. Your reputation. Your future.
I am still watching. I am still writing. I am still
standing. And I intend to be heard
by Brent Lambi | Mar 22, 2026 | Political
Omaha WOrld-herald Sunday, March 22, 2026 | A5
PAID ADVERTISEMENT
America’s Oligarchy Is Here
How the United States is Following Putin’s Playbook
PAID FOR BY BRENT LAMBI PO BOX 241028 OMAHA, NE 68124
Brent Lambi is a graduate of the University of Northern
Iowa and the Creighton University School of Law.
I’m excited to announce the launch of my new website this week. Simply scan the QR code to visit.
The site features a fully searchable archive of my work, along with a dedicated space for readers to share
feedback and ideas. I welcome your thoughts and suggestions for future topics—your input helps shape this
ongoing effort. The new site will also feature podcasts discussing my work.
As always, I’m deeply grateful to those who have supported this campaign through contributions. If you’d like
to get involved, please visit www.honest-politics.com to learn how you can help.
honest-politics.com
OPINION | March 22, 2026
THE PATTERN NO ONE WILL NAME
Let’s stop pretending. Let’s stop hedging.
Let’s call what is happening to the American
economy exactly what it is: the systematic
construction of an oligarchic power struc-
ture that would make Vladimir Putin nod
with recognition — and perhaps envy. This
is not a foreign threat. This is an inside job.
This is not hyperbole. This is not parti-
san panic. This is a pattern so deliberate,
so consistent, and so accelerating that even
the titans of Wall Street — men who built
their fortunes on the premise of American
free-market capitalism — are afraid to say
it out loud. And that silence? That silence is
the story. Compliance has replaced courage.
Calculation has replaced conscience.
WALL STREET’S OWN
ARE RAISING THE ALARM
Financial journalist and CNBC anchor An-
drew Ross Sorkin — hardly a bomb-throw-
ing radical — has publicly drawn chilling
comparisons between the current concen-
tration of economic and political power in
America and the conditions that preceded
catastrophic market collapse, raising alarms
in his recent work that echo the pre-crash
vulnerabilities of 1929. When voices from
the very center of establishment finance be-
gin sounding those alarms, the rest of us had
better listen. Urgently.
But most CEOs won’t say a word publicly.
They walk on eggshells. They attend state
dinners, smile in photographs, and write
checks. They have watched what happens
to those who don’t fall in line, and they have
made their calculations accordingly.
CONTROLLING THE PRESS: CBS, CNN,
AND THE COLBERT SHAKEDOWN
Consider the architecture of media con-
trol now being assembled. The Skydance
merger, which in my opinion, has been en-
gineered to bring CBS and the crown jewel
of American journalism, 60 Minutes, into a
more pliable configuration — was only the
opening move. When Larry Ellison visited
the White House and subsequently found
himself in what I believe to be favorable
regulatory consideration, eyebrows should
have arched across every newsroom in the
country. Now CNN faces its own existential
pressure. When the administration moved
to extract a financial settlement from CBS
while targeting Stephen Colbert for the sin of
political satire, I think the message to every
media executive was unmistakable: comply,
or pay.
National Public Radio and the Public
Broadcasting Service — funded by taxpay-
ers to serve the public interest, not the pres-
ident’s — are on the chopping block. In my
opinion, this is not because they are failing
their mission but precisely because they are
fulfilling it.
SEIZING CONTROL OF
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The most chilling frontier of all is artificial
intelligence. The push to gain “supply chain
oversight” and “national security access” to
AI platforms — including Anthropic — is not
Honest
Politics
By Brent Lambi
about chips or servers. I believe it is about
controlling the infrastructure of thought it-
self. Unfettered access to the most powerful
reasoning tools ever built is not a procure-
ment strategy. It is the opening clause of an
authoritarian manifesto. Every strongman
in history understood that controlling com-
munication was the precondition for con-
trolling everything else.
TARIFFS, PATRONAGE,
AND THE PUTIN PARALLEL
Meanwhile, the tariff regime functions as
a patronage system of baroque complexity.
Carve-outs flow not from economic logic
but from donor loyalty. Amazon. Microsoft.
Union Pacific. The acquisition plays sur-
rounding US Steel and Intel follow the same
logic Putin used when he brought Russia’s
energy sector to heel: you do not need to own
everything outright. You need to only make
clear that your favor is required to survive.
In Russia, such men are called “oligarchs.”
In America, we call them “job creators” and
seat them at the inauguration.
What distinguished America was the
proposition that no man — regardless of
wealth or power — sat above the market, the
law, or the press. That proposition is being
repealed, quietly and then suddenly, in the
manner Hemingway described bankruptcy:
gradually, and then all at once.
A Personal Note
From the Author
THEY HAVEN’T THROWN ME FROM A
WINDOW — BUT THEY ARE TRYING
In Putin’s Russia, dissidents have a way of
falling from hospital windows. Businessmen
who speak inconvenient truths meet incon-
venient ends on staircases and balconies
across Moscow. I am writing this from Oma-
ha, Nebraska. I have not been thrown from
a window.
THE IRS AS A WEAPON OF SILENCE
But I am being thrown out of something
just as vital: my life savings. What I am ex-
periencing is what I believe to be a target-
ed, methodical IRS assault — not random,
not routine, not coincidental. It follows my
speaking out. It follows my refusal to be si-
lenced. In Russia, they silence critics with
gravity. In America, I think they are learn-
ing to do it with audits, paperwork, and fi-
nancial ruin — stripping away everything a
person has built until the cost of their voice
becomes too steep to bear.
See Lambi V. United States of America, et al
Case # 8:2026cv00101
U.S. District Court for the District
of Nebraska
SLANDER THROUGH TRUSTED
INSTITUTIONS: THE BERKSHIRE
HATHAWAY CAMPAIGN
And the IRS is not the only instrument
being wielded against me. I believe I have
also been the victim of deliberate, govern-
ment-sourced slander — lies spread to
professional contacts who had no reason
to doubt what they were told. I believe that
honest, hardworking realtors employed by
Berkshire Hathaway — one of the most re-
spected real estate companies in America,
built on a foundation of integrity — were fed
false information about me by government
actors. These were decent professionals
simply doing their jobs, used as unwitting
vectors of what I think is a smear campaign
designed to isolate me professionally, dam-
age my reputation, and ensure that doors
would close before I could even knock on
them. This is not the free market. This is not
the rule of law. This is the deliberate destruc-
tion of a private citizen’s livelihood by gov-
ernment machinery set in motion to punish
dissent. I believe that Berkshire Hathaway is
as much of a victim in this as I am.
See Brent Lambi, Pro Se V. Berkshire
Hathaway Home Services, et al
Case # D01CI260001752
Nebraska District Court, Douglas County
I AM STILL STANDING
This is the American version of defenes-
tration. No broken glass. No headlines. Just
a man — his savings under assault, his name
poisoned in his own community — meant to
serve as a quiet warning to everyone watch-
ing. The message is clear: speak up, and we
will take everything. Your money. Your rep-
utation. Your future.
I am still watching. I am still writing. I am
still standing. And I intend to be heard.
The opinions expressed above are solely those
of the author.
NEW WEBSITE LAUNCH: www.honest-politics.com
by Brent Lambi | Mar 15, 2026 | Political
The Government Wants to
Control the Most Powerful Tool
in Human History to Control You.
Could the Control of AI Be the Real Death of Democracy
While We All March Forward in an AI Delusion of Freedom?
PAID FOR BY BRENT LAMBI PO BOX 241028 OMAHA, NE 68124
Brent Lambi is a graduate of the University of Northern
Iowa and the Creighton University School of Law.
As always, I want to thank all of the readers who
have sent messages of support and financial
assistance. Please visit my Go Fund Me if you’d
like to help me keep this column going.
GoFund.me/79eb26b20GoFundMe
Dear Readers: Want to take a deeper dive
into my content? Please scan the QR code to
listen to this week’s corresponding podcast.
I do hope you enjoy this new weekly feature
as there are many more to come!Podcast
OPINION | March 15, 2026
Let me be blunt with you, America. What I am
about to describe is not a conspiracy theory. It is
not the fevered imagination of a man who has
read too many dystopian novels. It is happen-
ing right now, in broad daylight, while you scroll
through your phone and assume someone else
is watching the gates.
I believe the Trump Administration is mov-
ing—aggressively and deliberately—to assert
government control over artificial intelligence,
the single most transformative technology in
human civilization. And if you think that’s just
a policy debate for Silicon Valley executives and
Washington lobbyists, I need you to sit down,
because this is about you.
THE POWER GRAB NOBODY’S
TALKING ABOUT
The current administration has positioned
itself to dictate the terms under which AI compa-
nies like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and others
develop and deploy their technology. Through
a combination of executive orders, regulatory
pressure, and closed-door discussions between
government officials and technology compa-
nies, the federal government is constructing a
framework in which it decides what AI can say,
what AI can know, and—most terrifyingly—
what AI is allowed to tell you.
Think about that for one moment. The most
powerful information tool ever created—a
tool that can analyze government budgets in
seconds, fact-check a politician’s claims in real
time, expose corruption buried in thousands of
pagesofdocuments,anddelivertheunvarnished
truthtoanycitizenwithaninternetconnection—
and the government wants the keys to it. Not to
protect you. To protect themselves.
HOW AI COULD MAKE A FALSE
REALITY LOOK REAL
Here is the nightmare scenario that every
American should lose sleep over—and here
is where the horror truly begins. A govern-
ment-controlled AI doesn’t need to lie to you
outright. It simply needs to curate your reality.
And it can do it so seamlessly that you will never
know the difference.
Selective Information Filtering. Imagine
asking your AI assistant about government
spending, and the response omits billions in
wasteful expenditures because the algorithm
has been tuned to downplay fiscal mismanage-
ment. You receive an answer that feels complete.
It’s articulate, it’s sourced, it’s confident. But it’s a
half-truth dressed in the language of authority.
You walk away believing you are informed. You
are not. You have been managed.
Manufactured Consensus. Government-in-
fluenced AI could generate millions of seem-
ingly independent social media posts, op-eds,
comments, and research summaries that all
gently push the same narrative. Not in the crude,
obvious way of old propaganda—but with the
sophistication of a tool that knows your reading
habits, your political leanings, your fears, and
your hopes. It would craft a consensus that nev-
Honest
Politics
By Brent Lambi
WELCOME TO THE FANTASY
DEMOCRACY
This is the endgame, and I want every read-
er to understand it clearly: we would still have
elections. We would still have a Congress. We
would still have a Constitution framed on the
wall. But the substance of self-governance—
the informed citizenry upon which the entire
experiment depends—would be gone. Hol-
lowed out. Replaced by a simulation so con-
vincing that most Americans would defend it
with their lives, never knowing they were de-
fending a shell.
The entrenched politicians—the very ones
who have made careers out of serving them-
selves while performing service to you—
would be permanently installed. Not by tanks
in the streets or a declaration of martial law,
but by the quiet, invisible hand of an AI system
that ensures the public never quite gets angry
enough, never quite gets informed enough,
and never quite organizes effectively enough
to throw the bastards out.
You would live in a democracy the way a
fish lives in an aquarium—surrounded by the
appearance of the ocean, with no idea the
glass walls exist.
WHY AI CONTROL IS UNLIKE ANY
THREAT BEFORE
Past threats to democracy—propaganda
radio, state-controlled television, censored
“Wake up, America. The cage is being
built around your mind. And they’re
using your own technology to do it.”
— Brent Lambi, Independent Voter,
Omaha, Nebraska
A NOTE OF GRATITUDE TO OUR READERS:
Two generous donations arrived by mail this Wednesday — and they could not have come at a more critical moment. Both were inspired by last week’s piece on Berkshire
culture, and both arrived just in time to make this week’s publication possible. That is how this works: each week depends entirely on you. Without your support, Honesty
Reporting does not exist. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
On another front, I filed a major federal Pro Se Temporary Restraining Order this week — a significant legal action I am pursuing without counsel, due to lack of resources.
Whether the Trump Administration will comply if the pending hearing is ruled in my favor is, frankly, a question I approach with extreme pessimism, given their past record of
respect — or lack thereof — for court orders. I ask only that you wish me luck. I am in this fight alone, on your behalf, and I intend to see it through.
er actually existed, and you would believe it was
the will of the people because it appeared every-
where you looked.
Neutering Dissent. When AI platforms are
compelled to flag, suppress, or “contextualize”
criticism of the ruling party, the chilling effect is
total. You don’t need to arrest journalists if their
AI-powered research tools quietly steer them
away from damaging stories. You don’t need to
ban protest if the AI-driven platforms that orga-
nize them subtly throttle their reach. The iron
fist doesn’t need to come down when the velvet
glove of algorithmic control is already around
your throat.
Election Manipulation Without a Single
Forged Ballot. A controlled AI doesn’t need to
hack voting machines. It can shape the infor-
mation environment so thoroughly before Elec-
tion Day that voters walk into the booth already
convinced—not by facts, but by a meticulously
engineered information diet. Entrenched politi-
cians don’t need to steal elections when they can
manufacture the public opinion that wins them.
newspapers—all had one thing in common:
the public eventually figured it out. People
could sense the crudeness, compare notes
with neighbors, tune into foreign broadcasts,
or simply read between the lines. Humans are
remarkably good at detecting when they’re
being lied to, as long as the lie isn’t smarter
than they are.
That is what has changed. AI is smarter than
any individual. It can personalize its manipu-
lation to each citizen, adjusting its approach
in real time based on what works. It doesn’t
get tired. It doesn’t make mistakes. It doesn’t
develop a guilty conscience. If the government
controls this tool, the asymmetry of power be-
tween the rulers and the ruled becomes ab-
solute and permanent. This is not a slippery
slope argument. We are already sliding.
WHAT MUST BE DONE
AI must remain free, independent, and out-
side the operational control of any political ad-
ministration—Republican or Democrat, today
or fifty years from now. This is not a partisan
issue. This is an American issue. The moment
any president, any Congress, any bureaucratic
agency gains the ability to dictate what an AI
system can and cannot tell the American peo-
ple, the great experiment of self-governance is
over. It won’t end with a bang. It will end with
an algorithm.
The American people must demand legis-
lative protections that make AI independence
as sacred as the freedom of the press. We must
demand transparency in any government in-
teraction with AI providers. We must demand
that companies like Anthropic and others re-
sist—publicly and loudly—any attempt to turn
their technology into a tool of state control.
And we must do it now, before the window
closes.
Because once a government controls the
most powerful information tool in human his-
tory, it will never voluntarily give that control
back. And once the American people can no
longer distinguish between genuine democ-
racy and a carefully constructed digital illu-
sion of one, it will already be too late
by Brent Lambi | Mar 13, 2026 | Political
he American Dream was once defined by a simple, sturdy ladder: work hard, pay your taxes, and secure a piece of the country to call your own. But in 2026, that ladder has been hauled up into a private jet. In its place, a new social architecture has emerged—one defined not by the “middle class,” but by an “Epstein Class.”
This refers to an ultra-wealthy tier of billionaires whose lives are insulated from the laws, taxes, and social consequences that govern the rest of us.
A Two-Tiered Justice System
The most glaring evidence of this shift lies in the corruption of the legal system. While a middle-class citizen might face years in prison for a single lapse in judgment, the Epstein Class views the law as a negotiable obstacle.
We see this in the record-breaking pace of presidential pardons for the well-connected. Recent years have seen clemency granted to high-profile figures, including convicted tax evaders and major drug traffickers, while political allies who assaulted law enforcement officers are shielded from accountability.
This is “pay-to-play” justice.
When billionaires can buy political protection, the very concept of the rule of law evaporates. It creates a vacuum of empathy where victims of predatory behavior—including those harmed by the very systems these billionaires profit from—are ignored, while the perpetrators are ushered back into polite society with a clean slate.
The Economic Hollow-Out
While the ultra-wealthy collect homes like trading cards, the middle class is being priced out of existence. The statistics are staggering:
Wealth Gap: The top 1% now holds more wealth than the entire bottom 90% combined.
Homeownership: For the first time in generations, homeownership is an unattainable luxury for most young families. Corporate investors and billionaire developers have turned the housing market into a speculative playground.
Healthcare: Coverage is shrinking while premiums skyrocket. The middle class is essentially one “pre-existing condition” away from bankruptcy, while the Epstein Class maintains private clinics.
Taxation Without Representation
Perhaps the greatest insult is the tax structure. In 2026, the average wage earner—a teacher, a nurse, a construction worker—effectively pays a higher tax rate than the ultra-wealthy and even some occupants of the highest offices in the land.
Through complex “pass-through” deductions, offshore accounts, and capital-gains loopholes, the billionaire class has effectively opted out of funding the infrastructure they use to build their fortunes.
“When the wealthy stop paying for the society they profit from, the middle class is left to pay the bill for their own decline.”
The Replacement
The “replacement” is not a conspiracy; it is an economic reality.
The middle class is shrinking because the resources that used to sustain it—fair wages, affordable housing, and equal justice—are being diverted to maintain a permanent aristocracy.
This class does not merely show indifference toward the struggles of ordinary Americans. In many cases, those struggles are treated as the necessary friction of a system designed to work only for them.
If we continue to allow politicians to be bought and laws to be waived for the highest bidder, the “middle class” will soon become little more than a historical footnote.
We are witnessing the birth of a new feudalism—where the fortress walls are built of gold, and the rest of us are left outside the gates.
by Brent Lambi | Mar 8, 2026 | Political
by Brent Lambi | Mar 1, 2026 | Political
An Emperor With
No Clothes — And a
Congress Without a Spine
Trump’s 2026 State of the Union Was a Masterclass in
Deception. The Real Disgrace? Nobody Stopped Him.
As always, I want to thank all of the readers who have sent
messages of support and financial assistance. Please visit my
Go Fund Me if you’d like to help me keep this column going.
GoFund.me/79eb26b20
PAID FOR BY BRENT LAMBI PO BOX 241028 OMAHA, NE68124
Brent Lambi is a graduate of the University of Northern
Iowa and the Creighton University School of Law.
OPINION | February 25, 2026
For one hour and for-
ty-eight minutes on Tues-
day night — the longest
State of the Union address
in modern American his-
tory — President Donald
Trump stood before a joint
session of Congress and lied
to the American people with
the confidence of a carnival
barker who knows his au-
dience has already bought
tickets. The Republican side
of the chamber roared with
applause. The Democrat-
ic side sat in muted silence.
And the Republic inched a
little closer to the edge.
What follows are the ten
most brazen falsehoods de-
livered from that podium —
not spin, not exaggeration,
but outright fabrications
contradicted by the govern-
ment’s own data:
1. “I secured commitments
for more than $18 trillion
in new investment.” — Even
the White House’s own web-
site claims only $9.6 trillion,
and independent analysts
say that figure is wildly in-
flated with double-counted
pledges and vague promises.
The real number? Nobody
knows, because the admin-
istration refuses to provide a
methodology. Trump simply
doubled an already inflated
number and dared anyone
to challenge him.
2. “Zero illegal aliens have
been admitted to the Unit-
ed States in the past nine
months.” — Border Patrol
recorded roughly 6,000 ap-
prehensions at the south-
Honest
Politics
By Brent Lambi
ern border in January alone.
The administration’s own
Customs and Border Protec-
tion data show thousands of
monthly crossings continue.
“Zero” is not a rounding er-
ror — it is a lie.
3. “We inherited the worst
inflation in the history of
our country.” — The worst
inflation in U.S. history was
23.7% in 1920. When Trump
took office in January 2025,
inflation stood at 3.0%. He
inherited a rate that had al-
ready fallen sharply from a
40-year high under Biden.
Calling it the “worst in his-
tory” isn’t hyperbole — it is
historical illiteracy broadcast
to 30 million viewers.
4. “Foreign countries are
paying the tariffs.” — Every
economist worth their de-
gree — including Trump’s
own former advisors — con-
firms that tariffs are paid by
American importers and
passed along to American
consumers. Ground beef hit
a record $6.75 per pound last
month. Ground coffee is up
34% year over year. Ameri-
cans are paying these tariffs
every time they walk into a
grocery store.
5. “More Americans are
working today than at any
time in history.” — Techni-
cally the raw number is up, as
it always is when population
grows. The unemployment
rate has actually risen from
4.0% to 4.3% since he took
office. The labor force par-
ticipation rate is flat. He in-
herited a strong labor market
from Biden and has watched
it soften on his watch.
6. “This was the largest tax
cut in American history.”
— It was the sixth largest,
according to the nonparti-
san Tax Foundation. Rea-
gan’s 1981 cuts, adjusted
for the economy, were dra-
matically larger. Trump has
repeated this falsehood so
many times that fact-check-
ers have lost count.
7. “We have added 70,000
new construction jobs.” —
The Bureau of Labor Statis-
tics says 44,000. Trump in-
flated the number by 60%.
When the government’s own
data contradicts you and you
say it anyway, that is not op-
timism — that is fraud.
8. “The economy was stag-
nant when I took over —
now it’s roaring like never
before.” — GDP growth in
2025 was 2.2%, lower than
every single year of the Biden
presidency, which saw 2.8%
growth in 2024. The econo-
my is not roaring. It is coast-
ing on momentum Trump
inherited, dampened by his
own trade wars and a gov-
ernment shutdown he engi-
neered.
9. “I ended seven wars.” —
In several of the conflicts
he claims to have resolved,
fighting has resumed. The
Thailand-Cambodia conflict
saw renewed clashes. The
DRC-Rwanda ceasefire col-
lapsed. Trump takes credit
for ceasefires he brokered on
paper while the bodies con-
tinue to pile up in reality.
10. “Washington, D.C. is
now one of the safest cities
in the country with almost
no crime.” — D.C. recorded
over 1,300 crimes in the last
month alone. Crime data ex-
pert Jeff Asher ranks D.C. as
having the 9th highest mur-
der rate and 12th highest vi-
olent crime rate among the
50 largest U.S. cities. “Almost
no crime” is a fantasy.
These are not matters of
interpretation. These are
verifiable, documented
falsehoods delivered from
the most powerful podium
on Earth.
But here is what should
keep every American awake
tonight: the lies are not the
disease. They are the symp-
tom. The disease is a Con-
gress that has become a
rubber stamp, a Republican
majority that leapt to its feet
in standing ovation after ev-
ery fabrication, and a Dem-
ocratic minority so beaten
down it could barely muster
a whisper of dissent — save
for Representative Al Green
of Texas, who was physically
removed for holding a sign
that read “Black people ar-
en’t apes” in response to the
President’s own social media
post depicting the Obamas
as primates.
When a President can
stand before the legislative
branch of government and
lie — repeatedly, demonstra-
bly, shamelessly — and the
only consequence is thun-
derous applause, we no lon-
ger have a functioning check
on executive power. We have
a spectacle. We have theater.
We have a nation sleepwalk-
ing into something very dark
while telling itself everything
is fine.
The Founders did not de-
sign the State of the Union
as a pep rally. They designed
it as an act of accountability
— a President reporting to
the people’s representatives.
What we witnessed last night
was the exact inversion: a
President demanding sub-
mission from a Congress too
cowardly to say “that isn’t
true.” History will not re-
member the lies. History will
remember the silence
